And I Will Be Your Hands, Part 2
Title: And I Will Be Your Hands, Part 2
Author: word_vomity
Pairing: Kara/Lee
Word Count: 7200
Rating: PG-13 for now
Spoilers: Through Rapture, 3.12 then AU
Summary: Lee helps Kara work through her injuries after Rapture.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: OMG this is SOOOOOO old. If anyone is still interested in part 2, it's here. And don't worry, part 3 is already nearly there. I promise it won't take me another year to get out. *sigh* Beta'd by embolalia because she is wonderful and patient and much smarter than me. Part 1 for those of you that may need a refresher for what the heck this even is.
No one has ever accused him of being overly bright, but Sam is not a complete idiot either. In fact, he plays a lot dumber than he actually is and what he loses in respect, he gains far over when people underestimate him. Regardless, one thing he does know is women and he can’t help but see how she is with him. He's seen it from Day One, when Kara had waved him in Lee's face, taunted him, just begging him to react. Even then, it was obvious, though he didn’t know then just how entangled they both were.He gleaned pieces of their past over time. Bits from Kara, scraps from fleet gossip, something about the Commander's other son, something she tried to play off as inconsequential when he made veiled inquiries. Once he asked her outright about her past with Lee. He must've caught her off guard that day, because her eyes went wide before she had a chance to suppress her reaction. She got quiet for a minute before staring him down in cold challenge.
“Don't even, Sam. Trying to understand that is a losing game. All you need to know is that I'm not with him. I'm with you, OK?” He'd never heard her voice that tight before. “I don't want to talk about this again. Ever.”
He never forced the issue. Even over time when their marriage turned into more than just some hung-over dare, even when she opened up to him about her mother's abuse and her father's desertion, Lee was always still the one subject that wasn't open for discussion. It ate at him back then and he sees how they are together now. He watches them, rooted to the floor across the sickbay. The way she's looking at Lee is a look Sam's never seen before, one he's certainly never been lucky enough to be the recipient of. Her face is filled with a softness, a calm totally unlike anything he’s known Kara to be capable of. An unguarded joy and openness that only surfaces when they’re together. Sam watches from a distance as they sit together quietly; speaking seldom but communicating regardless. He meant to visit his wife today, check on her progress, feel her warm skin against his hands, smell her hair, but now...
He feels like an intruder on a private moment. Everyday gets harder, he thinks as he turns slowly and wanders aimlessly away.
**
It had been a cool spring that year. Rainy and brisk most days. Even the flowers came in late. Lee remembered being surprised to see Kara out that day, walking that big silly lab that she and Zak had rescued during one of Zak's do-gooder phases. That's what Kara called it anyways. Lee knew better. Zak's inclinations toward the literal 'under-dogs' of the world were nothing new. As a child he'd once given a homeless woman his entire savings, $300 plus cubits, after a trip into the city had opened his eyes to the suffering of the needy. He'd always had friends staying with them in high school. Kids whose own family lives were questionable. Lee remembered one period when Troy Hennings has stayed with them for a whole month after his father had beat the shit out of him for some youthful misstep. It had always been like that. Whether he simply attracted them or sought them out on purpose, Zak was a magnet for all things and people downtrodden and tragic.
Anyways, there she was. With . . . Huckleberry, that had been his name, Lee recalled. Tugging the unruly dog along through the misty afternoon, swearing and laughing and threatening revenge.
“Trouble, ma'am?” He asked, approaching the pair.
It took her a moment to recognize him. They'd only met that once. That one regrettable, terrible, wonderful, glorious night. One time night that Lee could not stop thinking of.
“Lee!” She stumbled over the bouncing dog's leash as she struggled to get around him for a hug. “Hi! Gods, frak! Move Hucklebery, you giant fool!
Laughing she finally got around the excited dog and pulled Lee to her. “How are you?”
“I'm uh, I'm good. Zak mentioned the dog. He seems...” by this point Huckleberry had jumped onto two legs to accost the both of them and was nosing Lee's chest curiously. “...friendly.”
“Your brother is a sweet, sweet fool of a man.” She laughed. “Anyways, he might be a goof, but he's a real charmer once you get to know him. The dog that is, not your brother. Although...”
“Yeah,” Lee agreed, pushing the nosy puppy back to the ground and patting its head. “They do have a certain resemblance, don't they?”
She smiled. “So, we were just burning off some of his extra puppy energy. Wanna join us for a walk? I mean, it's more him walking me, honestly, but still...it counts.”
“Sure.” He agreed, not at all sure that it was a good idea. “Want me to hold him for a bit?”
“Frak yes! My arm is killing me.” She sighed, handing him the leash, looping her arm through his and starting down the sidewalk.
**
Lee watches her sleep from the chair beside her bed. Remembering. Other days try to creep into his consciousness. Darker memories. Memories with the power to overshadow this one. He pushes at them, shoving them back, down, away.
She’s being sent home tomorrow morning. Her hands are healing well and she doesn’t need the constant medical attention so much. He's glad, but he knows that the change will effectively end this little standoff they've been living in and he's scared of what she'll do. With Kara, there's just no telling, not ever. It's one of the many things he loves and hates about her. She'd be so much harder to love if she didn't display her own disappointment in herself so well. Her regret comes howling through her body even in slumber and he can just feel how desperately she feels her own mistakes and hates herself for them. He can forgive almost any wrong done to him so long as there is a subsequent and sincere regret afterwards. It's why he's allowed her to hurt him so frakking many times. He knows that no matter how badly he's hated her, she's always hated herself more.
Conversely, he judges his own worth by how well he manages her. He always has. And he's so often let her down. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how many times he struggled to hold her together while she ripped herself to pieces, she always ended up leaving him. He knows every ripple of every muscle in her back as she walks away.
Kara sighs in her sleep, twisting restlessly in the blankets. He reaches out to gentle her. Like a spooked animal, she calms at his touch. They are so bad at saying the things that are true between them. So stubborn and scared. So weak. He wishes now he’d said what was true when he had the chance, but then he wonders whether she would have let him even get the words out. She knows a thousand different ways to shut him up. Sweet ways. Cruel ways. Sexy ways and sad ways. She’s always had a thousand ways to do everything and not a single one to tell him that she loves him.
The strength, the will, the tenacity of spirit and the throbbing passion for life have always been there. They are the pieces of her that could not be untangled.
The sass, the persona, the attitude and the sarcasm are mechanisms, self-made and effective as hell. But what she's built for defense, he can tear down. Watching her breath lifting and dropping her chest, he resolves to do just that.
**
It has always concerned Kara how easily she took to being alone growing up. She had herself and herself only to rely on. For comfort. For a shoulder. For a confidant. For a playmate. She figures that most people, perhaps rightly, would see the inherent pain in such a lonely existence, but she was glad of it; knew even in her early youth that she preferred solitude. It fit her. She felt herself growing stronger for it and was content to meander through adolescence making her own way, toughening under the strain of her mother's lessons. She even felt an uncomfortable but real gratitude for those harsh instructions. More strength, siphoned into her marrow; building granite from clay. Until one day, she looked up to find herself stone, solid through.
She lets her mind drift back to the earliest days of their relationship now. Back to a time when the name Lee Adama didn’t hold so much power over her. It seems like another lifetime. Her first instinct upon meeting him was to run, to bolt like a criminal with a life sentence snapping at her heels. She’s been running ever since. She knew the first day that she'd do almost anything to be near him and it had terrified her then as much as it does today.
The desire has always been there between them. Ignited in secret glances so long ago; smoldering still, strong and fierce. A bomb with a long, lit fuse just waiting for its moment to envelop them both in the flames and ashes of its destruction. They both knew that there was only so long that they could put it off. Sometimes she still wonders whether all their fighting was just filler to keep their mouths out of the inevitable trouble they'd get into in the weight of silence.
But as time went on, the amount of booze it takes to drive away the thoughts of him started to also drive away little pieces of herself as well. The strain cracked her strong exterior, leaving her open to attack. She exists in pieces, in moments, but never fully herself. He's too much of her to push him out and expect a whole person to remain. But it's the cracks in people that speak to their weakness, she knows, not the breaks. Breaks are sharp and jagged warnings for the world, scaring off those that would tap maliciously along the seams of the smallest fissure. Breaks are OK; even clean ones create something new, maybe even something better. If you could just push through the cracks in yourself, let the world make its breaks as it will regardless, then you could be strong in your brokenness. She did it long ago, let the world batter her to shards. She hadn't thought she had any more cracks to play with. But Leland Adama found them - plenty of them - and he's tapped at them like even the world, in all its cruel disdain, could not. Tapping but never breaking, just reminding her of what was there, the remaining weak spots, the remnants of an unkind past. And so it has always been so much easier to simply stay out of his prying hands.
