FIC TITLE: Instrument of the Gods

WIP

Author- PTBvisiongrrl

Part- 1/?

Date- 6-19-07

Rating – R, just to be safe

Pairings/Characters- Lee/Kara, of course!!!!

Word Count- 1765

Category- Short Story

Genre- Angst

Archiving- The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, All others please ask!

Warnings- Not really…

Spoilers- THROUGH FINALE OF SEASON THREE; AU after that

Disclaimers- Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…

Summary- As we know, Kara didn't die in the mandela. But we don't know what happened to her yet- so here's my version. A sequel to my Malestorm Fill-Ins.

I don't want to flood "the market" with Season Four speculative fan-fic, especially as AU as this one. I was toying with the idea of continuing the pregnancy from Maelstorm Fill-Ins, as several readers were slightly disgruntled that the story line was dropped. Let me know what you think (hint, hint, HINT.)

Instrument of the Gods

Chapter One

The world in-between was just as Kara as pictured the Elysian Fields as a child- bright, warm, everyone in white. No one was supposed to be unhappy, or sad. Those who dwelled here were to do so with a certainty in their heart and a complete lack of concern with the world they had left.

Starbuck was unnerved by the place, to say the least. Kara wasn't far behind. And her thoughts never left Lee Adama, Galactica, and the Colonial Fleet. So much for the vision of temple school.

She had wondered, the moment she had let the mandela storm swallow her, what would become of her unborn child. There had been a hint of regret, of the unfairness of it all, before consciousness left her. The priestesses had always taught that the mortal realm and the afterlife were separate; the body did not follow you to heaven. Yet the child did not yet have a viable body of its own. Therefore, she was distinctly displeased and surprised to find herself still pregnant- more pregnant than she had been, in reality- as she wandered the fields in search of those who had arrived earlier than she.

Time was peculiarly still here. It seemed to be frozen, even as she moved, making her way through a small forest in search of someone, anyone, whom she knew. The walk could have been ten miles, or five minutes; her mind simply would not calculate it in terms that she could understand. Time passed unmarked, as if it did not exist, or was of no matter at all. She walked with purpose, but without a plan.

Where was someone she knew? Zak? Her father? Any of the pilots who had died in the war? Arrival at the Elysian Fields was supposed to be a homecoming, a celebration. She had seen no one familiar yet; any other human was simply at too far a distance to attract his or her attention.

The lack of contact began to make her skin crawl, and her mind think the worst. What frakkin Cylon hell had she been pulled into? Where was Leobon? Her mind sprinted down that path; it was at the finish line in the blink of an eye, and she was reaching for a non-existent sidearm while glancing behind every tree for a glint in the sun of a hiding Centurion.

The fear made her sweat, and feel shaky. When an unfamiliar voice laughed from her six, she whirled to meet the enemy.

"Kara!" A younger woman clad in home-spun robes, the style similar to those in ancient artworks, called out. Her tone was reassuring, yet still mysterious. "There are only friends here!"

Military training held on even in the afterlife. "Who are you, and what do you want?" Kara remained tense, ready to spring to action, even ungainly as she was with a suddenly swollen belly.

An older woman, steel gray threads shining through thick blond braids coiled on top of her head like a crown, stepped in front of the younger woman. "I have business with you, Kara."

The younger woman introduced herself. "I am Hestia. I am here to assist you-" she motioned to Kara's belly, which seemed to have grown in inches since the conversation started- "with anything you need." She smiled widely at Kara, inspiring confidence.

"I don't know either of you." Kara suddenly doubled over in pain, although she managed to keep herself upright. "What do you want with me?" A second pain sent Kara bent over further, causing her to gasp and pant with pain. "And what the frak is going on? I'm not this pregnant!"

Hestia came forward and firmly grasped Kara's arm, helping Kara to rise. "This is why I am here to help you. Time is different here. The birth is almost upon you here, not a distant inconvenience to ignore, as it was in your place."

The woman's words hit Kara after a moment. "In my place? Am I in Elysia, then?"

The older woman picked her way over to Kara and Hestia, taking Kara's other arm and helping to lead her to a small clearing in the trees. "Not quite. More like the waiting area." Placing her down gently, she allowed Hestia to minister to Kara. "You are not actually dead yet, so you cannot pass into the Elysian Fields."

"How am I not dead?" Kara ground out through clenched teeth as the pain of labor and birth began to assault her. Starbuck flared beneath Kara's demeanor, despite increasing and increasingly frequent pain. "What the frak is going on? And who the hell are you?"

