FIC - Forgotten, [R], L/K, 1/1
Happy October 6th!
Title: Forgotten
Author: hackaddict
Date: 10/06/2006
Rating: R for violence and general dark-y-ness
Pairing: Kara/Lee
Spoilers: potential S3 one, but not really
Disclaimer: They're not mine. I wish they were mine. In some cool alternate universe, they are mine. But, alas, that universe is not the one I'm currently living in. So they're not mine.
Summary: The pain left over from a punch was a lot easier to forget than the lingering desire left over from a kiss.
Words: 5,082
The pain left over from a punch was a lot easier to forget than the lingering desire left over from a kiss.
___________________________
Kara found herself wandering the corridors of Pegasus even though she should be in briefings by now. The Old Man would be pissed if he knew she was shrugging her duties as CAG, but right now she didn’t care. Honestly, being yelled at by the Admiral sounded a lot better than subjecting herself to the stony silence of the Admiral’s son.
She and Lee left their relationship on pretty bad terms when she moved down to New Caprica, and now that that little portion of their lives was over, nothing had changed. They hadn’t fixed the tears yet.
Kara’s mind flashed back to the day she told Lee she was leaving the military behind to start a life with Sam. Her hand ran along her jaw even though the bruises had long since faded. Her fingers shifted to her lips. The pain left over from a punch was a lot easier to forget than the lingering desire left over from a kiss.
She hated how they left things.
Biting down on her lip, Kara decided that it was time to stop being stupid. It was time she and Lee started acting their age. Plus, with the way her marriage with Sam crumpled, she figured she might be the only person who could truly understand what Lee was going through right now. His divorce was turning out to be a lot messier than hers. At least that’s the tune to which her pilots kept gossiping.
She was halfway to the conference room where her first meeting was being held when the floor shook underneath her. She had barely a second to understand what was happening when the whole corridor lurched.
Then the screams started.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Lee felt himself lurch back into the memory of the moment the Blackbird exploded around him. He was floating in space all over again. He felt like he was on his own.
“Commander Adama!”
Hoshi’s voice made his eyes snap open, and Lee looked over at his newly re-appointed tactical officer. One look was all it took to let Lee know this was it. This was the end. “How bad is it?”
“Bad, sir.”
Lee let the words wash over him and tried to push down the immediate need to scream in anguish. Pegasus was the only thing he had to live for these days.
The gods were cruel.
“Sir?”
Lee looked up and realized that most of the CIC was staring at him. He silently chided himself. He was their Commander. They needed him to keep it together. “Sit rep?”
“We have reports from some of the crew who were in the gym, “ the comms officer said quickly. “They said the power is down and they‘re locked in.”
Lee shook his head. Whatever was happening, it was worse than a power shortage and a small bout of claustrophobia. “Something happened on that level.”
“Do you want me to send a unit of Marines down there?” Hoshi asked.
Someone cried out in surprise, cutting Lee’s response off completely. He followed everyone’s stares, and his eyes widened in horror. “Cross?” Lee stammered. He had never seen his top Viper pilot looking this disheveled. Showboat wiped the hair out of her face, and it was then that Lee saw the giant gash on the side of her head. “What’s going on?”
“We’ve been boarded, sir.” Showboat coughed, and it was only because Hoshi chose that moment to grab hold of her that she didn’t fall to the ground. “Centurions, sir,” she spit out, leaning on the tactical officer. “Everywhere.”
Lee could feel the sense of horror wash over him as he remembered the only day these past few years where he really thought the Fleet wasn’t going to make it to Earth. The fear started clogging his vision, and Lee had to hold onto the table in front of him to keep from losing it all together. He could hear them all calling his name, but it sounded like it was a million miles away.
Oh gods. They were all going to die.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Kara ran through the corridors, following the screams. She ordered every person she passed to either get into a fighter or get into one of the evacuation pods. She had no clue what was happening, but she knew it was bad. She knew that she couldn’t do this one on her own.
