Fic: "Threaten to Reconcile" (Battlestar Galactica, Sam/Kara, 1/1)

[padme_kenobi]

Title: Threaten to Reconcile
Author: padme_kenobi
Characters/Pairings: Sam/Kara
Word Count: 3,717
Spoilers: Through S4's "Revelations."
Rating: NC-17 (married people doing married things)
Summary: “Well? You think a couple of screw-ups like us can make it together?”
Author's Notes: Okay, I think it's time to finally push this bird out of the nest. It was supposed to be posted maybe a week after "Revelations" aired, but various real life circumstances conspired to ensure that would not be the case. Basically, my aim with this fic was first to write a straightforward Kara and Sam getting back together and frakking each other's brains out PWP, but it somehow devolved into exploring how Kara might have reacted, off-screen, to the news that her husband is a Cylon. With some of that P (as in Porn) thrown in for good measure. Think of it as a sort of "missing scene" starting when Sam meets up with her in the memorial hall. I'm not entirely pleased with this fic, and I don't think it represents my best work, but at some point you have to stop fiddling around and rearranging words and switching paragraphs around. Applied to my fanfic50 claim, for the prompt #036 Threat, because I'm lazy like that.


It didn’t take him long to figure out where she’d be.

She would never admit it, but Kara Thrace was a deeply spiritual person. He remembered watching her on New Caprica. Accustomed to a military schedule, she inevitably rose before he did, and many a morning he would awake to hear her voice whispering soft prayers to the Lords of Kobol over her idols. Once the ritual was complete, she would wrap them in a black cloth on the small trestle table to await the next offering.

Now Sam stepped cautiously into the memorial room.

“We made it, kid,” Kara murmured. He saw she was gazing at Kat’s photograph as he moved slowly up beside her.

He remembered how she’d punched him here, in the heady hours after her return when everything was still so confusing. He remembered that before the punch he had reassured her that he would always love her – and he would – even if she were a Cylon. He remembered feeling chilled at her response: “That’s nice, Sam, but if you were a Cylon I’d put a bullet between your eyes.”

Well, she knew. Now was her opportunity.

He swallowed.

He would still love her, even if she shot him.

“Sam.”

Sam jumped; he had not even realized she knew he was there.

“Hey,” he said carefully.

“We made it,” she whispered.

“We did.”

Kara stared at the wall for a long beat.

“They’re fueling Raptors to go down to the surface,” Sam said, just to be saying something. “There’s a spot reserved for us, if you want it.”

“Yeah. Us.” She laughed hollowly. “Sam, how can there be an us? How can there be an us if you don’t tell me the frakking truth? The single most important truth about who the hell you are? What the hell you are?”

He bit back a retort about all the times she hadn’t told him the truth. “Because I seem to recall you saying, in this very frakking room, that if I were a Cylon you’d put a bullet through my brain. That’s not exactly the kind of thing that was going to encourage me to open the frak up, Kara!”

“So you were scared,” she snapped. “You were a frakking coward.”

“Don’t,” he warned.

“Or what? You’ll hurt me, you’ll kill me, some switch will go off inside your head and you’ll start the next phase of your mission? What? Come on, Sammy, bring it on. You think I can’t take it?”

She faced him now, hands on hips, the quintessential Starbuck pose.

Sam could only focus on one word.

“Mission?”

“Yeah, your mission. Your mission, like Boomer had a mission, like Athena had one. Boomer’s was to kill the Old Man, Athena’s was to make a kid. You got one too? To seduce me, to make me play broodmare to some half-Cylon? Sorry, I’ve been there, I’ve done that. And guess what, I’m not doing it again. So you’re gonna have to go back to the others and tell them you’ve failed. How do you think they’re gonna take that?”

He could only say, “Kara, I love you. I always have.”

“Do you?” Kara sneered. “Do you, really? Or is it all just programming? Do you love me or do you love the idea of me, the idea that you can fulfill one of your God’s commandments? Be fruitful, right? That’s what they were preaching at that – at that frakking Farm.”

She turned back towards the wall, her voice trailing. Trembling.

“Kara –” Sam reached for her but she jerked back, and he hated that.

It was her turn to object. “Don’t. Just don’t. Don’t frakking touch me.”

“Kara …” Somehow the memorial room didn’t seem like an appropriate place for this conversation, but Sam couldn’t think. People were starting to look at them strangely, to edge away, and he had to do this, had to make her understand. “Kara, look at me. At least look me in the frakking eye. I had no idea, all right? I had no idea until the other three found out. And how do you think I took that? How do you think it feels to know your entire life has been a program? That all your memories are fake, just a – a tool to make you believe you’re someone you aren’t? How would you like it if one day you woke up and you were one person and the next, you found out you were actually someone totally different? The frakking enemy? That your whole godsdamned life was a lie?”

