Word Count: 15,374
Date:10/30/05
Series: Season 1
Rating: T
Category: Relationships
Pairing/Focus: Kara/Lee, Kara's perspective
Warnings: The story below is far less than original; in fact,
it's pure plagiarism, or at the very least canon. I've taken scenes from the series, and I've gone
into Kara's head to make sense of them. What's written in italics is
Kara in the first-person, and the rest is merely her POV and my own biased
interpretations. I've received
more than one comment that this constant switch in voice is confusing, but I
think with the italics to clarify matters it will work as a rotation which
remains at least mostly coherent. If not... well... you've been
warned.
Summary: Season 1, through Kara's eyes.
Spoilers/Disclaimers: Spoilers for all of the first season,
marked clearly by episode; The only thing in here that's mine is the analysis
of the events. Even the dialogue comes mostly from the series.
Chapter 1
“33”
I think it would have been easier if the attacks had started right away. As it was, we’d had nearly twenty-four hours of relative peace before the world which had ended was once more in upheaval. That one day had been enough for us to relax, let our guard down. It had been time enough for us to believe that while we hadn’t beaten the Cylons, at the very least we had really escaped.
They proved us wrong.
I had just made it to my rack – a place I really didn’t want to be – when the first alarm claxon started. Condition one. Again. Battle stations, again. Uncertainty and adrenaline and the fear that makes you feel like you’re really, really alive; and it was happening all over again.
I caught sight of Lee as I headed into the hangar. He didn’t wave hello, but gestured to the Viper that was just now beginning to look like the plane it had once been. It was the Viper that had belonged to his father; the Viper he had flown during the decommissioning. For some reason it had passed to me, and I wasn’t sure whether I was pleased or intimidated. The IIs were a hell of a lot harder to manage than the VIIs.
He headed for his own, the Mark VII that had been downgraded to lower-level programming to avoid Cylon infiltration. As CAG, it was his right, and in truth it was his plane in the first place, but I have to admit a little jealousy. It was a fine ship, and I wouldn’t have minded having that level of power at my control.
But I didn’t get much time to think about the differences between modern technology and the ancient variety, because alarms were blaring, tubes were being loaded, and I wasn’t going to be left out of the fight.
Later, I would wonder why in hell I had been so eager to get into the battle. Later, I would have sold my sold my soul for just a few minutes of the sleep that I’d dreaded when that first alarm went off. Because this might have been the first attack, but it sure as hell wasn’t the last. It was the beginning of a cycle that would push us all past the brink of exhaustion and test who we were as warriors. I’m afraid that too many of us found out that we weren’t all we’d hoped to be.
That first battle went quickly. We lost two civilian ships, primarily to surprise, and four Vipers as well. The pilots had been young, inexperienced, and their planes in less than perfect condition. I think we all wrote it off to experience as we made our emergency landings and flashed out of Cylon reach, ready and able to once more guard all that was left of humanity. We had lost very few in relation to what could have happened. We were proud of ourselves.
Again, we were wrong.
Thirty-three minutes later, before we’d even finished the post-flight damage checks, the alarms went off again. It was back into the tubes, back into the air, and back into the fight. That second time we lost one more civilian ship and a Raptor, but we considered ourselves fairly lucky. After all, the rapid-fire attack had been the last thing we’d expected.
I think it took about ten cycles for everyone to figure out that there was a specific timing to the attacks. Of course we knew that the attacks were close together, but it was that long before we had time to realize that they were predictable down to the second. No one knew why, and no one knew what to do about it, but for some insane reason the Cylons were coming at us exactly once every thirty-three minutes. It was a cycle that was to continue for days, and days, and days.
At first, realizing that there was no end in sight for the attacks, Lee tried to put us in a kind of rotation. The idea was to give the deck crews time to put the birds back together after their landings while a new shift flew the next attack. It was a damned good idea, but we just didn’t have the planes or the people to do it effectively. We lost another ship, then two Vipers, and then Lee decided that we had to give it all or nothing. The Cylons were picking us off, and whether we could manage it or not, it was going to take all of us to protect the fleet.
I have to say that it was one of the most insane periods in my life. Fly, fight, land, repair, and launch again. There was barely time to manage all the steps, and not enough for true repairs. Tyrol and his crew were putting ships together from scraps, and we were running out of those. By the third day, we were all on rote. There had been more than one-hundred, fifty attacks, and resources were getting slim. Most of us had gone from exhausted to ill, keeping going on coffee and what little we could grab on the deck and eat in the cockpit. I seemed to spend every minute either handing parts to a mechanic or sitting in that tube ready to fight for my life. It was an entirely different type of being alive.
I didn’t even mind it at first. I know that sounds insane, but it’s the truth. We were doing what we’d trained for, what we’d believed that we’d have to do, and we were doing it damned well. That was what my initial impression was. But as we all got tired, it just wasn’t nearly as much fun for any of us. People were dying, the world was coming apart, and there wasn’t any end in sight. The brief victory we had felt following that first jump from Ragnar had been replaced by a desperate fear that we weren’t going to get through it after all. I’m not one to whine or complain, but even I had my doubts.
I know Lee had his doubts, too. He tried so frakking hard to be positive, to be our rock. Instead he just seemed to pass that uncertainty on to the rest of us. He was new to command – still is if it comes to that – and he was making the most classic mistake of all. He was forgetting that he was the boss. Someone has to make the shitty calls, and usually it’s command that gets stuck with the responsibility. Lee was command; Lee had to choose who lived and died. The decision was finally taken out of his hands when the only way to defend the fleet was to send everyone out, every cycle, and bust our asses to keep people alive. We got pretty good at that.
The orders were usually the same. Scatter, take out anything that looked like it might fire on the Galactica, and let the Galactica take care of the fleet. As long as we didn’t get too far away, we managed pretty well. Of the eleven planes and pilots we’d lost by the end of it, four of those had been because they hadn’t made it to the Galactica for the jump. Caught beyond our reach, they were destroyed before they could make a combat landing into the relative safety of the Galactica’s bays. The rest of the lost pilots were just kids, and they probably didn’t have any business being out there in the first place, but we were desperate. Lee may never forgive himself for that.
But he’s going to be a good leader. He may not believe it himself, but he’s got what it takes to really hold a unit together. Granted, he’s a little too busy trying to stay on everyone’s good side, but he’ll learn that sometimes you have to lay down the law. He even did it with me, although only because I made him. He’s too good a friend to really blast me, but he did what he had to when it counted.
Five days into the fighting, the crew was on its absolute last legs. We were doing all we could to stay awake in the cockpit, and people were starting to make dumb mistakes. The commander ordered us to take stimulants, and by nature I fought that. I hate drugs. First of all, they screw with your head when you need to be clear, and that’s never good. But more than that, they take control away from you and put it into a little pill. Nothing that small should be so powerful, but they are. So when I saw the note on the board which told us we had to report to Sick Bay to take our pills, I just didn’t go.
I should have known that he wouldn’t let me get by with it, friends or not. He caught me when I was trying to run a damage check with Cally, and I wasn’t in the best of moods. If he’d told me to take them, I would have told him no, and that would have been the end of it. But Lee didn’t tell me what to do; he asked. Given a choice, who in the world would take the damned pills? Sure as hell not me. Yet still he asked… implored. At least he had enough pride not to beg. But his unwillingness to push the issue made me realize that we had a real problem.
“Hey, um, did you see the note from the XO?” Leave it to Lee to come at the subject sideways while I was trying to get some work done.
“Yeah, I saw it,” I answered. No point in lying to him. “No way.”
