We used to wait. (Chapter 15/?)
title: We used to wait. (Chapter 15/?)
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: 6,667
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?
With the radiation from the gas giant below them doing a number on DRADIS, the importance of CAP became even stronger than it usually was. With the exception of during a jump or the middle of a dogfight, the fleet was always circled by the watchful and protective eyes of the air patrol. When Pegasus had joined them, some of the weight had been lifted from Galactica’s shoulders with the influx of extra pilots and ships. No matter where the ships came from, though, there they were. The guardian angels of the remaining band of humans traversing the universe looking for a safe haven. Somewhere to call home.
Everyone who was physically fit for duty was put to work guarding the fleet during the refueling mission whilst in the cover of the radiation cloud, most on double shifts, and some even tripling up to keep them covered. Kara was out alongside Hot Dog, taking in the sights of the clouds that so very much reminded her of the Twelve Colonies that were now nothing more than tombs to the billions that died there. Both of their ships flipped upside down, or at least relatively when compared to the planet below them, and Kara smiled at the very sight of a blue sky again. It brought back a widespread of memories for her, from days at the park when she was barely in school, to the wind whipping through her hair during a pickup pyramid game when she was still an instructor at the academy.
“Only thing I miss from New Caprica,” Hot Dog said over the comm.
Her barking laughter erupted over the signal that rang through not only the CIC, but also the other ships circling around the fleet on the opposite end, Apollo among them.
“Nothing could make me miss that shit hole.”
“You mean you don’t miss those pristine, warm beaches?” Lee’s voice cut in and though he wasn’t flying beside her, it had the effect of lighting up her entire face.
“I guess we just remember that place a little differently, Apollo.” Kara’s ship broke away from Hot Dog, accelerating to pull ahead of him. “Hot Dog, I’m losing my mind out here, I’ll be scouting up ahead so I don’t fall asleep at the stick.”
“Starbuck, at least wait for me to catch up!” He called out, remembering one of the first times they’d ever flown together, when she was still a lieutenant and he was a fresh nugget. She’d ordered him to head back with Chuckles and Kat, but he didn’t listen, instead choosing to fight off the cylon Raiders with her. That day she had gone down on that moon and they all feared the worst, that she was dead. They’d almost left her behind, in fact, but Starbuck had pulled off one of the miracles she was known for and brought herself back to them in the end.
“Easy, Hot Dog, I’ll be fine out here.” Kara reassured him. Though they hadn’t gotten along on his first day when he’d earned his call sign, he had proven himself time and time again to her. He was there to back her up with those eight cylon Raiders when he shouldn’t have, he was there during the exodus, and all those times in between. Though they often could light the other one up with a petty jab here or there, what mattered was all the times they’d been there for one another in the cockpit. He was reliable and he was her friend.
She sped through the cloud covering, moisture spraying over the clear cockpit canopy. It really was beautiful, she’d give Hot Dog that. For the first time in a long time she was transported back to her days at the academy, teaching her students in the simulators, and once they’d gotten more advanced, a couple rounds out in the real thing under a watchful eye. Despite how much she loved the feel of her bird out in the deep of space, one of her favorite sims to run had been a tutorial in flying within the atmosphere of a planet. Caprica had been the planet of choice for that particular program, and the skies and oceans were always blue, puffy white clouds added for effect.
Kara was deep in thought before she realized how far she had gone, the clouds getting thinner and darker until they were gone completely. She slowed her ship down some and drew it in an arc as she peered out the side of her window and down into what looked something like the swirling graphical interpretation of a hurricane they used to show on the evening news back when things like the news and weather channels existed at all. It wasn’t just a passing weather pattern, that much she knew, but some innate part of the gaseous planet that she didn’t fully understand. She was drawn to it for reasons unbeknownst to her and she kept her Viper going around the perimeter of it in a circle until the immense details of it started to make sense. Though the colors were muddled, she would never have been able to forget the pattern it created, even if she hadn’t seen it weeks earlier in that temple Leoben had dragged her to.
Kara knew that mandala from the wall of her apartment after Zak died and all the drawings and paintings she’d done since she was able to hold a crayon. It had followed her everywhere and while she had been content to see it as a symbol of herself for most of her life, seeing it now spinning before her, her stomach clenched. Nausea rose in her and it was all she could focus on, not how fast her ship was heading down towards the blend of color or the voices coming over her radio. The hand not on the stick in front of her balled up into a fist in an attempt to channel her sickness out of her. Her eyes were shut tight and only as she felt the G force increasing exponentially on her did they open, finally able to turn her senses back on.
“Pull up, Starbuck!” Apollo yelled into her ear.
“Starbuck, Actual, you’ve got to pull up. You’re too close to the hard deck.” The Admiral’s voice was heavy with worry and she could tell they’d been trying to get through to her for awhile now.
“What the frak are you doing, Starbuck!? Pull up! Do you read?”
Her hand released from the fist it made and reached to grip at the stick between her knees, aiding her main hand in the maneuver. It took everything she had and her muscles clenched and burned as they pumped full of lactic acid at the sudden rush of overuse.
“Wilco!” Kara called out, hoping they could read her because she wouldn’t have the strength to repeat herself even once. Her Viper rose at a steep incline away from the mess of gases below her until her gauges began to settle out and stop aimlessly circling around. When she made it to a height of relative safety, she aimed her ship back towards Galactica and let her chest heave with the sudden influx of exhaustion. There were calls to her across her comm and she couldn’t bring herself to respond further, though she knew by the tone of their voices they could at least read her returning home.
She landed, coming in hard and hot for someone who didn’t have any cylons on her tail. Her mind was simply elsewhere, though she couldn’t even be sure where it was. She didn’t want to deal with the consequences of what had just happened, especially when she wasn’t even sure what had occurred in those few minutes when things went to hell. There’d be the looks from everyone she passed, the deck crew having been alerted to the situation and her early return home. Lee would undoubtedly want to talk about it when he got in and she knew that even the Old Man would want a few words with her over it. He didn’t often push, but this was going to turn out to be one of those times.
Kara handed her helmet to the crew member that approached her first, brushing quickly on by them before they could get a word in. This wasn’t protocol and even as CAG she had to follow the rules. There was paperwork to fill out, especially considering things hadn’t gone without problem, but all she could find herself doing was running out of the hangar deck, a very specific destination set in her mind.
The normal pleasantries gone from her system in that moment, Kara pushed past the marine on guard at the entrance to the brig that held the two cylon prisoners. She was on a mission and there was nothing that was going to stop her. She picked the phone up and hit her fist into the fencing to attract the attention of either of the two inside. D’Anna picked her head up to look at her and Kara wanted to smack the smirk off her face like nothing else. She’d been itching for a fight as of late and the punching bag in the gym wasn’t quite cutting it like it used to. Leoben looked up from where he lay across his bed, legs crossed at the ankles and arms folded up beneath his head. The smile he wore sickened her and for a moment she considered leaving, not giving him the satisfaction of knowing that she had made a choice out of free will to visit him.
Leoben took his time in approaching her waiting form. He held the phone to his ear and his smile spread across the width of his face. “I knew you’d come.”
