Fic: Unsaid, K/Z, PG, pre-mini, warning for canon character death

[lanalucy]

Prompt: textsfromlastnight - Yesterday you said I was the best.
No, I said you DID your best. There's a huge difference.

Thanks to newnumbertwo for the beta!

Kara looked at this kid Gods, I don’t even remember his name! and wondered what the hell she’d been thinking last night. Oh, right. She’d been drunk and horny. Always a terrible combination for decision-making.

“I don’t understand, Starbuck. When I was finished, you told me I was the best.”

“No, I said you did your best. Your best wasn’t nearly good enough, and why am I even trying to explain this to you?” She put her hand on her hip, looked him up and down and said, “Once was more than enough. I wouldn’t frak you again if you were the last man in the universe, kid. Beat it.”

He looked like he was about to cry. What the frak kind of Fleet cadet cries when a one-night-stand tells him there won’t be a second night? What the frak is wrong with kids these days?
-----
Zak Adama walked away, mortification morphing into anger. She’ll eat her words.

Two years later, when he got his schedule for flight school, he didn’t recognize the name “Kara Thrace.” He knew Starbuck as soon as he saw her, though, and a plan to embarrass her in turn began to formulate; it would be especially fun to see her face when she found out he’d been underage at the time, in his brother’s borrowed Fleet uniform. But by the time he’d succeeded in catching her interest, he’d fallen in love with her, and couldn’t bear to remind her of their first humiliating encounter.

Once, after a big fight over his test scores, he almost told her, but decided not to. In the seconds before his crash, as he spiraled down to certain death, he was glad Kara would only have good memories of him.