ICED part 6/6 for your reading pleasure
Dec. 23rd, 2005 05:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rabid1stICED
By Rabid1st
BSG – K/L
RATING: R for the innuendo
BETA BABES: Dualbunny, Lilith and Winter_Queen82
CLUELESS BETA BABE-LIKE CONTRIBUTER: Skycaia for the Helo dialog.
SPOILERS: I don’t think this fic has spoilers. But there is speculation of the coupling kind based on S2: Flight of the Phoenix.
TECHNICAL RESOURCES: Wikepedia: hypothalamus and Hypothermia.org
SUMMARY: This is a ‘nugget slang’ fic and a sequel to Shoot Your Shade. Which was a sequel to Burn the Pipe. Lee shot his shade (overreacted) last time out when he learned about Anders and dumped Kara cold. Now the path to togetherness is about to be iced.
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own these characters. They belong to the SciFi Channel, R&D and Ron Moore…whose e-mail address I don’t know. So, I can’t really ask him for permission or anything. But I’m not making any money or perks off of these characters…so please don’t sue me.
BURN THE PIPE:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rabid1st/65528.html#cutid1
SHOOT YOUR SHADE:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rabid1st/66968.html#cutid1
PART ONE:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rabid1st/69278.html#cutid1
PART TWO:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rabid1st/69431.html#cutid2
PART THREE:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rabid1st/70767.html#cutid3
PART FOUR:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rabid1st/71427.html#cutid1
PART FIVE
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rabid1st/72408.html#cutid1
PART SIX
Kara woke in stages. She noticed the vibration, first, a barely perceptible sense of movement and immense machinery. It was the rock of the deck under a sailor’s feet, the equivalent of a mother’s heartbeat to a babe in the womb. It reassured her and she sighed a little. Galactica. She was home.
The second thing she noticed was an insistent antiseptic tang overlaying the reprocessed air. Rough linen scratched her cheek and an institutionally uncomfortable pillow offered no balm for her aching head. Minor irritations woke her further. Something was stinging her left arm. Her fingers curled into more of the over-starched bedding. She tried to slap at the stinging thing but got no response from her right arm. She opened her eyes. They were gummy and she had to blink several times to clear them. She couldn’t raise her hands to her face. Glancing down she saw why.
She was lying on her right arm and it had fallen asleep. She couldn’t feel it or make it obey her commands. The room tipped a little as she lifted her head. The stinging in her left arm was from needles in her veins. Thin plastic tubing carried her blood to a machine at the bedside and then returned it to her. She rolled carefully, freeing her right hand. It flapped into the bed railing but she felt nothing. After a moment, a pins and needles sensation started crawling under her skin. To take her mind off the prickliness, she looked around.
She recognized Cottle’s sickbay by the smell, the wretchedly hard beds and the overhead monitors. The Lords knew she’d spent enough time here. Her two-bed enclosure was cut off from the rest of the ship by grey curtains. She turned her head slowly and her wandering gaze fell on the occupant of the other bed. She stilled, staring at him. He was sleeping on his side, curled up under a pale pink blanket. Mouth slack, face unlined in repose and jaw recently shaved, he looked about six years old. But no six year old could inspire such a hot swirling sensation in the center of her being. Only Lee gave her this breathless, weightless feeling. It almost required she cling to him for stability.
She watched Lee for a long time, perfectly content. They were safe. A profound sense of gratitude had her wishing for her idols. She wanted to give proper thanks but she settled for a silent prayer. There was a drowsy, temple-like stillness to the ship. The medical bay was quiet. Every so often, she heard footsteps and saw her curtains ripple but no voices rang out. Kara wondered what day it was. She didn’t need a clock to know they were in the middle of Gray Cycle. Only essential personnel would be working.
After her prayer, Kara focused on Lee. She couldn’t tell if he was hurt. He’d obviously been fit enough to fly them home. And he seemed to be sleeping peacefully but she could see traces of scraped skin and bruises. There was a cut over his eye. Kara's mouth tightened. She took a dim view of the Fates constantly battering that flawless face. It showed a careless disregard.
She had only the vaguest recollection of seeing him in the Raptor. Hallucination seemed to meld with reality. Had there really been a fire? She remembered seeing Zak, speaking to him. Had that been Lee or just something she’d imagined?
“Lee,” she rasped softly. His name grated on the back of her throat like sandpaper. She tried to swallow but had very little saliva. Thirst prodded her and she looked for water. There was a pitcher on Lee’s side of their shared table. “Lee?” she repeated with more urgency. He didn’t stir.
She thought about calling for a nurse but dismissed the idea. There was something intimate about their curtained haven. She didn’t want strangers barging in. Her independent streak surfaced. She could do this. She struggled to a more upright position, pushing with her unfettered arm. The room swirled around her. She ached all over and was firmly tethered to her blood cleansing equipment. Stretched to the limit of her reach, she still couldn’t quite grab the pitcher. While trying to pull the table closer, she noticed its single drawer. Hoping to find some instrument to help her, she opened the drawer and patted around. Her hand sank into a fluffy morass. Startled, she peaked in. The drawer was full of cotton balls.
Struck with sudden inspiration, Kara plucked a few of the balls from the nearest package and hurled them at Lee. They wafted. Some scattered wide and others fell short. Her next barrage had a better trajectory. She took careful aim and managed to hit Lee’s bed with her third assault. Soon he was surrounded by snowy drifts of white cotton. He slept through the storm but Kara kept at her target practice. The effort to smack Lee’s nose with a cotton ball took her mind off her thirst. One of her missiles landed in the cup of his ear. Kara grinned. He had the sexiest ears.
His hand twitched and then rose to flick the cotton ball away. He pulled his blanket up a little, muttering something about spiders. Kara concentrated. Using all of her considerable hand-eye coordination, she skimmed another cotton ball into the same spot. Lee jerked, batting hard at his ear. His eyes flew open and he bucked off the bed. As he settled to the mattress again, his searching gaze fell on Kara.
It took a second or two for his accusatory frown to wane. He didn’t seem to register what he was seeing at first. Kara beamed at him as he rubbed sleep from his eyes with the back of his hand. Her mischievous grin was rewarded with the most beatific smile. Lee's whole face lit up as he focused on her.
“You’re awake,” he breathed, right before she scored a direct hit on his nose.
“Got ya’!”
Stunned by the reception, Lee sat up. The change in his position scattered cotton balls. He stared in disbelief at his drift-covered bed. “What in the name of the second moon are you…?” Biff. Another salvo of fluffy ammunition bounced off him. “Oh…you are just not…”
Poof. She scored his ear again with a single well-aimed shot. Snorting in genial offense, Lee scooped up a handful of cotton balls and returned fire. They spent a few, giddy, giggly minutes pelting one another with fuzz before the night nurse came to break up their party.
***********************************************************
Kara spent the next nine days in sickbay.
While Cottle fretted over her rattling lungs and sporadic fever, Lee returned to light duty. For the first few days, he drifted in and out of the medical bay, spending most of his off hours in the bed or a chair beside her. They didn’t talk about the ice planet or Zak or anything serious. They played cards and a handmade version of Overlord and planned imaginary trips on the Swans. Kara took Lee to the ruins of Troyus and he took her to Arelon’s sweeping plains and the sunny keys of Picon. Lee did his paperwork while Kara dozed.
On the third day of Kara’s recovery Cottle assured Lee she wasn’t going to slip back into the fog and Lee knew it was time to go see his father.
Clutching a sheaf of papers and two report folders in a white-knuckled grip, he stood outside Commander Adama’s quarters, trying to work up his nerve for the conversation ahead. He took a deep breath and immediately regretted it. Cottle had released him to light duty but his ribs were very tender. Still, a few broken bones weren’t enough to stop him from doing the right thing. He’d put off this conversation as long as he could. His fingers stretched for the doorbell and pressed it.
“It’s open.”
The gravelly voice took Lee back to his childhood in a flash. He associated it with stern lectures in the library. With his fingers curled around the door handle, he hesitated. His stomach churned up bile and he called himself a coward. His father wasn’t the stern disciplinarian Lee’d once thought him. This would probably go better than he was expecting. The door flew open, catching him off guard.
“I said, ‘it’s open’,” Commander Adama barked into Lee’s face.
“Yes, sir,” Lee said. “Sorry, sir, I was…”
“Wool gathering?” his father finished with an indulgent smile.
‘As if,’ Lee thought, ‘I really am still a child.’
“Thinking,” he corrected sharply, angrier with himself than he was with his father.
Adama shook his head over the needless bristling. “Come in, Lee,” he sighed. Taking his son’s elbow, he guided him across the threshold before turning back to his mirror. “It’s good to see you up and around. I was just dressing. Give me a minute.” He was already in uniform but he had to finish closing his collar and fastening on his brass. As he worked, he studied his son in the glass. “You’re out early.”
“I wanted to get you the mission report. Sorry, I didn’t have it for you yesterday.”
His father waved a dismissive hand. “You were hurt. Cottle tells me I won’t have you on the line for a week or more. Take all the time you need. I don’t want you out there until you can hold the turn.” He met Lee’s eye in the mirror as he asked, “How’s Kara today?”
“Better. But not…”
“Not where we’d like her to be?” Lee nodded and his father sighed. Frowning, he rubbed his palm along his jaw, checking the smoothness of his shave. Satisfied, he turned to face Lee. “I didn’t mention it earlier but I’m very proud of what you did, son. For her. And the Fleet.”
“Thank you, sir,” Lee said, dropping his gaze. Praise from his father always felt like expectation, as if a new bar was being set just beyond Lee’s reach. His downcast eyes fell on the paperwork in his hands.
His father also focused on the reports. Heading for his desk, he held out a hand. “You have an analysis of mission losses?”
“Yes, sir,” Stiffening his spine and leveling his shoulders, Lee passed him the stack of papers. “We’ve lost two Raptors. And Garrett and Collins, of course.”
The commander nodded solemnly. He settled into his chair and waved a hand at the seat opposite as he took his glasses out of their case. Putting them on, he read the top sheet of the report.
“Memorial services can be arranged for Blue Cycle tomorrow?” He glanced up at Lee, who nodded his agreement. “How are Agathon, Linds and…?” He turned a few sheets over and read the name off of the report, “Billingsley? Do you know her? She deserted off the Pegasus crew. Volunteered for this mission.”
“Not well, sir,” Lee said, settling into the offered chair “Linds, as you know, is our light ordinance specialist for the C.A.P. He’ll be a hard man to replace."
"Check with Tyrol. He's got feelers out with the fleet for ground crew. Might know of someone."
"I've already done that, sir. I don't want to rush things. Cottle doesn’t think Linds will make it but there is always a chance. We know Billingsley is going to be medically discharged. I’ve started the pension paperwork. Their Raptor is scrap. It’s a wonder they made it back at all.”
“We had to pick them up. But by the time we got a seal…” Adama uncurled the fingers of his right hand to indicate how hopeless it had been. Fisting the hand again, he sighed and then adjusted his glasses to resume reading. “I’ll want to meet with Billingsley when she’s feeling up to it. Can you schedule that?” Lee pulled a small pad from his pants pocket and made a note. “Do you have any details on their mission?”
“Only that they were successful, sir. Colonel Tigh tells me Agathon and Gaeta were not. And, of course, we have no way of knowing about the other Raptor.”
“Long range scans indicate they were shot down on approach. Luckily, you and Kara succeeded.” Adama smiled tightly as he amended, “You succeeded.”
“Yes, sir. I put as much of the detail as I could remember in the second report.” Lee pointed at the yellow folder but his gaze slipped to the pile of papers beneath his father’s right hand. “Is there anything else I can tell you about the ready status of the fighters?”
“Not just now,” Adama said, easing back a little in his chair. “After I read over the reports, I’ll get back to you.” He glanced at the other papers, shifting the stack with his fingertips. “What else do we have here?”