She met his eyes without hesitation. “Well, how the hell do you think it feels for me? I’m married to that lie.”

“But I’m someone who loves you,” he said desperately. “Who has never stopped, no matter what shit you’ve pulled – and you can’t deny you’ve pulled a lot of shit in your time, Kara – and who doesn’t frakking care if that love is programming. It’s real to me. It’s as real to me as this room. It’s as real to me as New Caprica, as being with the Resistance. As all of that.”

“Sam, don’t,” Kara whispered.

“Don’t what? Tell you I love you? Kara, you said I lied to you, and I did, and I’m sorry. But I am not lying now. I love you. You want to shoot me, go ahead and shoot me. Here.” He backed away, holding his arms in the air. “Shoot me. Or walk away, or whatever the hell you think you want to do. Go ahead. I won’t stop you.”

Kara turned again, crossed her arms, released a shuddery breath. “I – I can’t – I can’t shoot you in the frakking memorial hall,” she said with a slightly hysterical chuckle.

“Then where would you like to shoot me? The hangar deck, the bunkroom? Take your pick.”

“Funny.” She faced him and unexpectedly took his hand, leading him into the hall and a disused supply room. He wasn’t surprised when she shut and dogged the hatch.

Sam looked around appraisingly. “Good choice. It’s out of the way, has a lockable door. I think it might even be soundproofed. Muffle the noise of the bullets.”

Kara leaned back against the hatch and sighed. “Sam, I am not going to shoot you.”

“Oh? Now who’s lacking courage?”

Her eyes flashed dangerously and he retreated, aware that his fatalistic streak was testing her patience. “It’s not a matter of courage, godsdamnit. If it was you’d already be lying facedown bathing in your own blood. Or … whatever.”

He knew she was right. “Then what is it, Kara?”

She bumped her head lightly on the cold metal. “What’s the point? I mean, what is the frakking point? We’re orbiting Earth, we’ve found Earth, we’re working with the Cylons now instead of trying to blow them out of the sky. Everything is different. So it sort of makes sense that I married a Cylon.”

Sam couldn’t quite follow her logic, but he thought he understood what she meant. “Well, it’s not like you’ve ever done things the conventional way anyway,” he pointed out.

Kara let out a bark of laughter. “Yeah. Right. Conventional is something I don’t think I’ll ever be accused of.”

“Or at least, you hope not,” he completed.

“I better not,” she shot back, the old Starbuck fire in her eyes. “Do me a favour, Sam, if I get lazy on Earth, if I get stupid and frakking domestic, you shoot me.”

Silence and the ghosts of New Caprica hummed in the air between them. Sam tried not to think of her as she had been before the occupation. Stupid and domestic by her estimation, perhaps, but by his, she’d managed to be so wonderfully Kara that he’d loved her and wanted her all the more. She’d never truly been his, but that was okay. Sometimes, being unable to fully possess something made it even more attractive.

He found that he didn’t care whether that was programming or not.

“Baby, I love you,” Sam whispered. Suddenly he didn’t care how that statement would be received.

“I married a frakking Cylon.” Kara was shaking her head, blonde hair swishing against the hatch. “Frak me.”

He swallowed. “That can be arranged.”

“Sam …” Indecision and self-doubt mingled in her eyes.

“Kara, you just finished saying it doesn’t matter!” He was moving towards her, but she did not shrink away. “I’m not even talking about sex. I’m talking about you and I. Us. Our marriage.”

Sam was inches away now and he fought the urge to place his hands to either side of her on the hatch. Kara Thrace did not react well when she felt trapped. Just ask President Adama, Sam thought sardonically.

“Sam, we’ve found Earth, you said yourself there are Raptors waiting to go down to the surface – this isn’t the frakking time!”

His hands dropped to his sides. Fine. I’ll give her the space she needs. That’s what I’ve always done, isn’t it? “Oh, sorry, I forgot. There’ll never be a convenient time, will there? But you pulled me in here, Kara. You pulled me in here, for what? So you could stand around deciding whether or not you’re going to shoot me?”

“I pulled you in here because I didn’t want to talk about this in the godsdamned memorial hall!” Kara shouted, fists clenched. “People are grieving! Now that we’re orbiting Earth they want to come and look at the pictures of their friends and think about what it cost us to get this far! They didn’t sign up to watch Starbuck and her Cylon husband duke it out over whether they’re going to stay married or whether she’s going to shoot him in the head!”

“Don’t call me that,” Sam interjected, feeling anger rise in his gut for the first time. “My name is Samuel T. Anders and whether you like it or not –”

“– you’re a toaster,” Kara growled. “Sam, you could have at least frakking told me! All those times – the Resistance on Caprica, coming back to Galactica, our frakking wedding, the year on New Caprica, the godsdamned Demetrius – you could have told me you were a skin job but no, you didn’t. You didn’t. And I frakking trusted you!”

