BSG Fic : Crash (7/9)
Title : Crash
Author : Helen C.
Rating : R
Summary : Galactica, Apollo, I've been hit. Repeat, I've been hit. (Set in S2, somewhere between Final Cut and Flight of the Phoenix).
Disclaimer : The characters and the universe were created and are owned by Ronald D. Moore and Universal Television Studios to name but a few. No money is being made. No copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
AN. Many thanks to elzed, siljamus and joey51 for beta'ing this, and to the countless people on LiveJournal who held my hand while I whined and whined and whined about this fic.
AN2. Pure, unadulterated H/C. (If you don't like it, lie to me. And if you feel the need to offer con. crit., thanks, but not on this one, please...)
Chapter 7
Kara hated waiting even more than she had hated looking under every damn stone of the frakking planet until they found Lee. At least, down on the planet, she was doing something instead of standing in a quiet corner of sickbay, looking at the bulkheads and the curtains drawn between the cubicles-why did they even bother putting these up? It wasn't like it offered any kind of peace or of privacy, and no one was fooled.
Cottle had barked at her to go wash up and eat and she had obeyed, surprising Helo enough that he had shot her worried looks all the way from sickbay to the showers until she had grown annoyed and had threatened to punch his lights out if he didn't cut it out.
Helo was generally smart, wise and had a healthy sense of self-preservation.
He cut it out.
And now, here Kara was, hair still damp from the shower, in a fresh uniform that felt blissfully warm and dry against her skin, and there still wasn't any news.
She hadn't taken the time to eat, though; she was too tired to be hungry. She was too tired to sleep as well and she suspected that the next few days were going to be hell, until she could get adjusted to her regular shifts again.
The Commander was standing next to her, staring at the same bulkhead she was-or, more probably, not staring at anything. He, too, looked like he could use a shower and a change of clothes. Kara found herself thinking, not for the first time, that maybe those who didn't have any family left were lucky. She saw the look on the Commander's face every time Lee was in danger. She had seen Lee's face when he had told her about the shooting and she had heard the stories of those who had been in CIC when it happened.
At least she didn't have any family to worry about-except for the two of them, of course, and damn if they weren't going to be the death of her.
"What's taking them so long?" Kara grumbled under her breath.
Adama didn't move an inch, didn't so much as look at her, but replied, "A nurse came by while you were out, but she didn't say much. Just that it would take time."
Kara bit her lip as the image of Lee lying on the ground flashed through her mind. "He'll be fine," she said, mostly to say something. That was what people said in such situations, wasn't it? Civilians or soldiers, all of them were alike when waiting for a doctor to emerge from the room where he'd treated someone close to them. They made small talk and exchanged platitudes, because it was doing something when there was nothing to do.
Adama wasn't replying, so she added, "He's tough. Like his old man."
She turned to him just in time to see a hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth, quickly replaced by the usual impassivity. She wondered, sometimes, the rare few times Lee allowed himself to talk about their relationship without being clouded by either anger or bitterness, whether it was the way the Commander looked at his sons when they were young, and how they would have read that expression.
Reading the Commander was difficult; it took familiarity and a willingness to look past appearances.
He had been absent for most of Lee and Zak's childhood, and Lee didn't seem so willing to take his time looking for clues about how much his father loved him.
These two are just too alike for their own good, she thought, and no matter how often she thought the words, they still rang true.
She wondered if the two of them would ever find a way to live together and deal with their past or if they would just take this long-standing misunderstanding to their graves. Knowing them, the latter was frighteningly likely.
It would have happened if Lee hadn't been ordered to fly during the decommissioning ceremony. It would have happened if he hadn't made it back to the Galactica the first day of the attacks, if she hadn't saved him at the Ragnar Anchorage.
It would have happened if Boomer had been a better shot.
Sometimes, the temptation to knock their heads together until they saw sense was almost too strong to resist. Picturing their faces if she ever caved in, she had to hold back a snicker.
"Something you want to share, Lieutenant?" Adama asked, his tone bemused, and it was only then that she realized she was grinning widely.