When something hurts too much to think about, you must turn off parts of yourself. To survive, you must contract into only the necessities of living. Reminders to breathe, to move. Alarms to prompt eating or sleep. To continue on. And even those small nature-instilled impulses are often too daunting to face. Thoughts are forgone for the sake of sanity. Feelings pushed away for fear of being drowned in their wake. You retain your humanity, but only just. Just enough to go on. It's in those moments that she envies the cylons.
With a heave of her duffel over her shoulder, she takes one last look around the sick-bay, feets a wild urge to stay forever, hidden, protected. With a sigh, she pushes all that away and strides out the hatch.
**
She pulls open the hatch to their billet like a stranger entering, uncertain of her welcome.
“Hey!” Sam says jumping up in surprise. “I thought you weren't getting out for a couple hours yet. I wanted to be there. I had ambrosia and everything.”
She waves away his attentions. “I'm fine. Doc said he didn't want all the theatrics so he fed you guys some bogus timeframe.”
She scans the room, messy and unkempt. Bed unmade, clothes strewn about the floor. It doesn’t look like much of a homecoming.
“Still,” she teases lightly, “cutting it pretty close on hanging the balloons and banners, aren't you?”
He glances around sheepishly and runs his hand through his hair. Kara feels a pang of warmth hit her strong and squarely in her chest at the familiar habit.
“I wasn't sure you'd be coming back here.” He shrugs. “I didn't want to get my hopes up.”
She doesn’t have an answer for him, so she just smiles back sadly.
“I know.” She nods. “Actually, I was coming by to talk about that.”
He swallows, sits back in his chair heavily. “Go ahead then. Like a Band-Aid please. Quick and dirty.”
She shakes her head, stepping towards him, running her hand lightly through his hair. It still hurts, but she can bear the pressure now. “No Sam, I...”
Trailing off, she tries again.
“I don't know what else to do. Things are still a mess in my head and I can't be here while I'm trying to un-mess them. It doesn't mean-” She cuts off abruptly, unwilling to even say the words. “I have no frakking idea what it means. I know I don't deserve it and I'm the absolute frakking worst wife in the universe. The Gods know you have every right to never speak to me again, but...” She takes a steadying breath before continuing, “Can I have some more time? I'm not...ready yet. Please, Sam?”
She knows he'll say yes; hates that she knows it so certainly. She could make him say yes to anything. It turns her stomach. Her mother's voice whispers remembered accusations into her ear.
Reaching out slowly, he wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her to him. For a few minutes, they just hold like that, Sam gripping like he can keep her there by sheer force, Kara running her fingers through his hair absently. It feels nice to touch and be touched again. It would be so incredibly simple to just let go and fall into his waiting arms. It takes a lot more willpower than she thought it would not to.
“Are we gonna pretend like I have a say in this?” He asks harshly into the fabric covering her belly.
She steps back gently, kneels before him, and holds his eyes. “You could tell me frak off. I would.”
“Yeah.” He snorts, “We both know better than that. You want to leave me? It's gonna have to be your choice. I'm not gonna make it for you.”
He stands and turns away from her kicking absently at the ground. “Do I at least get to make my case?” he asks over his shoulder.
Releasing a sigh, she pushes off her knees to stand. Heading towards the locker in the corner, she starts throwing her things into a bag, eager to escape before this devolves into screams, or worse, tears.
“I wish you wouldn't,” she says simply. “But I won't stop you.” She waits, but he doesn’t speak so she starts tossing more of her belongings into her worn canvas.
“Where will you go?” he asks eventually, listening but refusing to watch as she steals the few pieces of herself he still has left.
“Officer's quarters,” she tells him, hauling the duffle over her shoulder. “For now.”
For a long moment they both just stand, uncertain what to do next. Eventually, he says, “I love you, Kara. You know that. But if you can't love me...”
“Loving you is the easiest thing in the world, Sam,” she promises, heading for the hatch. And even though it was the truth, she almost chokes on the words before realizing it may be the first time she’s ever said them to him.
“And him?” he asks quietly as her hand reaches the handle.
She hesitates, considering. “Loving him is the hardest thing I've ever done.” He turns just in time to see the hatch close with hollow clang. It feels like the most honest thing she's ever told him.
He sits stiffly on the bed. His head drops into his hands and he doesn’t move for a long time.
**
It takes Lee longer than she expected to track her down. She intended to visit him after her talk with Sam, give him the same spiel about time and space. Instead, her feet carried her back to her old rack on autopilot, ignoring her mind's previous plans. She didn't try to fight their path. She's learned to trust her body when it wars with her brain. Lee won’t be as agreeable as Sam was. She knows it like she knows the pitch of her viper at the slightest twist of her stick. She knows his reactions the way she knows the circuitry of her bird, could rewire him from scratch if she needed to. Inside out and backwards.
And she knew without any hesitation that if she didn't go to him, he'd find her instead. So she isn’t at all surprised when she looks up from her rack to find him staring down at her, eyes hard with disappointment.
“So?” His voice vibrates tight, like a taut wire being stretched to its limit. She wonders whether he’s finally reached his. “You're out.”
“See that's what I love about you, Lee,” she says blandly, sitting and swinging her legs to the floor. “You're so gods-damned observant.”
He doesn’t bother responding. She’s glad for that. Instead, he just pulls a chair from the table and sits down in front of her. Their knees almost touch, but not quite. He doesn’t know how to close that distance.
“And did you plan on telling me?” he asks quietly, his voice edged with cold steel. It has been awhile since she's heard that much anger from him. He's been so collected over the past few weeks, so composed while she mended. She can practically see it all unraveling.
Gulping down her momentary panic, she forces a wry smile. “Planned on it,” she admits with a self-conscious shrug. “Chickened out, I guess.”
He snorts at that, like he isn’t sure whether to believe her. She winces at the noise. “Kara Thrace doesn't chicken out,” he tells her. “She runs and she hides and she cuts the people around her into itty bitty shreds, but it's not out of cowardice. Yellow's not a color she knows how to wear.”
“So, what then?”
“Knowing you, my money’s on guilt,” he tells her simply, leaning back.
She doesn’t even try to disagree. He doesn’t bother asking what it means that she’s here, instead of Sam's billet. She has a feeling that the words wouldn't help them, never did, but she tries them anyways.
“You know, sometimes...” Kara starts slowly, still working through how to explain it in her mind. “Sometimes, I feel like the worst damned person that ever lived.” He opens his mouth to interrupt, but she quickly cuts off his protests; she doesn't want them. “No, just listen. I...I feel like there must be something wrong with me, you know? Like really wrong.”
Her breath catches, not enough that anyone else would notice, but he does and he wonders whether she's ever said any of this out loud before. Turning to grab a stogie from a steel box on the shelf of her rack, she lights it and takes a deep steadying breath before continuing, “I can't help but feel like all this,” she says, gesturing around them, “this war, this life we live now, is what I was born for, to be a part of this moment in time. The only thing that's ever felt right for me is the walls of this broken down old ship and the stick of my flight suit against my skin after a mission. Most times,” she takes a long drag before going on. “Most times, I'm glad for what happened to Caprica. For 99% of humanity, it was a gods-damned death sentence. For me though, it was like finally finding a purpose; a reason. I was nothing before all this. Who the frak thinks like that, Lee? What kind of person? Tell me that.”
When he doesn’t answer, she sighs, “So, guilt? Yeah, I know guilt. I know it well. But the only good I've ever done in my life has been since those bombs dropped. I'm the frakking phoenix from the ashes of those bombs and I wish they hadn't fallen, but they did and I can't help but feel like I'm a part of all this somehow still. I'm supposed to be here. I'm swallowed up by guilt every single day because out of everyone, everyone that lived, I'm the only one who benefited from the end of the worlds. I get to be what I was made for. I got another chance and that's something I certainly don't deserve. And I got a family in Bill. And in you. In a different way, but still. And even at my very best, I’m tearing people apart. Just like you said. Maybe there’s a reason I’m not allowed to keep people close. Maybe that’s not what I’m here for.”
