Battlestar Galactica x Star Trek XI fic: Rising Sign (pt. 4/8)

[ninety6tears]

Title: Rising Sign
(4/7)
Characters/Pairings: Starbuck, Kirk, McCoy, Spock. (Kirk/)Kara/McCoy.
Rating: R for language.
Spoilers for Trek XI and BSG up through "Maelstrom," lots of references to the entire series.
Huge, huge executive-producer-credit style thanks to flowrs4ophelia; I fear the term "beta reader" doesn't quite cut it for her level of contribution to this.
Summary: Loosely in response to this prompt at st_xi_kink. In short: "When Kara Thrace flies through the wormhole near the end of Season Three, she finds Earth-- but not the Earth that Galactica's been searching for. Instead she finds herself hailed by a ship calling itself the USS Enterprise."
Author's Note/Status Update: Has it really been over a month since I updated this?! Just to give a heads-up, this fic is mostly written. Updates are lagging because I'm paranoid about having to go back and change little technical things. You can expect another update in a couple days; after that, I'm not sure, since I want to make sure the last couple parts are posted close together.
...Part One...Part Two...Part Three...





After she'd been around past the point anyone was really keeping track of how long, he still didn't get her, not one bit.

For one thing, McCoy had been pretty familiar with the captain before anyone knew he was going to be anyone, but there was a certain way Jim was, and you didn't just lie around in his cabin for a few days and then have him in your grip in that way, like you'd been living together for years, like you were the same damn person. What kind of woman, seriously, became friends with Jim Kirk with seemingly no inconvenient strings attached when they'd apparently wound up in bed the first night they met, without having to worry about him giving her that I know what you look like naked look instead of a Hey, you, hi look, first thing in the morning, every morning (of the two regards, he had been witness to the former far too many times not to notice and send up a prayer of thanks whenever he was spared from seeing it). The only bickering they got into was practically familial; the mutual respect and fondness was palpable, it was surreal. If he tried to start figuring out which one of them had changed the other, his head might collapse in on itself.

He kind of thought, maybe, that he was starting to like her. But he didn't get her. Not the way she kind of seduced people out of acting like they usually did simply by being around, not the way someone could easily mention some perfectly benign topic that would make her look so inexplicably sad-looking even when she tried to hide it all the time. Not how she kept falling asleep in her chair in medical bay and waking up in gasping jolts, dreaming she was dead, offering her muted explanations. I was all crushed and crash-landed, I was burnt to a crisp—I'm sorry I fell asleep. Think I'll go grab some toast and coffee.

His mind just grumbled over these...lists about her. Mouths off like a sailor at the drop of a hat and then in the evening lets her hair out of the little ponytail and smoothes it down, puts on something that isn't quite a dress and shows up all 'Didn't you know, I can be heartbreakingly pretty' to play cards and then proceeds, within an hour, to boredly announce that she is going to her room to change again because she wants to go to the gym and "Kirk, come and spot me."

Something about her, everyone knew, was kind of effortlessly larger than life; larger than their lives, at least. He knew that back at headquarters their story was getting its share of cynicism, but nobody who met her disbelieved her, not in the sharp way she carried herself as a lone fleck of something bigger, with her own inscrutable dish of diaspora in those cutting eyes. After the stories about the previous day's mission were over in the upper ranks' rec room, she'd spill often and repeatedly if asked, about the time she broke the barrel roll record in cadet school, the time she got marooned and had to hijack an enemy vessel that was—Christ—an organism, and occasionally, if she was in a particularly good mood, the stuff about these "cylons" Sulu was always curious to hear despite the fact that she couldn't explain how any of it worked. Even this she would speak about in quipped tones of long-gone history, like it wasn't a real story, like it couldn't be about herself.

Thing was, even her mistakes were something else, sometimes. After that day she'd recklessly offed that patient whom Bones was bound by his job to assume had just been exceptionally prone to his own considerations of self-defense, Jim had shown him the report embedded in a message from the Vulcan colony that was all about Khan Noonien Singh. They'd agreed that even though it should have been handled differently, the man sounded like a damn nightmare and it was a bit unsettling that a total tyrant might've been running free around their ship because they hadn't known better at the time. Kirk had added, in a low afterthought, not to mention to Starbuck that she may have actually saved some people's asses in the long run.

