Fic: A Period of Adjustment

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Title: A Period of Adjustment
Author: logopraxis
Characters: Kara, Adama, Helo, ensemble
Spoilers: None, Pre-Miniseries
Rating: PG-13, for language, a little violence, and some bodily fluids
Word Count: 4681
Summary: Kara's first few days on Galactica don't go exactly as planned.

For taragel, who wanted Kara adjusting to life in the military (maybe with some friendly Helo) or excelling at some kind of flying or tactical mission in which she is victorious and saves someone’s bacon and is THANKED FOR IT"

I've changed it slightly so she's adjusting to life on Galactica, but there is some friendly Helo and some victorious excelling, even if the bacon she saves is mostly her own. Enjoy!

Kara was ready to get the frak off Caprica. Out of Delphi. Out of the damned apartment. A few weeks ago she had taken paint and splattered her heart all over the walls with it, made a shrine of the place. The next day her official transfer to Galactica had come through. The battlestar was away on a mission at the time and she couldn't yet report aboard, but ever since then she hadn't been able to look at her own home. Only came back to sleep, didn't turn the lights on in the living room when she did.

But now that was over, done. Galactica was back in orbit, and she would report for duty in the morning. Her bags were packed, her uniform neatly pressed. She would be flying Vipers again - no more teaching. And she would be joining the Adama family after all - not quite the way she'd pictured it, but it would do. And being the Commander's kinda sorta would-have-been daughter-in-law had given her just enough pull to get her friend Helo assigned there with her. Today was a pretty good day. Tomorrow would be better.

The only thing she wasn't looking forward to was the food. Which was all the more reason to enjoy the best Caprica had to offer while she was still here. She and Helo were going to go out with some friends tonight, and she was thinking oysters. Maybe a little ambrosia. See what happens.

***

"Lt. Thrace, Lt. Agathon? Welcome aboard Galactica. I'm Sharon Valerii. I've been instructed to show you the way to CIC."

"How about the way to the nearest head instead?" gasped Kara.

Helo gave her a look. "Come on, Starbuck, you can't hold it till we've reported for duty?"

"Frak you, Helo. I think the motherfrakking oysters just hit me. And since, as you so kindly pointed out before, my uniform is uncharacteristically clean and pretty today, I'd really rather not have to puke all over it."

"It's this way," said Boomer quickly, looking to forestall any further objection from Helo. Halfway down the hall, Kara doubled over, clutching at her mouth and stomach. Helo and Boomer each instinctively grabbed one of her arms and half-dragged her the rest of the way. It wasn't until they had finally got her situated over the toilet, wretching away, that their eyes met over her head and they grinned at each other.

"I hope there's at least a good story behind this," said Boomer.

Helo shrugged. "Just a farewell party gone awry. Pretty tame by Starbuck's standards."

"You were there too, I take it?" she asked. He nodded. "So why aren't you sick?"

"Any food that costs as much as oysters -- it's about quality, not quantity. I know that and she doesn't. I also tend not to accept challenges to eating contests from drunken strangers, as a rule."

Boomer's eyebrows went up. "Well, Lt. Thrace," she said, "I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to seeing you in full form or not." In response, Kara looked up briefly, then just heaved again.

Helo chuckled. "Never a dull moment with this one."

"Hey, frak you guys," said Kara, finally sitting up and shifting to lean her head against the wall of the stall.

"You better?" asked Helo. "Need some water?"

"I'll get it," Boomer said as she slipped away.

Kara slowly shook her head and said in a flat voice, "I don't know. I just need a minute to rest. You should go ahead. I've made you late enough as it is."

"Kara, don't be an idiot," said Helo. "I'm not going without you. You just puke as much as you need to."

Kara rolled her eyes, then hurriedly pushed herself up and planted herself over the toilet bowl again. "I'll try to make it snappy," she said, before diving back in.

"You better," said Helo, just as Sharon got back with the water.

***

They eventually got her on her feet in the hallway, and Helo went back to fetch their gear from the loading bay, where they had dropped it in a hurry earlier. Sharon was just attempting to fix Kara's hair while Kara leaned a little shakily against the wall, too demoralized to fend her off, when Colonel Tigh walked around the corner.

"Lt. Valerii, what the hell is this?" he growled. "We were expecting you and the new pilots in the CIC half an hour ago."

"We had an, um, a medical emergency, sir," said Sharon.