“Cut the crap, Leoben.” The intensity of her words even surprised her. She was at war with herself internally, fighting between a fuming kind of anger and absolute bewilderment. “Why did you bring me to see the mandala?”
“I thought you’d come sooner, actually, but you came and that’s what matters.”
“Answer the frakking question.”
“Since I was born-” Leoben started.
Kara cut in, despite how much she wanted to hear what he had to say beyond his first few words. “You’re a cylon. You weren’t ever born. You don’t have parents. I know you like to pretend you’re human but even you can’t really believe that.”
“I was born, maybe not the same way you were, Kara, but one day I breathed my first breath. One day I suddenly had life that someone gave me. They weren’t what you had, but they were my parents nonetheless.” His hand rested against the glass holding him in, much like he had when they first met and he was destined to die only a moment later. “God put that image inside of me. He sent it to me so I could be your guide when the time came.”
Her irritation rising, Kara took a step back from the glass, as far as the cord of the receiver would allow. They had a physical barrier between them and yet it didn’t feel enough to her in that moment. “I want facts, not any of your poetic bullshit.” She made move to hang up on him when the sound of his voice on the other end had her pausing, taking it in.
“I know this is your destiny, set for you from the day you were born, maybe even before then. This has always been where you were headed. I told you when we met that you’d take us to Earth and you will.”
“You’re wrong.” With her final words, she left the phone dangling limply by the metal wrapped cord that connected it through to the people in the cell. She repeated her path on the outbound trip, passing by the guard again without acknowledgment. Barely through the doorway, she was caught surprised by the addition of another person and their familiar face.
“Gods, Lee.” She kept walking and he followed behind her, no further back than a step or two. “Am I supposed to write you up for coming off CAP early?” In other circumstances, it would have been a joke they both would have laughed at, but her tone was absolutely seething in the delivery.
“The Admiral let me come in,” Lee said, actually feeling like he needed to give her an excuse. Perhaps he had been taking advantage of their relationship together for months now with the relaxed treatment she gave him. She was the CAG and his superior and their intimate relationship rarely had him showing her signs of earned respect. “What the frak were you doing in there with him?” His words bit out at her, not caring about the people they passed by. He couldn’t care less about what they thought regarding his eagerly rising temper or just what it meant for the relationship that currently existed between the two of them. She was his focus, absolutely and completely.
Kara led them to the bunk room to begin pulling off her flight suit, something they both still wore zipped up to the throat. She was on a warpath, that much was certain, and the Kara he saw before him was so unlike the one he’d gotten to know late at night and between shifts.
“Give me the room,” he stated aloud to no one in particular. It wasn’t crowded but the others filtered out quick enough, eyebrows raised at what was transpiring between Starbuck and Apollo. “Answer me, Gods damn it.”
“You don’t get to boss me around, Lee.” Kara had most of the flight suit off as she spoke. “Who I talk to and what I talk to them about isn’t any of your frakking business. You’re not my keeper.” She threw her flight suit into her locker, not caring that it fell to the floor of the small closet in a heap rather than being properly hung on the heavy duty hanger provided for it.
“It is my business when you get like this afterward. It’s my business when it’s the first place you go to after you nearly die out on CAP. It’s my frakking business when something’s going on with my girlfriend and she won’t even tell me about.” He discarded his flight suit on his bed and put his focus completely on her, no distractions.
She scoffed at his term for her, head shaking furiously as her fear over what had happened in her Viper turned to pure rage in a manner of protection for herself. She hadn’t felt like this in forever. “I’m not your frakking girlfriend, Lee, I belong to myself.” It was a cheap shot, and though she didn’t really believe it, she said it anyway.
He tried not to show how much the words stung him and made an attempt at reassuring himself that she was just angry. She was angry and that was why she was saying the things she was. It didn’t make the sting of it any easier on him, but he pushed it aside. “Fine, you’re not- we’re not- whatever the frak we are. Kara you almost died out there-” His tone was heavy with his fear from earlier, his body still shaken from what he’d only heard about over the wireless. What bothered him most about it all was that he wasn’t able to get to her in time. She could have died and he wouldn’t have been fast enough, wouldn’t have been strong enough to pull her back. She had saved him more times than he could remember and he hadn’t been there when she almost went too far.
“I didn’t, I had it under control.”
“Like hell you did! You were fine one moment and then you were gone. You didn’t answer, you disappeared off DRADIS for awhile, CIC was reading you going down towards that planet.” To him and to everyone, it seemed like she had finally been pushed too far and intentionally forced her ship to the limits it was capable of, hoping not to make it out in the end. The feelings he had after the blackbird resonated deep in his chest and Gods, he hoped that despair he felt back then wasn’t what was inside of her.
“It was an accident, that’s all it was, Apollo. Every time we go out there, we just barely make it back, so this time was no different than all the others.” Kara hadn’t made move to pull any more clothes on, instead still standing in her briefs and tanks, just as Lee was across the room.
Lee shook his head, turning slightly from her as he drew his hands to his face. Thumb and index finger pressed into his closed eyes as he tried to steady his breathing, as fruitless as it was. “Why’d you go to Leoben?”
“Because of what happened in that temple. He brought me there to see that symbol.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Lee…” She started up again, furiously digging through the dwindling number of items in her locker until she found the old cigar box that had long since been empty of anything to smoke. Holding one side of it to her belly for support, her other hand opened up the lid and sifted through the small items in there. When finding the stack of pictures she sat the box down and stepped up to him, closing the gap despite how bad idea that was when both of them were angry at one another. She shuffled through each piece of paper, identical in size and shape, until she held up one to him. Lee could recognize it as that apartment of hers, though the walls weren’t as bare as they’d been when he last saw them. He almost didn’t recognize the shape at first, instead choosing to take in all the other details of the photograph.
“I’ve been painting that image my entire life, since as far back as I can remember. My parents’ fridge used to be covered in them and I don’t frakking know why. I painted this one after Zak died.” The last sentence seemed to sober her, washing away some of the dripping anger. Mention of Zak tended to do that to either of them. “I don’t have a picture of it with me, but, you know that’s what was in the temple. You saw it, everyone saw it. Leoben knew I needed to see it for myself.”
Lee tilted his head barely to her, taking the photograph in his hand as he let it seep into him. “It’s a coincidence, that’s all, Kara. Don’t let it bother you.”
Kara smacked her hand into the metal of the upper bunk. “It’s not a frakking coincidence. I draw that my entire life and we just so happened to get chased by cylons out here and we find that same symbol?” Kara walked away from him, tossing the excess photos onto her bed lazily. “When I was flying out there today, I saw it again.”
“What?” Even he was surprised by it, absolutely shaken.
“The mandala, it’s here too. It’s part of the atmosphere of the gas planet we’re orbiting. I found it when I was flying. I saw it and I just got so overwhelmed, Lee. I couldn’t think about anything else other than what the frak it could mean. How me, a world class frak up and nobody, could be tied to all of this. I don’t know what happened out there but then I heard you and everyone screaming on the wireless and pulled up before I went too far in.” She was clinical in her description of the events that had happened, but Lee knew she wouldn’t include this many details on the formal report she would have to make herself right. Maybe she’d include a mysterious malfunction of some sort, but there would be absolutely no mention of that mandala.
