Work Text:
Title: Beginning of a Legend
Author: Nebulous1, presented by Brimstone Harpy.
Pairing: Mostly Kara POV, but Lee's around...
As for spoilers: I'm pretty sure if you saw the episode where Starbuck punches Tigh, you should be alright, and if you haven't seen it yet, you need to watch more TV, you weirdo. Apologies in advance if I am incorrect...
"Please be careful with me, I'm sensitive and I'd like to stay that way..."
- Quote from Jewel
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The Beginning of a Legend
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Per orders, a recalcitrant Starbuck reported to the brig, scowling at the, "What? Again?" look of disbelief on the young Marine guard's ultra clean-shaven face.
"What's the charge, Sir..?" he asked, sounding somehow...resigned?
She brusquely signed in with a few well-practiced flourishes and a couple checkmarks in the appropriate little boxes on the incident report.
"I publicly struck Colonel Tigh after a verbal altercation," she stated almost matter-of-factly...
"Nice," he sighed wearily, rolling his eyes. "Uh...Sir," he added hastily.
"I assume you know the procedure by now, Lieutenant?" his voice became briskly professional.
Kara stalked over to the enclosure she usually favored and faced the bars, placing her hands wide apart high above her head and spreading her feet shoulder-width apart.
Scrupulously following procedure, (Like she might attack him or something? She rolled her eyes. Marines!) he unlocked and opened the cell door, gesturing her inside with ironic courtesy, "Enjoy your stay, Sir."
Once incarcerated, she began pacing, counting steps silently, 1,2,3,4,5,6 -turn- 1,2,3,4,5,6 -turn- 1,2,3...
"Sir?" From where he was sitting behind the desk, the guard hesitantly broke the silence, "I was just wondering if I could ask you a question, off the record?"
"What IS it?" she muttered through clenched teeth, trying her best to simmer down from the earlier fight.
*Do NOT kill the nice young man, Kara - Do NOT kill the nice...*
"No disrespect, Sir, but it seems like I spend a bit of time around you lately... I don't have anything against you - you've always been perfectly compliant in here...but WHY are you always doing this to yourself?"
There is a distinctly tigerish gleam in her narrowed green eyes as she growls, "Do you REALLY think that's any of your business, Corporal?"
"No, Sir, it's not," he acknowledges with surprising respect, "but you just don't seem the type to get into a fight without damn good reason, especially right before the decommissioning ceremony...There has to be something that..."
"Do we HAVE to talk about this? Because I really DON'T see what that would accomplish," she stated flatly, knowing at this point that her lodging a complaint, no matter how justifiable, would only make matters worse. Doing an about-face, she retreats sullenly to the illusory 'privacy' of the bunk.
The guard rises from his seat and comes to stand at the bars, "Permission to speak freely, Sir?"
Kara lunges up from the bunk like a striking snake, but the earnest look on his young face stops her cold for some odd reason. She snarls, "IF YOU MUST, get it over with! WHAT?"
"Sir, a minute ago you were pacing around in there like crazy...I KNOW you're probably bored out of your skull. Hell, I would be...and I wish I could sneak you a deck of cards or something, but I can't... I'm just trying to help pass the time is all..."
At her highly dubious expression he nevertheless continued sincerely, "I guess what I'm trying to say, Sir, is there's really no reason you have to just sit and "suffer in silence," maybe it would help to just vent, or even talk about something else? You outta know I wouldn't say anything about it to anyone..."
"And I gotta tell you, Sir, I get bored too...you know? We could just...talk a little, if you want? Unless you have something better to do?" he smiled disarmingly sweetly at her.
Amused at his fumbling bravery she decides to meet him where he stands outside her bars, "Alright, Corporal... Venner, right? Let's chat...What would you like to talk about, besides me?"
"Yessir! That's me! And we don't HAVE to talk about you, Sir...if you don't want to, but I really WAS serious about what I asked before..."
She laughs wryly, "About why do I do this? Well, probably for the same reasons as most people, sometimes it's from drinking...sometimes someone just pisses me off...No big secret, sorry to disappoint..."
