Like every morning for the past month, Kara Thrace felt her eyes jolt open suddenly, and without warning she found herself ripped from her dreams. At least, dreams was how she liked to classify what she did when she was unconscious. Really, it was just a sense of nothingness filled with flashes of memories and intertwined with intense emotional bursts. It was painful and comforting at the same time and, for some reason, only served to put her more on edge.
She hadn't dreamt in the conventional, soothing sense for over two years.
Sighing lightly, she shut her eyes and took a moment to enjoy the feel of the bed beneath it. The mattress felt extra soft against her tense muscles, and she cracked her fingers to relieve some of the tension of waking up after such a rough night. It wasn't everyday that she was given the privilege of a full night's sleep or of such an opportunity to lazily wake herself up. Then again after her successfully crazy plan the night before and Apollo's equally insane flying, the least she could be given was a little peace and quiet and the chance to relax.
Speaking of quiet, it suddenly occurred to her that that was exactly what was going on all around her. Everything in the bunkroom was quiet. Which meant that either every other pilot had suddenly died overnight, she herself had died overnight and was currently floating in nothingness, or she wasn't exactly where she was supposed to be. She was leaning towards the last choice.
Her thoughts trailed off as she opened her eyes slowly to stare up at the ceiling above her.
That wasn't close to familiar. To start with, she could see it. That would have been impossible from her designated bottom bunk in the sleeping quarters of her fleet. There was a definite lack of light which would normally be blaring in at her as people got ready for their flight assignments periodically throughout the day.
And then there was a slight shifting motion on the bed beside her every few moments. Definitely not familiar.
Trying to move as little as she could, she sat up and slowly pulled the covers back from the other side of the bed where the movements had come from. It was funny that something as simple as an unfamiliar room and an unfamiliar situation might cause fear to gather in her stomach. In the past two years, she could count the times she felt real fear on one hand. This instance might force her to have to continue that count over on her other hand, too. She hated it when fear kicked in. It blurred her senses. It didn't matter, though. She didn't need all her senses to know that something was not right with this situation.
Her eyes rested on the sleeping face in the bed beside her. She let out the breath she hadn't know she was holding in a rush as she recognized Lee Adama.
She and Lee had been sleeping in the same bed on and off since they were bunkmates at the Academy during their first year. If this was Lee lying next to her, then the situation was nowhere near as bad as she had first thought it could be.
It was at that exact moment of emotional relief that she realized the parts of Lee she had innocently uncovered were not entirely clothed. As it turned out, upon closer inspection, she was also neither covered nor clothed.
"Frak me," she muttered, pulling the covers up to her neck and lying back down. She felt really dirty all of the sudden. She also felt pissed off, but that wasn't new. "What in the name of the gods of Kobol am I supposed to do with this?"
She heard Lee mumble in response to her question. Her body stiffened immediately, and she began running all possible routes of escape through her head as quickly as possible. None of them really seemed like they could work without causing Lee to wake up completely. That meant she was stuck in her current position for at least a little while longer.
Leaning back against the head of the bed, she tried to be optimistic about the sudden free time she had on her hands since there was no way she could slip right out of bed, into clothes, and out the door with Lee in his current position of lying half-conscious between her and the exit point. She lay perfectly still and tried to remember what exactly had happened the night before to put her in this precarious position.
She could remember running down to the flight deck as soon as Dee announced over the communication system that Captain Apollo, the hero of the mission, had landed his Viper safely. She had fully intended to lay into him for scaring her to death, but when she saw him with an actual smile of satisfaction on his face, she couldn't bring herself to yell. There was a first time for everything, it had seemed.
So caught up in her emotions, Kara found herself offering him the very cigar his father had given her a few weeks before. It was better than a medal for bravery, that's for sure. And suddenly, she understood how much of his personality and opinions he had to check during his flight through the conveyor tunnel. He deserved that stogie more than she did. They had just stood there, smiling at one another and trading insults until most of the flight deck had cleared of personnel.
It had reminded her of the training exercises they went through at the Academy. Every time Lee passed one of the simulations or the live flights, she was waiting for him two feet away from where he got out of his Viper. She would hand him a cigar or a drink and order him to enjoy his success and have a little fun. Old habits die hard.
Once they realized they were pretty much alone, she had suggested they continue this celebration elsewhere. It was her idea to go count how many free drinks they could squeeze out of the fleet before everyone started pairing off and disappearing into the abandoned nooks and crannies of the Battlestar. She was never one to pass up an opportunity for free booze or stogies. Especially since she had a feeling that the good stuff might be coming out of hiding since everyone seemed indebted to Lee.
Once they got down to where everyone was celebrating, things started to get a little crazy. However, she could distinctively remember Lee laughingly admitting within thirty minutes of sitting in the pilots' area that there was no way he could drink all the alcohol or smoke all the cigars by his lonesome.
He had started to slip her both under the table so as not to offend those who were producing them for him to enjoy, and she was only happy to help him out of the sticky situation and get a little drunk herself in the process. That was the point that her memory of the night started to get fuzzy.
"And somehow I ended up naked in bed with my best friend." She looked around the room. "In his private sleeping quarters, it would seem."
"Is that you, Kara?" Lee mumbled into his pillow. She silently cursed herself for not being able to keep her thoughts to herself. "Talking to yourself is not a healthy habit. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were as crazy as Dr. Baltar."
"If you only knew," she replied, alluding to their current predicament which Lee wasn't conscious of quite yet. She wished that she could have that luxury.
Maybe she could punch him really hard in the head and make a run for the door, denying all knowledge of doing so at a later time.
He continued, "Could you make sure that I'm not scheduled until the late patrol? There's no way I'm getting out of this bed anytime soon. I don't think I'm entirely sober right now, and even if I was, the room will probably start spinning the second I open my eyes. "
Maybe not.
"Oh. I would help you out there, Lee, but I think walking to where you post the schedules and having a chat with the XO might require me to be wearing some form of clothing. Which isn't happening right at this moment."
Lee turned over onto his side, facing her, and slowly opened his eyes a fraction. After a moment where he noticeably tried to understand what she was getting at, he scrunched up his face and asked, "What are you talking about, Starbuck?"
Knowing that she probably shouldn't start joking about their mutual nakedness until she got to the bottom of why it happened, she found that she still couldn't help but wiggle her eyebrows at him suggestively. When she looked back in retrospect, she would probably be furious if she blew this chance and failed to get in a few jabs at Apollo. It was practically her life calling, and this was an opportunity for an award-winning performance of her life's work.
Lee continued to look at her confused until his face lit up in realization. "Why am I not wearing clothing?" he asked her quietly.
Obviously, he had finally felt the lack of the normal regulation sleep attire on his body. But that was really only half the problem. "I think the more important question is why am I not wearing clothing," she shot back.
True to form, Lee's face reddened in the blush that seemed to be only for her. She had never seen the mighty Apollo blush for anyone but her, that's for sure. It was somewhat nice to know that she and no one else had that effect on him.
She straightened up slightly, still holding tight to the blankets tucked around her, and scanned the room. "Another question might be where did my clothing end up? Because it definitely isn't in your room."
Lee followed her lead and took in his surroundings. "I guess we should be glad that we're in my quarters and not some random part of the ship. With all the alcohol we consumed, it's a wonder that we even made it back here. And there happens to be plenty of clothing in a locker not far from here." He lifted his hands above his head and stretched out the length of his body, beginning the routine of waking up. Kara had witnessed his weird routine too many times to count or even to comment on it.
After the few minutes of silence it took him to fully wake up, she found herself asking hesitantly, "Do you remember what happened last night, Lee?"
"No," he said simply. Lee was never one to waste words. "Now turn away. I'm going to get you some clothes."