Tigh's attention shifted to Kara, and he gave her a skeptical onceover. "You're Thrace, I assume?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then tell me, Lt. Thrace, since when has a hangover counted as a medical emergency?"

"I ate some bad oysters," she said, adding as an afterthought, "Sir."

"Oysters," he repeated flatly. "Lieutenant, are you aware that public drunkenness is sufficient grounds for you to be cited for dereliction of duty?"

"Sir, I've already told you, I'm not drunk. And if you want to get all technical about it, I'm not technically on duty either -- not until I've reported to the Commander."

"Well then maybe it's about time for you to get your asses down to CIC, isn't it?"

"We were just headed that way, sir," said Helo, walking up with both his and Kara's bags slung over his shoulders. "They were just
waiting for me to go grab something I'd forgotten in the shuttle."

"Agathon, right?" said Tigh. "Welcome to Galactica. Don't get too comfortable here. None of you are likely to be around long." And with that he stalked off.

"What was that about?" asked Helo.

"Frak me," Kara sighed. "Now he thinks I'm a drunk, and pretty soon the Commander is going to think so too."

Boomer said, "If it makes you feel any better, he's a total hypocrite. Col. Tigh has no room to call anyone else out for drinking. At all."

"And to be fair, Kara," said Helo with a smile in his eyes, "you are kind of a drunk."

She didn't smile back. "Helo, don't laugh at me. This is important."

And he looked her in the eye, serious again. "I know. Kara, I know."

And Boomer, realizing there was something going on here that she didn't understand, decided that all she could do was call them
back to practical concerns. "So, how about we get down to the CIC? You ready, Starbuck?"

***

"Lt. Kara Thrace, reporting for duty, sir," she said.

"Lt. Karl Agathon, reporting for duty, sir," he said.

Adama returned their salutes. Tigh had already made it back to CIC, and had clearly made his report, because Adama began with, "I hear you're not feeling well, Lt. Thrace. Do you need to go to sickbay?"

Kara tried to grin, but it came out wrong -- pained. "No, sir," she said. "I'm fine, thank you."

He nodded. "In that case, Lt. Valerii will show you to your racks. And once you've dropped your gear, you can report to Major Spencer for your assignments. Welcome aboard," he said, by way of dismissal.

They went. Adama's eyes followed Kara out. She didn't see it, but Tigh did, and he leaned close to grumble in the Old Man's ear.

"I know what she means to you, Bill, but you can't let her get away with reporting for duty drunk. That is totally unacceptable behavior in an officer."

"Look who's talking," said Adama, not deigning to make eye contact with Tigh.

"I drink, Bill, yeah. But never on duty."

"We don't know that she was drinking. She says it's oysters, maybe it's oysters."

"You read her file. With a disciplinary record like that, what are the chances that she's not going to be a discipline problem here too?"

"I read her file. It said she was a discipline problem, and even if she was drinking, then all it means is that she is exactly as advertised. It also said she's the best damn pilot the Academy has ever seen. If that's true too, then I don't see that we have a problem here."

"Bill, this is about Zak. You know it is. You don't want to question your son's taste in women now that he's gone, I get that. I just don't want to see you lose your judgment over your feelings for this woman. It's not good for anyone -- least of all you."

Adama took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "It's not about Zak," he said. Tigh started to protest, but Adama stopped him. "No, Saul, I'm not saying you're wrong about her. I don't know that yet. But the point is that neither do you. I just want to see what she can do."

"Alright," said Tigh, after a tense pause. "You're the boss. We'll do it your way."

***

Every pilot loses their lunch in the cockpit at least once. It's understood that 6 Gs can do that to a person. But any nugget who keeps vomiting after the first few flights is headed for a washout. No one wants that pilot in a Viper cockpit, least of all the pilot. So those who make it through flight school tend to have pretty solid stomachs.

Kara Thrace had so far been the exception to the rule that everyone pukes once. But today she was pretty sure that was going to change. She could feel the bile burning in her throat as she wheeled through the training exercises. Her mouth watered, and her vision blurred, and she had only just realized that she was coming in too close on the CAG's ass for her combat landing when it happened: she pulled up too fast, and all at once her body expelled everything it had left.

Luckily, that wasn't much at this point. But she had missed the trap and suddenly found herself careening towards the roof of the flight pod at full speed. She had to pull a ludicrously tight corkscrew roll to avoid hitting it, which did nothing for her stomach, but did make the CAG briefly incoherent with rage -- "What the frak, Starbuck! What the frak!" And though she brought her bird in textbook perfect the next time around, despite the film of stomach acid coating the inside of her helmet, this only seemed to convince everyone that she was just screwing around on the first pass.