Had she had one drink too many, she would have told him. As it was, she just shook her head, holding the laughter in. It's not that funny. "No, sir," she replied.
He didn't push, instead clasping his hands behind his back and starting to pace the length of the room, back ramrod straight. Even dressed as a civilian, it would have been obvious that he was military.
Would Lee ever carry himself in such a way? He might say he didn't want to walk in his father's footsteps but that didn't mean he wasn't doing it. After all, he had gone through flight school like his old man, had been accepted to a school that would have put him on a fast track to command.
That was flying, though. Flying was… well, flying. Something that ran in his blood, something he had been built to do, something he needed to do. Just like she did.
Her head was starting to hurt, and she stretched her neck to alleviate the tension in her shoulders. She hadn't even realized she'd been standing so stiffly.
"Maybe you should get some rest," the Commander said from behind her.
"Later. Sir."
She heard him sigh softly, then the soft rustling of fabric, the tapping of his foot on the floor-one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, turn, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, turn-resumed. The sound was soothing and she closed her eyes. That was how she missed Cottle's entrance. She only snapped out of her daze when she heard his voice ("Commander"); she hadn't even noticed that the Commander had stopped walking, which could only mean that she had been busy falling asleep standing up.
Now that she actually thought about it, maybe he did have a point about getting some rest.
"Doctor."
There was a tense silence and Kara stared at the two men, incredulous. She'd been waiting for what felt like hours and they were calling each other's titles like nothing out of the usual was happening? What was wrong with them? "How is he?" she asked, her voice stretched so thin she thought it would break.
Cottle didn't even look at her, focused solely on the Commander. "Barring complications, he'll live." Kara didn't miss the way Adama seemed to deflate, all tension draining from him.
"He has a head injury, an open wound on the leg that got infected. He's running a fever. He has three cracked ribs. Let's hope he didn't catch a cold down there, because it could cause problems."
The Commander nodded curtly, just once, a silent invitation for Cottle to continue.
"For the moment, what worries us the most is the combination of the fever and the head injury. From what we can tell, his memory has been fairly unreliable since the crash."
"What do you mean?"
Kara swallowed at the hard undercurrent in the Commander's tone, but as usual, Cottle seemed immune to it. Bastard.
"He wasn't very clear, but he said he lost consciousness and woke up a few times, and he didn't remember what had happened from one time to the other. He also wrote a note on the back of his hand. It has pretty much faded, but he was trying to read it." He looked at the Commander, as if checking that he should go on, before adding, "He asked confirmation that we lost the Colonies and we were on the run."
At this point, a good hundred questions were swimming thought Kara's mind, begging for her attention. Thankfully, the Commander was better at prioritizing than she was.
"Is it permanent?"
Feeling like she had been punched to the gut, she forced herself not to react. If Apollo's memory was shot, it would mean grounding him and-
"Too soon to tell," Cottle replied, like he wasn't talking about Lee's future, about his life. "But it seems like the memory lapses are less severe than they used to be, if he remembered enough to ask that question. If it was definitive, he wouldn't have known where he was at all."
The Commander's face seemed set in stone, Kara felt frozen solid. Only Cottle still looked to be flesh and blood in the room, as he finished, "We'll just have to wait and see. We should know more once the fever goes down and he has a chance to get some rest." He looked at the Commander critically. "I think you should go see him, Commander. And then, I don't want to see you here again until you've had at least five hours of uninterrupted sleep."
"We live on a battlestar and we're at war," Adama pointed out, his meaning clear.
Cottle looked thoroughly unrepentant. "And if it had been anyone but you, I would have ordered eight hours of sleep. I'll take what I can get."
He left on a curt, "Ishay will come get you," before the Commander could reply. That was probably why no one had managed to murder Cottle yet, Kara mused. He was quick to throw barbs and even quicker to retreat before having to face the consequences.