“Kara, everyone else…”
I cut that thought off. “I don’t fly with stims,” I reminded him. He knew as well as I did about the imbeciles in flight school who had tried to stay up twenty-four-seven and wound up dead for their trouble. “They bunch your reflexes, your reaction time…” I didn’t even have to finish. Lee knew it all as well as I did.
“Come on, Kara, give me a break,” he said.
His voice was tired, but so was I, and so I snapped. “Why are we arguing about this?” I asked him.
“I have no idea!” he said when his frustration finally peaked. It certainly wasn’t the first time I’d pushed him that far. It won’t be the last.
“Neither do I. You’re the CAG,” I reminded him. “Act like one!” I guess it seemed harsh, but if he treated some of the squad the way he was treating me, they’d have him for dinner. They sure as hell wouldn’t have any respect for him. And yes, I know it’s a fine line, trying to be nice enough to get to know a crew while at the same time trying to be the boss. It’s one of the reasons I distinctly don’t want to be the boss. But someone has to be, and Lee has it in him. He just had to get past the asking and into the telling.
“What the hell does that mean?”
I really didn’t want to have it out with him in the middle of a hangar bay with every deck hand watching and half the pilots as well, but he didn’t give me a lot of options. I came around the wing, so that at least I wasn’t yelling across the bay at him. “It means, you’re still trying to act like you’re everyone’s best friend,” I told him. At the very least, he was trying to be mine. “We’re not friends. You’re the CAG. ‘Be careful out there?’ Our job isn’t to be careful; it’s to shoot Cylons out of the frakkin’ sky. ‘Good hunting,’ is what you say. And now one of your idiot pilots is acting like a child and refusing to take her pills. So she either says, ‘yes sir,’ and obeys a direct order, or you smack her in the mouth and drag her sorry ass down to sick bay and you make her take those pills.”
I was trying so hard to be tough on him, but not because I didn’t respect him. In fact, it was just the opposite. He’s going to be a damned good CAG; he knows the rules well enough to quote the book, but he still cares enough about his people to ask rather than tell. It’s a nice thought; but it won’t work. There will always be someone, like me, who pushes the envelope. This time around, I wanted his first order to be just that… an order.
So I stared at him, and just willed him to understand. The problem was, the two of us were too tired to let me get away with being the hard ass, and he knew it as well as I did. I’m not sure which one of us broke first, but it may just have been me. The impasse ended with the two of us laughing and me on the edge of tears. He looked hysterical, just standing there like he thought I was really going to fight him. I’m not sure when he learned the lesson I was teaching, but I figured did. I hope all lessons are learned that easily, but I know they won’t be.
“Well, I’m glad I’m not working for you,” he said, and between his voice and his smile, I knew that we were okay. No, all wasn’t well with the world, but in general he was still able to talk to me, and I could talk to him. It was a step up from before the war had begun.
I reached up, almost hugging him just out of habit. He sounded so familiar right then, and I felt like I was coming apart. I pulled my hand back after no more than touching his shoulder. “You’re damned right you’re glad,” I told him, and we both laughed a little more. In the middle of all the chaos, we were laughing; I guess we were friends first, after all.
“So, do I have to smack you in the face, Lieutenant?” he asked, and his expression was just serious enough that I knew he had the message, and he wouldn’t forget it any time soon. I think if we’d been anywhere except the middle of a hangar bay, I just might have hugged him anyway.
“No, Sir. I’ll take my pills.”
He showed me the container, and I guess I realized then that before I had even spoken, he had already known that he had to be the boss. My lesson had been redundant, but it hadn’t been without purpose. I had learned that I could laugh in the middle of the biggest mess known to man, and I could do it with my best friend. I’m not sure when I’d stopped thinking of him that way, but I had. The reminder had been more a lesson to me than my words had been lesson to him.
“Oh, perfect,” I said as I held out my hand for the dreaded white tablets. Then I cleared my throat, threw them back, and bit down before I could lose my nerve. The acid burn of the pills hit me almost instantly, but he knew as well as I did that if the pieces were smaller the effects would be faster.
“Carry on,” he told me.
“Yes, Sir,” I said with a salute, and it may have been playful but I’m sure he knew it was how I felt. He’d done his job, just as I’d done mine. But it didn’t make the pills taste any better. I swallowed as I watched him turn and walk off, then glanced around to see half the bay returning to what they had been doing before I’d given them an inadvertent show. Oh well, it sure as hell wasn’t the first time. Not damned likely that it’ll be the last.
It set the tone, though. My interactions with Lee would have to be as professional as they were personal. It’s hard to think of a friend as your boss, but it was something we both had to deal with. I knew I’d help him any way I could, whether with the sqads or the planes, but he was going to have to be the leader. I knew that he could do it, even if he didn’t.
Or maybe he did. Hell, I’m not even sure. In the air he’d always been in command, but then combat had always been more about reminding us of what needed to be done than actually ordering us to do it. We’d never needed bossing about. He could plan and organize with the best of them; it’s one of his gifts.
And later, as we launched and prepared for the battle that didn’t come, as we circled the fleet in preparation for the Cylon attack we had come to expect, he continued to command minimally just to keep us in order. It wasn’t until we’d been in the air more than an hour, when the commander ordered most of the crew to bed, that Lee really faced a decision. He actually made the same one I would, which was to keep those of us who were highly medicated in the air. Yeah, he continued to give basic orders to keep us together, but still there wasn’t a lot of command involved. That came later, and at a much higher price. I wouldn’t know for a long time just how great a price there was.
He finally did take over, even beyond orders given from the Galactica, when things got dicey with the Olympic Carrier. Ordered to maintain wireless silence, he decided even before I said anything to break that silence in order to get through to the ship. I wish it had worked, but nothing is ever that easy.
He ordered me to fire across their bow, just to get their attention. Flipping that Viper around was the most fun I’d had in days, and another reminder that I hate drugs. There was no reason that a simple burst of weaponry should have felt so good, but it did. It didn’t work, though. I think it surprised Lee as much as it did me when the tactic didn’t work. I know that if I were flying a carrier, I’d think twice before flying it into Viper fire.
Then we heard the words that every pilot fears: radiological alarm. The ship had nukes. There’s no way you can hear that without a level of panic. Even I have my limits, and those words pushed me past them. Apparently they pushed Commander Adama as well, because he ordered us to blow it away. It was a civilian ship, and I said as much. Then when Lee ordered me to line up with him and blow away thirteen-hundred people, reminding wasn’t enough.
“Lee, what if you’re wrong?” I asked. He didn’t even answer me. “Lee, come on. Lee?”
“Okay, fire on my mark,” he said, his voice steady and calm. I couldn’t believe that he was so emotionless about this; he was about to murder more than a thousand people, and it wasn’t something I could stand to be a part of. There had been too much death in the previous days.
“No frakking way, Lee,” I told him, and at that moment I even meant it. I was prepared to defy him if only to sway him. There had to be another way… “Lee? Come on!”
“Mark.”
The command was quiet, distinct, and deadly. He followed his words with actions, spraying ammunition in a clean pattern behind the ship and into its rear thrusters. I could have let him do it alone – given him full responsibility – but he was only doing what I had told him. He was taking charge. He had given an order, regardless of our relationship outside of the military. Following it wasn’t a choice; it was the law. I may be one to break a rule now and again, but defying a direct order by an officer whom I respect isn’t something that I can do. The President had ordered it, the Old Man had confirmed it, and Lee was only carrying it out. I could do no less. So my weapon fire joined his, and in mere seconds the sky was lit with the glow of a nuclear explosion that was as bright as the one which had so severely damaged the Galactica days earlier.