“A consolation letter needs your signature. No family for anyone but Garrett. He has a cousin in the fleet.” He watched his father sign the bottom of the letter and turn to the next sheet. “There are a few supply side issues. Nothing urgent. And two requests for fraternization waivers.” An apprehensive chill raised the hair on Lee’s arms. He swallowed hard but sat up a little straighter as he casually announced, “Kat has a new boyfriend.”
“Another one,” Adama chuckled. “That’s five, right? Has she rescinded any of the previous waivers?”
“Not that I know of,” Lee said with a wide grin, momentarily distracted from the coming storm. “I think she’s starting her own club.”
“Well, as long as she’s not using stims to keep her energy levels up…” Adama said, adding his name with a flourish to the signature line. “And the other request…” He picked the paper up and stared at it for a moment, frowning as he reread the names. Then he laughed hollowly, “Very funny,” he said, tossing the paper negligently toward Lee. “Is this payback for my meddling over Dee?”
“No, sir,” Lee said, secretly proud of his steady eye and voice. “I intend to start seeing Lt. Thrace.”
“You intend to…?” Bill Adama didn’t know which part of that sentence he found the most offensive. His brow furrowed. “If this is a joke it has stopped being funny.” Lee’s clear blue stare cut right through him. Furious, he stabbed an aggressive middle finger at the fraternization request. “You seriously came here to ask my permission to frak your brother’s wife?”
“They were never married.”
“Because Zak died,” Adama reminded viciously. He winced away from his own declaration. Breathing heavily, he whipped off his glasses. “You can’t tell me, Kara encouraged you in this…this… disgraceful…”
“Kara doesn’t know I’m here.”
“That, at least, is something. What can you possibly be thinking? The banns were read. Signed. Witnessed. Posted.” He stood and pointed toward the sickbay. “She’s your sister, legally and morally a member of this family. And what you are asking is not only illegal it’s…frankly...disturbing.”
“Under Caprican law,” Lee stressed, “She’s my sister. You know as well as I do that if we’d lived on Arelon I would have been forced to marry her when Zak died. It’s all a matter of perspective.”
“You weren’t born on Arelon,” his father snapped, circling the desk to tower over Lee. “Though right at this moment I wish you had been born to anyone but me.”
Lee shot out of his chair and faced off with his father. “Caprica,” he snarled, “Is a charred rock. Its laws are meaningless. We don’t have the luxury of puritanical morality. In case you hadn’t noticed, sir, there aren’t a lot of people left. And Kara and I have a chance very few people ever get….”
“A chance to disgrace your family name, your brother’s memory?” Adama interrupted. “If you are throwing out the law why stop with Caprica? Why don’t we throw out military law while we’re at it? Why bother putting on your uniform in the morning?”
“I’ve asked myself that question, sir.”
“And I never have,” Adama countered. He snatched the fraternization request off his desk and, wadding it into a ball, threw it at Lee’s feet. “If you mean to disregard the law, Captain, then you don’t need my permission to do whatever it is you plan on doing.”
They glared at one another, equally stiff-necked and certain of their positions. Lee blinked first, more from habit than lack of conviction. Jaw rigidly tense, he let his eyes slide to the right and stood at attention, staring unseeingly at the far wall. When he could manage it he ground out a terse, “Thank you for your consideration of the matter, sir. If there’s nothing else?”
Seeing the pain on his son’s face, Adama’s heart softened. He modulated his tone a little as he asked, “Lee? What’s brought this on? What the hell happened out there?”
Lee shifted to meet his father’s eye again. “Kara died,” he said simply. “I got her back and then almost lost her again.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I can’t keep losing her.”
Searching his son’s face for some clue to his thoughts Adama shook his head. “I’ve never understood you,” he said.
“No, sir,” Lee agreed. “Am I free to go?”
The Commander pleaded silently with him for a moment and then stepped back, lowering his chin. “Dismissed,” he murmured. Turning heel to toe, Lee stepped around his father and crossed to the door. As he opened it to leave Adama said, “I can’t allow this. If I find out you’ve acted on your feelings I will transfer one of you to another ship.”
There was a long pause and then Lee said, “Understood.”
***************************************************************
By day four Kara was bored. When Lee left to supervise the flight rotation, Cottle took care of her ennui by asking her if she wanted to press charges.
“For what?”
“Right,” Cottle nodded in response to her incredulous expression. “I didn’t think so. But I have to ask or someone might start questioning my ethics.”
Kara still didn’t get what he was talking about, “Ethics?” she asked spooning up a glob of cherry-flavored gelatin from her lunch tray.
“You were sexually intimate with Captain Adama during this so-called mission.”
Eyes widening in surprise, Kara choked on her gelatin. “Lee told you…what happened?” She whispered roughly. She found that very hard to believe.
“I didn’t give him much choice,” Cottle admitted. “You have some interesting bruises, Lieutenant. Not the sort one gets from hypothermia.” Kara’s glance broke from his and darted to her gown-covered shoulder. Cottle nodded. “Yes. That one.”
“Okay so we were…intimate…why would I press charges over…? Oh, frak,” She rolled her eyes heavenward as she realized what he was implying. “You’ve been watching too many melodramas,” she said, pointing her plastic spoon at him. She couldn’t believe anyone would seriously suggest such a thing. Lee would never hurt her. Wasn’t that self-evident? “We were tanked.”
“Feeling no pain?”
Kara nodded absently. She hadn’t been expecting this. Lee had barely touched her in four days beyond a single shy kiss to her forehead on the day she'd woke up. Maybe this explained his attitude. Maybe he was being overly cautious. She wondered what he’d told Doc Cottle. That he couldn’t keep his hands off her? Probably not. That it was all a comical misunderstanding? The equivalent of a drunken indiscretion? Maybe. Then she wondered if the Commander knew. It would explain some of his questions that morning.
“Who else knows about this?”
“No one but the three of us and my nurse, Helen, it’s a confidential matter for now. Can you tell me what happened?”
“We got tanked. We lost control. A little. But it wasn’t anything to press charges over.”
Cottle cleared his throat pointedly. “He’s still your superior officer. Even if you’d filed fraternization papers you could legally claim duress under these circumstances.”
“It was my idea,” Kara said, impatiently, “And also my fault. If I hadn’t ended up in the frakking water none of this would have happened. Lee got me out, got me to safety.” She flashed an impudent grin. “I thought I’d show him a little gratitude. And,” she waved her spoon, “We needed to warm up.”
“You ignored your raging fever and shortness of breath for a 'thank you' frak?” Cottle said with some amusement.
“Have you seen him naked?” Kara countered.
“I have but I’m a doctor,” Cottle said primly. “The wonder of it was wasted on me." Kara chuckled and he smiled at her. "I assume you enjoyed yourself?”
“Enough for it to be a crime,” Kara admitted. “Have you asked Lee if he wants to press charges?”
“Didn't occur to me,” Cottle said. "Did you break his ribs?"
Kara shook her head.
“Then he doesn’t have a case,” Cottle said with a negligent wave of his hand. Changing the subject, he started asking her about her symptoms. Kara answered but couldn’t keep her mind from wandering. She was going to have to talk with Lee. And she wasn’t good at meaningful conversations.
*******************************************************
By day six Kara was worried about Lee’s distancing behavior. By day seven she just wanted answers.
“Lee?”
“Hmmm?”
“The Commander came by again this morning.” She watched Lee carefully, alert for any reaction. “He wanted to talk about Zak.”
“So you did?”
“A little bit.” She hesitated and then said, “He asked about you, too? If anything happened on the planet to upset you?” Lee didn’t respond. After waiting, Kara tried a different tack. “Are you going to tell me about the mission?”
Without looking up from his paperwork, Lee shrugged, “Not a lot to tell. Followed our plan. Got in. Got out. Boom.” Smiling slightly, he darted a quick glance at her. She stared back at him with wide questioning eyes and he shifted uncomfortably. “Had to take the river back, got cut off. That’s why I was late.”
“Guess I wasn’t a lot of help on this one.”
“Don’t sweat it. Next time I’ll lounge around and you can go get shot at.”
Kara chuckled with him but when he went back to his logs the light left her eyes. Damn it, Lee. Stop toying with me. Yell. Call me a screw-up. Tell me how sorry you are that you lost control and frakked my brains out and promise you will never, ever let it happen again. It can be just like the last time.
“I was pretty far out of it when you came back, huh?” She asked. He nodded. “Did I say anything…odd?”
“You had a very high fever, Kara. Nearly everything you said was odd.”
“I can remember some of it. But it’s like a dream. I’m not sure what’s real and what’s not. I remember what I was thinking…”
After checking off a final item on his list, Lee sat his clipboard on the empty bed behind him and met her troubled gaze. He leaned forward in his seat, elbows resting on his knees, and clasped his hands together. “Tell me what you remember and I’ll try to fill in the gaps for you.”
“I think,” she frowned, searching for the right words for her impressions. “I thought you were Zak. I didn’t want you…him…to fly. I thought he was going to crash.”
“Yeah,” Lee agreed softly. He broke eye contact, gaze dipping to the side as he nodded pensively. “You were…very glad to see him alive.”
Zak, I love you so much.
Kara started, suddenly recalling how happy she’d been, how endearments had tumbled easily from her mouth. She’d gone over this in her mind a hundred times in the last few days, trying to fit the pieces together. It all seemed surreal. Even her time with Lee prior to the fire had an illusory quality. She tried to summon up a memory of exactly what she’d said to Zak. She’d been trying to tell him about her feelings for Lee. But she’d been speaking to Lee all the time.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It must have been hard for you.”
“You were out of your head.” He shrugged off the hurt. “It’s okay. Do you remember anything else?”
“I remember what happened before you left,” she said with a touch of her effortless sensuality.
Eyes closed and head lowered, Lee couldn’t help grinning, but when he glanced at her there was no trace of flirtation in his expression. “I meant after I came back for you. Do you remember what you said in the Raptor?”
“You gave me a shot. In the Raptor, I think.” Kara’s brow furrowed. It flashed through her mind that she’d told Lee she loved him. Was that why he was acting so distant despite staying by her side? Why wouldn’t he be happy about that? Wasn’t it what he’d always wanted to hear? There was something on the tip of her brain about his ears. “You were hurt, bleeding. I know I said something to upset you. What did I say?”
Gaze fastened on her face, Lee said, “You told me you weren’t going to marry Zak.”
A blush rose, hot and pink, in her cheeks. It told Lee she’d been telling him the truth in her fevered state. She’d intend to break the bans before Zak died. He saw her shifty Triad-playing persona take over her defenses. She was going to bluff him off. He knew the signs. She squirmed self-consciously and he tried to will her into telling him what she’d told him before.
“Were you going to break the banns, Kara?”
She stayed in the same spot but slipped away from him. He felt her closing down as she lowered her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said after a long pause. Unshed tears made her eyes shiny. “He died.”
Crossing his arms, Lee settled back in his chair with a frustrated sigh. He wanted to ask his follow up question: Do you love me? But the set of her jaw told Lee he’d get nothing else out of her. He couldn’t keep the disappointment off his face. Kara plucked at her bed sheets. After a time, she slid down under her blanket and closed her eyes. Lee picked up his clipboard again.
As he bent his head over the list of dwindling supplies he murmured, “No take-backs.”
Kara’s eyes popped open. She studied him but he didn’t seem to notice or care.
*********************************************************
On the eighth day when Lee came to the infirmary, Cottle stopped him at the door.
“Sorry, Captain. Only one visitor at a time.”
Lee raised a brow, glancing toward the drawn curtains “Is it my father?” So far he’d avoided meeting the Commander across Kara’s sickbed. Their few forced interactions had been carried out with a mutual chilly formality.
Cottle lit his omnipresent cigarette and grunted in the negative. After a long drag he removed the smoke from his mouth and said, “He was here this morning. Like half of your pilots. This is Mr. Agathon. Don’t know why they’ve got the curtains closed…”
“Helo?”
Lee darted a quick look at the clock and then looked at the closed curtains again. “How long have they….?” He began before he managed to check the question. Prodded by his subconscious, the memory of Kara’s diatribe on Helo flitted into his mind. Lee struggled to set aside his unsettling, muscle-tensing instinct to rip the curtain back and proclaim ‘Aha!’ He forced himself to take the mature, secure road. “I can come back.”
