Lee Adama felt himself stir out of sleep. He was still chained to a cold, metal table in the middle of an empty room. It was the same place he had woken up in for what seemed like his whole life. A quick glance around the room told him there was no one around to stare at him this time. Odd. Somehow he had gotten used to the feelings associated with being a lab rat for a bunch of machines.
"Looks like visiting time is over at the zoo," he said, ignoring the raspy-ness of a voice that hadn't been used properly in days. He kept getting the nagging sensation that there was something he was supposed to remember. Something he had to do. Something had happened right before he passed out from pain the last time. It was important, too.
Lee furrowed his brow in concentration but nothing came. It should anger him that he couldn't figure it out, but in the end, he knew it really didn't matter. It wasn't like he could do much chained to a table in some unknown place. And that's all he had ever been since they brought him in.
His arm tensed up in the pain of what had been done to him the day before. The Cylons had decided to test to see if his emotions would heighten the pain he felt from a physical wound. These little tests and exams were starting to piss him off in their uselessness. This time, they had slowly said names and words to see if they could get an emotional reaction from him. When he did react, the machine would cut him just deep enough to make him cringe.
It had gone on for hours.
Sharon. The face of the toaster he had once called friend flashed through his head. She has asked him something when he had a strange reaction to what she said. Something to do with his lack of fear that he would never get free. That he would never go home to those he loved. He had slipped up. He just couldn't quite remember how.
With these stupid tests that went nowhere, the machines were just wasting time until they found a way to break his spirit. He knew it, and they knew it. And he wasn't going to break. There was too much riding on his staying strong.
A nagging feeling rose up from inside of him. He had already slipped up. They had already broken him. It was the one fear he had had the whole time he was trapped here. He would do something or say something that intrigued the Cylons' interest away from him and they would move on to the bigger target of the remainders of humanity.
Pain made it hard to focus.
There was an all-too familiar bang as the door to the room slid open. Lee watched as the blond Cylon entered and paused in front of his makeshift bed with a rather unnerving smile plastered on her face. The toasters always looked happy, and this unexplainable happiness usually led to some form of pain inflicted upon him. After that, they only got happier.
"We're going to let you go today, dear Apollo," she said, stroking his cheek lightly with her fingertips. "Does that bring you joy?"
Lee pulled himself as far away from her touch as he could, considering he was still chained to the table. His head spun a little from the movement. Looks like the drugs from the day before hadn't worn off yet. He struggled to get a hold of his bearings.
"Are you in pain?" the Cylon asked.
The genuine concern in the machine's voice was what snapped him out of the haze. "Is this another test? You want to see my reaction when offered freedom?" He let out a cold laugh. "I don't care about being free. In fact, I think death looks a hell of a lot better. So, please. Just kill me so you can do your autopsy and get the answers you so desperately want."
"You are being difficult today," the machine scolded him. "So unlike your normal self. Maybe you've somehow forgotten how much you've damned her, Lee Adama."
As she spoke, the Cylon dug her fingers into the open wound in his right shoulder and pushed. Pain shot through his body, and Lee felt like his head was going to explode for just a moment before she let up the pressure. He could feel the wound open and start bleeding again. With the release of pain as her hand pulled away came clarity.
Pain made him remember.
Swimming somewhere just below the surface was the guilt connected with what he had done. How he had slipped up and how he knew there was no way to fix it. Ending his pain in death wasn't a solution any longer. The pain would still be there even when his breath was gone. The memory of what will happen would still be there. Her face, forever branded in his mind. The look of betrayal written all over it.
"We're going to take her. You've shown us the way." This new voice echoed through the room as the small woman stepped out of the hallway.
Lee bit down hard on his lip, pushing the remainder of the pain to the side, as the picture of the face he could only hope to one day see again intensified in his mind. He hadn't meant to betray her.
Directing his attention to the other Cylon model who frequently showed herself to him, he watched as she hung back in the doorway of his makeshift prison and smiled at him knowingly. This was a woman he had trusted with his life, and now all he wanted to do was shoot her dead. It seemed that might be the only way to cause any change to his current situation.
Death was the solution. He had come to understand that.
Lee just hoped it would be his death and no one else's. He bit back the anger and tried the small voice of reason left inside him. "I don't care what you do to me. Just leave her alone."
The blond shook her head slowly in a gesture he would have interpreted as disappointment under any other circumstance. Then her expression shifted as she turned to punch the helpless man chained in front of her. Violence was the solution for the machines. Her fist landed squarely on his jaw, and he could hear a small crack followed by the familiar pain. His whole life had become the small gaps of relief between the long periods of pain.
"That's very, very selfless of you to offer yourself up in order to keep her safe. Extremely selfless and very stupid. Especially since she's to blame for most of the pain you've been given." The blond Cylon waited for him to deny it. When he didn't, her face broke out into another large smile. "I believe we've finally come to a point we both agree on."
Lee wanted to scream at these machines that they were wrong. She had nothing to do with what had happened to him the past few years. She had nothing to do with his crash landing and subsequent abduction. She had nothing to do with the fact that the Cylons were intrigued by him.
But a voice in the back of his head was there to point out the validity in their words, though. All the flaws and faults the Cylons found so interesting were created because of what she had done to him. Maybe his accidental betrayal was his way of unconsciously paying her back.
"She's not the one you want," he spit out. He couldn't remember what he had said that made them shift their interest. He struggled to understand and got nowhere. The pain was fading and so was the little glimmer of memory.
"It is all in the interest of God."
Lee closed his eyes for a moment. He hated when the machines started speaking of religion to him. It should be clear to them by now. The world they live in could not possibly have any god, singular or plural, watching over it. It was too painful and full of mistakes. God or the gods, however it wants to be phrased, they don't exist. And they never did.
"We're setting you free, Lee, even though there is still much we do not understand," the Boomer model said as she reached forward to unhook the cuffs which held him to the table. She paused to smile down at him and touch his cheek with a tenderness he was only beginning to comprehend. "Your weakness intrigues us, but we can find no explanation for it."
"And confusion will set me free," he hissed, glaring definitely, as the cuffs fell to the ground and she pulled her hand back.
The blond stepped closer and leaned over to kiss him gently on the lips. He stayed somber even though there was something inside that ached at such an intimate form of contact. She smiled at him before whispering, "I will miss you and the uncanny resemblance to your namesake. But it's for the good of all. God wants to understand how you will manage when you return to the Fleet and they inevitably reject you because of your vulnerability."
"They won't reject me," he snarled, rubbing his wrists where the irritated skin had begun to bleed. He knew what the machines were doing by trying to undermine all the things he believed in. It scared him to admit that it was working more and more each day he was in their clutches.
"Of course they will," the blond Cylon said with a knowing smile. "Why would they want someone who has damned their whole existence?"
"I told you nothing."
"You've told us everything."
He dared to be defiant even when he knew that the machine was right. His mind knew he had told them everything. One slip-up and it was done. "She won't let you take her."
"How is she to know we even want her?"
"I'll tell her."
"You are not worthy in her eyes. She will only laugh in your face. After all, is that not what she has always done?"
Lee bit back the impulse to keep fighting. It took too much out of him, and he would need all of his strength just to get away. They said they were going to set him free, but he knew it wouldn't be that easy. They had kept him here for what felt like forever but, in actuality, was probably not that long. They had dutifully probed and prodded at him until he made a mistake. Maybe that was why they were letting him go. He finally made a mistake.
Why did his mistake have to damn her, though? Why when one of them was heading up did it force the other to go down? Happiness could not co-exist in both of them.
Lee stared as the heavy, metal door banged shut behind the two Cylon models. They had left him, signaling the end of their conversation and the beginning of his new struggle. He had to get out. He was still stuck in this room, but now he wasn't tied down. They had given him one chance to get free. He knew that he had to take it before they chained him down again.
One chance. He could do it.
Taking one hesitant step away from the table, he felt his mind begin to get hazy again. The pain in his head seemed to be muted even as he felt his temples pound under the pressure. He was becoming detached, and he didn't think that was such a bad thing.
Memory of what he had said to Boomer slowly faded out. Even one step made him nauseous and his sight began to give out. He shook his head, doing his best to fight off the feeling, but it wouldn't go away. The haze was increasing. It was almost welcome.
Clarity hurt.
His eyes glazed over, and his wrists started to throb from the feel of fresh air pounding down on the open wounds. Lee found himself suddenly unable to remember what had driven him to want to return to the Fleet now more than ever. He tried to focus, but it didn't help. The source of his determination was waning, slowly slipping away from him every step he took towards that door.
The pain was fading with each small shuffle.
Lee shot up with a start, breathing heavily, and tried to get his bearings. He was in the forest somewhere and not chained to a table. There was the sound of distant birds. He had forgotten that birds even existed. The sun beat down on his face. He had forgotten that, too.
The words of the Cylons rang through his head, screaming of rejection and vulnerability, but there was no one speaking to him. No one slowly crushing all hope and faith he had left. That was in the past.
Now he was alone.
"Lee?"
Her soft voice cut through the silence and made him realize once again he was wrong. It was starting to become a habit.
"Would you stop tossing and turning? I'm trying to get some fraking sleep."
He smiled as she glared at him before turning over to fall back asleep. No, he remembered now. He was definitely not alone.
Kara had snuggled herself up against his side about an hour ago, and he hadn't even thought to push her away. She had had a rough morning, what with the in-depth emotional upheaval of their conversation and then the subsequent crash landing of her Viper. She was going to be out of contention for at least a little longer.
