More BSG Nugget Slang Fic
Oct. 3rd, 2005 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rabid1stSHOOT YOUR SHADE
By Rabid1st
BSG – K/L
RATING: +14
BETA BABES: Dualbunny and Winter_Queen82
SPOILERS: I know nothing…but I have seen S2 to Pegasus. So…all of that.
SUMMARY: Lee continues to misuse nugget slang and misunderstand Kara. This is a sequel to Burn the Pipe…a much more angsty sequel.
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own these characters. They belong to Ron Moore, the SciFi Channel and other shareholders I am not familiar with…point is I’m not going to ask for compensation I’m not allowed to get. Don’t even try to compensate me. Talk to the hand.
Eight days after getting caught with Kara on a desktop. Six days after freeing his father. Three days after the loss of the Pegasus and most of her crew. Lee Adama finally had a moment to himself. He put the call through and, nursing a mug of strong tea, settled in to wait.
Mouth resting on the cup rim, he inhaled spicy fumes and let his mind wander. He really didn’t want to over think this. Each breath, slowly released, was a meditation to quiet his pounding pulse. He still had no idea how he was going to broach the significance of the date with Kara. His gaze drifted to the calendar again, to the flashing Dionysia symbol, a partially eclipsed sun.
He heard her coming, sooner than expected. Her cocky stride was unmistakable as it echoed on Galactica’s metal plate. Making an effort to look busy, Lee put his tea aside and bent over his paperwork. His pen scratched on the uneven surface of a too often recycled pad. He crossed a name off the short list of prospective pilots as Kara arrived. She stopped in the open doorway and snapped to attention. He glanced up in time to see her deliver a razor-edged salute.
“You wanted to see me, sir?”
“At ease,” he said with more acid than he’d intended. How dare she treat this like a summons from the CAG? How dare she pretend there was nothing between them?
People bottlenecked in the hall to stare, as surprised as Lee by Kara’s overt display of military correctness. He set his pen down on the clipboard, pushed both aside and stood. An unconscious nervousness had him adjusting his jacket, but Kara stood unmoving. For a moment neither one of them showed so much as a glimmer of emotion, and then Lee looked away.
Chilled, he reached for his tea. “Come in, Lieutenant, and for the Lords’ sake close the frakking door.”
Obediently, she stepped across the office threshold, pulling the door behind her so it clanged shut. Her spine was ramrod stiff, giving nothing away, but her fingers fumbled with the pressure locks. Lee felt a brief surge of triumph. He hadn’t asked her to lock the door. And he hoped the tremor meant she wasn’t as indifferent as she’d like him to believe. Door secured, she sighed audibly and then pivoted to face him. He tried to catch her eye, but her gaze skimmed his like a dragonfly dancing over a pond.
He swept a too warm appraisal from her shiny, severely restrained hair to her serviceable flight suit boots. Her nipples were visibly hard under her soft tank. The tank rode high, showing a sliver of skin at her beltline. She filled the small room with her signature scent, sex and cigars. Was there anything more intoxicating on the entire ship? Lee’s blue eyes sparked and his smile tightened.
“You came straight off the line?”
“You’re the C.A.G., sir. I come when you call.”
“Yeah,” Lee said softly, “About that.” He tapped a blue folder, one of many on his littered desk. “I still need to sign off on your reassignment. Technically, you’re not one of my pilots.”
Her mind went right to the corollary. Lee could tell by the way her tongue tip darted out to glide over her already moistened lips.
“Not that protocol has ever been our strong suit,” he went on, “Until recently. What’s going on, Kara?”
She stared straight ahead as she said, “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
“With us? Your new found attention to military procedure? Racetrack thinks you lost a bet.” He lifted his line of sight to target her with a piercing look as he added, “Colonel Tigh thinks we’re sleeping together.”
“I doubt that, sir.”
Lee shrugged a concession. “Well, what he actually said was if he didn’t know we were both emotional cripples he’d think that.”
“Bastard,” Kara spat.
“Ah, there’s the refreshing insolence your superior officers have come to know and love.” Bracing his fingertips on the desk, he leaned toward her to conspiratorially whisper. “And I think what you mean is…discerning bastard.”
Kara frowned in his general direction. “Let’s not make a Colonial case out of this, Lee.”
“Out of what?”
“We kissed.” She made it sound innocent, as if they’d been paired up during spin-the-bottle, and Lee had to laugh. His derisive head shake caused her to amend her statement, “Okay, it went a little far. But it was just…a show. For Sideburns and his goons?”
“Right,” Lee agreed. She blinked in surprise, dropping her shields enough to look at him as he rounded the corner of his desk. Crossing the room in three quick strides, he had her outflanked before she was even aware he was coming. “So? If you sleep okay at night, why are you avoiding me?”
Her brow furrowed and her mouth had a sourball pucker when she said, “I’m not. I sat next to you at lunch.”
“And said three words, ‘pass the salt’…No wait, four words. ‘Pass the salt, sir.’”
“You want to discuss the weather? It’s mostly sunless today with an 80 percent chance of black holes tomorrow.”
“And the day after that is the Dionysia.”
The date was still significant to her. Head tilted to rest against the door, she closed her eyes and sighed with so much bitter resignation, he winced. “Same old, Lee.”
“Some things never change,” he said. He watched the pulse in her throat, counting heartbeats. At ten, he spoke again. “I just thought…something had. My mistake?”
“I’m busy.”
She might have been turning him down, but Lee decided not to take it that way. “I noticed,” he said. “The nuggets are complaining about your rigorous new training schedule. Your Viper has been field stripped and refitted.” He inclined his head toward his desk. “And you’ve flown three extra rotations this week.”
“I don’t trust the deserters,” she began and then faltered as Lee pulled a strand of her hair free and twirled it between his fingers. She reproached him with darting, stinging glances. “Just because they bailed on the Pegasus doesn’t mean…” Her hand fanned his away as if he were a bothersome gnat. “Stop doing that.”
“Kara,” he savored her name, letting it melt in his mouth. “Trust me.”
Head cocked he bent his knees until he could peer into her downcast eyes. She squirmed uncomfortably, pressing her shoulders into the door as if hoping to sink through it.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
“Don’t what, Kara? Step over the line?” He moved closer, until they were belly to belly. “Do we still have a line?”
“Don’t ask again,” she said, rushing too many words out on a single breath, “The Feast of Dionysus doesn’t matter. Caprica is a rock anyway, and I can’t give you what you want.”
“You can’t seem to give me the watch hour. You’ve barely said five sentences to me in the last three days, and all of them ended in sir.” He studied her, memorizing the planes and lines and shifting expressions on her face. “I’m not asking you for much. We got off the Pegasus without a scratch. We have extra pilots. We have new ships on the line. We have down time coming. I want to spend that time with you. What is it you want?”