That was when the reality of really got to me. It would have happened again, and this time her shell might not have held. That same explosion which had taken out the port flight pod, had killed forty-five good men, and had torn apart the heart of our Crew Chief… it would have been repeated with results potentially more devastating because the Galactica was still under repair from that first explosion.
Lee had made the right choice. It wasn’t easy to take, but it was the truth.
* ~ * ~ *
Kara Thrace sat down on her bunk with a sigh and ran shaking fingers through dirty blond hair. Frankly, her hair was dirty both in color and in fact, and she just didn’t have the energy for a shower. She had been awake for longer than she could remember, and she’d just finished a tedious patrol, which had been thankfully uneventful once they’d destroyed the ship which was apparently a Cylon plant. She wasn’t sure what she would have done with one more emergency.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, she knew that she should be trying to sleep. Her body felt like lead, and her vision was literally doubled. She honestly knew what it meant not to be able to see straight. The only thing that had her upright was a fist full of stimulants that had been necessary to keep her awake. Unfortunately, while the benefit of the medication had long since worn off, the side-effects were still present and accounted for. She was jittery, her head ached, and her hands still held the tremor she couldn’t stand. Kara hated drugs; she always had.
Under any other circumstances, she wouldn’t have taken the damned things, but it had literally been a matter of life and death. The fleet couldn’t hope to survive without her fighters – her best fighters – in the cockpit. Still, all the justification in the world wasn’t going to get her to sleep now that things had finally settled down.
Part of her problem was the stimulant, but the rest was pure habit. For days, every thirty-three minutes, they had been attacked. It had been long enough that her body had developed some kind of cycle, and every half-hour or so she found herself jerking around in expectation. She was rapidly becoming a nervous wreck, and no reasoning that this was simply exhaustion and sleep deprivation could convince her that it would go away. She would be waking up forever; at the very least it felt that way.
She was so disconnected as she stared at the metal bulkhead before her that she didn’t hear the hatch opening to her side. The shadow of a body caught her off guard, and combined with the approaching deadline in her mental clock, she startled to a fully alert state. She jumped up, took in a quick breath, and was ready to stand and fight.
Gratefully she didn’t have to. She released her breath and gave a weak smile to the man who had dared to interrupt her solitude. Indirectly, he was responsible for the way she was feeling, but she didn’t have it in her to blame him. If it was possible, he looked worse than she did, and that was saying something.
She had never thought to live to see the day when Lee Adama looked any less than by-the-book perfect. He was one of the few men she knew who could complete a full PT session and never get a hair out of place. He actually looked better when he was at his worst, the emotions invariably giving personality to features that he normally schooled to absolute blankness. He was easier to read when he was upset, and at the moment he was far beyond upset. He was miserable.
His brown hair was more than mussed, coming closer to absolutely askew. His beard shadow had passed the stylish trend days ago, and now was simply a short beard, which looked untended and sloppy. He had black and gray shadows beneath tired blue eyes, and the usual smile he had for her was instead drained by the same fatigue that she was feeling. He was even standing with a slight slouch, a testament to just how tired he was. He was a long ways from the determined but resigned CAG who had dropped pills into her hand the day before.
Beyond the physical, there was also the state of his uniform. Like her, he had managed to pull off the top half of his flight suit to expose his undershirts, the arms to the flight suit flapping behind him like a tail. It wasn’t regulation – and certainly wasn’t Lee – but it showed that he was as fatigued as the rest of the squad. He was too tired to even shower and change, and knowing the man as well as she did, she knew that the world must be ending.
“You look like shit,” she told him as she resumed her seat on the edge of her bunk.
“Thanks,” he told her in a tired, wry tone. “Same thing back at you.”
Unconsciously, she scooted to one side to allow him room to sit. He did so with a grateful sigh, resting elbows on his legs as he lowered his head and rubbed greasy hands over his tired face. “I figured you’d be asleep,” he said after a long moment.
“Right,” she snorted, trying to find the energy for her accustomed sarcasm. “I’ll be awake for another week after that dose of stims. I’m too tired to think, but thinking too much to sleep.”
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“What about you?” she asked. “Not tired?”
He turned to give her a shadow of a smile, but it was something and it relieved her in an odd way. “Too tired,” he told her.
Kara sighed, then ran her hands through her own dirty hair once more. “I should clean up, but I’m too tired to care.”
“You and me both.”
“I even thought of checking with Salik for something to bring me down, but with the medication situation the way it is…”
She didn’t need to finish the sentence before Lee was nodding. Everything was going to be in short supply in their near future. No time in history had been more uncertain, and while no official command had been made – yet – it was common knowledge that everyone was going to have to cut back.
“So, we’re too tired to move, and too tired to sleep,” she decided. “Any clue where to go from there?”
“None at all,” he admitted.
Kara sighed, and then turned herself sideways to sit on the bed, reclining herself back against the pillow. “Pull up a pillow,” she suggested. “Talk to me. That should bore both of us right into oblivion.”
He smacked her in the arm, but did as she said and lay himself along side her. She shifted just enough to share the single pillow with him, although later she wouldn’t know why she bothered. The room was full empty beds and pillows with no owners.
“It’s quiet in here,” Lee said softly.
A chill traveled up her spine as she realized just how closely that thought mirrored her own. “My squad was the best,” she said softly. “They were always the first ones out in a fight, or a drill, or a presentation. They made the Galactica look good.”
“So they were first out in this mess?” he asked.
She nodded, unaware that he wasn’t watching her. “The very first,” she admitted softly. “Before we knew about the scale of the war, or the jamming, or anything else. They didn’t have a chance.”
“And you were…?”
“In the brig,” she admitted. “Right where you’d left me. Every frakking one of my friends was blown to hell and back, and I was sitting on my butt in a cell because I couldn’t keep my hands in my pockets.”
His right hand slipped into her left, fingers threading with hers in a reassuring squeeze. Kara didn’t withdraw her hand, but neither did she accept the comfort he was offering. She was a survivor, and always had been. She survived when those around her blew apart. She’d survived so well and so long that she had forgotten along the way that she wasn’t immortal, wasn’t untouchable. Now, feeling vulnerable for the first time in years, she was out of her depth.
“I didn’t even get a chance to ask you how you were,” he commented as he turned his head slightly to face her. “Things got a little… busy.”
She gave a tired laugh. “You mean I kicked you out,” she corrected. Then she sighed. “I knew you were wrong to blame him, but I didn’t have the guts to tell you the truth. I guess I was trying to make it right without admitting any responsibility.”
“Kara?”
“Hmm?” she asked, watching as his blue eyes met hers.
“I’m not… ready to talk about this, about Zak. I don’t hold you responsible, but let’s leave it at that. You’re just about the only friend I have on this boat, and I’m not ready to have you kicking me out again.”
She squeezed his hand. Lee Adama admitting he might need a friend? The world as they had known it was truly over. She grasped around in the dark – trying to think of another subject to change to that would be less volatile than the explanations for why she had murdered her fiancé – but very little came to mind beyond the fact that they should both be sleeping through the precious little time they’d been given off. “So,” she hedged. “How’s life as a Captain?”
“At the moment it’s nerve wracking,” he admitted. “I hadn’t even pulled a stint as D-CAG yet, so this is a little… more than I expected.”
“It’s not so bad,” she told him with another companionable hand-hug. “Ripper bitched about the endless reports, but most of the job he enjoyed. He knew when to be a hard-ass and when to listen, but then he’d been doing this for ten years or so.”
“Sounds like a good CAG.”