It was just as well. It wasn't like she really wanted everyone to know she had lost her lunch. The deckhand who tried to take her helmet noticed, of course, but Kara grabbed the helmet out of the young woman's hands as she recoiled. "Look," said Kara, "I'll clean it. Just don't tell anyone, OK?"

And the young woman half grinned. "Don't worry about it," she said. "Happens to me every time we jump. Are you OK?"

But the deck chief called, "Cally!", and, with a shrug, she ran off before Kara could respond.

***

Kara lay in her rack, staring at the ceiling and looking morose. Helo dropped down beside her.

"So, is that your I'm-about-to-barf face, or your generalized-existential-angst face?"

"How about my I'm-about-slug-a-certain-smartass-Raptor-pilot-because-he's-the-only-one-who's-too-stupid-to-report-me-to-the-XO-for-it face?"

"Hey, that's what friends are for, right? You need to slug somebody, go ahead. Just don't expect me not to hit back."

She eyed him for a moment, calculating. "Nah, it'd probably just make me barf." She went back to staring at the ceiling. He waited.
"Dipper put me on Raptor duty," she said, finally.

"You say that like it's a bad thing," said Helo.

"Look, I know Raptors are your thing, Helo. But they're not mine. And honestly, it's just going to be shuttle runs all the time. Even you can't find that exciting."

"Kara, we're not at war. There are no more Cylon heads to bash in. And Galactica is too old to be out patrolling the front lines. It's all just going to be goodwill port calls and humanitarian aid, which means lots of shuttle runs. You knew that when you signed on. And you signed on for a reason, remember?"

Helo watched as a wave of frustration slowly gathered in Kara's muscles and then suddenly exploded as she slammed a fist against the wall of the rack. "I signed on to fly Vipers," she said, through clenched teeth.

Helo looked at the floor. "No, Kara, you didn't." Again he waited for her to speak, but this time, she would not be the one to break the silence. So finally, he asked, "Why don't you go try to talk to him?"

"He's the Commander. I can't just go knock on his door and see if he wants to have a nice chat."

"I couldn't do it. I'm just a new junior pilot whose name he's probably already forgotten. But you could. You told me how well you got along when you met before. And he obviously wants you here."

"That was before I showed up on his ship hungover and then nearly crashed one of his Vipers in an insane attempt to show off what a hot stick I am."

"Kara, you didn't do either of those things. I mean, I'm not about to say you're not a screw up, but even you are not that big a screw up."

"But now he thinks I did. He thinks I am. So I have to show him..."

"...what a hot stick you are?" Helo interrupted. This earned him Starbuck's very best don't-frak-with-me glare, which lasted just long enough for him to seriously think about getting up and getting several large pieces of furniture in between her and him as quickly as possible. But then all at once the glare dissolved into a laugh, a real one, the first he'd heard from her all day, and he laughed with her. "C'mon," he said, "there's a triad game going -- that's what I came to tell you. Time for you get out of bed, meet some new people, and take all their money."

***

One of the pilots was proving surprisingly resistant to the idea of Kara taking all his money. Mailman had come to the game late, even later than Kara, and just sat for two rounds, watching intently as she handily bankrupted everyone else, before he joined in. Clearly he was the reigning card shark on Galactica, and a flurry of interested onlookers came over from the other side of the rec room to watch as soon as he laid down his opening stake.

Kara didn't like him. He was fidgety and blinked a lot and maybe he couldn't help it and Kara shouldn't blame him for it, but his cards were just too frakking good, every hand, and she felt totally justified in hating him for that. So when he called a break and announced with a laugh that he needed to piss, she followed him to the head, and waited for him by the sinks. He gave her a wary look as he came out to wash his hands, but went ahead with his business, looking straight ahead as if she was not there.

"Something wrong, Starbuck?" he asked.

"Yeah, something's wrong." She shot out her hand and locked her hand around his wrist. "I think you've got something up your sleeve."

"I'm wearing a tank, Starbuck. I don't have any sleeves. What, you think I'm hiding cards in my armpits? You want to investigate?"

He raised his free arm over his head so she could see.