None of this was really what he cared about. Because he was certain that on top of the heroics they'd seen enough of—the tendency to weasel her way out of trouble that was all too reminiscent of the captain himself, the woman who stood and walked and talked and aimed and slept like a soldier—there were some very small, simple things about her, and when he really thought about it those were the things he didn't know. He didn't know what kind of family she grew up with and if they'd been alive, couldn't imagine what kind of house she'd lived in, or why she chose to enlist, or if she'd ever regretted it and why. Or what the stories were with the tattoos, the shapes and lines in rich black which he'd seen enough times to have memorized just like Jim's scars, or the freckle in Spock's left eye, or the fingernail that Chapel chewed on the most. The one on her shoulderblade that was always half-hidden, it looked kind of like a stairway, and the question had been halfway out of his mouth a couple times before he'd stopped himself. He'd always hated tattoos anyway.

He knew that even with Jim it was the same; neither of them got many of the facts. She'd been here for months now, and nobody knew even one name of a single soul of the ones she'd known before.
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"Shit—that's gonna hurt my wrist, Starbuck."

Kara came out of her double left hook with a sneer. "I told you to fasten the mitts."

"I did," Kirk protested, giving her a backhand to jab at with her other hand. "One of 'em's too worn out to fasten right. These are old."

"I could tell," she muttered from her straightly focused expression, bouncing forward and delivering a combo that forced Jim back a couple steps.

From the wall of the gymnasium where McCoy was watching while going through some messages, he remarked, "Allow me to confess a measure of gratitude that we don't even have two pairs of gloves."

Kara laughed, not looking aside from her concentration. "See? I figured boxing would be around for as long as there are doctors to grumble on the sidelines."

"It's not just the sport. It's you two," Bones said warily. "Ey, Jim, what's the deal with the messaging? Are we stopping tomorrow to figure that out?"

"No, Linus IV is called off cause Chekov and Uhura both think it's just that one outpost. Basically there's a problem back there, or we don't know what's wrong." Jim sounded like it was probably the fifth time he'd said it today. "You should ask him about it if you see him. Oh, and ask him how his little project's going."

"The...what?"

"Just ask."

"You know, Captain," Kara interrupted with a sigh. "I'm still waiting for you to realize that the frequencies are being jammed somewhere."

"Jammed?" Kirk replied cynically, nearly laughing. "By who?"

"Klingons?"

Kirk rolled his eyes.

"Come on, you've had run-in after run-in with those bastards." Kara shook her head. "You're practically at war just by coming into contact with them."

"That doesn't mean they have a vendetta against Starfleet," Kirk argued with little patience. "It's a violent culture. We may not like it, but we can cooperate with it."

"Peaceful cooperation and tolerance..." Starbuck muttered bitterly, "Is that what you told Spock after his planet was destroyed?"

They both paused in their movements; Kirk's look said, That's not fair. "No. Not exactly."

"I'm outta here." Bones stood up and stretched his arms a little, and his sudden interjection managed to loosen the tension in the room. "Night, you two. And remember, if I catch either of you with so much as a nosebleed..."

"Yeah, yeah," Jim pacified as the doctor gave his final disapproving glance and left the gym. Kara had gone back to being intently focused on her stance after Jim solidified his again, but a small look of amusement had bent into her features as Bones left.

He took her hooks in a comfortable silence for a couple minutes, finally bringing it up with an air of mischief but also of simple companionship: "He likes you."

"Who?" she raised an eyebrow without looking at him.

He didn't move from his stance, watching her practiced, instinctive bouncing. "You know damn well who."

"Just drop it, Kirk."

And well, he'd had a hunch, but only a hunch, and his capacity to read Kara was hardly as well-honed as his experience with Bones. So he shrugged, and dropped it. "Fine, okay, he's not your type."

She let out one stern jab, and her eyes were widening in a jolt of aggravation. She stepped back and stood still, sighing deeply with her lips moving stiffly. Then she just spat, "'Not my type'? I mean, what the hell?! We're talking about Leonard frakking McCoy here."

After a second Jim was smiling beside himself. "So?"

