Word Count: 2,869
Date: 2004
Series: One
Rating: K
Category: Relationships
Pairing/Focus: William, Lee
Warnings:
Summary: Cori did the Kara/Lee dynamic. I'm doing the Lee/Adama
one. A short vignette. I'm going back to Edge of Night as soon as I'm done.
Really. :)
Spoilers/Disclaimers: Season one spoilers, especially for
Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part 1. Blame Cori for this one. I hadn't intended to
write anything. Like she said, this probably won't hold water in a week, but...
There was absolute silence on the flight deck when the docking clamp began cycling Captain Lee Adama's Viper into the hangar bay. Members of the flight crew, staggered throughout the bay, absolutely refused to utter a word. Just having Commander William Adama on the deck would have been enough to silence them. But his quiet anger -- and Chief Tyrol's not-so-quiet current fury -- along with no explanations as to the current situation ensured silence so complete that every gear pulling the raptor into the bay could be clearly heard.
The Viper tow skidded to a stop. Before the flight crew had even finished latching the ladder in place, though, the Viper cockpit slammed open in virtual unison to the Chief climbing up the ladder's stairs. Tyrol's voice started off loud, and quickly crescendoed.
"Captain, if you so much as say one word about the frakkin' gymbal, I'm going--"
Captain Adama's flight helmet flew past the Chief's head, abruptly cutting off the tirade.
"No offense, Chief, but shove it." The captain was already climbing out of the cockpit, every single harness thrown off in haste behind him. "And get this bird ready to fly again. Now."
Captain Adama was out of the cockpit and down the stairs before he finished talking. He paused for no one, not even the Commander, as he stormed off the deck. What little noise there had been again died off, except for the footsteps quickly dissipating into the hallway.
The flight crew, including the Chief, just stood and stared. It took the Commander to put everyone back in motion, his face set into a stern frown.
"You heard the CAG. Get to work."
And as quickly as his son had departed, William Adama followed behind.
*~*~*~*
Lee Adama couldn't think. He didn't want to. If he did, he knew his brain would fry every synapse it had.
So he clipped his steps off at military precision, and simply fumed.
Of all the hair-brained, stupid, reckless frakkin' stunts you could've pulled, Kara...What the hell did she think she was doing? There'd been that stretch of silence, and then she'd spun up the FTL drive before he could do anything except ask her what she was doing.
And of course, he didn't get an answer. Just her jumping out of space into Gods knew where. He'd taken a couple of quick readings, hoping to find she'd jumped a short space just to jerk his chain. But as soon as he'd confirmed he had a completely blank screen, his father had come over the channel and ordered him back on deck. The tone in his voice left no room for argument.
"Captain." Lee vaguely heard his father's voice, and ignored it. The last thing he wanted right now was his father trying to play peacemaker. He just wanted to find Starbuck and beat the living shit out of her. Stupid, Kara, frakkin' stupid. What the hell had she been thinking? No, scratch that. She hadn't been thinking, that much was certain. She never did when she got like this.
And it was all his fault. He'd pushed her to this, and he didn't know if he was more angry at her for reaching like she did or his inability to see it. She was a frakkin' brat to the nth degr--
"Lee!" A hand clasped down hard on his shoulder, pulling him to a stop. Frak it. If his father wanted a confrontation...
Lee spun around, his fist already pulled back. To hell with control, and to hell with it being aimed at the right person. He was going to take a page out of Kara's book and --
He froze when he found himself face-to-face with his father, who calmly stared at him without budging so much as an inch.
"Go ahead." Will's voice was pitched low and quiet, but Lee could hear the emotion all the same. A mix of anger, frustration, and something Lee couldn't figure out. His father wasn't goading him, but... "If it'll make you feel better, son, take your best shot."
Lee stood there a minute, still ready to swing, his breath coming in raspy gasps. Then, abruptly, he realized what he was about to do, and who he was going to do it to. Blinking slowly, he dropped his arm and started to shake a little. Lords, I was going to hit him. And he thinks I have too much control...
His father simply watched him for a minute, then nodded.
"Good. We need to talk." It was the commander before him now, not his father. The same supercilious bastard who thought a commanding tone and his position would get him everything he wanted. And damned if Lee would cooperate right now.
"I don't want to talk!" Lee's anger, fear and total frustration spilled out before he even had a chance to consider his words. "I can't save it for later, or don't you understand that? I'm the CAG, and my best pilot just fired up an FTL drive on an enemy ship and jumped out of the sector with NO EXPLANATION!"