“Oh, Gods of Kobol,” she prayed, earnestly, as if truly hoping they would vaporize him or the door behind her.
He could see her desire, needing voice, struggling to break free. She fought it down, swallowed hard against it. Lee knew she wouldn't ask him for the one thing he’d always denied her. But he had hoped for an opening to make the suggestion himself. Her eyes filled with diamonds, sparkling sharply. After a pause, during which her jaw worked furiously but she said nothing, Lee changed his plan of attack. Without straying out of her personal space, he shifted to one side, inviting her into the room.
“I thought we might spend a few minutes going over the applicant list for new pilots.”
A tiny sigh escaped her and she visibly relaxed. Lee had to clench his hands into fists to keep them off of her.
“If you give me the list I’ll get back to you in a…”
“We can go over it now. Pull up a chair.”
“I have students waiting,” she said.
Making her bid for freedom, she ducked past him. As her fingers closed around the door handle, his arm shot out to block her escape. The bold aggression caused Kara to stiffen and inhale sharply. Her hand dropped to her holster. Lee hoped she wouldn’t shoot him. Perhaps to forestall that, he leaned into her back, resting his chin on her shoulder as he brought his other arm up and loosely embraced her. Taking his weight on his forearm, he slid his hand across in front of her, until the back of it pillowed her forehead.
His mouth brushed along the outer curve of her ear as he whispered, “Let them wait.”
Kara scrunched around between his body and the door, finding maneuvering difficult in the small space. Since he refused to back off, even a little, she made all kinds of erotic contact while turning to face him. The lift of her chin brought her parted lips within a few centimeters of his. He was close enough to catch the tremor in her lashes as she searched his eyes for some sign only she could read. Lee knew his soul was laid bare for her. It hurt to let her go so deep but he captured and held her gaze, feeling the deck shift under his boots like beach sand pulled by an outgoing tide.
The temptation was just too great. He kissed her hard and without apology, tipping her head into his cushioning hand, urging her mouth open. Her resistance dissolved like spun sugar on his lips. Her warming body, molded to his. When his tongue glided over hers, she couldn’t get close enough. Her hands clutched at his bare arms, his collarbone. She clung to him as if he were her anchor in a spinning sea. Her fingers explored the corded muscle in his neck, the planes of his face. She held him clasped between her palms, fingertips gently massaging, keeping time with every thrust and twist of his tongue.
When the need to breathe forced them apart, she gulped his name and Lee let go of the door handle to tighten his arm around her waist. She didn’t try to escape again, didn’t even try to open distance between them. Her fingers tugged through his hair. Her nose pressed into his cheek.
Lee stroked the sensitive skin at the small of her back and caressed the nape of her neck. He circled his hands, pushing and pulling at her tank, until the satin skin above her navel was exposed. Like a supplicant, he dropped to his knees, mouth and hands worshiping the slopes and curves of her. He unfastened the clip of her fly, causing her breath to catch.
“Frak,” she gasped. And there it was, his opening.
“We can do that,” he managed to say a second before the ‘action stations” call sounded through the ship.
********************************************************
“No, you can’t.”
“Come on. Why not?”
Kara’s skin glowed as Lee sent a challenging smirk across the card table. A pang twisted low in her gut. Prickling heat raced along her inner thighs and outer arms. She shifted in her chair, trying to alleviate the building pressure. Gods, he was going to kill her with the wanting. She did her best to meet his eye without giving the game away, without thinking about his mouth, his hands, and what he’d done with both earlier in his ready room. Bickering had become their way of coping with the public scrutiny. Privately, they’d managed to squeeze in a lot of mutual agreement but so far, no mutual orgasms.
“Because…,” she purred after pressing her lips together to control her smile, “you can’t use it like that.”
“Sure I can. All it takes is a little flexible thinking.”
“Flexibility has nothing to do with it,” Kara said. She laid down a set, to a chorus of disappointed groans from her fellow players, and raked in the pot. “The context is all wrong.”
“You’re just saying that because you can’t see the big picture.”
“I see the big picture. And in the,” cigar smoldering, she air-quoted him, “big picture I ended up needing a cold shower because you bounced too soon.”
Mousie “Mousetrap” Ayala, the youngest of the new recruits, gurgled in surprise. She tried to catch Helo’s eye but he had just been dealt three over cards and was intent on his hand. Helo and Mousie had been watching Lee and Kara volley the conversational ball back and forth for the last few minutes. But until now they’d had no idea what the contested topic was. As the light dawned, Mousie couldn’t help recalling Kara’s ebullient mood that morning. Yesterday had been the Dionysia back on Caprica, when rules were meant to be broken. Lots of people were smiling today. But surely Lieutenant Thrace and the C.A.G. hadn’t gotten together. It was against regulations.
Lee swatted Agathon’s shoulder. “Back me up here, Helo. Doesn’t ‘burning the pipe’ sound like something you’d do in bed?”
“Don’t drag me into your,” Helo began only to be cut off by Kara.
“No.” she said, firmly. She admonished Lee with the two fingers clenching her cigar and repeated, “No. Mousie, back me up. Tell these two ancients what burning the pipe really means.”
“Hitting the throttle too hard, sir,” Mousetrap said.
“There ya’ go.” Lee indicated Mousetrap with one hand as if she were exhibit A in his defense. He grinned wickedly, adding, “It’s all about thrust.”
“You think?”
Kara’s casual question carried enough spin to be flat out suggestive and Lee had to duck his head. The eye contact was getting too hot. He took a breather, occupying his mind by sorting and counting his remaining cubits.
“I’m in,” he said, finally.
Head back, throat exposed, Kara listened to his money hit the pot. She rubbed her fingers along her brow as if fighting sinus pain. Her cigar drew a complicated pattern of smoke. The gray haze swirled to the ceiling.
When he could speak without drawing anyone’s attention to his erection, Lee conceded her point.
“Now, that you mention it,” he said, “I believe yawl and roll come into the equation somewhere.” Helo nearly spilled from his chair laughing.
“Yeah, there’s definitely yawl,” Kara murmured.
Leaning forward to push a few cubits around, she calculated her pot odds. Lee tried not to look, but the devil on his shoulder forced his line of sight to drop until he had an unobstructed view down the front of her tank. Her enigmatic smile told him she knew he was looking.
“Mousie, what do we know about the nugget that burned pipe?”
“She’s a real rough wash, sir, likely to shoot her shade or overshoot the trap.”
“Shoot her shade?” Helo inquired.
“Discharge her weapon into space, sir,” Mousie explained, blushing a little under his focused attention. “Overreact. Mistake her own shadow for an enemy?”
