somedaybitch

you can find Part One here.

helo/boomer fic...1335 words.
spoilers thru ep 13
still with the letter after "Q" for languageishness
still with the usual disclaimers about the lack of ownership

x-posted to

bsg_creative

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Helo listened quietly as Starbuck told him of Leoben's interrogation, the literal hunger, the genuine fear, the beads of sweat, the terrifying display of strength simply to make a point, the events in the cargo bay. He listened while she matter-of-factly repeated Leoben's words about faith, destiny, consciousness, Starbuck's childhood, and the destruction of the Colonies' being a result of their own sins. He said nothing until she got to Kobol.

"The Arrow. That's why you went."

She nodded.

"You believed him." Helo made it a statement.

She nodded again. He gave her a long, considering look.

"About all of it?" He asked her softly, no accusation, no judgement, just a need to understand.

She took a deep breath before answering. "Do you believe we have a soul, Helo?"

He looked at her like she'd asked him if he believed in oxygen. "Of course I do."

"What if someone tried to tell you it wasn't true?"

Helo felt the room start to spin, had to close his eyes briefly. "What are you saying, Starbuck?"

Kara turned away from him, shaking her head. "I don't know what I'm saying, Helo. I don't know."

He took her arm, turned her to face him, took her other arm to hold her there. "No, Kara. No, you tell me...say…say it out loud."

They stayed that way for a long moment, eyes locked, both terrified to voice what each already knew could somehow be possible. If they didn't say it then maybe it wasn't true.

"Leoben," she started, then stopped, closed her eyes, licked her lips and started again. "He believes that he's human. That he's got a soul because he's human."

Helo let go of her, pushed off the bench and walked to the middle of the room. He couldn't stop shaking his head. "No, Starbuck. No, we made them. How can they be human when we frakking made them?"

"We didn't make Boomer."

He swayed on his feet like she'd hit him, the quiet truth of her statement ringing in his ears. He felt his knees buckle.

Kara caught him just before his head hit the deck. "I've got you. Easy, Karl...I've got you."

His eyes were open but he saw nothing in the room on the Galactica. Starbuck's softly murmured words sounded light years away. All he saw and heard in his mind was Sharon. He tried not to remember the feeling of her lips on his, the way she whispered his name from the back of her throat, the soft curve at the base of her spine, how perfectly their bodies fit, completely connected. How much she made him feel.

He heard a strangled cry, realized after a moment that it was coming from him. He felt Starbuck's arms draw him up to her, felt a wetness on his face. He heard the hatch open, felt her pull him more tightly, protectively against her, heard her growl a warning then heard the hatch quietly close. Helo closed his eyes, wrapped his arms around his friend and gave in to his grief, feeling safe for the first time since hell had started. He wouldn't let them take that from him.

He could have stayed that way for days, letting it cleanse away the bone deep fatigue, the guilt and the pain, but a thought kept nagging at him. It had invaded his mind shortly after they got back to Galactica. He had tried to ignore it, force it away, but he couldn't anymore, and after what Starbuck had said it changed everything, and made a horrible sort of sense. Helo pulled away and sat up, wiping his face.

"Sharon didn't come back for me," he said, his voice husky.

"No."

He looked her in the eyes and saw it. The loss. The mourning of a friend, made infinitely worse by being denied even the small comfort of a soldier's death in battle.

"She never existed did she?"

"I don't think so."

He dropped his forehead onto his hands. He couldn't stop the tears from coming again. "Gods, Kara, tell me a lie," he whispered thickly. "Tell me she meant it."

She put a hand on the leg still resting against hers, squeezed gently, kept squeezing until he looked up. "I don't think it's a lie." She spoke so softly he almost didn't hear it.

"Kara," he begged. His last threads of sanity threatened to unravel.

She leaned forward, took his hands in hers. "What if...what if Leoben was right. What if they really are human? That means they have choice, Helo. Free will."

"Different role, same story," he said, almost to himself.

She shook her head, almost smiling. "What if it's different roll, different story, same players? What happens if I call, you fold and I get the next card?"

"The game changes," he whispered.

Starbuck nodded slowly, raising an eyebrow. "What if Boomer folded?"

He searched her eyes, terrified to reach for even the weakest bit of hope. All he saw was Starbuck, no deceit, no pity, a seasoned officer considering a legitimate possibility, however batfrakked it sounded. "For me?" He couldn't keep the doubt out of his voice, wasn't ready to let go of its safety.

She smiled. "Why not? You're cute."

"Frak you."

"Learn to fly a viper."

Helo laughed then, genuinely, and was rewarded with a million candlewatt power Starbuck smile. He squeezed her hands tightly and shook his head. "You're serious."

"Not about the viper." She laughed softly then her smiled faded. "You talk to the Chief?"

Helo let go of her hands and got up, started across the room. "I wanted to, I just...what the frak do I say?"

"He doesn't think...his, Boomer's, accident was an accident."

Helo stopped at that. "Someone knew she was a Cylon?"

"Yeah. Her," she said flatly.

"Suicide?"

She didn't answer. Her look said it all.

He exhaled sharply, turning away from her. "Lords."

Starbuck stood up. "What happened to Sharon's shoulder, Helo?" She asked it with deceptive mildness. "She get tagged by one her own?" She watched his back stiffen, looked down and saw his hands clenched so hard his knuckles were turning white. "You shot her, didn't you?" She whispered it, walking up behind him.

"When I saw her...copy, outside the spaceport, I froze. Sharon shot it. Her....self. I ran. Wouldn't stop running. I knew she was following me, trying to get me to listen but I..." Helo paused, finally turned around. "Just after dawn she comes out of a building. I draw down on her and she puts her hands up, holstered her gun. She told me to shoot her, Starbuck." His breathing hitched and he inhaled deeply. "I was so angry, so, sick. I watched her hit the stairs. I hated her, Starbuck, what she'd done to me."

"You couldn't kill her," she said gently.

He closed his eyes and shook his head.

"Because you love her."

"Starbuck, she's carrying my…" He couldn't say it out loud.

She reached a hand up, took his chin and held it firm until he met her steady gaze. "Because you love her, Helo." She watched his jaw work as he struggled with what she'd said.

"I am so frakked."

"Yeah," she said sadly, releasing his chin. "Pretty much."

He ruffled her hair, gently pushing her away in the process. "Thanks."

She smiled and gave him the universal chin lift in acknowledgement of being no help whatsoever. Helo walked to where his boxing gloves had landed and picked them up. "So what now?"

"You could…talk to her?" She winced at her own suggestion and tried to smile.

Starbuck was saved from the biting reply she could see on Helo's face by Apollo walking in the room.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Lieutenant."

She and Helo turned at the same time in surprise, neither having heard him open the hatch. Starbuck recovered first and she was clearly not happy at the interruption. "And why is that, Captain?"

Helo looked from one to the other and inwardly cringed. If this was love, he really was frakked.

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