BSG Fic - Wire Hanger - Part IV/IV - Lee/Kara, Ensemble COMPLETE

[letterstonorah]

Title: Wire Hanger (Part IV of IV)
Author: letterstonorah
Characters/Pairings: Lee/Kara, Karl
Rating: PG-13-R for this chapter.
Summary: Following the exodus from New Caprica, the fleet finds a new planet where they can lay down their burdens. Whilst not the disaster that was their last planetary home, bright and sunny futures still seem a thing of the past. Pretty Kara-centric.
Warnings: mentions of abortion, possibly triggering for suicidal thoughts
Spoilers: Season 3
Word Count: 4200 (this chapter)

Author's Note: So here it is, the final chapter! I certainly hope that it satisfies you. I know that many of you were concerned about how this was going to wrap up with just one more part, and I hope that I delivered. I very much look forward to your comments and feedback, be it critique or praise. I have some thoughts about some stuff in here, but I don't want to taint your interpretations and thus will save it for my responses.

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Lee's drinking a cup of coffee in his father's cabin when he hears someone knocking. Not normal knocking, no. Not hey-just-checking-to-see-if-you're-there knocking. These knocks crack and reverberate like gunfire. This is an emergency. This is condition one.

Lee glances up as his body begins to tense, his eyes flicking here then there then back again. He should run to the door. He should move. That's what a person does during an emergency. Responds. Gets up. Fights.

But gods, he can't face this. Something is terribly amiss. He knows it. Can feel it in the way his skin is becoming pebbled with gooseflesh. In the way that he's not breathing. In how epinephrine has started a course through his body, amping up his heartbeat, hardening his muscles. This knocking is maddogfrenzy. Desperateangryloud. SomethingswrongwithKara and his last words to her were something like Ihateyou.

As long as he doesn't answer the door, his world is still intact—frakked to the billionth power, sure—but intact. If he meets the knocking head on, he doesn't know that he'll ever be able to be okay again. Right now he can pretend. Everything is fine. Someone is just drunk. That's all it is. Drunk knocking, yes.

"Admiral, godsdamn it! Open up, please!" Lee thinks that maybe it's Helo—can't quite tell through the sound barrier of the door. And maybe, he's not too sure, but maybe Helo is crying. Which can't be right. Because Helo doesn't cry. "Apollo, are you there? Wake up! Please!"

Slowly, Lee moves toward the boomboomboomboomboom that refuses to cease. He wishes that Laura and his father were still here, hadn't left him alone to go for a hike or whatever the frak it is they're doing.

Once at the door, he breathes in, unlatches the lock, then opens. Sweat has caused Helo's hair to mat up. The man's eyes are too red, too frakking red to be real. "Apollo, thank Gods," he says.

"What's happened to her?" Lee asks, and it's not really him saying the words. It's someone else. It's his representative. It's some demon inside him who still has the will to speak, to emit sounds and contort them into words in his mouth. Lee doesn't exist anymore, and all he is is a body.

"I think she did something really frakking stupid," Helo says.

"Can't say I'm surprised," says Lee. Cold, smooth, almost joking. He knows that the response is totally inappropriate. Knows he should be worried. Knows that if Helo's been crying, it's probably too late anyway. He can't tackle the grief yet. Can't face it head on. Better to joke. Better to pretend this is just another one of Starbuck's crazy stunts.

Tomorrow, maybe, he'll be ready to welcome the onslaught of anguish. He'll go to some salty river and submerge himself from head to toe in the blue waters. Once underneath, he'll open his eyes wider than they've ever been opened. He'll pretend the scaled bodies of the fish swimming along his face are Kara's wet fingers caressing him. The underwater plant life will be her hair. The rocks will be her bones. The muddy river bottom will be her perfect flesh. He'll stay there, wrapped up in the cold water, until he can't breathe, until he passes out then passes on. His last memory will be that she was holding him, rocking him in the current of the river's flow.

But not today. Today he'll make everyone uncomfortable with inappropriately dark humor.

If Helo is bothered by Lee's callousness, he doesn't reveal it. The man has a brilliant triad face. "Where would she go?" Karl asks, his hands on Lee's shoulders, shaking him.

"Go to do what? What's wrong?"