By the time Ishay arrived, Kara was ready to collapse and fall asleep on the ground. She wouldn't be in the way here, anyway. She wouldn't bother anyone, unless there was a crisis. But if there was a crisis, it was likely to involve Cylons and she would be out there flying and possibly dying from sheer fatigue.
"Let's go," the Commander said. "Then, I don't want to see you here until you've had five hours of uninterrupted sleep."
"We live on a battlestar and we're at war, sir," she replied.
He chuckled, the first sign that everything was going to be all right since Apollo's Viper had been hit. "And if it had been anyone but you, I would have ordered eight hours of sleep." He turned serious again long enough to add, "You did good out there, Lieutenant." He patted her shoulder as he passed her on his way out, and Kara followed him and Ishay, feeling absurdly choked up.
*
Cottle had been much too optimistic when he had ordered Bill to get five hours of sleep. At this point, he'd probably be lucky if he managed three.
First, the President called, congratulating him on getting "Captain Apollo" back-Bill had never thought to ask Lee what he thought about the fact that she kept using that nickname-and asking how he was. Bill kept his reply vague enough that she certainly understood he was hiding something, but he didn't feel like telling her that Lee had looked frighteningly young despite the three-day stubble, and too thin and too pale and much too still as he lay on a sickbay bed. He barely looked like Lee anymore, and while Cottle and the nursing staff were reassuring, Bill had noticed that they were monitoring Lee very closely.
If we hadn't found him when we did, he wouldn't have lasted much longer, and that would probably have been a blessing because it turns out that there were humanoid Cylons down there, and that thought was enough to drive the father in him half insane with grief despite the fact that they had gotten Lee back.
The President said she would drop by to check on Lee as soon as she could before hanging up, recommending that Bill got some sleep.
He would have been happy to but it turned out that he was too tired to sleep. No matter how much he tried to relax, no matter how much he tried to beckon sleep, it was just no use.
He knew this feeling from too many nights spent awake before big missions when he was a pilot himself, and then from too many times spent waiting for the return of his men as he was ordering them on missions he knew they might not come back from.
He got to his feet and walked to his desk, hands pressed against the small of his back. He was in good shape-good enough to give his son a run for his money when they sparred, good enough to be able to take on any of his men on hand-to-hand combat-but in the last couple of years, the odd stiffness and ache had been reminding him that he was getting older.
Officers his age retired from active duty or became admirals and worked safely in the Headquarters at Picon, where they couldn't become a liability in combat situation. Except that wasn't going to happen. It now seemed like he was going to go down with his ship, in a way he had never envisioned before.
He shook off the morbid thought. They weren't dead yet, they'd been outsmarting and outrunning the Cylons since the beginning of the war, and if he had anything to say about it, they would continue doing so.
A pile of reports was waiting for his signature, neatly stacked in a pile on his desk. He hadn't had any attention to spare for them in the last three days, but now he had a few hours to kill and hopefully, reports about maintenance and stocks and personnel rotations would be just what he needed to put him to sleep.
He sat down and got to work.
He was still at it three hours later, when the call came, Cottle's words pushing him to his feet with an energy he didn't think he had left. "We need you in sickbay, now, Commander." There was a crash in the distance, and Cottle hung up without waiting for Bill's reply. Bill was out the hatch before he could even start to wonder what was wrong.
*
Bill barged into sickbay and froze, taking in the scene. Lee was backed up against the bulkhead, pointing a gun at Ishay and staring at her with an empty expression. He was sweating-his skin shining with perspiration in the harsh lights overhead, his gown clinging to his chest and arms. His hand was shaking and the safety of the gun was off.
Damn.
"What happened?" Bill asked in a voice he hoped sounded steadier than he felt.
For a moment, no one replied. Then, a young, nervous First Class spoke up. "Ishay left him alone with Corporal Henick for a few moments. When she came back, the Corporal was unconscious and, well…" He was pointing his gun in Lee's direction, doubtlessly waiting for someone to give him an order.