"Turn away?" she shouted. "We have seen each other naked every day for the past seven years ever since the Academy stuck me with your sorry ass as a bunkmate."
"The way I remember it, I was asked, as Commander Adama's eldest son, to take the most rebellious applicant in the program as a bunkmate in order that my discipline might straighten her out slightly."
"We can see how well that worked."
"Would you stop poking fun at things that neither one of us can remember? And turn away while you're at it!"
"Fine, fine," she mumbled, assuming a pout while she turned away to face the wall. "And I never said I didn't remember." She could hear Lee pause in his movements out of the bed and across the room and imagined him freezing in fear at that thought of her knowing what had gone on while he was still clueless. "I don't remember, but still, it might have been nice if you had asked before assuming that I was as trashed as you were last night."
"I wasn't trashed."
"I beg to differ, Lee. If I remember correctly, you asked Cally about halfway through the night if it was legal for you to hit on her. That is trashed."
His response was to throw a pair of sweatpants and a few regulation tanks at her, nailing her in the back of the head. "Put those on."
Rubbing the back of her head, she turned back to face him. Just as she thought, Lee was standing on the other side of the room facing the wall. "Lee?" she said softly.
"Yes?"
"Will you promise to peek?"
Groaning, he threw his hands up in the air and made his way to the open hatch leading to his CAG office. "I don't know how I put up with you. When you're dressed, join me," he called over his shoulder before disappearing from sight.
Stretching out of bed, she felt her muscles recoil from the sudden movement. Her body was definitely hurting, and she was afraid to think that it might not all be due to the alcohol. Plus, the fact that she woke up in bed with a naked man didn't help.
She slipped into Lee's clothing, rolling up the pants when she realized they were twice her size. It hadn't taken her more than five minutes to get dressed which was a record for her when she was forced to try to fit herself into Lee's clothing. Usually she had to roll and pin and tuck for forever in order to get the clothing to look semi-right. "Another first for the night, I guess," she joked to herself.
Giving a quick stretch and releasing a yawn, she stumbled into the office. Lee was sitting in the chair in front of his desk, staring into space, completely lost in his thoughts. Pausing, she watched him for a moment, hesitant to interrupt a rare moment of peace at this odd time. Lee had taken on a lot of responsibility he hadn't been prepared for since the day the Cylons destroyed their whole world. Kara still didn't think he had adjusted completely to the new burdens in his life.
"Come up with anything, Captain?" she finally asked, walking into the room and placing herself right in the middle of all the mounds of paperwork lying on his desk. She rested both her feet on the sides of his chair, effectively surrounding his body, and laid her head in her hands.
"Don't be all coy and cute with me, Kara. We need to figure out what happened last night. There could have been half a dozen rules that we broke."
"Always have to live by the book, don't you?" she teased, hitting his shoulder lightly. When he didn't respond with his usual pissed off expression, she tried to go the logical route. "You and I have probably been breaking those rules for the whole time we've been on this ship. Every time you've forgotten that I'm your lead pilot and not your best friend, every time I forgot that you were the CAG and not the guy who pulled me through academy by the skin of my teeth."
"More like the scruff of your neck."
"We don't have an appropriate relationship. Let's just call this the icing on that cake."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Isn't it obvious?" When he just continued to look at her, she went on, "You and I got piss drunk on the alcohol everyone kept offering us. The adrenaline in our bodies never got released properly after the mission, so we came back here and frakked our brains out."
Groaning, he pushed her feet out of the way and got up out of his seat. "We did not frak our brains out with each other," he corrected.
"How do you know we didn't? I thought you said you didn't remember anything about last night either. You're not holding out on me, are you?"
He sent her that pissed off look she had been searching for moments earlier before saying, "I think I would know if we had done that."
She walked over to where he stood slowly in what he recognized as her usual attempt at seduction. Placing her hands on his chest for balance among other things, she stood on tiptoe and whispered in his ear, "Isn't your body even a little sore this morning? A little too much tension than can be attributed to the after-flight feelings? A little ache where I scratched the hell out of your back with my nails?"
He shuddered slightly from the sound of her voice so close. These moments of contact were few and far between with Kara, and he still hadn't learned how to handle them beyond taking a few calming breaths. When he had done just that, he shifted so that his mouth was now close to her ear and whispered back, "My back doesn't have a scratch on it."
"Take it from me. It does." She nipped his ear lightly with her teeth.
"And maybe my body is a little sore."
Kara took a small step back from him. "Then we have a problem, Captain."
He rubbed the sides of his head roughly. "I don't understand how we could have slept with one another no matter how drunk we were."
Kara licked her lips and crossed her arms in front of her in what Lee knew to be her warm-up to an all-out fist fight. This was not going to end well for them. "Are you saying that even a completely intoxicated Apollo wouldn't want to sleep with me?"
"We are so not getting into that discussion."
She widened her eyes and nodded at him vigorously. "We so are. I want to know what you meant by saying there was no way we could have slept with each other."
"I was just pointing out that you and I have spent many nights side by side when we were drunk without getting intimate. I don't know what might have changed this time."
She moved her eyes to look down at the floor as she grew noticeably uncomfortable. "Don't you?"
There was only one reason through the years that caused Kara to break eye contact with him. Usually, in a normal situation, she got off on staring him down until he cracked. As Lee remembered what that reason was for the odd behavior, he suddenly understood what she was hinting at, and his eyes grew large. "Zak? You think this has something to do with my brother?"
"We never really dealt with that night during our training," she said softly, still fixated on some unknown point in the metal floorboards. "I'd be willing to bet it had something to do with that, and we all know how good I am at gambling."
He grabbed her chin and made her look at him once more. "Listen to me, Kara. I'm not going back to something that happened over five years ago. I've learned not to dwell in the past. It can only hurt you and mess up any semblance of a live you've managed to piece together. Especially when the past involves either you, me, or Zak."
"We need to talk about it," she insisted. "I should have known you would react like this. You tried to avoid it that day, and you're trying to avoid it now. You can't tell me that you've forgotten about it. You obviously remember it well enough if you knew exactly what I was talking about."
"Give me one good reason why this has to be brought up now."
"Because those feelings we dredged up that night are still there somewhere, threatening to come out at the worst damn time!" she screamed. She took a few quick breaths before continuing, "Probably never really went away considering the whole avoidance factor. If you don't feel that, Lee, then you're blind."
"Whatever happened then isn't still there, Kara. You're my brother's girlfriend."
Her gaze hardened at him. "I hope I only have to say this once because I'm not going to deny that it still hurts to talk about it. I was your brother's girlfriend for three years, and I loved him for every second of that time. I gave him all I had, but Zak is gone now. As much as I hate thinking about it and as much as it eats me up inside, he is not coming back. I accept my role in that fact. I love him but I don't identify myself by him anymore, and I wish that you would do the same. "
Lee shook his head. "You still love him. You can't deny that."
She began to clench her hands into fists where they were crossed against her chest. He was taking the easy way out of this problem, and she was getting sick and tired of it.
Lee was the only person in the whole fleet that could get on her nerves so much that she couldn't keep her temper in check. Every fight she had been in not involving Lee Adama was due to someone else throwing the first punch. When it came to Lee, he grated on her nerves until she couldn't help but get physical.
Deciding to try her best to hold back this time, she ground her teeth together as she tried to put her words nicely. "I find myself wondering why you are working so hard to keep from talking about that night. Why are you so convinced that it doesn't need addressing considering our current situation?"
"I don't see what it has to do with anything."
"Let me think for a second." She looked up at the ceiling and then back down at him, anger gleaming in her eyes. "Okay, I think I've got it. We might have frakked until our bodies gave out for the majority of last night, and let's see. Oh! That's right! We almost frakked five years ago. Seems pretty similar to me."