“Kara, I didn’t know –” Repeating it seemed meaningless.

“The hell you didn’t!” She shoved him, roughly, and his mind flashed back to all the other times it had been like this, frak or fight and sometimes both, usually when she was drunk, usually when she was looking for a release. He wanted this time to be like that too, because at least then they’d be on familiar ground. At least then, he could hold his own.

“I didn’t!” He raised his voice, at the same time knowing it would do little good. “I didn’t find out until just before you came back, and then what was I supposed to do? Tell Adama, tell Roslin, stand up and admit I’m a skin job? Yeah, I’m sure that would go over real well!”

“What about me?” Kara challenged, practically screaming, Starbuck fire in her eyes.

“I told you before. You said you’d frakking shoot me. Kara, I was scared. For me and for you and for everybody. I was afraid I did have a mission. I didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

She looked away, finally seeming contrite – contrite for Kara Thrace, anyway. Moments passed, long moments during which Sam asked himself, for the thousandth time, what the hell he was doing there.

I love her. Godsdamnit, I love her.

“I didn’t mean that,” she said slowly. Quietly. “I’m not going to shoot you, Sammy.”

“Yeah, well, how was I to know that at the time?” Sam bit his lip. “It’s like I said before. I’d just found out my entire life was a lie. Programming. How do you think that felt?”

Kara looked at the floor.

A long pause passed between them.

“Not all of it,” she whispered finally.

“Excuse me?”

“Not all of it was a lie,” she repeated. A little louder.

“Like what? My parents? I don’t have parents; I was probably grown in some frakking test tube and programmed to think I was born to people named George and Nancy who lived in a split-level house on Picon. Same with school, all my other education … maybe even my early pyramid career because frak, I don’t know when the Cylons decided to drop me off on Caprica. My life is a lie. What part of it isn’t?”

“Our marriage,” Kara said simply. “I made a vow before the gods, Sam. I can’t go back on that. It wasn’t a lie.”

“Kara –”

She raised her head, gazed directly into his eyes. She seemed to have made a decision. “You just finished saying you love me, and that part isn’t programming. And, look, I know I haven’t always shown it, I know I haven’t always treated you the way the gods say a wife should treat her husband. But that’s me, Sam, I am a frakking screw-up and I’m not going to change. You knew that when you married me. And you still did it, you still said yes, you still said you loved me.” Kara paused, licked her lips. “Why can’t I return the favour?”

Sam sighed. Almost laughed aloud, because he knew that was all he’d get from Kara Thrace and because it was more than he had ever expected or wanted.

Tentatively he reached a hand towards hers. “Well? You think a couple of screw-ups like us can make it together?”

She smiled, that familiar thousand-watt Starbuck grin. “We’d better.”

Sam couldn’t remember the last time they’d kissed. There just hadn’t been time, in the wake of the events on the Demetrius and the return to the fleet and the conflict and subsequent truce with the Cylons and the discovery that they had the map to Earth right there in front of them and the jump to Earth itself … he’d been running CAPs and she’d been sitting in on every briefing known to humankind, and he wasn’t even sure she wanted to see him after what had happened on the Demetrius.

But now … this was about them, this was about no secrets anymore and about him telling her the truth and her – well, if not outright accepting it, at least beginning to come to terms with it. This was about repairing a relationship that had long since appeared stale. This was about Kara and Sam.

She tasted the same under his lips. Sam pressed in hungrily, eager to claim more of her, desperate to love her. And she was responding, her lips parting and tongue poking out, prodding, seeking entrance. He granted it and groaned as her fingers tangled in his hair and pulled him closer, arms wrapping around him, breasts pressing into his chest. The feel of her shot right to his groin.

“Frak, Sammy.” Kara’s voice was breathy and he could tell without even looking that she was grinning again.

“Don’t have to twist my arm.” His fingers found the hem of her tanks and pulled, pulled until they were stretching over her head. Abruptly he broke their kiss and dived down lower, seeking her nipples; they stood pert and waiting for him. He wasted no time in fastening his lips on one, enjoying her answering moan and the tightening of her fingers in his hair.

They stood like that, her back pressed against the hatch, both breathing heavily, as Sam reacquainted himself with his wife’s body. In short order Kara’s pants had been shed as well, and he’d begun inching her underwear down.

“Hey, no fair, I’m more naked than you are,” Kara complained. Her nipple left Sam’s mouth with a pop, and after relieving him of his tanks, her hand found his belt buckle and expertly freed his erect length.

His universe split into two halves as she grasped and began to stroke him, one half the pleasure of her touch and the other the pleasure of her acceptance. Sam wasn’t sure if she would ever really accept his true nature, the secret she perceived him to have kept from her, but she was doing a good job of hiding any residual anger she felt. A very good job, he reflected as she cupped him for the barest of moments and then returned to firm, sure strokes.

