Title: One Second

Author: Lex Tenou

Fandom: Battlestar Galactica

Pairings: Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace/President Laura Roslin

Ratings: R for language

Warnings: No worse language or themes then seen in an episode. General spoilers for the series in general through the beginning of the second season.

Disclaimers: Battlestar Galactica's new revisioning belongs to the Sci Fi channel. I make no profit.

Author's Notes: Lyrics by Sarah Bettens

What if we had one second to be
Just like the other what would we see?
What if you knew exactly what you are to me?
Would you be terribly surprised
To see who I am in my actual size?
A second is short, but more then enough
You would feel loved, you would feel loved...

Feedback Email Address: haruka_spork@hotmail.com

Of all my ill-advised attachments, you are all at once the sanest and the one that's the most frakking nuts. You are perfectly unattainable, divided from me by rank and gender, and yet...you are the only one who sees me as I am, not as I used to be.

The fact that we never met before the Colonies were destroyed is an added bonus...and burden.

If they hadn't attacked us in their sneaky, backstabbing fraktard way, we would most likely ever have met. The gratefulness I feel fraks with my mind. I'll never know Caprica again. I will NEVER see the sun set over those hills again. Millions of people will never know what it is to die of old age...and I'm frakking grateful.

Last headcount was forty eight thousand two hundred and fifty one. Sometimes, I look at you and I feel like that one.

Frak.

This doesn't so anything for me. What would do something for me would be if I could know...your taste...your fears...your dreams. If I could know you, inside and out...

You look at me, SEE me and I feel so gods-be-damned EXPOSED...you make me vulerable. I want you to hold me and tell me that me and my bird help you sleep at night. I want to know what it is to be content. I need to know what it is to be loved, honestly and intensely.

The prophecies tell of our dying leader, our gruff father that is the Commander. They said nothing about the Blackbird becoming entranced.

Do you have any idea what sort of frakking effect just seeing you has one me? I...

It doesn't take much to realize that I've fallen for you. It's distinctly different, and yet all at once eerily, scarily familiar. I can't explain it anymore than I could tell you what flying my Blackbird is like. I try to put it into simplistic, inadequate words, and they run from me. It's like trying to describe the Caprican sunset to someone who's never been able to see. I could show you...but there's no way I'd ever get clearance. Let's just ignore your total indifference.

Motherfrakker!

I can't ever tell anyone any of this, you realize that? It can't even be our secret...it has to remain mine alone. I can't even imagine what new level of indifference you'd show me if you suddenly knew what stirred in my black heart.

Frakking millions dead and I'm grateful because I get to see you sometimes smile.

Part of me is tempted to tell you just so you know that you are loved beyond reason and sanity. Gods, would you care anymore if I died in the next raid? If suddenly, the Blackbird with your name emblazoned on her heart and on her hull were no longer there? The Commander would. Loss of critical manpower. Then there's that whole daughter thing.

I'm tired. Maybe tonight, I won't dream of a blissful falsehood, filled with your eyes looking at me lovingly. Maybe, for once, I'll be able to wake up and not want to frakking kill someone.

Maybe.

I doubt it, though.