Kara smiled softly, refusing to give in to the sadness which constant activity had kept on the edges of her consciousness. “He was the best. I don’t want you to let that get to you, though. You’ll be just as good, but right now you’re up against someone who can’t make any more mistakes. Don’t listen to the talk if they get to picking at you, just let me know and I’ll take care of it.”
He gave a wry laugh. “No thanks,” he said with a bump at the arm nearest his body. “I’d rather keep my best pilot out of the brig.”
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “He was a good man, Lee. We won’t forget him. I don’t want you to be… offended by that. It’s not about whether or not they like you; it’s about how much we’ll miss him.”
“Understood.”
“And you told me how you are; you never did say how you were. How have things been going for you?”
Lee gave a shrug, which she felt more than saw. As he spoke, she closed her eyes and let his voice just wash over her in hopes that it might relax her. She was marginally successful. “Pretty much same old, same old,” he told her. “Nothing too major going on. I was stationed on the Atlantia for a while, but when I made rank they started bouncing me around for this training or that. I was pretty much Solaria based when I got tasked for this.” He gave a laugh. “You have no clue how much I tried to get out of it, but Admiral Negala himself had signed the order. At first I thought Dad was just trying to be – I don’t know – sneaky, maybe. But I finally figured out that people just assume that families get along.”
“They should,” Kara told him. “You were pretty close once.”
“Not close enough,” he corrected.
“Lee…” Kara shook her head and tried to find words for what she had never in her life experienced first hand. “I don’t think there was anything he wouldn’t have done to get back on good terms with you. Anytime we got together – got to talking about things – it always came back to how much he missed you, and had I heard from you, and did you need anything. He never stopped being your father.”
“I just stopped being a son.”
“You did the best you could with what you knew,” she told him. He took a breath, as though to speak, but she cut him off. “And this isn’t going to be a discussion about Zak. I don’t think either of us is ready for that, and I know I’m too tired to consider it, but your dad is a very forgiving man and I think you need to try it. I’m not going to preach, or argue, or fight you. I’m just going to say that you’ve both lost enough – hell, you’re all you’ve got left – and turning your back on that is something that you’d eventually regret.”
Lee was silent for a long while. Briefly, Kara wondered if she’d overstepped her bounds as friend of the family. She knew that it had been a long time since she’d gone on a rant of that length, but Lee’s slowly released sigh let her know that she was okay. “We did talk a little,” he admitted. “Mostly about work. We’ll deal with the rest when there’s time. I think we might have managed it, but with this damned attack cycle, no one has had time for anything not directly related to survival. After we both get some rest… Well, we’ll look at it again, then.”
Kara nodded, not caring if Lee saw it or not. It was the best she could hope for and far more than she had expected.
“He still calls me ‘Son’,” Lee said softly. “Even on the bridge and even in front of others.”
“Old habits,” she told him gently.
“We’ll have to talk about that, too. Around you or Tigh it’s one thing, but on the deck we need to keep it professional.”
“Usually he does. You can’t blame him for the occasional slip, though. You’ve never been under his command, so it hasn’t been an issue in the past. Give him time to get used to it.”
Lee thought about that for a bit, and Kara started to wonder if perhaps he’d drifted to sleep. She wished desperately that she could do the same. His voice told her otherwise. “So, you’ve heard about my life; what about yours?”
She gave a shrug. “Flying, fighting, and working out. That’s about it, really.”
“You seemed to get along with Boomer,” he mentioned. “Sharon, was it?”
Kara nodded. “She’s a good kid, but a little raw. A week ago she was pure rook, but now… She does pretty good, I think. Except at cards; she’s pathetic at cards. Helo used to…” Her voice trailed off.
“Helo?”
“Her ECO,” Kara added. “Karl. He was the one she had to leave behind on Caprica.”
For a long time, Lee didn’t say a word. She thought maybe her morbid words had finally discouraged his attempts at conversation, but once again he proved her wrong. He must be really wired if he was still trying after the conversation had dropped so low.
“So I can add gambling to your list of activities,” he joked.
“Always,” she said, giving him a true smile and a wink, grateful that she hadn’t driven him off after all. Lee’s odd sense of humor was still intact, and he knew when to ignore her words to find the intent beneath. She had expected to get a grin in return, but instead he looked positively somber. “What?”
“Just… I guess it’s starting to sink in. This is the first time I’ve slowed down enough to think about it, but all the things we’ve taken for granted for so long…”
“I know,” she agreed. “I’m still not letting it sink in. I don’t want it to. When it does, I have to admit that no one’s coming back to fill these racks, and that I can count my friends on one hand, and that there’s nothing left.”
“This is left,” he reminded her. “The Galactica, and the fleet…”
“Such as it is,” she scoffed.
“It’s better than the alternative.”
She turned to face him then, looking into eyes that seemed too tired to be seeing anything. Her moods were swinging from one end of the pendulum to the other in the blink of an eye, and while she was aware of it, she couldn’t do a frakking thing to stop it.
“Maybe, but it’s not easier. Do you even realize what kind of a battle we’re looking at? Lee, the world is gone. I don’t just mean that we can’t go back; I mean that we can’t even look back. We’re headed for a mythical place, we don’t have the supplies or ships or people to make it there, and we could be right back in the middle of a fight without even a moment’s notice. Is this really better than just having it over and done?”
“I thought I was the pessimist,” Lee said softly.
“You are. I’m the realist.”
Silence reigned for a long stretch while Kara lay next to Lee and wondered if she’d said too much. She didn’t regret her honesty, but neither did she want to kill any hope that he might have held. The past several days had been a reaction more than a decision; she had fought because it was what she was trained to do. She hadn’t thought about anything past the next battle, and now that the immediate danger was over, she wasn’t entirely sure she’d done the right thing. In retrospect, going out in a blast of fire might have been easier than struggling through whatever was left of the rest of her life.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Lee told her softly. “I mean, I’m glad you weren’t with your squad when they got slammed, and I’m glad that I have at least one friend in this mess. And I guess it’s selfish, but I’m glad that if I had to get stuck for the rest of my life on a battlestar, then it’s my dad’s battlestar.”
“If it comes to that, I prefer you to anyone else as CAG. I just…”
“You never were one to embrace change.”
“That’s because it’s rarely a good thing,” she countered. And somehow, the entire conversation had gone from comfortable to miserable in a few words. She was miserable enough without contributing to the fact. “So, where did they put you? VIP quarters?”
“For the moment,” he admitted. “Someone mentioned moving into CAG quarters, but there hasn’t been time, and I don’t have the heart. It’s like a shrine in there. I guess your CAG really was a pretty great guy.”
“He took good care of us,” Kara admitted. “You will too. You’ve already mastered the most difficult part of your job.”
“And what’s that?”
“Putting up with me,” she told him with a smile.
After a moment, he smiled back and squeezed her hand again. “It’s so damned quiet in the command block. I swear you can hear your own heartbeat.”
“Kind of like here,” Kara said softly. “Usually it’s just this side of chaos. You can’t sleep for the racket, and you don’t dare let your pillow out of your sight.” She glanced around the room, which contained eight bunk units.
“Plenty in here tonight,” he replied. Kara closed her eyes against tears, knowing that she must be tired – too tired – if she was tearing up. She didn’t cry easily or often, and under the circumstances she was afraid that if she started, then she’d never get herself stopped.
They lay in silence once more, Kara still as alert and fatigued as she had been when she’d arrived in her room, and Lee becoming steadily more restless. “What?” she finally asked, tired of his fidgeting.
“Trying to get enough energy to get up and go back to my room,” he admitted.
“To stare at the ceiling?”