Sam arched against her, a softly guttural moan escaping from his throat. Kara laughed quietly. “Miss me?” she murmured as she pulled him further towards her, pausing to nibble on his ear.

With one knee he teased her legs apart; she was wet and ready. “I missed us,” he replied, and it was true. There hasn’t been an “us” since New Caprica. That, too, was true.

Kara moved at the instant Sam did, and his breath hitched sharply as he filled her. She still felt the same, his Kara, warm and wet and tight. She represented happiness to him, happiness and an abiding love. This was the love he’d kept alive on Caprica after she promised to return, the love that spurred him on to keep blowing up the Farms and inflicting as much damage as he could, the love that made him say yes without a single thought to her proposal of marriage, the love that kept him going and fighting for freedom on New Caprica, the love that allowed him to keep believing in their marriage long after most would have abandoned that belief. He grieved for that love when she died. Its memory kept him going when he discovered his status as one of the Final Five.

Hell, he’d frakking shot a man over his love for Kara.

Sam shuddered involuntarily and Kara grasped his shoulders, scratching long marks with her nails.

“C’mon, Sam, are we gonna frak or are we gonna stand here all day?”

He started, almost having forgotten where he was. “Frak,” he muttered, apropos of nothing, shaking his head slightly to dislodge the unpleasant memories.

Kara smirked. “Good, ’cause I was almost starting to think I should ditch you and take care of this myself.” She wiggled her fingers suggestively in his face.

Softly Sam pinned her in place with a kiss, simultaneously moving just slightly, and at her answering groan, he accelerated the pace of his thrusts until they were both breathing heavily and clutching desperately at one another.

“Gods Kara … godsgodsgods …” He plunged out and back in, something she had always liked, and Kara swore appreciatively. Sam suddenly hoped that the room she had chosen was out of the way down a little-used corridor. She was loud, he remembered that much from New Caprica and the Demetrius. Usually that was just one more thing about her that turned him on, but now … “Kara,” Sam ventured.

“Shut up and frak me, Sammy,” she snapped.

Sam, who had never been one to refuse such a direct command, complied. He’d forgotten how much he liked it when she used her nails, long and hard and fast, and it became a kind of rhythm: scratch, pull out, back in. Scratch, pull out, back in. Both of them driven nearly to the breaking point after just a few moments of this.

Kara mumbled something indistinct, perhaps a plea to go faster, perhaps a warning that she was close. Sweat beaded on her skin and he bent to lick along her breast; she’d stopped scratching and he’d stopped plunging in and out but that didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was them. It was pure and primal and fast and desperate but it was also undeniably them.

Some small portion of his brain was aware that her ass was slapping into the hatch behind her and she’d bruise, but she didn’t seem to care and a moment later neither did he, as she clenched around him and buried her head, uncharacteristically, in his chest. Her orgasm rolled over her and he held her as she shuddered, shuddered and panted and swore softly. The contact was enough to drive Sam over the edge and with a soft huff of breath he pinned her against the bulkhead as he came.

They rested.

“Damn,” Kara muttered.

“Sorry,” Sam whispered, unsure whether he was apologizing for her bruises or for doing this in the first place or for both or neither.

“No – frak, I –” A bark of laughter escaped her lips. “We’re late. We’re frakking late.”

“Seemed like we frakked pretty well to me.” The obligatory lame joke.

It deserved a smack and duly received one. “Bastard. No, we’re late. You said there was a Raptor waiting in an hour if I wanted it, remember? Instead I get caught up here having sex in an empty supply room with my Cylon husband.”

“Wasn’t my idea,” Sam pointed out.

“’Scuse me? Who answered ‘that can be arranged’ when I said ‘frak me’? That wasn’t intended as a direct order, you know.” But laughter sparkled in her eyes once more and they both knew she wasn’t being serious.

He pulled out. “Maybe I took as one, sir.”

“Whatever.” Kara reached for her bra and tanks and began to tug them on. The smile playing around her lips had disappeared.

Sam sighed. This was how it always went lately, but he still couldn’t get used to it.

She’d finished dressing before he even had his pants halfway up. Kara stood back against the hatch, chewing on her lower lip. He told himself he’d been stupid to expect anything else, that with her you could never be one hundred percent sure of anything, and that sooner or later he would have to get used to this.

But he couldn’t. Godsdamnit, he couldn’t.

Seeing he was dressed, she spun the hatch seal. Bit her lip again. Stopped.

Ventured forward, and kissed him.

“Kara …?”

“Don’t,” she said carefully, “let me screw us up again.”

Sam knew, and did not know, to what she was referring. He smiled. “Does that mean I get to yell at you whenever you call me a frakking toaster?”

“No.” Her smile was back. “It means you get to frak me, and prove it.”

Sam smiled too as she darted out.

For the moment, he decided, he could live with that.