Since I'm keeping everything here anyway. 1100 words. Starbuck/Boomer.


"How is it?"

Sharon turned sharply toward the door. Even unkillable machines resented being startled. The echo of Kara's voice absorbed into the thin white sheet under her, stained with seepage from the sweaty, brown gauze around her wrist. She'd thought saving the fleet's collective asses might have warranted a fresh bandage after two days. She'd thought wrong.

Squinting, she could barely make out the face behind the grated door. Captivity was about observation. Preservation and introspection. Sharon knew she had become nothing more than a specimen in a cage; a piece to be studied, an open target when the crew tired of mocking each other. The security guards would occasionally write obscenities in engine grease or lipstick on the windows (blaming the new Nuggets, of course, desperate as they are to prove themselves). An audience of petty officers regularly gathered by the window that provided the best view of the latrine. No attempts were made to hide the small pools of saliva on her delivered food. But this patronization--the thunder of Kara's voice over a speaker, the meters of steel and space between them, the need to put Sharon in her place within the formality of an official visit--this was humiliating.

Sharon turned back to resume inspection of her wrist. The unsightly scars wouldn't carry over to her next body, of course, but she found little comfort in that. This body suffered for the crimes of another, this body aching now. This body which stretched against the push of new life within. Which bled from self-inflicted wounds in the desperate name of humanity. Which carried only the programmed memory of Kara's fingers inside her.

It felt ridiculous to miss Caprica. In that moment, watching Kara's face fall in pained realization, Sharon knew their relationship was irreparable. Reckless as she may be, Kara Thrace was ever the blue-blooded patriot. They both knew she took Sharon's Cylon revelation personally. It was a slap in the face of everything they'd stood for shoulder to shoulder, and a shot in the head to every moment spent in each other's arms. They were damaged, if not damned, but Sharon hadn't cared. She'd proven herself loyal, and war was hardly the time for grudges. By the time they left Caprica, she'd deluded herself into believing Kara would accept her, even forgive her. They were on their way back home to Galactica, to familiar quarters and the everpresent stench of their intimacy. Things were supposed to get better.

But betrayed and hurt as she was, Kara had never truly hated Sharon until Adama. She felt dirty, tainted with the memory of Sharon's body against hers, the same groping hands that had taken down her Commander. Sharon caught the looks Kara sent Helo and Chief on Kobol, wondering if they, too, had scratched their skin raw in disgust. Washing her hands in every stream they passed. Climbing up Apollo's ass until she felt clean. Redeemed. Forgiven.

The cell door slid open with a sounding alarm and the clatter of boots and cocked guns. Sharon didn't look up.

Kara stepped between the pair of armed guards and slowly approached the bed with crossed arms. "I asked you a question."

Sharon absently picked at a scab on her forearm. Of all the things she wanted to say, there wasn't one Kara would want to hear. They weren't Kara and Sharon anymore, or even Starbuck and Boomer. They were human and Cylon now. Kara had made that clear. "What do you want," Sharon said softly.

"What was that?" Kara asked with mock curiosity, taking another step forward.

"What do you want?" Sharon said louder as she whipped around. The guards cocked their guns again and hovered closer, pushing a stubborn tear from the corner of her eye. This wasn't getting any easier.

"I just wanna talk," Kara replied smugly. Her charismatic grin went best with cigars and cheap liquor, not the transparent air of honorable intentions.

Sharon stared her down hard, letting the clink of the soldiers speak for her. If Kara had something real to say, she would have used the phone. Like Helo. Like Chief. The ones she'd taken for granted. Sharon had relied on the emotional simplicity of men for years, a means to an end or a way of passing time. At the height of her relationship with Kara, she'd risen to the challenge of hiding it. She wore her relationship with the Chief like a badge on her chest, his heart a medal for all to see. She'd never killed a Cylon, but she'd conquered him. It was harmless fun, even after they were caught. The situation never slipped too far out of hand. The more trouble it brought them, the more everyone believed it, and Kara had rewarded her deliciously for it. And now, carrying Helo's child, her affairs with Kara were the last thing anyone would believe. She'd done it to keep them safe. To protect the woman who wouldn't converse anymore without automatic weaponry.

"Lieutenant Thrace," came a voice from behind the guards, "Captain Adama needs to see you right away, sir."

Kara didn't acknowledge. Running her eyes down the soft line of Sharon's face, she tried to find something unfamiliar. Something to fight the catch in the back of her throat, to prove this wasn't the same woman she'd frakked against the fuel tanks after Sharon finally learned to land. But that Sharon was dead. That Sharon almost murdered the only father she had left in this world. Kara blinked hard, shaking the thought away. She never saw much sense in distinguishing one toaster from another, especially when she could blame this one just as easily. If their consciousness transferred, surely their sins must as well. And if she could bring herself to look away from this face, from those eyes, she might be able to convince herself that punishing this Sharon was the right thing to do.

"Lieutenant?" repeated the officer.

Sharon held her stare, pleading her case the only way Kara would hear. It was their favorite game, to work the other over the edge without looking away. Sharon resisted the urge to shift her body, to relieve the burning heat between her legs against the cold, hard mattress. Kara felt her lip start to tremble and snapped out of her daze suddenly. Without another word, she turned and strode out of the cell, bodyguards close behind. She didn't look back as she paced down the hall to see Sharon's face flinch as the door slammed, nor would she be there in the morning to see the solace of a fresh bandage. She wouldn't watch the taunting guards or the childish latrine audience, nor would she stop the defacement of Sharon's meals. Maybe that night she would return to find the sleeping Cylon, to face down the machine without the risk of those eyes. But maybe not.