Lee glared at her. "Would you stop using that word?"
"What do you want me to use? Would you rather I say we used each other as a means to a release like most of the other pilots on this ship? Or do you would you prefer something softer like we made love because of our understanding of what the other is going through?"
"Stop being confrontational."
"Stop making me confront you."
"Stop being a pain in the ass then."
"Stop trying to pin the blame on my shoulders and maybe I will," she growled.
"I'm not trying to pin the blame on you. I'm just saying that you're wrong about the two instances even being remotely similar."
Sensing that her control was starting to wane, she narrowed her eyes at him. "You cared for me back then, didn't you?"
"Yes," he answered simply and only with a little hesitance.
That was really all of an answer that she had expected. When the situations got tough, Lee's vocabulary usually went down to one-syllable sentences. "Then you obviously don't feel the same way about me now since these two situations are unrelated in your mind. Because if you still cared for me, then you wouldn't be trying to dismiss my ideas at what happened so quickly. If you cared for me, then you would want to talk about what the frak is happening with us."
Lee started shaking his hand. "No. I did not say I don't care about you. You are putting words in my mouth. I hate it when you do that, Kara."
"I'm not putting words into your mouth, Lee. You're telling me exactly what I think you are. Only you won't come out and say it."
"You know that the idea of us being intimate with one another is ridiculous. You are my best friend, and I would never ruin that by trying to get into your pants." Now Lee was talking through clenched teeth, too. Not a good sign.
This was the moment that Kara knew she was going to end up hitting him. If Lee's voice started to get infused with anger, then she had no prayer at staying calm. Might as well get it over with and out of her system.
She stared him down for a moment before slowly uncrossing her arms.
Lee let out the breath he had been holding slowly, happy to see her calming. She was even starting to scowl a little less menacingly. It seemed like somewhere in the past few months of running for their lives, she had developed a rationality that had previously been absent. It would be nice not to constantly be worrying about whether she was going to get physical with him every time they had a mildly intense discussion.
"I'm sorry if I'm not like you. I can't just accept that I would enter into this kind of relationship with someone without being responsible enough to know that it was a stupid mistake."
The next thing he knew, he was laying face-up on the floor with a throbbing pain shooting across half of his head. He hadn't seen the fist coming until it was too late. She had connected squarely with his jaw in the exact spot that Tom Zarek had previously bruised only weeks before. "Jesus, Kara," he hissed, glaring at her.
"You deserved it, you bastard. When you're ready to stop avoiding the things that make you uneasy, let me know." Without another word, she turned on heel and exited through the hatch.
Lee closed his eyes, as her footsteps echoed down the corridor, trying to forget that he probably really had deserved that punch and attempting to push the pain out of his head. He had lied to her when he said he didn't think this current situation had anything to do with whatever had happened between them five years before. He had also lied when he implied he didn't remember it that well.
True be told, he remembered it all too well. So well that it taken him five years for it not to be constantly on his mind.
Leaning back, he tried to accept the fact that he was going to have to dredge up those old memories if he was going to make things right with Kara. Especially because he wanted to fix things with her without getting murdered.
He leaned back in his chair and took a few deep breaths. After a quick prayer that this wouldn't hurt too much, he focused on the task at hand. He had to figure out if she was right, and he already had a nagging feeling that she was.
It had been at the beginning of their third year in the Academy. Lee had been studying in their bunkroom for at least four hours before she came in in one of the foulest moods he had ever seen her have.
"You're wearing a dress," he stated matter-of-factly as he looked up at her over the top of his book.
"Yeah. I wouldn't make a habit of it."
"Date gone awry?" he asked, returning his attention back to his book.
She hesitated a second before answering. "Yeah. I don't know why I even try to date when I should be stuck with my nose in a book like you."
"I'm not sure if that was a compliment or an insult."
"A little of both, Lee. A little of both."
She threw herself down on her bunk as he set the book down and turned towards her. "So, how horrible was it?"
"Let me see. I think my date just wanted to get some street cred by saying that he took the infamous Kara Thrace out on the town. I had high hopes for him considering, but all he wanted to talk about was how many fights I had been in and why I was so obstinate." She looked over at him. "It really reminded me of the beginning of one of your lectures."
"This guy was bad then."
"He was so not worth all the trouble I went through." She absentmindedly played at one sleeve of her dress.
"You look pretty," Lee said, smiling at her.
"Now that was an insult," she said with a laugh. "Pretty? No girl wants to be called pretty, Lee. Pretty is for seven-year-old girls in frilly purple dresses."
"I'll take note."
"You would already know that if you ever got out of this room. You spend too much time studying and not enough time living."
"The way you're going on tonight makes me think that living isn't all it's cracked up to be."
She rolled her eyes and got up off the bed, heading over to her locker. "So we went down to Finnegan's Bar, and the bastard didn't even offer to pay for my drinks."
"That's probably because you drank too much. You would have taken him to the poor house if he paid for all your drinks."
Slipping into a pair of sweatpants, she paused to glare at him. "I had one drink. I'm not a lush, no matter how much you try to make me out to be."
"I know," Lee said, realizing that teasing might be a little inappropriate considering the mood she was in. "He should have paid for you."
"That would have been the gentlemanly thing to do. I'm beginning to think that people are right. All the good guys are taken, and all that's left is the jerks. I can't work with jerks."
Lee watched as she suddenly got a funny look on her face and started staring at him intently. "What?"
"Maybe not all the good guys are taken. Why have I never seen you out on a date in the two years we've known each other, Lee Adama?"
"Because I don't have the time." When she just looked at him skeptically, he sighed. "I just haven't found any girl that's worth me giving up my studies."
"Maybe you should get out there and try to find her instead of waiting for her to come to you." Kara walked over and sat down on the desk he was working at. "Why don't you talk me out sometime?"
He leaned back in his chair. "Are you asking me out on a date?"
"I'm trying to snag the last good guy in the world."
"So I'm a good guy?"
"You appear to be that way. I'd have to go through further inspection to tell you for sure."
Lee chuckled softly. "Who's to say that you are even my type?"
"We get along just fine. You seem to be the only one in the academy who can tolerate my personality. Why shouldn't we see if we work well together?"
"I've seen you eat enough food to feed a small family and drink enough booze to knock out a horse. I don't think I could find it within myself to be attracted to you anymore."
"Anymore?" she asked questioningly.
"I will admit to have a few stray thoughts to that effect during our first few days together. I got over that fast."
"I could make you attracted to me again. I have special powers."
The two managed to have a small stare down, continuing their little game of chicken for thirty seconds more before they both cracked up laughing. "I really wish I could have had as much fun on my date as the past ten minutes I've spent talking with you. He didn't even make me laugh, and I was so willing to do the whole fake complementary laughing thing."
"You do that a lot?"
"Yeah." She caught the look on his face. "But never with you, of course." She paused. "Okay. Maybe once or twice. But that was when you were trying to tell some funny story about the texts we were supposed to be reading. They're really boring, Lee."
He nodded in agreement. They were pretty bland. "I don't understand how he could have not tried to make you laugh. It seems like this guy was purposely trying to make your date horrible."
"I think he was trying too hard to make it good so that we would end up where he wanted us to be. You know I have a lot of guys trying to get me in bed all the time."
"What?" Lee cried, grabbing her knees to try to push her off his desk. "Stop messing with me, Starbuck. I don't have time for you to mess with my head right now. We both have studying to get done."
"I'm serious," she said, laughing while trying to stay on the desk. "In addition to the guys who want to go on a date with me, there are tons of guys who just want to get the hotshot pilot in bed. I don't know if they think my skill will rub off on them or what, but I'm constantly being propositioned. It's disgusting."
