We used to wait. (Chaper 10/?)
title: We used to wait. (Chapter 10/?)
author:
apodixis
spoilers: Through all seasons, though this takes place in an AU starting at the very end of season 2.
pairings: kara/lee, kara/sam
overall fic rating: R/NC-17
word count: 6,997
notes: See http://apodixis.livejournal.com/685.html for more information.
summary: If God isn't leading the fleet to Earth, can they ever find it?
I posted chapters 9 & 10 around the same time, so make sure you didn't miss 9!
Kara stared at the octagonal shape of the greying radiation badge set on the desk in front of her. It was something she hadn’t seen since an emergency training mission long before the worlds ended. She knew that when these were brought out, you prayed you wouldn’t have to actually use them. Unfortunately for her and the rest of her pilots, like everything else they’d been through since the cylons attacked the colonies, there was no reprieve when it came to facing down the worst of circumstances. She wasn’t scared of death, so long as she died quickly, and she had already said a prayer before each trip that if she weren’t to fair well through the mission, she at least died in an explosion or vented out into space. What she was actually frightened of was the slow and painful death associated with exposing herself to too much radiation for the good of the fleet.
Her eyelids drifted shut despite the fact that it was the middle of the day and she was seated upright in the brightly lit CAG’s office. What would have been familiar foot steps sounded through the room, but she remained unmoving, oblivious to the world.
Lee watched her with his own heavy eyes, first amusement coming over him at catching her asleep on the job, but then something akin to panic spread through him. His hand grabbed at her shoulder, lightly shaking her body while he called to her. “Starbuck? Kara? Wake up, Kara.”
She stirred suddenly, eyes opened as she looked up to him. They closed again, but he could tell she hadn’t fallen into slumber or worse. She leaned into the back of the chair, swallowing over the lump in her throat. “I can’t stay awake anymore.”
He sat on the edge of what used to be his desk, watching her. “Radiation is doing a number on you, but I’d take a guess and say it’s more the malnourishment than anything else. Not enough calories so your body starts to shut down to conserve energy.” It was the story they all knew and it had been fleet wide. There had even been rumors of a few deaths in the elderly population, their bodies just giving up as they awaited sustenance. The last straw that broke the camel’s back. “Hey, you okay?” He called to her again, sensing the slower rhythm of her breathing.
Kara barely moved, nodding to him with her eyes still shut. “Yeah, yeah. I’m up.” She attempted to right the situation by sitting up a little straighter while her fingers rubbed across her eyelids to push the sleep out of her system. “Thanks, you know,” Kara avoided looking to him as she spoke, busying her hands with shuffling paperwork. “For helping me plan this out. Your father knows it was all you, I bet he’s a heartbeat away from reinstating you as CAG.”
He warmed at her gratefulness since it was such a rare thing for her to put into words. “You’re a good CAG, Kara.” Lee tried to reassure her, though even speaking seemed to expend more energy than he had in him. They were down to eating less than half a meal once a day, and that was if they could even choke it down with the nausea from the radiation coursing through them. For the two of them, it had been almost twenty four hours since they’d taken their turn at forcing down bits of a crumbled ration bar with water and he knew she was looking forward to it as much as he was.
Her head rested against her hand, elbow on the top of the desk. “Do you remember the tyllium mission?” It had been their first big success against the cylons, and was still one of only a few.
Lee nodded to her, remembering the taste of the fizzy alcohol on his tongue and how his flight suit smelled of it for a week afterward because of how much had been sprayed over them. Though his stomach wanted to remember the taste of it more than anything, the rest of him turned to the memory of the person that had stood beside him afterwards, welcoming him back to the fleet. Kara. It had been something of a surprise to him, to see her proud and humbled, instead of abrasive and angry for once. Along with the few pictures of his deceased family he had made copies of from his father’s supply, he also had a picture from that day someone had snapped and passed on to him. That one, he hadn’t ever hung on the ceiling of his bunk, but kept it hidden away between the pages of a book on the small shelf in his rack. Back then, and even now, he would often take it out to look at it, the two of them smiling side by side, unaware of the voyeur preserving them on film.
“Of course.”
“You said something to me back then, about how everyone wished I was able to go on the mission instead of you. That’s how I feel sometimes here. Everyone wishes you were still the CAG.”
Lee listened, her voice reluctant and particularly open with him, and he knew it was the hunger and sickness bringing her guard especially down. She wasn’t in her right mind, not completely. “If they think that, it’s just because they know I used to be a pushover.” He watched her smile, eyes still shut as she conserved the energy that her body would have used to keep her lids open, not to mention blinking. “Besides, even you said I did a good job on the mission.” Still seated on the desk with his legs dangling down, he nudged the side of his calf against her knee. “And I’m saying you’re doing a good job now.”
Kara opened her eyes after he’d spoken, taking a good look at him. He was pale, eyes sunken and skin discolored beneath. He seemed like a shell of himself, muted and only a fraction of what she knew he really was. If this was how he looked, she knew she had to be in even worse shape. But just as she didn’t mind, it was clear that he didn’t care either.
“I want your opinion on something, Lee, but it has to be between us. I don’t care what regulation or the stick up your ass says.”
He breathed out something of a laugh, nodding. “I swear to ignore the stick up my ass, sir.” Lee gave a mock salute and it brought a smile to both of their faces.
“I found out something about Kat.” Her eyes went to the pencil on her desk, palm rolling it back and forth over the space of a few inches. It was a small thing to keep her body focused and the sleep at bay. “She took another girl’s name after the attacks so she could enlist. She used to smuggle. Drugs, people, whatever. Part of me wants to go straight to your father and tell him about her, about what a traitor she is because she could have been one of those people who brought the cylons in. She’s lied to all of us and she doesn’t deserve to be here.”
There was anger in her voice, though it was relatively well controlled. Despite his shock and surprise at what she was saying, Lee listened quietly.
“But…” Kara’s hand stopped abruptly, stilling the pencil. She relaxed back into the wood of the chair. “..Gods, she’s a frakking good pilot, as much as I hate to say it. Maybe who she was doesn’t matter anymore because of everything she’s done. I mean, my file in your father’s office is probably the thickest one there from all my my write-ups and he made me a Commander. Maybe it was a bad idea, maybe Pegasus would still be here if he had chosen you instead.”
Lee was already shaking his head as she continued, not wanting to cut her off until her thoughts were finished. “You earned that job, Kara. If I had been Commander, maybe we wouldn’t have even survived the fight. Maybe we would’ve left everyone there to preserve the lives we had instead of risking it all. You can’t start thinking what if because it never ends. What if I hadn’t come to the decommissioning that day?” Her eyes quickly looked up meet his as he said it. He could tell she was imagining what life would have been like without Lee on Galactica all this time, and he wasn’t interested in knowing how dark her thoughts were going to get regarding it.
“My father chose right in making you Commander and he chose right in asking you to serve on this ship, even if someone else wouldn’t have. So you have to ask yourself what you feel about Kat. Not what the regulation is because the frakking regulations don’t mean a damn anymore. Not what even I’d do or my father would do. She’s your pilot so ask yourself what you want to do. If you put your anger away and you genuinely think she doesn’t deserve to be here, then you go tell the Admiral. If you think that maybe she didn’t do the correct thing, but maybe it was still the right thing, and you can still stand to work with her, then don’t ever bring it up again.”
Kara nodded just barely as she tried to pull her thoughts together on the matter. Beside her, Lee stood up, stretching his legs.
“You can think about it in the mess hall. I’ll even share some of my crumbs.”
She followed him to the door, body moving a little slower and with less precision than she was used to, but moving still nonetheless.