Cottle gave him a measured stare and then said, “No, need for that, Captain. Miss Popularity can move the line along.”
Lee followed the doctor over to Kara’s cubicle. They opened the curtains and caught Helo in the act of hand-feeding some buttery, sticky treat to Kara. His ass was planted on Kara’s bed, hips nested in the curve of her drawn up knees. He had his bad leg propped on what Lee couldn’t help thinking of as ‘his’ chair. And he had pastry. Lee couldn’t get beyond the pastry. In the few hours of peace between Pegasus and Galactica, a healthy amount of trade goods had exchanged hands. But butter and sugar were still rare. Lee wondered where in the hell Helo, working with a bad ankle no less, had found Kara’s favorite treat.
Seeing Lee and Cottle glaring at her, Kara hastily stuffed the remains of the flaky confection into her mouth. She tried to stifle a laugh as she chewed and swallowed. A grinning Helo licked the sweet residue off of his fingers. Lee felt his blood start to boil. His eyes flashed blue like sheet lightning on a summer evening. But Doc Cottle beat him to an outburst.
“What the frak is going on in here? Young man, are you trying to kill my patient? Flour…sugar...” He sniffed the air. “Real butter…dairy? Pah,” His inflection made milk sound vile. “Do you have any idea what that sort of thing can do to a fragile immune system?”
Kara’s fingers rested on her lips, blocking the escape of any stray crumbs. “Mmmhsorry,” she managed.
“There’s honey in it,” Helo said, piously. “Honey is good for the lungs.”
“Why don’t you stick to navigating Raptors and dating Toasters and let me take care of the pharmacology,” Cottle suggested.
Helo leaned conspiratorially close to Kara and whispered, “Guess that’s my signal to clear out.”
“Thanks for the snack,” Kara cooed. “You always know what I like.”
“You get better, okay?” Helo said and then, as Lee’s heart rose into his throat, he kissed Kara’s sticky sweet lips.
It was a theatrical kiss, a loud smack of delight followed by beaming smiles from the pair of them. Lee saw the twinkle in Kara’s eyes and then saw nothing but the red of his ire rising. There was a relentless buzzing in his ears. He would give Helo the sting to go with his frakking honey.
“You have another visitor,” Doc Cottle was saying. He waved his cigarette vaguely at Lee as Helo eased off Kara's bed and hobbled past them. “One, who, I trust, won’t try to kill you by stressing your recently cleansed system.”
As he made this pronouncement, Cottle gave Lee a beetle-browed glare of warning. The look came just as Lee’s steam-whistle temper was about to blow. It sobered him a little so, instead of lashing out, he took a deep breath and lowered his gaze to the floor while he counted to twenty. Helo and Kara were friends. Helo and Kara were friends who occasionally kissed. He chanted it like a mantra in an effort to slow his pulse rate. From the corner of his eye he saw Kara smiling endearingly up at Doc Cottle and thought about throttling her.
“I think Lee’s got too much pestosterone,” she said.
“Testosterone?” Cottle corrected, casting a worried eye over her monitor readouts.
“No,” she shook her head. “He’s too pesky when he's territorial.”
“Yeah, I should get that seen to,” Lee said with a sarcastic sneer. Turning away from her he muttered, “But first I think I’ll go put Helo to bed.”
Kara looked alarmed. “No, Lee, he’s…we were just…”
Lee paused to cast a steely glare over his shoulder. “Snacking?” he said, mildly. "Because you're just friends, right? Who kiss." He ducked through the curtains.
“Frak,” Kara hissed. She tried to get up but Cottle restrained her with a firm hand on her shoulder.
“You need to talk to that man, Lieutenant. Sort out your feelings and explain them if you can. Because if he breaks Lt. Agathon’s neck after I’ve gone to all that trouble rebuilding his ankle I’m holding you personally responsible.”
**************************************************************
Lee followed Karl Agathon across the med lab to another curtained cubicle. Helo hopped along. Small, graduated steps allowed him to climb into his sickbed. He made his way to the stair railing. Bracing his crutches against the wall, he used the railing to balance.
Lee opened the conversation. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t beat you senseless,” he said in a voice that was more menacing for its total lack of inflection.
Surprised, and tottering a bit, Helo glanced over his shoulder. He gave an irritated roll of his eyes before turning back to his task. But he considered the question as he struggled with his damaged ankle. Finally, he shrugged and said, “Kara wouldn’t like it?”
“That’s a good reason,” Lee sighed. He pointed to a chair. “Do you mind?”
Helo waved him negligently to the seat. Then, grabbing his bad leg, he maneuvered it around until he could mount the steps without knocking his ankle against them. He hopped up, one step at a time, until he could pivot and slide his bottom into the bed. As walked his hands back and pushed into a sitting position, he addressed Lee again.
“I’m not frakking her, you know? Never have. Never will.”
“Is this the part where you tell me she’s like a sister to you?”
They stared at one another for a few seconds with the comment hanging in the air between them. Then the corners of Helo’s mouth twitched. His kind eyes crinkled and they both dissolved into helpless snickering.
“Bear in mind,” Helo gasped when he got control of himself, "That I’m better adjusted than you are.”
“Oh, yeah,” Lee snorted, “You fell for the perfect girl.”
Helo ruefully dropped his head back until he was staring at the ceiling. After another moment or two he said, “You know, she does remind me of Petra, though.”
“Petra?”
“My little sister.”
“I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“I don’t,” Helo said, soberly. “Not anymore.” He let his chin fall to his chest and stared into the middle distance, a shadow stole over his face. “I guess I don’t have any family anymore. It’s funny how it doesn’t hit you all at once. But all I’ve got now is Sharon and our baby.”
Lee couldn’t think of anything to say to that so he sat quietly waiting until Helo shook off the melancholy.
“Anyway,” Helo said. “Kara’s a lot like Petra. That’s probably what drew me to her in the first place. We were in basic together,” he told Lee.
Nodding Lee, said, “I know. Didn’t you introduce her to Zak?”
“Yeah,” Helo said. He spoke softly voice weighted by his remembrances. “Petra died that year. It was right before I joined the service. There was an accident, some machinery broke loose.” He paused and then added, “She was only 14.”
“I’m sorry,” Lee said, genuinely sympathetic, “It’s hard to lose someone like that.”
“We were close. And she was just like Kara, a blond, leggy tomboy. Used to come out swinging, fists up, chin down.” Lee nodded, acknowledging these common traits. Helo leaned forward and reached behind his hips, pummeling his pillows up into a back support. “That first week in basic. You know how it is?”
“Rough.”
“Yeah,” Helo settled back with a sigh. “Kara took the brunt of the drill master’s temper. She just couldn’t keep her lip buttoned.”
“I can imagine.”
“She pulled so many extra workouts the rest of the squad barely saw her. She’d come in hours after we’d hit our racks, half dead with exhaustion, nursing her wounds. Never complained. Never backed down. She wouldn’t quit so they had to pass her through.”
“And once they got her behind the stick of a viper they stopped giving her grief?” Lee guessed.
He smiled and his affection transformed his face. Studying him, Helo suddenly appreciated what Kara might find appealing about the golden boy, “Apollo." Helo had never been overly fond of Lee. It wasn’t just that they came from radically different backgrounds. Zak was his brother but Helo had enjoyed Zak’s company. But then Zak had been easy going. He’d had a sweet, open personality. Lee was nothing but walls. He took himself and life too seriously
“That’s about right,” Helo agreed. “She kicked some simulator ass. Did even better with the real thing. But someone’s always given her grief.” Helo met Lee’s eye. “Lately, it’s been you.”
“Things are complicated.”
“Because of Zak?” When Lee looked up in surprise, Helo said, “You’ve got a definite problem with the law.”
“No, it’s more than that.” Lee dropped his gaze again. He folded his hands together. “There’s so much I don’t know about her. You’re her friend. I thought maybe…”
“Her favorite color is red.”
Lee snorted. “Okay, I know that much.” He met the challenge in Helo’s brotherly stare and responded to it. “She likes raspberry tea in the morning. With fresh pastry when she can get it. And she hates mornings. She takes her ambrosia straight up. Has a wicked right hook. Her childhood sucked. She was going to be a professional pyramid player until her knee gave out. She’s religious, devoted to Aphrodite and Artemis. She’s a member of the Oracle Society. Claims she joined for the drugs. What else?”
“That’s a lot,” Helo said impressed. “Kara usually doesn’t share. I guess she trusts you.”
“Can you tell me anything I don’t know?”
Helo thought about what he knew and was free to tell. “She paints. She’s good at it, too. Apparently, she’s had gallery showings.”
“Really?” Lee leaned back in his chair while he thought about this side of her. “And she knows her poets.”
“Yeah, she once won this bar bet by quoting all of Artemis and Apollo from memory.” He closed his eyes, thinking. “Her father was a musician. Played that modern stuff. No chanting.”
“Instrumental? What instrument?”
“Some kind of horn, I think.” Helo shrugged and looked across at Lee. “I’m not sure. But she brought back a few of his recordings from Caprica. So you could find out.” He let his gaze linger on Lee’s face as he pondered this line of questioning. After a moment or two he said, “You’re going to step up?”
“As soon as I figure out where to put my feet,” Lee admitted. “My father has objections. The whole breach of Caprican Law argument. And, truthfully, I’m sick of being shot down.”
“No guts, no glory,” Helo grinned. “She can always break the bans.”
“I'm curious. What made you pick Zak for Kara?”
“No pressure,” Helo said. “He was the easiest going guy I knew. But that’s not going to work for you.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” Helo smirked “In case you haven’t noticed whenever you and Kara are in the same room the pressure climbs until one of you cracks.”
*************************************************************
‘No pressure,’ Lee thought as he watched Kara hold court in the rack.
Cottle had finally released her into Lee’s care with the stricture that she not be over exerted. She was a week away from light duty. The other pilots had gathered around her, wishing her well and giving her small gifts. There was rot gut on tap and baklava for everyone. Mousie presented Kara with a small carving she’d made: a pair of ice skates. Kat gave her a wooly scarf. A party atmosphere reigned in the small space until Lee cleared his throat for an announcement.
“I hate to break up the fun but Kara needs her rest and I still need someone to field strip and detail her viper.” Nobody stepped forward. He hadn’t expected a rush of volunteers. “I see you are all eager to help out. So, everyone, but Kara, get back down to the hanger.”
The crowd stared at him in open mouthed disbelief. Some of them started to grumble about pulling double shifts. Lee cut through the growing wave of rebellion with a bark.
“Move it.” The crew scrambled for the door. “And I don’t want to see any of you sneaking back in here for at least an hour.”
A couple of the pilots shot him suspicious looks at the length of the time limit. Kara raised her brows but pressed her lips together to curtail her snickering. Her eyes danced above the tight grin.
“Why do we all have to go?” Hot dog whined. “It’s only one ship.”
“Because you are all equally happy to have Starbuck back in the rack,” Lee said. “But I see your point, Brendon. Tell you what? Just to make the trip worth your while, you can field strip my viper, too. And I expect it to be in the best shape its ever been in.”
There was a chorus of groans as a number of people swatted Hot Dog and called him an idiot. As the troops filed out, Lee crossed his arms and leaned his shoulder into his locker door. Smiling slightly, he waited for the din to die down.
“Smooth,” Kara said when the last of the complaining faded in the distance. “But do you think you’ll need an hour?”
Lee seemed immune to her innuendo. “Come on,” he said, grabbing her elbow to lever her off the bunk. “We’ve got to go.”
“Go?” Kara held back. “Didn’t you want to…? I thought you were clearing them out so we could…” she broke off in embarrassment, mortified by Lee’s mildly inquisitive expression. He hadn’t done more than kiss her forehead since they’d gotten back from the mission. Of course, he wasn’t planning on seducing her. Nothing had changed, really. Nothing ever did. She tried to pull free of his grip. “I’m tired. Can’t this wait?”