Not just my best pilot, not just my screw-up. My friend. And something more. But he wasn't going there, not now. Finding her and bringing her back was the only thing that mattered. Why was his father stopping him? "And unless you have any better ideas, then I need to get my ass back in that Viper and go after her before she gets herself frakkin' killed!"
He finally ran out of words and just stopped, sucking air in and out of his lungs. His anger reached an even level, and then began to surge again as his father didn't say a word. Didn't his father -- his frakkin' commander, KARA'S commander -- see that he had to do something? Now? Lords, she was like a daughter to him. She had been as long as they'd known her. Why didn't he do something?
But William Adama simply stood there watching him, not saying a word. The expression on his face had faded from the calm facade Lee saw every day in CIC. Instead, there was this odd mixture of pain, fear ... and something that looked oddly like guilt. Why would he feel guilty? That's my job.
Confronted by the silence, Lee couldn't move. Slowly, the anger bled off into confusion, as his father watched him for another long moment, and then finally nodded.
"There's an explanation. But I don't think you're going to like it." William's words were level and even, but Lee could hardly make sense of it. "My quarters, Captain. Now."
And without another word, his father turned and continued down the corridor, leaving his son to follow behind.
*~*~*~*
"There is no Earth."
Lee just stared. He couldn't have heard that right. Sure, he'd had his doubts when his father had proclaimed he knew the coordinates. But the past few months, everything they had worked for, everything they had used as a common goal and tried to find faith in...
"Could you..." Lee swallowed, and tried to take the disbelief out of his voice. "Could you say that again?"
His father didn't blink, his face set in that stone monolith that was famous on this ship.
"There is no Earth. At least, not that ..." The stone face cracked, and Lee watched in horror as his father averted his eyes for one of the few times he'd ever seen. He can't look me in the face, he can't even--
"I don't have the coordinates. We needed hope, the people needed hope. So I gave them Earth."
No apology -- just that simple, flat statement. Lee stood in the middle of his father's quarters as the words echoed in his ears. He lied. He lied to me, he lied to the people, he lied to the whole fleet! Around him, what felt like the entire universe had been picked up around him, shifted in some indeterminable way and dropped back into place.
This shouldn't matter. Lee drew in a couple of rapid breaths, dragging in the oxygen he so desperately needed right now. He needed to find that calm center to this storm. He hadn't had faith in his father in so long, why did it matter now? Why couldn't he make peace with the fact his father had committed another sin--
No Earth...we're fleeing and there's no place...
With a flash, Lee understood. He looked at his father, saw the guilt and fear on the older man's face, and he knew why he'd lied. They needed a place, a home. A hope that the future held a place for them, that survival wouldn't be measured in days and weeks, but in years.
He understood. But...
Lee gulped more air, trying to make it all fall into place.
There's no Earth...His father had shut down the president's plan, knowing there was no destination to find. What had Roslin done then, gone and recruited help from--
Oh, Gods. Kara, what have you done? Suddenly, he knew where she had gone and why. And then he couldn't get the air into his lungs fast enough.
She's going to get herself killed. And I practically forced her--
"Lee?"
There were more words, but Lee couldn't hear them. A steady, low buzz began to build in his ears, and around him everything began to lose focus. He turned his head, reaching for something, ANYTHING, to anchor his hold on the world.
His hand caught the edge of his father's table as everything suddenly tilted at a 45-degree angle, and spun. He tried to hold on to the table, but his hands had gone suddenly numb. His vision graying, he saw the photo of him and Zak with their father, standing in front of a Viper on an airstrip in Caprica.
The blue skies...the mist in the air. What had been home. What he and all of them had spent the last 50 days fighting to recreate. His knees buckled, and gray followed by a deep black seeped into his vision.
Home...we have no home...and she's going to kill herself trying to find one...
And as the world started to slip away, the only thing he could think of escaped his lips.
"Dad...what have we done?"
*~*~*~*
William Adama's instincts screamed out a fraction of a second before Lee collapsed, and he dove quickly behind his son to catch him as he sunk to the ground. Will careened heavily into the table Lee had reached for moments earlier, and everything -- the table, the pictures, himself and his son -- went crashing to the floor. There was the sound of breaking glass, and then silence.