It’s about the longest speech she's ever made to him. He doesn’t know how to answer it. So he opts not to.
“And stop looking at me like that,” she grouses, stubbing out her cigar against the wall roughly, “I don't need you to carry my burdens on top of your own. I'm just saying-”
“I know.” He cuts her off hurriedly. “I mean, I get it. So, how much longer?”
“I don't know.” She sighs.
“But,” he asks slowly, almost afraid to hope. “You're thinking about it?
She just looks down at her hands, flexing the pink healing skin on habit and nods.
“I’m not looking for a saint, Kara,” he tells her quietly. “I just want you. As messy as that concept is.”
She barely gets out her whispered reply. “You don't have to wait around for me. I know it's asking a lot.”
With a rueful grin, he reaches out, leans his forehead to hers. She doesn’t pull away, just lets him rest against her gently.
“You know better than that,” he whispers, dropping a kiss to her temple.
“Yeah,” she agrees. “I guess so.”
He breathes her in. She never smells of anything other than wind and soil and smoke and he knows without hesitation that it's so much better than any perfume could ever be. It's as if the gods couldn't decide which force of nature fit her best and, unwilling to concede any, had made her all. He doesn’t let go for a while. She doesn’t pull away. Every now and again, they still surprise each other.
**
The three of them spend the next few weeks orbiting around each other carefully. They breathe the same recycled air, walk the same skeleton of halls and rooms, but interact seldom. It’s a strange and delicate balance, so close to always spinning out of control but somehow teetering balanced on the edge of the sharpest knife. One slip and they'll all be cut to shreds, but so far they’ve held. Sam is spending his time at Joe’s Bar, from what scraps of information Kara’s gleaned from Helo. The Old Man slips that Lee is working himself to death, like he always does when he’s avoiding something. She wonders idly how much he really knows about them. Her flight status has not been reinstated so her duties are pretty limited and consist mostly of standing around pretending to be useful. Even paperwork is still beyond her. So she finds things to do that don’t take fingers. Mostly, she runs. And thinks. Sometimes she visits Kacey when she can stand it, or Helo or Bill, but mostly she spends her time alone. It’s strange after having been suffocated with visitors during her stay in the infirmary, but it’s also a chance to reflect, uninterrupted or swayed by the confusing presence of either man.
It's not indecision that holds her back anymore, if it ever was. She knows what she wants. She loves Sam. He’s an absolute gem, but Lee is hers in a way that she doesn’t know how to deny anymore. And yet she’s no closer to claiming him than she’s ever been. It seems so impossible. For obvious reasons and for unnamable ones, she doesn’t know how to take that step. It feels dangerous and deep. Like stepping off an edge without a rope and no option to go back. She wishes it felt like flying, but it’s so much more like falling.
Dee crosses her path a few times, with eyes sharp and bright as daggers. Kara assumes that means Lee really ended things between them, which incites a whole new barrage of confusing feelings in her already roiling gut. The other woman doesn’t even bother to disguise her dislike anymore. If she sees Kara, she turns on her heel without a backwards glance and flounces off in the opposite direction. Kara doesn’t blame her. How could she? She’s frakked the poor woman’s husband and there is really no apology sufficient to cover that kind of injury. Anyways, the way Dee is avoiding her, she’s fairly certain that an apology is the last thing Dee wants, so she lets the woman keep her anger. She knows she earned it.
**
Helo catches her wandering the halls, invites her out for drinks and cards that night. Plays the concerned friend role just right. That bothers her. She is not the type of girl that people worry about. Or least, she didn't used to be. But Kara’s always had a soft spot for Helo and his easy smile, his wide shoulders, the way he cares for her so secretly that no one else could even tell. So when he patiently explains how it would be good to get her out of her own head for a while, she relents with little prodding. She heard what had went down this week in Camp Oil Slick and she figures that maybe he needs someone this time too. It’s been awhile since they've been out just the two of them. Plus, he offers free booze.
She gets spectacularly drunk that night. That tends to happen when she 'gets out of her head' as Helo had so eloquently put it. And besides, getting drunk had always been so much easier than not getting drunk for her. This feels like a reprieve of sorts. A moment of not thinking about the choices that lay ahead. She hadn't hustled a card table in so long that she'd nearly forgotten how good it felt. Even as high as she is on booze and pills, she does well enough to have pissed off most of the other players. All in all, the night feels like a familiar memory of the girl she had used to be. In this world, more than anywhere, it’s necessary to spend a few happy hours gentling one's many demons in the hazy delights of old remembrances. It is temporary, she knows, but it’s nice too. That is until Helo decides that he wants to 'talk' about things.
“So, how you doing Kara?” he asks eventually, pulling her from the crowd of disappointed patrons doing shots at the bar and sitting them at their own private table. She squints at him trying to clear her head and see by his eyes if he's asking about what she thinks he is. He's always been too perceptive for his own good. From what she can make out, he has his sincere face on which means he thinks she's frakked something up and he knows how she should fix it. That pisses her off. If this conversation was already beyond her capabilities sober, and it was, she knows that delving into it in this condition is just about the worst idea since they elected Baltar president.
“Stupendous,” she drawls deadpan. “Really great.”
“Humor me, short-stuff,” he rolls his eyes, reaches out to pat the top of her head.
“Just because you've been stuck in Dogtown all week playing Hero of the People doesn't mean that I need you interfering in my life.” Slapping his hand away angrily, she goes on. “There's probably a kitty up a tree somewhere if you need to get your rocks off that bad.”
“There's not,” he promises, throwing his hands up in surrender as she tosses her cigar at him. “I checked before I came looking for you. Frak, Kara! That's lit!”
“Just be glad I didn't feel like wasting my drink on you,” she tells him, taking a swig. “It was my first choice.”
“Listen, I just want to help, OK? I just want you to know I'm here if you-”
“This is really heartwarming and all, but I just wanna drink, Karl,” she slurs, effectively cutting off the words that she can't stand to hear. “I wanna drink until my hands don't hurt and my brain turns off and then I wanna drink some more. So you can buy me another shot or you can frak off. What's it gonna be?”
Leaning his chair back onto two legs, he gives her a long appraising stare. She thinks she sees pity in it and her fists clench tightly at her sides. With a sigh he drops back down, slow and resigned.
“Sorry Buck, but you're one of the last people I have left in this universe and watching you drink yourself stupid is just about the last thing I can bear to watch today.” With a sigh, he rises, leans down to her, presses a hard kiss to the top of her head. “Take care of yourself, kid.”
Standing, he shakes his head, turns and walks away. Kara watches him go, sees his hesitation, his backwards glances. It's the first time Karl's ever actually said no to her. About time, she thinks wryly. She knows she could stop him with a word. She doesn't. Somewhere in her addled mind she realizes that tomorrow she'll love him all the more for this, but right now, she just wants to hit something. Refusing to feel sorry, she tosses back the rest of her drink and looks around, alone again.
**
After Joe's, she goes back to wandering. Hurting Helo was too much like kicking a puppy and that pretty well kills her celebratory spirit for the night. Besides, she's drunk enough for now. People condemn the excess of booze, but she's never understood why. Liquor accelerates things. Moves the status quo ahead to the next state. That's all. It hurries along the inevitable. Sex. Break-ups. Fights. Even death. Things that were already brewing anyways. And Kara hates being stuck in the middle of a change. Being halfway in or out. It’s a waste. Makes things more painful. She lives all in or not in at all.
So she ambles ahead, stumbles on. It doesn't take her long to end up at the Observation Deck. It's one of her favorite places these days. Quiet. Nice view. Comfortable seating. Every now and again the CAP flies past reminding her of what she's working to get back to, where she's still needed. Sometimes she knows it's Lee out there flying. That reminds her of other things she's working towards.
Sam's there. She's not sure why he's there, but she's drunk enough not to be surprised. Not drunk enough to ask. She watches him for a moment before she approaches and remembers his hands on her. It feels like another person’s life.
“Hey,” he says surprised when she walks into his line of sight.
She grabs a seat beside him, tries to look more sober than she actually is. “Hey.”
She can’t think of anything useful to say right now so they just sit beside each other for a bit, looking into the darkness. Colonial One drifts by. It reminds her of Lee. She’s not sure why. Everything reminds her of Lee these days.
“So...” He starts awkwardly, gesturing at the glass. “Beautiful weather we're having, huh?”