“Most likely,” he admitted. “But the stims will wear off eventually, and I don’t think you want to be found with the CAG in your bed.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” she told him, deadpan. She maintained her straight face until she saw his eyes, and finally she burst out laughing. The problem though, was that once she started, her exhaustion caused the giggles to go on until her stomach hurt and her eyes were watering. Each time she tried to control herself to explain, she started laughing all over again.
The fit of laughter seemed to go on endlessly, and by the time she was too tired – and her stomach too sore – for more, Lee was looking more than a little put out. “Oh Lords,” she said, almost going back into a peal of laughter. “Your face!”
The face in question was looking decidedly annoyed, so she managed to get herself under control, and with a final hiccupping cough she explained. “This is a long story,” she began.
“Bore me,” he requested, his voice droll.
“It started just after I got on board,” she said. “I was my usual genial self, and made so many lovely friends. After about the third time that Ripper had to drag me out of the brig, he ordered me point blank to stop beating on his pilots. I went to beat on him, he clobbered me, and we both went down. By the time we got up, we took our bruises to the club and numbed them as best we could. I was so wobbly after that, he decided to walk me back here so I couldn’t get into any more trouble. I came in and fell on the rack, and then he promptly passed out across me. He was heavy, I was tired, and the next thing I knew it was morning and half the squad was standing there trying to figure out what in hell had happened.”
Lee shook his head. “Have you ever stayed out of trouble?” he asked.
“Not if I could help it. Anyway, we wound up in front of your father for that one, and both of us were polishing decks in the bays for a month for being drunk and disorderly. The saving grace was that we were both fully clothed and the room was full of other officers. But we still paid dearly. I didn’t think I’d ever live that down. On the other hand, his wife thought it was hysterical, so I guess you can never tell how people will take that stuff.”
Lee looked at her in absolute confusion for a long moment, and then finally started laughing. “You’re one of a kind,” he said simply.
“Is that an insult or a compliment?”
“Take your pick,” he told her wryly. “I’m not telling.”
Releasing his hand, she moved her arm around his and squeezed it between her own and her body. “You realize we’re never going to get to sleep.”
“Sure we will,” he corrected. “This just calls for desperate measures.”
“Such as?”
“The evidence of colonization to be shown through verbal history,” he began.
“Oh Lords!”
He just grinned and held her arm tighter so that she couldn’t get away. “Is an oral tradition which is to be passed from generation to generation. The founding of the original colony of Kobol was initiated by the Twelve Primary Lords."
“The first being Zeus, from the second planet of Orion, who believed that all human beings had a purpose, and that life required no more than knowledge and understanding to be preserved," Kara added in a voice that suspiciously mimicked the most horrendous history instructor at the Military Academy. "He founded the planet of Caprica, creating a place for learning and beauty in a galaxy of confusion.”
Lee then picked up the recitation that was mandatory for each child in the early grades of school where Kara had trailed off. “The second being Aeres, who believed that humankind was destined to destroy itself, and who fought with Zeus. From the fourth ring of Saggisal, he was the first to colonize and create the settlements of Saggitaria.”
Kara went on with the next Lord, and Lee the next, until neither was coherent enough to realize whose turn it was, which Lords they had covered, or which one should come next. Somewhere in the recitation – in the memory of a history that would no longer have any meaning in the world – the two warriors finally found the peace to sleep.
*~*~*
Hours later, Kara’s sleep was interrupted by the restless movements of the man beside her. He was still on his back, his head moving from side to side and his breathing erratic. The grip of his nightmare was obvious, even to her, and even though she was barely touching him.
In her sleep, she had rolled to one side, and she’d wound up holding onto his arm like a child’s toy. She was curled up on the bed facing him, her head sharing his pillow – or his head sharing hers – and his body’s movements clearly telegraphed to her by the arm she was holding.
It took her a moment to even realize that she was awake, and who she was with, and to put the past several days in perspective past the persistent cloud of confusion that was a result of too many days without sleep followed by drugs to keep her awake. By the time she put all the pieces together, Lee’s movements had gone from erratic to urgent, and his breath was gasping.
“Lee?” she muttered, her voice gravelly from sleep. “Wake up, Lee. C’mon.” She shook the arm she was holding, and then lifted herself up on one elbow to look down on him just as his eyes flew open and their blue depths revealed absolute terror. “It’s a dream,” she told him automatically. “You’re fine. Everything’s okay.”
The reassurances were nearly unconscious, and later she would realize that they were also inaccurate. He wasn’t fine, and everything wasn’t okay. But at the moment, she was falling back on the same soft voice and reassuring nature that she’d had to use with new pilots who had survived rough landings, and fellow officers who had never lived away from home before. She had been in the military, and in shared quarters, long enough to have experienced plenty of both, and while she might be a little tough in daylight hours, she also realized that when the lights were out a person needed to hear that things were going to get better.
Lee’s eyes closed, and she watched as he took a deep breath and tried to slow his breathing. It was then that she realized he was shaking, there was sweat on his forehead, and despite his best efforts his breathing was a long way from steady. “I’m okay,” he said in a voice that was shaking more than his body was.
“You will be,” she told him. “Just keep breathing.”
He smiled at that. “You think I’m going to pass out on you?” he asked.
She didn’t take the bait. “I think you just had a hell of a nightmare,” she told him.
“Yeah,” he agreed, and finally she felt his body relax some.
It was then that she realized she had snuggled up with his arm and she released it with something just shy of embarrassment. It wasn’t that she minded touching Lee – the two of them had been beating on one another and horsing around for years – but waking up with her arms curled around anything or anyone when she wasn’t aware was something that bothered her on an instinctive level. Intellectually she could tell herself that she had no guard against Lee because it wasn’t necessary; he was familiar on a level that went beyond conscious thought. But intellect and instinct weren’t often in agreement.
“You want to talk about it?” she asked, once more reverting to the habit of taking care of the kids in quarters.
“No,” he said quickly, rubbing hands over his face.
She just nodded. The past week had held more horrors for both of them than could be counted, so what had happened in his mind could be any of a thousand things. She didn’t particularly want to relive any of them at the moment.
He rolled to his side, placing his feet on the floor and sitting up. “I need to get back to quarters,” he muttered, glancing at his watch. “I didn’t plan to…”
She knew what he meant. While what they had done hadn’t been the traditional definition of “sleeping together,” It had been both unexpected and of questionable wisdom just the same. She couldn’t find it in herself to mind. She had needed the presence of a friend, and she knew that he had too. When there was so little left of the world, someone familiar went a long way towards granting a little security. “Don’t worry about it,” she told him. “Everyone who isn’t on duty has crashed. No one will miss you.”
He nodded, although he didn’t look like he really agreed. “I’ll catch you on the deck,” he said as he stood. She noted absently that his hands still held a tremor and his voice wasn’t entirely steady, but she chose not to comment on either.
“Get some sleep,” she suggested. “Try not to dream.”
“Yeah,” he said, scrubbing his fingers through his hair as though everything itched. It probably did. “I’ll catch a shower than do that.”
He opened the door to leave, and was almost out the door when she called out. “Lee?”
“Hmm?”
“Thanks.”
He smiled at that, although it didn’t reach his eyes. “You too,” he replied. “Now get back to sleep. I’m sorry I woke you.”
Kara lay awake for a short while after he’d left, but fatigue and comfort of a familiar bed were enough to lull her back to sleep with little difficulty. Just before she faded out, she had the absent thought that she really needed to thank Lee again, and then she smiled as she reconsidered. She didn’t think any man would appreciate knowing that he’d been so successful in boring her to sleep.