Figuring that he had about an hour's more time before she even thought of waking up to start demanding to know their next plan of action, he tried to think of what they would need to get themselves off of Kobol and back with the Fleet. In their relationship, he had always been the one to think up the plan while she came up with the solutions when his plan went horribly wrong. This particular instance happened to bring with it the extra pleasure of a timed deadline.
Out of nowhere, the words of the tall, blond Cylon rang through his ears again. The memory of her continual insistence that the Fleet will abandon him still rang true. They might reject him when they come to realize that the Cylon's attack of the Fleet was directly related to the mistake he had made while in their custody months earlier.
Rejection had always been a possibility. But now it was no longer a probability.
Things change.
"Enough with the self pity, Lee. It's time to figure out a way to get back home." With only a small twinge of regret, he pulled away from Kara and hastily got out his sidearm. The movement brought the pain of his burnt hands back to the top of his mind, but he pushed it to the side. Not enough time.
Deciding he was prepared as he could ever be, Lee started making his way back to the Viper wreck. There was something he needed back there. He could hear Kara grumbling in her sleep as he walked out into the sun.
Some things never changed.
Kara pulled herself out of sleep quickly when she felt neither the familiar coldness of a colonial Battlestar nor the slight claustrophobic heat of being in space. The memory of her hasty landing on Kobol came back, and she groaned.
"Yeah. It was a pretty crappy landing if I do say so myself, and I've seen a lot of them so I would know. I'm your former CAG, after all."
She wasn't at all surprised that Lee would know what she would wake up thinking. That man understood her better than she understood herself. Pulling herself up into a sitting position, she shrugged her shoulders as she moved to stretch out the last bit of sleep still left in her body. "I'm alive, aren't I?"
"Thanks to me," Lee said with a laugh. He reached down to pick something off the ground which he quickly tossed at her. "Got you a present."
She looked down at the small piece of metal and wire in her hand in confusion. "This is a battle comm. Where the frak did you get that?"
"I had it in my emergency crash kit."
"It's not regulation," she pointed out as she fiddled with the device in her hand. It looked like it had been tampered with. There were definitely a few key wires out of place.
"I put it there myself. You should be thankful."
She fiddled with the buttons. "Do you think these things actually work? They looked like they've been strapped to a pyramid ball that's been played a few too many times."
"I tested them out. They do."
She gave him a wry look as she stood up to stretch out her legs. Obviously the present of a comm meant he expected her to use it. Figures that when she was sleeping, he was strategizing and coming up with at least twenty different ways they could get themselves off the planet. Some things never changed no matter how frakked up she made things. "Might I ask how the hell you tried out a comm system by yourself? Did you say something in one comm piece and then run two feet to see if you could hear it in the other?"
He glared at her a moment before responding. "All right. I tested to make sure they had power then."
"So all you know is they turn on? Your ability to discover new things just amazes me." She couldn't hide the gleeful feeling she had in the pit of her stomach. Being able to point out Lee's faults was always a good time. The glee cut right out of her when she saw the sharp look on his face. "What is it, Lee?"
"Nothing," he said, bringing up the mask she had became all too familiar with in the past few weeks.
"Something." She walked over, squatted down inches away from where he sat, and waited until he looked her in the eye. It only took a few seconds. "Tell me."
"You don't change."
"I like the way I am."
"I like it, too," he whispered, staring into the distant horizon. She saw a brief smile come to his face before his features fell back into the sad, hopeless look that had been passing for norm lately. It was enough to make her reach out to grasp his hand. Anything to keep her from focusing on the little bit her heart broke ever time he gave her that look.
"What's the problem, Lee?"
"When I was with the Cylons, I spent hour after hour hearing all the reasons why you didn't respect me. Why I wouldn't be good enough for you. They pointed out my flaws. And it felt familiar." He pulled his eyes up to look at her intently. "It took me a long time to realize why. You've been pointing out the same things they did for years."
"It all goes back to how I frakked up your life," she said with a nervous laugh.
"Not exactly. You strengthened me like always," he corrected. "That was why they made no progress towards getting me to do what they want. I'd heard it all before."
"Don't try to gloss over the truth," she insisted. "I can handle the truth."
"And what would that be?"
"It still hurts you when I point out your flaws. It might not be as noticeable, but it still hurts you. And I know that."
"It never seems to stop you."
They returned to the comfortable silence that had always been their specialty since they first met. It had disappeared for those few tense months that Lee blamed her for what happened to him, but it had come back to them rather suddenly since they landed on Kobol. It was odd. There shouldn't be comfort in the words they say. Another facet to the impossible relationship.
"I can change," she said suddenly, tracing a few circles on top of his hand before letting it go to rub her nose. An unconscious gesture she had had for years. Lee knew she fidgeted with her nose when she was serious. "It might take me a while, but I can change. I don't want to hurt you, Lee. I'm tired of being the source of the pain I see in your eyes."
"Poetic," he said with a laugh. "Very un-Starbuck-like."
Kara shook her head at him. "We're having a serious moment here and you decide to joke?"
"I can be serious," he said, pulling her down so that she sat next to him. "As much as I see you as the same Starbuck who brutally kept me in check, there's a contradiction. You've changed in a way, Kara. That was what surprised me the most when I came back to the Fleet. You took on the role of CAG and leader so fully that I only saw small traces of the hotshot pilot I tried so hard to keep under control."
Kara picked at the grass absentmindedly. "There were issues I had to deal with. It made it easy for me to grow up." She stared at him a moment, wondering if this was the right time to go through this. In the end, she figured there might not be another time, and she was tired of putting important things on hold because life was too chaotic. "Dealing with your death wasn't easy."
"You got through it just fine," he said with a chuckle.
Kara had expected an answer like that. It just proved how little he really understood. "No, I didn't. I put on a good show for everyone one around me. Everyone except your father, that is. He always saw right through me. I think it runs in the family."
Lee smiled at her. "No pretenses. That must have been how Zak hooked you."
"Actually, Zak never could see through my bullshit. He made me want to stop lying, though. That's what hooked me." A faint rumbling echoed through the forest to remind them that they weren't on some sort of vacation. Kara wasn't going to let herself be distracted by that, though. They were in the middle of another one of those conversations that had to be finished. "I thought that losing Zak and going through that grief would make losing you a lot easier. The blame was the same."
He shook his head in disagreement just like she knew he would. "You weren't to blame for what happened to me. I got shot down. It could have happened to anyone at anytime."
"I'm partially to blame for taking away a little bit of your confidence. It was the same with Zak. I didn't kill him, but I didn't save him, either."
Lee bumped her lightly with his shoulder. "I can't see you being that floored by my death. Not after all the grief I put you through."
"I refused to let them give you a proper wartime burial. There was a coffin symbolizing the sacrifice you made. I knew you weren't there, but I still clung to it desperately. I wouldn't let it be flushed for weeks. How's that for not being floored?"
"Thank gods that I wasn't actually dead," he joked.
"This is serious, Lee. I wanted you to understand that as much as I seem to find joy in pointing out each and every one of your shortcomings, I don't care. I don't want to mourn the loss of even one of those shortcomings ever again."
"I'm not doing this on purpose," he said. When she gave him a knowing look, his mind flew back to the day before their crash landing. "Well, maybe not anymore."
She smirked and rested her chin on his shoulder. "Plus I would kind of miss them. You're kind of cute when you're being all flawed."
Lee stared at her a moment before clearing his throat and pointing to the device she still clutched in her hand. "I modified the comms slightly so that the power is conserved. We can use them at a short distance for hours. The downfall is Galactica won't be able to pick up on the frequency. We'll have moved our position, and there won't be a way for them to find us.
Smiling, Kara stood up. Topic closed, she guessed. It was nice to return to what life deemed normal. Avoidance of anything emotionally significant and frakked-up silence that spoke volumes. She was home.
Clearing her throat, she looked around. "So how far are we from the crashdown site?"
"About a mile."
"We should set up a perimeter. Considering toasters are probably crawling over every single inch of this planet, we should make sure we don't have any unwanted companions nearby."
"Agreed," Lee said. His gaze fell to the flight suit that was still hanging from her waist, halfway pulled down. "You're probably going to want to take that off."
"I was wondering when you'd try to get me out of my clothes," she teased even while she slid the suit down to her ankles. She knew that he only meant she would get hot if she wore it walking a perimeter, but she wasn't about to let an opportunity to annoy him go by unnoticed.
Lee chose to ignore her snide remark like always. Instead, he went into his typical all-business mode. Kara couldn't help but feel a little happy at the familiarity of the situation. He was acting normal for the first time since he had fought his way back to the Fleet.
She kneeled down to check the knife she kept secured to the side of her right flight boot. Like Lee with his battle comms, it was her own form of extra preparation. "So how are we going to go about this? I assume you have a plan."
"I figure a one mile radius will do just fine for now. We both march one mile out opposite ways, mark where we started, and circle around until we hit the other's mark. Then we met back here. The circle will include the crash site in case Galactica focuses on that in their search for us. I figure we can keep in constant communication through the comms should the SAR show up while we're setting the perimeter."
"You need to get out more," she said.
He looked around before smirking at her. "I thought we were out."
She rolled her eyes and attached the comm firmly to her left ear. That was when she noticed him wincing slightly as he did the same. "Is something wrong?"
"It's nothing."
"Stop trying to be strong, Lee, and tell me why your face just erupted with pain."
"My hands got a little burnt when I pulled the canopy off of your Viper."
Kara nodded, taking in this new bit of information, and held out her hands. "Let me see."
"No, it's not that bad," he said, already taking a few steps away from her.
She grabbed his arm and pulled him back. "I said, let me see your hands, Lee."