“Gunny!” Kara screamed, her eyes catching on her old friend as he ran past her. He had a few of his crew in tow and looked rather official.
“Thrace, what the frak are you doing here?”
“Following the trouble,” Kara yelled. She skidded to a stop in front of him, pausing a moment, and then grabbed his collar. “Come with me.”
The screams got closer. It only took a few more corridors to find the source, but it was enough time for Gunny to tell her that her gut instinct was correct. The Centurions were on board Pegasus. This was bad.
Kara ran through the hatch to the briefing room first, feeling the Marines close behind her. Her eyes immediately caught on the girl at the front of the room. She was crouched down in a ball, screaming her head off. It wasn’t until Kara got closer that she realized the girl was covered in blood. “What the frak is wrong with her?” Kara screamed to the crowd of people hovering around her.
“She was in the hallway with the rest of our squad when the ship punched through the hull. The Centurions ripped apart her wingman right in front of her face. It was all I could do to grab her hand and start running. We weren’t trained for this.”
“What’s your name?” Kara asked, trying to make her voice loud enough to drown out the commotion all around them.
“Wesley Stevenson, sir.”
“Well, Stevenson, you’ve done good so far. Running was the right thing to do,” Kara reassured him. She waited until she got a reluctant nod from him and then turned to the girl crouched on the floor.
To their credit, the group only flinched slightly as Kara punched the screaming girl in the face as hard as she could. The air was quiet for a few seconds as the girl collapsed onto the floor, unconscious. Then another explosion rocked the ship, and people started yelling out questions. Kara’s eyes swept across the faces of those around her. She didn’t recognize one of them. “What squad did you say you were on?”
“We’re not on a squad,” the girl next to Kara said. “We’re nuggets.”
Kara felt a little bit of confidence slip away. “How new are you?”
“We just started our training a week and a half ago.”
Kara bit down on her lip as she felt the sudden urge to start crying. The screams started ringing in her ears, and she knew that this time it wasn’t some nugget freaking out. There were people dying only yards away.
She jumped slightly as she felt a hand come around her arm and twisted to look at Gunny. “We need to move, Captain.”
Kara’s face steeled immediately. He was right.
She turned to one of the Marines. He was holding a radio and looked at least semi-competent. She hoped to the gods that little piece of technology was still working. “Let the CIC know we’re stuck down here and what we plan to do.” She twisted to look at the squad of nuggets but not before seeing Gunny lean over to the Marine she had just ordered to report in. She knew that Gunny was telling him to make sure he mentioned Starbuck was with them. Pushing her thoughts about why that would make a difference to the side, she straightened her back and tried to look official. “Listen up, nuggets. It’s your lucky day because you are now in the capable hands of Galactica’s CAG and some of the finest Marines the Fleet has to offer. We are going to exit the door on my right and keep running until we find an evacuation pod. Do not stop for any reason. Right now the only priority you have is getting your own ass off this ship.” Kara let her eyes drift across every innocent face staring back at her. “Welcome to the real world, kids.”
She took off at a sprint and didn’t bother to check to see if the nuggets were falling her. She had given the necessary inspirational speech. Now it was up to them. What she told them was true. In situations like this, all you could do was look out for yourself and hope that the others would do the same.
A small voice in the back of her head reminded her that wasn’t entirely true. Because as much as Kara knew it was a mistake and as much as she knew she was being hypocritical, she was not going to step onto that evacuation pod when they reached it.
No, Kara Thrace had one more person to look out for besides herself. It seemed like it had always been that way, and, gods be damned, she was not going to let Lee Adama die unless she was right there beside him.
They were halfway down the corridor outside the briefing room when Kara heard someone call her name. It sounded like that Stevenson kid. Going against her better judgment, she turned around to check, and that’s when a third explosion rocked the ship. She could feel the metal twisting around her, falling down on her, and then the world went black.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~
“Where are we on that report from Gunny’s team?” Lee screamed.