Chapter 2
"Water"
I never really thought I'd be glad for a normal life, but looking back I really miss it. Oh, it may not have been normal by anyone else's standard, but at the very least it had "three hots and a cot", so to speak. Regular meals, a place to sleep, and a solid routine can go a long way towards keeping a person sane. Without those things, you can't help but falter. Needless to say, the war took every frakking one of those things away. Food was rationed, sleep was rare, and even something as simple and common as water became as precious as life itself.
The Galactica is designed for time in space; that's what she does. Unfortunately, while every one of the surviving fleet ships was FTL capable, not all were designed for long-term stays out of dock. They didn't have water purification, or significant food stores, or frankly much of anything to keep them flying. Added to this, most were now overcrowded due to transferring people from non-FTL ships prior to the initial jumps, so even if they'd had enough supplies initially, they were now stretched thin.
But that's life, and in the wake of the Cylon attack most of us were just glad to be alive. In my case, alive and rested. Five days of non-stop flight and fight was enough to completely exhaust me, mentally and physically. Lee was feeling it, too, although he didn't say much. In fact, he was a lot quieter than I remembered him ever being before, but it's hard to judge when the world is flipped upside down. He had a lot to worry about, from being CAG, to managing shifts, to fighting with the command bureaucracy and protocol. He did it well, yes. Hell, I couldn't even be civil to the President, and he managed her like an old friend without even seeming to mind. Still, he seemed quiet. On the other hand, it had been a long time, so maybe he'd just changed that much.
Lee and I pretty much managed the first twenty-four hours ourselves following the last FTL jump away from attacking Cylons. With a skeleton crew manning the bays and trying to help out Tyrol's bunch in putting undersides of Vipers back together, the majority of the rest of the pilots slept. We kept a team of alert fighters, but that was about all. After twelve hours, one-third of the pilots moved into the bays, allowing another third to continue resting. Finally, we began a rotation in thirds, overlapping patrols and assisting in the bay, and Lee and I were able to crash. We did so, and when we started back to work we actually saw one another very little. I was on Third Squad while he was on First, so at best we passed one another in the halls.
Shifts were routine for the next day or so, including general patrols that were long but not difficult, and continuing repairs. I even had time for some mild recreation, if time at the card table in the rec room can be called that. The other pilots were less worried about losing their cubits when they had no current value, but was a believer that things would someday be back as we knew them, so making a bit of money on my off-time was a pleasant diversion. My luck was as good as ever, and mixed in with some skill as well. I've always been a killer at cards, and I had a lot of new meat among the rescued pilots from ships other than the Galactica.
As the primary battlestar, the Galactica had first dibs on pilots with any combat experience, and Commander Adama called that in. In the wake of the initial attacks, more than a few warriors had been retrieved either planetside with crashed planes from Cylon jamming, or floating in space with failed systems. It all depended on whether or not the missiles had hit their targets, and for all their electronic genius, the Cylons weren't perfect. They missed a lot of men, and that's something we'll always be grateful for. Not only were the men tolerable pilots who made the rotations more manageable, but they were also blissfully ignorant of the Starbuck legend. You see, I don't lose at cards. I just don't. Unlucky in love… Well, that's another story.
So when I wasn't on duty, or getting much-needed sleep, I was trying to keep my sanity by doing something I was good at. It was a lot easier than dwelling on all we had lost. I wasn't the only one ignoring the recent past, so I didn't stand out. I just kept myself together by pretending nothing had happened. And, for the most part, it worked. I was able to get a few extra cubits along the way, and occupy my mind at the same time. I guess some could say that I was taking advantage of the kids, but that's not the way I see it. Life lessons are important, and one that they needed to learn was that you just don't bet against Starbuck.
The cubits didn't last as long as the lessons did, and before it was over we were playing for any of a hundred things, from rings to schools that didn't exist anymore to civilian chronometers of gold or silver or whatever. They didn't win any more this way, but they did learn more quickly. Some of the stuff would be given back of course - and some of it wouldn't - depending on what I needed, but the lesson should stick for a while.
And the only problem with teaching such a distinctive lesson is that once you've run off all the new meat you find yourself right back where you started in the first place: bored. My only alternative to keeping my mind and body occupied was to think, and frankly I wasn't ready for that. You see, there hasn't been much in the last week worth thinking about, and the future was too uncertain to contemplate. There just wasn't a point. We didn't know what would happen, and even if we had there was no way to change it, so thinking about it was wasted effort. The same could be said of the past. Sure, I could sit and remember the friends I'd lost, and the worlds that didn't exist any longer, and the absolute horror of seeing people I liked blown apart… But there wasn't a point. I'll remember them, and on occasion I'll miss them, but I can't benefit from dwelling on it. There's nothing I can learn from that pain.
That's what I told myself.
So I had fewer and fewer people willing to lose at Pyramid, and was almost starting to worry about what I would do when all their interest wore off and I was stuck with nothing more than fourteen hour patrols, four hour maintenance shifts, and six hours or so to sleep. That was where I was when I met one of the oddest people that I've yet to run across. They say geniuses are like that; but he didn't seem half as strange as some of the talk floating around.
I had just finished winning my fourth hand in a row from some of the new guys, and I'd lost most of my competition along the way, when he came into the room. He wasn't bad looking, although that might just be that he wasn't to military specs. His hair was longer than mine, his body was lean rather than toned from mandatory fitness programs, and his smile was… genuine. It was as though this man had lost nothing along the way, or had nothing worth losing then.
Gaius Baltar was an enigma. I'd heard plenty about him over the years. He was big in the defense department and military - almost a legend in his own way - and everyone wondered about the celebrity in our midst. The fact that he was also advising the President, and Lee said he was working with the Commander, only increased his popularity. Anyone smart enough to do all that seemed worth getting to know, at least superficially. And on top of all the rest, he seemed interested in cards. Be still my heart.
"If you've got the cubits, we've got the seat." It was so easy to invite him into the game. I could see going in that he was one of those charmer types. In general, I find those men to be losers, but at the very least he wasn't intimidated by the prospect of losing to a woman and I had to respect that. He was also a decent card player.
Having him in the game made it more interesting; that much was sure. We gained back a few of the dropouts when he joined in, and part of that might have been the suggestion of bidding with civilian clothing. It's definitely a rarity in the military, being both unnecessary and marginally vain. But it was something that wouldn't be available anymore, and because of that rarity it was a legitimate commodity.
By the time we had worked our way down to a few players, I was holding a fair hand and figured that it was an easy win. There are only two hands that beat a three-color run, so it was a fair bet that I was going to pull in the pot. Once more, the Starbuck luck was holding strong.
Baltar had an expressive face. He was one of those guys who had all the funny expressions and gestures that distract you from realizing that it might all have been an act. I've met the type before, mostly at the academy, and usually they ran screaming once I'd ignored their crap for about an hour or so. It seems the same guys who had such an easy time with the charm also had a tough time with having that charm ignored. You can tell a lot about a man by the way he handles rejection, and that's mostly what I hand out. It's served me well for a damned long time.
So I watched all those expressions, looked for the bluffs, and honestly figured I had him beat. He almost went as far as to say so, and I'd even reached for the spoils. When his hands came down on my wrists I was seriously tempted to smack him, but again there was something in his eyes. I didn't punch him, however much that might have been my first instinct, but instead I watched.
The guy was full of surprises. Of the two hands that would beat mine - a four-color run and full-colors - he was holding full-colors. Who would have thought it? Truthfully, it's the first time in months that I've lost a hand more than a few cubits in. It was the first time in years that I'd lost a substantial pot, so I just sat there and watched as he scooped away a couple week's pay and gritted my teeth to keep from saying something really rude. I knew he hadn't cheated - I'd been dealing, and his sleeves were up - but his win was a surprise just the same. I'd never met anyone with luck to rival mine.
