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i.
It seems so obvious now, standing here on an unspoiled world, that her time has finally come. She can feel it calling out to her, deep in her bones, and not even Lee’s hand in hers as they divide the fleet for good is enough to keep her tethered to this mortal coil.
She remembers it all now, the first time around, remembers drinks with a man who wouldn’t be born for hundreds of thousands of years at a sunny cafe on cobbled streets, remembers being led to her viper, and hearing Sam’s song.
Just a few loose ends left.
ii.
Somehow Kara knows she’ll never see the old man again, at least not here, but even on his own he’ll do all right.
She’s less sure of his son.
There are so many things she wants to say—that she loves him, that maybe things could have worked out differently—but Sam’s waiting and there’s still one answer she needs.
She sees the look on Lee’s face as he talks about what could be the rest of his life, and it’s enough for her to know that he will be happy.
There’s no need for goodbye. It’s only the beginning.
iii.
Sam’s different, now. He’s not a naked hybrid singing electric gibberish from a tank of goo anymore, which is an obvious improvement for both of them, but he’s not the man she found on Caprica either.
She understands, though. A man can play a lot of roles in two thousand years, and she might even like when he starts complimenting her angles in a pick-up game of pyramid. They live the life that could have been theirs in another world. No more wars, no secrets.
He never asks her to stay.
She never asks why he kept the tattoo.
iv.
“You can’t just go back whenever you feel like it. There are rules!”
She knows it isn't Sam's fault, but she's got half a mind to tell him just where he can shove the rules anyway. She fought tooth and nail through hell in the name of destiny and now it’s her turn to make the goddamn rules.
"I did it once," she says. "I figured it out once and I can do it again. Somebody's got to bury the old man.”
Sam doesn’t fight her, just stands and presses his cool fingertips to her temples.
“Then let me help.”
v.
The work isn’t easy. It’s a dry season and the ground is tough, but the digging feels honest. It’s a simple grave, piled with stones, right next to Roslin’s. Kara thinks the old man would have liked that.
She wonders if the dirt under her nails will come with her.
She wonders who else she’ll bury before she finds her own rest.
Sam’s in one of his prophetic moods when she returns, and he must know she’s been thinking about Lee because he grabs her arms and whispers, “You’ll be there at the end. I’ve seen it.”
She hopes so.
vi.
Sam shakes her awake sometime before dawn and she nearly bloodies his nose before she remembers the quiet cottage and the cool sea air instead of her cramped rack and the smell of sweat and ambrosia.
“It’s time,” is all he has to say, and the act of knowing is enough to bring her to the rocky cliffside where Lee Adama is going to die.
The last thing he will know as his body hits the ground is that a few more feet and he’d have made it.
She breaks the rules.
She catches his wrist.
Today she gives life.
vii.
Lee doesn’t ask questions, which is nice. Instead, he kisses her, fierce and longing, and that’s even nicer.
His body is lean and weathered and there are lines on his face, but his eyes are bright and he’s still her Lee. Always will be.
“I might not know what you are,” is the first thing he says, “but I know who you are. That’s what matters.”
She is Kara Thrace, harbinger of death. She walks between worlds and all of eternity lies before her. Today she climbs mountains with the sun on her face, and she’s never felt so alive.
viii.
He isn’t quite sure how to tell Kara that bringing about humanity’s end doesn’t mean she has to take care of it on an individual basis. Now it’s a Cylon—the last of the Twos, and even Sam feels a twinge of something like regret.
Kara was gone for a week last time. He knows she was with Lee, about the way time passes outside, but he isn’t angry. Forever is a long time, and he’s a patient man.
“Will you be home in time for dinner?” he calls after her, mocking.
“Frak you!” She’s grinning at him, and disappears.
ix.
Leoban’s still pretty lucid when she arrives, but he’s faced death before, and they both know it’s the end. He talks of his family for a while, a human wife, plain and soft-spoken, two children long since grown, the natives that adopted him in his final years. He asks after his father, and Kara assures him Sam will speak with him very soon.
She kisses his forehead when he can’t continue, murmurs, “I forgive you, Leoban Conoy.”
He smiles. “I always knew you were an angel of God, Kara Thrace,” he manages, and then all is quiet and still.
x.
“It isn’t fair,” he mumbles at her, and it isn’t, not when every part of him is grey and failing and she’s frakking glowing, beautiful as the day they met.
He had always known he’d see her once more, before—
She sinks to her knees in the soft, wet earth, pulls him close to her chest, and his clouded eyes can’t tell if it’s rain on her face or she’s crying.
“It’s okay, Lee,” she says as the world goes dark. “I’m here to take you home.”
When he wakes, his heart is strong and he can smell the sea.