Ghost in the Machine

**Chapter 1**

She knows he hasn't changed. Not one frakking bit. She can just feel it. It annoys her so much she wants to throw the bottle, but there's still some booze left in it, so she waves it at him instead and points one unsteady finger around the curve of the glass.

"You're not real. Y'know that right?" The liquor slides through the bottle, gurgling for emphasis.

"If you knew that for sure, you wouldn't be asking."

The light's dim in the little hole of a closet she's using as a hideout, but she swears he's smirking at her. She glares back at him thinking she should hurry up and finish the bottle if for nothing else then to have something to throw at him. He's standing just outside of the pool of light from the overhead, a mocking outline of slanted head and crossed arms. Scowling, she tries to understand why he's decided to show up now, after a few weeks back on _Galactica_, and the real thing out there screaming about being the first in line to help her out an airlock. Has the rotgut finally caused her to have delusions? Because the Gods know it's nearly pure alcohol. But two and two keep equaling five, so she gives up and takes another swig from the bottle.

"Whatever. Doesn't matter anyway," she says dismissively.

The last dregs of alcohol swirl mesmerizingly, catching small sparks of light before her eyes. They don't speak, just watch the bead and purl of a small rivulet.

"He hates me," she says at last as her eyes nearly cross from watching too long. "So do you."

She holds the bottle up above her and tilts her head back, slowly pouring the last of the nasty stuff onto her tongue with a small grunt of approval. Slumping back against the bulkhead, she squints up at him with a crooked smile.

"'s alright ya know," she slurs at him. "I can take it."

"I don't know," he says suddenly from the darkness. "I might." He hesitates. "I might not."

"You have to," she tries to catch her breath. "You have to. You can't be him and not be him. That would just make no frakkin' sense." Fuzzy, dizzy darkness plays with her vision, making the small light above dart like a firefly, which suddenly distracts her with thoughts of bugs glowing in backyards and Zak whispering something in her ear while -

"Well it just wouldn't. You know. Make sense." Her head swivels around until she focuses on him or at least where she thinks he is.

"Nothing _ever _makes sense with you, Kara."

"Ha frakkin' ha," she mumbles. She stares at her hands lying limp in her lap. Exhaustion and age have seeped into her, settled in, until she thinks she might wake up eighty years old. "Forget it. Just - go away." Heaving a sigh, she rolls onto her side, curls into a ball, and closes her eyes.

Then he's hauling her up, dragging her against him and begging her to open her eyes for a minute, just open them for one godsdamned minute. Instead she snuffles into his chest, wondering when her imagination started feeling so real, and passes out.

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_Bare gray metal flashed past her following the glow of bare bulbs overhead. Arms pumping hard, she ran as fast as her body could move, trying to escape. The end of the hall and a sharp left, the panic built in her chest, desperate for a way out. More and more metal wall flew by in a smooth sheet. As the next turn loomed ahead, her body prepared for another sharp turn. _

_He stood there, like always, waiting for her with that soft twisted lift to his mouth. And like always, she still didn't see it coming, the shock slammed her into a wall. _

_Recoiling, she tried to escape back the way she came only to stumble over her own legs and land on her ass. She scrambled backwards like a crab watching Leoben advance, her breath coming in ragged sobs. Finally flipping over, she managed to get to one knee and immediately collapsed in on herself. _

_Lee smiled down at her. It was the smile she secretly loved, sweetly genuine and usually given in those quiet moments of rosters and bad coffee. _

_He wasn't supposed to be there; had never been there._

_From behind her she heard Leoben coming._

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Her head bangs onto the deck with a clanging thud that has little bursts of light popping behind her lids. Hands, elbows, legs clatter painfully as she tries to gain purchase on the metal surface. The blankets have tangled around her legs so she has to kick out to get her feet loose. Leaving a blanket trail from her bunk she somehow manages to make it to the head in time, leaving gawkers in her wake. The fiery burn of the alcohol coming back up is somehow soothing like a purging of not only the poison, but also the dreams swirling in her head. She sinks back against the stall waiting for the world to come back into focus.

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She manages to work out most of the after-effects with a punishing run before the flight briefing the next morning, but there's still an ache behind her eyes that keeps her staring out at the stars to soothe them. The vibration of the Viper around her is comforting.