She laughs. Loud and long and full. Just like a real girl. It feels amazing. His eyes crinkle when he grins wide at her. She'd forgotten that about him. He reaches out to lace their fingers together, which is nice and warm and familiar so she doesn't pull away.
“I'm so frakking sorry, Sammie,” she tells him. “For all of this. For hurting you.”
And then, with an unsure look over at him, she adds, “And I'm so sorry that I'm gonna have to do it again."
The world shifts on its axis.
It's unlike her to apologize. Even when she's painfully aware of her own culpability. Especially then, actually. He's still not an idiot. He can feel the tides shifting beneath them; sucking him in before they spew him out. He braces for Hurricane Kara.
“You're choosing him,” he says flatly. Sam tries to use 'his' name but he can't bring himself to. The distance of the pronoun a necessary protection.
She shakes her head, exhaling heavily. “It's not that simple. Choosing you or him. Right this second I'm choosing to stop hurting you anymore. Because I can't stand seeing you hurting and I hate even more that it's because of me. It doesn't mean I'm choosing anything about him.”
“Why not?” he asks, choking back the threatening tears. For a choice that was meant to temper his pain, it seemed to be having the opposite effect. “I thought I was the thing in way for you two.”
She snorts, “Just one of many, believe me.”
“So,” he gulps for air to fill his empty chest, “what's holding you back now?”
She shrugs. “Maybe I don't have the balls to try, because I don't have the guts to fail again.”
“That's pretty deep for a drunk chick,” he tells her, squeezing their locked fingers. “And also bullshit.”
She smiles sleepily. Lays her head onto his shoulder and closes her eyes.
“You were a good husband, Sam,” she mumbles groggily. “I'm sorry I was such a frakked up wife.”
“Was?” he croaks, needing to hear her say it.
“And maybe will be again. For a better wife. A more deserving one.” She shrugs again, barely. “I love him, Sam. I've loved him for a very long time.”
He lets that sink in before answering. “I know you have, baby. Does he?”
She shakes her head. “I don't know. I thought he did. But now...”
“Well I bet he does. Neither of you are nearly as good at hiding it as you think you are.”
It's more breath and hurt than sound when she asks. He barely hears her. The words are hardly even there.
"Sam? Do you think I'm broken?"
“No,” he assures her, swiping his thumb gently across her lips. “I think you're Kara.”
Her lips tug up and her eyes drift closed just before Lee’s viper zips across the glass. Sometimes, there are endings of a sort. And sometimes there are beginnings. But most times there are just moments and no one can figure out whether they're the start or the finish or some halfway point. Sam lets her sleep and watches a lone spaceship dancing through the black. He reaches out a hand, covers the shape of it using the magic of perspective. He closes his fingers into a fist around the viper and squeezes. It doesn’t work; it just slides through, like grains of wayward sand. It doesn’t make him feel better either. He looks down at her and his eyes fall to their bare arms, to the ink tightly pressing together making a whole image from two pieces. A hollow ache takes residence inside his chest as he pulls the painted skin apart. He feels something rip inside. Rising carefully so not to wake Kara, Sam slips off into the night. She doesn’t stir.
**
Kara Thrace fights like she loves. Rabid. Howling and raging. Dangerous and dark. Entirely.
She prefers simple things but in dripping in excess and excessive things wrapped in a cloak of simplicity.
She was born fighting, Mama always told her that. Told her that it made her special. That she needed to learn to be strong for her destiny and that she'd started on that path towards strength on the day she'd come into the world; too early and underdeveloped. She fought to live then, through the tubing of the incubator and her feeble lungs. She'd been fighting ever since. On playgrounds and in classrooms. In back alleys and smoky bars. She’s still fighting today it seems; cylons and herself and strangers in the night. Fighting with frenzied fists against demons that lay too deep within herself to touch, no matter the violence that she calls down around her. Fighting a knowledge too consuming to deny. Fighting the unyielding struggle between the two outcomes that naturally flow from the realization that life is senseless, freedom and despair. The reckless exhilaration of freedom and the easy pathway into despair.
She’s not surprised when she wakes up in hack. She’s almost relieved at the familiarity. Her throat burns and her hands burn and everything burns. Memories lazily slip into place. Helo. Sam. And then…just fists and rage. A pained moan from the next cell pulls her attention. She looks over to see Racetrack pushing herself up. The woman's right eye is swollen shut. Her lip is busted. Kara reaches up to her own face, finds evidence of her own injuries. She sighs.
“I do that?” Kara asks, knowing the answer.
Racetrack snorts derisively. “Are you kiddin me?”
“Is that a yes?” The movement of her mouth tears open a cut on her own lip. She can taste it as the blood drips sluggish into her mouth.
“Frak, Starbuck,” she snaps, “Yes it was you! You were a frakking lunatic last night. Drunk as skunk and spoiling for a fight. I'm not kidding. You walked up to me and asked me to hit you. Frak you begged me. When I wouldn't, you started in on me, my flying, call me everything you could come up with and you wouldn't stop pushing until I swung on you. I don't know what the frak we were even fighting about.”
Kara wracked her brain, trying to remember. There was a hazy recollection of waking up alone on the Observation Deck. And then just self-loathing and rage. She'd stumbled away, fists clenched and searching for pain.
“I'm sorry,” she mumbled to Racetrack. “I'll testify that I started it. That you were just acting in self-defense.”
“Don't worry about it,” Racetrack sighed, leaning back against the wall, tonguing the bruise on her lip. “Been waiting to get into it with you for a long time anyways.”
Kara lay back, wishing desperately for a stogie. “Well then, you're welcome.”
**
Lee shows up soon after Racetrack's released. For a moment he just stares, takes her in. His sigh is thick with disappointment. She knows he'll speak. She wishes with everything she had that he wouldn't. Why can't he see how much better this is? Their looks say enough, too much. What use of words? Especially ones spoken logically. All cold and concise and controlled. All Lee. Only in mumbled and insensible ramblings might hints of truth be found. And then, only merest hints.
“I know, OK?”she says coldly, pushing herself up from the rack. “You don't have to tell me. I know.”
He nods. “I'm not here for a lecture, Kara. I wanted to make sure you're alright. Which, physically, you seem to be. Dad wants to see you before he lets you out. I think he'll be by after his shift. If you're looking for a lecture, I'm pretty sure he's got one for you.” Then after a beat, “How are your hands?”
Flexing them slightly, she admits, “They hurt like a bitch actually. My just desserts, I suppose.”
He reaches into his pocket and holds out three small white pills through the bars. Taking them gratefully from his hands, she tosses them back. “Thanks. It's more than I deserve.”
He shrugs, “Yea well, I love you so...”
She knows it can't be true. Not when it was created with words. But it feels like something akin to truth, truth's cousin, and that's enough. There's a difference between saying something you believe and saying something because it's the easiest thing to say. She isn't sure where that line is right now, so she surprises them both and holds her tongue silent. When she doesn't respond beyond a sad smile back, he turns to go.
“Lee,” she calls after him, unable to hold back the thoughts clogging her throat. He stops, turns back.
“Me too, ya know? Love you or whatever.”
She feared his beautiful face might split at the smile that overtook it.
“Yeah?” he asks, on breath of obvious relief. “Kiss me and prove it?”
She rolls her eyes and leans into the bars. “Just shut up and go. You'll make Williams here blush.” The marine on guard didn't even bother to acknowledge her comment. Lee's already halfway to the hatch when he turns back.
“Good luck with Dad.”
She sighs. “How pissed off is he?”
“I'd say he's just shy of that time Zak & I replaced his shaving crème with Cool Whip.”
“Frak,” she groans. “Didn't you get grounded for a week for that?”
“Try a month,” Lee snorts. “Anyways, I better go. I'm on duty soon.”
Lee gestures at her bloodstained clothes with a nod. “You look sexy in hack, you know that?”
Hear that, Williams?” Kara asks daintily, holding the bars and leaning back to rouse the kid's attention. “CAG thinks I'm pretty. Put it in the log, will ya? Since I left my diary in my bunk.”
Lee shakes his head. “Pretty? No, pretty is for other girls. You're...” He struggles with the words. It turns her on when he's flustered like that. “You, Kara Thrace, are fierce and fiery and you're damn lucky I can't get to you right now, Lt.”
“Mmm. Bring me a nail file in a cake next time, we'll see what we can do about that.” She tells him with a wink.
“I'll see ya soon, jailbird.” He promises as he steps out the hatch.