Lee was in shock at her little confession. Mouth agape, he leaned back in his chair to look at her intently. "You think this guy was like the others whose greatest aim was to get you in bed."
"If you keep making fun of my good-natured confession, I am going to hit you." She gave him one of her trademark smiles. "Like I said, I had high hopes that this might actually be a guy who wanted to get to know me, someone who was actually interested in me as a person and not my abilities or reputation. That turned out to be completely wrong. I haven't even told you about when he asked me if I could help him with some of his flight training."
"Flight training? We haven't had to do flight training since our first term…" His voice trailed off as he realized what she was saying. "You went out with a first year student?"
"Don't look at me like that, Lee. I'm getting desperate. All of the people in the upper levels resent me because I'm better than them already, and everyone in the years around us can be grouped in the category of sleazes that I've been talking about. First years are fresh blood."
"You're really itching for a good frak, aren't you?"
She lightly slapped his cheek. "Lee Adama, don't let me hear that filthy word coming out of your mouth again!"
"I learned it from you." His face scrunched up in worry. "Maybe my father was right, and you really are a bad influence on me."
She mocked being horrified. "Your dad said that?"
"No. But sometimes I feel like it's implied when he says that I should spend more time studying and less time fraternizing with my bunkmate."
"We don't fraternize. I occasionally get you to have a drink or two, but there is no fraternizing going on." Kara grinned wickedly at him. "So how is old Bill doing? That ancient warship holding up?"
"Don't make fun of the Galactica. I practically grew up there."
"You did not. You lived on Caprica with your mother and Zak."
"My dad would take us up for a ride in Galactica every time the ship docked at Caprica, so I was there during a lot of my life."
Kara rolled her eyes at him, partly because he was stretching the truth but mostly because she hadn't done it in the past few minutes. "I know you love that old hunk of junk, but I've never been able to figure out why. It's practically from another time period."
"My father will resent being called an old hunk of junk when I tell him."
Kara's eyes grew big. "You wouldn't."
"Oh I would."
She smiled at him. "Are you actually making a joke?"
He frowned at her. "No. It's not physically possible for me to joke. But to answer your question, my father says that it's important we don't let our guard down. We created the Cylons. We have to be wary if they one day attack us."
"The Cylons are not going to attack us. No one has even heard from them in years."
"So then why are you at the academy?"
"It's something to do, I guess."
Lee shrugged his shoulders in mild agreement. They both had their own, real reasons for being at the academy, and neither one were willing to let the other know what those reasons were. Lee knew that Kara would just yell at him if she knew that he was only here to please his father's wishes. And that would get her going on another rant about how the Galactica is just a hunk of junk and why would you want to end up working on something like that. She seemed to be gunning for one of the rare positions as a hotshot pilot based off of some planet, piling up all the medals and awards.
He pulled himself out of his thoughts and looked over at where she still sat in the middle of his desk. "Speaking of something to do, I would appreciate you moving off my work. I'm behind in that stupid mechanics course they're making me take."
Kara pulled her feet up underneath her to get more leverage on the desk. "I am not moving an inch. You need a break."
"And you need to keep your mind off that horrible date," he pointed out without thinking. When he saw the smile on her face disappear, he realized what he had done. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up. I know as much as you keep joking about it, you really had your heart set on it working out."
"It's okay. I thought this guy might be different. I was wrong." Kara got up off the desk and threw herself down onto her bed once more. The room filled with silence.
"Do you think that maybe I was the problem?" she asked quietly after a few minutes, pulling a pillow up under her chin.
Having returned to his studies thinking their conversation was over for the time being, Lee flung his book on the desk and turned to look at her. "What are you talking about?"
"Maybe he wasn't attracted to me. I'm not exactly the conventional type of girl that guys aspire to date."
Lee sighed and stood up, making his way over to her bunk. He sat down onto the bed beside where she lay and patted her legs lightly. "You might not be the conventional type, but you are one hell of a woman, Kara Thrace. If that guy didn't realize what he had right in front of him, then there is obviously something wrong with him. You shouldn't waste any more time dwelling on it."
Kara leaned back against the wall at the head of her bed and thought over what he had said for a moment. "You think I'm one hell of a woman?"
"You are. I mean, look at you." Lee lay down so that he was also leaning back against the head of the bed. "You might spend most of your time in hack, but you're one of the best pilots in our class. Hell, you're pretty much the best pilot in the whole school. What you do when you're at the controls of a Viper, that's not learned. It's like when you're in the air, you're one with your ship. That intensity you have for flying comes through in every aspect of your life. When you want something, you won't rest until you get it. Point in case, you want someone to spend your time with, but you're not going to settle for anyone but the perfect guy." He smiled over at her. "And rightfully so, I think. I mean, if you haven't noticed lately, you are an incredibly beautiful woman."
Kara smiled over at him sweetly. "See? That's a lot better than pretty."
"I told you I took note. Hey! Have you noticed we actually haven't been arguing for the past few minutes?" He winked at her. "I think it's a record."
"I think we actually get along well most of the time. I haven't hit you in days, anyway."
"I bet you're just itching for a tussle, though."
She glanced out of the corner of her eye at him and gave him a quick once-over. "Sure, I've got an itch. You up for it?"
"I should be doing homework, Kar" That was all he got out before she was on him, flipping him over onto his stomach and straddling his body while bending one arm behind his back. "I hate you."
"No, you don't. I'm your best" And that was all she got out before he had flipped her right off his back and up against the wall the bunks were alongside. She landed on her back, and he used his extra weight to pin her hands above her head. He had learned the hard way years before that she liked to scratch when she got pinned in a corner. It actually made a lot of sense when you knew her personality.
"I don't know how you're going to get that itch for a fight out of you without actually hitting me," he pointed out, ignoring the fact that she was intently trying to loosen his grip with her nails.
She smirked at him. "I never said I had an itch for a fight, Lee. You just assumed." He looked at her in confusion until it suddenly occurred to him that she had been on a date earlier and one she thought had held a lot of potential before actually going on it. She continued to stare up at him with an unfamiliar look in her eye which was making him more and more uncomfortable. "So, you really think I'm beautiful?"
He loosened his grip on her wrists, and he felt her hands move down to encircle his waist as one leg wrapped around his and held tight. "What are you doing, Kara?"
"Coming on to you. Is it working?"
"No," he said forcefully.
She pulled him down onto her while arching herself towards him so that their bodies were flush against one another. It pleased her to hear him try to stifle a gasp at her bold move. "That's not the answer I'm getting." She leaned in close to his ear. "Something just occurred to me, Lee. You said that you're waiting for a girl who you'd be willing to give up your study time for."
He pulled back to look in her eyes. He had no idea where she was going with this train of thought or with this train of action. "Yeah, I might have said that."
"So, what do you think you're doing right now?"
Lee gave her a small laugh and that trademark grin she was coming to appreciate so much. "Not studying."
"Exactly. So, why are you hesitating? Isn't it time to do something a little reckless, Lee?" She took the opportunity to bit down on her lower lip, a move she knew he was particularly vulnerable to. "And aren't I just the person to get reckless with?"
He decided that he shouldn't just be allowing Starbuck complete control of this situation, especially when she knew all the correct buttons to hit for him. If she wanted to play with this fire, he was going to make sure that she got singed a little before it was over. He poked her lightly in the side and made her squirm and start to giggle. "How do you know that I'm not just another guy who wants the infamous Starbuck to be a notch on my bedpost?"
Grabbing his hand in hers to stop the poking, Kara ran her other hand up his chest and eventually rested it on the side of his face. "Because I know that you actually care about me." Without another word, she pulled him into a kiss.
She could feel him hesitate at first, making the kiss very chaste. But after a moment, she could feel him give in to the temptation she had been waving in front of his face for years, and he gripped her body tight and pulled her on top of him as he opened his mouth to her. The sudden shift made her gasp. She hadn't expected a reaction like this. They had been playing a game before, but this was definitely not a game any longer. A game didn't make her lose her breath.