“It can’t mean anything, Kara. You were a kid, you drew it and you liked it and kept it up your whole life. It’s a coincidence and nothing more.” Lee knew he was speaking as much for himself as he was for her. This was something he couldn’t explain away, but he desperately needed to for both of them.
“It can’t be a coincidence. It’s not.” Both of her hands gripped into the upper bunk and she rested her head into the cool metal there as her body hunched forward slightly. It was refreshing to her in a million ways, for a second taking her mind off of everything that had happened in the previous couple of hours. She felt like she was losing her mind, all because of a couple of splotches of color she dreamed up as a child.
Lee replaced the photograph in the cigar box, tipping the lid shut as he crossed over to meet her. His hands rested over her own knuckles, white from so tightly gripping at the bunk. The front of his body pressed into the back of hers, chin resting on her shoulder as the sides of their head also ran parallel against one another. “Even the best get rattled sometimes.” Lee kissed her cheek, her neck, her shoulder. One of his hands followed the length of her arm down to her side before sliding around to her front, hugging her close.
“Don’t coddle me.” Though her words said otherwise, the relief she felt at just having him close was palpable.
“I’m not,” he whispered and a shiver ran down both of their spines.
She released her hands from above her, turning in his arms. Fingers gripped at her tanks and lifted them up in one smooth motion, then quickly repeated it with his. Lee’s arms raised in a gesture of silent obedience, following her lead. Though he wanted her, and that was a constant in his life no matter the time or situation, he made the choice to let her play the dominant role, much as she had their first night together after New Caprica. Kara slung an arm around him, her other hand going to his cheek and he met her move for move. Lee’s hand was on the opposite side of her face, the other palming the small of her back to press them hip to hip as they kissed. She wasn’t content to stay still for long, however, and her hands slipped down his sides, fingers quick to slide between his skin and the fabric of the underwear he wore. She worked them down as far as she easily could, then felt his hands repeating the same on her, the cloth of her own briefs sliding down her thighs.
She turned their bodies until he was the one closest to her rack and nudged at his well muscled abdomen until he took the hint. Stepping out of his briefs, Lee sat down on the thinning blanket, Kara coming with him as she left her underwear behind. His hands were eager, shoving her bra upwards until she gave in and allowed him to remove it from her. She was hungry then, straddling his lap with her spine arched forward so they could still fit in the tight space her bunk offered. Gods how she wished they were holed up in that billet right now, with all the space in the worlds.
Their lips met, rough and hard, her fingers digging into his shoulder as her hips began to rock against his own, her body tapping into that primal urge and need. From beneath her, Lee squeezed at her backside one handedly as his mouth dropped to her neck and then to her breasts where he took a nipple into his mouth. The hardened peak was already there, but he persisted anyway, his teeth tugging against it until he heard the softest of moans roll out of the back of her throat. Her eyes were shut suddenly as she let the sensation of his mouth consume her. Though she had always expected Lee to be something of a good lover, Kara never imagined the oral fixation he seemed to have and loved rewarding her with. After he switched to the other breast, treating it equally as roughly, her hands pressed to his chest and pushed him backwards until the length of him was laid across her rack.
Their coupling was urgent now, even more so than they usually were, and Kara wasted no time in getting him inside of her. Having felt him swell and press against her inner thigh long ago, she reached a hand between them as she rose up higher on her knees, holding him still as she lowered down onto him. He’d been inside of her a countless number of times since she’d committed to leaving Sam for him and still she wasn’t used to the sensation. Her hands pressed to his abdomen and Kara took him inside of her as far as her body would allow. Despite their rushing only moments before, she stilled for a few seconds here, eyes locked with Lee’s while they were as much joined into one person as they ever could be.
Using his body for leverage, Kara began to rock them, the pace starting slow then galloping faster with each push of their bodies back together. It amazed her how sometimes she could be so close already without any manner of real foreplay involved, and as she felt him rub at that place inside of her, Kara’s body already began to shudder with an upcoming release. One hand rose to be placed against the artificial ceiling created by the bunk above hers to both steady herself and provide an additional amount of force which she used to greet him back inside of her. Kara panted, no longer able to keep her eyes open as her body vibrated with the cocktail of hormones.
Lee watched from below, hands back on her hips to help them move together. She had intentionally taken control of this one, pushing him back to the bed to force him to sit out most of their current lovemaking. He usually wanted to kiss her, every inch, but this time allowed himself to take in the sight of her, completely free and lost in what was happening. She was beautiful, as always, even when the words from their previous argument still filled the room. Never before in his life did he feel such love for another human being and never before did he even think this kind of feeling even existed.
Kara’s hands were replaced on the planes of his chest as she came quickly, fast for even her. It wrecked her as it tore through and she was unable to stifle the moan of his name she exhaled out at the start of it, and repeated on through the very last second of her orgasm. Lee didn’t have the willpower to hold his back, especially when faced with the rhythmic contraction of her around him as her hips bucked into his. He released inside of her and Kara’s hips slowed all but to a stop after she felt him go.
“Frak me,” she said as she tried to regain her breath. With great reluctance she let him slip out of her, feeling the immediate absence of not having him inside of her any longer. It was then that she realized her thoughts of home had recently changed. Years ago, home had been Caprica. Then with the destruction of the Twelve Colonies, it had become Galactica. When Adama named her commander, home had quickly shifted to Pegasus before she came to define it as Galactica once more. Now her home wasn’t this ship or this bunk room, home was that moment when Lee was inside of her and everything else in her life faded away. There were no worries or concerns, no nagging thoughts of her past or responsibilities. The only thing she could focus on for those minutes was Lee and just how much she needed him. Kara laid next to him on her side, her head nestled against his shoulder. Her palm went to his chest, resting over his lung and his heart, like feeling it beating would somehow channel him into her and she would never have to be without him again.
“I always imagined what it would be like to have you in here,” Lee said with something of a laugh to his voice.
“Mm,” was all Kara got out, her head far, far away from their rack space. She kissed at his upper chest, the most easily reachable spot before her, letting her lips linger there for an extra breath. With most of her senses dulled, she could swear she was a part of him now, her breathing synced up to his.
Feeling a slight stab in her skin the longer she lay, her hand reached between her heavy body and the mattress, pulling out a few of the pictures she’d thrown there earlier. She moved to tuck them into the shelf above their heads, but her eyes caught on them and she knew she suddenly didn’t have the energy to put the photos away just yet. Most had been pictures of friends from back in the day, people from her class at the academy that were long since dead. The one on the top of the pile, however, was older than all the rest. Lee’s attention turned to her, craning his head just enough to catch sight of what she was staring at in her silence. His fingers reached for the photo, not to take it, but to turn it a little more.
“Is that you?”
She nodded against him, unable to take her eyes off the picture of her parents and herself, only a few years old. Most people looked happy in photographs, plastering on smiles for the camera. This photo though, the looks they wore were completely genuine. “That’s my mother, my father. I must have been three or four.”