"What do you think you're doing, Kara?" The voice startles and confuses her.

"Say again Apollo?"

Unless he's giving her an order or yelling at her, Lee does his best to pretend she doesn't exist. Not that she doesn't deserve it, but the sudden sound of his voice addressing her as anything other than Starbuck or by her rank is startling.

"Say again?" she repeats.

"Starbuck! Cut the chatter and pay attention," Lee barks back.

She grinds her teeth together, fists squeezing around the stick.

"Roger that," she hisses back. "Frak you very much," she mutters under her breath and goes back to staring at the stars.

The maneuver is yet another readiness exercise. This time she's supposed to chase Hot Dog and pretend he's actually giving her a run for her money. She snickers lightly to herself. Hot Dog may have helped them all get off New Caprica, but he still can't fly for shit. In her ear, Apollo is outlining who's doing what. When he gets to her call sign, she can hear the obvious distaste in his voice. She sighs and tunes it out.

"I'm sorry for what happened with Kacey," he says. She's too surprised to respond, her mouth falling open and eyes narrowing.

"You should have told me about the Farm you know. Keeping secrets hasn't done you any good before. Why would it do you any good now?"

"Where do you get off?" she explodes. "Keep the frak out of my business!"

"Starbuck! What the frak is your problem?" Apollo's screaming in her ear now and she can't figure out what the hell is going on. "That's it! You're off this flight. Report back to Galactica! Now! I'll see you in my office at 16:00."

"You got it, Major! Looking forward to it," she snarls back before yanking hard on the stick and flipping herself around.

Her viper screams out of the group sliding narrowly between two others and causing the pilots to yelp in alarm. She reminds herself to breathe in, breathe out, try to focus. When she's finally back on the deck, she can only sit in her bird as she shakes uncontrollably. The deck hand peers up at her nervously as it becomes more obvious that she's not getting out.

"Captain?"

Tyrol's leaning on the ladder looking at her with genuinely concerned eyes. After scrutinizing her face for a moment, he turns and calls for Cally. Together, they manage to pull her out of the cockpit. Once her feet are under her on the solid metal, she gives them both a jerky nod and strides away as fast as her feet will take her.

Later, when Apollo's screaming in her face, pushing as many buttons as he can find, her fist itches to slam into his face. Somehow she holds back until she can find a bottle and starts a brawl in the rec room instead. She'd rather sleep in the brig tonight than her empty bunk anyway.

The Marine on duty doesn't even look up from the book she's reading, only hands a clipboard over along with a pen and says, "Your favorite cell is open, Starbuck. If you want me to lock you up later, I can." The Marine glances up for a moment with a suggestive smirk.

"How 'bout we get kinky next time, Murphy," she slurs before handing back the clipboard.

Murphy snorts. "Your loss. I can do some amazing shit with just a pair of hand cuffs."

Kara's right middle finger greets the amused Murphy from next to her buttocks as she continues into her cell for the night. Turning back to her book, Murphy chuckles softly.

"Night Starbuck. Sweet dreams."

She kicks off her boots as she pulls the cell door closed behind her. The rack isn't comfortable, a too thin mattress, but it's warm enough, and she sleeps a drunken, blissfully dreamless, sleep.

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Pushing open the hatch the next morning, she's accosted by the noise of too many people in too small an area. For a moment, she wants to turn around and go straight back to hack because at least there she gets some form of privacy. She sighs and heads for her locker. Jerking it open, she reaches for her kit bag, only to stop cold. Glittering faintly in the light, her dog tag and Zak's ring are hanging from a hook, staring her right in the face. She stares at them for a long moment before taking them down and replacing the chain around her neck with a trembling hand. Exhaling heavily, she finally grabs her kit and a towel. Her maintenance shift starts in an hour and she desperately needs to clean last night's drinking binge off her skin. The locker closes with a snap, and she climbs over someone's legs, heading out. She stops abruptly when she sees him. Leaning against the hatch, arms crossed, is her ghost.

She knows it's him and not the real Lee – his hair is longer, his jacket unbuttoned carelessly, and the tightness etched around the real Lee's eyes is missing. After returning to the Fleet with everything so broken, including Lee and the Admiral, she almost missed the warped image of Lee she'd created on New Caprica.

Almost.