Lee knows what's wrong. It's a stupid frakking question to ask. She's gone and—he doesn't know what, exactly. Went to some shady side of Demeter City to frak anybody with a pulse (because that's what she does; that's how she deals with things) and then finally met someone stronger than her, someone angrier than her, someone who got off on ending lives. And now it's just a matter of finding the body. Or maybe she drank herself sick, like she always does, only this time she's not waking up, not going to.

Helo presses a crumpled up sheet of paper into his chest, and Lee unfolds it to read. It's a letter to Kacey, but beyond that, none of the words quite register. It's like he's looking at an abstract painting, and he's trying to decipher the intent.

This doesn't make sense. This can't be right. Hotheaded Kara has done some frakked up things, but no, no, no, not this. Never this. She's too alive and fiery and dense to just go away, to ever want not to be. Kara's all attitude and posturing and quick wit. So he's trying to resolve the Kara he knows with the Kara in this letter, this Kara who's saying no more.

Lee is resurrecting. He's coming back to life. All he wants is not to feel, but the letter makes that difficult. Her messy scribbles are so very Kara. Lee's crashing and burning, being sucked into a maelstrom with no other side.

"You've got to focus," Karl says, shaking him again. "Where would she go? What's the first place that pops into your head?"

"I don't know," Lee says. His voice isn't even a whisper. It's all splintered and dry, brittle just like he is now that he has confirmation that she's gone. The wind will blow hard and he will disintegrate into flecks of bones and skin. He's an unstable molecule, a sun going supernova.

"Just think," Helo says. "Come on, come on, come on."

"She made an altar once," Lee offers, not that it matters. She's already gone. How long has it been since she wrote this letter? Kara does what she wants. Always has. Always will. He starts speaking again, not even aware of the words that are coming out of his mouth. "It's not too long of a drive from here. You know, if she doesn't have a transport, it would've been a really long walk. There might still be time."

Lee's words are hopeful but his tone is not. He's just trying to make Helo feel better. Trying to pretend for his sake that everything will be okay. All will resolve. The center will hold, this time.

Karl hands him a tissue, and Lee wipes off tears from his face. When the frak had he started crying? There's no time for this shit. Only time to move. Only time to save her from herself.

Wait, no. She's dead. Accept that. There's a whole lifetime ahead of Lee without her. He can cry as much as he godsdamn pleases.

"Come on, let's go," Karl says.

Lee follows Helo to his transport and looks up into the sky. Of course, it has started to downpour, the first rain of this gods-awful hot summer. He hopes it's a sign, even though he knows that it's not.

#

Kara holds her sidearm in her hand, letting it dangle haphazardly to her side, thinking vaguely that this is all a load of shit. What the frak is she doing here? Being a drama queen, a selfish bitch, a terrible mother. And yet, here she goes, one foot after the other. Like she's a viper and she's bound to some magnetic track. She can't go back because the only thing worse than dying is what awaits her if she returns to the settlement: the people she's let down and will continue to let down, the memories she can't shake of Leoben's face, his breath oppressive on her neck.

She tries to think of other things. Of flying so frakking fast she's suddenly at the edge of the universe. Or frakking Lee until her body feels like its hers again. Maybe brushing Kacey's hair whilst the little girl talks inanely about things Kara doesn't come close to understanding—those wild tales only children can spin: There was this boy, and then there were mountains, and the mountains floated to the sky because they were attached to a very big balloon. And that's when this girl bought lemon drops to give to her neighbor, but he didn't want them because he was already full on fairies, so she ate them, even though she promised she wouldn't.

For a while, sometimes as many as a few days, she'll be fine. Better than fine, even. Great. Happy. Then all at once the memories are nipping at her heals again, unleashed hell hounds ready to collect.

As Kara hikes through the low hills, she trips on a half-buried hole, twisting her ankle. Not even the moles are on her side. She carries on, limping, pressing forward. Again with the whole magnetic track thing.

She's tired, she knows that. Her muscles ache. Her chest burns. She's been walking for nearly 10 kilometers, and maybe this would've gone better had she just hotwired someone else's transport. But what a waste that would be. What if no one ever found it? The colony has a dearth of resources as it is, and she's done being a burden. Doesn't want to take anything from the remainder of human society that she doesn't have to.

The plains are grassy and green. Wildflowers in brilliant shades of blue and orange and violet sway as long-winged birds of prey swoop down. It sounds alive. Scurrying animals and buzzing critters. She thinks that maybe she can hear the river rushing by in the wood up ahead. That is her destination, a small cave beneath a waterfall. Her place.