Sighing, he held them out and tried to ignore the look of alarm that spread across her face. "They hadn't been hurting that much the past few hours. They just started to pang a little a few minutes ago. Nothing that big."
"Nothing that big? Lee, your hands probably have at least second degree burns on them. You need to get them treated."
"Well, let me just go off and find the nearest medical infirmary on Kobol then, Kara. Because I'm sure there are about fifty within walking distance and the Cylons won't really care if I just… wander… off…" His words faded out as he noticed her cutting the one leg of her pants with the knife she always carried with her on missions. "What are you doing?"
Sighing, she stood up with the piece of material in her hand. "I'm going to field dress your left hand so it doesn't get any worse. I wish I could do both of your hands, but I don't want you to have to worry about how you'd fire a gun beneath all that material. Can't have you impeded in any way should a Cylon show up along your little perimeter search."
He stared as she went silent and followed whatever maternal instinct had been awakened inside of her. Her hand grasped his gently. He watched her absentmindedly shake a wayward lock of hair out of her eyes while focusing on the rhythm of her movements. Almost as if she were moving to a distant song, she hummed softly as she wrapped the small piece of cloth around his blistered hand. When she ran out of material, she still held his hand tightly within both of hers and glanced up.
"Kara?" he said tentatively as her eyes bore into him with surprising accuracy.
"I can't believe you got burnt just to get me out of that cockpit."
The way she was staring at him was making him nervous. She always seemed to have a knack at doing that.
"You carried me with your hands like this," she said, still staring at him.
"I barely noticed." His breath was starting to become more shallow as he suddenly took notice of how close they were standing. Her eyes were right in line with his, and her lips, he only had to move a few inches to bring them to his own. The way she was looking at him right now made them seem like the only option he could take.
"We need to get off this planet, Lee," she whispered before he could follow his instincts and lean in. She stared at him a moment longer before letting his hand slid out of hers.
"You think I don't know that." He smiled at her and shrugged.
A small twig broke somewhere in the distance, pulling them out of whatever haze had kept them staring at each other. Kara cleared her throat and turned away from him. "All right. Let's get this done. I want to take another nap. My head's starting to pound again."
He gave her a small look of concern before nodding and walking off in the opposite direction.
Kara found herself unable to move as she watched him walk away. A feeling of foreboding was washing over her as Lee got farther and farther from her. She felt like she was saying goodbye without even saying a word.
"Lee?" she yelled as the knot in her stomach intensified.
He turned to look back at her. When she didn't say anything, he smiled and pointed to his ear. His voice echoed through her. "Don't worry, Kara. I'm right with you."
"Right," she said, giving him a small wave before starting to walk. She looked over her shoulder after a few steps. He was still standing in the same spot, smirking and shaking his head.
Kara continued on, scolding herself for being so ridiculous. She forced herself to keep from turning for at least one hundred feet. When she finally broke down and looked, he was gone. The woods had gotten unusually quiet. "Lee?" she whispered into the earpiece.
"Yeah?"
She let out a deep breath. "Just checking."
"Are you going to do that every minute we're apart? Because it's going to get annoying."
"I'm sorry," she said, rolling her eyes. She stepped lightly over a fallen tree trunk. Lee obviously didn't need her worrying about him every second. He was more than capable of taking care of himself. "You know, if you keep talking, I won't have to keep checking."
"What do you expect me to say?"
She could hear the hint of exasperation in his voice. It made her want to laugh. "Come up with something. Tell me more about your time away from Galactica."
"When I was on Caprica or when I was with the Cylons?"
"Either."
"That's not the kind of thing you discuss over a comm, Kara."
"I was just curious," she said, narrowing her eyes as a twig snapped in front of her. "You don't have to be defensive."
"I'm not being defensive. I just don't want to have to talk about what happened to me every single time we're alone together. There are a lot of other things that we could discuss besides my time away from the Fleet."
"All right. All right. I get it. You don't want to talk about it."
There was another noise coming from the direction of the twig snap. Kara wasn't sure if her mind was turning it into something mechanical or if it was really a Cylon. "I think I have something, Lee."
"Don't engage," he hissed. "You're in no condition to fight."
She saw something flash by in her peripheral vision and ducked behind a tree. "I'm perfectly capable of fighting."
"You crashlanded earlier today in case you've forgotten."
"I came out in one piece."
"Only because I was there."
"I would have been fine on my own."
"You would have died on your own."
"Bullshit."
"It's the truth."
"I've been through this before on my own."
"And you wrecked your knee."
"It got better."
"Only after a lot of whining and rehabilitation."
"I don't whine."
"You're whining right now."
"Am not."
"Are too."
"I hate you."
Lee let out a small laugh. "Yeah, yeah. So how's that disturbance going? See any toasters?"
"Frak." She could feel her face getting red as the embarrassment of what she had just done washed over her. "I didn't check it out."
"Too busy arguing with me to do your job. And you wonder why I told you not to engage."
Anger washed over her as she realized he had been purposefully bickering with her so that she would forget to go against his advice and see if the disturbance was indeed a Cylon. Deciding she was becoming a little too angry to keep talking to him, she chose not to yell about how he had tricked her. Plus, there was still a lot of ground to cover on this perimeter establishment. When that was over, she could get angry and scream at him face to face.
A wicked thought occurred to her as she stood up from her crouch behind a large tree. A fist to the gut should convince him that she was perfectly capable of engaging an enemy target. Smiling, she pulled the knife out of her boot and started carving into a tree. He wanted a marker to show where she started the perimeter circle? She'd give him a marker. Lee should appreciate the 'frak you' she was cutting into the bark when he reached the end point of the perimeter later.
"I hit my mile mark," she told him.
"So did I."
Frak. He never did accept being second place without a fight.
Kara kept the knife in her hand as she continued walking. She was still unsure about those noises she had heard before. They were making her uneasy. She was hesitantly starting to admit that maybe Lee was right when he said the crashlanding had taken a little more out of her than she wanted to acknowledge. Her head was starting to pound with the pressure of being on her own.
"Lee? Can you keep talking?" she asked hesitantly.
"You really are spooked."
"I'm okay," she said stubbornly. "I just wanted to ask you a question." When he didn't respond, she took that as a go ahead. Which made her rack her brain for something she could ask him that would keep him talking. "Help me understand something. I know you really don't want to talk about it, but I just don't understand something about your return to the Fleet. If you thought the Cylons would come after you, why did you follow their supposed plan for you and come back? The way you say it, they clearly told you that they weren't done messing with you. Returning to us added a lot more danger to the mix."
"Brutal with the words like always."
Kara had realized that herself. She had just wanted to get him a little riled up so that he wouldn't stop talking for at least a few minutes. Maybe she had pushed it with the reference to what kind of person he used to be. "I don't meant to be. I just wanted to say that doing something like that is not like you. I want to know if there's something you're still holding back from me. I care about you so please don't brush it off with a joke. I want to hear an answer."
"Are you asking me this as a concerned CAG or as a bored pilot on a recon mission?"
She scowled as she stepped in a small puddle of mud. Frak. As if she wasn't dirty enough. "Listen. You know that I'm a little nervous right now. This is something I was curious about and I wanted to keep you talking, but that doesn't even matter anymore. Now I want to know the answer because you're obviously holding something back. Which means you're protecting someone."
He sighed on the other half of the comm, obviously getting his mental bearings before answering. "For starters, there is something I haven't told you. There's some haziness in my mind about what went on there. I remember the pain. I remember the suffering through day after day, test after test. A lot of the bad stuff is easy to recall."
"You remember your mistake," she pointed out hesitantly.
"Yes. I remember that. The pain of knowing what I had done seems to give me a sort of clarity. I can remember the moments of guilt and hurt that the Cylons created for me. I can remember the harsh truths I was told, the pain they caused me. Sometimes when I think about it, it isn't hard to imagine why I didn't think twice about coming back to you."
There was a double meaning to his words that she chose to ignore. "You still didn't answer why you came back to the Fleet when you knew the danger involved."
"Honestly, Kara, I really don't want to be discussing this with you right now. I promise we will talk about this later when we're safe on Galactica."
She could hear him getting mad at her. It was a subtle shift in the tone of his voice that most people couldn't even pick up on. But she had had plenty of practice in identifying it which meant she knew this was usually the time to back off a little. Problem was Kara Thrace wasn't really one for sticking with the usual.
"It doesn't add up. I know that you care about us, but you came back to the Fleet when it could have possibly damned us all. And now you don't even want to admit that you may have made a mistake by coming back. It's odd. I've had quite a few people tell me that you seem to have an agenda you're following that no one else is privy to."
"And what agenda would that be?"
She kicked the ground lightly with her foot as she kept walking. The harsh tones had calmed down a little, and she was actually feeling a little better about being on her own on Kobol. "Everyone's afraid that the Cylons got to you. That maybe you're just like Boomer. We wouldn't even see it coming until it was too late. The way things have been headed since your return, I'm starting to wonder if there's some sort of truth behind the theories going around."
Kara knew she was intentionally goading him. She knew they were standing on the precipice of something important and this was the only way lately to get him to open up to her. She hated doing it, but she hated him closing himself off from her even more.
"You don't sound like you wanted me to come back, Kara." She could feel the pain in his voice and wondered if maybe she had taken it a step too far this time. Sure, he had to talk about the issues the Cylons had created, but she didn't want to painfully extract the revelations. "Was that whole story about dealing so badly with my death a lie?"
Kara could hear something shift inside of him as his tone rose to mock her. She kept forgetting how much more they still had to repair between them before things got back to what was once normal. They would have these moments of peace that made her forget how much he had changed. But there was always an argument to bring that small detail back to the surface.