She scoffed, speaking bluntly. "Bones? I can't believe you'd even...He's—the best kind of ordinary, he's supposed to find some blue-eyed young thing, and...you know, kids and a white house with a wrap-around porch and the tire swing and all—"

"—You don't know what you're talking about." Jim was still smirking at Kara's animation, but he wasn't without his compassion, and he was figuring her out. "You don't think he's got his own baggage? Cause in case you haven't figured it out, he already tried that whole thing, and it didn't work out so well for him."

She had a different kind of cringing smirk. "...That ring?"

"I guess he wouldn't have told you about the divorce," Kirk sighed. "He's never actually given me the whole story."

"That ugly, huh?" She shook her head and went back into stance, giving him a nodding urge to put his mitts back up. "Does he have a knack for picking the wrong women or is he just stupid?"

"Don't talk like that. Besides..." He resumed his half-hearted concentration on her punching. "Trust me, you are nothing like his ex-wife, and that can't be a bad thing. I mean, he knows he's done having kids, he's happy with Joanna—"

She backed up again, fists dropping, and Kirk's look was immediately repentant and shocked as she demanded, "He has a kid?...Oh, it just keeps getting better."

"He seriously didn't mention to you he had a daughter? Ever?" She shrugged at him, shook her head, and rapidly went back into her punches before he was fully prepared. Jim was still processing it with surprise, like he was more thoroughly realizing something about Bones. "I guess he thought you might find that intimidating."

"Get—higher, Kirk," Kara commanded. "You're not getting my uppercuts right."

He rolled his eyes and considered just letting it go again, let her have at it in silence for a few moments more. But a fragile edge of something had obviously been frayed at, and Jim wondered and worried at it in his head in a way he could never quite resist with people. For the most part he had a level of tact when there were particularly sensitive issues at stake, but just every once in a while, like on some occasions with Spock, he would see something in somebody that had never seen the light of day and it was almost like his explorer's instinct took over. When he saw somebody like Kara Thrace with something just itching to get out, he just couldn't help it, and sometimes he would push...

"I think you should see if he'd talk to you about the divorce," he said.

It earned him some more aggressive hits, but she was steaming up, yes, yes she was. "What, because you're curious about it?"

"Yeah, and I'm curious to know if he'd tell you."

"And why the frak would he tell me?" She was focusing intently on the punching mitts as if she didn't trust what she'd do if she actually looked at Kirk, and he could tell she'd just decided she wasn't gonna say anything else to him after that.

"You know what? I think you're chickenshit." He somewhat demonstrated his decisiveness by putting his arms down and beginning to take off the mitts; practice over.

She just ignored it, turning her back on him and starting to rip at the left hook-and-loop with her teeth, but her figure sighed down into a tense motionlessness as he kept talking.

"Starbuck doesn't have the guts." Kirk went on, smiling almost childishly. It was down to his own self-amusement now. Her silence was almost murderous. "What if I dare you? No...I double dog dare—"

And he lost the chance to witness it as her back was turned, the moment when a white-hot bitter pain flared just so quickly in her eyes before she backed and whipped around, because his entire skull was thrown sideways by her glove botching squarely up across his cheekbone in her suddenly rootless acerbity; and in his instinctive rage against such a jarringly untoward offense, he fell into a younger version of himself that responded doggedly to the rough sport and let his naked fist fly in one smacking punch to her face, sending her reeling just a couple steps back.

Chekov's voice came over the comm, announcing a departure time, and clicked out. They both breathed, heavily, two or three or four breaths; when Kara was done with the automatic nursing over her nose, she leaned and placed her hands on her knees, looking over at Kirk in a simple bewilderment. His hand was over his mouth, his eyes horrified.

"Good God...I'm sorry," Kirk groaned.

"Whatever. I deserved that, I guess. What the hell even just happened?" She squinted.

"Bones is gonna fucking kill me," Kirk was realizing. He looked, she acknowledged, quite genuinely afraid for his livelihood. "Bones is going to kill me. I—fuck—Jesus, I've never hit a woman before..."

"Oh, gods, don't start," she complained. "I..." She stopped, and unexpectedly started laughing somewhat crazily. "I...man, my nose is bleeding."