“No, it can’t wait. I don’t want them to follow us. Later we can go separately but for now…I have to take you there.”
Mildly intrigued, Kara let him lead her out of the barracks. They trailed along a number of passageways before leaving the more populated corridors behind. They took a freight elevator down into the deep holds of the ship. Lee helped her from time to time, placing guiding hands around her waist as she stepped down from a ladder or slipping his arm around her when she staggered slightly. They paused at a crossway and Lee stooped to retrieve a lantern he’d obviously stashed at the junction during a previous trip.
After adjusting the light, he carefully conducted Kara along the more dimly lit of the two converging passages. His fingers slid down her arm to mesh with hers. Kara felt her pulse quicken. Her breath caught in her throat as Lee squeezed her hand. Every one of Kara’s muscles clenched in response, just as if she were about to bounce. There was a slippery tightening at her core. She could sense a similar tension in Lee. The air seemed to be growing denser. Wherever they were going they needed to get there quickly. She longed to wrap her legs around him, feel him inside her. Gods, she was never going to stop wanting him.
They halted midway down a service tunnel in front of a door Kara realized must open into one of the cargo bays. “This is it?” she asked, staring dubiously at the numbered storage unit in front of them.
“This is it,” Lee said. He released her hand and pulled the door’s lock bar down, breaking the seal on the unit. There was a rattle of metal and a puff of surprisingly fresh air. “I think you owe someone a little loving care for saving your life.”
Kara turned to stare back over her shoulder down the long dark passageway. “Isn’t this a long way to come for a bounce? Wouldn’t the now empty rack be a better place to…”
“Too messy.”
“Messy?” Kara cocked her head. “Now that’s interesting…you’re planning something messy?”
“Yeah, we can’t do this in the rack,” he said with a handsome twist of his features. “People would object.”
As he spoke, he yanked open the door. It slid along its track with a smooth metallic rattle. Automatic lights flared, flooding the dim service tunnel with brightness. Kara raised a hand to shield her eyes. When she’d blinked away the spots she stared in disbelief. There in the middle of a spacious storage unit was the battered 420.
“Artemis’ bow, what happened to him?” Kara exclaimed, rushing to the Swan’s side to inspect the considerable damage Lee’s Cylon base attack had inflicted. There were deep gouges in the bike’s side, a few bullet holes in the frame and the cutter wheel was bent.
“Rode hard, left cold.”
Kara tossed a saucy glance over her shoulder. “I can sympathize.”
“I thought you might.”
Contentment washed over Lee as Kara straddled the bike, rocking it upright. When she had it balanced with her thighs, she slowly drew a tender hand along its curved chassis. Leaning close to the throttle she stage-whispered, “Don’t you worry, baby, Starbuck’s gonna treat you right.”
An icy shiver skated down Lee’s spine. It ran into the molten heat rising from his loins and created metaphoric steam. He blew out a long breath. He got too hard, too fast for her. Control and restraint, he reminded himself as he sat his lantern down on a wooden box. Fingers hooked in his belt strap he strutted a little as he circled the Swan to face Kara.
“Mind if I watch? Or do the two of you want to be alone?”
The tip of Kara's tongue moistened her lips. She tossed her hair back as she pushed up into a sultry half-crouch. Her hands were braced between her legs, fingertips curling into the leather seat cover. It crossed Lee’s mind that Felix Gaeta didn’t know what made a good picture. He wondered if he could borrow the camera for an afternoon.
“You mean you didn’t bring me here for a three-way?” Kara purred.
“I brought you here to help me fix the bike,” Lee said seriously. “But I thought it would be nice if we could spend some time together…talk.”
Her eyes lost a lot of their sparkle and Lee felt like a fool. Frak now, talk later, his cock reminded, nudging him.
“Talk?” Kara said, like she’d never heard of the pastime. Sliding backwards off the Swan she stood staring at him. “You’ve turned awfully talkative lately.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” she shrugged. She crossed the room to the pile of blankets and other supplies he’d stocked. She picked up a bottle of ambrosia and stared at it for a minute. “What do you want to talk about?”
“What happened between us on the planet,” Lee suggested. “What happens next?” Head cocked to the side, he stared as she crouched by the tool box. She started searching through it, casting some of the items out onto the floor. Lee was fascinated by the way her uniform tightened around her breasts and hips. Gods, he was never going to stop wanting her. “I filed a fraternization request,” he said, quietly.
Kara stiffened and then swiveled slowly to face him. “You spoke to the Commander about this?” She ground her teeth together and stood quickly, temper rattling its chains. “That’s what I mean by talkative. First Cottle. Now, the old man? What did you tell him?”
“I told him I wanted to date you.”
She didn’t think she’d heard him correctly. “Date?” she said, incredulously.
It was such an innocent sounding word. Kara wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting him to declare but this wasn’t it. Her ire puffed away like dandelion fuzz in a stiff breeze. She couldn’t help grinning. Her eyes widened and she stared at him with a burgeoning expectation as if he were some exotic entertainer.
“It’s not that insane,” Lee said, defensively, his lips curving into a sulky pout. “I’ve dated. You’ve dated. This will be like that only with us both there.”
“Sure,” Kara managed to remark with a reasonably straight face, “Dating…it’s…sweet.”
Sweet? The implication warmed Lee’s blood. Blushing slightly, he looked down at her feet as he combed his fingers through his hair. “Right,” he said. “And moot. Since he’s forbidden it.”
“What else could he do? It’s illegal.”
“For now,” Lee said, enigmatically. The last light of Kara’s good humor faded as she took his meaning. This was about the banns again. She surveyed the room. Lee had filled it with all the comforts of home. There were blankets, pillows, water and food. He’d created a love nest. A place where he could frak her sore and never have to answer for it. “On the plus side,” he was saying, “I haven’t been reassigned to a mining vessel, yet. So, it went better than expected.”
“He’ll never sign those papers.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think he’ll come around in a year or two.” He met her eye and saw she remembered their conversation on Caprica about things getting easier with time.
“A year?”
“Or two.”
“And in the meantime we meet here?” Kara asked carefully. She didn’t sound as happy about it as she had about the concept of dating but she seemed to relax a little. The secret frak was familiar territory. They had it down to a science in only two lessons.
“That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind but….” He faced her straight on. “But if it’s what you want, sure…we can meet here…go slow…”
“Slow?” Kara said, her gaze carrying his to the 420. “I thought you liked the pedal all the way down.”
“It does seem to be stuck in that position,” Lee admitted. Deciding they’d had enough emotional honesty for one day, he cast a critical eye over the Swan. “Do you think it would hold us?” he asked, ever practical. ‘I mean…if we decided to…have a three-way.”
“The 380 could,” she said, with a little shrug. “And this one’s bigger.”
“I was talking about that kickstand,” Lee remarked. “But now you’ve got my interest up.” He stepped into her personal space. “Along with a few other things.”
As if she couldn’t bear to remain close, Kara pushed against his chest with her fingertips and turned away from him. Lee thought about catching her wrist, pulling her back to him, but he decided to give her some space. She went to the tool box. Lee waited a bit and then asked, “How do you know the 380 could hold us? Riding weight’s not the same as…”
She found a wrench. Brandishing it, she pirouetted to face him and, brows arching, smiled knowingly.
Lee puffed out an appalled gasp. “Oh, tell me you didn’t,” he said, certain that she had. “With Zak?”
“You left the Swan behind.”
The electric zing her insinuation sparked deep in his belly made Lee think maybe Helo and his father were right about how maladjusted he was. He really shouldn't be thrilled by the thought of her riding his brother and his bike at the same time.
“You didn’t find that a little…”
“Stimulating?”
“I was going to say… kinky?”
“A little, yeah,” she admitted with a careless shrug. “Not as much as when I rode it solo, though.” She wrinkled her nose at him, her flexible features holding a playful grimace. “Then it was all about you and the Swan.”
It was a mental picture to make Lee’s mouth water. He could see Kara naked and writhing between his body and the 380. Hell he could feel her, yeilding and tight at the same time. His libido prodded him in the back of the knees as all of his blood rushed to his groin. He had to pinch his eyes closed and bite down on the inside of his cheek. When he had himself under control again he opened his eyes to find Kara reinforcing the kickstand with a metal plate. He grinned. You had to love a woman who was good with tools.
“What we need is a parking block,” she told him. “Maybe we could get one from the Medusa.”
“Okay,” Lee agreed.
He was dimly aware of how their entire conversation had veered off track. Nothing was going according to his plan. The pressure was definitely building and in another minute or two he was going to have her flat on her back again. He could sense an endless string of hard bounces ahead of them. They would come to this room, strip and frak and bite and snarl. Lee wanted Kara up against a wall. But he also wanted more. And Kara certainly deserved better.
“Look, Kara,” he said closing the small space between them. “I know I keep frakking things up…tearing your clothes off when you’re dying of pneumonia, for example. My timing isn’t the greatest but…if you’re free tomorrow…that is I know you’re free but if you want to go…I’ve got two tickets to Ishra Virtik’s concert on Cloud Nine.”
She glanced up at him in surprise. “Virtik?” The happy glow was back in her eyes.
“The instrumentalist?” Lee explained. “He was slated to perform at the decommissioning ceremony. So he’s still alive.”
“I know who he is,” Kara said, getting up off her knees and giving him a pensive look. “But I’m surprised you do. He’s not that well known.”
“I’m surprisingly cultured,” Lee said flashing a grin at her. “My mother was a social butterfly; concerts and art showings and picnics on the lawn.”
“And you like Virtik?”
“Oh…well.” Lowering his gaze, he hunched his shoulders a like a small boy caught fibbing and gave a nervous little laugh. “I saw you had a few of his recordings.”
“In my rack? In a sealed box?”
“Yeah,” Lee waved her implied criticism aside. What was a little invasion of privacy between frakking buddies? “I thought you’d enjoy hearing him play. Mostly I’m going for the R&R.” Kara shifted her weight until they were brushing against each other. Lee flexed his knees and slid his cheek into the curve of her neck so they interlocked like puzzle pieces. His lips grazed her ear as he lowered his voice to a sexy conspiratorial rumble. “I want to bask in the artificial sunlight and Break G with my girl.”
Kara pulled back until she could peer into his face. “Do what?”
He couldn't help smirking. “I started a little nugget slang while you were recuperating,” he announced proudly.
Kara lifted a curious eyebrow in a silent request for more information.
“Breaking G is engaging in…uh…how shall I put it?” Head tilted to the side, Lee traced his fingertip along her cheek. He tugged her bottom lip open, slipping his finger into the velvet warmth of her mouth. She sucked obligingly as he considered the best way to get his point across. “It’s engaging in regulation-approved public displays of affection,” he said at last, slowly reclaiming his finger. “Hugging and kissing and so on…until you get that weightless, floating, zero-G feeling.”
Kara smiled brightly and bobbed her head in exaggerated appreciation of his cleverness.
“Creative,” she said before narrowing her eyes into a gunfighter’s squint. As she squared off to confront him, she lowered her chin aggressively. “But I was questioning the ‘your girl’ part.”
“Ah,” Lee sighed.
He leaned back from the waist but kept his hips locked to hers as he mirrored her smiling head bob. He followed it up with his own version of the slit-eyed look. They dealt with the issue of his claim on her with a staring contest, standing toe-to-toe, nose-to-nose, and then Lee seemed to capitulate. He spread his hands out and stepped back to swing a leg over the 420. As he settled into the saddle his gaze drifted suggestively up and down Kara’s body. In her head she heard him asking her, ‘Do you want to fight or get laid?’
“I don’t wanna fight,” she whispered huskily in response to the unasked question.
“Glad to hear it,” Lee said.
Keeping his eyes locked on hers, he reached out a hand and smoothly dragged the wrench from her nerveless fingers. He tossed the tool negligently over his shoulder. Kara’s gaze instinctively followed the arc of the wrench but Lee jerked her attention back to him by slapping his palm down on the Swan just in front of his obvious erection.
“Have a seat, Lieutenant,” he growled softly, “And I’ll clear up that possessive pronoun for you.”