She abruptly let go and shoved him back against the sinks. "Look, I don't know how you're doing it," she hissed, "but your cards are too good, and you're a shifty bastard. So if I find out you're dirty, our next little chat about it isn't going to be in the privacy of the head. I'm sure all your friends out there would love to know exactly how you've been cheating them all this time."

At this point the door swung open and in walked the CAG. Kara immediately broke away from Mailman, and the two of them stood at attention.

"Is there a problem here, Lieutenants?" demanded the Major.

"No, sir," Kara responded. Mailman was a little slower in his reply.

"Is that true, Lt. Castor?" the Major asked him.

Mailman hesitated a moment, then flashed a ambiguous sort of grin at Kara, and agreed, "Yes, sir. We were just... getting to know each other, sir."

The CAG did not look convinced. "Good," he said with a hint of a threat in his voice, "I'm glad you're making friends. Starbuck, Mailman is going to be flying as your ECO until further notice."

A spasm of anger flashed over Starbuck's face, but for once in her life she managed to bite her tongue. And Dipper, satisfied with the lack of response, just told them, "As you were," and walked out. Kara glanced over at Mailman and saw that he looked just as miserable as she was, which was at least some consolation.

***

"How come you get the nice one?" she whined at Helo the next morning, when he told her he'd be flying with Boomer.

"Because I'm not insubordinate and insane?" he replied.

"Frak you," she said as they walked to their respective Raptors. "And good hunting."

"Shuttle runs, Kara, remember? We're not hunting anything."

"Maybe you're not," she said.

"Good hunting, then." And she smiled at him as she ducked inside.

***

It was a resupply mission, plain and simple. Pick up some crates from the port building on the surface, and fly back to Galactica. Rinse and repeat. There was no reason for Mailman to be so on edge. She had done her best to put the fear of the gods in him, sure, but this seemed a little excessive. No eye contact, more fidgeting than ever, obsessive checking and rechecking of the cargo lists.

What was really strange was that the two deckhands they had brought along to help with the loading seemed equally obsessive. The were much calmer than Mailman, true, but she still caught them watching her out of the corners of their eyes more often than she was quite comfortable with. Her reputation couldn't have spread so far so fast that knuckledraggers pissed themselves at the sight of her, could it?

For the moment she couldn't think of any better explanation, and it made her a little bit proud. Also frustrated and angry and terrified of a world where everyone thought that about her, but that was below the surface, in parts of her psyche where she didn't like to linger. So she decided to go with proud, and decided to have a little fun with her passengers.

It was a windy day. They hit some turbulence while they were still in atmo, and Kara decided to ride it, challenge herself to navigate through the worst. If they weren't going to let her fly Vipers, she would at least get as much action out of the Raptor as the clunky old thing would give. Everyone else's discomfort was just a side benefit.

"Starbuck, for frak's sake keep it steady," yelled Mailman. "You can't do this while we're loaded down this way." And it was true, the stacks of boxes were rattling and shifting about in back, in way that seemed to alarm the deckhands.

"Can't you get us out of atmo already?" demanded one of them. The tall one, what was his name? Hadley? "Some of this stuff is fragile."

"What's so fragile about canned food and toilet paper?" she called back. "We checked the manifest about twenty billion times, I know that's all we've got."

"But what about us? We're fragile," said the short deckhand.

And at that moment, as if to prove his point, one of the boxes fell to the floor and crashed open. Kara glanced back to see how bad it was, and saw Mailman just staring at her, looking petrified. She glanced back again and saw the deckhands scrambling to gather up what had fallen out: thousands of little white....

"What the frak is that?" yelled Kara.

"It's ah..."

"Medical supplies," interrupted Mailman. "They're fragile, that's why I told you to..."

"No frakking way," said Kara. "We're not supposed to be carrying medical supplies. I frakking know what we're supposed to be carrying! Those are stims. I knew you were dirty, Mailman! I knew..."

"Look out!" he screamed.

In her distraction, Kara had strayed into a heavily trafficked stretch of sky, full of other shuttles on missions like hers, and she had to swerve sharply three times, up, around and under, to miss three different oncoming vessels. Over the com came, "Starbuck, Dipper, what's going on over there?" and they finally broke atmo, coming out into the relative calm of space. "Dipper, Starbuck..." she began, and then she heard the click of a gun next to her ear.

"Don't say anything," said Mailman, and she turned to stare down the barrel of his sidearm. "Give me your weapon."

"You really gonna shoot me, Mailman?" she asked.

"Give it to me," he said.