Kara swallows and lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding. Her chest aches for him before clang of the hatch had even finishes its song.
Author: word_vomity
Pairing: Kara/Lee
Word Count: 7200
Rating: PG-13 for now
Spoilers: Through Rapture, 3.12 then AU
Summary: Lee helps Kara work through her injuries after Rapture.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: OMG this is SOOOOOO old. If anyone is still interested in part 2, it's here. And don't worry, part 3 is already nearly there. I promise it won't take me another year to get out. *sigh* Beta'd by embolalia because she is wonderful and patient and much smarter than me. Part 1 for those of you that may need a refresher for what the heck this even is.
No one has ever accused him of being overly bright, but Sam is not a complete idiot either. In fact, he plays a lot dumber than he actually is and what he loses in respect, he gains far over when people underestimate him. Regardless, one thing he does know is women and he can’t help but see how she is with him. He's seen it from Day One, when Kara had waved him in Lee's face, taunted him, just begging him to react. Even then, it was obvious, though he didn’t know then just how entangled they both were.He gleaned pieces of their past over time. Bits from Kara, scraps from fleet gossip, something about the Commander's other son, something she tried to play off as inconsequential when he made veiled inquiries. Once he asked her outright about her past with Lee. He must've caught her off guard that day, because her eyes went wide before she had a chance to suppress her reaction. She got quiet for a minute before staring him down in cold challenge.
“Don't even, Sam. Trying to understand that is a losing game. All you need to know is that I'm not with him. I'm with you, OK?” He'd never heard her voice that tight before. “I don't want to talk about this again. Ever.”
He never forced the issue. Even over time when their marriage turned into more than just some hung-over dare, even when she opened up to him about her mother's abuse and her father's desertion, Lee was always still the one subject that wasn't open for discussion. It ate at him back then and he sees how they are together now. He watches them, rooted to the floor across the sickbay. The way she's looking at Lee is a look Sam's never seen before, one he's certainly never been lucky enough to be the recipient of. Her face is filled with a softness, a calm totally unlike anything he’s known Kara to be capable of. An unguarded joy and openness that only surfaces when they’re together. Sam watches from a distance as they sit together quietly; speaking seldom but communicating regardless. He meant to visit his wife today, check on her progress, feel her warm skin against his hands, smell her hair, but now...
He feels like an intruder on a private moment. Everyday gets harder, he thinks as he turns slowly and wanders aimlessly away.
**
It had been a cool spring that year. Rainy and brisk most days. Even the flowers came in late. Lee remembered being surprised to see Kara out that day, walking that big silly lab that she and Zak had rescued during one of Zak's do-gooder phases. That's what Kara called it anyways. Lee knew better. Zak's inclinations toward the literal 'under-dogs' of the world were nothing new. As a child he'd once given a homeless woman his entire savings, $300 plus cubits, after a trip into the city had opened his eyes to the suffering of the needy. He'd always had friends staying with them in high school. Kids whose own family lives were questionable. Lee remembered one period when Troy Hennings has stayed with them for a whole month after his father had beat the shit out of him for some youthful misstep. It had always been like that. Whether he simply attracted them or sought them out on purpose, Zak was a magnet for all things and people downtrodden and tragic.
Anyways, there she was. With . . . Huckleberry, that had been his name, Lee recalled. Tugging the unruly dog along through the misty afternoon, swearing and laughing and threatening revenge.
“Trouble, ma'am?” He asked, approaching the pair.
It took her a moment to recognize him. They'd only met that once. That one regrettable, terrible, wonderful, glorious night. One time night that Lee could not stop thinking of.
“Lee!” She stumbled over the bouncing dog's leash as she struggled to get around him for a hug. “Hi! Gods, frak! Move Hucklebery, you giant fool!
Laughing she finally got around the excited dog and pulled Lee to her. “How are you?”
“I'm uh, I'm good. Zak mentioned the dog. He seems...” by this point Huckleberry had jumped onto two legs to accost the both of them and was nosing Lee's chest curiously. “...friendly.”
“Your brother is a sweet, sweet fool of a man.” She laughed. “Anyways, he might be a goof, but he's a real charmer once you get to know him. The dog that is, not your brother. Although...”
“Yeah,” Lee agreed, pushing the nosy puppy back to the ground and patting its head. “They do have a certain resemblance, don't they?”
She smiled. “So, we were just burning off some of his extra puppy energy. Wanna join us for a walk? I mean, it's more him walking me, honestly, but still...it counts.”
“Sure.” He agreed, not at all sure that it was a good idea. “Want me to hold him for a bit?”
“Frak yes! My arm is killing me.” She sighed, handing him the leash, looping her arm through his and starting down the sidewalk.
**
Lee watches her sleep from the chair beside her bed. Remembering. Other days try to creep into his consciousness. Darker memories. Memories with the power to overshadow this one. He pushes at them, shoving them back, down, away.
She’s being sent home tomorrow morning. Her hands are healing well and she doesn’t need the constant medical attention so much. He's glad, but he knows that the change will effectively end this little standoff they've been living in and he's scared of what she'll do. With Kara, there's just no telling, not ever. It's one of the many things he loves and hates about her. She'd be so much harder to love if she didn't display her own disappointment in herself so well. Her regret comes howling through her body even in slumber and he can just feel how desperately she feels her own mistakes and hates herself for them. He can forgive almost any wrong done to him so long as there is a subsequent and sincere regret afterwards. It's why he's allowed her to hurt him so frakking many times. He knows that no matter how badly he's hated her, she's always hated herself more.
Conversely, he judges his own worth by how well he manages her. He always has. And he's so often let her down. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how many times he struggled to hold her together while she ripped herself to pieces, she always ended up leaving him. He knows every ripple of every muscle in her back as she walks away.
Kara sighs in her sleep, twisting restlessly in the blankets. He reaches out to gentle her. Like a spooked animal, she calms at his touch. They are so bad at saying the things that are true between them. So stubborn and scared. So weak. He wishes now he’d said what was true when he had the chance, but then he wonders whether she would have let him even get the words out. She knows a thousand different ways to shut him up. Sweet ways. Cruel ways. Sexy ways and sad ways. She’s always had a thousand ways to do everything and not a single one to tell him that she loves him.
The strength, the will, the tenacity of spirit and the throbbing passion for life have always been there. They are the pieces of her that could not be untangled.
The sass, the persona, the attitude and the sarcasm are mechanisms, self-made and effective as hell. But what she's built for defense, he can tear down. Watching her breath lifting and dropping her chest, he resolves to do just that.
**
It has always concerned Kara how easily she took to being alone growing up. She had herself and herself only to rely on. For comfort. For a shoulder. For a confidant. For a playmate. She figures that most people, perhaps rightly, would see the inherent pain in such a lonely existence, but she was glad of it; knew even in her early youth that she preferred solitude. It fit her. She felt herself growing stronger for it and was content to meander through adolescence making her own way, toughening under the strain of her mother's lessons. She even felt an uncomfortable but real gratitude for those harsh instructions. More strength, siphoned into her marrow; building granite from clay. Until one day, she looked up to find herself stone, solid through.
She lets her mind drift back to the earliest days of their relationship now. Back to a time when the name Lee Adama didn’t hold so much power over her. It seems like another lifetime. Her first instinct upon meeting him was to run, to bolt like a criminal with a life sentence snapping at her heels. She’s been running ever since. She knew the first day that she'd do almost anything to be near him and it had terrified her then as much as it does today.
The desire has always been there between them. Ignited in secret glances so long ago; smoldering still, strong and fierce. A bomb with a long, lit fuse just waiting for its moment to envelop them both in the flames and ashes of its destruction. They both knew that there was only so long that they could put it off. Sometimes she still wonders whether all their fighting was just filler to keep their mouths out of the inevitable trouble they'd get into in the weight of silence.
But as time went on, the amount of booze it takes to drive away the thoughts of him started to also drive away little pieces of herself as well. The strain cracked her strong exterior, leaving her open to attack. She exists in pieces, in moments, but never fully herself. He's too much of her to push him out and expect a whole person to remain. But it's the cracks in people that speak to their weakness, she knows, not the breaks. Breaks are sharp and jagged warnings for the world, scaring off those that would tap maliciously along the seams of the smallest fissure. Breaks are OK; even clean ones create something new, maybe even something better. If you could just push through the cracks in yourself, let the world make its breaks as it will regardless, then you could be strong in your brokenness. She did it long ago, let the world batter her to shards. She hadn't thought she had any more cracks to play with. But Leland Adama found them - plenty of them - and he's tapped at them like even the world, in all its cruel disdain, could not. Tapping but never breaking, just reminding her of what was there, the remaining weak spots, the remnants of an unkind past. And so it has always been so much easier to simply stay out of his prying hands.