Someone is calling her, telling her to get out of the way because there are too many people and not enough space to just stop, but she can't force herself to move. There's something wrong about the way he's looking at her. His smile is off, dangerous, and his eyes are menacing as he holds her gaze. He's as alien now as he is familiar. Abruptly the hatch swings open, another body trying to shove into the cramped room, and he's gone. A heavy feeling settles in her belly and a voice in her mind tells her that this is not going to end well.

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Now that she's seen him, really seen him, he's everywhere. She would call him an imaginary friend, but that's more troubling than the fact she sees him at all. When Sam had walked away Lee, the wrong Lee, had walked out of the dark to stand behind her. Neither had said anything as the minutes ticked by until finally, she went to bed. Although he still seemed like a dream and nightmare mixing together, his presence had been comforting. It's never obvious when he'll suddenly show up or if he'll be in a talking mood. Now she grits her teeth and listens to him quietly murmur to her while she's under a Viper working on the fuel line.

"How's Sam?" He starts off strong this morning hitting on his favorite topic. After a week, she thought he would've found more creative questions to ask. She ignores him.

"Oh right. It's not Sam anymore," he chuckles lightly.

Squeezing her eyes shut for a moment she chants in her head, before opening her eyes and trying to think about hose clamps and hose degradation: _Go away. Go away. Go away._

"Poor guy. I'm sure he's probably ready to throw you out an airlock now too," he cuts into her thoughts.

She changes her chanting to _Die. Die. Die._ hoping he'll get the hint. Chancing a stolen glance from the corner of her eye she can see he's smirking, the wrongness still there. She rolls her eyes.

"Come on Kara. I'm here because you want me here. I'm here to help," he says cheerfully in a voice of the sweetest psychotic honey.

"That's what I'm afraid of," she hisses through her teeth. "I don't need your help. Just disappear or whatever you do. I don't need you anymore."

She works hard to keep her voice quiet. She's already treading dangerously close to insanity with this ghost ready to push her over the edge. The real Lee would be more than happy to ground her pending a psych eval if he found out she was holding conversations with herself. And there was no question of her survival without flight.

He chuckles softly.

"You need me more than ever Kara."

Dropping her wrench in exasperation she stares him down. "Oh yeah? Well then where the frak were you when I needed you? Huh? Where the frak were you? Think it was funny to sit back and watch me do what I do best – killing people has always been a good time. Only this time they came with whooshy sound effects. They deserved to die. Some of those traitors still live here, on this ship, walking around as though the Cylon occupation never happened. Damn it! I needed you then, so why weren't you there!"

He doesn't bother to answer.

"Damn straight," she mutters and begins to turn back to the Viper's underbelly.

He reaches out a finger hesitantly before gently pushing back a strand of hair from her forehead. She feels the very real heat of his skin, the friction of his finger pad grazing her. She sucks in a ragged breath before exhaling the softest, _please_. He holds her gaze for a moment before sitting back, shifting farther away from her into the shadows created by the viper on the hanger wall. Shaking her head to clear her thoughts she rubs the palms of her hands into her eyes and, although it does nothing to get rid of him, she picks up her wrench and gets back to work.

"You're breaking apart," he says matter-of-fact.

Thinking _'Yeah? And?'_, she grunts with the effort of removing a particularly sticky bolt.

"What about Leoben?"

She freezes, unsure of where he's going with this.

"Not to say you aren't handy with sharp edges, but it sure can't keep a good Cylon down. He believes in that special destiny crap."

"Do you have a point?" she growls. The mention of her 'special destiny' – because of course she couldn't just have the garden variety kind - fuels the little spark of anger and fear she keeps trying to stomp out.

"Could be the toaster has one. A point I mean. What if you are special? What if there's something you're supposed to do?"

"Now I know I'm crazy." Pulling on the fuel line, she shoots him a look under her arm. "If I can think for one frakked-up second that a psychotic piece of mechanical shit might be right about my destiny."

Tugging harder on the line trying to free it from its constraints, she rolls her eyes at him and mutters under her breath. "I'm out of my frakking mind."

There's a blessedly long silence before he starts speaking again in a low, urgent voice.

"Damnit Kara. Imagine for just one second, _one second_, that Leoben could be right."

The hose flies free and she nearly falls backwards. It only serves to make her angrier.

