Part 2 Battlestar Galactica Finding Humanity: Saving Grace

Chapter 10

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A Month Later, Galactica

Bill Adama had another headache on his hands. Literally and figuratively.

Three years earlier-less than a year before the Cylon attack on The Colonies, Bill Adama had let a Black Ops mission near the Armistice Line with The Cylons. The events that led to Novacek's imprisonment weren't known to anyone in The Fleet, except Saul Tigh and Admiral Adama, and now Danny Novacek. The story that Bill had stuck to over the years was that the black ops mission that he, as Commander of the Battlestar Valkyrie had been sent on, was to get troublesome Tauron's off a moon they were mining that was dangerously close to the Armistice Line with the Cylons, that had ended the last war.

It was a lie.

And part of that lie Danny Novacek didn't know about.

The purpose of the mission was to get a steal recon ship over the armistice line, to try and take a peek into Cylon territory, to see if they were building a formidable military force.

The Adar Administration, of which President Laura Roslin had been a part of, never knew this had happened. A Cylon Raider jumped in, damaged Novacek's ship, then jumped out, two more jumping in a few moments later. They were making a beeline for Bulldog's ship.

But the Cylons didn't shoot him down. Adama did, to protect the mission. That was the part Novacek didn't know.

Bulldog was back, and the mental trauma of that mission, and what it had meant, were flooding back to Bill Adama. He had fraked up, and left a friend to die.

He wasn't sure how to handle this one.

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"Why do you think you never fought them off, after the first time, or never yelled or screamed?"

Dr. Tribe had been slowly working up to what Kara had endured in the prison on New Caprica. They had worked their way chronologically from her childhood, through Zak's death, to her hot/cold relationship with Lee, then onto the Doll House episode, and through her falling in love with and marrying Laura. All of it needed to come out.

Kara shrugged. "I didn't want to show any weakness, I guess. I wanted them to think they weren't gonna break me."

"Just as you didn't want your mother to see that she hadn't broken you-or did she? Just as you put on a good front after Zak was killed-you didn't want anyone to think Starbuck had been broken by it. Or had she?"

Kara was silent for the moment.

"Kara", Dr. Tribe continued, "I know at first you wondered why I want to delve back to when you were a child, but I think you're seeing why, aren't you? You've always been the kind to keep everything in, tightly held, not wanting to show weakness. That serves you well as a fighter pilot, and in the military in general, but you're not always a fighter pilot. Sometimes you're just Kara."

"Are you saying it's my fault that I reacted to Laura the way I did in the shower? That it was because of my weakness? Frak you!" She spat the word at the psychologist. Kara stood up as if wanting to leave.

But she hesitated, sitting back down after a few moments.

"No, I'm not saying that, Kara", Dr. Tribe said softly, "but the fact is, you don't let things out. Yes, you cried in Laura's arms when you came back, but you have never found that pressure valve to get rid of all the negativity that has built up in you over so many years.

"Look, you've seen more shit than I ever will, and I'm more than twice as old as you. You've seen horrors I can't imagine. We need to find a way to let all the anger, and shame, and even guilt that you feel, out in a healthy way."