Bill stepped farther into the room. Lee didn't even seem to notice, so intent was he on Ishay-if he was even seeing her. From his flushed skin, Bill wondered if he was aware of where he was and who was with him. He was reminded of what Kara told him about the way she had found Lee-ready to shoot her, unaware of where he was and who was around.
He spotted Henick on the floor. The man was conscious, but wasn't moving; his eyes followed Bill as he moved to the room.
Bill couldn't help being impressed that despite the state his son was in, he had managed to take out Henick. Either he had been holding out on him in their sparring sessions, or he thought he had been backed in a corner, and fought accordingly.
"Lee?" Bill called, marveling at how even his voice sounded.
Lee whirled on him and Adama startled at the expression on his face-defiance and hopelessness and a chilling resolve.
Ishay wasn't moving, biting her lower lip and staring at Lee. She looked scared but not to the point of losing her calm, which was good. They might need her help to subdue Lee.
"Son," Bill tried again, hoping it would bring a hint of recognition in his Lee's eyes. It did, but not in the way he had hoped; Lee's face merely hardened, and he looked away.
He said something Bill couldn't understand but Ishay spoke up. "Yes, he's real. You're safe, Captain."
Lee didn't react to her voice, didn't react when she started to bring one of her hands up, edging it closer to the gun, trying not to make any abrupt move.
Then, Bill heard hurried footsteps behind him. He shot a look to his side and spotted Cottle, standing out of the way as two more marines entered the room.
Lee saw them-or at least, realized that there were two more people in the room. He sighed, closed his eyes, looking defeated and lost. Then, he turned the gun on himself, bringing the barrel to his temple. Ishay froze in her movements, evidently afraid of pushing him to fire if he saw her as a threat.
"Damn," Bill said.
"Ishay-" Cottle started, but she shook her head powerlessly.
"I can't-" she muttered.
No one was moving, all eyes on Lee. Bill swallowed past the metallic taste of fear in his mouth, trying to look at the situation as a commander faced with a soldier, instead of as a personal situation. It didn't work as well as it should have, but at least he found his voice back enough to snap, "Look at me, Captain."
Something in Lee reacted, either to the words or to the steel in his voice, and he turned in Bill's direction, his grip on the gun tightening. His hand wasn’t shaking anymore, Bill noticed, but the rest of him was. It looked like he could barely keep standing.
"You're not real," Lee said, and he sounded tired, as if he had had that discussion countless times already.
"Oh, I'm very real, Captain, and I'm giving you an order."
Lee's eyes focused on him for the first time since Bill had arrived. Encouraged, he took a step to Lee, then another, adding, "Drop the weapon now, Captain."
Lee met his gaze then, the blankness slowly giving way to fear. "Dad?" he whispered, frowning. "I… Are you…"
"Yes," Bill said firmly. Yes, you're safe, and yes, I'm real and yes, you're scaring me to death, here, son.
Lee's hand wavered and he lowered his arm, and the gun with it. His grip on the gun was loose now, and Bill found himself thinking that the last thing they needed was for him to drop the damn thing. As if reading his mind, Ishay made her move, taking the gun from Lee without meeting any resistance. She let out a deep breath when she put the safety back on.
In two steps, Adama reached Lee and put his hands on his shoulders. He saw Lee's face go pale and caught him as he started to sink to the floor, aware that Ishay was helping him to support Lee's weight. Together, they gently lowered him down. Up close, Bill could feel the heat that was radiating from Lee.
"No," Lee muttered, trying to flinch from them. Obviously, whatever lucidity he had regained for a little, merciful while, it was fading fast.
Someone was moving behind him but Bill kept his attention on his son. He squeezed his arm, trying to get through to him. "It's okay," he said, his voice catching on the words. He coughed, and Cottle put a hand on his shoulder.
"Commander," he started.
"I know." He had to resist the urge to shake Lee and yell at him never to do that again-like he had when eight-year-old Lee had disobeyed his parents and gone into the water when they were spending the holiday near a lake, and had almost drowned.
Lee whispered something that Adama couldn't make out. "It's okay," he repeated, hoping Lee understood his tone even if the words weren't registering. "It's okay."