"Well, Hell," he says, forgetting the 'Sir', but she doesn't really care. "The drinking I can understand, been there myself..." he shudders at the blurry remembrances.
"But YOU'RE not drunk, Lt." and suddenly he seems uncomfortably knowing as he looks her directly in the eyes.
"Maybe I'm just a delinquent," she fires back defensively, "Have you considered that I might LIKE fighting? I'm a screw-up, kid, from WAY back! So keep your distance, it might be catching!"
She winks at him with sarcastic humor, but her mouth is twisted wrong for the expression, pulling downwards at the edges.
His young/old eyes aren't fooled. "A delinquent, huh? Just...like fighting?"
"LOVE it...!" she assured him with an insolent smirk.
His grin is conspiratorial..."Okay, you can shoot me later if you want, Sir, but I HAVE to ask, do YOU actually know how many times you've BEEN in jail?"
*She SHOULD reach through the bars and strangle the insubordinate little (well, BIG) idiot! So why isn't the question pissing me off?* she wonders...
Maybe she's just finally conceded that she might as well flush what's LEFT of her reputation out an airlock, or down the cell commode...*Frak it!*
She finds herself answering him, "Honestly? No, probably not...I haven't tried counting, for one thing... but the alcohol consumption alone should've killed off some of those brain cells I wasn't using for anything important anyway..." she admits.
Her half-smile slips away as she murmurs to herself: "Sometimes it's better to forget..."
"Party girl, huh? Learn that along with the rest of the Academy curriculum?"
*Pushing your luck, aren't ya, guy?*
"Nope!" her smile was back, but it wasn't pleasant. "I was already well on my way, thank you!"
Her half-smile was tolerant, like a patiently waiting feline as the kid pursued the topic, oblivious to his increasing peril...
"Oh Gods!" he groaned, shaking his head ruefully.
"Trou-ble...! Just how young WERE you the first time you got busted?"
At her ominously raised eyebrow he hastily explained, "No offense, Sir, I just couldn't help wondering..." he trailed off, half-pleadingly.
She heard the *Please don't EAT me?* implicit in his voice and pressed the point home...
"As I recall, Corporal, you've forgotten to call me 'Sir' at least -three- times in the last five minutes of this bizarre little discussion, WHY are you bothering now?"
"I'm SORRY, Sir!" He's at rigid attention instantly, "I just...What do YOU want me to do, Sir?"
*NOW he was getting nervous, smart boy!* she applauded him internally.
*Oh Hell...She just didn't FEEL like playing with his nerves, he was a nice guy and at least he meant well... and even SHE got tired of maintaining the rep all the time!*
Her voice smoothed down to nearly pleasant. "How much time left on your shift, Venner?"
"I just came on thirty minutes before you showed up, Sir, I got nuthin' but time," he offered hopefully, with a shrug of large-muscled shoulders.
"Drop the 'Sir', for now, kid; it's too damn much like work at the moment." She sat down on the floor, motioning for him to sit as well. He dragged over a chair for himself as she made herself comfortable, leaning against the bars in the corner to stretch her legs out lengthwise.
"The first time I got arrested...that WAS memorable," her acid-laced saccharine voice was typically self-mocking.
"Tell you a story, huh?" she snickered. "Well, it's your LUCKY day, Corporal...I think I WILL tell you that story... FIRST, you have to give me one of your smokes, I KNOW you have some - AND you'll promise me on your sorry carcass that it doesn't leave this room or you WILL die an -ugly- death! Swear?"
"I swear, Sir," he grinned, looking absurdly like a giant 10 year old boy, as he fished out his pack and lit a cigarette, passing it to her through the bars, "With a warning like that, this HAS to be good!"
"Well," she began, exhaling her first puff from the cigarette languorously. "You probably won't believe all this when I tell it to you, but I swear on my Viper every single word of it's absolutely true!"
"AND, you smartass..." She flicked a cigarette ash at her rapt audience of one. "I wasn't nearly as young as YOU obviously think the first time I got arrested either! Just because I said I was already drinking, -doesn't- mean I was dumb enough to get CAUGHT!