At the moment, the current detail on the top of her mind concerned the fact that, unlike her, maybe Lee wasn't willing to work towards that goal of repairing what they had lost. If that was true, then it really rubbed her the wrong way. "Tell me why you came back. Why return to the Fleet? The truth please."
"You forget. I didn't know the Fleet was going to be in the airspace above Kobol."
His words hung in the air between them. Kara wasn't sure she had heard him right. Was he implying that he never intended to come back home to the Fleet? What had he planned on doing in that Raider then? He really had never told her where he would have gone if the ships were not floating in the space above Kobol.
Something shifted slightly in his voice. "It's rather rich that you're scolding me for acting without thinking when it seems to be your specialty. And I never really ask you for explanations. I just accepted you were the kind of girl to hit before you thought or frak before you felt." He let out a icy laugh. "Funny how you could be so full of emotion and so lacking at the same time."
Her eyes stung as his words cut to the core. She had thought this severe coldness and brutality inside him was disappearing. But it seemed to be rearing its ugly head. She knew she had made a mistake, pressing this issue, now. The fear she had felt by being alone hadn't really made her think out her actions, and there was really no way to go back now. "I don't think my personal life has anything to do with what's wrong with you."
"You think something's wrong with me?"
"That's not what I meant," she said, backtracking her words as she continued on around the perimeter. She had to be about halfway done by now.
He let out a long sigh from wherever he was. "I think that you don't seem so scared anymore. Maybe it would be better if we just stopped the whole conversation thing now before it gets out of hand. We all know how impulsive you get."
Kara knew it was a mistake, but she couldn't stop the words if she had tried. "Frak--" A sound of a gunshot cut her off. She instinctively ducked even though she knew the bullets weren't anywhere close to her position. They had only echoed in her ear.
"Lee? What the frak is going on?"
He wasn't responding. There were more gunshots coming over her comm.
"Apollo, answer me. Tell me what's happening."
"Kara, you need to get back to my downed Viper now. Take it to Galactica."
She could hear the strain in his voice. The knowledge that he could be frightened of something made her terrified. She couldn't handle this. "What the frak are you talking about?"
"There's been a group of Cylons circling me for the past few minutes. They're moving in."
"What?" she yelled as the gunfire got significantly louder. "There has been a group of Cylons with you for that long and you didn't even say a word? Frak, Lee! I could have already been halfway to where you are by now."
Then it suddenly clicked. He had been purposefully trying to piss her off this whole time. He wanted her angry so that when he suggested silence she would agree. He didn't want her running headfirst into danger like they both knew she would do. The Cylons were catching on that the two pilots were on Kobol, and he was protecting her from danger. All the horrible things he had said, all the horrible things he had made her think, it was all to keep her safe.
"I'm not going to explain it. Just go," he screamed.
Reverberation filtered through the headset, and the comm line cut off for a moment. When it came back, the observations of what was happening came to her as if she were completely detached. Detached from the chaos and detached from how close this situation was coming to upsetting her whole world. She distinctly heard shots being fired on both sides. There was a slight pounding in rhythm through the comm. Lee's breath was filtering through the comm in a more ragged pattern. He must be running now.
Kara stood frozen in the middle of the unmarked path she had been following. She had two choices. She could listen to Lee, who probably knew what he was talking about, and fly to Galactica, returning with help and hoping he had found a way to stay safe while she was gone. Or she could say frak you to his stupid plan and save him herself right now.
It was a difficult choice. Listen to her heart or listen to her head. She had to make the decision now, though. There wasn't time to waste either way.
"Frak that!" she hissed to herself. When did she ever do the rational thing? "Hang on, Lee," she yelled into the comm as she started to run. "I'm on my way."
"No, Kara. You need to get out of here before it's too late."
"I'm not that far away. I can make it if you just hold on a little longer."
"Don't do this."
"I'm not listening to you anymore," she said.
"Kara! I don't want you to do this."
"No choice."
"Kara!" he yelled before the gunshots starting picking up again. "I am going to kill you."
"As long as you're still alive to do it, then I don't mind." Picking up speed, she started running as fast as she could in a straight dissection of the perimeter they had been setting up. She had two miles to cover and she had no time to do it in.
Normally, the soft cadence of her feet touching the ground briefly before they moved to make another step forward would have been a soothing experience. Now it was nerve-wracking how slow her pace was becoming. She knew she needed to push herself faster if she wanted to get to Lee in time to protect him from whatever the frak the Cylons wanted.
Her mind flashed back through all the times in her life that Lee had tried to protect. There were too many to properly count, but she had no doubt that they all had one thing in common. Each time, he had been right. Things were always better off when she didn't get involved. That bar fight on Picon. The last day of exams at the Academy. Breaking down his confidence as a form of motivation before the attack on the Cylon tylium mine. Trying to repair their relationship and reconnecting enough so that he felt the need to follow her down to this gods-forsaken planet.
By now, she really would have thought she would have learned her lesson. When Lee decided to protect her by keeping her out of the heat of battle, she should listen.
Her thoughts broke for a second as she found herself climbing over a pile of fallen trees that were downed right in the middle of her path. The jagged wood cut at her hands, but she ignored the pain and pulled herself up a few feet. Her comm slipped out of her ear halfway up the pile, and she calmly slid it into her military tanks. She didn't even have the time to waste in order to put the thing back in place. Besides, all Lee would be saying over it was she needed to take that working Viper as far from Kobol as she could.
Kara paused at the top of heap to see if she could see any visuals on what was happening. She saw the crash site where her frakked Viper and Lee's pristine Viper rested next to one another, but she quickly looked away. Those ships weren't going to help her with what she needed right now.
There was a slight glimmer of something metal about a mile ahead and to the left. Deciding this was her best lead, she braced herself and jumped down from the top, landing squarely on her feet and pushed the comm back into her ear.
The sounds of the gunfight still rang through her headpiece with one noticeable absence. Lee wasn't talking or yelling anymore. And she was starting to get scared that she wouldn't get there in time.
"How you holding up, Apollo?" she called as she began to run again. She made no effort to be quiet. If a Cylon decided to engage her in a fight at this moment, they were going to be very sorry. She was not in the mood.
"Get the frak out of her now, Kara. There's no way you could help."
She shook her head at him, even though she knew there was no way he could see it. "You're so stupid," she whispered mostly to herself. It didn't matter to her if there was no way she could help because in her mind, there was no way that she could choose not to help. This was Lee. "You are so fraking' stupid! Do you hear me?" she screamed.
Even though her lungs were screaming, she pushed herself harder. She had heard the tone in his voice falter. Lee was losing hope quickly.
Kara clung to the notion that all the times she had disobeyed his wishes had been for a reason. The whole damn Fleet knew that they were about as close as two pilots could get. They watched each other's backs no matter what. It was inappropriate and inconvenient, but that's the way it was.
She wasn't about to change that now.
There was a river coming up in front of her, and for a second, she wondered if there was a way she could avoid having to cross it. As soon as she thought it, she knew how stupid she was being. Lee was in trouble, and she wanted to avoid getting wet?
"Really fraking stupid," she hissed to herself as she began wading in. The water was a lot colder and wilder than it looked from outside. It took her a few seconds to get her bearings and begin the quick swim across. She kept her head out of the water as best she could so that she wouldn't lose sight of where she was supposed to be heading.
Almost as if the gods knew how important she felt staying dry was, her right foot caught on some long buried root or rock on the bottom of the water as she neared the other side, and she felt her legs come out from under her. The water tossed her around for a few frantic moments, and eventually she was flung hard against the bottom of the river. As her body twisted and turned against the current, her vision went white under the pressure of the water on her face.
The river flew into a softer patch, and Kara was able to pull herself up for enough time to get her bearings. The river bank was only a few seconds swim away. It was within her reach, she decided and dug for all the strength inside of her. After the final push to get out of the last few inches of freezing water, she dragged herself up to her knees as the shallow water lapped around her. There was a faint crackle in her ear as the comm sputtered out.
"Couldn't the gods have made this a little easier on me?" she panted, grabbing the earpiece out of her ear and staring at it. It was dead. And Lee wasn't around to fix it for her this time.
That didn't change that she still had a job to do. Standing up, Kara turned around in a few, quick circles as the panic began to set in. She had lost her bearings, and she had lost her ability to hear him. No doubt about it, she was really on her own now if she couldn't hear Lee.
"Frakked like always," she muttered to herself. It really shouldn't surprise her anymore.
"Lee! I need you to give me something here," she screamed as loud as she could muster, looking in any and all directions. "Lee! Come on!"
Kara smacked the comm a few times with the back of her palm in hopes that it would snap back to life. When it didn't, she threw it on the ground in frustration. Her hands came up to rub her face as she realized she was going to have to pick a random direction and hope she was right.
Deciding that the bank she was on didn't look familiar, she figured the river had mercifully flung her to the side to which she was originally aiming. That made this a little easier. Now she only had to pick left, right, or straight. That was a one in three chance. Not bad odds, but still not good enough in her mind when the prize to be won was Lee's life.
One split-second decision later as images of what Lee was in the middle of flashed through her head, she found herself running in a right diagonal to the river.
"Lords of Kobol, please help to guide my feet in the right direction. Lee Adama is a good man who has done nothing that could ever anger you. He doesn't deserve to be hurt like this." Her voice caught in her throat as she realized the tears pooling in her eyes had begun to fall. She was losing hope.
"Please!" she screamed to no one in particular.
In response, Kara heard a guttural scream from behind her that froze her in her tracks. The next second she heard the scream again, only this time it was her name being yelled.