A place no one would know to look, except maybe Lee, and he won't want to. He'll make a show for family friends, pretending to care, but she knows inside that he'll be glad to be relieved of the burden that is Kara.

He'll survive this because he needs to. Kara needs him to. She needs to know that he'll

settle down with some nice, quiet girl who'll bear him beautiful children. The woman will be faithful, and so will he. They'll grow old together. Hold each other's hands.

No one deserves the viper crash that is Kara. She's doing everyone a favor.

By the time that she arrives to the river, it starts to rain.

#

Kara allows herself one last swim. She figures that a parting swing in her bird is out of the question, so settles for jumping off of a low cliff into the icy river that she's morbidly named the Styx.

She strips naked. Her clothes hang on the branches of a spindly-looking tree. Some shorts, a gray scoop neck, and a pair of skivvies. The boots she wore line up neatly on the ground. Her socks, wet with sweat, are rolled into a knotted ball.

Once Kara's clothes are off, she sticks the barrel of her sidearm into the ankle of her left boot. All of this is terribly inefficient. It'd be better to jump with the gun, being that the cave where she plans to stop her heart is down on the level of the river, just under a waterfall not even a quarter click away.

But she needs this—this final swim. This good bye. Needs to embrace the earth before letting it go. By herself. No clothes. No ring. No sidearm.

Squeezing her eyes shut, feeling sweat trickle down her back, Kara inhales deeply before running off the cliff, pulling her knees into her chest, and catapulting downward into the river.

It's deep enough that by the time she gets her bearings, she isn't sure which way is up and down, left and right, back and forward. Her eyes are drawn toward sunlight, and she breaststrokes toward the surface.

The river current is strong, so she doesn't bother trying to fight it by swimming against it. Kara allows the water to draw her along, to take her where it may. For the first time in a very long while, she enjoys the sensation of relinquishing control. This is her life, and she makes her own choices. That is all she can ever do.

The tree sprouts roots. The sun blisters on without her. And maybe, just this once, she's okay with that. It's all right to be small and meaningless in an epic, unforgiving universe. Because she can feel the water cold on her thighs, and it's nice to feel.

Rain is falling on her head, and the river is growing higher and higher. This, she thinks, will be an okay way to die. Her limbs are tired and sore, and Kara struggles to keep her head above the surface.

There's a sound from far away. Could be that someone is calling her name. She can't be sure. She's being pulled down by a whirlpool in the river's deep waters, trapped in the swirl of currents.

"Kara!" she hears. She's sure this time.

As the river tugs her body under water, she swears she sees the face of her mother just beneath the surface, and she goes toward it. Kara's last thought is that she hopes Kacey forgives her because, after all, Kara's forgiven her mother.

#

Lee pumps his palms over her chest before opening her mouth, pressing his lips to hers, breathing air into Kara's lungs.

She's frakking cold. Her body is white, her lips purpling. Helo retrieves a blanket from the transport and covers up. They both remembered the adage from their first aid training: no one's dead until they're warm and dead.

Lee hugs her body, trying to transfer his heat to hers, as he continues chest compressions and mouth to mouth.

Ang gods, yes. She's waking up. Coughing spurts of water. Blinking fiercely.

"Is this the Other Side?" she asks, and Lee can't tell if she's being earnest or joking.

Lee shrugs, smiling, the water from his tears and the water from the river mingling together. "The other side of the river," he says.

She snorts then passes out, but she's still breathing.

#

Lee's there when she wakes up. She's wrapped in layers of blankets in his father's bed, and everyone—Helo, Athena, Roslin, Galen, Cally, and Kacey are in the living area, waiting patiently.

"How are you feeling?" he asks her, as her eyes open.

"Stupid," she says, her voice rough and hoarse.

"Yeah, well, you should," says Lee, putting a palm over her cheek. This is the moment where he should leave. Say goodbye to her. Tell her that he's glad she's alive, but they can't be friends anymore.

Instead, he's reveling in the warmth of her skin, of color returning to her face.

"Why'd you do this, Kara? Why?"

She looks away and moves her eyes around the room as if trying to come up with an answer. "I was just having a very bad day," she settles on.

Of course, it's the most unsatisfying answer she could possibly give. Lee sighs and shakes his head. "Same old Starbuck, huh," he says.