“Ah,” Helo nodded. “Spook the toasters.” As he provided the anachronistic term from his own flight school years, he locked eyes with Lee. They both raised a brow, the irony of the obsolete phrase striking them at the same time.
“Exactly,” Kara mumbled around her cigar before plucking the smelly thing from her mouth and grinding it out on a used plate. “And ‘rough wash’ is tragically incompetent. So, what you were telling the enemy was I found your lovemaking,” she took time out to stab a glare at the sputtering Helo and then returned her attention to Lee, ticking off items on her fingers, “too fast, too hard and generally inept.” She smiled brightly. “But if you want to go with that…”
Her expression was so cocky Lee felt a twitch in his groin. “Okay, okay, you win.” Tossing his worthless cards into the slush pile, he raised both hands in mock surrender. “It was a stupid thing to say.”
“Nearly got us busted.”
“Nearly, but not. So, no harm done. Sideburns let us walk out of there, and since he went down with the Pegasus, it’s not like he’s going to ruin my reputation.”
“Your reputation?” Kara squeaked. She tapped her breastbone with two fingers. “It’s my reputation at stake.”
“Do you even have a reputation, Captain Adama?” Mousetrap asked meekly, sending Helo into snickering apoplexy and inspiring Kara to high-five her cadet. Gratified Mousie accepted the salute but then, struck by the simmering magnificence of the C.A.G., lowered her eyes and mumbled, “Sorry, sir.”
“Apparently, not the one I’d hoped for,” Lee said. He glanced at Agathon. “The legendary Starbuck is worried about her reputation.”
“I’ve got standards.”
Lee made an open-handed appeal to Helo.
Helo shrugged. “Sorry, Captain. But she does.” A smirking Kara managed to look both smug and self-effacing. “Starbuck might have a bounce in every port but she can’t frak…just anybody.”
“First,” Lee clarified. “We weren’t actually doing anything. It was all a lie. So it shouldn’t affect anyone’s reputation. And second, I’m not just anybody. I’m the C.A.G.”
“Rank is not the issue,” Kara said, primly.
“I see,” Lee drawled. He considered her narrowly for a heartbeat or two, a small smile playing on his lips. “You say that now…” He let the insinuation fade away and then asked, “What can we do to save your reputation?”
Suddenly aware of her restrictive clothes, Kara shot him a mischievous glance, partially veiled by lowered lashes. It warmed Lee to his bones and for a brief moment he forgot they were in public. His grin widened.
“Hard to say,” she began. “We could start by building up yours and then…”
“If only Anders were here,” Helo interrupted, chuckling. “You could call him as a material witness.”
Kara’s face went ashy white and she jerked in her seat. A perplexed Lee watched her straighten out of her sensual slouch and knew she was expecting trouble. Fear clouded her eyes as she turned toward Helo. Preoccupied as he was by his own private fantasies, Lee hadn’t been listening to Helo's banter. But when he saw Kara give a warning shake of her head his attention snapped back to the here-and-now. Unfortunately, Helo was looking at Lee and missed Kara’s signal.
“Anders?” Lee prompted, his curious gaze sliding from the stricken Kara to the good humored Agathon.
“The resistance leader on Caprica,” Helo explained. “The whole planet blown to hell and back and Kara still manages to find a hard bounce.” Something shard-sharp glittered in the back of Lee’s eyes but he didn’t react. Helo, however, sensed the chill in the air and, thinking about Sharon, took it personally. “Not that she was frakking on duty, sir. Or I have any room to talk.”
“Then why don’t you shut up, Helo,” Kara growled.
It took Helo a moment to register her hand tugging at his sleeve. He noticed it just as he realized Apollo’s ire wasn’t directed at him. Puzzled he followed Lee’s icy glare to Kara who was sitting very still, chin lowered to her chest. His eyes dropped to her hand, gripping his sleeve. He watched her slowly release her hold. Her arm slid off the table and into her lap and then resurfaced as she nervously repositioned a few cards in her hand.
“Oh,” Helo mouthed. And then he started backpedaling. “Or, I could be totally wrong,” he said. “In fact, come to think of it…one of the refugees mentioned that Anders is gay. So, I guess there wasn’t anything going on betwee…”
“Shut-up Helo,” Kara repeated, quietly, and he faded into silence.
“No,” Lee ground out through tightly clenched teeth. “This is fascinating.” His snobbish, almost indifferent, sneer spit venom at Kara. “Really. Legendary.”
Mousetrap saw Kara flinch and burned with sudden anger. Forgetting her place in the ranks, she snapped, “So what if she’s popular? What’s it to you?”
“Popular?” Lee returned, bitterly. “Nice way of putting it.” It was his deal. His snatch at the cards sent them scattering across the table. Stacking them up again with anal-retentive fury, he handed the deck to Mousetrap and pushed away from the table. He spoke with vicious evenness. “It’s nothing to me. And I have paperwork to do. So if you will all excuse me.”
Kara lifted her chin in time to see him pulling his jacket from a chair back. She couldn’t believe the sudden change in his mood. Surely, Lee understood by now that Anders didn’t, that nobody really did, pose a threat to him. Okay, she liked the man, found some comfort in his arms. But come on. Lee didn’t look at her as he turned to leave. Kara rose partway from her chair. She took one last regretful glance at her cards and then mucked the winning hand.
As she pushed past Helo she shoved his shoulder and grunted, “Thank you so much.”
“I thought…,” Helo began but he was speaking to thin air. Kara was gone. He looked across at Mousetrap and finished his thought. “It was a lie, right? To fool Cain’s goons? Just an act.” Mousetrap gave him a pitying look. Helo rolled his head around until he could see out the open hatch. “You don’t think they’re really having it on, do you?”
*********************************************
“Lee, will you just…hold on,” Kara panted. Matching her pace to his, she was close to jogging. Catching him without running was out of the question. She had to dodge and duck around people in the crowded corridor just to keep him in sight. “Lee?”
When her quarry stopped suddenly she crashed into him. He spun, catching her upper arm in a vicious grip, and yanked her into an alcove. “What?” he snarled. Kara was happy to see he was breathing as heavily as she was.
“Helo was just…”
“Just what? Joking? Tell me he was joking, Kara. You know I’ll believe it, right?" He released his grip on her with a flourish that was almost a shove. It staggered her a little as he said, "I always believe you.”
She couldn’t bear his scrutiny and turned her face away. He stared at the shell curl of her ear, watched her swallow before she said, “I’m not going to lie about it, Lee.”
“You’re not?” he said, feigning surprise. “You lied about it this morning, Kara. You’ve lied about it every time we kissed. Every time you said my name. You’ve lied to me every day since you got back from Caprica.”
