Word Count: 1,183
Date: 11/15/05
Series: Season 2
Rating: T
Category: Relationship
Pairing/Focus: William Adama/Kara Thrace
Warnings: spoilers from sneak peek teaser trailer released a
couple of days ago.
Summary: Commander Adama talks to Kara about Lee
Spoilers/Disclaimers: I do not own the characters.
Commander William Adama slowly climbed up the ladder to the star-navigation sphere, which was supposed to act like a backup if the computers failed. Celestial navigation was an ancient trade and not many people left in the galaxy had the knowledge of navigating through the stars, equipped only with star charts, a telescope and a sextant. This place was sacred to him and he had only revealed it to the people closest to him.
He had been looking for Kara all morning to see how she was holding up. The only place he had not searched yet was in here. As he climbed up he could see that the blinders were retracted and by then he knew that his search was over.
The Commander watched Lt Kara Thrace from a distance. She was sitting on the floor and leaning against the spherical window, in the same pose he had found her on Caprica when he had come to offer her the post onboard the Galactica. The panorama view from up here was breathtaking. The whole battlestar was laid under their feet and all the stars around them gave them a sense of floating freely in space.
When Lee had gone missing and presumed dead, Kara had fallen apart, bit by bit. She had tried to hide it so well by being strong and pulling double CAPs over and over, but nobody knew Kara better than him. He had seen her suffering. He had seen her pain.
The return of his lost son had been very emotional for all of them, but especially for Kara. Bill had seen how they had grown closer over the past couple of months, even though they had kept each other on an arm lengths distance.
He knew that Kara had difficulties of letting anybody in under her skin after Zak, afraid she might loose someone close to her again. He had figured out Kara's philosophy: If you do not love, you will not feel any pain if you loose it, as simple as that. But being the Commander he knew everything that was going on onboard his ship and he knew her philosophy had not been working too well. Kara was not the only one with deep emotions, he had also finally understood Lee's true feelings for Kara when he had heard about their fist fight in the hangar bay. Kids, he sighed in his mind.
When the intelligence had reached the CIC regarding the sightings of Lee's missing Viper, the whole crew had held their breath knowing that the chances of finding the commander's son alive in the Viper were beyond all of their hopes. Bill had been sleepless, watching over his son's recovery and Kara had been his loyal shadow. Just like him she had not been eating or sleeping, nothing else had mattered to them at that point. Bill had never been as glad in his life when Lee finally had woken up in sick bay.
But Lee was not himself anymore, Lee had changed.
Bill had failed to get close to him. If anybody could, it would be Kara. He felt like an intruder disturbing her like this, invading her privacy, but he had to. He needed to figure out what was going on with his son.
"What do you see?" he wondered.
Kara was startled to hear the Old Man's voice and she turned her head to meet his friendly eyes as he climbed up through the hatch.
"Nothin' but the stars." she replied quietly.
Bill walked up to Kara and sat down beside her. He took of his glasses and the amazing sky with billions of stars struck his gaze. For a long time they were just sitting there in the darkness, enjoying each others quiet company.
"How is he?" he finally asked her.
"Alive." she simply stated.
"I see," he told her softly, "Nothing else?"
"He is not talking to me." she said in a frustrated tone.
He saw the agony in her eyes, which made it difficult for him to ask the next question.
"Is he talking to somebody else?" he tried to ask as gently as he could. He knew these words would sting her, but again, he had to know. However, he was quite sure that nobody but Kara could get through to Lee.
"I don't think so." she said which confirmed his thoughts, "I don't think anybody can reach him now, he just needs time."
"I agree." he admitted.
"He's back from the dead, but yet.." she paused while she put up her hands on the glass and lowered her head, "His eyes are dead... his soul is dead. It's like he doesn't want to live anymore, he just doesn't care."
"I've noticed that in his flying, he endangers himself in an insane way nowadays, a little bit like another insane Viper pilot I happen to know as a matter a fact" he concluded.
"And who would that be?" she muttered.
Bill gave her a smile and when he saw her smiling back at him he understood one of the reasons why his sons had been drawn to her. She had the most beautiful smile in the universe. She was as close to him as any other family member and he regarded her as his daughter, loving her deeply. Hopefully she could bring his son back, bring meaning to his life. She just needed to trust herself and her feelings, as well as Lee had to.
"Kara, we need to give him a reason to live again." he firmly told her.
Bill was tired of their games, he wanted his son back now and the only one who would grant him his wish was Kara.
"He is back from the death, he is alive, I thought that would be enough." she fired.
"I know, I know," he slowly agreed.
"I just can't reach him." she whispered as tears began to trickle down her cheeks.
Bill put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a gentle kiss on her head. Kara was not the one who usually demonstrated her feelings openly. Very few had seen Kara let her guard down like this and Bill felt privileged of being one of them.
"You have to let him know Kara." he said with his most authorial voice, which almost sounded like the Actual's crackly voice over the Com.
"Is that an order?" she asked her Commander.
"It is a request from a deeply concerned father whose heart is breaking seeing his tortured children like this."
"He needs space." she whispered.
"He needs love." he urged her, "You need to tell him, before we loose him again." he prompted as he looked deeply into her scared eyes.
Bill could see how Kara struggled with keeping her tears back by blinking hard.
"Kara?"
"I will." she finally said as she came to her feet and walked to the hatch and climbed down the ladder.
Bill was left alone but filled with hope. The stars told him that things would change now, Lee would change, his son would finally come home again.