Hestia placed a hand on Kara's forehead, murmuring in a soothing voice that made the words unclear, yet the pain became displaced- distant enough to ignore, for the time being. Removing her hand, Hestia began arranging Kara's body- leaning her back against a tree stump, pillowing her body with handfuls of soft, fluffy moss- without asking permission. "You are about to give birth to a daughter."

Eyes widening, Kara spat out, "No! This is not happening! I am not going to be a mother!"

The other woman, a look older than time playing across her face, smiled briefly. "There is very little you can say about it now, Kara Thrace. The time to lose the child is long past, in the time of this place; that is one of the reasons you were brought here."

Grimacing against a rising contraction- Kara knew enough of children and childbirth to assign a name to her discomfort- "Why? Why do you care?"

"I am Hera," the woman sighed, and settled down next to Kara in a stately manner, on her knees and with white filmy gown spread out about her. Taking Kara's hand, Hera began. "You are special, Kara. Socrata was not wrong in that, simply wrong in her manner of teaching you."

"Don't mention that name to me." Kara tried to pull her hand out of Hera's, but the goddess- for lack of a better way to describe the female form at her side- did not allow it.

"She was not a wise choice, I admit now." Hera sighed again. "I thought she was strong enough to bear her destiny. I was wrong. I am sorry for that, as well as other things, my daughter."

Kara closed her eyes against pain, again, confused. "What was her destiny?"

"To raise a Hero," Hera stated, "a girl-child of the gods. Socrata was too weak, not up to the promise of her line. I thought that, descended of a Hero, she would be."

"Hero?" Kara asked, as increasing pain made it hard to think clearly. Even Hestia's cool hand on her forehead was not helping now. "I'm a Hero?"

"Your father- your human father- was a musician. Were you aware of that?" Hera asked gently. At Kara's positive response- barely a nod, at this point in the birth process- she continued. "Your true father was Apollo, who possessed your human father's body. And your mother's ancestor, back before time was clearly recorded, was the founder and made-god, Aeneas."

Surprise shoved aside the pain momentarily. "I'm related to the founder of the Colonies?"

Hera laughed lightly. "Almost everyone has a blood tie to the colony founder somewhere, dear. But your tie is stronger then others. Blood calls to blood, power to power; somehow, the truly capable find one another and procreate together through the generations. Your lineage is littered with Heros and strong descendants, as is-"

"Apollo's," Kara cut the goddess off in a very non-reverential way.

"Lee Adama's," Hera corrected. "It is close to blasphemy, that call-sign choice, and quite ironic."

"Call-signs are given to you by your instructor. You don't get to-" Kara caught her breath and held it against a pain- "choose your own."

"Silly mortal practice, acting like a god to name a new creature." Hera shook her head. "Lee Adama comes from a line similar to yours, descended from the great Phoebus Apollo."

"So Lee is a Hero, too?" Kara began to get a bad feeling in her gut, and it had nothing to do with the baby trying to rip her apart from the inside out. "And what does that make this child?"

Hestia tried to calm Kara, to no avail. Hera had taken on her imperial manners again and rose, looking down on the tired and sweaty and decided not-Hero looking Kara. "She will be the instrument of the Gods."

Kara tried to rise and physically go after Hera. Foolish, if she was a god, but Kara really didn't care in that moment. This child had been created out of love- frakked up, ill-timed, never-meant-to-be love, but love none the less. The gods would not take this child from her to use and abuse as she herself had been. "No!" Kara cried out, as she was unable to stand.

Hestia began speaking low instructions to Kara, about positioning and pushing and relaxing between. Kara could not keep her attention focused on so many fractured points, and decided that Hera was a minor problem for now. More important was getting this thing out of her so that she could control her own body again. Once that was accomplished, she could protect the baby better and deal with these pain in the ass deities. Concentrating on Hestia and her words made labor go faster and easier. Kara stopped fighting the natural process her body understood, even if her mind refused to accept it.

Once she began to push, it did not take long. With a rush of liquids Kara would rather not think about, she lay back on the mossy ground, spent and exhausted, as Hestia fussed with the product of all Kara's work.

The child did not cry, a fact that took several minutes to register with Kara. In all the movies, babies came out screaming. What was wrong?

Hestia sensed her fear, and brought the bundled child to her. "Childbirth is a bit different here, in this place. There is nothing wrong with the child; she is at peace here, and feels no need to cry." Laying the girl on Kara's stomach, Hestia smiled warmly. "She is beautiful."

Closing her eyes, Kara forced back the tears that momentarily surfaced. Her baby was fine. Then the irony of the situation hit her. She was happy that a child she would have killed was alive and healthy. And she realized how big a mistake she had been prevented from making as soon as her daughter opened those huge blue eyes and looked up at her. "Tierra," she named the child, as a thought surfaced out of the blue and exhaustion claimed her.