He did the usual dance, making a mockery of my blowing off his accusations of "humiliation," and then he picked everything up as though to go. Before that though, he rounded the table and gave me the equivalent of a peace offering, or at least that's the way I chose to take it: one of the last Caprican fumarillos remaining in existence. I would have taken the offering even if he hadn't presented it with such a flourish, playing the gentleman and lighting it for me.
For just a moment, I wasn't thinking about the twenty officers in the ready room, or the end of the world, or even of losing the card game. For just a moment, he was a man and he was treating me like a woman, and I can't even remember the last time that happened. I'm one of the guys - and it's something I've worked hard to establish - but there's still a part of me that likes to be appreciated as, and treated like, a woman. He did that, and as much as it charmed me, it also infuriated me. It wasn't that he'd done anything wrong, but that I didn't know what to feel about it, or if I felt anything, or what to do about it if I did. It was that confusion laced with irritation that had me blowing smoke in his face, fully expecting him to back off and put me on more even ground.
But he didn't do it. He stood there, rolled those expressive eyes, and looked like a little boy for just a moment: playful and just a little sweet, like a kid with a first crush. I'd seen the expression many times, but never directed towards me. It took me more than a little off guard, standing there stupidly as he took his winnings and walked away.
But all the feelings in the world couldn't distract me from the full-bodied flavor of that fumarillo. He hadn't been exaggerating when he'd said it was the best, and truthfully better than anything my budget had allowed for in a long time. It was a fine smoke, and I enjoyed every moment of it, even around the teasing comments that some of the pilots were brave enough to offer. I was even in enough of an off-mood that I didn't pick a fight over it, at least not then.
But I still don't know how I feel about the illustrious Gaius Baltar. He's not what I expected from the definition of genius. He's not even what I expected of the usual flirtatious charmer, which was my initial impression. He was… nice. He was playful, and kind of sweet, and that's something I haven't seen a lot of lately. The only men like that have been the ensigns coming in, and the Rooks knww better than to turn that shit on me. I guess it'd just been too long since I had been treated like a girl if something so simple seemed to stick with me so significantly.
Whatever the reason behind it, I'm still thinking about Gaius Baltar. Go figure. Maybe it's just irritation over losing a hand of cards, or at being bluffed for the first time in memory. Possibly it's just curiosity over celebrity status and the fact that he'd focused his attention on me. Shit, maybe I'm just so warped that any attention would be flattering. It didn't really matter. It was time for work, and I had got fourteen hours in a Viper to figure out what and why and how to deal with things that hadn't been on my mind in years. And maybe, just maybe, I'll never know.
The thing is, I've always had a thing for guys who weren't all that good for me. It's not that I actively sought out idiots, but they did seem to find me. And maybe there was a certain level of challenge in dealing with a man who wasn't all that predictable. Or maybe it was a matter of not being able to be with who I wanted, so I took who was available.
But I'm not going there.
Once upon a time, I had a good man and a real relationship despite all my efforts to screw the situation up. Zak was forgiving enough to put up with my… indiscretions, and confident enough to wait for me to realize that I wanted him, not them. Truth be told, Lee was a hell of a lot more pissed when I screwed around - quite literally - while I was at the academy. I guess it's that boy scout mentality; combined with parents who were both monogamous and rather "normal", for lack of a better word. I didn't have the same background, so I didn't have the same values. It didn't make me wrong, just different.
That's what I told myself; that's what Zak told me. He was the one man who could make me feel almost normal, and he even made me fall in love. Imagine that - the untouchable Kara Thrace in love. But I was, with everything in me. Look what that got me.
Lords, I don't think anything ever hurt so much as knowing that I killed the man I loved. Even he knew that he wasn't ready to fly, but I just couldn't give in; I just wouldn't back down. I lied to him, I defended him, and then I killed him. The only thing worse than knowing it was keeping it to myself. But when Zak was gone, Lee and his family were all I had left, and I knew that if they'd had any clue what part I'd played in his death, they would have hated me. I was especially worried about Lee's response. After all, the man had held a grudge against his own father for years over something he didn't even do; imagine what he would do if his wrath was justified.
And yet, even with that the great Lee Adama surprised me. When I told him, he was upset, but whether it was my timing or just the passage of time, or maybe just the fact that he knew I loved Zak, he found some way to forgive me. He's never said it in so many words, but he hasn't condemned or yelled or belittled. And trust me, he would have done it if he'd felt he had reason. He may be the most critical man I've ever known. What makes it worse is that most of the time he has good reason. There's nothing worse than being held responsible for something you already feel guilty as hell about.
He still won't talk about it, and I find that ironic. I had always expected an explosion, but aside from an occasional sideways reference to my own fixation with the issue, he hasn't had anything overt to say. I've tried to get him to talk about it, but I don't push hard enough to push him away; some days I think he's all I have, and I won't lose that over my own insecurities. But the thing is, I don't have him.
And in a roundabout way, that's what it all comes down to. I don't have Lee; not as a lover, not as a brother, and some days not even as a friend. But I see something in him that feels… right. Maybe it's that he's Zak's big brother, and one of the only men who's known me since before all the shit began. Maybe it's that he's the hardest man to please that I've ever known, and that includes his father. Maybe it's simply the fact that he has a body to die for and blue eyes that could bore into anyone's soul. Who the hell knows; Lee is what he is. But whatever he is, he's not mine.
And if you can't have the one you want, you may as well have someone. Anyone. So I guess that includes slightly insane scientists who have an annoying tendency to talk to themselves. Maybe it's just fate that I found myself attracted - sort of - to a man so unlike Lee as to make a comparison comical. Maybe it's just the novelty of a civilian with real clothes and long hair. Maybe it's just two years on this boat with the Old Man watching, and me afraid to make a move in the wrong direction for fear that he'd look too close and see something that I've tried so hard to hide.
I'm not saying that it'll go anyplace past flirting. In fact, it likely won't. We have too much to worry about in just staying alive to bother with the complications of any kind of relationship. Besides, when it comes apart - and it will, because I really don't care about him - there would be no place to run. The fleet is too small to stay clear of a spurned lover, so I'm best off staying out of that situation.
In any case, he's not Lee. So if I'm honest with myself, he's not worth the trouble.
*~*~*
"You're nuts!"
Kara Thrace looked at her CAG as though he had grown a second head. "An advisor to who?"
"The President," he reiterated unnecessarily.
"Why the frak would you…"
"It's not like it sounds," he argued. "I'm just there to help her learn the ins and outs of the military. That's all; I'm not plotting against anyone, and I'm not passing on any secrets."
"Your father is going to go ballistic," she told him in no uncertain terms. "You know this."
Lee sighed and lay back on her bed, staring up at the underside of the bunk above them. "Yeah," he said, and most of the enthusiasm had left his voice. "Well, I haven't exactly told him yet."
Unable to stop herself, Kara giggled. "Oh, I've got to be there for that," she said with a very uncharacteristic squeal. "This will be priceless!"
Lee reached over and grabbed her pillow, putting it over her face to stifle the giggles and in the process knocking her on her back. If it had been anyone else, they would have found themselves flat on their backs on the floor, but this was Lee. She knew very well that he would never really hurt her, even though he was probably one of the few men she knew who was trained well enough to actually be capable of it.
As she'd expected, the pillow was gone before she exhausted a single breath, and with her next she sucked in enough air to start laughing all over again at the thought of the ship's commander being told that his son was working for the enemy.