"Believe it or not, the very FIRST time I was ever arrested...I was a first year Cadet on scholarship at the Academy...so I was -actually- being VERY careful NOT to get into any trouble and frak up my one good chance to fly...
"I also had a friend there, Lee, who was a year ahead of me. He was SUCH a tight-ass about keeping me on task and out of mischief - I doubt I even so much as -sneezed- without him knowing about it for the first half of that semester! He was worse than a Dad!
"People started thinking we were dating just because we were always giving each other crap and hanging out... Hell, Lee and his brother Zak and I knew each other from a few summers together as kids...We'd always been like that, just friends.
"We were the kind of friends who liked to torment each other all the time by pulling atrocious pranks and competing ferociously on almost anything - just to have the pleasure of mocking the loser unmercifully, but friends...People just didn't get it."
Her guard raised an eyebrow silently, either in disbelief that they really were 'just friends', or in skepticism that the antics she described could be considered at all friendly!
*Doesn't matter...* She stubbed out the cigarette on the floor of her cell.
"Apparently, there was a fund-raiser every year for the Scholarship Fund, where you could pay to have people arrested on trumped-up charges and brought before a kangaroo court with pretend lawyers and a 'Judge'. The jury was made up of anyone who was on lunch or break, or could make some time to come watch it and heckle the prisoners. A perfect opportunity to harass the nuggets, of course...so it had become an Academy tradition."
He nodded; some hazing was always expected...all part of the experience in any Colonial military branch...
"Naturally, being first year, I wasn't told anything about it - so I was very surprised to say the least, when the MPs came into my work area to 'arrest' me on a charge of, get this... "Insubordinate mouthiness! ME?" She grinned cheekily, remembering it...
He smiled too...*She probably was!*
"I was duly notified that I was being taken into custody - pending a trial - because someone had paid to have me arrested on the charge. I would be allowed to meet my attorney in court, where I could decide if I wanted to pay the fine assigned, or attempt to argue the case. If I was declared 'guilty', I might face either jail time or a potentially larger 'donation' to bail myself out!"
"The whole time he was reading my 'civil rights', all I could think was, 'SOMEONE is gonna GET IT for this!'
"I had a test scheduled for later in the afternoon and this bullshit sounded like it would probably take quite a while, if not ALL DAY! Frak! I JUST KNEW I was going to miss the test for sure!
"But they hauled me off anyway, along with quite a group of us they collected from that building. It wasn't just nuggets they nabbed either, there were 2nd year Cadets, supervisors, even an instructor! Everyone else seemed to think it was hysterically funny."
"While we were being 'escorted' in a group out to the waiting squad cars with our hands cuffed in front of each of us, I had an idea that sounded like TOO much fun!... I was pretty sure they couldn't actually get me in trouble for it, since I knew it was all a joke, so I decided to play the game back! They probably hadn't really thought about anyone resisting... so I was going to try to escape!" *huge grin!*
"The cuffs were really loose and I happen to have very small, flexible wrists and hands...and we weren't even cuffed to -each other- at all, so I just slipped the cuffs right off and tapped the officer in front of me on the shoulder politely..."
"Excuse me, you dropped these." I handed him the cuffs and began to casually walk away."
"WAIT-A-MINUTE!!!! You! - The blonde! CADET! Back here! NOW!"
"Heeeee!" she laughs, looking more impishly childlike than the disbelieving Corporal could have imagined the ballsy pilot was capable of being...
"Well, I tried," I figured, so I let him cuff me again and they crammed us all into the back of three squad cars and started driving us to the base jail...
"I'm looking down at my hands while everyone is chattering, and I noticed that the MP hadn't put the cuffs on very tight the second time either, not TOO tight anyway...It was all for fun, so he probably wasn't really trying to.
"By the time we pulled up, I had them off again. I got out of the car with the last group, dropping the cuffs over the front seat so I wouldn't have them on me if anyone looked..."