-
That afternoon during the briefing before their last trip out, Kara asked Kat to stay after the others had gone. Lee was the last to leave before the pair of women had full privacy, and from across the room he nodded to her. He didn’t know what her decision was, but more than anything he trusted in her. Kara got the message he delivered and it bolstered her footing a little bit more.
Kat reluctantly approached the podium behind which Kara still stood. The younger woman’s face was defensive already and in so many ways, it reminded Kara of herself.
“Your badge went black on the last trip out, I’m pulling you off outbound five and replacing you with Duck.” She was using her best CAG voice, trying to be stern and impress upon Kat the magnitude of the situation. The silence stretched between them and Kara knew that for Kat to not be openly protesting it meant a tremendous amount in regards to how she was feeling after the four trips she’d already made. When she looked back up to the pilot’s eyes, she could read the mixture of fear and anger already claiming home there. “What I heard the other day, Kat, it never happened. Do you understand, Louanne?”
Kat blinked rapidly a few times while her body remained unmoving, her mind trying to completely process what the intentions were behind what the Major said. “Are you sure, sir?” She suddenly found the effort to observe proper rank, something she hadn’t always followed in the past when it came to Starbuck.
“You’re a pilot, one of the best we have. The fleet’s been better for it and you’ve saved thousands of lives over and over again. You can consider the number of donut runs I’ll have you on when we get to the planet as your atonement.” If this had even been the Starbuck of a year and a half ago, Kara knew this conversation wouldn’t have been happening, at least not like this. “You did your job and you brought home the ships you could. If you even think of trying to climb back into one of those birds again, I’ll have your ass for it, Kat. Dismissed.”
Before her, Kat rose her arm in the type of salute that would have made any drill sergeant proud. The breath Kara had been holding released from her once the pilot was out of sight and she had the time to think over the decision she’d made. It was the right one, that was all she knew.
-
In the morning, or what resembled it on the planet, able bodied civilians and crew from Galactica would begin the process that would bring nourishment back to their stomachs and souls. But that was still hours away, the ambient lighting of the ship suggesting it to be somewhere just past midnight. Most of the non-essential crew had turned in to their bunks, and that included the vast majority of the pilots after a most trying couple of days. For once, Kara wasn’t an exception to that rule, and just as she moved to lift the set of double tanks from her torso, she felt a hand on her arm. There was a welcomed kind of warmth to the palm embracing her cold skin and she turned back to catch sight of who it was.
Lee’s head made a jerking motion towards the hatch from where she’d previously came and he headed for it, leaving it ajar. A thin beam of light cut across the black of the room and though she felt the lure of sleep aching in her muscles, she followed him out, this time making sure to close the hatch behind her. He wasn’t waiting for her as she expected, instead he was already halfway down the hallway, walking at a slow pace without even a glance back to her. Though everything in her told her to crawl into her rack and tell Lee to frak off, she followed him down the familiar A-shaped hallways that were their home. Her office door was left open just as he had done to the hatch of their bunk room, and with herself already grumbling in irritation, Kara went inside.
“Really not interested in dealing with whatever game you’re playing tonight, Apollo.” The words were out of her mouth before she’d even looked to him after having pulled the door tightly closed.
“You’re going to regret saying that in a minute,” Lee said, and the confidence in his voice only grated on Kara’s nerves.
She was about to open her mouth to reply when he drew his hands forward from where they were hiding behind his back. They were both occupied and Kara’s eyes went wide immediately at the familiar shape of the tall and thin bottle of whiskey. It wasn’t full, but with her body still thrumming with the relative success of the completed mission, she’d categorize it as half full instead of half empty. It was a beautiful brown color, and she knew it had to date back to pre-genocide based on that alone. What had been brewed on New Caprica and on the ships across the fleet had never been exactly quite right in color, and especially not in taste.
So captivated by his first hand she nearly missed what was in the second. It was less obvious, as it was much smaller, not any larger than the palm of his hand. The colored paper, however, and the foil wrapping was enough to clue her in. Kara thought that the liquor had been surprising enough, but chocolate? Oh Gods, at this level of starvation and now years of deprivation of something that would have been so commonplace on every store shelf, she would have done just about anything for a taste. Just a taste.
“I’m going to forget that you’ve been holding out on everyone while we’ve literally been starving for days now, Lee,” Kara said. Before closing the distance between them she turned back to the hatch, dogging it to prevent any unwanted intruders from interrupting what Kara knew would be a night of complete gluttony. Gluttony, at least by their current standards. This hardly qualified as a Friday afternoon for her before mankind’s children returned for their parents.
“I had some free time earlier and I knew I was still missing a box of belongings from before I went down to New Caprica.” It had been the first time he’d even mentioned that place in weeks, but he soldiered on, determined not to let thoughts of the past deter them from enjoying themselves. “I got the lieutenant on watch to let me into the storage room where my my stuff had been and sure enough…” His hands raised, wordlessly finishing the thought for himself.
Kara eyed him with suspicion, her mouth watering at the mere thought of what he was suggesting. Had he even a stale protein bar with a little mold on it, she would’ve been diving in, that much was true. But this was nothing but a pure miracle. “I don’t know if I’m more offended that you had chocolate on board for months after the end of the worlds and didn’t share it, or completely shocked you had the self control not to eat it yourself.” Her head shook and she took the whiskey from him by the neck of the bottle. “You’re you, I shouldn’t be surprised you had self control. You’re Mr. Moderation.” She delivered her words with a wink of an eye just before downing a long sip of the alcohol. It burned all the way down, but it was familiar in the best of ways. A comfort and a little bit of home all at once.
She sat down just in front of the couch, her back leaned up against it just as she had done those weeks prior when he’d woken up to find her still there. Lee’s heart swelled at just the thought of it. It hadn’t mattered to him that they’d filled the time since then as just friends and truly nothing more or that he went to sleep every night alone since Dee had graciously stepped aside. He knew that she, too, was spending her nights alone in her bunk. Whether she spent her free time during the day with Anders in his rack or with him inside of her tucked away in a storage closet, Lee didn’t know and he didn’t want to. He liked the image before him right now: Kara Thrace barely dressed for bed on the floor of her office, her head tilted up to him. He would swear her eyes beckoned him closer and so he either obeyed her or his imagination, sitting beside her, their bodies touching.
Kara passed him the bottle and he took a healthy swig, settling it between them. He offered her the small amount of chocolate, clearly only a portion of what had once been a larger bar.
“I won this in a game of triad my second week here. I was holding onto it until it could buy me something really good. I did take economics, you know.”
She laughed beside him, shaking her head. “I bet you were a real brown nose in school, Lee.”
He watched her breaking up the chocolate into smaller pieces over the paper that rested on her leg, careful not to let even the smallest of flakes escape. If this was all they had, she was going to make sure they enjoyed it.
Lee smiled and something of a blush came over the pallor of his face.
“I knew it,” Kara sang out over her victory. She handed him a piece of the chocolate before taking her own, and set the foil on the floor with the rest of it. “You’ve got exactly three seconds to eat this before I do.”
For a moment he hesitated, the look on her face consuming him. It was amazing how quickly her mood and his own had changed. This was the happiest she’d looked in days, if not long before that. She wasn’t thinking about anything else at that moment, except sitting there with him and enjoying things that had once been so mundane in their lives. Now, a half full bottle of liquor and a quarter of a slightly melted off-brand chocolate bar were absolute treasures. Because of that, Lee was about to decline the piece she offered him, preferring to see her enjoy it than enjoy it himself, but Kara persisted, forcing it into his hand as she ate her own.
