Crossovers

Not my words.

Really great answer about crossovers from an author I love.

Question Meme Answer #3

afrakaday asked me: Do you think Zak and Helo knew each other?  Do you think they got along?

I already answered this briefly in the original post, but I wanted to post it separately, too.

In my headcanon, Kara and Karl have been friends or frakbuddies, or both, since the Academy, maybe right up until before the attacks.

It's the one male/female friendship that Kara has tried to hold on to, the one guy she frakked that she actually cared about (besides Zak).  Because of that, I think that unless Helo was stationed elsewhere for the whole of Kara and Zak's relationship, he and Zak had to have met.

Karl probably tried to dissuade Kara from getting involved with a student, whether he was around in person or not.

So either Karl was around, or he maybe came to see Kara on leave, or they hung out when Karl had to come back to flight school for some refreshers or training on updated modules or something like that.  Maybe Zak was a little jealous at first, because Kara and Helo were so close, and sometimes got a little handsy with each other (not in a cheating on Zak way, but because they were totally comfortable with each other), probably had more than a few in-jokes.

But because Helo could see that Kara was actually happy with Zak, he moved past that and decided to like Zak, because he's just that kind of guy.  He'd want Kara to be happy, and he probably knew from the beginning that she'd never be happy with a guy like him.  He's too easy - or maybe more accurately, simple and uncomplicated.

So, yeah.  I believe they met, and that Helo befriended him for Kara's sake, then liked him on his own once he got to know him.  I'm not sure that they knew each other well enough for Karl to mourn him when he died, but he would have been sad for Kara's loss, at the very least.