She found a towel she'd brought and put it up to her nose, while Kirk was hit with the reality of that and couldn't help it, and they were both laughing, practically keeling over with it even though it was a delicate and precarious kind of humor.

"Oh my gods, it won't stop."

"Come on." Kirk waved her towards him and put an arm around her, leading her out of the gymnasium. It was when they were on the turbolift that he had his arms crossed in quiet thought, eventually slowly saying, "I guess this is the wrong time to realize that I probably should have asked you if you had...a man, you know, back home."

"Yeah," she agreed bluntly. "Pretty shitty timing there."

He didn't bother saying anything else about it, but her voice very hesitantly cracked up to add, "I guess I'm happy you didn't ask cause I'm not really sure what I would've said." He gave that a curious but patient lack of response. "And by that I mean...if I'd said yes...I may not have been completely sure who exactly I was talking about."

Kirk let out a long breath; he scratched at the back of his neck and remarked, "Life is so fucking complicated." She rolled her eyes.

Kara had assumed they were just headed to Kirk's quarters, so she was surprised when he stopped to press a button at the door of some other cabin. Without waiting for any inquiry, he said over the private comm, “Hey, it’s Jim.” The door slid open and Spock appeared, looking somehow odd to Kara in something that looked like casual apparel with some dental floss strung between his fingers.

The science officer promptly took in the appearance of Kara holding the towel to her nose, and his eyebrow went up, knowingly. “I suspect you wish to use my regenerator.”

“Anything to avoid the wrath of Bones,” Kirk confirmed with a sheepish shrug.

Spock turned back into his room and Jim followed, Kara coming in more slowly. Spock was already getting into a small vinyl container she presumed was something like a travel first aid kit, producing a dermal regenerator that looked a bit less advanced than what McCoy would’ve used.

“I remind you that this is only for superficial wounds,” Spock sighed even as he gestured Kara to sit on his bed.

“Look, as long as you can get her nose to stop bleeding..."

“We shall have to see if it is effective in repairing blood vessels.”

“How come you don’t have one of these?” Kara asked Jim as Spock pulled up a chair next to the bed.

“You need to be licensed to use them,” Jim explained, “but Vulcan laws are different. Even Spock will bend the rules to avoid a visit with Bones, anyway.”

Spock was offering to take the towel, tilting up Kara’s chin as she asked, “You guys really don’t like each other, huh?”

“Miss Thrace...” Spock’s voice had a tint of matter-of-factness. “I am quite amiable with the crew. I cannot place how you would have any other impression.”

Trying not to smirk, Kara’s eyes shifted over to Kirk with a look that asked if Spock was actually being sarcastic. She simply got a humored smile in response.

Only a moment later, Spock just launched right in. "Considering your avoidance of McCoy, the apparent circumstances of Thrace's injury, and the minor contusion on your face...May I ask what provoked the outburst, Jim?"

Kara's eyes watched Kirk just clear his throat and dig his hands into the pockets of his sweats. The captain lifted his brows and announced, "I'm gonna get a drink of water" before passing by the foot of the bed to Spock's kitchen section.

Kara finally volunteered an explanation. "We were just...sparring. In the gym. Got out of hand."

While Spock began repairing the tender parts of her nose and then scanning for the damaged blood vessel, she heard Kirk snigger and say, "Right. 'Out of hand'."

"I said I was sorry."

"...Actually, you didn't," he teased.

"Look, I know, I know," she sighed, detecting a glint of patient disapproval in Spock's eyes, talking to both of them. "I don't need to be told nobody makes rank around here by starting scuffles with the captain."

Spock gave one of his legendary lifts of an eyebrow before she knew his eyes were looking over her shoulder to meet Kirk's, and she was somehow aware before she heard Jim's building reaction of laughter that she'd said something unintentionally funny.

"What?"

"One of these days I'll have to tell you about my not-so-heroic antics that somehow ended up with me being captain," Jim replied with an unusual tone of dry modesty.

Kara's eyed slowly widened. "You two got in a fight?"

"I think that may be...an understatement," Spock briefly lended, seeming a bit hesitant to get on that topic.

"...Shit," Kara exclaimed. "Didn't think you had it in you, Spock."