“Oh my Gods.” Kara moaned rather provocatively despite her half full mouth. Her eyes closed for a moment as she chewed and the chocolate melted on her tongue, bathing her taste buds in the kind of rich flavor she’d long since forgotten. She couldn’t remember anything ever tasting this good. “Lee, really, eat it.” She insisted, pushing at his hand, still enjoying the flavors circulating through her mouth.
He gave in and bit into his own piece. It was instantaneous. He was reminded of a million memories all at once. A summer at his grandfather’s cabin when he and Zak split the same exact bar after spending an afternoon fishing. His little brother had argued he had taken the bigger half, insisting they swap. A handful of winters on Caprica, though they never got too cold, when his mother had behaved like an actual parent for a small moment in time and brewed a couple mugs of hot chocolate for her boys. A chocolate slice of birthday cake when his friends had taken him out during his time at the academy, of course followed by a night of ambrosia and a hangover the next morning.
Beside him, Kara watched in rapt attention, her own smile plastered on from not only her bite of the chocolate but watching him enjoy his. She took another drink from the bottle of whiskey and passed it to him once he’d made it back to the present from his whirlwind tour through his memories, both recent and not quite so.
Their eyes met over the bottle as he drank from it and he could tell Kara was waiting for the right moment to say something.
“How’s Dualla?” She held his eyes and she took the bottle back to take yet another sip, letting it wash away the remainder of chocolate from the inside of her mouth.
“We ended it awhile back.” A look crossed her features that he would have been blind to not notice.
Kara turned her attention away from him, dipping her finger onto the foil that held the chocolate bar. The fingerprint picked up just a few slivers of it and she drew it to her mouth, licking the remainder off. “That so?”
“How’s Anders?”
She didn’t react to his words, already expecting the returned question. Kara shrugged in response and she wiped her hand off on her shorts before reaching for the bottle. “Around.” Though her tolerance for alcohol was what anyone would consider extremely high, the complete lack of food in her system and general weakness of her body as of late allowed her to already feel just a light buzz as the fluid worked through her system. She wasn’t impaired, in fact she’d felt far more intoxicated during a hangover than right now, but it was a pleasant feeling.
“Why’d you call it off with her?”
Lee had a fleeting moment of admitting everything to her. Admitting how he was driven to stay with Dee only due to Kara’s relationship and subsequent marriage. Admitting that every time he frakked her or just curled up beside her, he thought of someone else. Admitting that in the end, the reason he and Dee were no longer together was because the close proximity to her was only further reminding him of the things he really wanted. He chickened out.
“It was just time.”
Kara didn’t believe him, but played along for his sake. She recapped the bottle, now nearly empty, and set it aside, her hand also brushing away the remaining chocolate. “Lee.” She rose up on her knees, shifting until she was in front of him rather than beside him. Hands, slightly sticky from the chocolate, rested against his covered knees. His body stiffened immediately, wound tight like a spring.
“Kara.” He returned with her name because it was simple, his mind almost completely shut off by something so simple as her touch.
The pressure on his knees increased as she leaned forward, her weight shifting just barely. Kara drew her head in to his and moving like she’d done it a million times before, she kissed against the center of his lips. Lee couldn’t even make himself react at first, chest pounding so hard and fast he’d swear he was having a heart attack. But Kara led the way for him, gentle at first, something he never expected from her. Just because it was unexpected didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy it, though. All at once he came back to his body and he returned her kiss, that same gentleness passed back to her.
His hand sought out her face, palm resting across her cheek and sharp line of her jaw to keep her close. He kissed the corner of her mouth and tasted just a hint of chocolate there. That mixed in with the flavor of the whiskey was heaven enough, but to add in the very distinct taste of Kara was absolutely divine. They’d done this only a few times before, the first being that confusing and unfortunate incident while his brother slept on her couch, and the most recent having been under the stars visible from the New Caprica sky. Each time, she had tasted exactly the same under the other lingering flavors of whatever she’d been recently drinking.
She let some of her aggression out, straddling over his thighs as she kneeled on the floor. One arm went loosely over his shoulders, fingers stroking over his shoulder blade without any kind of pattern. The other had a plan to follow, her long fingers curled into his growing hair, still uncut despite how much time had passed between now and his return from the occupation. It made her laugh against his mouth, unable to stop the smile from overtaking her face.
“What?” Lee mumbled against her lips, taking the time to nudge her jaw up with the bridge of his nose. He kissed at the underside of her jaw, tasting the salt of her skin.
“You really need to cut your hair.”
“So do you.” His words were breathy against her throat, his fingers lightly tangling in the lengths of her hair that fell down her back and he gave a gentle tug for emphasis.
“The Old Man and I had a deal. If the rescue worked, he shaved off the mustache and I kept my hair long,” she quietly laughed as his breath tickled the crook of her neck.
“Please don’t talk about my father right now.” It was a groan and a moan all at once and it set her body on fire just to hear it.
As if on cue, Kara let one of her hands fall between them, pushing up the fabric of his tanks until she felt the skin at his lower abdomen, just where the waistband of his pants sat. He made a noise similar to before and it only spurred her on, further letting her hand slip into the fabric and the elastic of his briefs beneath. She gripped around him with some boldness, finding him already stiffening. Lee’s breath caught at her touch, willing himself to gain a modicum of control. It was as if Kara understood, because she didn’t make any move to stroke or tease him just yet, but rather let him regain steady breathing as time ticked by.
She had been tired when he’d touched her arm back in their bunk room. So tired that her eyes were barely able to stay open as she returned from the head, ready to curl up under the thin fabric of military issued sheets. But all of that, everything before right then, felt like a complete dream. Nothing else in her life was real except this moment. The cylons had never come back. The worlds hadn’t been destroyed. She hadn’t been a Commander and destroyed a battlestar. She told herself for a long time that she sacrificed Pegasus to save tens of thousands of people, but it wasn’t true. She had sent Pegasus to her death to save him. Without question, it had been worth it.
Her arm slid off his shoulder, trailing down the length of his own until she found his hand. She directed it from where it was occupied to press it over her breast, her hand covering his temporarily until she felt his muscles understand and flex against her. Kara moaned softly and thought about how she had teased him earlier for being such a good student. He certainly learned fast.
She withdrew her hand from inside the fabric of his briefs to grip at the hem of her tanks, pulling them upwards. Wherever they ended up after that, Kara no longer cared and the look on his face told her that he was feeling much the same. She was bare to him now, her sports bra having been already removed when she earlier prepared for sleep. Both of her hands went to the side of his head, holding his gaze on her face. “Eyes up here, Apollo,” she spoke. Her tight lipped smile was met by his own grin, full of wanton abandon. Kara kissed him without pause, this time with a sense of urgency and roughness, a stark contrast to how they’d started.
Her fingers gripped at the layers of fabric he wore over his chest, pulling him with her as she backed off his lap slowly. It kept him close enough so their mouths needn’t break too far apart, something which felt unimaginable at that moment. How she’d spent weeks, months, even years, without having him like this, Kara had no idea. She leaned back on the rough flooring beneath them, not a single care given to just when the last time it had been cleaned or how it would dig in at her various pressure points. Lee was over her now, having been led along by her, his body kneeling between her parted thighs, forearms beside her head on either side to support his upper body weight. He lowered himself down against her, their hips and lower stomachs pressed tightly to one another. Kara could feel how hard he was, and the subtle rocking motion of their clothed hips made her moan into his mouth.
Lee dropped his head to her neck, exploring familiar territory before traversing lower. He took a stiffened nipple in his mouth, sucking at the rosy pink flesh. Kara cradled his head to her breast, her lips parted in response.
“Lee,” she called out, a twisted moan escaping her in the recycled office air. “Lee, please,” it was needier now, and from her chest, he could hear the begging in her voice.