Chapter 8
Author : Helen C.
Rating : R
Summary : Galactica, Apollo, I've been hit. Repeat, I've been hit. (Set in S2, somewhere between Final Cut and Flight of the Phoenix).
Disclaimer : The characters and the universe were created and are owned by Ronald D. Moore and Universal Television Studios to name but a few. No money is being made. No copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
AN. Many thanks to elzed, siljamus and joey51 for beta'ing this, and to the countless people on LiveJournal who held my hand while I whined and whined and whined about this fic.
AN2. Pure, unadulterated H/C. (If you don't like it, lie to me. And if you feel the need to offer con. crit., thanks, but not on this one, please...)
Chapter 7
Kara hated waiting even more than she had hated looking under every damn stone of the frakking planet until they found Lee. At least, down on the planet, she was doing something instead of standing in a quiet corner of sickbay, looking at the bulkheads and the curtains drawn between the cubicles-why did they even bother putting these up? It wasn't like it offered any kind of peace or of privacy, and no one was fooled.
Cottle had barked at her to go wash up and eat and she had obeyed, surprising Helo enough that he had shot her worried looks all the way from sickbay to the showers until she had grown annoyed and had threatened to punch his lights out if he didn't cut it out.
Helo was generally smart, wise and had a healthy sense of self-preservation.
He cut it out.
And now, here Kara was, hair still damp from the shower, in a fresh uniform that felt blissfully warm and dry against her skin, and there still wasn't any news.
She hadn't taken the time to eat, though; she was too tired to be hungry. She was too tired to sleep as well and she suspected that the next few days were going to be hell, until she could get adjusted to her regular shifts again.
The Commander was standing next to her, staring at the same bulkhead she was-or, more probably, not staring at anything. He, too, looked like he could use a shower and a change of clothes. Kara found herself thinking, not for the first time, that maybe those who didn't have any family left were lucky. She saw the look on the Commander's face every time Lee was in danger. She had seen Lee's face when he had told her about the shooting and she had heard the stories of those who had been in CIC when it happened.
At least she didn't have any family to worry about-except for the two of them, of course, and damn if they weren't going to be the death of her.
"What's taking them so long?" Kara grumbled under her breath.
Adama didn't move an inch, didn't so much as look at her, but replied, "A nurse came by while you were out, but she didn't say much. Just that it would take time."
Kara bit her lip as the image of Lee lying on the ground flashed through her mind. "He'll be fine," she said, mostly to say something. That was what people said in such situations, wasn't it? Civilians or soldiers, all of them were alike when waiting for a doctor to emerge from the room where he'd treated someone close to them. They made small talk and exchanged platitudes, because it was doing something when there was nothing to do.
Adama wasn't replying, so she added, "He's tough. Like his old man."
She turned to him just in time to see a hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth, quickly replaced by the usual impassivity. She wondered, sometimes, the rare few times Lee allowed himself to talk about their relationship without being clouded by either anger or bitterness, whether it was the way the Commander looked at his sons when they were young, and how they would have read that expression.
Reading the Commander was difficult; it took familiarity and a willingness to look past appearances.
He had been absent for most of Lee and Zak's childhood, and Lee didn't seem so willing to take his time looking for clues about how much his father loved him.
These two are just too alike for their own good, she thought, and no matter how often she thought the words, they still rang true.
She wondered if the two of them would ever find a way to live together and deal with their past or if they would just take this long-standing misunderstanding to their graves. Knowing them, the latter was frighteningly likely.
It would have happened if Lee hadn't been ordered to fly during the decommissioning ceremony. It would have happened if he hadn't made it back to the Galactica the first day of the attacks, if she hadn't saved him at the Ragnar Anchorage.
It would have happened if Boomer had been a better shot.
Sometimes, the temptation to knock their heads together until they saw sense was almost too strong to resist. Picturing their faces if she ever caved in, she had to hold back a snicker.
"Something you want to share, Lieutenant?" Adama asked, his tone bemused, and it was only then that she realized she was grinning widely.