"Thank gods," she said, turning around and running in the opposite direction. She was close now. All he had to do was hang on for a few more minutes and she would be there. Each yard she ran, the sounds of gunshots got louder, spurring her to push herself harder, to make herself run faster.
And then, it stopped cold.
Kara's heart caught in her chest as the weight of the silence weighed down on her. She pulled the gun out of holster, pleased to see it had fared better than the comm, and crouched down as she inched her way closer to where she thought the shots originated.
Using a tree for cover, she peeked around to see her worst fear was true. There were a handful of mechanical Cylons and a couple of the human version all clustered around Lee. He was on his knees in the middle of their circle, bloody and beaten. Kara felt her grip on the gun tighten in anger. The toasters had sent the blond model who had tried to infiltrate Galactica in the beginning stages of their escape and another model Kara had never seen before. He looked to be young and about as attractive as a woman could wish. Enough muscle to pose a problem, but nothing she felt she couldn't handle in the end.
Her mind held on to the satisfaction that she was not too late as she sat crouched behind the tree. She could still save him. All it would take was her single-handedly killing more Cylons than any other person in the history of humanity. She watched the pretty blond Cylon reach out to punch Lee hard, flinging his body down into the dirt.
"No problem," she growled, cocking the safety off her gun.
Knowing that realistically she had no chance, she took a deep breath, ducked out from behind the tree, and fired off a few well aimed shots. The first and second hit one of the mechanical Cylons in the small vulnerable spot below the metal chin, and he exploded taking out two of his counterparts. Her third shot hit the blond Cylon squarely in lower abdomen, and Kara gloated at the pain she saw come up in the toaster's eyes.
Three and a half down. Two and a half to go.
Only now they knew she was here. Letting out a sharp scream, she continued firing, focusing on the last surviving mechanical Cylon. She realized the two human Cylons were hanging back. Lee had mentioned they liked to do their little tests and experiments. Maybe they were testing her now.
"Letting your little pet do the dirty work?" she screamed in frustration. Her shots weren't working to take down this toaster, and she was running out of room as it got closer to where she stood. She really wished she was in her Viper right now. One quick shot and this whole area would be toast.
Kara took stock of her environment while continuing to rapidly fire at the approaching machine. Lee was still face down in the dirt with the two human Cylons standing over him. He was obviously hurt if he couldn't even pick himself up from a punch. She had plenty of cover provided by the trees around her to hide behind as the Cylons were firing upon her. But she had to be careful because any stray shot could send a tree falling down in her direction.
Her eyes lit up as she suddenly realized that was exactly what she needed. She turned the gun away from the Cylon running at her and up into the trees and silently hoped they wouldn't seize the opening to get in a few unblocked shots on her. Firing as many rounds as she could, she heard the branches snap as the shots broke off pieces. Within seconds she was rewarded with a series of large branches falling to knock heavily into the hunk of metal currently trying to kill her. The last shot she fired took down a rotting tree trunk that pinned the Cylon to the ground. Two shots later and the fight was done.
Kara would have loved to have a moment to catch her breath, but the two Cylons of human physical perfection were now steadily coming towards her. Test over, it would seem.
She knew from the stories she had managed to gleam from Lee that the blonde woman preferred hand-to-hand combat rather than guns. As for the man, she wasn't sure. No, one had ever encountered him before.
"You two must think the world of me if you have to gang up together to take me out," she mocked them. She threw her gun to the ground. Its cartridge had run out almost immediately after the robotic Cylons were destroyed. It took a lot of bullets to kill a toaster.
"This is not your destiny, Kara Thrace," the woman said, giving her a smile as she slowly sauntered her way over.
"I'm not the kind of girl to just sit back and accept the bad hand fate has dealt me," she said with a shrug. Even though it was the blonde woman talking to her, her eyes stayed squarely on the male Cylon. He was new, and she had a job to do. If she and Lee made it out of this one alive, then she would need to be able to describe every single detail of this man so that the Fleet can ferret out any within their ships.
It was a good thing she was so concentrated, too. Because as the woman toaster rattled on about prophecies and destiny repeating itself and the singular god they believed in, the man moved in to attack. Kara dodged him easily and started circling around with him.
"Why do you fight? What have you to defend?" he asked with a smirk.
"You obviously don't know me if you have to ask why I fight," she said with a mocking laugh.
"Fighting is what intrigues us," the blonde Cylon said as she fell in line with her counterpart to cautiously circle around Kara.
"I thought the man lying over there is what intrigues you." The female just shrugged at her, and Kara took the small moment to look over at Lee. He still hadn't moved from the blow he had been dealt, but that didn't mean he was down and out. A tiny voice in the back of her head pointed out that it could mean he was never going to be getting up, but she quickly squelched it.
The blond Cylon cut in at her real quick but did not engage. Kara smirked as her opponents looked surprised that she hadn't flinched. She had just buckled down for a quick second to brace herself. It was from the years of experience she kept telling these machines she had. Hand to hand combat was where she excelled.
"You seem distracted," the man pointed out with a smile.
"I'm trying to decide what to do with the rest of my day once I've killed you." Kara's mind had begun to spin a little as they went through this sort of dance to see who would make the first move. She wasn't stupid. The two Cylons were slowly circling her into a position in which she had no choice but to engage. Normally, she wouldn't play by her opponents' rules, but she really had no other option right now.
And then it came. The blond Cylon punched out with her right fist, aiming to practically knock Kara's head straight off her shoulders. Kara dodged and managed to get in a few blows to the woman's midsection where the bullet wound was still trickling with blood. The bad thing about this risky move was she took her eyes off the man for just long enough that he got behind her. His arm pulled back against her neck, choking her, as her eyes glazed over from the pain.
That annoying little voice in her head pointed out that she hadn't lasted that long. Her mind flashed with the images of Lee protecting her from this. He had wanted to keep her safe even though he knew it was probably likely that without her help he would die by the hands of the Cylons. And not immediately, either. They would drag out his death until it was the only thing he wished for, the only thing he could possibly ever want. Freedom would mean nothing. Death was all there is.
Kara never wanted to imagine Lee being put through that. Which is where she pulled the strength to tell that little voice in her head to frak off as she slammed her head violently back until it made contact with the Cylon's nose. There was a rewarding crack as his nose broke, and she could practically smell the blood as it began to flow out of the broken orifice. His grip loosened almost immediately.
The sheer violence of her move only served to goad her on. She wasted no time in delivering a kick to the battered Cylon's head, watching him fall down to the ground for one blessed moment. Just in time, she saw the woman Cylon's fist coming in towards her head and pulled herself away from the punch so that it only grazed the side of her cheek. It stung a little, but she had learned to compartmentalize the pain of a fight a long time before she had even dreamed of being a Colonial Pilot.
The woman pulled a knife out from the belt she wore securely around her hips. "The man you seek to save does not need you. He is no longer on this plane of existence. Why do you continue to fight?"
"That's not going to intimidate me," Kara spit out, even though she knew talking would only distract her from the objective. Silently, she was thanking the gods that it was not a gun that had been pulled. She didn't know why the machines hadn't just shot her and been done with it by now. Her mind was almost as battered and bruised as her body, which made it impossible to consider anything farther than what would happen in the next second.
She watched the blonde pass the knife over to the male as he struggled up off the ground. There was a gleam to her eyes which told Kara that there might be more to the move than she could see at the moment. "Your little knife doesn't intimidate me, either," she pointed out after a moment, dodging a few careless swipes from the Cylon in front of her. They were still testing each other's boundaries. "You can't have a proper bar fight without a knife being drawn. And trust me. I've seen bigger."
The man laughed. "I don't believe you're as tough as you say.
She let out a small smirk. "Well, why don't I just prove you wrong?"
Keeping her distance, it only took Kara a few seconds to kick the knife right out of her opponent's hand. It went flying off into the ground somewhere to her right. She filed its location away and kept right on dodging the blows thrown at her from what seemed like every direction possible.
Kara managed to control the fighting in her own way, by taking a punch just as often as she dealt them. The fighting stayed easy with her only throwing in a few punches or well-aimed kicks to the groins whenever it was necessary. She was trying to gather information on her opponents. This wasn't just another drunken bar fight where she could end the altercation as soon as she was bored. It was hard to kill one Cylon on your own without any sort of firearm. Killing two was unheard of.
Unheard of, but not impossible.
The blond was the more impetuous of the two. She let her emotions take control of her actions. If Kara landed a punch, the Cylon would just come at her twice as hard. It was almost as if each hit was chipping away at the toaster's pride.
The man tended to sit back and observe, too. She knew he was trying to take in her fighting style, and she wished him all the luck. It was such a motley crew of so many different styles she had picked up along the path her life took that she wasn't even sure what it would be called.
A punch from the woman landed squarely on her jaw. She tried to shake it off and keep fighting, but it was beginning to become hard. The small aches were beginning to add up and aid in slowing her down. She was human, unlike her opponents. Eventually she would tire and they would finish her off. The faint taste of blood was becoming familiar to her as she licked where her lip had been split open. She was going to have to do something and do it quick before the Cylons realized she was faltering.
The opening came when the female misjudged her fellow machine's position. She kicked Kara squarely in the gut and sent her flying straight back into him. Normally, Kara would have fought against the hit and only staggered back a few steps. In this case, that would have probably set her out for the final blow delivered by the male lingering on the outskirts of the battle. So she went with the momentum of the kick and used it to topple straight into the machine behind her. Her eyes flashed on the knife the Cylon had dropped earlier in the fight as it lay on the ground right before she felt the length of her body connect with his. She knew if she timed this just right, it could work out.