His mouth abandoned its work, but not before blowing a cool breath over her moistened skin. Her hands were furiously grasping at the bottom of his tanks and he helped her along as he sat up slightly, removing them. Bare chested to her, Kara took in the pale spread of muscled flesh, though she hadn’t missed the addition of a few new scars that despite their healed nature, she could tell were only a few months old. Her lips parted, but this time for a different reason entirely. She leaned up on an elbow, her other hand stretching forward to trace over a couple of the marks. Kara didn’t have to say anything, he saw the look in her eyes that confessed it all. Lee shook his head at her, kissing the corner of her mouth, her jaw, her cheek, in a silent expression that told her not to worry about it. Not to think of it.
Her arm curled around his neck and she held him close to her in an awkward, strained position. She now had the understanding that Lee hadn’t told her everything about what had happened down on that planet and she hated herself because of it. Kara said she wouldn’t let this time be like the last time, when he’d suffered in silence because she’d been too selfish to see his pain. She promised herself she wouldn’t do it again and she had without even knowing. “I’m sorry,” Kara whispered against his cheek as she released him. She was sorry for not asking, sorry for letting it go, sorry for leaving him behind, and sorry because she knew he had endured it because of her.
Lee could see her eyes coated over in tears and his forehead creased with worry. He didn’t have the strength to say anything to her about it, so he kissed her again. This time it wasn’t urgent and rushed, nor was it gentle and subdued. Even Kara could feel it, this was how he’d always wanted to kiss her. More than anything she felt the overwhelming sense of belonging, both of her to him and him to her. All those times he had said he loved her combined into that single moment, even more so than their mutual confessions had on New Caprica when they were both heavily influenced by the alcohol in their veins. Now when she looked at him, it was with clear eyes and she knew for him it was the same.
She laid back down on the floor, eyes trained on him. He tugged each of her boots and socks off before his hands went to her hips. There, they grabbed at the sides of her shorts and briefs together, tugging them down as she lifted her bottom just slightly to ease the process. Kara drew her thighs together and raised her legs upwards and Lee finished the job for her, tossing the tangle of fabric aside. She sat up in front of him, holding eye contact with him while her fingers acted independently, undoing the drawstring of the sleepwear. Her hands slid between the fabric of his briefs and his skin, forcing them down as far as she could get them as he kneeled between her legs still. When Kara laid back down beside the couch, Lee had already removed his boots and his remaining clothes the rest of the way. There was a noticeable chill in the room but neither of them actually felt it, their veins and bodies throbbing with need.
“Kara,” He searched her face from above her, arms taking on the weight of his torso. He wanted this more than anything he could ever remember wanting. For years now, even before billions of their people were murdered and even before his brother had died, the one thing he had ever truly wanted was the woman now beneath him. Lee had her once before, for that brief night he could recall only through a slight haze of alcohol. If they went through with this tonight, he would remember every detail of it perfectly. The question was, would he ever have her again? Or would he have to live his life with the memory of this being the only thing keeping him going? He was terrified for an instant, fear that despite how different things between them now seemed, this wouldn’t mean even a fraction as much to her as it did to him. “I love you, but, but you have Sam-” He almost couldn’t believe the words as they came out, the rest of him cursing the other half for his attempt at self sabotage.
“Don’t.” Kara cut through his wandering thoughts, a shallow shake of her head given, long white hair splayed out around her. “I’m with you.” Fingers stroked over his cheek in reassurance. She would worry about the guilt in the morning or in a week or whenever she got around to it. The black ink on her arm meant she was promised for someone else, but right now, she was promising herself to him. Lee closed his eyes and Kara saw him struggling to make his decision on whether to go through with it or not. If he left her like this, if he left her on the floor, undressed and body aching for him, she wasn’t sure if she would be able to actually keep herself together anymore. She didn’t just want this, Gods, she needed this.
“Lee,” she breathed out his name and caressed his cheek again until he opened his eyes to look into her own. Her stomach fluttered with what was on the tip of her tongue. “I love you, Lee Adama. Tell me you love me again.” She prompted him and waited, knowing he needed to say the words perhaps even more than she needed to hear them. He never disappointed her.
“I love you, Kara Thrace,” it was a whisper against her ear and Lee drew his body back down to hers in that sense of closeness they hadn’t completely had since minutes earlier when their bodies were mostly fully clothed.
Kara reached between them to where they would soon be joined and took him in hand. In tandem with the movement of his hips, she guided him inside of her wet heat. He pushed inside her the rest of the way and her arm curled around his back, hugging herself to him like he would just disappear if she wasn’t strong enough. A moan shuddered out of her and her entire body tensed at the feel of him inside of her, his hips cradled between her parted thighs. Likewise, Lee’s deep moan was released against her neck and both of them stayed unmoving for the time being, each independently committing that feeling to memory.
She eased up on her hold on him just enough so he could pull up and take a look at her, a real look at her now that he was buried inside of her. Her cheeks were already flushed. Lee began the slow rocking motion of their bodies together and it seemed incredibly familiar to be with her like this, despite the fact that they’d only had one night like this before. He occupied his mouth at her breast again as the pace increased, Kara joining in to meet the inward press of his hips against hers. Like that night on New Caprica, the one night that planet had seemed infinitely better than it actually was, she reacted vocally with abandon and it nearly sang into his ears.
“Harder, Lee,” she panted the encouragement into the room, one leg curling around his waist.
He was losing control fast, so he reached between them, fingers finding her absolutely slick with her own moisture. Lee rubbed around the slightly swollen bundle of nerves there, hoping to bring her closer. Judging by the sounds she made, he remembered her body well enough.
Kara’s hand pulled at his neck and drew his mouth down to her, biting at his lower lip between moans. The nips didn’t last long and neither did the kissing, as she found herself unable to focus on anything but the impending orgasm. “I’m close,” she said and he felt her inner muscles grow tighter around him, signaling it nonverbally. It was only a second later that she broke, contracting around him. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, wide lips left open as she repeated his name like she was praying to one of the Gods. He was lost in that expression of her face. There’d be no forgetting it for as long as he lived. Lee’s movements persisted, carrying her through the length of her release and into her body being utterly spent, panting beneath him.
He followed her not long after, and though he hadn’t been quiet during the entire process, the moan he breathed out as he spilled inside of her was the loudest she’d ever heard him. Their bodies slowed down to a halt, and some of Lee’s weight came to rest down upon her, their forms interlocked and pressed tight to one another with him still inside of her. He rested his head against her chest and Kara stroked the sticky skin along his spine. She wanted to stay like that forever.
Forget the algae planet and forget their responsibilities. Forget all the complaining civilians and certainly forget CAP. Flying had been her life, but lying on the floor of her office with his chest heaving against her, Kara knew nothing would ever be like this. Her mind went back to Sam for a moment, though she surprisingly didn’t feel guilt for having just cheated on her husband. She felt guilt for having been with Lee under these circumstances, that she hadn’t been able to say that he had all of her right then. Oh, she’d given him everything. Completely. But in the eyes of the Gods, she was still another man’s wife.
She wasn’t sure if Lee had even ever wanted it, but a small part of her wondered how different things would be if she had married this man on top of her that New Caprican morning instead of Sam. Would he have laughed at her for the suggestion? Would they have killed each other and petitioned for divorce six months later? Would they have actually been happy? Maybe her marriage to Sam had been a gift from the Gods. If she had been married to Lee and he was down on the surface still when the cylons attacked, there would have been nothing and no one that could have made her jump away to leave him there. Everything else be damned, she couldn’t have left him behind.
Kara squeezed him tightly and Lee lifted his head to look at her.
“What’s wrong?” He feared she regretted it already.