She turns her eyes up, catching his gaze. "No," she says firmly, as if she's making a resolution. "Not the same old Starbuck at all. I don't feel that way, at least."

"What do you mean?"

Kara shrugs. "I don't know, really. Maybe it's like how Boomer and Athena are the same, but they're not. I feel better," she finishes. "That's all I mean."

"You still need help, Kara. You can't pull shit like this. You're not okay."

Kara doesn't respond for a long while, and Lee hopes she's thinking about what he's saying. It takes everything in him to resist the urge to ask her about the events surrounding the abortion, but he refrains.

"Is Kacey here?" Kara asks.

Lee nods. "I'll go get her for you."

Just as Lee is at the door ready to enter the living room, Kara starts to speak. "Hey, Lee."

"Yeah?"

"I'm not sorry, you know—about what I did. About the abortion, I mean. About not telling you. I know I should be. I know you probably want me to be. Need me to be. Hell, everybody does. But I'm not. I did what I thought I had to do, and I don't think it's fair to ever ask anybody to do more than that, okay? But I am sorry that I hurt you. I didn't mean for that happen. I didn't mean for it to all turn out like this."

It's the most words she's said to him in a very long time, and she's right; it's not the words he wants to hear.

"Do you love me, Kara?" he asks, hand on the knob. He's ready to leave if the answer is no. He won't hate her. He won't. But he's got to move on with his life.

"A lot," she answers, and just like that, Lee is trapped in her love again.

#

It's Helo who's angriest with Kara, and she can't say she's surprised. They're supposed to be best friends, and she lied to him—had told him that she'd let Lee know about the pregnancy before the abortion.

For three days he doesn't even talk to her. Once she wakes up at the Admiral's cabin, he's gone.

It's agreed that Kara and Kacey should stay with Bill and Laura for the next few weeks. That Kara isn't well enough to be left alone.

Kara doesn't fight it because she agrees.

When she answers the knock at the door, expecting it to be Lee, instead it's Karl. She smiles, even though she knows he probably hasn't forgiven her.

"Want to come inside?" she asks.

Helo nods and enters, not bale to look at Kara directly in the face.

"So I've been thinking," he starts, and Kara wonders if he's been practicing the speech he's about to say in his transport on the way over here. "You should cut Lee loose. He's a nice guy, Kara. He doesn't deserve this. Doesn't deserve to be treated like how you treat him."

Ouch. "And here I was expecting a huge and a kiss and an 'I'm-so-glad-you're-alive.'"

"Yeah, well," Karl, says, wrapping his arm around her and pulling her close, planting a kiss on her forehead, "that, too."

She smiles into his chest, happy to have his forgiveness.

"But I'm serious, Starbuck. Got to cut that kid loose."

Kara breaks out of Agathon's embrace and tips back into the couch, crossing her arms over her chest. "Well, what if I don't want to?"

"What, are you, like, twelve?"

Kara rolls her eyes as she starts to tell Helo off. "I'm a grown ass woman. That means I get to do what I want."

"You have it so wrong," he says. "Part of being a grown ass woman is knowing when you can't do exactly what you want." Helo looks very pleased with himself for coming up with the words and joins Kara on the couch.

"Someone should put that on a fortune cookie," she says.

"They already have," Karl says. "That's where I got it from."

Then they're both laughing together, and it's like old times, like none of this shit ever happened. "I love him, Karl," she says. "I wish I didn't, but I do."

"Then what's the problem? Moe in together. Pop out some babies—lords know, they'd be hot. Walk together on the beach and shit."

"After all this time, do you really think that's even remotely a possibility?"

"Why not, Kara? Why the frak not?"

#

"I want to go back home," Kacey says, and Kara can tell she's on the verge of a tantrum.

"We are, commander. Today. Uncle Lee is going to come by and drive us over."

"When?"

"In an hour, maybe?"

"That's too loooonnnngg," Kacey says. She's been cranky over the past few days, anxious to get out of here. Everyone has a case of cabin fever, Kara included, and she can't blame the kid for her bad attitude.

When Lee arrives, the drive back to her cottage is mostly quiet except for Kacey's chatter. "Momma?" she asks.

"Yeah?"

"I think you're very pretty," she says, her voice matter-of-fact.