THE END
By Rabid1st
BSG – K/L
RATING: R for the innuendo
BETA BABES: Dualbunny, Lilith and Winter_Queen82
CLUELESS BETA BABE-LIKE CONTRIBUTER: Skycaia for the Helo dialog.
SPOILERS: I don’t think this fic has spoilers. But there is speculation of the coupling kind based on S2: Flight of the Phoenix.
TECHNICAL RESOURCES: Wikepedia: hypothalamus and Hypothermia.org
SUMMARY: This is a ‘nugget slang’ fic and a sequel to Shoot Your Shade. Which was a sequel to Burn the Pipe. Lee shot his shade (overreacted) last time out when he learned about Anders and dumped Kara cold. Now the path to togetherness is about to be iced.
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own these characters. They belong to the SciFi Channel, R&D and Ron Moore…whose e-mail address I don’t know. So, I can’t really ask him for permission or anything. But I’m not making any money or perks off of these characters…so please don’t sue me.
BURN THE PIPE:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rabid1st/65528.html#cutid1
SHOOT YOUR SHADE:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rabid1st/66968.html#cutid1
PART ONE:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rabid1st/69278.html#cutid1
PART TWO:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rabid1st/69431.html#cutid2
PART THREE:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rabid1st/70767.html#cutid3
PART FOUR:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rabid1st/71427.html#cutid1
PART FIVE
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rabid1st/72408.html#cutid1
PART SIX
Kara woke in stages. She noticed the vibration, first, a barely perceptible sense of movement and immense machinery. It was the rock of the deck under a sailor’s feet, the equivalent of a mother’s heartbeat to a babe in the womb. It reassured her and she sighed a little. Galactica. She was home.
The second thing she noticed was an insistent antiseptic tang overlaying the reprocessed air. Rough linen scratched her cheek and an institutionally uncomfortable pillow offered no balm for her aching head. Minor irritations woke her further. Something was stinging her left arm. Her fingers curled into more of the over-starched bedding. She tried to slap at the stinging thing but got no response from her right arm. She opened her eyes. They were gummy and she had to blink several times to clear them. She couldn’t raise her hands to her face. Glancing down she saw why.
She was lying on her right arm and it had fallen asleep. She couldn’t feel it or make it obey her commands. The room tipped a little as she lifted her head. The stinging in her left arm was from needles in her veins. Thin plastic tubing carried her blood to a machine at the bedside and then returned it to her. She rolled carefully, freeing her right hand. It flapped into the bed railing but she felt nothing. After a moment, a pins and needles sensation started crawling under her skin. To take her mind off the prickliness, she looked around.
She recognized Cottle’s sickbay by the smell, the wretchedly hard beds and the overhead monitors. The Lords knew she’d spent enough time here. Her two-bed enclosure was cut off from the rest of the ship by grey curtains. She turned her head slowly and her wandering gaze fell on the occupant of the other bed. She stilled, staring at him. He was sleeping on his side, curled up under a pale pink blanket. Mouth slack, face unlined in repose and jaw recently shaved, he looked about six years old. But no six year old could inspire such a hot swirling sensation in the center of her being. Only Lee gave her this breathless, weightless feeling. It almost required she cling to him for stability.
She watched Lee for a long time, perfectly content. They were safe. A profound sense of gratitude had her wishing for her idols. She wanted to give proper thanks but she settled for a silent prayer. There was a drowsy, temple-like stillness to the ship. The medical bay was quiet. Every so often, she heard footsteps and saw her curtains ripple but no voices rang out. Kara wondered what day it was. She didn’t need a clock to know they were in the middle of Gray Cycle. Only essential personnel would be working.
After her prayer, Kara focused on Lee. She couldn’t tell if he was hurt. He’d obviously been fit enough to fly them home. And he seemed to be sleeping peacefully but she could see traces of scraped skin and bruises. There was a cut over his eye. Kara's mouth tightened. She took a dim view of the Fates constantly battering that flawless face. It showed a careless disregard.
She had only the vaguest recollection of seeing him in the Raptor. Hallucination seemed to meld with reality. Had there really been a fire? She remembered seeing Zak, speaking to him. Had that been Lee or just something she’d imagined?
“Lee,” she rasped softly. His name grated on the back of her throat like sandpaper. She tried to swallow but had very little saliva. Thirst prodded her and she looked for water. There was a pitcher on Lee’s side of their shared table. “Lee?” she repeated with more urgency. He didn’t stir.
She thought about calling for a nurse but dismissed the idea. There was something intimate about their curtained haven. She didn’t want strangers barging in. Her independent streak surfaced. She could do this. She struggled to a more upright position, pushing with her unfettered arm. The room swirled around her. She ached all over and was firmly tethered to her blood cleansing equipment. Stretched to the limit of her reach, she still couldn’t quite grab the pitcher. While trying to pull the table closer, she noticed its single drawer. Hoping to find some instrument to help her, she opened the drawer and patted around. Her hand sank into a fluffy morass. Startled, she peaked in. The drawer was full of cotton balls.
Struck with sudden inspiration, Kara plucked a few of the balls from the nearest package and hurled them at Lee. They wafted. Some scattered wide and others fell short. Her next barrage had a better trajectory. She took careful aim and managed to hit Lee’s bed with her third assault. Soon he was surrounded by snowy drifts of white cotton. He slept through the storm but Kara kept at her target practice. The effort to smack Lee’s nose with a cotton ball took her mind off her thirst. One of her missiles landed in the cup of his ear. Kara grinned. He had the sexiest ears.
His hand twitched and then rose to flick the cotton ball away. He pulled his blanket up a little, muttering something about spiders. Kara concentrated. Using all of her considerable hand-eye coordination, she skimmed another cotton ball into the same spot. Lee jerked, batting hard at his ear. His eyes flew open and he bucked off the bed. As he settled to the mattress again, his searching gaze fell on Kara.
It took a second or two for his accusatory frown to wane. He didn’t seem to register what he was seeing at first. Kara beamed at him as he rubbed sleep from his eyes with the back of his hand. Her mischievous grin was rewarded with the most beatific smile. Lee's whole face lit up as he focused on her.
“You’re awake,” he breathed, right before she scored a direct hit on his nose.
“Got ya’!”
Stunned by the reception, Lee sat up. The change in his position scattered cotton balls. He stared in disbelief at his drift-covered bed. “What in the name of the second moon are you…?” Biff. Another salvo of fluffy ammunition bounced off him. “Oh…you are just not…”
Poof. She scored his ear again with a single well-aimed shot. Snorting in genial offense, Lee scooped up a handful of cotton balls and returned fire. They spent a few, giddy, giggly minutes pelting one another with fuzz before the night nurse came to break up their party.
***********************************************************
Kara spent the next nine days in sickbay.
While Cottle fretted over her rattling lungs and sporadic fever, Lee returned to light duty. For the first few days, he drifted in and out of the medical bay, spending most of his off hours in the bed or a chair beside her. They didn’t talk about the ice planet or Zak or anything serious. They played cards and a handmade version of Overlord and planned imaginary trips on the Swans. Kara took Lee to the ruins of Troyus and he took her to Arelon’s sweeping plains and the sunny keys of Picon. Lee did his paperwork while Kara dozed.
On the third day of Kara’s recovery Cottle assured Lee she wasn’t going to slip back into the fog and Lee knew it was time to go see his father.
Clutching a sheaf of papers and two report folders in a white-knuckled grip, he stood outside Commander Adama’s quarters, trying to work up his nerve for the conversation ahead. He took a deep breath and immediately regretted it. Cottle had released him to light duty but his ribs were very tender. Still, a few broken bones weren’t enough to stop him from doing the right thing. He’d put off this conversation as long as he could. His fingers stretched for the doorbell and pressed it.
“It’s open.”
The gravelly voice took Lee back to his childhood in a flash. He associated it with stern lectures in the library. With his fingers curled around the door handle, he hesitated. His stomach churned up bile and he called himself a coward. His father wasn’t the stern disciplinarian Lee’d once thought him. This would probably go better than he was expecting. The door flew open, catching him off guard.
“I said, ‘it’s open’,” Commander Adama barked into Lee’s face.
“Yes, sir,” Lee said. “Sorry, sir, I was…”
“Wool gathering?” his father finished with an indulgent smile.
‘As if,’ Lee thought, ‘I really am still a child.’
“Thinking,” he corrected sharply, angrier with himself than he was with his father.
Adama shook his head over the needless bristling. “Come in, Lee,” he sighed. Taking his son’s elbow, he guided him across the threshold before turning back to his mirror. “It’s good to see you up and around. I was just dressing. Give me a minute.” He was already in uniform but he had to finish closing his collar and fastening on his brass. As he worked, he studied his son in the glass. “You’re out early.”
“I wanted to get you the mission report. Sorry, I didn’t have it for you yesterday.”
His father waved a dismissive hand. “You were hurt. Cottle tells me I won’t have you on the line for a week or more. Take all the time you need. I don’t want you out there until you can hold the turn.” He met Lee’s eye in the mirror as he asked, “How’s Kara today?”
“Better. But not…”
“Not where we’d like her to be?” Lee nodded and his father sighed. Frowning, he rubbed his palm along his jaw, checking the smoothness of his shave. Satisfied, he turned to face Lee. “I didn’t mention it earlier but I’m very proud of what you did, son. For her. And the Fleet.”
“Thank you, sir,” Lee said, dropping his gaze. Praise from his father always felt like expectation, as if a new bar was being set just beyond Lee’s reach. His downcast eyes fell on the paperwork in his hands.
His father also focused on the reports. Heading for his desk, he held out a hand. “You have an analysis of mission losses?”
“Yes, sir,” Stiffening his spine and leveling his shoulders, Lee passed him the stack of papers. “We’ve lost two Raptors. And Garrett and Collins, of course.”
The commander nodded solemnly. He settled into his chair and waved a hand at the seat opposite as he took his glasses out of their case. Putting them on, he read the top sheet of the report.
“Memorial services can be arranged for Blue Cycle tomorrow?” He glanced up at Lee, who nodded his agreement. “How are Agathon, Linds and…?” He turned a few sheets over and read the name off of the report, “Billingsley? Do you know her? She deserted off the Pegasus crew. Volunteered for this mission.”
“Not well, sir,” Lee said, settling into the offered chair “Linds, as you know, is our light ordinance specialist for the C.A.P. He’ll be a hard man to replace."
"Check with Tyrol. He's got feelers out with the fleet for ground crew. Might know of someone."
"I've already done that, sir. I don't want to rush things. Cottle doesn’t think Linds will make it but there is always a chance. We know Billingsley is going to be medically discharged. I’ve started the pension paperwork. Their Raptor is scrap. It’s a wonder they made it back at all.”
“We had to pick them up. But by the time we got a seal…” Adama uncurled the fingers of his right hand to indicate how hopeless it had been. Fisting the hand again, he sighed and then adjusted his glasses to resume reading. “I’ll want to meet with Billingsley when she’s feeling up to it. Can you schedule that?” Lee pulled a small pad from his pants pocket and made a note. “Do you have any details on their mission?”
“Only that they were successful, sir. Colonel Tigh tells me Agathon and Gaeta were not. And, of course, we have no way of knowing about the other Raptor.”
“Long range scans indicate they were shot down on approach. Luckily, you and Kara succeeded.” Adama smiled tightly as he amended, “You succeeded.”
“Yes, sir. I put as much of the detail as I could remember in the second report.” Lee pointed at the yellow folder but his gaze slipped to the pile of papers beneath his father’s right hand. “Is there anything else I can tell you about the ready status of the fighters?”
“Not just now,” Adama said, easing back a little in his chair. “After I read over the reports, I’ll get back to you.” He glanced at the other papers, shifting the stack with his fingertips. “What else do we have here?”
“A consolation letter needs your signature. No family for anyone but Garrett. He has a cousin in the fleet.” He watched his father sign the bottom of the letter and turn to the next sheet. “There are a few supply side issues. Nothing urgent. And two requests for fraternization waivers.” An apprehensive chill raised the hair on Lee’s arms. He swallowed hard but sat up a little straighter as he casually announced, “Kat has a new boyfriend.”