“I can’t believe that hair, I’ve never seen hair that white.”
“It was like that for years.” Her voice was somber, almost detached and dream-like. “My dad left when I was seven.”
Though Lee’s own father had left his family, it hadn’t been a permanent thing. William Adama didn’t often come home to see his sons and his ex-wife, but he made the few necessary trips each year and at least remembered birthday cards. For Kara, he knew it wasn’t the same. “You never saw him after that?”
“No, it was like he just disappeared. When I was older, I used to search for his name everywhere, thinking maybe I’d catch him playing at some club and could just show up and surprise him, but there was never anything. I thought maybe he died, but I could never prove it. If he wasn’t dead before, now he is like everyone else.”
“Your mother never heard from him?”
She made a sound of disgust but was unsure of where it had come from. “No, and she made sure I knew just how much he’d abandoned us.”
He sighed and kissed her head, his arm curled around her and rubbing over her skin. Kara’s hands shuffled through a few more photographs, stopping as she was faced with one of her and Zak. Lee didn’t know when it was from exactly, but based on the uniforms they wore and the setting behind them, Lee was safe to assume it had been taken somewhere on base when his little brother was still only a cadet. The smiles they wore made him ache, not only for the loss of his only brother, but because of how happy they looked together. He helped hold the photo up, running his thumb beside his brother’s face like it would make it real.
Kara withdrew her hand as she kept her eyes on the image, reaching for her dog tag. Her thumb behaved similarly to his, stroking along the warmed metal of the ring Zak had given her in promise of their engagement. She had never thought of herself as the marrying type, but when he’d asked her, Kara couldn’t do anything but say yes. She didn’t want to do anything except be his wife. Tears covered her eyes and she took steady, deep breaths.
“How’d he ask you to marry him?” Maybe it wasn’t the time or the place, but Lee had a lot of questions from his brother’s final months that he had never been able to have answered before.
“What?” Kara was caught off guard by it. She hadn’t thought about that day in years, hadn’t let herself even wander to it in comfort. “He came over a few weeks before he finished academy and just asked. Like he’d never been so sure of something in his life.”
“And you said yes, right there?” Part of him envied his brother so much for getting to know Kara as she had been.
“I said yes and he said he didn’t even have a ring yet, so he took the one he wore off and gave it to me.” A soft laugh left her as she recalled it. “I had never been that happy before.”
Lee’s eyes closed as his own tears grew. “Kara,” he said, his voice quaking. “I’m sorry I’m not him.”
Everything in her body stopped. The stroking of her thumb over the ring. Her breath. If she could have stopped her heart manually, it, too, would have ceased to be alive at that moment.
“I’m sorry I can’t be him for you, I know you wish I was. I know everyone wishes I was.”
Kara pushed herself up, her head lifting to look at the features on his face. Her elbow supported her as she laid on her stomach now, her other arm draped over his chest. “Is that why you think I’ve been with you?” She wasn’t sure if she was more angry or absolutely heartbroken at his words.
Lee was like a statue, nothing on him to tell her he was alive other than the breaths his chest expanded with.
“Frak you,” her anger won out as she pushed herself up even more, hands groping blindly around her for that sports bra she had allowed him to pull off earlier. “Is that the kind of person you think I am? I know I’m a frak up, but that-” Her head shook as bile rose in her throat. She loved him, and much like Zak had been sure when he asked her to marry him, she was sure about how she felt for Lee. The idea that he could even think her intentions with him were simply to find a close replacement for the man she lost made her absolutely sick.
“Kara.” Lee sat up after a moment, reaching for her arm to gently still her. She wasn’t having any of it though, and pulled her limb away from him before tugging on her bra and adjusting it into place. “I don’t think it-I just…” Lee choked on his own words, not even sure if the proper thing existed to say in such a moment. They’d just finished making love, or at least that was what he’d call it, and he brought up his dead brother, her dead fiance. He never said he was the king of smooth moves.
“How can you mean anything else? You think that I’m with you because I still want Zak. Makes sense, right? Can’t have the one I killed so I’ll settle for his brother.” Kara climbed off of him and when her feet were on the floor again, her first action was to pull her briefs on. Years of sharing co-ed showers had made her lose her modesty, but being naked in front of him now felt completely different. She was vulnerable to him physically and emotionally, and she hoped that putting on layers of fabric would fix both of those points of weakness between them.
“That’s not what I said!” Or maybe it had been, he thought, just in different words. “Frak,” Lee cursed to himself instead of at her. “Let me fix this!” He yelled, losing control of himself just as quickly as he lost control over the situation.
“There’s nothing to fix, you’ve made yourself very clear.” Her tanks were on again and she reached in her locker for a pair of pants, not caring if they were clean or not. The green fatigues were quickly pulled on and Kara forced her feet into her boots, not bothering with socks or tying the laces. Next to her, Lee pulled his underwear on, but didn’t make a move for anything else. “This is Baltar all over again, except this time I didn’t even do anything.”
The hatch at the end of the room opened and due to the heated argument, neither of them cared. A couple of pilots, fresh off CAP and still in their flight suits entered, their conversation all but immediately stopping as they took in the sight of what was before them. A set of tanks were scattered over the floor and by the look of how Apollo was dressed, they’d been hastily removed from him. The tension between the fleet’s best pilots filled the very air that surrounded them all and though in other circumstances, any one of these pilots would have been happy to run off and get the rumor mill started right away, there was a severity to it all that had them hesitating.
“Kara, I love you, you know that. So please, let me explain what I meant.”
“I can’t even say it back to you because you’ll just think-” Kara’s head turned sharply to look at the other bodies that had joined them, unbeknownst to either her or Lee. Her eyes widened as she froze, overwhelmed with both what had happened with Lee and now the new element introduced. This wasn’t how she meant for anyone else to find out about her and Lee, if she even meant for them to find out at all. The frat regs were practically nonexistent these days, so it wasn’t the worry of getting written up for her behavior that scared her, but what finally acknowledging her relationship with Lee out in the open would mean regarding everything else.
Lee’s head turned as well to take in their friends and fellow pilots, who had wisely started to pretend to go about their business, although they did a terrible job at miming their actions. “Kara,” his voice was low this time, despite knowing he would still be heard by the others.
“No,” she bit out, hands raising between them. “You blew it, Apollo.” As of late, the use of his call sign had been for one of two reasons: they were out on CAP and observing protocol or she’d made some cheeky comment to him meant to elicit a smile. This was neither and Lee didn’t mess the grating tone she used on him. Kara pushed him back suddenly, his body nearly falling into the table in the middle of the room, as she made a beeline for the exit, not looking to any of the others as she departed.
Lee watched her go, wanting to follow but his body and mind still flooded with trying to figure out what had happened in so little time. He stayed like that for Gods knew how long, eyes watching her body disappear through the open hatch and down the long hallway until she turned a corner and was out of sight. When she was completely gone, his fist pounded into the table as he yelled. “Frak!”
The other pilots, Hot Dog and Duck among them, filtered out not long after that, leaving Apollo to himself for the solitude they knew he much needed.