“I didn’t tell you. That’s not the same as lying.”
“You knew what I would think,” Lee said in a low rumble. “How I would feel. So you kept it to yourself. Let me go on imagining you’d missed me the way I’d…” His voice cracked and, biting his bottom lip, he stopped speaking. He stared past her shoulder into the open corridor.
“Anders didn’t mean anything to me,” Kara said, softly.
“No.” His mocking laugh was mirthless. “Just like I don’t mean anything to you. We’re both,” he stabbed a finger toward the hanger bay, “Cylon kills painted on the side of your ship.”
Her head snapped around so their eyes met in a blaze of energy. “How can you even…?” She changed gears mid-sentence. “I don’t owe you anything. I never promised you anything.” When he didn’t answer she went on. “You’re not my first man, Lee. Hell,” she said, bitterly, “You’re not even my first Adama.”
It was exactly the wrong thing to say. And as soon as the words left her lips, she regretted them. Lee’s face crumpled as the blow hit him. He put a hand to the wall, his jaw clenching against the pain. His molten gaze dropped until it was drilling a hole to her heart.
“Don’t…” he warned.
But Kara knew she'd already gone too far “That’s it isn’t? That’s your problem? This isn’t about Anders. It’s about Zak.”
****************************************************
They were both back on Caprica, huddled in the corner of a room little larger than the Galactica alcove. Lee was pressing her for an answer she couldn’t give. He held her hand close to his heart, his fingers worrying at the ring on her thumb. It was all either of them could do not to kiss, not to get lost in one another. There were people in the other room, Zak and a few mutual friends, sleeping off their pre-eclipse excesses.
“Just meet me tomorrow,” Kara pleaded under her breath, “for the Dionysia. My last taste of freedom…it’s traditional.”
“It’s illegal. I’m Zak’s brother.”
“Nobody needs to know.”
“We’ll know." Lee cut his glance toward the door. "And Zak should know.”
“You can’t mean to hurt him…”
“Break the banns,” Lee whispered. The desperation in his voice was the only excuse he could offer for even thinking such a thing. He pulled her closer, burying his face in her hair, breathing in her scent.
Kara felt her knees buckling and pushed against his chest until he released her. Eyes glistening with unshed tears, she said, “You know I can’t. I love Zak. And I promised…”
“Promised? You’re going to ruin all our lives so you can keep a promise you never should have made?”
“Don’t overreact, Lee. You always…” She weakened, unable to finish her sentence, unable to hurt him anymore than she had to. “I’m sorry.”
Lee’s pain was palpable. “How are we going to do this? We can’t do this.”
“You’re shipping out. I’m staying here. It will get easier. In a year or two…”
“A year?”
“Or two.”
“Why not ten, Kara?” Lee’s hurt confusion nearly brought her back into his arms. Her hand stole up to caress his cheek but he shied from her touch. If only he would give in to the physical, maybe they could move past this. But he wouldn’t take what she could readily give him. He wanted the ring off. “Am I going to come to the family reunions? See you playing the happy wife to my own brother? Am I going to balance your kids on my knee?”
“Yes,” Kara insisted. “Because this,” she pointed at him and then herself, “isn’t real.”
Lee didn’t think he’d heard her properly. He recoiled, shaking his head. “It’s not…? Not real?”
“It’s Eros. Sex. Heat. If you would just meet me…this one time, you would see…”
“I’m not going to indulge some sick Dionysia fantasy…break the law…for what? A soft bounce before shipping out?”
“But you want me to give up my future…and Zak’s?"
"I want you to admit you made a mistake."
"I didn't. This is some kind of test, Lee. It has to be.”
***********************************************
She’d believed that. She really had. The Gods had been testing her, tempting her.
Since childhood she’d prayed, without hope of an answer, for a home and family of her very own. She’d dreamed of a man she could love without fear, someone like Zak Adama. And Aphrodite had delivered him. Zak had been everything Kara could wish for in a husband. He’d been safe and kind. Tender in bed and sensitive to her moods, he’d cherished her. They’d read poetry to one another, made love in fields of flowers. She hadn’t deserved him but she’d been determined to make him happy. And then, she’d met his brother.
At first sight, Lee had looked like the sort of hot-shot, arrogant asshole she despised, humorless and obnoxiously confident. The sort of man she liked to frak once and leave behind. And yet, he’d introduced her to the concept of respect. She’d never really respected anyone before, not her parents, not her superior officers, not even Zak. But Lee had a steady hand on the trigger and a natural self-assurance she couldn’t help admiring. He never seemed to quaver with doubt, never backed away from her anger. Maybe he was just as crazy as she was. Certainly, he came as close as anyone ever had to out-flying her.
As she came to know him better, Kara began to see tiny cracks in his Apollonian façade. She was privy to his insecurities, the sensitivities he hid so well from the rest of the world. He smiled often in her presence, dazzling her with boyish charm. A speaking glance from him was enough to bring a heated blush to her cheek. He’d dropped in often to see Zak, and then he’d started visiting her when Zak was away, finding silly reasons to stop by. He took great pride in his ability to tease her out of her black moods. Before long, she couldn’t seem to stop touching him.
“Are they still testing you?” Lee said, bringing her back to the present. She blinked, only half comprehending. “The Gods,” he prompted, upper lip curling in distain. “Are they still using me to make a cosmic point about your sins?”
It was harder than ever to ignore the depth of feeling in his eyes or the passion he stirred in her. It was harder than ever to justify keeping Zak’s ring on her thumb. Years apart hadn’t cooled her ardor for Lee, and their recent physical encounters had only multiplied her cravings. She wanted him in every imaginable way. She’d been a fool to believe one frak was all it would take to be rid of him.
She was more to him than a lustful fantasy. Lee Adama loved her. He’d said so…with his eyes, with his hands, and ever so softly under his breath. Kara knew the Gods worked in mysterious ways. They’d sent her to Zak. But it was nearly impossible, with the end of the world behind them, for Kara to believe she’d passed their test when she’d chosen Zak’s secure affection over Lee’s simmering devotion.
But knowing wasn’t enough. She was still afraid of making the right choice. She’d lost so much. Good things seemed to slip through her fingers, and she couldn’t bear to lose Lee again. So, instead of reassuring him, she sighed.
“Looks like,” she said, “I just don’t get what that point is anymore.”
Disappointment in every hard line of his face, he said, “Maybe it’s not you they’re punishing.” Then, he stepped over the threshold and let the traffic in the hallway take him from her.
Kara didn’t follow him this time. There was nothing else for her to say.
Nothing but the thing he wanted to hear…that she’d always loved him best.
THE END
Hoping to hear from you all soon. And yes, I've started the next one.
