Until You See
by ALC Punk!

But there is tension and then release, and the feel of soft curls under her fingers and a wide smile and white teeth nipping at her neck.

"You're special."

Maybe she does hear her.

"Special and precious. Not like Gaius." Breath brushing across sweat-damp skin, and Kara will later remember that her world greyed and the blonde was wearing blue and clear Lucite heels.

Yelling matches with Lee, shouting orders, and ending with laughter. Never tears.

"He wants you." Breath on her neck, and this time Kara doesn't turn to kiss those lips, doesn't lean that much closer.

"Humans. So predictable."

The voice is still there that night, the fingers that slide into her so real she chokes her screams into her pillow.

"You want him, too." Vicious, angry, the voice cuts through the silence of her patrol.

Kara ignores it. Ignores her, as she flies routinely, adding only a little pilot's flash towards the end. Galactica calls her on it, and she smirks.

"Impetuous. I think that's why he likes you."

This time, it's Dr. Baltar she's mocking, and Starbuck almost joins in as he flirts with the first Lieutenant, making the poor girl's eyes get stars.

"God didn't want him." Disappointment in her tone, and Kara turns to look at her, eyebrows raising. "Not that he didn't try. But unlike you, he wasn't... human." Fingers drift across her cheek, and the blonde smiles sweetly.

Lips and tongue tease her later, and Kara gives vent to sounds she didn't think she could make. With the other woman's hand over her mouth, she comes and writhes and comes again.

"You're very..." But the woman doesn't finish her statement, and she tastes like something metallic when they kiss.

Starbuck never responds, never talks, because talking to a figment of her imagination is a waste of time. And she doesn't need further aggravation. The XO is on her, the CAG is on her, and she's merely striving to be the best. And falling down time and again.

"Human." Lips trailing along her cheekbones, breath smelling of mints and grass (that's wrong). "God loves you. God loves all."

"You're. Not. Real." She can say it in the dark of night.

Hands grab her head, and slam it back.

And they're standing.

They're in a house, and Starbuck doesn't know it. Some place rich and sumptuous, and she would only have been there if she'd gone home with some guy one night. A drunken fling. Everything was drunken flings back then.

"Never say that."

There are bones showing beneath pale skin, and Starbuck traces them with her eyes. "You're starving."

"Tell me I'm real."

"You're not real."

The face freezes, the hands clench, then drop away, and she steps back. "I was real, I was alive. Once..."

"A long long time ago, yeah. Whatever." Starbuck steps away from the wall. "Nice delusion I've got here."

"It's my illusion."

The world twists, changes. And Kara is back in her bunk, staring up.

A voice whispers into her ear, "Are you alive?"

Of course she is.

But answering her imagination isn't something she plans to do, anytime soon.

-f-

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© 2005 ALC Punk!