She was truly enjoying the scandalized expressions on the guard's face, hearing about the ineptitude of his law enforcement brethren...
"I just kept my hands together and walked close to the person ahead of me, hoping to sift myself out of the group in the hallway inside and blend. From all the cars parked, it had to be packed in there...If anyone asked me, I'd tell them I wasn't arrested, see? No cuffs."
She could swear the overgrown kid almost looked indignant, like she'd admitted to plotting the same trick on him!
*Oh, shit...this is fun!*
"Anyway, I didn't get to try it because halfway to the entrance, one of the guys must've been watching me a little closer now, because he noticed I'd slipped the cuffs again. Frak it!"
The Marine couldn't help but look a little smug as she told him the officer had put -another- pair on her, TIGHTLY this time and he'd been playing the tough-guy role to the hilt, growling intimidatingly at her to "Leave-those-on!"
"So," she continued reminiscing, "I tried to act suitably subdued..."
*SNORT* from her audience, and, "Yeah, right!" under his breath.
"We were all led to this big conference room at the far end of the hallway, where we joined another group of people already waiting for their trial ticket to come up. In all, there must have been about twenty five of us, I think.
"Everyone's cuffs were taken off. A -mistake- I assure you!" she winked wickedly at him. "The officers left, closing the door to the room. There we all were, great, lovely. I was pretty surprised there were so many detainees... This crap really WAS going to take ALL day!
"Since people weren't offered the chance to plea bargain out until they went to court, where they'd -finally- meet their lawyer, we had no choice but to sit around waiting and talking...but I was insanely BORED and thinking about missing that test was driving me nuts!
"So I seriously started thinking that maybe I should go ask the guard at the door if I could go to the bathroom - just so I could try to escape again if there was a window or something in there, or maybe an exit door close by... It'd be frakkin' great if I could manage it, and maybe I'd even be able to sneak back in time to still take my test!"
The young Marine just shook his head at her with a smirk, already knowing without a doubt that particular line of escape would fail!
*Been tried, lady - TOO many times, NO WAY IN HELL!*
"By then I was determined, because you know they trained us to -never- accept being a hostage, to always try to escape...and it probably sounds really paranoid or stupid, but I was starting to think of it as a personal challenge, kind of a self-test to see if I could do it...
"Whoever the frak had paid to get me locked up, was going to get their money's worth of trouble, BIG time! I WAS going to escape, just to be a pain in the ass about it! Besides, this was starting to be...FUN!"
A roll of his eyes and a disapproving little twist to his lips was her only response... *Naughty, naughty!*
"Well, I knocked on the door, and I waited...but no one answered. So I tried the handle and was VERY surprised to find wasn't locked...To be safe, I turned it slowly so nobody outside would think I was trying anything funny...just in case. I cracked open the door a little bit to peek out and ask... but there wasn't anybody there!"
The guard's jaw went slack, "Naw!"
"Yup!" she giggled, drumming her feet on the floor. "NO ONE was even guarding the door! And I'm thinkin', "OOOOOH! I just got a BAD idea!!!"
The young man smacked a hand to his forehead. "Oh Gods..." he muttered with his eyes closed in denial, "you didn't...?"
"The Hell I didn't!" she shot back with perverse pride. "I -carefully- closed the door until it was open just a crack and kept my hand on the knob... I turned around and told everyone, "Shhhh! Hush up and listen to me!
"I whispered that I'd just checked the door, and it was NOT locked, AND there wasn't a guard AT ALL!!! Wouldn't it be funny as Hell if we all took off?!
"Oh CRAP! Everyone was DYING, cracking up and trying to stifle each other to keep QUIET!!!
"People started raising hands to count themselves in, and within seconds, we'd ALL decided to run for it! I mean, REALLY - what could they do to us? Catch us again?
"So we ALL bunched up, right against the door, and I peeked out again VERY slowly...there was STILL no one watching us...I held up the hand that wasn't on the doorknob and I silently finger-counted, 1 - 2 - 3!"
>>BOOM!>World-shaking revelation honey!