The laughter continued until they managed a comfortable silence, something that had become more frequent in the evenings lately. She and Lee had gone from opposite shifts to matching shifts as she trained him on many aspects of the Galactica's crew roster and procedures. They hadn't had time to do it during the Cylon attacks or the initial phases of the water crisis, but for the moment things were relatively stable. All they needed was to find someplace on the planet with water, and things would level back out again; Kara was sure of it.
But in the meantime, it was just good to have a laugh with a friend, and to realize that everything they had been fighting to keep had not been lost to war and grief. The last couple of evenings, when the quarters were quiet and most of the work was as done as it was going to get, Lee tended to drop by and they would talk for a while. He called it "catching up" but she considered it "maintaining sanity". Whatever it was, she looked forward to the brief times when she could forget just for a moment that the world had come to an end and they were just lingering on out of habit.
"So, how was your day?" he asked.
She accepted the change of subject unwillingly; she had been having fun at his expense. "Not as interesting as yours," she admitted. "After we finished rosters, I took a couple of the newbies into the crew quarters and let them pick where they wanted to stay. Then I took them for some cubits at the game table."
"What did you win this time?" he asked, amusement clear in his tone.
"Actually, I lost most everything I had on the table," she said in a wry tone. "We had a ringer show up in genius's clothing, and he took me for all I had. Full colors! Would you believe it?"
"Someone beat you at Pyramid?" he asked incredulously. "Be still my heart!"
She reached over an arm to casually punch him in the stomach. Only the fact that she had done it in fun - and that he was a friend - kept her from bruising him. She wasn't a woman to take losing in stride any more than Lee was someone to take his father's ire that way. It appeared they were both facing challenges to get themselves back on even footing.
"Who beat you?" he asked, thankfully neither commenting on her mild punch nor laughing at her situation. Cards were a serious matter, and she wasn't laughing. "One Gaius Baltar," she muttered in irritation.
"Well, at least he is a genius," Lee granted. "He probably counts cards, too."
"Doesn't matter," she told him in a morose tone.
Lee turned on his side, propping his head on one hand and resting on his elbow. "Pyramid doesn't matter?" he asked. "Lords, what have you done with Kara Thrace. You can't be her; maybe you're a Cylon agent!:"
She resisted the urge to smack the grin off his face only because she had a limited number of friends and Lee was actually right. She hated to lose, and it was beyond common knowledge. In fact, her lack of sportsmanship was second only to her legendary winning streaks and killer right hook. "So, what's on the schedule for tomorrow?" she asked, trying to divert him as easily as he had diverted her.
"Passing on your Pyramid crown," he said with a straight face, and it was only that lack of laughter that caused her to giggle at the ridiculous turn the conversation had taken.
"Enough," she begged through something just shy of hysteria. "My sides hurt, and I'm tired. Seriously, what's next? We've finally found water, but how are they going to get it up to the fleet?"
"Not sure," Lee admitted, relaxing back and tucking her pillow beneath his head. "The Chief and his team are doing some preliminaries to find out where the water is, what it's mixed with, and the best way to get it up here. I think they report in the morning."
"You don't know?" she asked, actually marginally surprised. Lee was pretty good for knowing what was going on around the Galactica.
"I've been… busy."
She turned to look at him and saw a faint blush on his cheeks. "Ah," she said with a knowing look that was anything but. "Advising."
"I'll admit that she's had a lot of questions," he said softly. "She may have been a terrific Secretary of Education, but she actually doesn't know a thing about the military. I guess I thought the government was more…aware."
"It's been over a thousand years since we had a military president," she reminded him. "The colonies really sought to keep the factions separate so that they could monitor one another without bias. Don't tell me you've forgotten your basic Colonial History."
"I haven't forgotten," he said as he gently elbowed her in the ribs. "I guess I just didn't realize… I mean, we're not ignorant of the government; not entirely. I thought she'd have a better idea of what went on to give the government the protection necessary for it to do its job."
"And she doesn't?"
"Not really," he admitted. "But then, I was raised to this. I knew rank and structure before I could walk. It's hard to realize that not everyone else has learned the same things."
"True enough."
Silence once more descended between them, comfortable and relaxed. Just as she was able to enjoy humor with Lee, she was also able to let down her guard and enjoy the quiet. There wasn't a lot of silence to be found outside of crew quarters, but here it was pleasantly quiet with only the Galactica's constant thrum of vibration, imperceptible after years on the ship.
Kara could have moved into a more lively quarters, or allowed some of the newer pilots to move in with her. After all, there were more than enough beds there, and it wasn't as though their previous owners were going to be coming back. But whether because they were afraid of her or just wanted to stay together, none had asked for a place in her room. She hadn't offered. She knew that soon they would have to add more pilots to their roster, whether by training new ones or reinstating more of the older ones, but for the moment she could enjoy the seclusion of a private room, and the privacy of being able to relax with a friend.
And yet the silence wasn't entirely comfortable. There was a lot that had been left unsaid between the two of them, and years of failure to communicate beyond the most basic greetings and acknowledgements. They still hadn't dealt with how Lee must feel about her placing his brother in a situation that had resulted in his death, and she hadn't entirely vented her frustration with the way he had treated his father over the past two years.
But now wasn't the time to deal with past hurts. She knew herself well enough that she realized that she didn't have the strength to deal with an emotional discussion, and Lee had told her more than once that he wasn't ready to cope with anything more regarding Zak. She took comfort in the knowledge that he didn't hate her, and that he was at least willing to work with her on remaining friends. In fact, they were closer now - both physically and emotionally - then they had been in a very long time.
"So, you think this advisory thing is going to interfere with your being CAG?" she asked, realizing belatedly that as the Deputy CAG she would most likely be picking up the slack when bureaucratic matters became an issue.
"Maybe some," he admitted with an obvious reluctance. "But you shouldn't be working too many more hours."
She had to laugh at that. There simply weren't any more hours in the day to work, so if anything she would simply be working in a different capacity. "You're not giving me your paperwork," she told him firmly. "I'll run squads, but I'm not pushing a pencil."
"Would I do that to you?" he asked with a feigned innocence.
"In a heartbeat," she muttered.
He laughed at that, and it was both honest and genuine. He had a terrific laugh, she thought absently. In fact, he sounded a good deal like... But she wasn't going there. She wasn't thinking of him that way. She wasn't. It was that simple.
She would make it that simple.
"Something tells me I'd better rest up, whatever you say," she told him wryly. "Not that I don't trust you."
"Me?" he asked with an elbow to her rib that lingered for just a moment. She felt the warmth of his arm beneath hers, and for just a moment she didn't breathe.
"You," she agreed. Why was her mouth suddenly dry?
"Probably right," he told her grudgingly. "And you're not the only one. I have a feeling I'll be running just about everywhere before I get this 'job description' hacked out. The paperwork is done for the moment, and CAP is set pretty firm, so I'm going to get some rest."
"Here or quarters?" she asked, and tried to make the question sound as though she didn't care.
"Here," he said after a slight pause. "I'm too tired to go far." With that, he stood and moved himself to the bunk across the walkway from her, tossed back a blanket, and settled in with his back to her as though they'd been sleeping in the same room for years.
Truthfully, they may as well have. He was no different from any other man who slept in the bunk across from her. No different at all.
She told herself that again as she eased herself under her covers and curled up facing him, one hand beneath her pillow and her eyes trained on the line of his back, hidden only slightly by the military issue blanket he'd tugged up over his bare arm.
He was just no different, she reminded herself yet again as she closed her eyes and did her best to turn off her brain so that she could get enough sleep to be ready for work.
No different, she thought again, as she drifted to sleep.
But in her dreams, he was.