“The area they reported from a few minutes ago was cut off.”
“What does that mean?”
“Honestly, sir?”
Lee glared at the comms officer and waited for a reply. He didn’t have time to play this game. His people were dying.
“The explosions probably knocked out the comm they were using. The same thing happened on Level C near the mess hall. You had me send a few Marines down there to help with the evacuation.”
“Do the same for the area by the briefing room.”
“There’s no time,” Hoshi cut in. He walked over to Lee’s side and pointed at the projection on the screen in front of him. “The Centurions are already here… here… and here. A Marine team would have to cross them at least five or six times on the way to the briefing room.”
“So you’re telling me that whomever’s in that part of the ship is on their own?”
“Yes,” Hoshi said, the regret thick in his voice. He knew how much his Commander didn’t want to admit how dire these circumstances were. That was why it was his job to force the hard decisions.
Lee was about to argue when the comms officer interrupted. “Not necessarily. Sir,” he added hastily.
“Explain,” Lee demanded.
“Gunny was able to get off some of his report before the line went dead. He and four of his team were able to find that missing squad of nuggets.”
A little weight fell off of Lee’s shoulders. He had no clue he had even been worrying about those nuggets.
It only took a few seconds for his relief to fade away. “Why should the presence of five Marines reassure me that they’re going to get to an evacuation pod?”
“Because they have more than five Marines on their side. They have Starbuck.”
“Ka-” Lee caught himself. “Captain Thrace?”
“She’ll get them to the evacuation pods, sir.”
Lee nodded, but he could already feel his thoughts drifting. According to the schematics in front of him, there were over two dozen Centurions in Kara’s way. He knew she was good, but he wasn’t sure she was that good.
“Sir, what’s our plan?”
Hoshi’s words brought him back to reality for the hundredth time since this whole crisis started. Lee’s mind switched to autopilot as he ran over the possible scenarios he could put into play. In the end, only one thing was clear. “We’ve lost.”
“Sir?” Hoshi said quietly, not sure he had heard his commanding officer correctly.
Lee’s face steeled, and he turned to look at the remnants of his CIC crew. “The fight is over, people. I want everyone to get to an evacuation pod now.” He turned to Hoshi. “Put out a call through the shipwide comms. Hopefully some of the speakers are still working. Tell those listening to make their way to the nearest evacuation pod. Anyone capable of flying a Viper or a Raptor needs to get down to hangar bay. We need to save as many ships as we can.”
“What about Pegasus?”
“Pegasus is gone.” It broke his heart to say those words out loud, but Lee knew he needed to be strong here. “We can’t dwell on that. I want you to put in a call to Galactica before you leave. Tell them that the evacuations will be complete in a little under an hour. They are to remain on guard.”
“What about when the hour’s up?”
“Tell them to open fire. My girl deserves to go down in a blaze of glory.”
Hoshi nodded and, without hesitation, started placing the call.
Lee started ushering people out into the hall, ordering them to do something he had never thought he would. It was time to abandon their posts.
A minute of yelling was all he had to waste to get most of the CIC moving. It had taken well over a year, but the people who served under him had finally learned to respect his authority. If he said evacuate, he meant evacuate.
Lee sprinted out into the corridors, following the stream of people on their way to the evacuation pods. He only made it a few steps.
No sound rang through his ears. No heat blasted his body. No large flare of white and yellow and blue blinded him.
Lee simply found himself in a heap halfway down the corridor, his head ringing from what felt like the beginnings of a concussion. Shaking his head clear, he registered people running frantically all around him. No one offered to help him, which was the first clue that something was drastically wrong.
The second clue was when Lee fought back the pain enough to look down the corridor where he was standing.
The CIC was gone.
It was buried underneath a pile of rubble and flames. There were a few people frantically trying to dig through the clutter towards the people Lee knew were trapped inside. A couple of officers were arguing over what to do. Still, others were simply standing, staring at the chaos around them, just like Lee.