“Another one,” Adama chuckled. “That’s five, right? Has she rescinded any of the previous waivers?”
“Not that I know of,” Lee said with a wide grin, momentarily distracted from the coming storm. “I think she’s starting her own club.”
“Well, as long as she’s not using stims to keep her energy levels up…” Adama said, adding his name with a flourish to the signature line. “And the other request…” He picked the paper up and stared at it for a moment, frowning as he reread the names. Then he laughed hollowly, “Very funny,” he said, tossing the paper negligently toward Lee. “Is this payback for my meddling over Dee?”
“No, sir,” Lee said, secretly proud of his steady eye and voice. “I intend to start seeing Lt. Thrace.”
“You intend to…?” Bill Adama didn’t know which part of that sentence he found the most offensive. His brow furrowed. “If this is a joke it has stopped being funny.” Lee’s clear blue stare cut right through him. Furious, he stabbed an aggressive middle finger at the fraternization request. “You seriously came here to ask my permission to frak your brother’s wife?”
“They were never married.”
“Because Zak died,” Adama reminded viciously. He winced away from his own declaration. Breathing heavily, he whipped off his glasses. “You can’t tell me, Kara encouraged you in this…this… disgraceful…”
“Kara doesn’t know I’m here.”
“That, at least, is something. What can you possibly be thinking? The banns were read. Signed. Witnessed. Posted.” He stood and pointed toward the sickbay. “She’s your sister, legally and morally a member of this family. And what you are asking is not only illegal it’s…frankly...disturbing.”
“Under Caprican law,” Lee stressed, “She’s my sister. You know as well as I do that if we’d lived on Arelon I would have been forced to marry her when Zak died. It’s all a matter of perspective.”
“You weren’t born on Arelon,” his father snapped, circling the desk to tower over Lee. “Though right at this moment I wish you had been born to anyone but me.”
Lee shot out of his chair and faced off with his father. “Caprica,” he snarled, “Is a charred rock. Its laws are meaningless. We don’t have the luxury of puritanical morality. In case you hadn’t noticed, sir, there aren’t a lot of people left. And Kara and I have a chance very few people ever get….”
“A chance to disgrace your family name, your brother’s memory?” Adama interrupted. “If you are throwing out the law why stop with Caprica? Why don’t we throw out military law while we’re at it? Why bother putting on your uniform in the morning?”
“I’ve asked myself that question, sir.”
“And I never have,” Adama countered. He snatched the fraternization request off his desk and, wadding it into a ball, threw it at Lee’s feet. “If you mean to disregard the law, Captain, then you don’t need my permission to do whatever it is you plan on doing.”
They glared at one another, equally stiff-necked and certain of their positions. Lee blinked first, more from habit than lack of conviction. Jaw rigidly tense, he let his eyes slide to the right and stood at attention, staring unseeingly at the far wall. When he could manage it he ground out a terse, “Thank you for your consideration of the matter, sir. If there’s nothing else?”
Seeing the pain on his son’s face, Adama’s heart softened. He modulated his tone a little as he asked, “Lee? What’s brought this on? What the hell happened out there?”
Lee shifted to meet his father’s eye again. “Kara died,” he said simply. “I got her back and then almost lost her again.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I can’t keep losing her.”
Searching his son’s face for some clue to his thoughts Adama shook his head. “I’ve never understood you,” he said.
“No, sir,” Lee agreed. “Am I free to go?”
The Commander pleaded silently with him for a moment and then stepped back, lowering his chin. “Dismissed,” he murmured. Turning heel to toe, Lee stepped around his father and crossed to the door. As he opened it to leave Adama said, “I can’t allow this. If I find out you’ve acted on your feelings I will transfer one of you to another ship.”
There was a long pause and then Lee said, “Understood.”
***************************************************************
By day four Kara was bored. When Lee left to supervise the flight rotation, Cottle took care of her ennui by asking her if she wanted to press charges.
“For what?”
“Right,” Cottle nodded in response to her incredulous expression. “I didn’t think so. But I have to ask or someone might start questioning my ethics.”
Kara still didn’t get what he was talking about, “Ethics?” she asked spooning up a glob of cherry-flavored gelatin from her lunch tray.
“You were sexually intimate with Captain Adama during this so-called mission.”
Eyes widening in surprise, Kara choked on her gelatin. “Lee told you…what happened?” She whispered roughly. She found that very hard to believe.
“I didn’t give him much choice,” Cottle admitted. “You have some interesting bruises, Lieutenant. Not the sort one gets from hypothermia.” Kara’s glance broke from his and darted to her gown-covered shoulder. Cottle nodded. “Yes. That one.”
“Okay so we were…intimate…why would I press charges over…? Oh, frak,” She rolled her eyes heavenward as she realized what he was implying. “You’ve been watching too many melodramas,” she said, pointing her plastic spoon at him. She couldn’t believe anyone would seriously suggest such a thing. Lee would never hurt her. Wasn’t that self-evident? “We were tanked.”
“Feeling no pain?”
Kara nodded absently. She hadn’t been expecting this. Lee had barely touched her in four days beyond a single shy kiss to her forehead on the day she'd woke up. Maybe this explained his attitude. Maybe he was being overly cautious. She wondered what he’d told Doc Cottle. That he couldn’t keep his hands off her? Probably not. That it was all a comical misunderstanding? The equivalent of a drunken indiscretion? Maybe. Then she wondered if the Commander knew. It would explain some of his questions that morning.
“Who else knows about this?”
“No one but the three of us and my nurse, Helen, it’s a confidential matter for now. Can you tell me what happened?”
“We got tanked. We lost control. A little. But it wasn’t anything to press charges over.”
Cottle cleared his throat pointedly. “He’s still your superior officer. Even if you’d filed fraternization papers you could legally claim duress under these circumstances.”
“It was my idea,” Kara said, impatiently, “And also my fault. If I hadn’t ended up in the frakking water none of this would have happened. Lee got me out, got me to safety.” She flashed an impudent grin. “I thought I’d show him a little gratitude. And,” she waved her spoon, “We needed to warm up.”
“You ignored your raging fever and shortness of breath for a 'thank you' frak?” Cottle said with some amusement.
“Have you seen him naked?” Kara countered.
“I have but I’m a doctor,” Cottle said primly. “The wonder of it was wasted on me." Kara chuckled and he smiled at her. "I assume you enjoyed yourself?”
“Enough for it to be a crime,” Kara admitted. “Have you asked Lee if he wants to press charges?”
“Didn't occur to me,” Cottle said. "Did you break his ribs?"
Kara shook her head.
“Then he doesn’t have a case,” Cottle said with a negligent wave of his hand. Changing the subject, he started asking her about her symptoms. Kara answered but couldn’t keep her mind from wandering. She was going to have to talk with Lee. And she wasn’t good at meaningful conversations.
*******************************************************
By day six Kara was worried about Lee’s distancing behavior. By day seven she just wanted answers.
“Lee?”
“Hmmm?”
“The Commander came by again this morning.” She watched Lee carefully, alert for any reaction. “He wanted to talk about Zak.”
“So you did?”
“A little bit.” She hesitated and then said, “He asked about you, too? If anything happened on the planet to upset you?” Lee didn’t respond. After waiting, Kara tried a different tack. “Are you going to tell me about the mission?”
Without looking up from his paperwork, Lee shrugged, “Not a lot to tell. Followed our plan. Got in. Got out. Boom.” Smiling slightly, he darted a quick glance at her. She stared back at him with wide questioning eyes and he shifted uncomfortably. “Had to take the river back, got cut off. That’s why I was late.”
“Guess I wasn’t a lot of help on this one.”
“Don’t sweat it. Next time I’ll lounge around and you can go get shot at.”
Kara chuckled with him but when he went back to his logs the light left her eyes. Damn it, Lee. Stop toying with me. Yell. Call me a screw-up. Tell me how sorry you are that you lost control and frakked my brains out and promise you will never, ever let it happen again. It can be just like the last time.
“I was pretty far out of it when you came back, huh?” She asked. He nodded. “Did I say anything…odd?”
“You had a very high fever, Kara. Nearly everything you said was odd.”
“I can remember some of it. But it’s like a dream. I’m not sure what’s real and what’s not. I remember what I was thinking…”
After checking off a final item on his list, Lee sat his clipboard on the empty bed behind him and met her troubled gaze. He leaned forward in his seat, elbows resting on his knees, and clasped his hands together. “Tell me what you remember and I’ll try to fill in the gaps for you.”
“I think,” she frowned, searching for the right words for her impressions. “I thought you were Zak. I didn’t want you…him…to fly. I thought he was going to crash.”
“Yeah,” Lee agreed softly. He broke eye contact, gaze dipping to the side as he nodded pensively. “You were…very glad to see him alive.”
Zak, I love you so much.
Kara started, suddenly recalling how happy she’d been, how endearments had tumbled easily from her mouth. She’d gone over this in her mind a hundred times in the last few days, trying to fit the pieces together. It all seemed surreal. Even her time with Lee prior to the fire had an illusory quality. She tried to summon up a memory of exactly what she’d said to Zak. She’d been trying to tell him about her feelings for Lee. But she’d been speaking to Lee all the time.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It must have been hard for you.”
“You were out of your head.” He shrugged off the hurt. “It’s okay. Do you remember anything else?”
“I remember what happened before you left,” she said with a touch of her effortless sensuality.
Eyes closed and head lowered, Lee couldn’t help grinning, but when he glanced at her there was no trace of flirtation in his expression. “I meant after I came back for you. Do you remember what you said in the Raptor?”
“You gave me a shot. In the Raptor, I think.” Kara’s brow furrowed. It flashed through her mind that she’d told Lee she loved him. Was that why he was acting so distant despite staying by her side? Why wouldn’t he be happy about that? Wasn’t it what he’d always wanted to hear? There was something on the tip of her brain about his ears. “You were hurt, bleeding. I know I said something to upset you. What did I say?”
Gaze fastened on her face, Lee said, “You told me you weren’t going to marry Zak.”
A blush rose, hot and pink, in her cheeks. It told Lee she’d been telling him the truth in her fevered state. She’d intend to break the bans before Zak died. He saw her shifty Triad-playing persona take over her defenses. She was going to bluff him off. He knew the signs. She squirmed self-consciously and he tried to will her into telling him what she’d told him before.
“Were you going to break the banns, Kara?”
She stayed in the same spot but slipped away from him. He felt her closing down as she lowered her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said after a long pause. Unshed tears made her eyes shiny. “He died.”
Crossing his arms, Lee settled back in his chair with a frustrated sigh. He wanted to ask his follow up question: Do you love me? But the set of her jaw told Lee he’d get nothing else out of her. He couldn’t keep the disappointment off his face. Kara plucked at her bed sheets. After a time, she slid down under her blanket and closed her eyes. Lee picked up his clipboard again.
As he bent his head over the list of dwindling supplies he murmured, “No take-backs.”
Kara’s eyes popped open. She studied him but he didn’t seem to notice or care.
*********************************************************
On the eighth day when Lee came to the infirmary, Cottle stopped him at the door.
“Sorry, Captain. Only one visitor at a time.”
Lee raised a brow, glancing toward the drawn curtains “Is it my father?” So far he’d avoided meeting the Commander across Kara’s sickbed. Their few forced interactions had been carried out with a mutual chilly formality.
Cottle lit his omnipresent cigarette and grunted in the negative. After a long drag he removed the smoke from his mouth and said, “He was here this morning. Like half of your pilots. This is Mr. Agathon. Don’t know why they’ve got the curtains closed…”
“Helo?”
Lee darted a quick look at the clock and then looked at the closed curtains again. “How long have they….?” He began before he managed to check the question. Prodded by his subconscious, the memory of Kara’s diatribe on Helo flitted into his mind. Lee struggled to set aside his unsettling, muscle-tensing instinct to rip the curtain back and proclaim ‘Aha!’ He forced himself to take the mature, secure road. “I can come back.”