Rae
By Rabid1st
BSG – K/L
RATING: +14
BETA BABES: Dualbunny and Winter_Queen82
SPOILERS: I know nothing…but I have seen S2 to Pegasus. So…all of that.
SUMMARY: Lee continues to misuse nugget slang and misunderstand Kara. This is a sequel to Burn the Pipe…a much more angsty sequel.
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own these characters. They belong to Ron Moore, the SciFi Channel and other shareholders I am not familiar with…point is I’m not going to ask for compensation I’m not allowed to get. Don’t even try to compensate me. Talk to the hand.
Eight days after getting caught with Kara on a desktop. Six days after freeing his father. Three days after the loss of the Pegasus and most of her crew. Lee Adama finally had a moment to himself. He put the call through and, nursing a mug of strong tea, settled in to wait.
Mouth resting on the cup rim, he inhaled spicy fumes and let his mind wander. He really didn’t want to over think this. Each breath, slowly released, was a meditation to quiet his pounding pulse. He still had no idea how he was going to broach the significance of the date with Kara. His gaze drifted to the calendar again, to the flashing Dionysia symbol, a partially eclipsed sun.
He heard her coming, sooner than expected. Her cocky stride was unmistakable as it echoed on Galactica’s metal plate. Making an effort to look busy, Lee put his tea aside and bent over his paperwork. His pen scratched on the uneven surface of a too often recycled pad. He crossed a name off the short list of prospective pilots as Kara arrived. She stopped in the open doorway and snapped to attention. He glanced up in time to see her deliver a razor-edged salute.
“You wanted to see me, sir?”
“At ease,” he said with more acid than he’d intended. How dare she treat this like a summons from the CAG? How dare she pretend there was nothing between them?
People bottlenecked in the hall to stare, as surprised as Lee by Kara’s overt display of military correctness. He set his pen down on the clipboard, pushed both aside and stood. An unconscious nervousness had him adjusting his jacket, but Kara stood unmoving. For a moment neither one of them showed so much as a glimmer of emotion, and then Lee looked away.
Chilled, he reached for his tea. “Come in, Lieutenant, and for the Lords’ sake close the frakking door.”
Obediently, she stepped across the office threshold, pulling the door behind her so it clanged shut. Her spine was ramrod stiff, giving nothing away, but her fingers fumbled with the pressure locks. Lee felt a brief surge of triumph. He hadn’t asked her to lock the door. And he hoped the tremor meant she wasn’t as indifferent as she’d like him to believe. Door secured, she sighed audibly and then pivoted to face him. He tried to catch her eye, but her gaze skimmed his like a dragonfly dancing over a pond.
He swept a too warm appraisal from her shiny, severely restrained hair to her serviceable flight suit boots. Her nipples were visibly hard under her soft tank. The tank rode high, showing a sliver of skin at her beltline. She filled the small room with her signature scent, sex and cigars. Was there anything more intoxicating on the entire ship? Lee’s blue eyes sparked and his smile tightened.
“You came straight off the line?”
“You’re the C.A.G., sir. I come when you call.”
“Yeah,” Lee said softly, “About that.” He tapped a blue folder, one of many on his littered desk. “I still need to sign off on your reassignment. Technically, you’re not one of my pilots.”
Her mind went right to the corollary. Lee could tell by the way her tongue tip darted out to glide over her already moistened lips.
“Not that protocol has ever been our strong suit,” he went on, “Until recently. What’s going on, Kara?”
She stared straight ahead as she said, “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
“With us? Your new found attention to military procedure? Racetrack thinks you lost a bet.” He lifted his line of sight to target her with a piercing look as he added, “Colonel Tigh thinks we’re sleeping together.”
“I doubt that, sir.”
Lee shrugged a concession. “Well, what he actually said was if he didn’t know we were both emotional cripples he’d think that.”
“Bastard,” Kara spat.
“Ah, there’s the refreshing insolence your superior officers have come to know and love.” Bracing his fingertips on the desk, he leaned toward her to conspiratorially whisper. “And I think what you mean is…discerning bastard.”
Kara frowned in his general direction. “Let’s not make a Colonial case out of this, Lee.”
“Out of what?”
“We kissed.” She made it sound innocent, as if they’d been paired up during spin-the-bottle, and Lee had to laugh. His derisive head shake caused her to amend her statement, “Okay, it went a little far. But it was just…a show. For Sideburns and his goons?”
“Right,” Lee agreed. She blinked in surprise, dropping her shields enough to look at him as he rounded the corner of his desk. Crossing the room in three quick strides, he had her outflanked before she was even aware he was coming. “So? If you sleep okay at night, why are you avoiding me?”
Her brow furrowed and her mouth had a sourball pucker when she said, “I’m not. I sat next to you at lunch.”
“And said three words, ‘pass the salt’…No wait, four words. ‘Pass the salt, sir.’”
“You want to discuss the weather? It’s mostly sunless today with an 80 percent chance of black holes tomorrow.”
“And the day after that is the Dionysia.”
The date was still significant to her. Head tilted to rest against the door, she closed her eyes and sighed with so much bitter resignation, he winced. “Same old, Lee.”
“Some things never change,” he said. He watched the pulse in her throat, counting heartbeats. At ten, he spoke again. “I just thought…something had. My mistake?”
“I’m busy.”
She might have been turning him down, but Lee decided not to take it that way. “I noticed,” he said. “The nuggets are complaining about your rigorous new training schedule. Your Viper has been field stripped and refitted.” He inclined his head toward his desk. “And you’ve flown three extra rotations this week.”
“I don’t trust the deserters,” she began and then faltered as Lee pulled a strand of her hair free and twirled it between his fingers. She reproached him with darting, stinging glances. “Just because they bailed on the Pegasus doesn’t mean…” Her hand fanned his away as if he were a bothersome gnat. “Stop doing that.”
“Kara,” he savored her name, letting it melt in his mouth. “Trust me.”
Head cocked he bent his knees until he could peer into her downcast eyes. She squirmed uncomfortably, pressing her shoulders into the door as if hoping to sink through it.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
“Don’t what, Kara? Step over the line?” He moved closer, until they were belly to belly. “Do we still have a line?”
“Don’t ask again,” she said, rushing too many words out on a single breath, “The Feast of Dionysus doesn’t matter. Caprica is a rock anyway, and I can’t give you what you want.”
“You can’t seem to give me the watch hour. You’ve barely said five sentences to me in the last three days, and all of them ended in sir.” He studied her, memorizing the planes and lines and shifting expressions on her face. “I’m not asking you for much. We got off the Pegasus without a scratch. We have extra pilots. We have new ships on the line. We have down time coming. I want to spend that time with you. What is it you want?”