She slowly reached down to unsnap the holster and hand the gun to Mailman, who passed it back to his accomplices. "If you kill
me, you're going to be in a shitload more trouble than you will be just for running stims. And it's not like you'll be able to cover it up."

"Starbuck, Dipper, respond."

"See?" she said. "They know I'm here. They know you're here. You'll have a hard time explaining it if you land on Galactica and I'm not here anymore."

"Mailman, Dipper, respond."

"I'm not getting court-martialed over this," said Mailman. "So you're not going to tell anyone." But his voice was beginning to shake.

"Why the frak not? You know, I've been court-martialed. It's not so bad. All they did to me was stick me with shitty jobs, like, oh hey, shuttling incompetent drug cartels around. But murder, that's a big one. That one equals at least life in prison. Maybe even the death penalty, if they don't like you."

Mailman was clearly wavering. "You don't have to tell. We can through this junk out into space. It'll burn up in the atmosphere. Nobody has to know."

"Starbuck, Dipper, do you read? Raptor 874, please respond."

Starbuck just fixed Mailman with a stare.

"Castor, man, we can still do this," said Hadley from the back. "We've got connections, places to hide. We lose her, and we run for it."

Just then another Raptor - Dipper's, she guessed - loomed into view through the windshield, and shined a light into the cockpit. It seemed that this made up Hadley's mind at least, because several things happened in quick succession. Hadley fired at Kara, who had just turned her head to look at the Raptor, so the bullet missed her and ricocheted off the window, putting a lattice of hairline cracks in the glass. Kara ducked behind her seat for cover, but before Hadley could shoot again Mailman too made his choice, and fired at Hadley, hitting him in the leg. Hadley was briefly too stunned to react, but the other deckhand quickly jumped Mailman, bringing him down on the floor, where the two struggled for Mailman's sidearm.

Kara, outnumbered and without her gun, used the only weapon she had: the Raptor itself. She dived her bird back into the atmosphere, and swerved, rolled, and shook, making her own turbulence, making it impossible for anyone sitting unrestrained in the back to so much as stay upright, much less to try to kill her.

When she judged everyone was sufficiently shaken, she leveled out without warning, and leapt into the back compartment, where she was able to grab the gun from the shorter deckhand and point it at Hadley's head before anyone else had a chance to respond. Hadley gave up his own weapon without a fight, and for a moment, Kara just stood still, breathing heavily, before she came to herself again.

"Starbuck, Galactica, do you read? Are you alright?"

"You OK, Mailman?" she asked. He just sort of groaned in reply, and she turned to look at him. He was rather bruised but didn't appear to have any major injuries. "Mailman?"

He blinked several times, very quickly, then said, "Yeah, I suppose so," as if he were admitting something shameful.

"OK, then I want you to go up front and fly us back to Galactica. Can you do that?"

He nodded and half crawled his way into the cockpit. Kara followed him slowly, walking backwards so as to keep an eye on the deckhands. She sat in the second seat up front, still facing backward, and picked up the the com transmitter.

"Galactica, Starbuck, we've had a little incident here, but we're coming back in. Request marines to meet us on the flight deck to take some drug traffickers and attempted murderers into custody."

The knuckledraggers just grimaced at this. Mailman said, "Not me too. Please, Starbuck, not me too. I saved your life!"

"You're still a trafficker, just not a murderer," she said, and he looked stricken. "But hey, listen, you did OK. You did good. I'm going to tell them the truth about what happened, but for you at least the truth isn't so bad. OK?"

"Starbuck, this is Galactica actual."

Kara tensed, suddenly anxious in a way she had not been while she had a gun to her head. "Go ahead, actual."

"Are you alright? Any injuries?"

"Just some bruises, sir, nothing serious." A pause. "Oh, and Hadley got shot in the leg, but he seems to be stable."

"Stable, my ass," muttered Hadley.

"What happened out there, Starbuck?"

She paused a moment, wondering where to begin. "It's a long story, boss. But I think it has a happy ending."

"I sure as hell don't," came a comment from the back.

"Shut the frak up," called Kara, making sure to switch off the com first.

"Then I look forward to hearing it," came Adama's voice in her ear. "Just bring in the cat for me, Starbuck."

"I'm sorry, sir? The cat?"

"It's another long story," he said. "I'll tell you when you get back home."