Cottle gave him a measured stare and then said, “No, need for that, Captain. Miss Popularity can move the line along.”
Lee followed the doctor over to Kara’s cubicle. They opened the curtains and caught Helo in the act of hand-feeding some buttery, sticky treat to Kara. His ass was planted on Kara’s bed, hips nested in the curve of her drawn up knees. He had his bad leg propped on what Lee couldn’t help thinking of as ‘his’ chair. And he had pastry. Lee couldn’t get beyond the pastry. In the few hours of peace between Pegasus and Galactica, a healthy amount of trade goods had exchanged hands. But butter and sugar were still rare. Lee wondered where in the hell Helo, working with a bad ankle no less, had found Kara’s favorite treat.
Seeing Lee and Cottle glaring at her, Kara hastily stuffed the remains of the flaky confection into her mouth. She tried to stifle a laugh as she chewed and swallowed. A grinning Helo licked the sweet residue off of his fingers. Lee felt his blood start to boil. His eyes flashed blue like sheet lightning on a summer evening. But Doc Cottle beat him to an outburst.
“What the frak is going on in here? Young man, are you trying to kill my patient? Flour…sugar...” He sniffed the air. “Real butter…dairy? Pah,” His inflection made milk sound vile. “Do you have any idea what that sort of thing can do to a fragile immune system?”
Kara’s fingers rested on her lips, blocking the escape of any stray crumbs. “Mmmhsorry,” she managed.
“There’s honey in it,” Helo said, piously. “Honey is good for the lungs.”
“Why don’t you stick to navigating Raptors and dating Toasters and let me take care of the pharmacology,” Cottle suggested.
Helo leaned conspiratorially close to Kara and whispered, “Guess that’s my signal to clear out.”
“Thanks for the snack,” Kara cooed. “You always know what I like.”
“You get better, okay?” Helo said and then, as Lee’s heart rose into his throat, he kissed Kara’s sticky sweet lips.
It was a theatrical kiss, a loud smack of delight followed by beaming smiles from the pair of them. Lee saw the twinkle in Kara’s eyes and then saw nothing but the red of his ire rising. There was a relentless buzzing in his ears. He would give Helo the sting to go with his frakking honey.
“You have another visitor,” Doc Cottle was saying. He waved his cigarette vaguely at Lee as Helo eased off Kara's bed and hobbled past them. “One, who, I trust, won’t try to kill you by stressing your recently cleansed system.”
As he made this pronouncement, Cottle gave Lee a beetle-browed glare of warning. The look came just as Lee’s steam-whistle temper was about to blow. It sobered him a little so, instead of lashing out, he took a deep breath and lowered his gaze to the floor while he counted to twenty. Helo and Kara were friends. Helo and Kara were friends who occasionally kissed. He chanted it like a mantra in an effort to slow his pulse rate. From the corner of his eye he saw Kara smiling endearingly up at Doc Cottle and thought about throttling her.
“I think Lee’s got too much pestosterone,” she said.
“Testosterone?” Cottle corrected, casting a worried eye over her monitor readouts.
“No,” she shook her head. “He’s too pesky when he's territorial.”
“Yeah, I should get that seen to,” Lee said with a sarcastic sneer. Turning away from her he muttered, “But first I think I’ll go put Helo to bed.”
Kara looked alarmed. “No, Lee, he’s…we were just…”
Lee paused to cast a steely glare over his shoulder. “Snacking?” he said, mildly. "Because you're just friends, right? Who kiss." He ducked through the curtains.
“Frak,” Kara hissed. She tried to get up but Cottle restrained her with a firm hand on her shoulder.
“You need to talk to that man, Lieutenant. Sort out your feelings and explain them if you can. Because if he breaks Lt. Agathon’s neck after I’ve gone to all that trouble rebuilding his ankle I’m holding you personally responsible.”
**************************************************************
Lee followed Karl Agathon across the med lab to another curtained cubicle. Helo hopped along. Small, graduated steps allowed him to climb into his sickbed. He made his way to the stair railing. Bracing his crutches against the wall, he used the railing to balance.
Lee opened the conversation. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t beat you senseless,” he said in a voice that was more menacing for its total lack of inflection.
Surprised, and tottering a bit, Helo glanced over his shoulder. He gave an irritated roll of his eyes before turning back to his task. But he considered the question as he struggled with his damaged ankle. Finally, he shrugged and said, “Kara wouldn’t like it?”
“That’s a good reason,” Lee sighed. He pointed to a chair. “Do you mind?”
Helo waved him negligently to the seat. Then, grabbing his bad leg, he maneuvered it around until he could mount the steps without knocking his ankle against them. He hopped up, one step at a time, until he could pivot and slide his bottom into the bed. As walked his hands back and pushed into a sitting position, he addressed Lee again.
“I’m not frakking her, you know? Never have. Never will.”
“Is this the part where you tell me she’s like a sister to you?”
They stared at one another for a few seconds with the comment hanging in the air between them. Then the corners of Helo’s mouth twitched. His kind eyes crinkled and they both dissolved into helpless snickering.
“Bear in mind,” Helo gasped when he got control of himself, "That I’m better adjusted than you are.”
“Oh, yeah,” Lee snorted, “You fell for the perfect girl.”
Helo ruefully dropped his head back until he was staring at the ceiling. After another moment or two he said, “You know, she does remind me of Petra, though.”
“Petra?”
“My little sister.”
“I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“I don’t,” Helo said, soberly. “Not anymore.” He let his chin fall to his chest and stared into the middle distance, a shadow stole over his face. “I guess I don’t have any family anymore. It’s funny how it doesn’t hit you all at once. But all I’ve got now is Sharon and our baby.”
Lee couldn’t think of anything to say to that so he sat quietly waiting until Helo shook off the melancholy.
“Anyway,” Helo said. “Kara’s a lot like Petra. That’s probably what drew me to her in the first place. We were in basic together,” he told Lee.
Nodding Lee, said, “I know. Didn’t you introduce her to Zak?”
“Yeah,” Helo said. He spoke softly voice weighted by his remembrances. “Petra died that year. It was right before I joined the service. There was an accident, some machinery broke loose.” He paused and then added, “She was only 14.”
“I’m sorry,” Lee said, genuinely sympathetic, “It’s hard to lose someone like that.”
“We were close. And she was just like Kara, a blond, leggy tomboy. Used to come out swinging, fists up, chin down.” Lee nodded, acknowledging these common traits. Helo leaned forward and reached behind his hips, pummeling his pillows up into a back support. “That first week in basic. You know how it is?”
“Rough.”
“Yeah,” Helo settled back with a sigh. “Kara took the brunt of the drill master’s temper. She just couldn’t keep her lip buttoned.”
“I can imagine.”
“She pulled so many extra workouts the rest of the squad barely saw her. She’d come in hours after we’d hit our racks, half dead with exhaustion, nursing her wounds. Never complained. Never backed down. She wouldn’t quit so they had to pass her through.”
“And once they got her behind the stick of a viper they stopped giving her grief?” Lee guessed.
He smiled and his affection transformed his face. Studying him, Helo suddenly appreciated what Kara might find appealing about the golden boy, “Apollo." Helo had never been overly fond of Lee. It wasn’t just that they came from radically different backgrounds. Zak was his brother but Helo had enjoyed Zak’s company. But then Zak had been easy going. He’d had a sweet, open personality. Lee was nothing but walls. He took himself and life too seriously
“That’s about right,” Helo agreed. “She kicked some simulator ass. Did even better with the real thing. But someone’s always given her grief.” Helo met Lee’s eye. “Lately, it’s been you.”
“Things are complicated.”
“Because of Zak?” When Lee looked up in surprise, Helo said, “You’ve got a definite problem with the law.”
“No, it’s more than that.” Lee dropped his gaze again. He folded his hands together. “There’s so much I don’t know about her. You’re her friend. I thought maybe…”
“Her favorite color is red.”
Lee snorted. “Okay, I know that much.” He met the challenge in Helo’s brotherly stare and responded to it. “She likes raspberry tea in the morning. With fresh pastry when she can get it. And she hates mornings. She takes her ambrosia straight up. Has a wicked right hook. Her childhood sucked. She was going to be a professional pyramid player until her knee gave out. She’s religious, devoted to Aphrodite and Artemis. She’s a member of the Oracle Society. Claims she joined for the drugs. What else?”
“That’s a lot,” Helo said impressed. “Kara usually doesn’t share. I guess she trusts you.”
“Can you tell me anything I don’t know?”
Helo thought about what he knew and was free to tell. “She paints. She’s good at it, too. Apparently, she’s had gallery showings.”
“Really?” Lee leaned back in his chair while he thought about this side of her. “And she knows her poets.”
“Yeah, she once won this bar bet by quoting all of Artemis and Apollo from memory.” He closed his eyes, thinking. “Her father was a musician. Played that modern stuff. No chanting.”
“Instrumental? What instrument?”
“Some kind of horn, I think.” Helo shrugged and looked across at Lee. “I’m not sure. But she brought back a few of his recordings from Caprica. So you could find out.” He let his gaze linger on Lee’s face as he pondered this line of questioning. After a moment or two he said, “You’re going to step up?”
“As soon as I figure out where to put my feet,” Lee admitted. “My father has objections. The whole breach of Caprican Law argument. And, truthfully, I’m sick of being shot down.”
“No guts, no glory,” Helo grinned. “She can always break the bans.”
“I'm curious. What made you pick Zak for Kara?”
“No pressure,” Helo said. “He was the easiest going guy I knew. But that’s not going to work for you.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” Helo smirked “In case you haven’t noticed whenever you and Kara are in the same room the pressure climbs until one of you cracks.”
*************************************************************
‘No pressure,’ Lee thought as he watched Kara hold court in the rack.
Cottle had finally released her into Lee’s care with the stricture that she not be over exerted. She was a week away from light duty. The other pilots had gathered around her, wishing her well and giving her small gifts. There was rot gut on tap and baklava for everyone. Mousie presented Kara with a small carving she’d made: a pair of ice skates. Kat gave her a wooly scarf. A party atmosphere reigned in the small space until Lee cleared his throat for an announcement.
“I hate to break up the fun but Kara needs her rest and I still need someone to field strip and detail her viper.” Nobody stepped forward. He hadn’t expected a rush of volunteers. “I see you are all eager to help out. So, everyone, but Kara, get back down to the hanger.”
The crowd stared at him in open mouthed disbelief. Some of them started to grumble about pulling double shifts. Lee cut through the growing wave of rebellion with a bark.
“Move it.” The crew scrambled for the door. “And I don’t want to see any of you sneaking back in here for at least an hour.”
A couple of the pilots shot him suspicious looks at the length of the time limit. Kara raised her brows but pressed her lips together to curtail her snickering. Her eyes danced above the tight grin.
“Why do we all have to go?” Hot dog whined. “It’s only one ship.”
“Because you are all equally happy to have Starbuck back in the rack,” Lee said. “But I see your point, Brendon. Tell you what? Just to make the trip worth your while, you can field strip my viper, too. And I expect it to be in the best shape its ever been in.”
There was a chorus of groans as a number of people swatted Hot Dog and called him an idiot. As the troops filed out, Lee crossed his arms and leaned his shoulder into his locker door. Smiling slightly, he waited for the din to die down.
“Smooth,” Kara said when the last of the complaining faded in the distance. “But do you think you’ll need an hour?”
Lee seemed immune to her innuendo. “Come on,” he said, grabbing her elbow to lever her off the bunk. “We’ve got to go.”
“Go?” Kara held back. “Didn’t you want to…? I thought you were clearing them out so we could…” she broke off in embarrassment, mortified by Lee’s mildly inquisitive expression. He hadn’t done more than kiss her forehead since they’d gotten back from the mission. Of course, he wasn’t planning on seducing her. Nothing had changed, really. Nothing ever did. She tried to pull free of his grip. “I’m tired. Can’t this wait?”
“No, it can’t wait. I don’t want them to follow us. Later we can go separately but for now…I have to take you there.”