“You know, for once in my life, nothing’s wrong. Nothing at all.”
author:
apodixis
spoilers: Through all seasons, though this takes place in an AU starting at the very end of season 2.
pairings: kara/lee, kara/sam
overall fic rating: R/NC-17
word count: 6,997
notes: See http://apodixis.livejournal.com/685.html for more information.
summary: If God isn't leading the fleet to Earth, can they ever find it?
I posted chapters 9 & 10 around the same time, so make sure you didn't miss 9!
Kara stared at the octagonal shape of the greying radiation badge set on the desk in front of her. It was something she hadn’t seen since an emergency training mission long before the worlds ended. She knew that when these were brought out, you prayed you wouldn’t have to actually use them. Unfortunately for her and the rest of her pilots, like everything else they’d been through since the cylons attacked the colonies, there was no reprieve when it came to facing down the worst of circumstances. She wasn’t scared of death, so long as she died quickly, and she had already said a prayer before each trip that if she weren’t to fair well through the mission, she at least died in an explosion or vented out into space. What she was actually frightened of was the slow and painful death associated with exposing herself to too much radiation for the good of the fleet.
Her eyelids drifted shut despite the fact that it was the middle of the day and she was seated upright in the brightly lit CAG’s office. What would have been familiar foot steps sounded through the room, but she remained unmoving, oblivious to the world.
Lee watched her with his own heavy eyes, first amusement coming over him at catching her asleep on the job, but then something akin to panic spread through him. His hand grabbed at her shoulder, lightly shaking her body while he called to her. “Starbuck? Kara? Wake up, Kara.”
She stirred suddenly, eyes opened as she looked up to him. They closed again, but he could tell she hadn’t fallen into slumber or worse. She leaned into the back of the chair, swallowing over the lump in her throat. “I can’t stay awake anymore.”
He sat on the edge of what used to be his desk, watching her. “Radiation is doing a number on you, but I’d take a guess and say it’s more the malnourishment than anything else. Not enough calories so your body starts to shut down to conserve energy.” It was the story they all knew and it had been fleet wide. There had even been rumors of a few deaths in the elderly population, their bodies just giving up as they awaited sustenance. The last straw that broke the camel’s back. “Hey, you okay?” He called to her again, sensing the slower rhythm of her breathing.
Kara barely moved, nodding to him with her eyes still shut. “Yeah, yeah. I’m up.” She attempted to right the situation by sitting up a little straighter while her fingers rubbed across her eyelids to push the sleep out of her system. “Thanks, you know,” Kara avoided looking to him as she spoke, busying her hands with shuffling paperwork. “For helping me plan this out. Your father knows it was all you, I bet he’s a heartbeat away from reinstating you as CAG.”
He warmed at her gratefulness since it was such a rare thing for her to put into words. “You’re a good CAG, Kara.” Lee tried to reassure her, though even speaking seemed to expend more energy than he had in him. They were down to eating less than half a meal once a day, and that was if they could even choke it down with the nausea from the radiation coursing through them. For the two of them, it had been almost twenty four hours since they’d taken their turn at forcing down bits of a crumbled ration bar with water and he knew she was looking forward to it as much as he was.
Her head rested against her hand, elbow on the top of the desk. “Do you remember the tyllium mission?” It had been their first big success against the cylons, and was still one of only a few.
Lee nodded to her, remembering the taste of the fizzy alcohol on his tongue and how his flight suit smelled of it for a week afterward because of how much had been sprayed over them. Though his stomach wanted to remember the taste of it more than anything, the rest of him turned to the memory of the person that had stood beside him afterwards, welcoming him back to the fleet. Kara. It had been something of a surprise to him, to see her proud and humbled, instead of abrasive and angry for once. Along with the few pictures of his deceased family he had made copies of from his father’s supply, he also had a picture from that day someone had snapped and passed on to him. That one, he hadn’t ever hung on the ceiling of his bunk, but kept it hidden away between the pages of a book on the small shelf in his rack. Back then, and even now, he would often take it out to look at it, the two of them smiling side by side, unaware of the voyeur preserving them on film.
“Of course.”
“You said something to me back then, about how everyone wished I was able to go on the mission instead of you. That’s how I feel sometimes here. Everyone wishes you were still the CAG.”
Lee listened, her voice reluctant and particularly open with him, and he knew it was the hunger and sickness bringing her guard especially down. She wasn’t in her right mind, not completely. “If they think that, it’s just because they know I used to be a pushover.” He watched her smile, eyes still shut as she conserved the energy that her body would have used to keep her lids open, not to mention blinking. “Besides, even you said I did a good job on the mission.” Still seated on the desk with his legs dangling down, he nudged the side of his calf against her knee. “And I’m saying you’re doing a good job now.”
Kara opened her eyes after he’d spoken, taking a good look at him. He was pale, eyes sunken and skin discolored beneath. He seemed like a shell of himself, muted and only a fraction of what she knew he really was. If this was how he looked, she knew she had to be in even worse shape. But just as she didn’t mind, it was clear that he didn’t care either.
“I want your opinion on something, Lee, but it has to be between us. I don’t care what regulation or the stick up your ass says.”
He breathed out something of a laugh, nodding. “I swear to ignore the stick up my ass, sir.” Lee gave a mock salute and it brought a smile to both of their faces.
“I found out something about Kat.” Her eyes went to the pencil on her desk, palm rolling it back and forth over the space of a few inches. It was a small thing to keep her body focused and the sleep at bay. “She took another girl’s name after the attacks so she could enlist. She used to smuggle. Drugs, people, whatever. Part of me wants to go straight to your father and tell him about her, about what a traitor she is because she could have been one of those people who brought the cylons in. She’s lied to all of us and she doesn’t deserve to be here.”
There was anger in her voice, though it was relatively well controlled. Despite his shock and surprise at what she was saying, Lee listened quietly.
“But…” Kara’s hand stopped abruptly, stilling the pencil. She relaxed back into the wood of the chair. “..Gods, she’s a frakking good pilot, as much as I hate to say it. Maybe who she was doesn’t matter anymore because of everything she’s done. I mean, my file in your father’s office is probably the thickest one there from all my my write-ups and he made me a Commander. Maybe it was a bad idea, maybe Pegasus would still be here if he had chosen you instead.”
Lee was already shaking his head as she continued, not wanting to cut her off until her thoughts were finished. “You earned that job, Kara. If I had been Commander, maybe we wouldn’t have even survived the fight. Maybe we would’ve left everyone there to preserve the lives we had instead of risking it all. You can’t start thinking what if because it never ends. What if I hadn’t come to the decommissioning that day?” Her eyes quickly looked up meet his as he said it. He could tell she was imagining what life would have been like without Lee on Galactica all this time, and he wasn’t interested in knowing how dark her thoughts were going to get regarding it.
“My father chose right in making you Commander and he chose right in asking you to serve on this ship, even if someone else wouldn’t have. So you have to ask yourself what you feel about Kat. Not what the regulation is because the frakking regulations don’t mean a damn anymore. Not what even I’d do or my father would do. She’s your pilot so ask yourself what you want to do. If you put your anger away and you genuinely think she doesn’t deserve to be here, then you go tell the Admiral. If you think that maybe she didn’t do the correct thing, but maybe it was still the right thing, and you can still stand to work with her, then don’t ever bring it up again.”
Kara nodded just barely as she tried to pull her thoughts together on the matter. Beside her, Lee stood up, stretching his legs.
“You can think about it in the mess hall. I’ll even share some of my crumbs.”
She followed him to the door, body moving a little slower and with less precision than she was used to, but moving still nonetheless.