“Oh, Gods of Kobol,” she prayed, earnestly, as if truly hoping they would vaporize him or the door behind her.
He could see her desire, needing voice, struggling to break free. She fought it down, swallowed hard against it. Lee knew she wouldn't ask him for the one thing he’d always denied her. But he had hoped for an opening to make the suggestion himself. Her eyes filled with diamonds, sparkling sharply. After a pause, during which her jaw worked furiously but she said nothing, Lee changed his plan of attack. Without straying out of her personal space, he shifted to one side, inviting her into the room.
“I thought we might spend a few minutes going over the applicant list for new pilots.”
A tiny sigh escaped her and she visibly relaxed. Lee had to clench his hands into fists to keep them off of her.
“If you give me the list I’ll get back to you in a…”
“We can go over it now. Pull up a chair.”
“I have students waiting,” she said.
Making her bid for freedom, she ducked past him. As her fingers closed around the door handle, his arm shot out to block her escape. The bold aggression caused Kara to stiffen and inhale sharply. Her hand dropped to her holster. Lee hoped she wouldn’t shoot him. Perhaps to forestall that, he leaned into her back, resting his chin on her shoulder as he brought his other arm up and loosely embraced her. Taking his weight on his forearm, he slid his hand across in front of her, until the back of it pillowed her forehead.
His mouth brushed along the outer curve of her ear as he whispered, “Let them wait.”
Kara scrunched around between his body and the door, finding maneuvering difficult in the small space. Since he refused to back off, even a little, she made all kinds of erotic contact while turning to face him. The lift of her chin brought her parted lips within a few centimeters of his. He was close enough to catch the tremor in her lashes as she searched his eyes for some sign only she could read. Lee knew his soul was laid bare for her. It hurt to let her go so deep but he captured and held her gaze, feeling the deck shift under his boots like beach sand pulled by an outgoing tide.
The temptation was just too great. He kissed her hard and without apology, tipping her head into his cushioning hand, urging her mouth open. Her resistance dissolved like spun sugar on his lips. Her warming body, molded to his. When his tongue glided over hers, she couldn’t get close enough. Her hands clutched at his bare arms, his collarbone. She clung to him as if he were her anchor in a spinning sea. Her fingers explored the corded muscle in his neck, the planes of his face. She held him clasped between her palms, fingertips gently massaging, keeping time with every thrust and twist of his tongue.
When the need to breathe forced them apart, she gulped his name and Lee let go of the door handle to tighten his arm around her waist. She didn’t try to escape again, didn’t even try to open distance between them. Her fingers tugged through his hair. Her nose pressed into his cheek.
Lee stroked the sensitive skin at the small of her back and caressed the nape of her neck. He circled his hands, pushing and pulling at her tank, until the satin skin above her navel was exposed. Like a supplicant, he dropped to his knees, mouth and hands worshiping the slopes and curves of her. He unfastened the clip of her fly, causing her breath to catch.
“Frak,” she gasped. And there it was, his opening.
“We can do that,” he managed to say a second before the ‘action stations” call sounded through the ship.
********************************************************
“No, you can’t.”
“Come on. Why not?”
Kara’s skin glowed as Lee sent a challenging smirk across the card table. A pang twisted low in her gut. Prickling heat raced along her inner thighs and outer arms. She shifted in her chair, trying to alleviate the building pressure. Gods, he was going to kill her with the wanting. She did her best to meet his eye without giving the game away, without thinking about his mouth, his hands, and what he’d done with both earlier in his ready room. Bickering had become their way of coping with the public scrutiny. Privately, they’d managed to squeeze in a lot of mutual agreement but so far, no mutual orgasms.
“Because…,” she purred after pressing her lips together to control her smile, “you can’t use it like that.”
“Sure I can. All it takes is a little flexible thinking.”
“Flexibility has nothing to do with it,” Kara said. She laid down a set, to a chorus of disappointed groans from her fellow players, and raked in the pot. “The context is all wrong.”
“You’re just saying that because you can’t see the big picture.”
“I see the big picture. And in the,” cigar smoldering, she air-quoted him, “big picture I ended up needing a cold shower because you bounced too soon.”
Mousie “Mousetrap” Ayala, the youngest of the new recruits, gurgled in surprise. She tried to catch Helo’s eye but he had just been dealt three over cards and was intent on his hand. Helo and Mousie had been watching Lee and Kara volley the conversational ball back and forth for the last few minutes. But until now they’d had no idea what the contested topic was. As the light dawned, Mousie couldn’t help recalling Kara’s ebullient mood that morning. Yesterday had been the Dionysia back on Caprica, when rules were meant to be broken. Lots of people were smiling today. But surely Lieutenant Thrace and the C.A.G. hadn’t gotten together. It was against regulations.
Lee swatted Agathon’s shoulder. “Back me up here, Helo. Doesn’t ‘burning the pipe’ sound like something you’d do in bed?”
“Don’t drag me into your,” Helo began only to be cut off by Kara.
“No.” she said, firmly. She admonished Lee with the two fingers clenching her cigar and repeated, “No. Mousie, back me up. Tell these two ancients what burning the pipe really means.”
“Hitting the throttle too hard, sir,” Mousetrap said.
“There ya’ go.” Lee indicated Mousetrap with one hand as if she were exhibit A in his defense. He grinned wickedly, adding, “It’s all about thrust.”
“You think?”
Kara’s casual question carried enough spin to be flat out suggestive and Lee had to duck his head. The eye contact was getting too hot. He took a breather, occupying his mind by sorting and counting his remaining cubits.
“I’m in,” he said, finally.
Head back, throat exposed, Kara listened to his money hit the pot. She rubbed her fingers along her brow as if fighting sinus pain. Her cigar drew a complicated pattern of smoke. The gray haze swirled to the ceiling.
When he could speak without drawing anyone’s attention to his erection, Lee conceded her point.
“Now, that you mention it,” he said, “I believe yawl and roll come into the equation somewhere.” Helo nearly spilled from his chair laughing.
“Yeah, there’s definitely yawl,” Kara murmured.
Leaning forward to push a few cubits around, she calculated her pot odds. Lee tried not to look, but the devil on his shoulder forced his line of sight to drop until he had an unobstructed view down the front of her tank. Her enigmatic smile told him she knew he was looking.
“Mousie, what do we know about the nugget that burned pipe?”
“She’s a real rough wash, sir, likely to shoot her shade or overshoot the trap.”
“Shoot her shade?” Helo inquired.
“Discharge her weapon into space, sir,” Mousie explained, blushing a little under his focused attention. “Overreact. Mistake her own shadow for an enemy?”