Had she had one drink too many, she would have told him. As it was, she just shook her head, holding the laughter in. It's not that funny. "No, sir," she replied.
He didn't push, instead clasping his hands behind his back and starting to pace the length of the room, back ramrod straight. Even dressed as a civilian, it would have been obvious that he was military.
Would Lee ever carry himself in such a way? He might say he didn't want to walk in his father's footsteps but that didn't mean he wasn't doing it. After all, he had gone through flight school like his old man, had been accepted to a school that would have put him on a fast track to command.
That was flying, though. Flying was… well, flying. Something that ran in his blood, something he had been built to do, something he needed to do. Just like she did.
Her head was starting to hurt, and she stretched her neck to alleviate the tension in her shoulders. She hadn't even realized she'd been standing so stiffly.
"Maybe you should get some rest," the Commander said from behind her.
"Later. Sir."
She heard him sigh softly, then the soft rustling of fabric, the tapping of his foot on the floor-one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, turn, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, turn-resumed. The sound was soothing and she closed her eyes. That was how she missed Cottle's entrance. She only snapped out of her daze when she heard his voice ("Commander"); she hadn't even noticed that the Commander had stopped walking, which could only mean that she had been busy falling asleep standing up.
Now that she actually thought about it, maybe he did have a point about getting some rest.
"Doctor."
There was a tense silence and Kara stared at the two men, incredulous. She'd been waiting for what felt like hours and they were calling each other's titles like nothing out of the usual was happening? What was wrong with them? "How is he?" she asked, her voice stretched so thin she thought it would break.
Cottle didn't even look at her, focused solely on the Commander. "Barring complications, he'll live." Kara didn't miss the way Adama seemed to deflate, all tension draining from him.
"He has a head injury, an open wound on the leg that got infected. He's running a fever. He has three cracked ribs. Let's hope he didn't catch a cold down there, because it could cause problems."
The Commander nodded curtly, just once, a silent invitation for Cottle to continue.
"For the moment, what worries us the most is the combination of the fever and the head injury. From what we can tell, his memory has been fairly unreliable since the crash."
"What do you mean?"
Kara swallowed at the hard undercurrent in the Commander's tone, but as usual, Cottle seemed immune to it. Bastard.
"He wasn't very clear, but he said he lost consciousness and woke up a few times, and he didn't remember what had happened from one time to the other. He also wrote a note on the back of his hand. It has pretty much faded, but he was trying to read it." He looked at the Commander, as if checking that he should go on, before adding, "He asked confirmation that we lost the Colonies and we were on the run."
At this point, a good hundred questions were swimming thought Kara's mind, begging for her attention. Thankfully, the Commander was better at prioritizing than she was.
"Is it permanent?"
Feeling like she had been punched to the gut, she forced herself not to react. If Apollo's memory was shot, it would mean grounding him and-
"Too soon to tell," Cottle replied, like he wasn't talking about Lee's future, about his life. "But it seems like the memory lapses are less severe than they used to be, if he remembered enough to ask that question. If it was definitive, he wouldn't have known where he was at all."
The Commander's face seemed set in stone, Kara felt frozen solid. Only Cottle still looked to be flesh and blood in the room, as he finished, "We'll just have to wait and see. We should know more once the fever goes down and he has a chance to get some rest." He looked at the Commander critically. "I think you should go see him, Commander. And then, I don't want to see you here again until you've had at least five hours of uninterrupted sleep."
"We live on a battlestar and we're at war," Adama pointed out, his meaning clear.
Cottle looked thoroughly unrepentant. "And if it had been anyone but you, I would have ordered eight hours of sleep. I'll take what I can get."
He left on a curt, "Ishay will come get you," before the Commander could reply. That was probably why no one had managed to murder Cottle yet, Kara mused. He was quick to throw barbs and even quicker to retreat before having to face the consequences.
