Because You're My Friend?
Title: Because You're My Friend?
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Kara/Lee
A/N: written for the_applecart. Promtp: Truth and Reconciliation
Kara sits on the table in the middle of the duty locker chewing on her lip. She’s about to go when Lee appears in the hatch. He looks her up and down then leans in the doorway with his arms crosses over his chest. But he says nothing.
“Do you think maybe they’re right?” Kara asks.
“Who?” Lee tilts his head.
“Those peace people,” Kara answers. “That there’s no way to win. That we shouldn’t even try. That we should…” She cuts off and shakes her head, pushing off the table to actually leave. She doesn’t know how to talk to Lee about these things. He’s been all work since his spacewalk, and he’s never been in favor of Helo and Sharon’s relationship. It’s all churning in her head though, unable to get out.
“Do you really think the cylons want a treaty?” Lee snarls.
Kara shrugs and shakes her head again because the cylons probably don’t want peace anymore than most of the humans, but the more she thinks about Helo and Sharon and their unborn baby the more she thinks about the baby farms on Caprica and what part of her might have been left there. What the cylons might have done with it.
“I don’t think they’re going to surrender anymore than we are,” Lee continues.
“Yeah, I guess.” She’s nearly nose to nose with Lee now and drops her face to avoid looking directly into his eyes.
“The offer to talk still stands,” Lee says after an awkward beat, but there are so many things running through her head that she can’t talk to Lee about. She wishes they weren’t talking at all. He won’t understand wanting to go back to Caprica for survivors or anything else.
“I know,” Kara nods and moves like she’s trying to go around him and out the hatch.
Lee reaches out, breaking their rules unspoken rules by running his hand long the bare skin of her arm. He stops at her elbow and holds. Kara just stares at the place where they connect for a long moment before finally, really looking at him. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips, and she lowers her head again. “What… What if they had a part of me? What if there was a baby that was like Helo and Sharon’s… only mine? Part me?”
“They had you in that place, that farm,” Lee says. “Not just a hospital. Why didn’t you…”
“Didn’t want anyone to know. Never wanted a kid anyway, but I don’t want anyone else to have my kid either, I guess.” The words ramble out of her mouth without thought or consent. “President doesn’t even think it’s even worth being born. Too much trouble.”
With a shudder Kara jerks away from Lee, tears forming in her eyes that she doesn’t want him to see. She’s about to break, confess every horrible detail no matter how angry or disappointed or gods forbid, worried Lee will be.
“Kara.” And there it is. She can see the pinch in his forehead just by the tone of his voice. She wants to yell that she’s doesn’t want to talk about it or that she’ll open up as soon as he tells her all about his frakking spacewalk. But she’s already said too much. Way, way too much so she folds her arms around her stomach and shuffles to her bunk. Maybe Lee will take the hint.
“Do you really think the cylons have baby that’s yours?”
“I don’t know. But they could,” she mutters before pulling herself up into a little ball at the head of her bed and closing her eyes. She doesn’t want to think about it anymore. Every thought makes the whole thing more possible.
Lee doesn’t say anything but Kara hears his shoes hit the decking as he walks towards her, sits at the other end of her bunk and stares down at his interwoven fingers as they hang between his knees. He takes a deep, shaky breath, “Then we have to go back. Even if it’s just you and me.”
“There’s so much more, Lee. Things you won’t want to hear and I don’t want to say,” she sniffles.
“Everybody has those things. But I won’t leave you or any part of you behind.” His words are terrifying and just what she needs to hear. Kara half smiles and looks up from her knees to see Lee now totally focused on her. He means it. He’s do anything for her.
“Because you’re my friend?” she tries to tease.
“No,” he shakes his head and wraps a hand around the exposed skin of her ankle. “Because I love you.”
She doesn’t want to smile but she does, wiping the errant tears from her face and twisting around to rest her head on Lee’s leg. “Then I have to tell you some things before we go. You really won’t like them, but it’s only fair that you know what you’re getting into…”