William drew in a hard breath, fighting against the gray edging into his vision. Calm. He had to find the calm. He shifted his weight against the wall, and closed his eyes for a moment, willing himself to focus and shut out his emotions.
When did this become so complicated? Slowly, he pulled in a shallow breath, and then held it for a few moments before letting it back out. Another, again slow and shallow, working to let his body do what Lee's couldn't -- adjust. After a moment, he opened his eyes, and found his vision had snapped back into place.
The answer, of course, was simple. The easiest thing in life was to tell the truth. And the hardest. William shifted his weight, and pulled Lee up to him, feeling for his son's pulse. He found it, beating strong and fast against his fingertips. As he waited, it started to slow, and with that pace, William saw the color start to blend back into Lee's pale face. He'd rarely seen Lee panic in his life; it was what made him such a great pilot and leader. But this...
The truth. It wasn't as simple as that anymore, if it ever had been simple. There was no black and white, no right and wrong. All you had were your own morals, your own principles, and whatever faith you chose to believe in. That was why he had told Lee to leave the second-guessing to the historians. The situation called for them to do the best that they could, and not look back.
I do not regret anything that I did. Those were his words to Starbuck. And he did not. He COULD not. There were 50,000 people waiting for him to lead them to Earth. All of them had needed something to believe in, and that something was a home. A place to be free, and live without fear. At least, without fear of the Cylons. They had enough to worry about in each other.
I don't regret the decision I made. I cannot. There wasn't any time. What had he told Lee, after the Olympic Carrier?
"A man takes responsibility for his actions, right or wrong." But who was he responsible to? The fleet? The last remnants of humanity? His son? The woman who had, for all intents and purposes, become his daughter two years ago? Whom did he answer to?
Beside him, Lee groaned softly, and William could see him struggle to fight his way back to consciousness. It would take a few moments, still, and he needed to know he could answer the challenge he would find in his son's eyes.
A man takes responsibility for his actions. He had to answer to himself, and the only way he would ever be able to do that would be to get up every day and look in the mirror and be able to answer his own challenge. To get up and be able to face himself, and the actions that he had taken. Not with himself in mind, but the fleet. With his crew in mind. With his son.
And with Kara. Will I regret this? And will she? He couldn't answer those questions now. William Adama had always prided himself on his control, and his command -- of himself, and others.
It was gone now.
Lee suddenly moved, his body going rigid with alarm. William looked down to see his son staring at him in confusion, trying to put the pieces together in his own mind. His eyes locked with his father's, and for the first time in his life, William could read nothing in them.
"Easy, son." There was nothing easy about this. As he watched, William saw his son relax, and comprehension begin to dawn.
Lee pulled himself away, struggling into a rough sitting position next to his father. Leaning forward, Lee's head dropped between his knees, and Adama could see him take a few deep breaths, slow and steady like William himself had done minutes before. Inside, William could almost hear the internal debate progressing.
A man takes responsibility... And he would, no matter what the outcome. But he couldn't bear to lose them both.
Slowly, Lee raised his head, and fixed his gaze on his father. A moment of silence passed, and William knew without question he was being judged. There are so many things he could say. So much I deserve to hear. Perhaps William had no regrets. But he was not blameless. If there was fault to be laid, it would be at his feet. And it was within Lee's province to place it there.
A man takes responsibility...
"You lied." Lee's voice was quiet, calm. It wasn't a question, nor was it an accusation.
"Yes."
"And Kara knew. That's why she jumped. She went back to Caprica, like the President wanted."
"Yes."
"She's going to get herself killed."
"It's possible. But as she would point out, it hasn't happened yet."
"And there's nothing I can do."
"No."
A man takes responsibility for his actions, right or wrong.
But what about regret? Can you live with what you've done, William? Kara might eventually forgive him, sometime after the emotion wore off and logic had a chance to work its way into her brain. If she lived long enough to let it. But Lee...there had been so much pain for so long, over such an act that William could not pretend to be blameless.
Just as he was not blameless now. What would his son do?
A man takes responsibility...
Suddenly, there was no need to answer. Lee re-opened his eyes, and what William saw warmed his heart.
There was no blame, just simple comprehension. And as he watched, William saw his son square his shoulders and shift the weight of the world from not one set of shoulders, but to two. A place where it perhaps didn't belong, but where his son was willing to put it.
"Dad..." Lee's voice cracked slightly, and his son swallowed hard before he continued.
"I think we have some work to do."