"Drop it!" she yells, remembering too late that she needs to keep her voice down. Quickly looking around her she drags the hose from the Viper's belly as though it were a human organ. Most people ignore her outburst, too busy with their own tasks. Those that do turn in her direction don't give her more than a passing glance, checking only for an emergency before turning away.

"Drop it, all right?" Her voice is a barely audible hiss in her throat. "There is no _special destiny_. Leoben doesn't know a godsdamned thing except how to frak with people's heads and boy, is he damned good at that. I have you for proof."

Her hands work from muscle memory, moving deftly over the small fissures in the fuel line and patching them as needed. She pins him with a look which would kill a lesser man; or hallucination.

"My special destiny includes only one thing: killing as many toasters as I can before they kill me. That's it."

They stare at each other for a long, tense moment. Finally, he looks away. It's obvious the war isn't over, but she's at least won this skirmish. She tries to concentrate on the hose patches.

"Just consider it. I'm not asking you for anything more. Well, except one other thing."

Her shoulders round up in a faint shrug of acknowledgement. At this point, she's barely listening.

"I'm here for you Kara." A shiver slides down her spine without her permission. "I'm here for _you_; for whatever reason that is. But I can only do so much. You've got to watch your step. Trying to get yourself killed with stupid stunts and alcohol poisoning won't get rid of me. Who knows? Maybe _I'm_ part of your special destiny."

A cynical half smile tugs at her lips.

"If you can't keep it together, well . . . you're no good broken," he adds.

It feels like she's been slapped, and the smile dies.

"Captain?"

A bleary eyed Cally is peering at her sideways. The voice startles her, but she manages to contain it.

"Yeah, what?" Kara doesn't turn around and continues working while trying to regain her composure. Callyshrugs back.

"Oh, Chief just wanted me to let you know when you're done here he could use some help with the CAG's viper. Complaining about slow response from navigation."

"Yeah, Cally. I'll check in with him." Mercifully, the girl retreats without another glance, probably heading off to the next crisis.

"I need a frakkin' vacation," she sighs as she reclines. "And shut up. Not a word from you." The Gods must be listening to her for once because he remains silent. He's gone when she looks up.

It's another thirty minutes before she's menaced the fuel line into compliance and can call it finished. He hasn't reappeared leaving her to try to focus on the fuel line. Try not to focus on whether he's coming back. She sighs bodily as she heaves herself to her feet. Wiping her hands on a rag she wanders over to find the Chief.

"No Figurski! I don't give a frak how many hours you've been on duty. I don't have another person to spare. You'll get your rack time in another hour just like the rest of your shift. Now get the hell back to work!"

Still covered in dust, and possibly still wearing the clothes he escaped in, the Chief looks worn down to the bare metal. Figurski stalks off swearing under his breath. Kara changes her path so the Chief sees her coming straight on. The last thing she needs is to be on the receiving end of Tyrol's wrath when he finally snaps. Taking him by surprise might increase the chances.

"Chief. Cally said you have a bird you want me to look at?"

"Captain. Yeah." Tyrol shakes his head at the floor before looking at her.

If she's breaking apart, Tyrol doesn't look much better. They haven't talked about it of course. By some unspoken agreement the survivors don't discuss what happened on the planet amongst themselves. People don't sit down and have heart-to-hearts about who died, what those who lived did to stay that way. There's a feeling that eventually something's going to snap, but for now she and Tigh get drunk and spout venom at the crew. She looks the Chief over and wonders what he's doing to let off some of the pressure.

"The CAG was complaining about slow nav response. I've had the comm officer look at it, but I was hoping you could take a look as well. Give it a quick pre-flight test. If it checks out, maybe you could take it on a short test run too." He stops abruptly and rubs his forehead with a large hand.

She nods in response looking away from him out across the deck at the people hurrying around like so many ants.

"Don't worry Chief," she says without looking at him. "I'll take a look at it. Have it up and ready to kill off some toasters in no time."

They stand quietly for several moments listening to the sounds of the ship around them before she makes a low sound in her throat and walks away.

Her fingers skim along the Viper's nose cataloging the myriad scrapes, dents, and singed near-misses. Lee's probably in meetings or re-working CAP rotations; maybe sharing a moment -- Jerking herself out of the thought, she hauls herself up the ladder to get to work - and nearly falls off when she finds Lee sitting in it.


End file.