By the time Ishay arrived, Kara was ready to collapse and fall asleep on the ground. She wouldn't be in the way here, anyway. She wouldn't bother anyone, unless there was a crisis. But if there was a crisis, it was likely to involve Cylons and she would be out there flying and possibly dying from sheer fatigue.
"Let's go," the Commander said. "Then, I don't want to see you here until you've had five hours of uninterrupted sleep."
"We live on a battlestar and we're at war, sir," she replied.
He chuckled, the first sign that everything was going to be all right since Apollo's Viper had been hit. "And if it had been anyone but you, I would have ordered eight hours of sleep." He turned serious again long enough to add, "You did good out there, Lieutenant." He patted her shoulder as he passed her on his way out, and Kara followed him and Ishay, feeling absurdly choked up.
*
Cottle had been much too optimistic when he had ordered Bill to get five hours of sleep. At this point, he'd probably be lucky if he managed three.
First, the President called, congratulating him on getting "Captain Apollo" back-Bill had never thought to ask Lee what he thought about the fact that she kept using that nickname-and asking how he was. Bill kept his reply vague enough that she certainly understood he was hiding something, but he didn't feel like telling her that Lee had looked frighteningly young despite the three-day stubble, and too thin and too pale and much too still as he lay on a sickbay bed. He barely looked like Lee anymore, and while Cottle and the nursing staff were reassuring, Bill had noticed that they were monitoring Lee very closely.
If we hadn't found him when we did, he wouldn't have lasted much longer, and that would probably have been a blessing because it turns out that there were humanoid Cylons down there, and that thought was enough to drive the father in him half insane with grief despite the fact that they had gotten Lee back.
The President said she would drop by to check on Lee as soon as she could before hanging up, recommending that Bill got some sleep.
He would have been happy to but it turned out that he was too tired to sleep. No matter how much he tried to relax, no matter how much he tried to beckon sleep, it was just no use.
He knew this feeling from too many nights spent awake before big missions when he was a pilot himself, and then from too many times spent waiting for the return of his men as he was ordering them on missions he knew they might not come back from.
He got to his feet and walked to his desk, hands pressed against the small of his back. He was in good shape-good enough to give his son a run for his money when they sparred, good enough to be able to take on any of his men on hand-to-hand combat-but in the last couple of years, the odd stiffness and ache had been reminding him that he was getting older.
Officers his age retired from active duty or became admirals and worked safely in the Headquarters at Picon, where they couldn't become a liability in combat situation. Except that wasn't going to happen. It now seemed like he was going to go down with his ship, in a way he had never envisioned before.
He shook off the morbid thought. They weren't dead yet, they'd been outsmarting and outrunning the Cylons since the beginning of the war, and if he had anything to say about it, they would continue doing so.
A pile of reports was waiting for his signature, neatly stacked in a pile on his desk. He hadn't had any attention to spare for them in the last three days, but now he had a few hours to kill and hopefully, reports about maintenance and stocks and personnel rotations would be just what he needed to put him to sleep.
He sat down and got to work.
He was still at it three hours later, when the call came, Cottle's words pushing him to his feet with an energy he didn't think he had left. "We need you in sickbay, now, Commander." There was a crash in the distance, and Cottle hung up without waiting for Bill's reply. Bill was out the hatch before he could even start to wonder what was wrong.
*
Bill barged into sickbay and froze, taking in the scene. Lee was backed up against the bulkhead, pointing a gun at Ishay and staring at her with an empty expression. He was sweating-his skin shining with perspiration in the harsh lights overhead, his gown clinging to his chest and arms. His hand was shaking and the safety of the gun was off.
Damn.
"What happened?" Bill asked in a voice he hoped sounded steadier than he felt.
For a moment, no one replied. Then, a young, nervous First Class spoke up. "Ishay left him alone with Corporal Henick for a few moments. When she came back, the Corporal was unconscious and, well…" He was pointing his gun in Lee's direction, doubtlessly waiting for someone to give him an order.
Bill stepped farther into the room. Lee didn't even seem to notice, so intent was he on Ishay-if he was even seeing her. From his flushed skin, Bill wondered if he was aware of where he was and who was with him. He was reminded of what Kara told him about the way she had found Lee-ready to shoot her, unaware of where he was and who was around.