When something hurts too much to think about, you must turn off parts of yourself. To survive, you must contract into only the necessities of living. Reminders to breathe, to move. Alarms to prompt eating or sleep. To continue on. And even those small nature-instilled impulses are often too daunting to face. Thoughts are forgone for the sake of sanity. Feelings pushed away for fear of being drowned in their wake. You retain your humanity, but only just. Just enough to go on. It's in those moments that she envies the cylons.
With a heave of her duffel over her shoulder, she takes one last look around the sick-bay, feets a wild urge to stay forever, hidden, protected. With a sigh, she pushes all that away and strides out the hatch.
**
She pulls open the hatch to their billet like a stranger entering, uncertain of her welcome.
“Hey!” Sam says jumping up in surprise. “I thought you weren't getting out for a couple hours yet. I wanted to be there. I had ambrosia and everything.”
She waves away his attentions. “I'm fine. Doc said he didn't want all the theatrics so he fed you guys some bogus timeframe.”
She scans the room, messy and unkempt. Bed unmade, clothes strewn about the floor. It doesn’t look like much of a homecoming.
“Still,” she teases lightly, “cutting it pretty close on hanging the balloons and banners, aren't you?”
He glances around sheepishly and runs his hand through his hair. Kara feels a pang of warmth hit her strong and squarely in her chest at the familiar habit.
“I wasn't sure you'd be coming back here.” He shrugs. “I didn't want to get my hopes up.”
She doesn’t have an answer for him, so she just smiles back sadly.
“I know.” She nods. “Actually, I was coming by to talk about that.”
He swallows, sits back in his chair heavily. “Go ahead then. Like a Band-Aid please. Quick and dirty.”
She shakes her head, stepping towards him, running her hand lightly through his hair. It still hurts, but she can bear the pressure now. “No Sam, I...”
Trailing off, she tries again.
“I don't know what else to do. Things are still a mess in my head and I can't be here while I'm trying to un-mess them. It doesn't mean-” She cuts off abruptly, unwilling to even say the words. “I have no frakking idea what it means. I know I don't deserve it and I'm the absolute frakking worst wife in the universe. The Gods know you have every right to never speak to me again, but...” She takes a steadying breath before continuing, “Can I have some more time? I'm not...ready yet. Please, Sam?”
She knows he'll say yes; hates that she knows it so certainly. She could make him say yes to anything. It turns her stomach. Her mother's voice whispers remembered accusations into her ear.
Reaching out slowly, he wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her to him. For a few minutes, they just hold like that, Sam gripping like he can keep her there by sheer force, Kara running her fingers through his hair absently. It feels nice to touch and be touched again. It would be so incredibly simple to just let go and fall into his waiting arms. It takes a lot more willpower than she thought it would not to.
“Are we gonna pretend like I have a say in this?” He asks harshly into the fabric covering her belly.
She steps back gently, kneels before him, and holds his eyes. “You could tell me frak off. I would.”
“Yeah.” He snorts, “We both know better than that. You want to leave me? It's gonna have to be your choice. I'm not gonna make it for you.”
He stands and turns away from her kicking absently at the ground. “Do I at least get to make my case?” he asks over his shoulder.
Releasing a sigh, she pushes off her knees to stand. Heading towards the locker in the corner, she starts throwing her things into a bag, eager to escape before this devolves into screams, or worse, tears.
“I wish you wouldn't,” she says simply. “But I won't stop you.” She waits, but he doesn’t speak so she starts tossing more of her belongings into her worn canvas.
“Where will you go?” he asks eventually, listening but refusing to watch as she steals the few pieces of herself he still has left.
“Officer's quarters,” she tells him, hauling the duffle over her shoulder. “For now.”
For a long moment they both just stand, uncertain what to do next. Eventually, he says, “I love you, Kara. You know that. But if you can't love me...”
“Loving you is the easiest thing in the world, Sam,” she promises, heading for the hatch. And even though it was the truth, she almost chokes on the words before realizing it may be the first time she’s ever said them to him.
“And him?” he asks quietly as her hand reaches the handle.
She hesitates, considering. “Loving him is the hardest thing I've ever done.” He turns just in time to see the hatch close with hollow clang. It feels like the most honest thing she's ever told him.
He sits stiffly on the bed. His head drops into his hands and he doesn’t move for a long time.
**
It takes Lee longer than she expected to track her down. She intended to visit him after her talk with Sam, give him the same spiel about time and space. Instead, her feet carried her back to her old rack on autopilot, ignoring her mind's previous plans. She didn't try to fight their path. She's learned to trust her body when it wars with her brain. Lee won’t be as agreeable as Sam was. She knows it like she knows the pitch of her viper at the slightest twist of her stick. She knows his reactions the way she knows the circuitry of her bird, could rewire him from scratch if she needed to. Inside out and backwards.
And she knew without any hesitation that if she didn't go to him, he'd find her instead. So she isn’t at all surprised when she looks up from her rack to find him staring down at her, eyes hard with disappointment.
“So?” His voice vibrates tight, like a taut wire being stretched to its limit. She wonders whether he’s finally reached his. “You're out.”
“See that's what I love about you, Lee,” she says blandly, sitting and swinging her legs to the floor. “You're so gods-damned observant.”
He doesn’t bother responding. She’s glad for that. Instead, he just pulls a chair from the table and sits down in front of her. Their knees almost touch, but not quite. He doesn’t know how to close that distance.
“And did you plan on telling me?” he asks quietly, his voice edged with cold steel. It has been awhile since she's heard that much anger from him. He's been so collected over the past few weeks, so composed while she mended. She can practically see it all unraveling.
Gulping down her momentary panic, she forces a wry smile. “Planned on it,” she admits with a self-conscious shrug. “Chickened out, I guess.”
He snorts at that, like he isn’t sure whether to believe her. She winces at the noise. “Kara Thrace doesn't chicken out,” he tells her. “She runs and she hides and she cuts the people around her into itty bitty shreds, but it's not out of cowardice. Yellow's not a color she knows how to wear.”
“So, what then?”
“Knowing you, my money’s on guilt,” he tells her simply, leaning back.
She doesn’t even try to disagree. He doesn’t bother asking what it means that she’s here, instead of Sam's billet. She has a feeling that the words wouldn't help them, never did, but she tries them anyways.
“You know, sometimes...” Kara starts slowly, still working through how to explain it in her mind. “Sometimes, I feel like the worst damned person that ever lived.” He opens his mouth to interrupt, but she quickly cuts off his protests; she doesn't want them. “No, just listen. I...I feel like there must be something wrong with me, you know? Like really wrong.”
Her breath catches, not enough that anyone else would notice, but he does and he wonders whether she's ever said any of this out loud before. Turning to grab a stogie from a steel box on the shelf of her rack, she lights it and takes a deep steadying breath before continuing, “I can't help but feel like all this,” she says, gesturing around them, “this war, this life we live now, is what I was born for, to be a part of this moment in time. The only thing that's ever felt right for me is the walls of this broken down old ship and the stick of my flight suit against my skin after a mission. Most times,” she takes a long drag before going on. “Most times, I'm glad for what happened to Caprica. For 99% of humanity, it was a gods-damned death sentence. For me though, it was like finally finding a purpose; a reason. I was nothing before all this. Who the frak thinks like that, Lee? What kind of person? Tell me that.”
When he doesn’t answer, she sighs, “So, guilt? Yeah, I know guilt. I know it well. But the only good I've ever done in my life has been since those bombs dropped. I'm the frakking phoenix from the ashes of those bombs and I wish they hadn't fallen, but they did and I can't help but feel like I'm a part of all this somehow still. I'm supposed to be here. I'm swallowed up by guilt every single day because out of everyone, everyone that lived, I'm the only one who benefited from the end of the worlds. I get to be what I was made for. I got another chance and that's something I certainly don't deserve. And I got a family in Bill. And in you. In a different way, but still. And even at my very best, I’m tearing people apart. Just like you said. Maybe there’s a reason I’m not allowed to keep people close. Maybe that’s not what I’m here for.”
It’s about the longest speech she's ever made to him. He doesn’t know how to answer it. So he opts not to.