“Ah,” Helo nodded. “Spook the toasters.” As he provided the anachronistic term from his own flight school years, he locked eyes with Lee. They both raised a brow, the irony of the obsolete phrase striking them at the same time.
“Exactly,” Kara mumbled around her cigar before plucking the smelly thing from her mouth and grinding it out on a used plate. “And ‘rough wash’ is tragically incompetent. So, what you were telling the enemy was I found your lovemaking,” she took time out to stab a glare at the sputtering Helo and then returned her attention to Lee, ticking off items on her fingers, “too fast, too hard and generally inept.” She smiled brightly. “But if you want to go with that…”
Her expression was so cocky Lee felt a twitch in his groin. “Okay, okay, you win.” Tossing his worthless cards into the slush pile, he raised both hands in mock surrender. “It was a stupid thing to say.”
“Nearly got us busted.”
“Nearly, but not. So, no harm done. Sideburns let us walk out of there, and since he went down with the Pegasus, it’s not like he’s going to ruin my reputation.”
“Your reputation?” Kara squeaked. She tapped her breastbone with two fingers. “It’s my reputation at stake.”
“Do you even have a reputation, Captain Adama?” Mousetrap asked meekly, sending Helo into snickering apoplexy and inspiring Kara to high-five her cadet. Gratified Mousie accepted the salute but then, struck by the simmering magnificence of the C.A.G., lowered her eyes and mumbled, “Sorry, sir.”
“Apparently, not the one I’d hoped for,” Lee said. He glanced at Agathon. “The legendary Starbuck is worried about her reputation.”
“I’ve got standards.”
Lee made an open-handed appeal to Helo.
Helo shrugged. “Sorry, Captain. But she does.” A smirking Kara managed to look both smug and self-effacing. “Starbuck might have a bounce in every port but she can’t frak…just anybody.”
“First,” Lee clarified. “We weren’t actually doing anything. It was all a lie. So it shouldn’t affect anyone’s reputation. And second, I’m not just anybody. I’m the C.A.G.”
“Rank is not the issue,” Kara said, primly.
“I see,” Lee drawled. He considered her narrowly for a heartbeat or two, a small smile playing on his lips. “You say that now…” He let the insinuation fade away and then asked, “What can we do to save your reputation?”
Suddenly aware of her restrictive clothes, Kara shot him a mischievous glance, partially veiled by lowered lashes. It warmed Lee to his bones and for a brief moment he forgot they were in public. His grin widened.
“Hard to say,” she began. “We could start by building up yours and then…”
“If only Anders were here,” Helo interrupted, chuckling. “You could call him as a material witness.”
Kara’s face went ashy white and she jerked in her seat. A perplexed Lee watched her straighten out of her sensual slouch and knew she was expecting trouble. Fear clouded her eyes as she turned toward Helo. Preoccupied as he was by his own private fantasies, Lee hadn’t been listening to Helo's banter. But when he saw Kara give a warning shake of her head his attention snapped back to the here-and-now. Unfortunately, Helo was looking at Lee and missed Kara’s signal.
“Anders?” Lee prompted, his curious gaze sliding from the stricken Kara to the good humored Agathon.
“The resistance leader on Caprica,” Helo explained. “The whole planet blown to hell and back and Kara still manages to find a hard bounce.” Something shard-sharp glittered in the back of Lee’s eyes but he didn’t react. Helo, however, sensed the chill in the air and, thinking about Sharon, took it personally. “Not that she was frakking on duty, sir. Or I have any room to talk.”
“Then why don’t you shut up, Helo,” Kara growled.
It took Helo a moment to register her hand tugging at his sleeve. He noticed it just as he realized Apollo’s ire wasn’t directed at him. Puzzled he followed Lee’s icy glare to Kara who was sitting very still, chin lowered to her chest. His eyes dropped to her hand, gripping his sleeve. He watched her slowly release her hold. Her arm slid off the table and into her lap and then resurfaced as she nervously repositioned a few cards in her hand.
“Oh,” Helo mouthed. And then he started backpedaling. “Or, I could be totally wrong,” he said. “In fact, come to think of it…one of the refugees mentioned that Anders is gay. So, I guess there wasn’t anything going on betwee…”
“Shut-up Helo,” Kara repeated, quietly, and he faded into silence.
“No,” Lee ground out through tightly clenched teeth. “This is fascinating.” His snobbish, almost indifferent, sneer spit venom at Kara. “Really. Legendary.”
Mousetrap saw Kara flinch and burned with sudden anger. Forgetting her place in the ranks, she snapped, “So what if she’s popular? What’s it to you?”
“Popular?” Lee returned, bitterly. “Nice way of putting it.” It was his deal. His snatch at the cards sent them scattering across the table. Stacking them up again with anal-retentive fury, he handed the deck to Mousetrap and pushed away from the table. He spoke with vicious evenness. “It’s nothing to me. And I have paperwork to do. So if you will all excuse me.”
Kara lifted her chin in time to see him pulling his jacket from a chair back. She couldn’t believe the sudden change in his mood. Surely, Lee understood by now that Anders didn’t, that nobody really did, pose a threat to him. Okay, she liked the man, found some comfort in his arms. But come on. Lee didn’t look at her as he turned to leave. Kara rose partway from her chair. She took one last regretful glance at her cards and then mucked the winning hand.
As she pushed past Helo she shoved his shoulder and grunted, “Thank you so much.”
“I thought…,” Helo began but he was speaking to thin air. Kara was gone. He looked across at Mousetrap and finished his thought. “It was a lie, right? To fool Cain’s goons? Just an act.” Mousetrap gave him a pitying look. Helo rolled his head around until he could see out the open hatch. “You don’t think they’re really having it on, do you?”
*********************************************
“Lee, will you just…hold on,” Kara panted. Matching her pace to his, she was close to jogging. Catching him without running was out of the question. She had to dodge and duck around people in the crowded corridor just to keep him in sight. “Lee?”
When her quarry stopped suddenly she crashed into him. He spun, catching her upper arm in a vicious grip, and yanked her into an alcove. “What?” he snarled. Kara was happy to see he was breathing as heavily as she was.
“Helo was just…”
“Just what? Joking? Tell me he was joking, Kara. You know I’ll believe it, right?" He released his grip on her with a flourish that was almost a shove. It staggered her a little as he said, "I always believe you.”
She couldn’t bear his scrutiny and turned her face away. He stared at the shell curl of her ear, watched her swallow before she said, “I’m not going to lie about it, Lee.”
“You’re not?” he said, feigning surprise. “You lied about it this morning, Kara. You’ve lied about it every time we kissed. Every time you said my name. You’ve lied to me every day since you got back from Caprica.”
“I didn’t tell you. That’s not the same as lying.”