His naturally heavier weight landed directly on top of her as they twisted in the fall to the hard ground. The breath left her lungs in one quick burst, and she suddenly found herself afraid that it would not make its way back. She had felt a all-too familiar snap of bone breaking upon impact and judged that she had just broken at least a handful of ribs. That added to the pain breathing now caused, and Kara suddenly knew she only had a few more seconds before she lost any sort of upper hand she had fought to gain.
She looked up into the Cylon's eyes as he continued to lay on top of her and was surprised to see a human expression of pain reflected back. The humanity of the machines still unnerved her. She noted the knife she had effectively lodged deep in his side as they had hit the ground and could feel the hot liquid of his blood as it dripped down onto her own body. He had rolled them right over the knife before they had fallen to a stop where they now lay. It was exactly as she had planned it, but it still didn't ease the brutality of what she still had to do.
The suffering of the male machine gave Kara the opening she had been looking for. She pushed the pain of a few broken ribs and no oxygen left in her lungs to the side and staggered up to her knees. Frantically grabbing at the Cylon lying in front of her, she yanked his head up into the nook of her left arm and placed her right hand on his left cheek. Once she felt the weight of his body settled into hers, she gave the blond Cylon the wicked smile she had become infamous for.
And then she pulled her hand to the right while moving her arm to the left in a vicious motion. The Cylon's neck snapped with a satisfying crack, and Kara let the body sink back down onto the ground.
"You may be machines in a lot of ways, but the humanity you so desperately want is what kills you in the end," she said softly as she sank back down off her knees. The pain of breathing was making her vision fade. She was fighting a losing battle.
"You have only killed one of us," the blond said calmly, smiling down at her. Finally, she pulled a gun out of the waistline of her pants and trained it on the Viper pilot, lying open in front of her. "A great feat, but not good enough."
"So kill me and be done with it," Kara taunted from her position on the ground.
The blond quickly kicked her hard in the face, and Kara tasted the dirt and grass beneath her body as her mouth jarred sharply against the ground. "God does not want you to die. You have a part to play in all of this. Your insubordination is forcing me to play a part that was never intended for me."
Kara managed to push herself up a few inches with her hands so that she could glare at the woman who was going to be her executioner. "You treat me with an awful lot of importance for my not being the one you wanted to retrieve so badly."
The blond Cylon gave her a strange look and tilted her head to the side, almost as if she didn't understand what Kara was implying. Kara watched as the gun steadied in the Cylon's hand. She could practically feel the shot coming. It would be the well-aimed delivery of the bullet that would kill her. The Cylons seemed to like her enough to want to end the suffering life had given her. They would not drag things out. The fact that she was having such rational thoughts in her head as her death loomed over her was not surprising. She was not rational in life, so then it made sense she would be rational in death.
A shot echoed through the air as Kara finally made a silent peace with herself and resigned to death. She closed her eyes and said a soft prayer to the Lords of Kobol, asking only that she be allowed to see Lee one last time before she was taken to the hell she knew she deserved.
When her pain neither intensified nor weakened, she opened her eyes. The last remaining machine stood in front of her, still confidently aiming the gun at Kara's head. The Cylon looked down at her intended victim in bewilderment as a circle of red rapidly spread on her chest. The confusion was mirrored back in Kara's face as they both remembered that she had no gun in her hand.
Kara could see the last bits of life slip out of the Cylon's eyes as she crumpled to the earth, seemingly without reason. Where the machine had just stood, she could see what she had missed before. Lee was leaning against a tree directly in front of her, smoking gun clasped tightly in his hand.
"They said you were dead."
"I have a habit of not dying," he pointed out. The fact he was struggling rather hard to form the words didn't slip by her unnoticed. She just chose to ignore it for as long as she could. They were both hurting. It didn't need to be acknowledged.
"I'm glad you're so resilient," she said, dragging herself to her feet.
There was a moment between the two of them where Kara knew they were both remembering how things had once been. And then Lee's face contorted in pain as he slid down the tree towards the ground. She reached his side before he could even make it halfway. Her arm slipped easily around his waist and pulled him back up to her side. The broken ribs ached in silent protest, but she ignored them.
"Lee, you got to stay with me here. We're almost halfway home."
"How do you figure?" he said with a laugh.
Her heart leapt a little when his voice came out just a little stronger than before. "Well, we just killed the first round of Cylons who found us. That means we got that little plot point in our adventure done. Now it's just the waiting for the search and rescue that has to be done. Do you really think the gods would be cruel enough to send more Cylons our way?"
"Yes," he hissed through his teeth. She could tell the pain was intensifying as the reality of what they had gone through set in. However, his voice was holding strong. As long as she kept him talking, she might not have to worry about how badly he had been hurt by the machines.
Kara started slowly pulling their joined bodies towards where the forest was denser. The movement was jolting and slow, but there would be less of a chance of discovery if they went farther in. Her knee creaked under the stress of her carrying two hundred pounds more than normal. She silently cursed her body for not being stronger when she needed it.
Lee hissed in pain, his thoughts obviously running parallel to hers. "I hate having to depend on you."
"And I just love carrying your heavy ass all over this planet," she said sarcastically. "But it's what has to be done. So, I guess the real question is do you have any ideas of what we can do?"
"There's a cave about five hundred feet into the forest. I saw it when I was setting up the perimeter. It'll provide cover."
Kara rolled her eyes. "Even when you're half dead, you have a plan."
"I'm more than half dead," he hissed. If he hadn't been given her one of his famous half-smiles, she would have been worried.
Frak that notion. No matter what he did, she was worried. They were both as hurt as you could get without dying, and there still was no sign of rescue. Plus, the Cylons knew that Lee was on the planet. They were going to send another squad to locate them. They wouldn't survive a second fight.
"How are your hands holding up?" she asked.
"They're not really hurting that much anymore, which makes me worried. I have to be in a lot of pain for the burn to be dull already."
She nodded, knowing that was probably the only thing she could do right now without betraying how much she desperately wanted to cry. It was important to stay strong no matter how bad things got. Lee had always been the one to do that when times got tough on Galactica. Now that she was the CAG and he was too hurt to remember, she would have to take up the burden. She had told him she had changed. Now it was time to prove it.
"Kara, there's something I have to tell you."
Lee's voice startled her enough to make her steps falter, and both of their aching bodies took the opportunity to slid to the ground in a heap. "Sorry," she said, pulling her head up high enough to look at him before letting it hit the ground again.
"No problem."
She smiled to herself. Why was it when they were hurting it always seemed like they did it together? Letting out a small sigh, she stared up into the sky above her. "So what do you have to tell me?"
"I lied to you."
"You've been lying to me for years, Lee. Why the need to confess now?"
"Because you need to know the truth if you're going to do what I ask you."
"And that would be?"
"I need you to take me to the cave like I said. But then you have to get in that Viper and head back to Galactica."
Kara rolled over so that her left arm and leg rested on Lee's body. She stared at him with a harsh glare in her eyes. "For the last time, I am not abandoning you. It's you and me against the world."
"That's the problem. The Cylons don't want me, Kara. They want you."
"What the frak are you talking about?"
"Technically, I didn't really lie about it. I didn't realize the truth of what the toasters wanted until right before we got into our Vipers in the hangar. That's why I tried to keep you away from here when they were attacking. The Cylons were just going to use me as bait to get you to show yourself. That's the only purpose I have to them anymore. I'm just the bait." He looked down at her, and the pleading in his eyes made Kara want to look away. But she didn't. She held strong. "It's you they want. So you need to take the small window of time we've been given and you need to get yourself out of here."
She shook her head. "I'm not leaving with you."
"Then you will die."
She smacked him hard across the cheek. The effort cost her, but the pissed off look he sent her way made it all worth it. "Are you a fraking idiot? If I go, then you're dead. The Cylons will either kill you right now or they'll keep you locked away to use as bait to get at me another time."
"I don't care."
"You selfless bastard," she mocked, narrowing her eyes at him.
"There are things more important than my life."
"I hardly think I qualify."
"I know a lot of people who would beg to differ."
Not knowing what to say to that, she cleared her throat and pushed herself up off of him and into a sitting position. "So, I don't understand. What makes you think the Cylons want me and not you?"
"I'm still not sure. The memories of what they did to me are completely clear yet hazy at the same time. Pain helps, though."
"Pain?"
"Well, sometimes it makes things a lot clearer. Other times, the pain dulls the memory. I think it has something to do with the amount of pain I was in when the events took place originally."
Kara glanced around at where they lay as her practical side kicked in. It was in a rather open area in the forest, easy for the Cylons to spot them in. They were both hurting, but they couldn't rest yet.
"All right. Time to continue this conversation on the go." She pulled herself to her feet, only wincing slightly, and turned to stare at where Lee still lay on the ground. "Are you getting up?"
"Don't think it's physically possible."
Kara stuck out her hand. "What the frak did they do to you?"
He gritted his teeth and grabbed the hand she offered. "What's with your morbid fascination for all the gritty details of the tortures I've gone through?"
"Collecting ideas for future use." He rolled his eyes as she pulled him to his feet. Immediately, they staggered a few feet together as he got his bearings. Kara slipped her arm underneath his and braced his body with her other hand. "So, I'm curious about what you were saying before. What do you remember when the pain is present?"
"I remember all the taunts and digs they used to break down my confidence in everything I knew. They wanted me to remember that just as much as they meant for me to forget the parts of their plans I had slowly become privy to. They took away the memory of what I had done, of the mistake I made, and they left all of the resentment. They just didn't expect the psychological inference of memory to pain to be present."