"Well, thank you," says Kara, unable to stop herself from smiling.

"You, Kacey Thrace, are a very observant girl.," says Lee.

Kara catches his eyes through the rearview mirror, and he winks at her. Maybe, after some more time, he'll be able to forgive her completely.

#

It's dark by the time they reach the cottage, and Kacey is asleep in the backseat in Kara's lap. Lee opens the door for her as she goes to lay the girl to sleep. Kara kisses her and whispers something into her ear that Lee cannot make out.

"Outside?" Kara asks. "Don't want to wake her up."

Lee doesn't know what she's asking, but he agrees, and follows her out the door after placing her duffel bags on the floor.

"The sky's pretty tonight," Lee says.

Kara smiles at his nervous words. "Next you're going to tell me that the weather is nice."

"Well, it is," he says, indignant. "I'm glad it's finally starting to cool down."

"Mhm," she says. "Those 45 degrees days were getting to be too much."

"Tell me about it," Lee says.

Lee feels Kara's hand reach out to his, and she grabs it tight. Every nerve in his body is alight at the feel of her fingers clasping his.

"Sometimes, you know, I think about what it would've looked like. But then it hurts too much and so I stop."

It hurts to hear her like this, hurts to think about the child that isn't, and Lee grabs her hand tighter, sure that he's crushing Kara's metacarpals.

"I used to think Kacey was mine," she continues. She's not looking at him, probably because she can't. Lee doesn't say anything, not wanting to ruin this moment of rare candor in Kara. "I mean, she is mine. But I used to think she was mine biologically. That's what Leoben told me. Back on Caprica, they took out a lot of my eggs. The cylons did."

Lee realizes that she's never before told him what had happened to her there when she went after the Arrow. Upon her return, she was shaken, not wanting to talk. He'd offered, even told her he loved her, but he'd probably been too much of an ass up to that point to even care. After a while, Lee just assumed that all her anguish was over Anders, but this? This is different.

He looks at her, taking in the sight of her profile under the light of the planet's many red moons.

"Anyway, so I thought there was a chance that it was possible, that she was mine. I was being stupid, I guess. Surprise, surprise. And when the doctor told me Kacey didn't belong to me biologically, I just…I felt so godsdamned used and violated. I was just spent. My body was for others to manipulate, and the pregnancy was just another facet of that. It didn't feel real. Didn't feel like mine. Felt like a trick to get me to give up. I didn't tell you because I didn't feel like whatever inside me was ours, even though I knew logically it was."

She stops talking, and she brushes a free hand across her brow.

And what the frak is Lee supposed to say? There are no words that can possibly comfort her. How can he reassure her when he can't even reassure himself? So he doesn't. He just breaks his hand from hers and wraps his arm around her waist, pulls her hard against him, lets the tears that've started coming roll down his face onto hers so she can know how sorry he is, so she can know she never deserved any of this.

"You know what the best part of living on Demeter is?" Kara asks.

"What?"

"Me here. You here. Kacey inside. Breathing fresh air, enjoying a pretty sky. Hoping that things will be okay. It's nice to feel hope again. I missed it."

"Kara?" asks Lee.

"Mm?"

"Can I stay the night?"

She turns, looking up at him. "Yeah," she says. "You can."

They walk back into her cottage and shut the door,



Epilogue (Part I/II)

Comments

[kdbleu.livejournal.com]

You wrapped things up very nicely. Kara's suicide attempt was so vivid and I really liked the way it tied into Lee thinking about swimming and Kara.

And I love Kara's explanation and the way Lee doesn't try to comfort her or tell her it's going to be all right. He just hopes. :)

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Thanks, love! I was worried that I may have ended with a few too many loose ends, but in the I felt leaving things a little open was more realistic. Nothing is every completely resolved.

And so glad that the swimming connection worked for you! I was worried it was a bit too heavy-handed. I will probably do an epilogue of sorts...maybe of the smutty variety :p Thank you again for your comment. It warms my heart.

[damao2010.livejournal.com]

Oh, I just love this so much. From Helo's desperation to Lee's despondency, from the suicide attempt to the rescue, from Kara's recovery back at Bill's to Helo's return and her tentative talks with Lee, everything was just so poignant. I agree with Kdbleu - you did wrap things up nicely. I do believe this story demands and epilogue or a coda or something, though. I know at least I'd be really happy to see them a little happier, you know. Kudos!