Now that he was responding to her touch, she couldn't think of why she hadn't expected something like this from Lee. There had always been a nagging suspicion in the back of her head that he was holding back a lot of passion when he was sitting at his desk quietly studying. He had that mysterious air about him most of the time that just irked her to no end.
He shifted their bodies slightly so that she sunk into the mattress.
Kara was surprised to realize that this little chivalrous gesture was exactly how she had imagined it would be. She would never have admitted to thinking about Lee in that way to anyone else, but she couldn't lie to herself. Lee was a man who when he chose to do something, always did it well. Kissing was no different. He had an intensity and passion to the way he touched her so insistently, as if all the time he spent studying was really a façade for practicing this more important skill. And boy was it a skill. If she wasn't careful, this was going to be over a lot sooner than she wanted.
When she couldn't take it anymore, she pulled her lips away from his to take in a deep breath. "That is one great talent you have," she muttered. She could feel his hands move up into her hair, playing with it lightly.
"Everyone has to have a skill," he said with a crooked smile.
"Well, you have one." She shook her head slightly at him. "What are we doing, Lee?"
"I don't know."
"Me, either." They stared at each other with their faces inches apart, both trying to come up with a rational reason why they should stop this while they still could.
Eventually, it got to be too much, and Kara found herself pulled back in close to Lee, his lips pressing against hers gently and then more insistently once more. Again, she wondered if maybe this was going to end sooner than she wanted. Either Lee was going to come to his senses and realize he was getting involved with a girl from the wrong side of the universe or she was going to get too worked up and ravage him on the spot. At this point, she really wasn't sure which one was more likely.
She did know that she might not last much longer if he kept doing what he was doing. His touch was engulfing her so completely that she didn't even have the sense to remember to keep her hands in check. She had only meant to play with him a little, have a little fun, and then they would go back to their laughing, joking relationship, knowing that there really was nothing between them.
The problem was that there was something there. She hadn't expected it. Really, it had come out of nowhere. But now that it was here, she couldn't deny there was definitely something going on between them that was not platonic. And her hands weren't helping her rationality stay in control. They had somehow slipped underneath the tanks Lee wore and were currently working said tanks up off of his body. Again, rationality told her that she should make sure they kept their clothes on, that there was really no need to start shedding layers of clothes, but Lee's lips kept telling her to frak rationality.
His lips were kicking her rationality's ass.
As soon as the shirts were flung aside, she felt Lee pull her back in close to him. The feel of his naked chest against her with nothing but a few thin layers of tank between them was intoxicating, bordering on addictive. The little bit of rationality she had in her whole genetic makeup and the little bit that had not been compromised by Lee's kisses were screaming at her to keep those layers of tank on. Obviously, Lee wasn't having any internal battles between passion and rationality like she was. His hands had already worked their way down to playing at the hems of the tanks that she desperately should be keeping on.
It was funny how she seemed to be the one hesitating.
Smiling at her almost as if he knew she needed the reassurance, he trailed kisses up her neck to that soft spot right below her ear that seemed to be more sensitive than any other part of her body. Lords, how did he know about that spot?
She found herself involuntarily purring under his methodical touch. If she had known that he was so good at reading her, she wouldn't have waited two full years to seduce him. All that wasted time she spent on such losers when she could have been having this made her angry at not noticing Lee the moment they had first met. At least, noticing him as more than just an attractive face who was serious about his work. He had potential, and she hadn't picked up on that at all. She was pulled out of memory lane as he began to nibble lightly on the bottom of her ear, causing her to shudder.
This was starting to get out of control. There was no way she was willing to let Lee have the upper hand in this little war they had going on. She just wasn't that kind of girl.
Grumbling slightly at having to break contact, she struggled out of the tight hold of his arms until she could stand up to slip out of her sweatpants. It was only fair that she showed him she wanted to be out of her clothes as much as she wanted him to be out of his. Yep, there went all the rationality. It had been a valiant fight for a while there.
Having made the decision, she didn't waste a second in moving down to once again straddle his body. Only this time, she didn't think he was going to make a move to flip her off of him like he had earlier when he had been trying to help her scratch that itch. Something told her that he actually liked this position a lot more than he let on. Lee would be the type of guy who liked to sit back and enjoy the ride. Smiling wickedly at the thought of "the ride", she lowered her mouth to his once more, inviting him in once again.
Lee had decided earlier that he didn't have it in him to fight off her advances anymore. They had been unknowingly playing with fire since she set foot in their room that afternoon, and it was feeling to him like there was going to be an explosion. He had always thought of that term as being negative, but then again, pretty much any term applied to Kara didn't come out negative. She was definitely one hell of a woman, and that made him uneasy.
Contrary to what she had been thinking about him seeming to not be bothered by the jump in relationship they had just taken, his whole body was a bundle of nerves. They had been tiptoeing around this very thing since they first became bunkmates. Usually there was some distraction that kept them from acting on the impulses that were always there bubbling just below the surface. Currently, he was bubbling himself right into an extremely sticky situation, and for the first time in his life, he didn't care.
That didn't help with the nerves, though.
Since the nerves probably wouldn't go away if he didn't stop thinking about what there was to be nervous about, he decided to jump right in. He began to run his hands down the body that lay on top of his, finally resting them around her back. The feel of her body against him felt right, and he suddenly felt the nerves lessen. He was going to take his time with this.
It would be a lie to say that he never imagined what Kara would feel like in his arms, what it would feel like to have her hands on him like they were now. But he never thought it would actually be happening to him.
At that moment, Kara pulled away from him slightly to run her tongue along his lower lip before biting down on it aggressively. This was the woman he had imagined her being. He felt the feelings of pleasure and pain pulsate through his body and almost thought he was going to lose it on the spot. He suddenly understood why Kara got so many propositions and why she never really took any one up on their offers. Such talents like hers shouldn't be wasted on jerks.
Her hands reached down inside the waist of his pants, and she tugged down on them without breaking the kiss that he knew he was enjoying way too much. Her lips tasted slightly salty and yet undeniably sweet at the same time, and if he knew if he wasn't careful, he could become addicted.
He scolded himself as he kicked his pants the rest of the way off, leaving his boxers on. This could become addicted stuff was bullshit. He had been addicted to her long before this all had started.
Kara avoided his hands as he went to pull her in closer. They had been apart for too long already. She smiled coyly at him. "I just had an idea."
"An idea? That sounds dangerous coming from you." He leaned in to start kissing her shoulder. "Tell me this idea."
"I was wondering if maybe you and I can find a better use for that desk over there."
He pulled back and narrowed his eyes at her. Thinking that she might have to spell this one out for him, she opened her mouth to continue explaining just what they could do on that desk that would be better than studying. His lips crushed against hers in a rough kiss that she would never have guessed could come from Lee, and she felt herself being picked up off the bed. Obviously explanation was not needed.
Her equilibrium was a little thrown off from being carried. She wasn't used to letting someone have this much control over her, but for a few silly reasons and a lot of smart ones, she trusted Lee more than any of the men who had ever been in her life. But that still didn't keep her from jumping when he set her down on the desk and her back met cold metal.
"I thought you wanted to give the desk a try," he teased playfully. "But if you're scared…"
"Shut up, and get down to business." She grabbed the necklace hanging around his neck and yanked him into yet another kiss. The feel of him against her was starting to get familiar, and she really didn't mind.
She was not disappointed in the location change as Lee became a little more aggressive, pressing himself between her legs and pushing her back against the wall. She felt his hand come up to cup her breast through her layers of clothing even as his lips came back to the already familiar spots on her body. She rested her forehead against the side of his head as she let him take the lead. It was really a shame that a man like this was more interested in his books when he had such a god-given talent.