"How can you be so rational at a time like this?" she asked. "I mean, for frak's sake, you just used the words 'psychological inference of memory'!"
"It was breed inside me a long time ago." He turned to look up at the sky and frowned. "I think we're in trouble."
She turned her face up to look where he was. "More trouble? I don't hear any Raiders or anything."
"No, nothing like that. It's about to rain." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the tiny drops of water began to hit them in a steady stream.
"Frak. Rain, I did not miss. Time to pick up the pace. We should be nearing that cave soon."
They limped the last hundred yards. The quickened pace was causing their bodies to ache more, and at this point, forming words was too complex an action. So there was a resonating, calm silence between them.
The cave Lee had marked was indeed exactly where he had remembered it. Kara dropped him onto the ground just inside the opening and sat down beside him. The rain hit the ground in front of them in a vicious slashing motion they had never seen before. There were leaves and other random pieces of nature flying past them as the winds began to pick up speed. Kobol was indeed a forsaken place.
Her mind caught on the one thing that would help change that. "Fire." It was the one thing she so desperately wanted all of the sudden.
Lee cringed in pain as he shifted to one side and took something out of his pocket. He flipped it in her direction. "Fire."
Kara stared at the object in her hands in disbelief. "Where the frak did you get a lighter, Lee?"
"I've been carrying it with me for a while. It was my grandfather's."
"He gave it to you?"
"No. My father did. Before I left on that mission to take out the mining base. It was a sign of faith that I would get the job done."
"Oh." Kara didn't know how he had managed to keep it while in the Cylon's custody, but she was too tired to interrogate him for the millionth time that day. She was beginning to understand that some questions weren't worth the struggle necessary to get the answer.
They fell into silence again as she searched the small cave for something to light on fire. She was surprised to find that there was a few sizeable chunks of tree trunks and branches piled towards one side of the cave. It was obvious that someone had once used this cave as a hideaway at some point. She didn't want to hazard a guess as to who or why.
The lighter lit right up to ignite the wood, and Kara let out a sigh as she fell back into her place, leaning against the cave wall. She stared at the flames until they grew to a height that made her feel confident they would not go out. Then she turned her attention back to the hurricane going on outside.
Lee's voice cut into her solitude almost immediately. "Aren't you going to ask me why the Cylons want you now?"
"No."
"You don't want to know?"
"I don't want you to go through the pain of having to tell me. We can just assume that it has something to do with this destiny they keep spouting off about."
"It has nothing to do with destiny. I did this to you, not some nameless prophet or god. I damned you."
She shook her head. "I don't buy it."
"Kara, would you look at me?" he demanded.
She hesitated a moment before she turned towards him. His face was contorted in pain, but she could tell he was concentrating to get the words out. This confession meant a lot to him. "Go on," she said softly.
"The toasters are desperate to make a human-Cylon hybrid. They tried with Helo, and it didn't work. Boomer got too attached to him. So they tried with me."
"And?"
"And I don't believe they were successful. Seems like they couldn't get the pregnancy to stick. "
"That's my boy," she said, patting his crotch with a laugh.
He shrugged away from her a little. "Would you get off? You're so inappropriate."
"That's my mild name. So, your little soldiers decided to hold a mutiny?"
"From what I gathered, yes. That was when I made the slip-up. I drew their attention to you, and I think it made them realize the mistake they had made. They were searching for the perfect mate for a Cylon so that their hybrid could be born. They thought they had found it in me, but it didn't pan out. And then they realized how similar you and I are when you get to the core of us. That was when the idea of using a human woman came to them."
"They want to impregnate me? All this fighting is because the toasters are dying to knock me up?"
"Yes."
"Frak," she said, dropping her head into her hands. "Frak. Frak. Frak."
"Yes."
"That wasn't an offer," she said, looking up to glare at him.
"Oh well. I'm too tired anyone." He let out a small laugh which turned into an all-out coughing fit. Kara looked at him in concern as she saw him stare down at his hand.
"Is everything all right?"
"I'm bleeding."
"Of course you're bleeding. You just fought a whole squad of Cylons."
"No. From the coughing." He held his hand out for her to see. Kara noticed that it was shaking rather noticeably. There was a small smear of red across the palm that looked fresh. The rest of the blood on his body had either dried or been washed off by the rain. "I think I'm really hurt."
"All the more reason for us to figure out a way off the planet."
"What can we do?"
"Well, first, we can start by getting you out of those clothes. They're all tattered and torn. Not much of a cover for your body." She reached out to grab the hems of his tanks. "Plus, they're absolutely freezing wet. Doing more damage than benefit. And the women of Galactica will be so pissed off if they found out I let an opportunity to get you half naked go by without seizing it."
Lee let her pull the tops off of him without protest. As soon as his bare skin hit the air, though, the shivering began to get worse. Kara slipped her arms around him and pulled herself into an embrace. He pulled one of her hands away from his side and rested it against his chest, tightly grasped in his own hand.
"Are we really going to make it out of here?" she asked after a moment.
"There's nothing we can't do together, Kara. It's a proven fact."
"I'm glad you have faith."
"So do you." He opened one eye and looked down at her. "And don't think I've ever doubted that. Ever."
The weight of his words hit her like a brick wall. He was referring to the talk they had before the mission that had come so close to taking his life. Like always, he was letting her off the hook for the mistakes she had made.
"I didn't mean it. Not really," she said, forcing the tears that wanted to fall back down into her body.
"It's okay. I understand."
Those kind words broke her concentration, and a sob escaped. It was quickly followed by another, and before she could even think to stop it, she was weeping into his arms. She felt herself repeating "I'm sorry" over and over again even as he told her to stop. Kara thought she might cry forever. She probably would have, too, if Lee hadn't fallen into another fit of coughing.
Kara frantically held his shoulders steady as she saw a pool of red form at the corner of his mouth. They needed to get back to Galactica soon, but if this hurricane weather kept up, that wasn't an option. Her eyes fell down to where the firelight flickered against his bare skin, and she did a double take. Small, precise pink lines trailed in a haphazard pattern across his chest and down onto his arms. She reached a hand out hesitantly to touch the skin. "What did those Cylons do to you before I got there?" she asked, still staring.
"Those are old wounds, Kara," he said, pulling her hand away from his chest. "I told you that the Cylons tested my physical body. Pain was a key element that they were interested in."
"They cut you." Her eyes darted away from the scars to stare at his face. "I never noticed."
"I tried to keep it hidden. It wouldn't serve any purpose, letting others know. The pain from these wounds is gone." He smiled at her and squeezed her hand. "You know, I really thought if anyone would have noticed it would have been you. I clearly remember a time in the past twenty-four hours where you had me pinned up against a wall half-naked."
"I wasn't close enough to see."
"You were breathing in my ear."
"No, I wasn't."
"Trust me. A man doesn't forget when a beautiful woman is that close."
The way his eyes were bearing into her made a blush creep up against her cheeks. She prayed to the gods that the light was poor enough to hide it. "So, we have a little time on our hands," she said, smiling at him. "I thought that maybe you would feel like having a little more sharing time."
"What do you want to know now? I don't think I've acted very suicidal in the past few hours. No need for an intervention from the CAG."
"You tried to sacrifice yourself to keep me out of the fight."
"That was more of a desperate move to keep you alive rather than a desperate move to get myself killed. There's a difference."
"Duly noted." Kara rested her head against his shoulder. "In all seriousness, I would like to hear about how exactly you got off the Cylon base on this planet. You always glaze over the details."
"It wasn't that hard. They unlocked my chains and left me alone in the room."
"Chains?"
"They had to keep me prisoner somehow."
"But chains? That's so primitive."
"They're machines."
She nodded her head slightly and sighed. "So they left you alone in a room. Then what?"
"I made my way out of the room and started trying to piece together where a hangar bay would be. I didn't encounter any machines, but then I didn't really expect it. The Cylons told me they were setting me free. I didn't understand it at the time. They wanted me to return to the Fleet. The day they unlocked my chains was the day the Fleet entered this system. I think they were just waiting for you to show up."
"But why was it so important to have you return to the Fleet?"
"It seems like I've been sentenced to be the bait in the trap to capture you, no matter what I do. If it's not the Cylons, it's someone else," he said with a laugh. "I stole a Raider to take off the base without knowing that I was playing right into the toasters' hands. I didn't remember it was you they wanted at the time. I just knew that I would die if I didn't get away."
"Even if you had known, escaping was the right thing to do. The Fleet could have protected both of us if they had known."
"The rest is just simple. I flew out in the atmosphere and was surprised to see a Raptor floating there. I hitched a ride beneath it and was rewarded with a free ticket back to my home."
Kara nodded. It was rather pleasant to be able to ask Lee questions again and actually have him answer without using that acid-laced tone of voice she had gotten so used to hearing. Almost like normal, even.
"Any other questions while we're having the interrogation portion of our little cave visit?"
"Just one," she said with a smirk. "How the frak did you get that Raider to fly so fast? It took me hours."
"You were working with a bum knee and a ship that had been shot down. Mine was in pristine condition."
"You can't tell me that you weren't in pain yourself, though."
"All right. Fine. I admit it. I'm just a better pilot than you."
She smacked his arm playfully. "Don't even joke about something that we both know is a blatant lie."
He started coughing again, and she braced him between her body and the wall. It was already getting worse. "Don't do this to me, Lee," she screamed as his head drooped for a moment.
"Do what?" he said, popping his head back up.
"Die."
"Trust me. I'm not trying," he said, closing his eyes and letting out a deep breath.
"I don't know if I can get off this planet without you."
"Yes, you can. Me being here is probably only holding you back."