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: 6,667
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?
With the radiation from the gas giant below them doing a number on DRADIS, the importance of CAP became even stronger than it usually was. With the exception of during a jump or the middle of a dogfight, the fleet was always circled by the watchful and protective eyes of the air patrol. When Pegasus had joined them, some of the weight had been lifted from Galactica’s shoulders with the influx of extra pilots and ships. No matter where the ships came from, though, there they were. The guardian angels of the remaining band of humans traversing the universe looking for a safe haven. Somewhere to call home.
Everyone who was physically fit for duty was put to work guarding the fleet during the refueling mission whilst in the cover of the radiation cloud, most on double shifts, and some even tripling up to keep them covered. Kara was out alongside Hot Dog, taking in the sights of the clouds that so very much reminded her of the Twelve Colonies that were now nothing more than tombs to the billions that died there. Both of their ships flipped upside down, or at least relatively when compared to the planet below them, and Kara smiled at the very sight of a blue sky again. It brought back a widespread of memories for her, from days at the park when she was barely in school, to the wind whipping through her hair during a pickup pyramid game when she was still an instructor at the academy.
“Only thing I miss from New Caprica,” Hot Dog said over the comm.
Her barking laughter erupted over the signal that rang through not only the CIC, but also the other ships circling around the fleet on the opposite end, Apollo among them.
“Nothing could make me miss that shit hole.”
“You mean you don’t miss those pristine, warm beaches?” Lee’s voice cut in and though he wasn’t flying beside her, it had the effect of lighting up her entire face.
“I guess we just remember that place a little differently, Apollo.” Kara’s ship broke away from Hot Dog, accelerating to pull ahead of him. “Hot Dog, I’m losing my mind out here, I’ll be scouting up ahead so I don’t fall asleep at the stick.”
“Starbuck, at least wait for me to catch up!” He called out, remembering one of the first times they’d ever flown together, when she was still a lieutenant and he was a fresh nugget. She’d ordered him to head back with Chuckles and Kat, but he didn’t listen, instead choosing to fight off the cylon Raiders with her. That day she had gone down on that moon and they all feared the worst, that she was dead. They’d almost left her behind, in fact, but Starbuck had pulled off one of the miracles she was known for and brought herself back to them in the end.
“Easy, Hot Dog, I’ll be fine out here.” Kara reassured him. Though they hadn’t gotten along on his first day when he’d earned his call sign, he had proven himself time and time again to her. He was there to back her up with those eight cylon Raiders when he shouldn’t have, he was there during the exodus, and all those times in between. Though they often could light the other one up with a petty jab here or there, what mattered was all the times they’d been there for one another in the cockpit. He was reliable and he was her friend.
She sped through the cloud covering, moisture spraying over the clear cockpit canopy. It really was beautiful, she’d give Hot Dog that. For the first time in a long time she was transported back to her days at the academy, teaching her students in the simulators, and once they’d gotten more advanced, a couple rounds out in the real thing under a watchful eye. Despite how much she loved the feel of her bird out in the deep of space, one of her favorite sims to run had been a tutorial in flying within the atmosphere of a planet. Caprica had been the planet of choice for that particular program, and the skies and oceans were always blue, puffy white clouds added for effect.
Kara was deep in thought before she realized how far she had gone, the clouds getting thinner and darker until they were gone completely. She slowed her ship down some and drew it in an arc as she peered out the side of her window and down into what looked something like the swirling graphical interpretation of a hurricane they used to show on the evening news back when things like the news and weather channels existed at all. It wasn’t just a passing weather pattern, that much she knew, but some innate part of the gaseous planet that she didn’t fully understand. She was drawn to it for reasons unbeknownst to her and she kept her Viper going around the perimeter of it in a circle until the immense details of it started to make sense. Though the colors were muddled, she would never have been able to forget the pattern it created, even if she hadn’t seen it weeks earlier in that temple Leoben had dragged her to.
Kara knew that mandala from the wall of her apartment after Zak died and all the drawings and paintings she’d done since she was able to hold a crayon. It had followed her everywhere and while she had been content to see it as a symbol of herself for most of her life, seeing it now spinning before her, her stomach clenched. Nausea rose in her and it was all she could focus on, not how fast her ship was heading down towards the blend of color or the voices coming over her radio. The hand not on the stick in front of her balled up into a fist in an attempt to channel her sickness out of her. Her eyes were shut tight and only as she felt the G force increasing exponentially on her did they open, finally able to turn her senses back on.
“Pull up, Starbuck!” Apollo yelled into her ear.
“Starbuck, Actual, you’ve got to pull up. You’re too close to the hard deck.” The Admiral’s voice was heavy with worry and she could tell they’d been trying to get through to her for awhile now.
“What the frak are you doing, Starbuck!? Pull up! Do you read?”
Her hand released from the fist it made and reached to grip at the stick between her knees, aiding her main hand in the maneuver. It took everything she had and her muscles clenched and burned as they pumped full of lactic acid at the sudden rush of overuse.
“Wilco!” Kara called out, hoping they could read her because she wouldn’t have the strength to repeat herself even once. Her Viper rose at a steep incline away from the mess of gases below her until her gauges began to settle out and stop aimlessly circling around. When she made it to a height of relative safety, she aimed her ship back towards Galactica and let her chest heave with the sudden influx of exhaustion. There were calls to her across her comm and she couldn’t bring herself to respond further, though she knew by the tone of their voices they could at least read her returning home.
She landed, coming in hard and hot for someone who didn’t have any cylons on her tail. Her mind was simply elsewhere, though she couldn’t even be sure where it was. She didn’t want to deal with the consequences of what had just happened, especially when she wasn’t even sure what had occurred in those few minutes when things went to hell. There’d be the looks from everyone she passed, the deck crew having been alerted to the situation and her early return home. Lee would undoubtedly want to talk about it when he got in and she knew that even the Old Man would want a few words with her over it. He didn’t often push, but this was going to turn out to be one of those times.
Kara handed her helmet to the crew member that approached her first, brushing quickly on by them before they could get a word in. This wasn’t protocol and even as CAG she had to follow the rules. There was paperwork to fill out, especially considering things hadn’t gone without problem, but all she could find herself doing was running out of the hangar deck, a very specific destination set in her mind.
The normal pleasantries gone from her system in that moment, Kara pushed past the marine on guard at the entrance to the brig that held the two cylon prisoners. She was on a mission and there was nothing that was going to stop her. She picked the phone up and hit her fist into the fencing to attract the attention of either of the two inside. D’Anna picked her head up to look at her and Kara wanted to smack the smirk off her face like nothing else. She’d been itching for a fight as of late and the punching bag in the gym wasn’t quite cutting it like it used to. Leoben looked up from where he lay across his bed, legs crossed at the ankles and arms folded up beneath his head. The smile he wore sickened her and for a moment she considered leaving, not giving him the satisfaction of knowing that she had made a choice out of free will to visit him.
Leoben took his time in approaching her waiting form. He held the phone to his ear and his smile spread across the width of his face. “I knew you’d come.”