He shivered as he heard her breathing become shallow, and she began to squirm against his touch. She could feel his fingertips slowly teasing the ends of her shirt up, and she finally understood that this was actually going to happen. Surprisingly, the idea of knowing it was going to happen excited her twice as much as the possibility of it happening. Why was it taking Lee so frakin' long to get her shirt off?
As the back of his hands skimmed up her abdomen and teased the bottom of her breast, she let lose a moan and almost lost all feeling in her body. "You know, I think I really did pick the wrong Adama," she whispered.
She felt him stiffen immediately and pull back. Her shirts slide back down her stomach. "What did you mean by that?" he asked with hesitance. He really wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer if it was going to be what he thought it was.
"I was just thinking that I shouldn't have wasted my time on Zak today when I could have been here with you." Her face froze as she realized that she totally just shoved her foot as far in her mouth as it could go.
His heart dropped out as he realized he had guessed right about what her comment had meant, and Lee took a few steps back just to put some distance in between them. "Are you telling me that your date earlier, the date with the complete jerk, was with my little brother?"
Knowing that she probably couldn't take her comment back, she decided to try to brush right past it. "Yeah, it was. Does that really matter?" She reached her hands out to grab him and pull him back in. Maybe bringing it back to a physical level will make him forget.
He smacked her hands away and took another couple steps so that he was completely out of her reach. "To me, it does. Damnit, Kara! Why couldn't you just tell me upfront that you were interested in Zak?" he screamed at her.
"I'm not interested in him. He just asked me out after the class I was helping teach the other day, and I figured I might as well give it a shot. I get along with you so well. Why shouldn't it be the same for you brother?"
"Zak and I are nothing alike."
"Obviously," she said, slipping off the desk and walking over to where Lee stood. "That was my mistake. Like I said, wrong Adama."
Lee brushed past her and sat down on the desk where she had been just seconds earlier. "If I had known, I wouldn't have pushed myself on you."
"Pushed yourself on me? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think most of the pushing was coming from me. And I can tell you right now that I enjoyed it all the way."
"I didn't fight it, though."
"And why should you?" Again, Kara made her way over to where Lee was and stood between his legs, grabbing them both with her hands so tightly that he couldn't shrug out of her reach. At least it would take a lot of more effort on his part to get away. She stared him straight in the eyes. "I don't know why I never realized it, but there's something between us, Lee. And I don't understand why we should waste time arguing about it."
Lee sighed and placed both his hands on Kara's cheeks. "We're not arguing about that. We're arguing about the fact that you think it's okay to have gone on a date with Zak and then come home with me."
"You know I didn't plan this, Lee, so don't imply that I did."
"I know. But it's still not something you can just smoothly transition into."
"Why do you have to think everything out so much? Why can't you just see something you want and take it, to hell with everything else?"
"Because that's just not the way I work." He shrugged his shoulders and gave her a weak smile. "I'm not like you."
"I think we might be more alike than you're willing to admit. You just are less up front about it." She let go of his legs, seeing as he didn't seem to be running anymore, and grasped his right hand in both of hers. "I'm sorry you can't understand why I didn't think telling you about Zak was important."
"Let's just forget about the Zak thing for a second because we obviously can't see eye to eye on that." He squeezed her hand. "This isn't really about my brother. This is about you and me."
"I don't like your tone."
Lee ignored her comment. "What happened between us was a mistake, Kara. We both know it, even if neither one us wants to admit it. There's so much pressure on us what with our tests coming that we can't be going through this. It's too complicated."
"You're taking the easy way out again."
He chose to ignore her comment again. "Plus you and I have been friends for two years now, and we shouldn't be ruining that. We keep each other in check, and we couldn't do that if we went to the next level. We couldn't survive if we changed this." He kissed her lightly on the forehead. "You understand that, right?"
"We shouldn't be letting this go so easily. It's not going to solve any of our problems," she said, looking him directly in the eyes. "And you being so damn rational is really pissing me off. It's giving me another itch."
"Frak, Kara! Would you get your hormones in check?" he scolded.
"Not that kind of itch. This is the kind where all I want to do is punch you in the face for about ten minutes because you're acting so stupid and grown-up."
He smiled at her and pushed a strand of hair off of her face. "We have to let this go, Kara, or else whatever we have might get lost. You're my lifeline here at school, and don't think I don't know it. Without you, I would probably never leave this room except for classes and meals. I need you by my side just as much as you need me. I don't want to ruin this."
She could feel herself begin to close off. This is what happened to her every time something actually went right in her life. It would get sucked away from her about as quickly as it came, and she had to find some way to deal with the pain. Emotional detachment had been working well for her lately. She figured if it's not broke, don't fix it.
She pulled away from Lee's touch as gently as she could and walked over to the side of her bed. Taking her time, probably hoping somewhere deep down that if she just delayed it a little longer, he might change his mind, she picked up Lee's clothing. When he said nothing, she tossed them his way. "Get dressed, soldier. You'll catch your death if you keep running around in those boxers." She shrugged her sweatpants back on before turning back to him. "You don't think we need to talk about what happened?"
"I don't think it will help."
She nodded. Avoidance. That was his thing as much as emotional detachment was hers. Grabbing a sweatshirt off of Lee's bed, she gave him a small wave as she threw it on. "Borrowing this. I'm going to go out for a while. I'm sure you'll be here studying when I get back."
Lee picked up one of his books and waved it at her. "I'm already there."
She smiled at him a little too sadly for his comfort before walking out the hatch.
He closed his eyes and tried his best to ignore the fact that he had probably just hurt the person he cared about most besides his parents. Unlike his mother or father, though, Kara really didn't demand anything from him. That was why he felt he needed to keep them from doing something reckless.
He still wasn't sure what had just happened. It all went so fast and was so embedded in layer after layer of history. He had known the girl for two years, and she had managed to shake his whole existence. Now that was skill.
There was a knock on the hatch, and for a second, Lee thought that Kara had come back to argue some more. She wouldn't knock, though. She wasn't that kind of girl.
"Come in," Lee called, still pretending like he was studying and not thinking about the woman he lived with.
"Hey, big brother," Zak said, sticking his head through the open hatch.
"What do you need?" Lee knew he was being short with Zak, but his brother was pretty much the last person he wanted to see right now.
"I was actually looking for Kara."
Lee looked up from his book and stared at his brother. There was something different about him. "She just stormed out. We were arguing."
Zak laughed and shook his head. "What else is new? You two are always fighting." He scanned the room quickly before looking back at Lee. "So, do you know where she went?"
"No idea. You shouldn't be scouring the building looking for her, though. I vaguely remember you mentioning a big test coming up in a few days. You should be studying."
"Yeah, yeah," he said, rolling his eyes. "If you see her, tell her that I want to talk with her."
"What are you suddenly so interested in my bunkmate?" Lee asked even though he knew the answer.
"No reason," Zak answered quickly before giving a small wave and closing the hatch behind him.
As Lee stared at the shut hatch, he suddenly realized what was different about his brother. Zak had coasted through most of his life without much pressure. His father usually saved that all up for Lee. But this time, he could see the pressure written all over his brother's face. Zak really did like Kara.
That made things a little easier on Lee. It was still hard. He had had a crush on his bunkmate for months now, but he really never thought that she might be attracted to him, too. Now that he knew that might actually be the case, it turned out she had just gone on a date with his brother.
This was the first time he had seen his brother really strive for anything. Zak was like Kara in most of his actions. He just went with the flow. This was probably the only time he had ever looked nervous in his life.