-
That afternoon during the briefing before their last trip out, Kara asked Kat to stay after the others had gone. Lee was the last to leave before the pair of women had full privacy, and from across the room he nodded to her. He didn’t know what her decision was, but more than anything he trusted in her. Kara got the message he delivered and it bolstered her footing a little bit more.
Kat reluctantly approached the podium behind which Kara still stood. The younger woman’s face was defensive already and in so many ways, it reminded Kara of herself.
“Your badge went black on the last trip out, I’m pulling you off outbound five and replacing you with Duck.” She was using her best CAG voice, trying to be stern and impress upon Kat the magnitude of the situation. The silence stretched between them and Kara knew that for Kat to not be openly protesting it meant a tremendous amount in regards to how she was feeling after the four trips she’d already made. When she looked back up to the pilot’s eyes, she could read the mixture of fear and anger already claiming home there. “What I heard the other day, Kat, it never happened. Do you understand, Louanne?”
Kat blinked rapidly a few times while her body remained unmoving, her mind trying to completely process what the intentions were behind what the Major said. “Are you sure, sir?” She suddenly found the effort to observe proper rank, something she hadn’t always followed in the past when it came to Starbuck.
“You’re a pilot, one of the best we have. The fleet’s been better for it and you’ve saved thousands of lives over and over again. You can consider the number of donut runs I’ll have you on when we get to the planet as your atonement.” If this had even been the Starbuck of a year and a half ago, Kara knew this conversation wouldn’t have been happening, at least not like this. “You did your job and you brought home the ships you could. If you even think of trying to climb back into one of those birds again, I’ll have your ass for it, Kat. Dismissed.”
Before her, Kat rose her arm in the type of salute that would have made any drill sergeant proud. The breath Kara had been holding released from her once the pilot was out of sight and she had the time to think over the decision she’d made. It was the right one, that was all she knew.
-
In the morning, or what resembled it on the planet, able bodied civilians and crew from Galactica would begin the process that would bring nourishment back to their stomachs and souls. But that was still hours away, the ambient lighting of the ship suggesting it to be somewhere just past midnight. Most of the non-essential crew had turned in to their bunks, and that included the vast majority of the pilots after a most trying couple of days. For once, Kara wasn’t an exception to that rule, and just as she moved to lift the set of double tanks from her torso, she felt a hand on her arm. There was a welcomed kind of warmth to the palm embracing her cold skin and she turned back to catch sight of who it was.
Lee’s head made a jerking motion towards the hatch from where she’d previously came and he headed for it, leaving it ajar. A thin beam of light cut across the black of the room and though she felt the lure of sleep aching in her muscles, she followed him out, this time making sure to close the hatch behind her. He wasn’t waiting for her as she expected, instead he was already halfway down the hallway, walking at a slow pace without even a glance back to her. Though everything in her told her to crawl into her rack and tell Lee to frak off, she followed him down the familiar A-shaped hallways that were their home. Her office door was left open just as he had done to the hatch of their bunk room, and with herself already grumbling in irritation, Kara went inside.
“Really not interested in dealing with whatever game you’re playing tonight, Apollo.” The words were out of her mouth before she’d even looked to him after having pulled the door tightly closed.
“You’re going to regret saying that in a minute,” Lee said, and the confidence in his voice only grated on Kara’s nerves.
She was about to open her mouth to reply when he drew his hands forward from where they were hiding behind his back. They were both occupied and Kara’s eyes went wide immediately at the familiar shape of the tall and thin bottle of whiskey. It wasn’t full, but with her body still thrumming with the relative success of the completed mission, she’d categorize it as half full instead of half empty. It was a beautiful brown color, and she knew it had to date back to pre-genocide based on that alone. What had been brewed on New Caprica and on the ships across the fleet had never been exactly quite right in color, and especially not in taste.
So captivated by his first hand she nearly missed what was in the second. It was less obvious, as it was much smaller, not any larger than the palm of his hand. The colored paper, however, and the foil wrapping was enough to clue her in. Kara thought that the liquor had been surprising enough, but chocolate? Oh Gods, at this level of starvation and now years of deprivation of something that would have been so commonplace on every store shelf, she would have done just about anything for a taste. Just a taste.
“I’m going to forget that you’ve been holding out on everyone while we’ve literally been starving for days now, Lee,” Kara said. Before closing the distance between them she turned back to the hatch, dogging it to prevent any unwanted intruders from interrupting what Kara knew would be a night of complete gluttony. Gluttony, at least by their current standards. This hardly qualified as a Friday afternoon for her before mankind’s children returned for their parents.
“I had some free time earlier and I knew I was still missing a box of belongings from before I went down to New Caprica.” It had been the first time he’d even mentioned that place in weeks, but he soldiered on, determined not to let thoughts of the past deter them from enjoying themselves. “I got the lieutenant on watch to let me into the storage room where my my stuff had been and sure enough…” His hands raised, wordlessly finishing the thought for himself.
Kara eyed him with suspicion, her mouth watering at the mere thought of what he was suggesting. Had he even a stale protein bar with a little mold on it, she would’ve been diving in, that much was true. But this was nothing but a pure miracle. “I don’t know if I’m more offended that you had chocolate on board for months after the end of the worlds and didn’t share it, or completely shocked you had the self control not to eat it yourself.” Her head shook and she took the whiskey from him by the neck of the bottle. “You’re you, I shouldn’t be surprised you had self control. You’re Mr. Moderation.” She delivered her words with a wink of an eye just before downing a long sip of the alcohol. It burned all the way down, but it was familiar in the best of ways. A comfort and a little bit of home all at once.
She sat down just in front of the couch, her back leaned up against it just as she had done those weeks prior when he’d woken up to find her still there. Lee’s heart swelled at just the thought of it. It hadn’t mattered to him that they’d filled the time since then as just friends and truly nothing more or that he went to sleep every night alone since Dee had graciously stepped aside. He knew that she, too, was spending her nights alone in her bunk. Whether she spent her free time during the day with Anders in his rack or with him inside of her tucked away in a storage closet, Lee didn’t know and he didn’t want to. He liked the image before him right now: Kara Thrace barely dressed for bed on the floor of her office, her head tilted up to him. He would swear her eyes beckoned him closer and so he either obeyed her or his imagination, sitting beside her, their bodies touching.
Kara passed him the bottle and he took a healthy swig, settling it between them. He offered her the small amount of chocolate, clearly only a portion of what had once been a larger bar.
“I won this in a game of triad my second week here. I was holding onto it until it could buy me something really good. I did take economics, you know.”
She laughed beside him, shaking her head. “I bet you were a real brown nose in school, Lee.”
He watched her breaking up the chocolate into smaller pieces over the paper that rested on her leg, careful not to let even the smallest of flakes escape. If this was all they had, she was going to make sure they enjoyed it.
Lee smiled and something of a blush came over the pallor of his face.
“I knew it,” Kara sang out over her victory. She handed him a piece of the chocolate before taking her own, and set the foil on the floor with the rest of it. “You’ve got exactly three seconds to eat this before I do.”
For a moment he hesitated, the look on her face consuming him. It was amazing how quickly her mood and his own had changed. This was the happiest she’d looked in days, if not long before that. She wasn’t thinking about anything else at that moment, except sitting there with him and enjoying things that had once been so mundane in their lives. Now, a half full bottle of liquor and a quarter of a slightly melted off-brand chocolate bar were absolute treasures. Because of that, Lee was about to decline the piece she offered him, preferring to see her enjoy it than enjoy it himself, but Kara persisted, forcing it into his hand as she ate her own.
“Oh my Gods.” Kara moaned rather provocatively despite her half full mouth. Her eyes closed for a moment as she chewed and the chocolate melted on her tongue, bathing her taste buds in the kind of rich flavor she’d long since forgotten. She couldn’t remember anything ever tasting this good. “Lee, really, eat it.” She insisted, pushing at his hand, still enjoying the flavors circulating through her mouth.