“Cut the crap, Leoben.” The intensity of her words even surprised her. She was at war with herself internally, fighting between a fuming kind of anger and absolute bewilderment. “Why did you bring me to see the mandala?”
“I thought you’d come sooner, actually, but you came and that’s what matters.”
“Answer the frakking question.”
“Since I was born-” Leoben started.
Kara cut in, despite how much she wanted to hear what he had to say beyond his first few words. “You’re a cylon. You weren’t ever born. You don’t have parents. I know you like to pretend you’re human but even you can’t really believe that.”
“I was born, maybe not the same way you were, Kara, but one day I breathed my first breath. One day I suddenly had life that someone gave me. They weren’t what you had, but they were my parents nonetheless.” His hand rested against the glass holding him in, much like he had when they first met and he was destined to die only a moment later. “God put that image inside of me. He sent it to me so I could be your guide when the time came.”
Her irritation rising, Kara took a step back from the glass, as far as the cord of the receiver would allow. They had a physical barrier between them and yet it didn’t feel enough to her in that moment. “I want facts, not any of your poetic bullshit.” She made move to hang up on him when the sound of his voice on the other end had her pausing, taking it in.
“I know this is your destiny, set for you from the day you were born, maybe even before then. This has always been where you were headed. I told you when we met that you’d take us to Earth and you will.”
“You’re wrong.” With her final words, she left the phone dangling limply by the metal wrapped cord that connected it through to the people in the cell. She repeated her path on the outbound trip, passing by the guard again without acknowledgment. Barely through the doorway, she was caught surprised by the addition of another person and their familiar face.
“Gods, Lee.” She kept walking and he followed behind her, no further back than a step or two. “Am I supposed to write you up for coming off CAP early?” In other circumstances, it would have been a joke they both would have laughed at, but her tone was absolutely seething in the delivery.
“The Admiral let me come in,” Lee said, actually feeling like he needed to give her an excuse. Perhaps he had been taking advantage of their relationship together for months now with the relaxed treatment she gave him. She was the CAG and his superior and their intimate relationship rarely had him showing her signs of earned respect. “What the frak were you doing in there with him?” His words bit out at her, not caring about the people they passed by. He couldn’t care less about what they thought regarding his eagerly rising temper or just what it meant for the relationship that currently existed between the two of them. She was his focus, absolutely and completely.
Kara led them to the bunk room to begin pulling off her flight suit, something they both still wore zipped up to the throat. She was on a warpath, that much was certain, and the Kara he saw before him was so unlike the one he’d gotten to know late at night and between shifts.
“Give me the room,” he stated aloud to no one in particular. It wasn’t crowded but the others filtered out quick enough, eyebrows raised at what was transpiring between Starbuck and Apollo. “Answer me, Gods damn it.”
“You don’t get to boss me around, Lee.” Kara had most of the flight suit off as she spoke. “Who I talk to and what I talk to them about isn’t any of your frakking business. You’re not my keeper.” She threw her flight suit into her locker, not caring that it fell to the floor of the small closet in a heap rather than being properly hung on the heavy duty hanger provided for it.
“It is my business when you get like this afterward. It’s my business when it’s the first place you go to after you nearly die out on CAP. It’s my frakking business when something’s going on with my girlfriend and she won’t even tell me about.” He discarded his flight suit on his bed and put his focus completely on her, no distractions.
She scoffed at his term for her, head shaking furiously as her fear over what had happened in her Viper turned to pure rage in a manner of protection for herself. She hadn’t felt like this in forever. “I’m not your frakking girlfriend, Lee, I belong to myself.” It was a cheap shot, and though she didn’t really believe it, she said it anyway.
He tried not to show how much the words stung him and made an attempt at reassuring himself that she was just angry. She was angry and that was why she was saying the things she was. It didn’t make the sting of it any easier on him, but he pushed it aside. “Fine, you’re not- we’re not- whatever the frak we are. Kara you almost died out there-” His tone was heavy with his fear from earlier, his body still shaken from what he’d only heard about over the wireless. What bothered him most about it all was that he wasn’t able to get to her in time. She could have died and he wouldn’t have been fast enough, wouldn’t have been strong enough to pull her back. She had saved him more times than he could remember and he hadn’t been there when she almost went too far.
“I didn’t, I had it under control.”
“Like hell you did! You were fine one moment and then you were gone. You didn’t answer, you disappeared off DRADIS for awhile, CIC was reading you going down towards that planet.” To him and to everyone, it seemed like she had finally been pushed too far and intentionally forced her ship to the limits it was capable of, hoping not to make it out in the end. The feelings he had after the blackbird resonated deep in his chest and Gods, he hoped that despair he felt back then wasn’t what was inside of her.
“It was an accident, that’s all it was, Apollo. Every time we go out there, we just barely make it back, so this time was no different than all the others.” Kara hadn’t made move to pull any more clothes on, instead still standing in her briefs and tanks, just as Lee was across the room.
Lee shook his head, turning slightly from her as he drew his hands to his face. Thumb and index finger pressed into his closed eyes as he tried to steady his breathing, as fruitless as it was. “Why’d you go to Leoben?”
“Because of what happened in that temple. He brought me there to see that symbol.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Lee…” She started up again, furiously digging through the dwindling number of items in her locker until she found the old cigar box that had long since been empty of anything to smoke. Holding one side of it to her belly for support, her other hand opened up the lid and sifted through the small items in there. When finding the stack of pictures she sat the box down and stepped up to him, closing the gap despite how bad idea that was when both of them were angry at one another. She shuffled through each piece of paper, identical in size and shape, until she held up one to him. Lee could recognize it as that apartment of hers, though the walls weren’t as bare as they’d been when he last saw them. He almost didn’t recognize the shape at first, instead choosing to take in all the other details of the photograph.
“I’ve been painting that image my entire life, since as far back as I can remember. My parents’ fridge used to be covered in them and I don’t frakking know why. I painted this one after Zak died.” The last sentence seemed to sober her, washing away some of the dripping anger. Mention of Zak tended to do that to either of them. “I don’t have a picture of it with me, but, you know that’s what was in the temple. You saw it, everyone saw it. Leoben knew I needed to see it for myself.”
Lee tilted his head barely to her, taking the photograph in his hand as he let it seep into him. “It’s a coincidence, that’s all, Kara. Don’t let it bother you.”
Kara smacked her hand into the metal of the upper bunk. “It’s not a frakking coincidence. I draw that my entire life and we just so happened to get chased by cylons out here and we find that same symbol?” Kara walked away from him, tossing the excess photos onto her bed lazily. “When I was flying out there today, I saw it again.”
“What?” Even he was surprised by it, absolutely shaken.
“The mandala, it’s here too. It’s part of the atmosphere of the gas planet we’re orbiting. I found it when I was flying. I saw it and I just got so overwhelmed, Lee. I couldn’t think about anything else other than what the frak it could mean. How me, a world class frak up and nobody, could be tied to all of this. I don’t know what happened out there but then I heard you and everyone screaming on the wireless and pulled up before I went too far in.” She was clinical in her description of the events that had happened, but Lee knew she wouldn’t include this many details on the formal report she would have to make herself right. Maybe she’d include a mysterious malfunction of some sort, but there would be absolutely no mention of that mandala.