If his brother actually liked the woman he bunked with, he didn't want to cause him any pain in knowing that once again his older brother had managed to be better at getting what he wanted. Their father put the pressure on Zak just as much as he put it on Lee. Only William Adam did it in a different way with Zak. The pressure was more to try to follow in the footsteps of Lee and less on being a success at what he did.
The problem was Zak really didn't have the drive and commitment to get the job done like Lee did. If his brother really cared for Kara, he didn't have it in himself to take that away from him, too.
Lee knew that this was going to hurt quite a bit in the end, but he could not see any way around that. He laughed and threw the book he was holding up against the wall. There was no way he was going to study now.
He got up out of his chair and pulled himself up into his bunk, shutting his eyes. The hurt was already coming on strong. For being such a smart and rational person by Kara's standards, he still never thought it would hurt that much to finally understand what he wanted and what he couldn't have was the same exact thing.
Lee opened his eyes and rubbed the headache that was beginning to form at his temples. That was the day he realized that he loved Kara. Sadly, by the time she had come back to his room, she was practically beaming with the news that Zak had indeed been nervous on their date which is why he kept doing such stupid, jerk like things. She had agreed to go on a second date with him, and the rest was history.
"I have to talk to her," he whispered to himself, feeling that familiar pit of nerves at the bottom of his stomach. It always showed up whenever he knew he had to confront Kara.
Standing up, he grabbed a sweatshirt and threw it on over his head. For whatever reason, he finally felt like he had a second chance to tell her the truth. Maybe this time, she would finally understand why he did what he did on that day five years before. It was suddenly very important to him to let her know that he didn't think what had happened was a mistake. That it had never really been a mistake in his mind.
Now he just had to find her. Something told him that the first and most likely place would be hack. It was her third home, after her own bunk and his own CAG quarters. He practically flew down the corridor and did his best to ignore the looks he was getting. Running frantically wasn't his normal mode of operation so he was pretty sure a rumor would start circulating within minutes that the end of the world was coming.
He laughed to himself as he imagined his running being the sign of the apocalypse.
As he finally made it to hack, he realized that there was no one in any of the cells. Obviously his instincts were off. And obviously last night had only been wild for him and Kara.
"Captain Apollo" rang out a voice from behind him.
Lee froze and turned to greet his boss with a wary smile. "President Roslin."
"You're not on patrol?" she asked simply.
"I was under the impression that I was scheduled for the late patrol, sir."
Roslin gave him a funny look. "It is the late patrol." When she saw his face drain of color, she tried to give him a reassuring smile. "I'm sure someone covered for you. You're still the current hero of the hour. I think that gives you a free pass at least until our next crisis. Speaking from someone who works with you closely, I think you need some extra time off."
Lee couldn't believe his ears. "Thank you. I doubt my father will have the same sentiment as you."
"Actually, he's the reason I made my way all the way down here to hack. You know I've never been down here before." She looked around for a moment before turning her attention back to Lee. "Your father heard that you didn't report for your shift and thought that maybe the celebrations had gotten a little too rowdy last night and no one had informed him that you weren't… available for your shift."
"My father thought that I got thrown in hack?"
"He seemed convinced that Lieutenant Starbuck would be sitting next to you in your cell."
"He always blames every stupid mistake I make off shift on Kara."
Roslin raised her eyebrows at his casual use of Starbuck's first name but didn't comment on it. "Obviously she wasn't the cause for any mistakes you made last night considering neither one of you are stuck down here."
Lee nodded a little too quickly, knowing that the President probably picked up on his little slip just as quickly as he did. He really didn't want to explain his full history with Kara right now. And that would be the only way he could get President Roslin to understand why he was so familiar with his lead pilot.
"It's late, Captain. This is practically a ghost ship. I suggest you take your missed shift in stride since neither Commander Adama nor myself are too upset by it. Use the time to get some extra sleep. What shift are you scheduled for tomorrow?"
"Mid."
"Don't miss this one. You weren't that big of a hero." With that, Roslin turned on heel and walked out of hack.
Lee let out a deep breath and shook his head. He had missed a shift, and no one seemed to care. Maybe there really was an apocalypse coming, and this was another sign.
He knew that he should probably just take the President's advice and use the extra time to sleep, but there was still a lot nagging at the corners of his mind. He had to figure out where Kara would run off to pout and work out her frustration. A pipe clanged loudly in the corridor as he exited hack. "That gives me an idea," he said, taking off in a run again.
Within two minutes, he had traveled four levels down to the flight deck and was rewarded with the sight of a certain blond pilot working intently on her Viper. Kara loved her machine. If she couldn't be inside it in the air, she would be below it on the ground. He walked over to stand beside her and looked down to watch her at work for a moment before calling attention to himself. "Hey."
She rolled out slightly and looked up at him. There was surprise written on her face. She obviously hadn't expected him to come find her. "Hey." The sides of her mouth turned up a little. "At least this time, I only thought you were emotionally dead and not physically," she joked.
"Very funny," he said, rolling his eyes. He grabbed onto the foot nitch that was in the side of the plane and hefted himself up onto the wing, letting his legs dangle down.
"Chief and Cally would kill you if they knew you were sitting on the plane."
"Let them come find me. I'm the CAG. It gives me certain privileges."
"All right. I think that's enough polite conversation. Time to get to the point. Why'd you come here, Lee? I thought you were supposed to be on flight duty."
"I forgot."
She looked at him incredulously. "You forgot? I don't think you've ever forgotten a shift in your life."
"I had a lot of things to think over." He smiled down at her. "You did ask me to try to remember what happened between us in academy. So that's what I was doing."
"And you did that for hours."
"There was a lot to remember."
She nodded, pushed herself back under Viper, and went back to working.
"I want to apologize for what I said to you."
"Which part are you talking about? The part where you accused me of making things up because I was still hung up on Zak? The part where you wouldn't deal with what probably happened between us? Or the part where you implied that I was a slut who didn't consider the responsibility involved with fraking someone?"
"Um. The last one, I think. It was out of line, and you had good reason to hit me."
"I know," she yelled over the banging she was creating with her tools. "Is there anything else you wanted to say?"
"Yes, but I'm not going to say them while you're under there. You're the one that told me to find you when I wanted to talk about this. So I came to find you and now you're avoiding me. Avoidance is usually my thing."
Kara slid out from underneath the Viper, wiped her hands on her borrowed orange overalls, and stared at him. "So, talk."
He patted the wing next to him. "Come up here, first."
Rolling her eyes, she started to protest but did what he asked anyway. She grabbed the hand he had extended down to her, and he hauled her up so that she sat down shoulder to shoulder with him. "So, you're ready to talk about that night."
"It was a mistake," he began.
She sent him a cold, cruel look. "So you're still stuck on that? I don't know why I keep wasting my time giving you more chances to dig an even deeper hole." She made a move to get down off the wing, but he grabbed her arm and stopped her.
"No, not at all. It was a mistake, what I said to you." He smiled at her. "I was stupid to call it a mistake then. That was a mistake."
"I'm confused already. But that's the story of our relationship, isn't it?" She knew that she should be overflowing with anger at him still, but for some reason, she wasn't. For the first time in eternity, she couldn't find it within herself to be mad at him.
"What I'm trying to tell you is that I shouldn't have reacted so badly when I found out that you were interested in my brother."
"I wasn't interested in Zak at the time. I was just bored. I told you that. I've always been brutally honest, and I'm not sure why you haven't picked up on that."
"I realize that. I was just too hotheaded and set in my ways to realize that then."
"Are you trying to mock yourself just to keep me happy?" she asked. It came out a little harsher than she had intended. "Because I can mock you all on my own. I don't need your help."
"I know."
They sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the creaks of the deserted hanger. "Quiet time like this is really odd," Kara commented.