Lee felt a coolness on his head. His fingers pressed against his forehead and came back wet and cold, bathed in a red that should not be there. The pounding got louder around him.
A scream pierced through the haze. As the fact that he was the Commander of this ship finally came back to him, Lee sprang into motion. He shrugged out of his jacket, pausing only to wipe the blood away from his eyes. The jacket was torn in too many places to be of any other use. He shouted at those who weren’t in shock to help dig out those they knew were still alive and began using his bare hands to move hunks of metal and plastic.
The effort only took a few minutes. Most of the people they found were too far gone to save.
Lee whispered a quick prayer to the gods for the crew he had just lost and then shouted at the survivors to follow him down to the evacuation pods. He slipped his hand underneath the shoulder of an injured strategic officer and started walking as quickly as he could. He hoped the others kept up.
All the way down to the hangar bay, Lee continued to yell at them to move. He told them they were almost there at every turn they made, and for some reason, no one pointed out that he was lying. He handed off the injured man he was supporting to the nearest deckhand and started making his way back through the hangar bay hatch.
“Commander Adama!”
Lee turned around to see the comms officer from before. The kid had made it. “Yes?”
“Sir, you need to get on an evacuation pod.”
Lee watched the young boy’s eyes hover on the wound that was still openly bleeding. “Don’t worry about me, kid. Get yourself off this ship. I’ll get on a ship when I know the rest of the crew is safe.”
“Sir, excuse me, but that’s stupid.”
Lee narrowed his eyes and walked back to stand in front of the comms officer. “What’s your name?”
“Petty Officer Grady Beck, sir.”
“Well, Petty Officer Grady Beck, you seem like a rather smart young man, but there are things you don’t understand. Now get on that evacuation pod before I make it an order.”
“Yes, sir,” Beck said, snapping off a salute.
Lee returned the gesture and started sprinting out into the corridor. He was glad that Beck was so young that he didn’t know the right questions to ask. It was better off for no one to know what he was doing. Then, when they realized the Commander had not gotten off the ship, no one would have to carry the guilt of knowing why.
Lee paused for a moment and tried to remember what that comms officer had said when he was relaying reports. The briefing room was only a few levels away.
As he turned the first corridor, Lee felt his ship start to shake again. This time he knew what it meant. He had lost another part of Pegasus, and there was no way to know if that part was the one he was running towards. A sense of urgency sunk in, and in response, his feet picked up the pace.
A loud bang filled the air behind him, and Lee fought back the uneasy feeling that those evacuation pods weren’t even going to make it far enough to launch. He had felt it the second the first Centurion dive bombed into the side of his ship. All would be lost.
His hands curled up into fists. If this was how it was supposed to be, he would kill every one of those metal mother frakers with his bare hands before he let them think they won… especially if they took her without giving him a chance to say goodbye.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Kara felt the light from the corridor beating against her head long before her eyes opened. After a second she realized the pounding was more likely due to the fact that she was moving. There was a strange pressure on her arms. Another second later, she realized she wasn’t moving at all. She was being moved. Gathering up all her strength, she opened her eyes and tried to focus through the pain.
There was a figure standing over her. The pressure on her arms suddenly made sense. “Wha-” Kara only got the one syllable out of her mouth before her vision went white. She slammed her eyes shut and prayed to the gods her knees held out as the pain engulfed her.
“Shh. Don’t talk, Kara.”
“Lee?” She hadn’t realized her voice was so raspy. Had it always been that way?
“I said don’t talk.”
She decided the voice sounded so pissed off it had to be Lee. His grip tightened around her. “We have to move right now,” he whispered. “They’re coming.”