***

There was a certain amount of chaos on the deck as she stepped out of the Raptor. She stopped in the doorway, and gestured at the hostages with her gun, telling them to move out. As the marines put the two under arrest, she explained to the marine sergeant about the stims. Mailman reluctantly shuffled out behind her, and she gave him a hint of a smile. Then she turned to the sergeant and said, "Him too. He was in on it. But I want to put in a good word for him. He helped me in the end."

"Helped you?" Mailman protested as they put the handcuffs on him. "I saved your frakking life!"

"Yeah, OK, he saved my life," she said. And to his back as they marched him away, she called, "Thanks, Mailman. Really!"

And then Helo was sort of tackle-hugging her and saying, "Gods, Kara, when your Raptor went down like that we thought you must be dead. I have never seen a Raptor fly like that and I don't know how you managed to keep it from falling out of the sky, but you're gonna tell me. I'm gonna want details and..."

But the contingent of CAG, Colonel and Commander was approaching, and Kara had to push Helo away to talk to them. There was a moment when none of them spoke. It was the Commander's place to break the silence first, but for a time he seemed satisfied just to study Kara's face.

Finally, he said, "Well, why don't we go back to my quarters and talk about all this over a drink? That is, of course, if you don't need to see a doctor first, Lt. Thrace."

"No, sir. No doctors. I'm think I'm going to be just fine."

-0-

Comments

[ivanolix.livejournal.com]

Aww, Kara, this is so you! Losing it, and then kicking ass and taking names. With BFF Helo always around, of course.

[logopraxis.livejournal.com]

It's true! Kara's entire life is one long saga of alternating ridiculous frak-ups and ridiculous awesomeness.

Thanks for reading!

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Aw I love this story! Poor misunderstood Kara but then she saves the day! Oh and the interaction with Boomer and Helo (and the banter!) is so great.

I loved this part because, yeah I think that's her to a T:

"Frak you," she said as they walked to their respective Raptors. "And good hunting."

"Shuttle runs, Kara, remember? We're not hunting anything."

"Maybe you're not," she said.

Thanks so much!

[logopraxis.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you liked it! I'm rather fond of that particular interaction as well, partly because it pretty much wrote itself. I think "good hunting" is just always the thing Kara says, without even thinking about it. But it's not just a verbal tic - because she really is always hunting something.

[artemis-90.livejournal.com]

Awesome Starbuck bucking all the rules and odds on the first week. That's our girl!

[logopraxis.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I just want to see Starbuck be awesome. Thanks for reading!

[frolicndetour.livejournal.com]

Oh, I like it. I love adventure stories where Kara gets to be awesome, and this is a very believable depiction of what her first days on Galactica might have been like. Love the first interaction with Tigh (that sets the stage for so much else), the friendship with Helo, the great use of that throwaway line about the oysters, and the no-nonsense yet not entirely without compassion way she handled Mailman. Great job!

[logopraxis.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It's nice to hear that you found it believable. I thought it was probably going to be fun, but I was a little less sure about plausible. Especially Mailman! I was originally going to make him a little more villainous than he turned out, but then he kind of grew on me...

[frolicndetour.livejournal.com]

Hee, well, I mostly meant the interpersonal relationship stuff was believable. ;) But hey, with Starbuck, anything's possible right?

[rebelliousrose.livejournal.com]

This is great fun (I've debated a story before where Helo hotdogs a Raptor in similar fashion but never got around to it) and I love how you worked in the oysters.

Good stuff. You have one typo; it's "retched" not "wretched" as to throwing up. (I'm the Human Spell Check.)

[logopraxis.livejournal.com]

I had fun writing it! I'm happy that you had fun reading it too.

(And thanks for the spell check. I noticed a couple other little flubs as well. Oops!)

[jeeshee.livejournal.com]

Love this: the first meetings, the first time Adama says 'bring the cat' and Starbuck saving the day, all great <3 !

[logopraxis.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much!

[rose-griffes.livejournal.com]

Yay, Kara wins all!

[logopraxis.livejournal.com]

In my opinion, Kara always wins all.

[rdave1.livejournal.com]

Our girl sure knows how to make a first impression. Really loved this! I love Kara and Helo friend fics.

[logopraxis.livejournal.com]

First impressions are a specialty of hers, I think :)

Thanks for reading!

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

I am so deeply in love with the Kara-Helo-Boomer interaction. <3 <3 <3

I love that they tried to give Kara something boring and slow, and it still ended in, well, not tears, excitement.

[logopraxis.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much!

"Kara" and "slow" do not belong in the same sentence, unless there's a "never in a million years" in there too.