“It can’t mean anything, Kara. You were a kid, you drew it and you liked it and kept it up your whole life. It’s a coincidence and nothing more.” Lee knew he was speaking as much for himself as he was for her. This was something he couldn’t explain away, but he desperately needed to for both of them.
“It can’t be a coincidence. It’s not.” Both of her hands gripped into the upper bunk and she rested her head into the cool metal there as her body hunched forward slightly. It was refreshing to her in a million ways, for a second taking her mind off of everything that had happened in the previous couple of hours. She felt like she was losing her mind, all because of a couple of splotches of color she dreamed up as a child.
Lee replaced the photograph in the cigar box, tipping the lid shut as he crossed over to meet her. His hands rested over her own knuckles, white from so tightly gripping at the bunk. The front of his body pressed into the back of hers, chin resting on her shoulder as the sides of their head also ran parallel against one another. “Even the best get rattled sometimes.” Lee kissed her cheek, her neck, her shoulder. One of his hands followed the length of her arm down to her side before sliding around to her front, hugging her close.
“Don’t coddle me.” Though her words said otherwise, the relief she felt at just having him close was palpable.
“I’m not,” he whispered and a shiver ran down both of their spines.
She released her hands from above her, turning in his arms. Fingers gripped at her tanks and lifted them up in one smooth motion, then quickly repeated it with his. Lee’s arms raised in a gesture of silent obedience, following her lead. Though he wanted her, and that was a constant in his life no matter the time or situation, he made the choice to let her play the dominant role, much as she had their first night together after New Caprica. Kara slung an arm around him, her other hand going to his cheek and he met her move for move. Lee’s hand was on the opposite side of her face, the other palming the small of her back to press them hip to hip as they kissed. She wasn’t content to stay still for long, however, and her hands slipped down his sides, fingers quick to slide between his skin and the fabric of the underwear he wore. She worked them down as far as she easily could, then felt his hands repeating the same on her, the cloth of her own briefs sliding down her thighs.
She turned their bodies until he was the one closest to her rack and nudged at his well muscled abdomen until he took the hint. Stepping out of his briefs, Lee sat down on the thinning blanket, Kara coming with him as she left her underwear behind. His hands were eager, shoving her bra upwards until she gave in and allowed him to remove it from her. She was hungry then, straddling his lap with her spine arched forward so they could still fit in the tight space her bunk offered. Gods how she wished they were holed up in that billet right now, with all the space in the worlds.
Their lips met, rough and hard, her fingers digging into his shoulder as her hips began to rock against his own, her body tapping into that primal urge and need. From beneath her, Lee squeezed at her backside one handedly as his mouth dropped to her neck and then to her breasts where he took a nipple into his mouth. The hardened peak was already there, but he persisted anyway, his teeth tugging against it until he heard the softest of moans roll out of the back of her throat. Her eyes were shut suddenly as she let the sensation of his mouth consume her. Though she had always expected Lee to be something of a good lover, Kara never imagined the oral fixation he seemed to have and loved rewarding her with. After he switched to the other breast, treating it equally as roughly, her hands pressed to his chest and pushed him backwards until the length of him was laid across her rack.
Their coupling was urgent now, even more so than they usually were, and Kara wasted no time in getting him inside of her. Having felt him swell and press against her inner thigh long ago, she reached a hand between them as she rose up higher on her knees, holding him still as she lowered down onto him. He’d been inside of her a countless number of times since she’d committed to leaving Sam for him and still she wasn’t used to the sensation. Her hands pressed to his abdomen and Kara took him inside of her as far as her body would allow. Despite their rushing only moments before, she stilled for a few seconds here, eyes locked with Lee’s while they were as much joined into one person as they ever could be.
Using his body for leverage, Kara began to rock them, the pace starting slow then galloping faster with each push of their bodies back together. It amazed her how sometimes she could be so close already without any manner of real foreplay involved, and as she felt him rub at that place inside of her, Kara’s body already began to shudder with an upcoming release. One hand rose to be placed against the artificial ceiling created by the bunk above hers to both steady herself and provide an additional amount of force which she used to greet him back inside of her. Kara panted, no longer able to keep her eyes open as her body vibrated with the cocktail of hormones.
Lee watched from below, hands back on her hips to help them move together. She had intentionally taken control of this one, pushing him back to the bed to force him to sit out most of their current lovemaking. He usually wanted to kiss her, every inch, but this time allowed himself to take in the sight of her, completely free and lost in what was happening. She was beautiful, as always, even when the words from their previous argument still filled the room. Never before in his life did he feel such love for another human being and never before did he even think this kind of feeling even existed.
Kara’s hands were replaced on the planes of his chest as she came quickly, fast for even her. It wrecked her as it tore through and she was unable to stifle the moan of his name she exhaled out at the start of it, and repeated on through the very last second of her orgasm. Lee didn’t have the willpower to hold his back, especially when faced with the rhythmic contraction of her around him as her hips bucked into his. He released inside of her and Kara’s hips slowed all but to a stop after she felt him go.
“Frak me,” she said as she tried to regain her breath. With great reluctance she let him slip out of her, feeling the immediate absence of not having him inside of her any longer. It was then that she realized her thoughts of home had recently changed. Years ago, home had been Caprica. Then with the destruction of the Twelve Colonies, it had become Galactica. When Adama named her commander, home had quickly shifted to Pegasus before she came to define it as Galactica once more. Now her home wasn’t this ship or this bunk room, home was that moment when Lee was inside of her and everything else in her life faded away. There were no worries or concerns, no nagging thoughts of her past or responsibilities. The only thing she could focus on for those minutes was Lee and just how much she needed him. Kara laid next to him on her side, her head nestled against his shoulder. Her palm went to his chest, resting over his lung and his heart, like feeling it beating would somehow channel him into her and she would never have to be without him again.
“I always imagined what it would be like to have you in here,” Lee said with something of a laugh to his voice.
“Mm,” was all Kara got out, her head far, far away from their rack space. She kissed at his upper chest, the most easily reachable spot before her, letting her lips linger there for an extra breath. With most of her senses dulled, she could swear she was a part of him now, her breathing synced up to his.
Feeling a slight stab in her skin the longer she lay, her hand reached between her heavy body and the mattress, pulling out a few of the pictures she’d thrown there earlier. She moved to tuck them into the shelf above their heads, but her eyes caught on them and she knew she suddenly didn’t have the energy to put the photos away just yet. Most had been pictures of friends from back in the day, people from her class at the academy that were long since dead. The one on the top of the pile, however, was older than all the rest. Lee’s attention turned to her, craning his head just enough to catch sight of what she was staring at in her silence. His fingers reached for the photo, not to take it, but to turn it a little more.
“Is that you?”
She nodded against him, unable to take her eyes off the picture of her parents and herself, only a few years old. Most people looked happy in photographs, plastering on smiles for the camera. This photo though, the looks they wore were completely genuine. “That’s my mother, my father. I must have been three or four.”