“And stop looking at me like that,” she grouses, stubbing out her cigar against the wall roughly, “I don't need you to carry my burdens on top of your own. I'm just saying-”
“I know.” He cuts her off hurriedly. “I mean, I get it. So, how much longer?”
“I don't know.” She sighs.
“But,” he asks slowly, almost afraid to hope. “You're thinking about it?
She just looks down at her hands, flexing the pink healing skin on habit and nods.
“I’m not looking for a saint, Kara,” he tells her quietly. “I just want you. As messy as that concept is.”
She barely gets out her whispered reply. “You don't have to wait around for me. I know it's asking a lot.”
With a rueful grin, he reaches out, leans his forehead to hers. She doesn’t pull away, just lets him rest against her gently.
“You know better than that,” he whispers, dropping a kiss to her temple.
“Yeah,” she agrees. “I guess so.”
He breathes her in. She never smells of anything other than wind and soil and smoke and he knows without hesitation that it's so much better than any perfume could ever be. It's as if the gods couldn't decide which force of nature fit her best and, unwilling to concede any, had made her all. He doesn’t let go for a while. She doesn’t pull away. Every now and again, they still surprise each other.
**
The three of them spend the next few weeks orbiting around each other carefully. They breathe the same recycled air, walk the same skeleton of halls and rooms, but interact seldom. It’s a strange and delicate balance, so close to always spinning out of control but somehow teetering balanced on the edge of the sharpest knife. One slip and they'll all be cut to shreds, but so far they’ve held. Sam is spending his time at Joe’s Bar, from what scraps of information Kara’s gleaned from Helo. The Old Man slips that Lee is working himself to death, like he always does when he’s avoiding something. She wonders idly how much he really knows about them. Her flight status has not been reinstated so her duties are pretty limited and consist mostly of standing around pretending to be useful. Even paperwork is still beyond her. So she finds things to do that don’t take fingers. Mostly, she runs. And thinks. Sometimes she visits Kacey when she can stand it, or Helo or Bill, but mostly she spends her time alone. It’s strange after having been suffocated with visitors during her stay in the infirmary, but it’s also a chance to reflect, uninterrupted or swayed by the confusing presence of either man.
It's not indecision that holds her back anymore, if it ever was. She knows what she wants. She loves Sam. He’s an absolute gem, but Lee is hers in a way that she doesn’t know how to deny anymore. And yet she’s no closer to claiming him than she’s ever been. It seems so impossible. For obvious reasons and for unnamable ones, she doesn’t know how to take that step. It feels dangerous and deep. Like stepping off an edge without a rope and no option to go back. She wishes it felt like flying, but it’s so much more like falling.
Dee crosses her path a few times, with eyes sharp and bright as daggers. Kara assumes that means Lee really ended things between them, which incites a whole new barrage of confusing feelings in her already roiling gut. The other woman doesn’t even bother to disguise her dislike anymore. If she sees Kara, she turns on her heel without a backwards glance and flounces off in the opposite direction. Kara doesn’t blame her. How could she? She’s frakked the poor woman’s husband and there is really no apology sufficient to cover that kind of injury. Anyways, the way Dee is avoiding her, she’s fairly certain that an apology is the last thing Dee wants, so she lets the woman keep her anger. She knows she earned it.
**
Helo catches her wandering the halls, invites her out for drinks and cards that night. Plays the concerned friend role just right. That bothers her. She is not the type of girl that people worry about. Or least, she didn't used to be. But Kara’s always had a soft spot for Helo and his easy smile, his wide shoulders, the way he cares for her so secretly that no one else could even tell. So when he patiently explains how it would be good to get her out of her own head for a while, she relents with little prodding. She heard what had went down this week in Camp Oil Slick and she figures that maybe he needs someone this time too. It’s been awhile since they've been out just the two of them. Plus, he offers free booze.
She gets spectacularly drunk that night. That tends to happen when she 'gets out of her head' as Helo had so eloquently put it. And besides, getting drunk had always been so much easier than not getting drunk for her. This feels like a reprieve of sorts. A moment of not thinking about the choices that lay ahead. She hadn't hustled a card table in so long that she'd nearly forgotten how good it felt. Even as high as she is on booze and pills, she does well enough to have pissed off most of the other players. All in all, the night feels like a familiar memory of the girl she had used to be. In this world, more than anywhere, it’s necessary to spend a few happy hours gentling one's many demons in the hazy delights of old remembrances. It is temporary, she knows, but it’s nice too. That is until Helo decides that he wants to 'talk' about things.
“So, how you doing Kara?” he asks eventually, pulling her from the crowd of disappointed patrons doing shots at the bar and sitting them at their own private table. She squints at him trying to clear her head and see by his eyes if he's asking about what she thinks he is. He's always been too perceptive for his own good. From what she can make out, he has his sincere face on which means he thinks she's frakked something up and he knows how she should fix it. That pisses her off. If this conversation was already beyond her capabilities sober, and it was, she knows that delving into it in this condition is just about the worst idea since they elected Baltar president.
“Stupendous,” she drawls deadpan. “Really great.”
“Humor me, short-stuff,” he rolls his eyes, reaches out to pat the top of her head.
“Just because you've been stuck in Dogtown all week playing Hero of the People doesn't mean that I need you interfering in my life.” Slapping his hand away angrily, she goes on. “There's probably a kitty up a tree somewhere if you need to get your rocks off that bad.”
“There's not,” he promises, throwing his hands up in surrender as she tosses her cigar at him. “I checked before I came looking for you. Frak, Kara! That's lit!”
“Just be glad I didn't feel like wasting my drink on you,” she tells him, taking a swig. “It was my first choice.”
“Listen, I just want to help, OK? I just want you to know I'm here if you-”
“This is really heartwarming and all, but I just wanna drink, Karl,” she slurs, effectively cutting off the words that she can't stand to hear. “I wanna drink until my hands don't hurt and my brain turns off and then I wanna drink some more. So you can buy me another shot or you can frak off. What's it gonna be?”
Leaning his chair back onto two legs, he gives her a long appraising stare. She thinks she sees pity in it and her fists clench tightly at her sides. With a sigh he drops back down, slow and resigned.
“Sorry Buck, but you're one of the last people I have left in this universe and watching you drink yourself stupid is just about the last thing I can bear to watch today.” With a sigh, he rises, leans down to her, presses a hard kiss to the top of her head. “Take care of yourself, kid.”
Standing, he shakes his head, turns and walks away. Kara watches him go, sees his hesitation, his backwards glances. It's the first time Karl's ever actually said no to her. About time, she thinks wryly. She knows she could stop him with a word. She doesn't. Somewhere in her addled mind she realizes that tomorrow she'll love him all the more for this, but right now, she just wants to hit something. Refusing to feel sorry, she tosses back the rest of her drink and looks around, alone again.
**
After Joe's, she goes back to wandering. Hurting Helo was too much like kicking a puppy and that pretty well kills her celebratory spirit for the night. Besides, she's drunk enough for now. People condemn the excess of booze, but she's never understood why. Liquor accelerates things. Moves the status quo ahead to the next state. That's all. It hurries along the inevitable. Sex. Break-ups. Fights. Even death. Things that were already brewing anyways. And Kara hates being stuck in the middle of a change. Being halfway in or out. It’s a waste. Makes things more painful. She lives all in or not in at all.
So she ambles ahead, stumbles on. It doesn't take her long to end up at the Observation Deck. It's one of her favorite places these days. Quiet. Nice view. Comfortable seating. Every now and again the CAP flies past reminding her of what she's working to get back to, where she's still needed. Sometimes she knows it's Lee out there flying. That reminds her of other things she's working towards.
Sam's there. She's not sure why he's there, but she's drunk enough not to be surprised. Not drunk enough to ask. She watches him for a moment before she approaches and remembers his hands on her. It feels like another person’s life.
“Hey,” he says surprised when she walks into his line of sight.
She grabs a seat beside him, tries to look more sober than she actually is. “Hey.”
She can’t think of anything useful to say right now so they just sit beside each other for a bit, looking into the darkness. Colonial One drifts by. It reminds her of Lee. She’s not sure why. Everything reminds her of Lee these days.
“So...” He starts awkwardly, gesturing at the glass. “Beautiful weather we're having, huh?”
She laughs. Loud and long and full. Just like a real girl. It feels amazing. His eyes crinkle when he grins wide at her. She'd forgotten that about him. He reaches out to lace their fingers together, which is nice and warm and familiar so she doesn't pull away.