He gave in and bit into his own piece. It was instantaneous. He was reminded of a million memories all at once. A summer at his grandfather’s cabin when he and Zak split the same exact bar after spending an afternoon fishing. His little brother had argued he had taken the bigger half, insisting they swap. A handful of winters on Caprica, though they never got too cold, when his mother had behaved like an actual parent for a small moment in time and brewed a couple mugs of hot chocolate for her boys. A chocolate slice of birthday cake when his friends had taken him out during his time at the academy, of course followed by a night of ambrosia and a hangover the next morning.
Beside him, Kara watched in rapt attention, her own smile plastered on from not only her bite of the chocolate but watching him enjoy his. She took another drink from the bottle of whiskey and passed it to him once he’d made it back to the present from his whirlwind tour through his memories, both recent and not quite so.
Their eyes met over the bottle as he drank from it and he could tell Kara was waiting for the right moment to say something.
“How’s Dualla?” She held his eyes and she took the bottle back to take yet another sip, letting it wash away the remainder of chocolate from the inside of her mouth.
“We ended it awhile back.” A look crossed her features that he would have been blind to not notice.
Kara turned her attention away from him, dipping her finger onto the foil that held the chocolate bar. The fingerprint picked up just a few slivers of it and she drew it to her mouth, licking the remainder off. “That so?”
“How’s Anders?”
She didn’t react to his words, already expecting the returned question. Kara shrugged in response and she wiped her hand off on her shorts before reaching for the bottle. “Around.” Though her tolerance for alcohol was what anyone would consider extremely high, the complete lack of food in her system and general weakness of her body as of late allowed her to already feel just a light buzz as the fluid worked through her system. She wasn’t impaired, in fact she’d felt far more intoxicated during a hangover than right now, but it was a pleasant feeling.
“Why’d you call it off with her?”
Lee had a fleeting moment of admitting everything to her. Admitting how he was driven to stay with Dee only due to Kara’s relationship and subsequent marriage. Admitting that every time he frakked her or just curled up beside her, he thought of someone else. Admitting that in the end, the reason he and Dee were no longer together was because the close proximity to her was only further reminding him of the things he really wanted. He chickened out.
“It was just time.”
Kara didn’t believe him, but played along for his sake. She recapped the bottle, now nearly empty, and set it aside, her hand also brushing away the remaining chocolate. “Lee.” She rose up on her knees, shifting until she was in front of him rather than beside him. Hands, slightly sticky from the chocolate, rested against his covered knees. His body stiffened immediately, wound tight like a spring.
“Kara.” He returned with her name because it was simple, his mind almost completely shut off by something so simple as her touch.
The pressure on his knees increased as she leaned forward, her weight shifting just barely. Kara drew her head in to his and moving like she’d done it a million times before, she kissed against the center of his lips. Lee couldn’t even make himself react at first, chest pounding so hard and fast he’d swear he was having a heart attack. But Kara led the way for him, gentle at first, something he never expected from her. Just because it was unexpected didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy it, though. All at once he came back to his body and he returned her kiss, that same gentleness passed back to her.
His hand sought out her face, palm resting across her cheek and sharp line of her jaw to keep her close. He kissed the corner of her mouth and tasted just a hint of chocolate there. That mixed in with the flavor of the whiskey was heaven enough, but to add in the very distinct taste of Kara was absolutely divine. They’d done this only a few times before, the first being that confusing and unfortunate incident while his brother slept on her couch, and the most recent having been under the stars visible from the New Caprica sky. Each time, she had tasted exactly the same under the other lingering flavors of whatever she’d been recently drinking.
She let some of her aggression out, straddling over his thighs as she kneeled on the floor. One arm went loosely over his shoulders, fingers stroking over his shoulder blade without any kind of pattern. The other had a plan to follow, her long fingers curled into his growing hair, still uncut despite how much time had passed between now and his return from the occupation. It made her laugh against his mouth, unable to stop the smile from overtaking her face.
“What?” Lee mumbled against her lips, taking the time to nudge her jaw up with the bridge of his nose. He kissed at the underside of her jaw, tasting the salt of her skin.
“You really need to cut your hair.”
“So do you.” His words were breathy against her throat, his fingers lightly tangling in the lengths of her hair that fell down her back and he gave a gentle tug for emphasis.
“The Old Man and I had a deal. If the rescue worked, he shaved off the mustache and I kept my hair long,” she quietly laughed as his breath tickled the crook of her neck.
“Please don’t talk about my father right now.” It was a groan and a moan all at once and it set her body on fire just to hear it.
As if on cue, Kara let one of her hands fall between them, pushing up the fabric of his tanks until she felt the skin at his lower abdomen, just where the waistband of his pants sat. He made a noise similar to before and it only spurred her on, further letting her hand slip into the fabric and the elastic of his briefs beneath. She gripped around him with some boldness, finding him already stiffening. Lee’s breath caught at her touch, willing himself to gain a modicum of control. It was as if Kara understood, because she didn’t make any move to stroke or tease him just yet, but rather let him regain steady breathing as time ticked by.
She had been tired when he’d touched her arm back in their bunk room. So tired that her eyes were barely able to stay open as she returned from the head, ready to curl up under the thin fabric of military issued sheets. But all of that, everything before right then, felt like a complete dream. Nothing else in her life was real except this moment. The cylons had never come back. The worlds hadn’t been destroyed. She hadn’t been a Commander and destroyed a battlestar. She told herself for a long time that she sacrificed Pegasus to save tens of thousands of people, but it wasn’t true. She had sent Pegasus to her death to save him. Without question, it had been worth it.
Her arm slid off his shoulder, trailing down the length of his own until she found his hand. She directed it from where it was occupied to press it over her breast, her hand covering his temporarily until she felt his muscles understand and flex against her. Kara moaned softly and thought about how she had teased him earlier for being such a good student. He certainly learned fast.
She withdrew her hand from inside the fabric of his briefs to grip at the hem of her tanks, pulling them upwards. Wherever they ended up after that, Kara no longer cared and the look on his face told her that he was feeling much the same. She was bare to him now, her sports bra having been already removed when she earlier prepared for sleep. Both of her hands went to the side of his head, holding his gaze on her face. “Eyes up here, Apollo,” she spoke. Her tight lipped smile was met by his own grin, full of wanton abandon. Kara kissed him without pause, this time with a sense of urgency and roughness, a stark contrast to how they’d started.
Her fingers gripped at the layers of fabric he wore over his chest, pulling him with her as she backed off his lap slowly. It kept him close enough so their mouths needn’t break too far apart, something which felt unimaginable at that moment. How she’d spent weeks, months, even years, without having him like this, Kara had no idea. She leaned back on the rough flooring beneath them, not a single care given to just when the last time it had been cleaned or how it would dig in at her various pressure points. Lee was over her now, having been led along by her, his body kneeling between her parted thighs, forearms beside her head on either side to support his upper body weight. He lowered himself down against her, their hips and lower stomachs pressed tightly to one another. Kara could feel how hard he was, and the subtle rocking motion of their clothed hips made her moan into his mouth.
Lee dropped his head to her neck, exploring familiar territory before traversing lower. He took a stiffened nipple in his mouth, sucking at the rosy pink flesh. Kara cradled his head to her breast, her lips parted in response.
“Lee,” she called out, a twisted moan escaping her in the recycled office air. “Lee, please,” it was needier now, and from her chest, he could hear the begging in her voice.