“I can’t believe that hair, I’ve never seen hair that white.”
“It was like that for years.” Her voice was somber, almost detached and dream-like. “My dad left when I was seven.”
Though Lee’s own father had left his family, it hadn’t been a permanent thing. William Adama didn’t often come home to see his sons and his ex-wife, but he made the few necessary trips each year and at least remembered birthday cards. For Kara, he knew it wasn’t the same. “You never saw him after that?”
“No, it was like he just disappeared. When I was older, I used to search for his name everywhere, thinking maybe I’d catch him playing at some club and could just show up and surprise him, but there was never anything. I thought maybe he died, but I could never prove it. If he wasn’t dead before, now he is like everyone else.”
“Your mother never heard from him?”
She made a sound of disgust but was unsure of where it had come from. “No, and she made sure I knew just how much he’d abandoned us.”
He sighed and kissed her head, his arm curled around her and rubbing over her skin. Kara’s hands shuffled through a few more photographs, stopping as she was faced with one of her and Zak. Lee didn’t know when it was from exactly, but based on the uniforms they wore and the setting behind them, Lee was safe to assume it had been taken somewhere on base when his little brother was still only a cadet. The smiles they wore made him ache, not only for the loss of his only brother, but because of how happy they looked together. He helped hold the photo up, running his thumb beside his brother’s face like it would make it real.
Kara withdrew her hand as she kept her eyes on the image, reaching for her dog tag. Her thumb behaved similarly to his, stroking along the warmed metal of the ring Zak had given her in promise of their engagement. She had never thought of herself as the marrying type, but when he’d asked her, Kara couldn’t do anything but say yes. She didn’t want to do anything except be his wife. Tears covered her eyes and she took steady, deep breaths.
“How’d he ask you to marry him?” Maybe it wasn’t the time or the place, but Lee had a lot of questions from his brother’s final months that he had never been able to have answered before.
“What?” Kara was caught off guard by it. She hadn’t thought about that day in years, hadn’t let herself even wander to it in comfort. “He came over a few weeks before he finished academy and just asked. Like he’d never been so sure of something in his life.”
“And you said yes, right there?” Part of him envied his brother so much for getting to know Kara as she had been.
“I said yes and he said he didn’t even have a ring yet, so he took the one he wore off and gave it to me.” A soft laugh left her as she recalled it. “I had never been that happy before.”
Lee’s eyes closed as his own tears grew. “Kara,” he said, his voice quaking. “I’m sorry I’m not him.”
Everything in her body stopped. The stroking of her thumb over the ring. Her breath. If she could have stopped her heart manually, it, too, would have ceased to be alive at that moment.
“I’m sorry I can’t be him for you, I know you wish I was. I know everyone wishes I was.”
Kara pushed herself up, her head lifting to look at the features on his face. Her elbow supported her as she laid on her stomach now, her other arm draped over his chest. “Is that why you think I’ve been with you?” She wasn’t sure if she was more angry or absolutely heartbroken at his words.
Lee was like a statue, nothing on him to tell her he was alive other than the breaths his chest expanded with.
“Frak you,” her anger won out as she pushed herself up even more, hands groping blindly around her for that sports bra she had allowed him to pull off earlier. “Is that the kind of person you think I am? I know I’m a frak up, but that-” Her head shook as bile rose in her throat. She loved him, and much like Zak had been sure when he asked her to marry him, she was sure about how she felt for Lee. The idea that he could even think her intentions with him were simply to find a close replacement for the man she lost made her absolutely sick.
“Kara.” Lee sat up after a moment, reaching for her arm to gently still her. She wasn’t having any of it though, and pulled her limb away from him before tugging on her bra and adjusting it into place. “I don’t think it-I just…” Lee choked on his own words, not even sure if the proper thing existed to say in such a moment. They’d just finished making love, or at least that was what he’d call it, and he brought up his dead brother, her dead fiance. He never said he was the king of smooth moves.
“How can you mean anything else? You think that I’m with you because I still want Zak. Makes sense, right? Can’t have the one I killed so I’ll settle for his brother.” Kara climbed off of him and when her feet were on the floor again, her first action was to pull her briefs on. Years of sharing co-ed showers had made her lose her modesty, but being naked in front of him now felt completely different. She was vulnerable to him physically and emotionally, and she hoped that putting on layers of fabric would fix both of those points of weakness between them.
“That’s not what I said!” Or maybe it had been, he thought, just in different words. “Frak,” Lee cursed to himself instead of at her. “Let me fix this!” He yelled, losing control of himself just as quickly as he lost control over the situation.
“There’s nothing to fix, you’ve made yourself very clear.” Her tanks were on again and she reached in her locker for a pair of pants, not caring if they were clean or not. The green fatigues were quickly pulled on and Kara forced her feet into her boots, not bothering with socks or tying the laces. Next to her, Lee pulled his underwear on, but didn’t make a move for anything else. “This is Baltar all over again, except this time I didn’t even do anything.”
The hatch at the end of the room opened and due to the heated argument, neither of them cared. A couple of pilots, fresh off CAP and still in their flight suits entered, their conversation all but immediately stopping as they took in the sight of what was before them. A set of tanks were scattered over the floor and by the look of how Apollo was dressed, they’d been hastily removed from him. The tension between the fleet’s best pilots filled the very air that surrounded them all and though in other circumstances, any one of these pilots would have been happy to run off and get the rumor mill started right away, there was a severity to it all that had them hesitating.
“Kara, I love you, you know that. So please, let me explain what I meant.”
“I can’t even say it back to you because you’ll just think-” Kara’s head turned sharply to look at the other bodies that had joined them, unbeknownst to either her or Lee. Her eyes widened as she froze, overwhelmed with both what had happened with Lee and now the new element introduced. This wasn’t how she meant for anyone else to find out about her and Lee, if she even meant for them to find out at all. The frat regs were practically nonexistent these days, so it wasn’t the worry of getting written up for her behavior that scared her, but what finally acknowledging her relationship with Lee out in the open would mean regarding everything else.
Lee’s head turned as well to take in their friends and fellow pilots, who had wisely started to pretend to go about their business, although they did a terrible job at miming their actions. “Kara,” his voice was low this time, despite knowing he would still be heard by the others.
“No,” she bit out, hands raising between them. “You blew it, Apollo.” As of late, the use of his call sign had been for one of two reasons: they were out on CAP and observing protocol or she’d made some cheeky comment to him meant to elicit a smile. This was neither and Lee didn’t mess the grating tone she used on him. Kara pushed him back suddenly, his body nearly falling into the table in the middle of the room, as she made a beeline for the exit, not looking to any of the others as she departed.
Lee watched her go, wanting to follow but his body and mind still flooded with trying to figure out what had happened in so little time. He stayed like that for Gods knew how long, eyes watching her body disappear through the open hatch and down the long hallway until she turned a corner and was out of sight. When she was completely gone, his fist pounded into the table as he yelled. “Frak!”
The other pilots, Hot Dog and Duck among them, filtered out not long after that, leaving Apollo to himself for the solitude they knew he much needed.