Kara tried to move her legs, but nothing happened. Another explosion rocked the ship, and she felt Lee being thrown away. The desperation and fear kicked in the second his hands left her arm. Kara lashed out, and her hands hit something immediately. She forced her eyes open to see the large piece of debris sitting on her lap. The next thing she noticed was the bodies. All those nuggets…
A groan tore her gaze away, and she twisted to see Lee slumped against what used to be a corridor wall. A soft clicking echoed through the devastated corridors. “Lee,” she hissed, her hand coming to push on the chunk of debris. It moved an inch, and the throbbing in her legs multiplied by a hundred.
Lee’s head was spinning for the second time in under an hour, but he managed to quiet it down enough to hear her voice. He had been doing something before. He hated that he couldn’t remember what that was.
They’re coming. Lee’s words from before rang in her head, and Kara suddenly made the connection.
Centurions.
Instincts kicked in almost immediately. They needed to move. Kara bit down on her lip as hard as she could before shoving the debris with all her might. It slid completely off, and her vision went red.
There wasn’t time to dwell on the pain. She moved her legs slightly and was grateful to feel them despite the pain.
Kara crawled the few feet it took to make it to Lee. “The Centurions are coming,” she whispered.
Lee’s eyes snapped open as memory after memory cut through the haze in his head. “Kara.”
Thankfully, Kara knew that look so she had time to brace herself before Lee pulled her to her feet. “Frak!” she screamed as the blood rushed down to her legs. Her knee gave out completely, and she felt Lee’s hands tighten around her. “I’m fine. I’m fine,” she snarled.
Lee was about to tell her that she was definitely not fine when he heard the sound of moving metal. It was getting closer. “Hold on,” he said.
Kara did her best to do what he said as Lee started yanking them down the war-torn corridor. “How bad is it?”
Lee continued to stare straight ahead. “The CIC’s gone. I think that the port side hangar bay took, at the very least, a heavy hit. Worst case scenario, it’s completely gone. Communications are down, and all evacuation pods that are still in intact were probably jettisoned over ten minutes ago. The Admiral’s under orders to shoot us down within the next twenty minutes. I don’t want Pegasus taken.”
Kara nodded. She had figured it was that bad.
They almost made it to the stairs of the next level when she felt Lee stumble. Her body slammed into the wall, and her fingers reached out to find purchase. The sounds of the Centurions were even closer. “We’re not going to make it,” she said, her eyes locking with Lee’s for the first time.
Lee‘s eyes scanned the area around him, and Kara watched his jaw square. Then he was yanking both of them through the only hatch in the corridor that was still on its hinges. She barely had time to register that they were in an equipment locker before he was letting go and she was sliding to the floor. He fell down next to her.
They stayed that way, side by side, both silently trying to regain their breath, for what felt like an eternity. The pain was fading in Kara’s legs, but she was no longer sure that was a good thing.
She watched Lee’s head dip silently and reality set back in. “You’re hurt.”
Lee raised his chin to look at her, and something familiar flashed in his eyes. Without a word, he got to his feet and walked to the other side of the equipment locker.
Kara watched him silently pace for a few minutes. She couldn’t help but notice the slight limp he was now walking with. He was hurt.
He stopped pacing and leaned against a counter, his eyes coming to rest on her. She knew he was waiting for her to ask him a question, but none came to mind. She already knew what he was doing here. After all, she had been preparing to do the same thing before that explosion took her out. She didn’t want to ask him why the gods were doing this because she knew that he didn’t the answer.
She took in the dirt and blood caked to his body, and suddenly everything they had done in the past came rushing back to her. Of all the mistakes they had made, she knew she had made the biggest one. She knew he loved her. He had been rather vocal with his feelings at least a few times, but she wouldn’t hear anything of it.
Who the hell did she think she was to make him wait?
They had been so stupid for so long, and now it was too late to fix it.
“And your legs?”
Lee’s voice cut through her thoughts, pulling her back into the situation. “I’m fine,” she reassured him. “It hurt like a bitch at first, but it’s getting better.”
Concern flashed across his face before he could hide it. Kara was about to say something when a loud bang filled the corridor. The Centurions were here. She turned back to Lee and saw realization in his eyes. This was it. This was the end. In a few seconds, it would be over.