“I'm so frakking sorry, Sammie,” she tells him. “For all of this. For hurting you.”
And then, with an unsure look over at him, she adds, “And I'm so sorry that I'm gonna have to do it again."
The world shifts on its axis.
It's unlike her to apologize. Even when she's painfully aware of her own culpability. Especially then, actually. He's still not an idiot. He can feel the tides shifting beneath them; sucking him in before they spew him out. He braces for Hurricane Kara.
“You're choosing him,” he says flatly. Sam tries to use 'his' name but he can't bring himself to. The distance of the pronoun a necessary protection.
She shakes her head, exhaling heavily. “It's not that simple. Choosing you or him. Right this second I'm choosing to stop hurting you anymore. Because I can't stand seeing you hurting and I hate even more that it's because of me. It doesn't mean I'm choosing anything about him.”
“Why not?” he asks, choking back the threatening tears. For a choice that was meant to temper his pain, it seemed to be having the opposite effect. “I thought I was the thing in way for you two.”
She snorts, “Just one of many, believe me.”
“So,” he gulps for air to fill his empty chest, “what's holding you back now?”
She shrugs. “Maybe I don't have the balls to try, because I don't have the guts to fail again.”
“That's pretty deep for a drunk chick,” he tells her, squeezing their locked fingers. “And also bullshit.”
She smiles sleepily. Lays her head onto his shoulder and closes her eyes.
“You were a good husband, Sam,” she mumbles groggily. “I'm sorry I was such a frakked up wife.”
“Was?” he croaks, needing to hear her say it.
“And maybe will be again. For a better wife. A more deserving one.” She shrugs again, barely. “I love him, Sam. I've loved him for a very long time.”
He lets that sink in before answering. “I know you have, baby. Does he?”
She shakes her head. “I don't know. I thought he did. But now...”
“Well I bet he does. Neither of you are nearly as good at hiding it as you think you are.”
It's more breath and hurt than sound when she asks. He barely hears her. The words are hardly even there.
"Sam? Do you think I'm broken?"
“No,” he assures her, swiping his thumb gently across her lips. “I think you're Kara.”
Her lips tug up and her eyes drift closed just before Lee’s viper zips across the glass. Sometimes, there are endings of a sort. And sometimes there are beginnings. But most times there are just moments and no one can figure out whether they're the start or the finish or some halfway point. Sam lets her sleep and watches a lone spaceship dancing through the black. He reaches out a hand, covers the shape of it using the magic of perspective. He closes his fingers into a fist around the viper and squeezes. It doesn’t work; it just slides through, like grains of wayward sand. It doesn’t make him feel better either. He looks down at her and his eyes fall to their bare arms, to the ink tightly pressing together making a whole image from two pieces. A hollow ache takes residence inside his chest as he pulls the painted skin apart. He feels something rip inside. Rising carefully so not to wake Kara, Sam slips off into the night. She doesn’t stir.
**
Kara Thrace fights like she loves. Rabid. Howling and raging. Dangerous and dark. Entirely.
She prefers simple things but in dripping in excess and excessive things wrapped in a cloak of simplicity.
She was born fighting, Mama always told her that. Told her that it made her special. That she needed to learn to be strong for her destiny and that she'd started on that path towards strength on the day she'd come into the world; too early and underdeveloped. She fought to live then, through the tubing of the incubator and her feeble lungs. She'd been fighting ever since. On playgrounds and in classrooms. In back alleys and smoky bars. She’s still fighting today it seems; cylons and herself and strangers in the night. Fighting with frenzied fists against demons that lay too deep within herself to touch, no matter the violence that she calls down around her. Fighting a knowledge too consuming to deny. Fighting the unyielding struggle between the two outcomes that naturally flow from the realization that life is senseless, freedom and despair. The reckless exhilaration of freedom and the easy pathway into despair.
She’s not surprised when she wakes up in hack. She’s almost relieved at the familiarity. Her throat burns and her hands burn and everything burns. Memories lazily slip into place. Helo. Sam. And then…just fists and rage. A pained moan from the next cell pulls her attention. She looks over to see Racetrack pushing herself up. The woman's right eye is swollen shut. Her lip is busted. Kara reaches up to her own face, finds evidence of her own injuries. She sighs.
“I do that?” Kara asks, knowing the answer.
Racetrack snorts derisively. “Are you kiddin me?”
“Is that a yes?” The movement of her mouth tears open a cut on her own lip. She can taste it as the blood drips sluggish into her mouth.
“Frak, Starbuck,” she snaps, “Yes it was you! You were a frakking lunatic last night. Drunk as skunk and spoiling for a fight. I'm not kidding. You walked up to me and asked me to hit you. Frak you begged me. When I wouldn't, you started in on me, my flying, call me everything you could come up with and you wouldn't stop pushing until I swung on you. I don't know what the frak we were even fighting about.”
Kara wracked her brain, trying to remember. There was a hazy recollection of waking up alone on the Observation Deck. And then just self-loathing and rage. She'd stumbled away, fists clenched and searching for pain.
“I'm sorry,” she mumbled to Racetrack. “I'll testify that I started it. That you were just acting in self-defense.”
“Don't worry about it,” Racetrack sighed, leaning back against the wall, tonguing the bruise on her lip. “Been waiting to get into it with you for a long time anyways.”
Kara lay back, wishing desperately for a stogie. “Well then, you're welcome.”
**
Lee shows up soon after Racetrack's released. For a moment he just stares, takes her in. His sigh is thick with disappointment. She knows he'll speak. She wishes with everything she had that he wouldn't. Why can't he see how much better this is? Their looks say enough, too much. What use of words? Especially ones spoken logically. All cold and concise and controlled. All Lee. Only in mumbled and insensible ramblings might hints of truth be found. And then, only merest hints.
“I know, OK?”she says coldly, pushing herself up from the rack. “You don't have to tell me. I know.”
He nods. “I'm not here for a lecture, Kara. I wanted to make sure you're alright. Which, physically, you seem to be. Dad wants to see you before he lets you out. I think he'll be by after his shift. If you're looking for a lecture, I'm pretty sure he's got one for you.” Then after a beat, “How are your hands?”
Flexing them slightly, she admits, “They hurt like a bitch actually. My just desserts, I suppose.”
He reaches into his pocket and holds out three small white pills through the bars. Taking them gratefully from his hands, she tosses them back. “Thanks. It's more than I deserve.”
He shrugs, “Yea well, I love you so...”
She knows it can't be true. Not when it was created with words. But it feels like something akin to truth, truth's cousin, and that's enough. There's a difference between saying something you believe and saying something because it's the easiest thing to say. She isn't sure where that line is right now, so she surprises them both and holds her tongue silent. When she doesn't respond beyond a sad smile back, he turns to go.
“Lee,” she calls after him, unable to hold back the thoughts clogging her throat. He stops, turns back.
“Me too, ya know? Love you or whatever.”
She feared his beautiful face might split at the smile that overtook it.
“Yeah?” he asks, on breath of obvious relief. “Kiss me and prove it?”
She rolls her eyes and leans into the bars. “Just shut up and go. You'll make Williams here blush.” The marine on guard didn't even bother to acknowledge her comment. Lee's already halfway to the hatch when he turns back.
“Good luck with Dad.”
She sighs. “How pissed off is he?”
“I'd say he's just shy of that time Zak & I replaced his shaving crème with Cool Whip.”
“Frak,” she groans. “Didn't you get grounded for a week for that?”
“Try a month,” Lee snorts. “Anyways, I better go. I'm on duty soon.”
Lee gestures at her bloodstained clothes with a nod. “You look sexy in hack, you know that?”
Hear that, Williams?” Kara asks daintily, holding the bars and leaning back to rouse the kid's attention. “CAG thinks I'm pretty. Put it in the log, will ya? Since I left my diary in my bunk.”
Lee shakes his head. “Pretty? No, pretty is for other girls. You're...” He struggles with the words. It turns her on when he's flustered like that. “You, Kara Thrace, are fierce and fiery and you're damn lucky I can't get to you right now, Lt.”
“Mmm. Bring me a nail file in a cake next time, we'll see what we can do about that.” She tells him with a wink.
“I'll see ya soon, jailbird.” He promises as he steps out the hatch.
Kara swallows and lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding. Her chest aches for him before clang of the hatch had even finishes its song.