Part 1, Battlestar Galactica, Finding Humanity: Learning To Become Human Again

Chapter 2

II

Present Day

Kara Thrace had quietly entered the school tent that housed the pre-schoolers. Kacey was going on five, and the following year, she would begin her proper schooling. Starbuck felt it important that her daughter learn to socialize like a normal human being-something Kara was never able to do when she was younger, being from a broken home, with a mother who suffered from substance abuse.

As she watch Kacey playing with the other children her age, a warm smile came over Kara's face. This was the childhood she never really had, and instead of wallowing about how bad she had had it, she concentrated on giving Kacey every advantage she could think of.

I am not gonna let Kacey end up like me. She's going to be better than me in every way.

Kara had made that promise to herself, and to the gods. Despite her rebellious nature, Kara Thrace had a deep faith in the gods, and believed that there was something better after this life. She was quite sure that, despite her sinful ways, that redemption was within reach of anyone. She had even come to believe that true for the human Cylons, although she was still working that one out. But if they had a soul, and she at least considered it a possibility that the Skin Jobs did have one, then they were within the reach of salvation.

Kara's salvation, and that of putting Kacey onto a better future (if they ever escaped the Cylon occupation), had occurred on a terrifying night a less than a year earlier.

Eight Months Earlier

Kara Thrace felt, and was sure, she was going crazy, being cooped up day after day in this fantasy world that Leoben had built. Every day was deja-vu all over again, with Leoben trying to act like the caring husband, Kara not responding to his overtures of affection, and certainly had never fraked The Cylon bastard. The only thing keeping her sane was Kacey. It had now been ten months since she had been captured, the very day The Cylons had arrived.

Even in "killing" Leoben more than a dozen times since being captured, the son-of-a-bitch kept returning, that smug smile on his face every time he would say "Honey, I'm home." He would then dispose of his last body, then act like nothing had happened, only to have the event repeated in some form or another. It's almost like he enjoyed letting Kara kill him, then coming back that very day. It was psychological torture on a grand scale.

She had killed many before, but a combat situation, in a Viper, in the vacuum of space, was far different than having to kill, by hand, another living being. She hated The Cylons, but she considered them living beings, just different in some ways from Humans. She had been flabbergasted, and angry when Roslin had chucked Leoben out of an airlock, and there was something about the Cylon man that intrigued her, but it hadn't stopped him from killing him over and over, only to have him come back.

Yet he was playing with her very sanity, and that was starting to wan. She knew with her sanity being taken from her, her very humanity would follow. She couldn't have that happened. Especially now that she was responsible for a child.

Leoben had always kept her off-balance, coming "home" at different times of the day, so she wouldn't have a chance to prepare. Yet the last few nights, he had arrived back at the place around 2000 each night, telling her they were having all-day meetings, and that his schedule would be like that for a week or two.

One problem she had always had was that Leoben put his electronic key, for the gate leading out of the facility, in a safe immediately after he got "home". She didn't know the combination, and had never sent him to Download City while it was on his person. She wanted to cancel that advantage.