They only had one chance left.
She only had one chance.
“I’m sorry.”
Lee watched her for a moment and then pushed off the counter he was leaning on. He limped his way over to where she sat and crouched down, holding his hand out to her. “Up for one last dance, Captain?”
She wasn’t giving up this time. Kara nodded and let him help her to her feet.
Lee rattled through the cabinets and, after a minute, tossed two guns to her. He grabbed two of his own and checked the clips. The weight of the situation pressed down on them as they heard the sound of metal stop outside the hatch to the equipment locker.
The noises dropped out around her, and suddenly all Kara could hear was the sound of her breath mixing in with Lee’s. Time slowed down as she held his gaze. There was a million things she needed to say right now.
Yet Lee was the one to speak first. “I forgive you, and even though it‘s not worth much, I‘m sorry, too.”
“It’s worth a hell of a lot,” Kara whispered. Shaking away the tears, she turned away from Lee and did her best to steel herself for what was ahead. She felt Lee settle in beside her as the pounding on the hatch began.
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
The hatch exploded.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~
“And that’s all you’re getting for tonight,” Kara insisted, getting to her feet.
“But Mommy!”
Kara smiled at the angry look on her daughter’s face. “Don’t ‘but Mommy’ me, Aliya. It’s over twenty minutes past your bedtime.”
“But I have to know,” the little girl insisted, practically hopping out of the covers surrounding her body. “What happened to the Fleet’s two best pilots? Did they kick the toasters’ butts? How’d they get back to Galactica? What happened to the Pegasus?”
Kara shook her head. “Tomorrow night. Mommy’s tired.”
Aliya looked like she was going to protest but then stopped. “You do look tired.”
“Mommys don’t lie,” Kara said, leaning in to kiss the top of her daughter’s head. “Now go to bed.”
Kara made it to the hatch before her daughter called out again. “Is Daddy going to come in and say goodnight?” She gave Aliya a small nod. Satisfied, her daughter burrowed herself into her covers again and shut her eyes. Kara let herself linger for just a second before shutting the hatch.
For some reason, she wasn’t surprised to see Lee waiting for her in the middle of the room. She could feel him watching her and knew, despite the dim lighting, he could see the trail of tears on her cheeks. He crossed the room to stand in front of her, and Kara reached her hand out to cup his cheek. Her fingers traced the jagged scar that was there, marring a once perfect face, and she felt him lean into her touch.
Lee pulled his wife’s hand away from his face and traced the faded lines on her palm, the only visible evidence of the dozen operations she went through to restore feeling after the Centurions ripped a line across one whole side of her body. He could still remember the feeling of watching her slowly bleed to death. He had never felt so helpless in his life.
To this day, he still had no idea how they managed to fight their way to the starboard side of the battlestar to find that abandoned Raptor in the hangar bay.
“She asked for her favorite bedtime story again, didn’t she?” Lee whispered, moving his arms around Kara’s body and pulling her close to him.
She nodded. “Do you think she’ll ever put it together?”
Lee wished he could lie and say no, but he had made a vow a long time ago to stop lying when it came to Kara. “She will when she’s old enough.”
Kara tightened her hold on him, and Lee shifted to bury his face in her hair. He breathed her in and smiled. “She’s waiting for me, isn’t she?”
“You got it,” Kara said, pulling back.
Lee gave her a quick kiss before letting go and turning towards their daughter’s room. He was about to open the hatch when Kara’s voice cut through the silence. “Lee?”
He turned to look back at his wife and saw something flash across her face. “What is it?”
She watched him for a second before shaking her head with a smile. “It’s nothing.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Whatever had been on her mind a few seconds earlier disappeared completely as she watched her husband sit down on the edge of their daughter’s bed. He whispered something and then leaned in to kiss her cheek.
Kara wiped the tears off her cheeks and turned to get herself ready for bed.