"Can I just ask?" Kirk interjected to Kara. "What I did to piss you off so bad? I mean...all of a sudden-like?"

Kara sighed, feeling like she had to owe him some kind of explanation. "You just...reminded me of someone. It wasn't even you, just something you said."

Kirk was coming back into her line of vision with a tall glass, shaking his head in bewilderment. "Must've reminded you of somebody who really pissed you off..."

"Jim," Spock interrupted, sportingly perplexed. "Considering the analogy to present company that was just implied, that seems...a brash assumption?"

"Oh, I piss you off all the time and you know it," Kirk insisted affectionately.

Kara was reaching up to feel at her nose now that the bleeding had stopped, and Spock assured her it was probably healed beyond any visible damage. She thanked him and got up after Spock implied that he would enjoy getting to his meditation before retiring to bed.

Having fallen back into their usual comfort, Kirk and Kara walked together through the hallways until it seemed that Jim was walking her to her quarters in the barrack-style section. He said, "You know you can always come and hang out in my room if you feel cramped down here."

"I told you I didn't want special treatment anymore."

"Well, technically you're still a guest anyway. If you wanna be a yeoman, be a yeoman."

"Are you serious? Wear the little red dress and pour your coffee for you?"

Jim shrugged. "You bring the nurses coffee."

"That happened like one time," she winced.

With a look of sneaking sympathy, Jim hesitated a second. "You know...I feel pretty crappy that you kind of need this new start, you need to move on to something else, and I'm not able to give you that. At least not yet."

She shook it off tiredly. "Yeah, well, I'm fully aware of how unqualified I am. My skills are limited to piloting and instructing in piloting and tactics...mostly in piloting. So, you know...drop me a line when you're in a good old-fashioned war, Captain Kirk."

She was talking lightly, but Jim was sorting out his own response with careful sincerity. He finally quietly said, "It's funny, cause when it comes down to it, it's like I see too much of myself in you sometimes. I keep thinking maybe I oughta drop you off into the academy for real training as fast as I can, but...Thing is, they nearly expelled me. I'm worried they'd spit you out like something poisonous."

The admission of that last part had a weight to it that took Kara by surprise, and she looked soberly up at him where she'd been looking down at the floor before.

"The fact of the matter is that I don't think you'd quite fit in on any other ship even if you did graduate from Starfleet. But the best I can do for you now is consider you a medical volunteer, and not kick you off."

She nodded, attempting to extend some gratitude, "Listen...Thanks—"

Kirk kind of waved it off. "We'll talk about what you wanna do when we're actually getting close to Earth, okay?"

She looked like she could have said more, but she shrugged. "Right...Goodnight."

"'Night."
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A little square plastic box lived above the sink where surgery prep was located, in which the same assortment of jewelry tended to be stored for the duration of work shifts again and again, occasionally collecting pendants that got in the way or other things that might fall out of the uniform pockets from those in the lower ranks. The removal and then the retrieval of his ring at the end of the day was a quick motion of clockwork, but on one particular evening he snatched up the silver to realize it was attached to a chain. He lifted it up, recognized the dog tag, put it back and found his own band.

He'd slipped it on as far as the knuckle when his motion hitched to a stop, as if realizing, connecting something.
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McCoy was assured that whatever it was, he didn't want to miss it, as Jim urged him to take a break and come with him to one of the landing bay areas. He witnessed, along with a small crowd of people, the proud babbling of their chief engineer as he removed the drop cloth from something in front of a rather confused Starbuck.

"...What is it?"

"Well, I...still don't know what we'll call 'et, exactly," Scotty stuttered, "but as yeh can see, she's..."

That was when Kara, eyes narrowed, took a step forward and stood on one of the stools, brushing her hand over one of the occasional patchwork of white segments on the outer layer of the small vessel; the surface was greyed by slight damage, but it was still an easily readable display of her call sign.

"This is...?"