Mildly intrigued, Kara let him lead her out of the barracks. They trailed along a number of passageways before leaving the more populated corridors behind. They took a freight elevator down into the deep holds of the ship. Lee helped her from time to time, placing guiding hands around her waist as she stepped down from a ladder or slipping his arm around her when she staggered slightly. They paused at a crossway and Lee stooped to retrieve a lantern he’d obviously stashed at the junction during a previous trip.
After adjusting the light, he carefully conducted Kara along the more dimly lit of the two converging passages. His fingers slid down her arm to mesh with hers. Kara felt her pulse quicken. Her breath caught in her throat as Lee squeezed her hand. Every one of Kara’s muscles clenched in response, just as if she were about to bounce. There was a slippery tightening at her core. She could sense a similar tension in Lee. The air seemed to be growing denser. Wherever they were going they needed to get there quickly. She longed to wrap her legs around him, feel him inside her. Gods, she was never going to stop wanting him.
They halted midway down a service tunnel in front of a door Kara realized must open into one of the cargo bays. “This is it?” she asked, staring dubiously at the numbered storage unit in front of them.
“This is it,” Lee said. He released her hand and pulled the door’s lock bar down, breaking the seal on the unit. There was a rattle of metal and a puff of surprisingly fresh air. “I think you owe someone a little loving care for saving your life.”
Kara turned to stare back over her shoulder down the long dark passageway. “Isn’t this a long way to come for a bounce? Wouldn’t the now empty rack be a better place to…”
“Too messy.”
“Messy?” Kara cocked her head. “Now that’s interesting…you’re planning something messy?”
“Yeah, we can’t do this in the rack,” he said with a handsome twist of his features. “People would object.”
As he spoke, he yanked open the door. It slid along its track with a smooth metallic rattle. Automatic lights flared, flooding the dim service tunnel with brightness. Kara raised a hand to shield her eyes. When she’d blinked away the spots she stared in disbelief. There in the middle of a spacious storage unit was the battered 420.
“Artemis’ bow, what happened to him?” Kara exclaimed, rushing to the Swan’s side to inspect the considerable damage Lee’s Cylon base attack had inflicted. There were deep gouges in the bike’s side, a few bullet holes in the frame and the cutter wheel was bent.
“Rode hard, left cold.”
Kara tossed a saucy glance over her shoulder. “I can sympathize.”
“I thought you might.”
Contentment washed over Lee as Kara straddled the bike, rocking it upright. When she had it balanced with her thighs, she slowly drew a tender hand along its curved chassis. Leaning close to the throttle she stage-whispered, “Don’t you worry, baby, Starbuck’s gonna treat you right.”
An icy shiver skated down Lee’s spine. It ran into the molten heat rising from his loins and created metaphoric steam. He blew out a long breath. He got too hard, too fast for her. Control and restraint, he reminded himself as he sat his lantern down on a wooden box. Fingers hooked in his belt strap he strutted a little as he circled the Swan to face Kara.
“Mind if I watch? Or do the two of you want to be alone?”
The tip of Kara's tongue moistened her lips. She tossed her hair back as she pushed up into a sultry half-crouch. Her hands were braced between her legs, fingertips curling into the leather seat cover. It crossed Lee’s mind that Felix Gaeta didn’t know what made a good picture. He wondered if he could borrow the camera for an afternoon.
“You mean you didn’t bring me here for a three-way?” Kara purred.
“I brought you here to help me fix the bike,” Lee said seriously. “But I thought it would be nice if we could spend some time together…talk.”
Her eyes lost a lot of their sparkle and Lee felt like a fool. Frak now, talk later, his cock reminded, nudging him.
“Talk?” Kara said, like she’d never heard of the pastime. Sliding backwards off the Swan she stood staring at him. “You’ve turned awfully talkative lately.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” she shrugged. She crossed the room to the pile of blankets and other supplies he’d stocked. She picked up a bottle of ambrosia and stared at it for a minute. “What do you want to talk about?”
“What happened between us on the planet,” Lee suggested. “What happens next?” Head cocked to the side, he stared as she crouched by the tool box. She started searching through it, casting some of the items out onto the floor. Lee was fascinated by the way her uniform tightened around her breasts and hips. Gods, he was never going to stop wanting her. “I filed a fraternization request,” he said, quietly.
Kara stiffened and then swiveled slowly to face him. “You spoke to the Commander about this?” She ground her teeth together and stood quickly, temper rattling its chains. “That’s what I mean by talkative. First Cottle. Now, the old man? What did you tell him?”
“I told him I wanted to date you.”
She didn’t think she’d heard him correctly. “Date?” she said, incredulously.
It was such an innocent sounding word. Kara wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting him to declare but this wasn’t it. Her ire puffed away like dandelion fuzz in a stiff breeze. She couldn’t help grinning. Her eyes widened and she stared at him with a burgeoning expectation as if he were some exotic entertainer.
“It’s not that insane,” Lee said, defensively, his lips curving into a sulky pout. “I’ve dated. You’ve dated. This will be like that only with us both there.”
“Sure,” Kara managed to remark with a reasonably straight face, “Dating…it’s…sweet.”
Sweet? The implication warmed Lee’s blood. Blushing slightly, he looked down at her feet as he combed his fingers through his hair. “Right,” he said. “And moot. Since he’s forbidden it.”
“What else could he do? It’s illegal.”
“For now,” Lee said, enigmatically. The last light of Kara’s good humor faded as she took his meaning. This was about the banns again. She surveyed the room. Lee had filled it with all the comforts of home. There were blankets, pillows, water and food. He’d created a love nest. A place where he could frak her sore and never have to answer for it. “On the plus side,” he was saying, “I haven’t been reassigned to a mining vessel, yet. So, it went better than expected.”
“He’ll never sign those papers.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think he’ll come around in a year or two.” He met her eye and saw she remembered their conversation on Caprica about things getting easier with time.
“A year?”
“Or two.”
“And in the meantime we meet here?” Kara asked carefully. She didn’t sound as happy about it as she had about the concept of dating but she seemed to relax a little. The secret frak was familiar territory. They had it down to a science in only two lessons.
“That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind but….” He faced her straight on. “But if it’s what you want, sure…we can meet here…go slow…”
“Slow?” Kara said, her gaze carrying his to the 420. “I thought you liked the pedal all the way down.”
“It does seem to be stuck in that position,” Lee admitted. Deciding they’d had enough emotional honesty for one day, he cast a critical eye over the Swan. “Do you think it would hold us?” he asked, ever practical. ‘I mean…if we decided to…have a three-way.”
“The 380 could,” she said, with a little shrug. “And this one’s bigger.”
“I was talking about that kickstand,” Lee remarked. “But now you’ve got my interest up.” He stepped into her personal space. “Along with a few other things.”
As if she couldn’t bear to remain close, Kara pushed against his chest with her fingertips and turned away from him. Lee thought about catching her wrist, pulling her back to him, but he decided to give her some space. She went to the tool box. Lee waited a bit and then asked, “How do you know the 380 could hold us? Riding weight’s not the same as…”
She found a wrench. Brandishing it, she pirouetted to face him and, brows arching, smiled knowingly.
Lee puffed out an appalled gasp. “Oh, tell me you didn’t,” he said, certain that she had. “With Zak?”
“You left the Swan behind.”
The electric zing her insinuation sparked deep in his belly made Lee think maybe Helo and his father were right about how maladjusted he was. He really shouldn't be thrilled by the thought of her riding his brother and his bike at the same time.
“You didn’t find that a little…”
“Stimulating?”
“I was going to say… kinky?”
“A little, yeah,” she admitted with a careless shrug. “Not as much as when I rode it solo, though.” She wrinkled her nose at him, her flexible features holding a playful grimace. “Then it was all about you and the Swan.”
It was a mental picture to make Lee’s mouth water. He could see Kara naked and writhing between his body and the 380. Hell he could feel her, yeilding and tight at the same time. His libido prodded him in the back of the knees as all of his blood rushed to his groin. He had to pinch his eyes closed and bite down on the inside of his cheek. When he had himself under control again he opened his eyes to find Kara reinforcing the kickstand with a metal plate. He grinned. You had to love a woman who was good with tools.
“What we need is a parking block,” she told him. “Maybe we could get one from the Medusa.”
“Okay,” Lee agreed.
He was dimly aware of how their entire conversation had veered off track. Nothing was going according to his plan. The pressure was definitely building and in another minute or two he was going to have her flat on her back again. He could sense an endless string of hard bounces ahead of them. They would come to this room, strip and frak and bite and snarl. Lee wanted Kara up against a wall. But he also wanted more. And Kara certainly deserved better.
“Look, Kara,” he said closing the small space between them. “I know I keep frakking things up…tearing your clothes off when you’re dying of pneumonia, for example. My timing isn’t the greatest but…if you’re free tomorrow…that is I know you’re free but if you want to go…I’ve got two tickets to Ishra Virtik’s concert on Cloud Nine.”
She glanced up at him in surprise. “Virtik?” The happy glow was back in her eyes.
“The instrumentalist?” Lee explained. “He was slated to perform at the decommissioning ceremony. So he’s still alive.”
“I know who he is,” Kara said, getting up off her knees and giving him a pensive look. “But I’m surprised you do. He’s not that well known.”
“I’m surprisingly cultured,” Lee said flashing a grin at her. “My mother was a social butterfly; concerts and art showings and picnics on the lawn.”
“And you like Virtik?”
“Oh…well.” Lowering his gaze, he hunched his shoulders a like a small boy caught fibbing and gave a nervous little laugh. “I saw you had a few of his recordings.”
“In my rack? In a sealed box?”
“Yeah,” Lee waved her implied criticism aside. What was a little invasion of privacy between frakking buddies? “I thought you’d enjoy hearing him play. Mostly I’m going for the R&R.” Kara shifted her weight until they were brushing against each other. Lee flexed his knees and slid his cheek into the curve of her neck so they interlocked like puzzle pieces. His lips grazed her ear as he lowered his voice to a sexy conspiratorial rumble. “I want to bask in the artificial sunlight and Break G with my girl.”
Kara pulled back until she could peer into his face. “Do what?”
He couldn't help smirking. “I started a little nugget slang while you were recuperating,” he announced proudly.
Kara lifted a curious eyebrow in a silent request for more information.
“Breaking G is engaging in…uh…how shall I put it?” Head tilted to the side, Lee traced his fingertip along her cheek. He tugged her bottom lip open, slipping his finger into the velvet warmth of her mouth. She sucked obligingly as he considered the best way to get his point across. “It’s engaging in regulation-approved public displays of affection,” he said at last, slowly reclaiming his finger. “Hugging and kissing and so on…until you get that weightless, floating, zero-G feeling.”
Kara smiled brightly and bobbed her head in exaggerated appreciation of his cleverness.
“Creative,” she said before narrowing her eyes into a gunfighter’s squint. As she squared off to confront him, she lowered her chin aggressively. “But I was questioning the ‘your girl’ part.”
“Ah,” Lee sighed.
He leaned back from the waist but kept his hips locked to hers as he mirrored her smiling head bob. He followed it up with his own version of the slit-eyed look. They dealt with the issue of his claim on her with a staring contest, standing toe-to-toe, nose-to-nose, and then Lee seemed to capitulate. He spread his hands out and stepped back to swing a leg over the 420. As he settled into the saddle his gaze drifted suggestively up and down Kara’s body. In her head she heard him asking her, ‘Do you want to fight or get laid?’
“I don’t wanna fight,” she whispered huskily in response to the unasked question.
“Glad to hear it,” Lee said.
Keeping his eyes locked on hers, he reached out a hand and smoothly dragged the wrench from her nerveless fingers. He tossed the tool negligently over his shoulder. Kara’s gaze instinctively followed the arc of the wrench but Lee jerked her attention back to him by slapping his palm down on the Swan just in front of his obvious erection.
“Have a seat, Lieutenant,” he growled softly, “And I’ll clear up that possessive pronoun for you.”
THE END
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-21 04:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-31 08:50 pm (UTC)