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Yay! What a lovely comment to receive! This was the hardest chapter to write because everyone was in such a shit place emotionally. Writing people as so unhappy can be challenging. I just wanted them to all smile and go on with their lives, but I couldn't exactly do that, could I? Poor dears. I hurt my characters too much. I agree that this probably requires an epilogue. I'll get on it, I promise! Cheers :o)

[apodixis.livejournal.com]

This was a great ending to an amazing story. You covered so many emotions all at once and had a way of wrapping me in it so it felt absolutely real.

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you so much! I was so worried that the end would disappoint everyone, but I'm glad it felt like a reasonable conclusion to all of their struggles. They are all in a bad place, but at least they are hopeful and everything is laid out on the table for them. Thanks so much for your comment, duck. I appreciate it muchly.

[koolaidmom11.livejournal.com]

Well, I loved this although I would have liked a little more wrap up. Maybe an epilogue?

I really enjoyed your descriptions of their emotions...from Lee swimming until he drowned (basically in Kara) to Kara describing how the baby wasn't real to her....it was all beautiful and the characterizations were spot on...

Poor Lee...hope that hole in his heart gets filled this time around.

MUST HAVE MORE

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Yes, I definitely think an epilogue is in order. I can't leave our poor pilots this despondent. Even I'm not that cruel!

I'm still glad you liked it as is, though. I wanted to conclude the main arc of the story without it being too happy, you know? I'm not super into the types of endings where folks go holding hands as they walk off into the sunset...But I think I can definitely give them more of a wrap up.

And you have no idea how happy it makes me feel to hear that you liked the descriptions and whatnot. I was afraid that maybe they were too weird or strange, so that's very reassuring.

I'll get to work on a coda, my dear, as quickly as I can! Cheers :p

[wicked-sassy.livejournal.com]

I like the way you wove tiny bits of canon throughout--Lee is resurrecting, the maelstrom with no other side, Helo's triad face.

It made me giggle when Helo said that Lee and Kara would have hot babies. They sure would!

Kara's suicide attempt reminded me of Virginia Woolf: she wanted to die so that others could live. And yet not, because she did live, and she learned to find hope. You did a lovely job sewing Kara and Lee back together with all of their ragged edges.

<3 <3 Nicely done, bb.

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm so glad you caught the canon snippets! That was my favorite part to write out of all of this. I felt like on the show Kara eventually reached some sort of peace...so I wanted to mirror her journey in this fic so she could achieve a sense of resolution. I have her going into the river maelstrom and "dying" then getting reborn.

Thank you for your lovely comment. It feels good to have this all finished (though I'll probably do an epilogue) because it leaves me time to think about my epic, which you'll be hearing more about shortly :p

I'm afraid this ending probably didn't work for a lot of folks, judging by the amount of comments, but I feel satisfied with their conclusion. Cheers and happy Christmas :p)

[wicked-sassy.livejournal.com]

Yay, epic! Yay, epilogue! I'm excited for both. :)

Happy holidays to you and yours, my dear. I look forward to hearing from you soon. xoxo

[mserrada.livejournal.com]

Wasn't sure how you were going to do it, but you did :)
Thanks for such an evoking story!

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much! I'm glad the ending worked for most folks! It was a lot of fun to write this, and while I couldn't give them a perfect happy ending, I at least wanted to give them some hope :p Thank you for your feedback, love.

[sci-fi-shipper.livejournal.com]

Wow. It took me a long time to read this fic because the title really made me recoil. Because you were a new author, I was really afraid that my heart was going to be crushed or that the issue or K/L wouldn't be handled with grace or compassion. I was wrong on all counts.

I think this fic is amazing. I was on the verge of tears nearly the entire time. It's raw and beautiful and I one of the best portrayals of their dynamic I've read in a very long time. I think you've captured Lee's obsessiveness perfectly, but also his intense vulnerability when it comes to Kara. Your portrayal of Kara makes me insanely jealous bc I can't capture her quite the way you do - everything about it, the language, the pacing, the words and feelings, all so wonderfully wrought that just reading it is painful.