"Right, well, we had to restore your nose completely...yeh can paint it white if yeh like, but..." he shrugged, then focused on the back end. "We were still able to use your old engine compartment, we just modified it with a compact warp core, which should get up to seven or eight-speed, dependin' on—"

"Wait," Kara had her hand up in the air, and her sensitivity, the bracing for disappointment, was burning thickly under her casually surprised airs. "You're telling me this thing will fly like a Viper? This isn't just like a glorified escape pod or some shit like—"

"Aye," Scotty said, as if he'd just been saying as much. "An' a bit better, if I say so myself, a bit more sensitivity in your thrusters for starters. But we would need a...skilled test pilot to take her for a spin, wouldn' we?"

It took Kara a second to fabricate any kind of response; she almost seemed like she'd only heard half of what Scotty was saying. For just a second she nearly looked like she might cry, and then she very quickly managed a playful kind of gratitude, grinning suggestively and then over at Jim who automatically said, "You've got forty minutes."

"So nobody's tried it yet?" She practically leapt up the ladder, already knowing she was going to say something about the smaller seat compartment behind the cockpit which was built pretty closely to Mark II style. "This thing better not be any slower just because it's a two-seater."

"Ah, lady, you insult me," Scotty said sportfully. "For this time I kinda though'...the captain might like to..."

"The captain?" Kara looked over at where Jim and Bones were standing with a teasingly indifferent expression. "To hell with the captain, Scotty, I think I owe you all the blow jobs and Viper rides you could ever want."

Keenser dropped his ratchet. Jim and Sulu simply tried to contain their fits of snickering in response to the combined amusement and total discomfort that had pulled out of Scotty.

"Righ', can we start with the test drive?" he suggested.

A larger crowd was waiting when they docked in forty minutes later, and Jim took the liberty of pushing up the ladder for her and taking her helmet.

"You knew about this?" she demanded of him with a grin.

"Yeah," he admitted. "I didn't want to get your hopes up, if he wasn't able to put it back together, but...I shoulda known, the man is a genius."

When she got to the bottom of the ladder she just giddied up into him and gave him a tight brief hug, and then she was running off to offer Scotty a couple drinks, insistently enough that he finally consented with, "Right, alright, yeh crazy woman," and got led off all hippity-hop with his arm around her shoulders as if they were already drunk off their asses.

McCoy just said, "Wow."

Jim responded with a small laugh. "Whatever, man, she was kidding about the blowjobs. At least...I think she was." Jim blinked as if slightly troubled.

"Oh, she can do what she wants. Even seems like a good reason to have a drink for once," Bones muttered and smiled a little. "I've never seen her look that happy."

"Yeah, me neither."

...Part Five...

Comments

[sail-aweigh.livejournal.com]

I so want to be a fly on the wall when Jim tells Kara about the showdown between him and Spock. Hee. You've really done a great job keeping everyone in character. And I love that you had Scotty rebuild the Viper!

Great update! Looking forward to where you're taking these guys next.

[ninety6tears.livejournal.com]

so glad you're enjoying it, thanks :)

Oh, I've been waiting for this.

[butchon.livejournal.com]

Your story-telling is great,
and I can't wait to read more!

thanks for posting,
its so much fun reading it.

[vikingprincess]

Fantastic update - and Kirk is OH so right about Kara getting booted from the Academy! *grin*

Wonderful characterization, as usual.

[ninety6tears.livejournal.com]

thank you so much!

[theravingangel.livejournal.com]

Wonderful chapter. I love how Kirk's relationship with Kara has evolved througout the story and I have been anxiously waiting for your update.

Awesome chapter - thanks!

[ninety6tears.livejournal.com]

Eeee, thanks so much!

[flowrs4ophelia.livejournal.com]

I'm in love with every single fucking part of this chapter. Especially everything with Scotty at the end and SPOCK USING TOOTH FLOSS LOL.

[ninety6tears.livejournal.com]

LOL, why does that amuse you so much?
You know, I don't even have to ask. I'd give my left arm to watch Spock brush his teeth. Yeah, it's a fetish. Wut.

[artemis-90.livejournal.com]

i just love this continuation. I love the way your Kara 'handles' the hot-tempered Kirk, the lone Vulcan, mechanical genius, and now the angsty CMO! You are developing great interactions b/n Kara and the crew but I really want to know what happens next.

[ninety6tears.livejournal.com]

Thank you for such a lovely comment! More up soon if my beta reader's internet isn't totally frakked :/