"It's fitting. Everything about these past few days has been odd. For starters, I was pulling stupid Starbuck-like moves in the field."
"Then there's the whole relaxation thing you actually did. I think it had been years since you actually laughed as hard as you did last night." She looked over at him. "It was nice."
"It was mostly because I had you with me. You bring out the best in me."
"You're going to make me blush," she teased.
Lee punched her chin lightly. "Would that be such a bad thing? Sometimes showing signs that you're actually a girl can be helpful."
She stuck her tongue out at him.
"Real mature."
"So, is there anything else you wanted to say to me, Lee?" she asked after a moment. "Because this wing is quite cold and not exactly the safest place to be sitting."
"I just wanted to tell you that I reacted foolishly when I found out that you and I slept together. It really wasn't that big of a deal."
"It isn't a big deal as long as I don't find out that you got me pregnant. I will kill you if I get grounded."
He couldn't help but laugh. "I don't doubt that you really would."
"Well, it seems like you no longer think it's odd that we got drunk and ended up naked in the same bed."
"Thinking about it, there was five years of build-up. It probably would have happened sooner if Zak…" His voice faded off.
"If Zak hadn't asked me out on that second date," she finished for him. "I've thought about that, too. I think if you hadn't pissed me off so much that day, I never would have said yes to him when he found me. Then who knows where we would be."
Lee reached over and grabbed her hand in his. "I know exactly where we would have been. We would be dead."
"Now you lost me there."
"I told you I did a lot of thinking."
"Yeah, enough so that you missed your shift, you idiot."
He grinned at her. "I like the idea of you calling me an idiot for doing something stupid and thoughtless."
"It makes for a nice change," she agreed. "Now tell me what you meant by saying we would be dead if I hadn't gone on that second date."
"If you hadn't gotten involved in Zak, then there's no way we would have both been on Galactica when the Cylons made their first strike. You were distraught when he died, which was pretty much the only reason you accepted my father's suggestion of reassignment to this 'hunk of junk'."
"Galactica is not a hunk of junk!"
"That's not always what you thought. I'm glad to see that you finally came to your senses and realized I was right."
"Being wrong is my skill."
"Yeah, I remember you telling me that in this very hangar a month or so ago." He paused as his mind shifted back to his serious train of thought. "You know I wouldn't have been on Galactica if you hadn't lied to me about Zak's death and I hadn't gotten so upset with my father. I was coming back here to help my father retire it and then I was going to quit the military. I wouldn't have been in that position if it wasn't for you."
"You were going to quit?"
"It was never really my passion."
"But you aren't quitting now. Is it because you feel trapped?"
"No. I feel needed."
"Are we getting all touchy feely?" she asked.
"We might be. It feels weird."
"Yeah." She stared around the hanger. There really was no one around. Now was as good a time as any to get the hard parts over with. She looked down at her hand intertwined with Lee's and squeezed lightly. "What are we going to do about this?"
"About us?"
"Is there an us?"
"I think there could be if that's what you wanted. It makes sense that you and I would have to take the hard road."
"That's the only road we know."
"For once, I really want to follow your example and be reckless about this," he said with a laugh.
"Screw everyone?"
"Frak them all." He winked at her. "It's time that I finally realized that I don't have to suffer to make other people happy."
"It is about time. I was getting tired of the pathetic looks of pain and suffering you put on when you thought no one was looking. I had a puppy dog when I was little. I don't need another one for a best friend."
They continued to sit on the wing, hands together, feet swinging in the open air until Kara started to giggle. "What's so funny, Starbuck?"
"I don't know. This whole thing is just so surreal." She leaned her head down onto his shoulder with a sigh. "Kidding aside, are you actually serious about making this work?"
"Do you want me to be?" He didn't let her answer. "Really, it's the least I could do for you. I wouldn't want you to have to keep searching for that one good guy left in the world. If you haven't noticed, your choices are drastically diminished. Plus, I think President Roslin might be cooking up some form of procreation bill. I think my father has his mind set on you being the one to give him grandchildren."
"What part about murder didn't you understand when I said I would kill you if you got me pregnant?"
"I wasn't suggesting now. Just maybe down the line."
"God, you're disgusting. When you make a decision, you go for it all the way."
"Yeah, I do."
She pulled her head up and looked him in the eye for a moment before lowering her lips to his for a short, sweet kiss. "Yeah. That still feels right." She returned her head to his shoulder, and they lapsed into silence again.
This time, it was broken up by a soft clearing of the throat. "Sorry for interrupting, Captain Adama, Lieutenant Thrace."
Kara sat up and pulled her hand out of Lee's. "No problem."
"Is there something you needed, Boomer?" Lee asked.
"Well, I just wanted to apologize about last night and tell you that I'm in the process of fixing the situation."
"And what situation would that be?"
"Your uniforms, sir. Cally and I accidentally spilled that motor oil on you last night. It was an accident, I swear."
"If Cally was involved, I find that hard to believe," Kara said with a laugh. "That girl is always up to no good."
"Anyway, I picked your uniforms up off where they were thrown outside your quarters last night, Captain. I tell you, it really took a lot of convincing to get your guys to stop celebrating to go change out of them." She smiled at them. "You passed right out in your bed, Captain, but it took both Cally and I to get your uniform off, Kara."
"You had to strip me?" she cried, raising her eyebrows in shock. She really hadn't thought she was that drunk.
"Well, you were covered from head to toe. I couldn't let you wander around the ship in that. Then, Cally and I realized that we couldn't let you wander around your bunkroom naked. Too many impressionable nuggets. They might die from excitement."
"Why didn't you just get me some spare clothes?" Kara asked.
"Well, we weren't exactly sober either. So we just figured we'd stash you with Apollo. You two bunked together in academy so we figured it wouldn't be that embarrassing to wake up together."
Kara shot Lee a look. "Thank you, Boomer," he said. "Why don't you go get some sleep? If I remember correctly, you're scheduled for a restocking flight in a few hours."
"Sure. And I'll get those uniforms back to you by your next shift, sir."
"I don't doubt that."
They watched Boomer walked across the flight deck and out the hatch into the main corridor. "Do you realize what this means?" Kara asked finally.
"Yeah. We really didn't sleep together."
"Looks like my skill for being wrong is holding up," she said, looking at him out of the corner of his eye. "At least something good came out of this."
"And what would that be?"
"Colonel Tigh won't die of a heart attack when he finds out there was a possibility that little Starbucks might be running around under foot."
He laughed softly and hopped down from the plane. "There's one thing I still don't understand."
"What's that?"
"If we didn't sleep together and the only reason we ended up in bed together was because we had motor oil spilled all over us, how the hell did I get those scratches on my back?"
"That's a mystery for another day. My head hurts too much to try to figure it out."
"Same here. Maybe someone will just explain it for us, not knowing that we were too frakked to remember ourselves."
"One can only hope."
"So, when are you on the schedule next?"
"I have tomorrow off."
"I have to get some sleep before my mid-shift and my head still hurts from your bad influence and all this damn thinking."
"Why, Captain Apollo! Are you hung over?"
"Yes, I am."
"And you're propositioning me? You know how I feel about propositions."
"I'm propositioning you to sleep in the same bed as me, and that's it. I don't have the energy to go through another one of our will-they-won't-they sessions."
She sighed and started walking out of the flight deck. "Maybe another time, then."
He ran a few steps to catch up to her and slipped his hand in hers. "This doesn't change anything I said earlier."
"Good to hear. Because I could easily set up that whole scenario again."
He pulled her to a stop. "What do you mean set up? Kara?"
She simply winked at him and kept walking.
"Oh, this relationship is going to be good," he said, shaking his head. His father was gong to kill him when he found out that his son had finally given in to the worst of Starbuck's influence. Either that or William Adama was going to have the best laugh of his life.