“You knew what I would think,” Lee said in a low rumble. “How I would feel. So you kept it to yourself. Let me go on imagining you’d missed me the way I’d…” His voice cracked and, biting his bottom lip, he stopped speaking. He stared past her shoulder into the open corridor.
“Anders didn’t mean anything to me,” Kara said, softly.
“No.” His mocking laugh was mirthless. “Just like I don’t mean anything to you. We’re both,” he stabbed a finger toward the hanger bay, “Cylon kills painted on the side of your ship.”
Her head snapped around so their eyes met in a blaze of energy. “How can you even…?” She changed gears mid-sentence. “I don’t owe you anything. I never promised you anything.” When he didn’t answer she went on. “You’re not my first man, Lee. Hell,” she said, bitterly, “You’re not even my first Adama.”
It was exactly the wrong thing to say. And as soon as the words left her lips, she regretted them. Lee’s face crumpled as the blow hit him. He put a hand to the wall, his jaw clenching against the pain. His molten gaze dropped until it was drilling a hole to her heart.
“Don’t…” he warned.
But Kara knew she'd already gone too far “That’s it isn’t? That’s your problem? This isn’t about Anders. It’s about Zak.”
****************************************************
They were both back on Caprica, huddled in the corner of a room little larger than the Galactica alcove. Lee was pressing her for an answer she couldn’t give. He held her hand close to his heart, his fingers worrying at the ring on her thumb. It was all either of them could do not to kiss, not to get lost in one another. There were people in the other room, Zak and a few mutual friends, sleeping off their pre-eclipse excesses.
“Just meet me tomorrow,” Kara pleaded under her breath, “for the Dionysia. My last taste of freedom…it’s traditional.”
“It’s illegal. I’m Zak’s brother.”
“Nobody needs to know.”
“We’ll know." Lee cut his glance toward the door. "And Zak should know.”
“You can’t mean to hurt him…”
“Break the banns,” Lee whispered. The desperation in his voice was the only excuse he could offer for even thinking such a thing. He pulled her closer, burying his face in her hair, breathing in her scent.
Kara felt her knees buckling and pushed against his chest until he released her. Eyes glistening with unshed tears, she said, “You know I can’t. I love Zak. And I promised…”
“Promised? You’re going to ruin all our lives so you can keep a promise you never should have made?”
“Don’t overreact, Lee. You always…” She weakened, unable to finish her sentence, unable to hurt him anymore than she had to. “I’m sorry.”
Lee’s pain was palpable. “How are we going to do this? We can’t do this.”
“You’re shipping out. I’m staying here. It will get easier. In a year or two…”
“A year?”
“Or two.”
“Why not ten, Kara?” Lee’s hurt confusion nearly brought her back into his arms. Her hand stole up to caress his cheek but he shied from her touch. If only he would give in to the physical, maybe they could move past this. But he wouldn’t take what she could readily give him. He wanted the ring off. “Am I going to come to the family reunions? See you playing the happy wife to my own brother? Am I going to balance your kids on my knee?”
“Yes,” Kara insisted. “Because this,” she pointed at him and then herself, “isn’t real.”
Lee didn’t think he’d heard her properly. He recoiled, shaking his head. “It’s not…? Not real?”
“It’s Eros. Sex. Heat. If you would just meet me…this one time, you would see…”
“I’m not going to indulge some sick Dionysia fantasy…break the law…for what? A soft bounce before shipping out?”
“But you want me to give up my future…and Zak’s?"
"I want you to admit you made a mistake."
"I didn't. This is some kind of test, Lee. It has to be.”
***********************************************
She’d believed that. She really had. The Gods had been testing her, tempting her.
Since childhood she’d prayed, without hope of an answer, for a home and family of her very own. She’d dreamed of a man she could love without fear, someone like Zak Adama. And Aphrodite had delivered him. Zak had been everything Kara could wish for in a husband. He’d been safe and kind. Tender in bed and sensitive to her moods, he’d cherished her. They’d read poetry to one another, made love in fields of flowers. She hadn’t deserved him but she’d been determined to make him happy. And then, she’d met his brother.
At first sight, Lee had looked like the sort of hot-shot, arrogant asshole she despised, humorless and obnoxiously confident. The sort of man she liked to frak once and leave behind. And yet, he’d introduced her to the concept of respect. She’d never really respected anyone before, not her parents, not her superior officers, not even Zak. But Lee had a steady hand on the trigger and a natural self-assurance she couldn’t help admiring. He never seemed to quaver with doubt, never backed away from her anger. Maybe he was just as crazy as she was. Certainly, he came as close as anyone ever had to out-flying her.
As she came to know him better, Kara began to see tiny cracks in his Apollonian façade. She was privy to his insecurities, the sensitivities he hid so well from the rest of the world. He smiled often in her presence, dazzling her with boyish charm. A speaking glance from him was enough to bring a heated blush to her cheek. He’d dropped in often to see Zak, and then he’d started visiting her when Zak was away, finding silly reasons to stop by. He took great pride in his ability to tease her out of her black moods. Before long, she couldn’t seem to stop touching him.
“Are they still testing you?” Lee said, bringing her back to the present. She blinked, only half comprehending. “The Gods,” he prompted, upper lip curling in distain. “Are they still using me to make a cosmic point about your sins?”
It was harder than ever to ignore the depth of feeling in his eyes or the passion he stirred in her. It was harder than ever to justify keeping Zak’s ring on her thumb. Years apart hadn’t cooled her ardor for Lee, and their recent physical encounters had only multiplied her cravings. She wanted him in every imaginable way. She’d been a fool to believe one frak was all it would take to be rid of him.
She was more to him than a lustful fantasy. Lee Adama loved her. He’d said so…with his eyes, with his hands, and ever so softly under his breath. Kara knew the Gods worked in mysterious ways. They’d sent her to Zak. But it was nearly impossible, with the end of the world behind them, for Kara to believe she’d passed their test when she’d chosen Zak’s secure affection over Lee’s simmering devotion.
But knowing wasn’t enough. She was still afraid of making the right choice. She’d lost so much. Good things seemed to slip through her fingers, and she couldn’t bear to lose Lee again. So, instead of reassuring him, she sighed.
“Looks like,” she said, “I just don’t get what that point is anymore.”
Disappointment in every hard line of his face, he said, “Maybe it’s not you they’re punishing.” Then, he stepped over the threshold and let the traffic in the hallway take him from her.
Kara didn’t follow him this time. There was nothing else for her to say.
Nothing but the thing he wanted to hear…that she’d always loved him best.
THE END
Hoping to hear from you all soon. And yes, I've started the next one.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-04 09:54 am (UTC)The banter in the card game was excellent and so them!
Looking forward to the next part.
farneygirl