He spotted Henick on the floor. The man was conscious, but wasn't moving; his eyes followed Bill as he moved to the room.
Bill couldn't help being impressed that despite the state his son was in, he had managed to take out Henick. Either he had been holding out on him in their sparring sessions, or he thought he had been backed in a corner, and fought accordingly.
"Lee?" Bill called, marveling at how even his voice sounded.
Lee whirled on him and Adama startled at the expression on his face-defiance and hopelessness and a chilling resolve.
Ishay wasn't moving, biting her lower lip and staring at Lee. She looked scared but not to the point of losing her calm, which was good. They might need her help to subdue Lee.
"Son," Bill tried again, hoping it would bring a hint of recognition in his Lee's eyes. It did, but not in the way he had hoped; Lee's face merely hardened, and he looked away.
He said something Bill couldn't understand but Ishay spoke up. "Yes, he's real. You're safe, Captain."
Lee didn't react to her voice, didn't react when she started to bring one of her hands up, edging it closer to the gun, trying not to make any abrupt move.
Then, Bill heard hurried footsteps behind him. He shot a look to his side and spotted Cottle, standing out of the way as two more marines entered the room.
Lee saw them-or at least, realized that there were two more people in the room. He sighed, closed his eyes, looking defeated and lost. Then, he turned the gun on himself, bringing the barrel to his temple. Ishay froze in her movements, evidently afraid of pushing him to fire if he saw her as a threat.
"Damn," Bill said.
"Ishay-" Cottle started, but she shook her head powerlessly.
"I can't-" she muttered.
No one was moving, all eyes on Lee. Bill swallowed past the metallic taste of fear in his mouth, trying to look at the situation as a commander faced with a soldier, instead of as a personal situation. It didn't work as well as it should have, but at least he found his voice back enough to snap, "Look at me, Captain."
Something in Lee reacted, either to the words or to the steel in his voice, and he turned in Bill's direction, his grip on the gun tightening. His hand wasn’t shaking anymore, Bill noticed, but the rest of him was. It looked like he could barely keep standing.
"You're not real," Lee said, and he sounded tired, as if he had had that discussion countless times already.
"Oh, I'm very real, Captain, and I'm giving you an order."
Lee's eyes focused on him for the first time since Bill had arrived. Encouraged, he took a step to Lee, then another, adding, "Drop the weapon now, Captain."
Lee met his gaze then, the blankness slowly giving way to fear. "Dad?" he whispered, frowning. "I… Are you…"
"Yes," Bill said firmly. Yes, you're safe, and yes, I'm real and yes, you're scaring me to death, here, son.
Lee's hand wavered and he lowered his arm, and the gun with it. His grip on the gun was loose now, and Bill found himself thinking that the last thing they needed was for him to drop the damn thing. As if reading his mind, Ishay made her move, taking the gun from Lee without meeting any resistance. She let out a deep breath when she put the safety back on.
In two steps, Adama reached Lee and put his hands on his shoulders. He saw Lee's face go pale and caught him as he started to sink to the floor, aware that Ishay was helping him to support Lee's weight. Together, they gently lowered him down. Up close, Bill could feel the heat that was radiating from Lee.
"No," Lee muttered, trying to flinch from them. Obviously, whatever lucidity he had regained for a little, merciful while, it was fading fast.
Someone was moving behind him but Bill kept his attention on his son. He squeezed his arm, trying to get through to him. "It's okay," he said, his voice catching on the words. He coughed, and Cottle put a hand on his shoulder.
"Commander," he started.
"I know." He had to resist the urge to shake Lee and yell at him never to do that again-like he had when eight-year-old Lee had disobeyed his parents and gone into the water when they were spending the holiday near a lake, and had almost drowned.
Lee whispered something that Adama couldn't make out. "It's okay," he repeated, hoping Lee understood his tone even if the words weren't registering. "It's okay."
Chapter 8