My favorite thing, though, is Lee's reaction to her abortion. He is utterly and completely crushed - unable to even comprehend how or why she could HATE HIM! It is completely in character and so well shows how he has always interpreted her: "Why does she reject me? What am I doing wrong?" Lee has never quite understood her and is so sensitive to her words and actions that this portrayal feels brutally honest in its rendering. I ADORE ADORE ADORE his repeating of how much he hates her. In that moment, he absolutely must have. It's so in character for the situation and for a broken Lee that I could barely breathe. I felt so terrible for both of them.

The entire scene where he's raging at her was like watching a beautiful sculpture begin to tremble and shake and literally melt from the inside out and then explode. And Lee on Adama's lap. OMG. I'll never forget that scene. It's so tremendously powerful. Thank you for that.

Kara's hopelessness was so awful. You tapped into her deep shame so very well and my heart ached for her. In my head, I like to think that she'd never go to that level, but I know people can get their suddenly and inexplicably and just begin to feel like life is too hard and the struggle to great to continue. She felt like she failed Lee and Kacey and everyone. I wanted so much for her to love herself more, but I know she couldn't.

Her reasons for having the abortion made a lot of sense and I like that you carried that through the Epilogue (which I've also read, but see as a very separate fic and will comment seperately). It speaks a lot to the tragedy that is Roslin's decision to keep the abortion ban.

Okay, so I've gone on and on, so let me just say that I really enjoyed this fic. :P Kudos!

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

DEATH BY LOVELY HEATHER COMMENTS.

Jesus. I woke up this morning and saw that I had six-ish messages in my LJ inbox and was like, what the fuck? Did someone really feel the need to edit a comment FIVE TIMES?

Then I realized you'd read my fic and left feedback, and I about cried on the spot. Your words are so sweet and meaningful, and it's so good to hear from you, especially since I admire your stories so much.

I was very nervous entering this fandom -- as it's quite established and full of talented writers. There's already a lovely cache/archive of material.

I'm pretty much skeptical of anyone whose work I haven't read before, too, so I understand your hesitation completely. (But do know that I was silently brooding and feeling all rejected!Nora about it...but I promise it was quite cute. I had pouty lips and wounded eyes. I was channeling Lee). Anyway, I'm so glad you took a chance and liked it. I'm overwhelmingly thankful. The thing about fic is, just like all writing, is it can be quite subjective and everybody has their own kinks and tastes and whatnot. But I'm so glad Wire Hanger resonated with you.

I disagree about your assessment of our varying characterizations of Kara. Despite all of its flaws, BSG was an incredibly rich show, the characters quite layered and multidimensional. There are a billion ways to see and interpret them, especially Kara and Lee; and your Kara feels very real and true to me.

raging!Lee. Hee. I'm so glad those bits worked for you. I was unsure how to handle his character, and I feel like in general I have less of a fix on him than I do on Kara. I used to think Kara was more complex, but I'm realizing more and more that she's quite straight forward in a lot of ways. Lee often throws me for a loop, and rewatching BSG has made me see his incredible richness.

Oh, anyway. You've made my week -- really and truly. Your feedback here is just so well-considered. Thank you times ten.

[sci-fi-shipper.livejournal.com]

I really like your take on Lee. He is my touchstone and I feel like I understand him pretty well and it makes me really excited to see another dimension to his character or to see him deal with a situation that he hasn't dealt with before.

Thank you for your kind words on Kara. I agree, there are many facets to her character. I know that every writer has his or her own interpretation and expression of her character. I really like yours and mine, well, I struggle mightily with her, so it makes me happy to think that she's not too OOC. :)

Happy you are writing and look forward to more!

[froggyh.livejournal.com]

I love the way you handled this, using the issue of abortion raised in canon to write a story so deeply personal for Lee and Kara. The way the topic was handled in the series never really sat right with me because, although I could understand Roslin's motivation, I could never really forgive her, so I didn't like that the issue never arose again in the series.

You've also got a wonderful, evocative writing style that draws the reader in. Love it!

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much! I, too, was disappointed with the abortion plot presented to us on BSG. That's initially what inspired me to write the fic in the first place. I was just so upset by how it was handled, and this story was a way of working through my angst. What a sweet comment. Thank you, dearest :p

[deenohh]

A pretty ending. Very pretty. Not them. Not remotely. but Getting them both right probably wasnt the point, I'm sure. Lee would not have let this go. If she cant be sorry she didnt tell him. He wouldnt be sorry to let her go. He did it for less than this and Le is all about holding grudges. But very pretty ending. Good for you.