His mouth abandoned its work, but not before blowing a cool breath over her moistened skin. Her hands were furiously grasping at the bottom of his tanks and he helped her along as he sat up slightly, removing them. Bare chested to her, Kara took in the pale spread of muscled flesh, though she hadn’t missed the addition of a few new scars that despite their healed nature, she could tell were only a few months old. Her lips parted, but this time for a different reason entirely. She leaned up on an elbow, her other hand stretching forward to trace over a couple of the marks. Kara didn’t have to say anything, he saw the look in her eyes that confessed it all. Lee shook his head at her, kissing the corner of her mouth, her jaw, her cheek, in a silent expression that told her not to worry about it. Not to think of it.
Her arm curled around his neck and she held him close to her in an awkward, strained position. She now had the understanding that Lee hadn’t told her everything about what had happened down on that planet and she hated herself because of it. Kara said she wouldn’t let this time be like the last time, when he’d suffered in silence because she’d been too selfish to see his pain. She promised herself she wouldn’t do it again and she had without even knowing. “I’m sorry,” Kara whispered against his cheek as she released him. She was sorry for not asking, sorry for letting it go, sorry for leaving him behind, and sorry because she knew he had endured it because of her.
Lee could see her eyes coated over in tears and his forehead creased with worry. He didn’t have the strength to say anything to her about it, so he kissed her again. This time it wasn’t urgent and rushed, nor was it gentle and subdued. Even Kara could feel it, this was how he’d always wanted to kiss her. More than anything she felt the overwhelming sense of belonging, both of her to him and him to her. All those times he had said he loved her combined into that single moment, even more so than their mutual confessions had on New Caprica when they were both heavily influenced by the alcohol in their veins. Now when she looked at him, it was with clear eyes and she knew for him it was the same.
She laid back down on the floor, eyes trained on him. He tugged each of her boots and socks off before his hands went to her hips. There, they grabbed at the sides of her shorts and briefs together, tugging them down as she lifted her bottom just slightly to ease the process. Kara drew her thighs together and raised her legs upwards and Lee finished the job for her, tossing the tangle of fabric aside. She sat up in front of him, holding eye contact with him while her fingers acted independently, undoing the drawstring of the sleepwear. Her hands slid between the fabric of his briefs and his skin, forcing them down as far as she could get them as he kneeled between her legs still. When Kara laid back down beside the couch, Lee had already removed his boots and his remaining clothes the rest of the way. There was a noticeable chill in the room but neither of them actually felt it, their veins and bodies throbbing with need.
“Kara,” He searched her face from above her, arms taking on the weight of his torso. He wanted this more than anything he could ever remember wanting. For years now, even before billions of their people were murdered and even before his brother had died, the one thing he had ever truly wanted was the woman now beneath him. Lee had her once before, for that brief night he could recall only through a slight haze of alcohol. If they went through with this tonight, he would remember every detail of it perfectly. The question was, would he ever have her again? Or would he have to live his life with the memory of this being the only thing keeping him going? He was terrified for an instant, fear that despite how different things between them now seemed, this wouldn’t mean even a fraction as much to her as it did to him. “I love you, but, but you have Sam-” He almost couldn’t believe the words as they came out, the rest of him cursing the other half for his attempt at self sabotage.
“Don’t.” Kara cut through his wandering thoughts, a shallow shake of her head given, long white hair splayed out around her. “I’m with you.” Fingers stroked over his cheek in reassurance. She would worry about the guilt in the morning or in a week or whenever she got around to it. The black ink on her arm meant she was promised for someone else, but right now, she was promising herself to him. Lee closed his eyes and Kara saw him struggling to make his decision on whether to go through with it or not. If he left her like this, if he left her on the floor, undressed and body aching for him, she wasn’t sure if she would be able to actually keep herself together anymore. She didn’t just want this, Gods, she needed this.
“Lee,” she breathed out his name and caressed his cheek again until he opened his eyes to look into her own. Her stomach fluttered with what was on the tip of her tongue. “I love you, Lee Adama. Tell me you love me again.” She prompted him and waited, knowing he needed to say the words perhaps even more than she needed to hear them. He never disappointed her.
“I love you, Kara Thrace,” it was a whisper against her ear and Lee drew his body back down to hers in that sense of closeness they hadn’t completely had since minutes earlier when their bodies were mostly fully clothed.
Kara reached between them to where they would soon be joined and took him in hand. In tandem with the movement of his hips, she guided him inside of her wet heat. He pushed inside her the rest of the way and her arm curled around his back, hugging herself to him like he would just disappear if she wasn’t strong enough. A moan shuddered out of her and her entire body tensed at the feel of him inside of her, his hips cradled between her parted thighs. Likewise, Lee’s deep moan was released against her neck and both of them stayed unmoving for the time being, each independently committing that feeling to memory.
She eased up on her hold on him just enough so he could pull up and take a look at her, a real look at her now that he was buried inside of her. Her cheeks were already flushed. Lee began the slow rocking motion of their bodies together and it seemed incredibly familiar to be with her like this, despite the fact that they’d only had one night like this before. He occupied his mouth at her breast again as the pace increased, Kara joining in to meet the inward press of his hips against hers. Like that night on New Caprica, the one night that planet had seemed infinitely better than it actually was, she reacted vocally with abandon and it nearly sang into his ears.
“Harder, Lee,” she panted the encouragement into the room, one leg curling around his waist.
He was losing control fast, so he reached between them, fingers finding her absolutely slick with her own moisture. Lee rubbed around the slightly swollen bundle of nerves there, hoping to bring her closer. Judging by the sounds she made, he remembered her body well enough.
Kara’s hand pulled at his neck and drew his mouth down to her, biting at his lower lip between moans. The nips didn’t last long and neither did the kissing, as she found herself unable to focus on anything but the impending orgasm. “I’m close,” she said and he felt her inner muscles grow tighter around him, signaling it nonverbally. It was only a second later that she broke, contracting around him. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, wide lips left open as she repeated his name like she was praying to one of the Gods. He was lost in that expression of her face. There’d be no forgetting it for as long as he lived. Lee’s movements persisted, carrying her through the length of her release and into her body being utterly spent, panting beneath him.
He followed her not long after, and though he hadn’t been quiet during the entire process, the moan he breathed out as he spilled inside of her was the loudest she’d ever heard him. Their bodies slowed down to a halt, and some of Lee’s weight came to rest down upon her, their forms interlocked and pressed tight to one another with him still inside of her. He rested his head against her chest and Kara stroked the sticky skin along his spine. She wanted to stay like that forever.
Forget the algae planet and forget their responsibilities. Forget all the complaining civilians and certainly forget CAP. Flying had been her life, but lying on the floor of her office with his chest heaving against her, Kara knew nothing would ever be like this. Her mind went back to Sam for a moment, though she surprisingly didn’t feel guilt for having just cheated on her husband. She felt guilt for having been with Lee under these circumstances, that she hadn’t been able to say that he had all of her right then. Oh, she’d given him everything. Completely. But in the eyes of the Gods, she was still another man’s wife.
She wasn’t sure if Lee had even ever wanted it, but a small part of her wondered how different things would be if she had married this man on top of her that New Caprican morning instead of Sam. Would he have laughed at her for the suggestion? Would they have killed each other and petitioned for divorce six months later? Would they have actually been happy? Maybe her marriage to Sam had been a gift from the Gods. If she had been married to Lee and he was down on the surface still when the cylons attacked, there would have been nothing and no one that could have made her jump away to leave him there. Everything else be damned, she couldn’t have left him behind.
Kara squeezed him tightly and Lee lifted his head to look at her.
“What’s wrong?” He feared she regretted it already.
“You know, for once in my life, nothing’s wrong. Nothing at all.”