"That's bullshit and you know it."
"Really? What good have I done you so far?"
"You've given me the strength to take on six Cylons, for starters. Just to make sure you were okay, I risked my life. There's not many people I do that for. But you mean a lot to me, Lee. I don't think you realize what you've done for me since the Cylons attacked. I was fraked up with too many issues to count when Galactica was being decommissioned. And slowly but surely as the world around us collapsed, you managed to make me face each one and fix it. Having you with me makes me forget that the world is so hopeless and our lives are so screwed-up right now. It's just you and me joking and laughing like we always did. I know it hasn't been that way a lot lately, but it doesn't matter. I still draw strength for knowing you're there. Being with you erases all the pain I've ever felt. It gives me hope that no matter how much I've fraked up, I'm still worth something. Somehow, being with you fixes me. You make me unbroken."
She stared up at him, waiting for any sort of sign that he understood what she was trying to tell him. It had been surprisingly easy to speak from her heart. That was just another thing he had done for her. When she wasn't badly beaten and stranded on the forsaken planet of the gods, she'd have to remember to add that to the list of things she had to pay him back for.
The silence hung between them until she was almost sure he didn't have a clue how to respond to her words. Then, he turned and smiled at her. "You took on five Cylons, Kara, not six. That last one was mine."
She rolled her eyes and laughed. "Frak off."
"I love you, too, kid," he muttered, closing his eyes and pulling her in tight against him.
She smiled despite the hopelessness of their situation and let the constant worries plaguing her fade away. This was a rare moment of peace between them, and she wanted to savor it. Her body began to relax inch by inch until all the things that worried her so much melted away with the rest of the world.
Kara woke up, shaking from head to toe.
She was used to having dreams that shook her to the core. Living a life surrounded constantly by death insured that. But she had never had dreams like this. Not even once in her life.
They had started out innocently enough, a whirlwind of the past few months on Galactica. The main events centered around Lee and the guilt over how much she had hurt him. This part was nothing new. Her guilt constantly surfaced when she wasn't awake to push it back.
The thing that differed so greatly with this dream was her mind went past the present guilt. Usually, the dreams ended with her wallowing in self-pity and doubt, pushed to her breaking point. This time, Lee magically showed up like a shining white knight to pull her out of the black hole. He saved her from crashlanding and dying by the hands of the Cylons, and he brought her home to Galactica.
Their lives went on from day-to-day, fighting whatever enemy came their way. But it was a lot happier than ever before. Kara suddenly had someone to support her at every turn. This Lee of her dreams pulled her to the sides of corridors and kissed her senseless because she had had a long day and he knew she needed distraction. This Lee backed her up on every decision she made as a CAG even if it was the President doubting her choice. This Lee arranged for the hangar bay to be empty so that he could join together her love of flying and his love for her in the cockpit of a Viper in the most basic sense. This Lee kept begging her at all the right times to give in to his constant pleas to make their love permanent.
Then, the most unsettling part. She found no reason to say no one day so she didn't. And the very next day she found herself walking down the hangar bay, arm in arm with the Commander. The whole area had been decorated by the deck crew with things like white banners and some sort of exotic flower which she hadn't known were still in existence. Everyone was wearing dress blues except for her. She looked down to see herself wearing the simplest dress of white and reached up to feel the flower tucked carefully behind her ear.
And then there was Lee. Just standing there at the end of the long aisle formed by the people standing around. He was smiling that smile he said was only for her. The one that reminded her of the brightness when a Viper target exploded and made her feel twice as complete.
She had slowed slid down the aisle to stand next to him, and he turned to her and said, "If you want this to happen, you need to wake up right now, Kara."
When she gave him a look of confusion, he simply leaned over to kiss her lightly on the cheek and whisper in her ear, "I love you. Never forget that."
And then he pushed her away and screamed, "WAKE UP!"
Which brought her to the present moment of shaking so desperately in the arms of the man who represented her future. The fear wasn't going away either. Kara decided she had encountered this type of fright too many times to stubbornly refuse the only solution that had ever been effective.
"Lee," she whispered, shaking his arm lightly. When he didn't respond, she began to shake it harder. "Lee. Wake up."
She suddenly realized that Lee's chest was rising and falling in a slow, rhythm-less pattern. His hands and face were cool to her touch, and she was having trouble pulling up a pulse. Shock was setting in. And the reality of what was going on hit her like a brick.
He was dying right in front of her eyes.
"Lee Adama! You wake up this instant!" she yelled through the tears that had begun to fall. She shook him as hard as she could, ignoring the pain that suddenly flared up throughout her whole body. Silently, she screamed at the gods to let her take all his pain if it would give him just one moment to clear his head and fight to stay alive. "Wake up," she growled again as she reached down to blow air into his open mouth, praying it was enough. She hated that her mind suddenly decided to point out how she had slacked off during those life saving technique classes back in the Academy.
Kara silently prayed that she was doing this right as she lay her mouth against his again. She felt him cough against her lips slightly. Then, there was a faint whisper almost as if it were in reply to prayer. "I'm too tired, Kara. Leave me alone."
"Frak no!" she yelled and smacked him hard across the face.
"Gods. There was no need for that," he hissed softly as he opened his eyes slightly to look at her. The blow had made him quickly coherent.
"You stopped breathing, Lee," she spit out moving a few feet back as the truth to her words hit home. "Now I need you to drop the whole stubborn act and listen to me for a few seconds. You are not going back to sleep, no matter how tired you feel, because you are not going to die on me. I'm not that good at the whole life saving thing when I'm outside a Viper cockpit so don't make me try to remember all those things I was taught during basic training."
"You didn't listen anyway."
"Exactly. So what don't you do me a favor and just swallow your pride and accept that you're hurting."
"We need to have a talk about the whole pride swallowing thing," he whispered, still staring at her. She took his continued consciousness as a good sign that he was listening to what she was screaming. "I want you to take that Viper back to Galactica. I admit that I'm hurting really bad, and I don't know how much longer I can hold on without medical attention."
"Now you're trying to guilt me into leaving you behind, Lee? I thought we had gone over this properly before, but obviously not." Kara reached out to slip her arm underneath his body and moved to haul him up to his feet. She didn't feel him helping her pull him to his feet, but he wasn't fighting. She took that as a good sign. "Nothing you can say is going to make me leave you because I cannot do this without you."
"You could get off this planet in two seconds without me, Kara."
"You idiot. I wasn't talking about getting off the planet. Of course I could get off this planet on my own."
"Good to know we're in agreement," he said with a small laugh. Kara felt that was another small victory. Laughter wasn't an option for someone who was dying.
"We need to start moving back towards where I crashed if we're going to get out of this mess," she said, staring at the foliage in front of them.
"I don't understand. Why are we going back there?"
"Explanations are going to have to wait because it's one thing at time right now, and that means getting you moving. Starting with the left foot." She found herself dragging him along more than he was actually walking on his own, but after the first ten yards or so, he began to support more of his weight. "See? You're doing just fine now."
"Wasn't I before?"
"You were definitely not. I was scared for a second that I was losing you."
"Now it wouldn't be that traumatic to lose me, would it?"
"Frak, Lee. If you haven't learned yet just how traumatic it is for me to lose you, then you're really stupid." She smiled at him. "Turns out you're one of my favorite things about being alive."
"You're such a sap."
"Comes with the job," she said with a laugh.
They settled into silence as they both concentrated on moving. The pain was still there, and the threat of a Cylon attack sat on the edge of their thoughts. Kobol was no longer such a hopeful place to be.
As Kara moved to help him over a piece of tree in their path, she felt him stumble to a pause. "Something wrong?"
"You have to promise me something, Kara."
"I'm not leaving you. No way."
Lee ignored her. "I need you to promise me that if it comes down to it, that you will leave me behind. You cannot let the Cylons get you."
"If I didn't know better, I would think that was fear in your voice."
Kara pulled on his arm to try to get him going, but he just shrugged around and hobbled to lean against a tree. "You don't understand what they'll do if they get their hands on you."
"I know. You've told me enough of what they've done to you that I don't really want to imagine how it would feel."
"No. They are going to want to impregnate you, Kara. They will force it on you in the worst ways imaginable. You will feel violated. You will feel used. And there'll be no way out. You'll be stuck." He shook his head. "I cannot let that happen so you have to promise me that you will leave me behind if it comes down to that."
"You really want me to make this stupid promise?"
"If it lets me know you're safe, yes, that's what I want."
Kara stared at him a moment before nodding. "Then, fine. If it's the last option, I will leave you behind."
Lee took a deep breath and, without a word, took a few tentative steps in the direction they had been heading. After a second, Kara followed behind and slipped her arm around his waist again. She wasn't fully sure if she had been telling him the truth about leaving him behind if it came to that. But he seemed to believe her so that was enough for now.
It didn't help that on top of semi-truthful promises, Kara was still desperately trying to sift through the dream she had just had and what it meant. The prophetic nature of it was unsettling. Had her dream Lee actually woken her up so that she could save him in real life? Was it a gift from the gods or somehow all part of the Cylon master plan? Was it odd that she didn't care who had made it happen? She was just glad that she had listened to her heart.
It surprised her, how easy it had become for her to give up on what was the proper thing to do in their circumstances. Following what she thought was right for her felt so much better. Somehow, she felt like that was what Lee had always meant for her to learn. Every time he scolded her for putting her duty above fixing the issues she had with herself, that was for a purpose.
Maybe if they got out of this, she could tell him that she finally realized what he was doing all these years.
"So why are we heading to the crash site?" Lee choked out, the pain evident in his voice, as his still-intact Viper came into view.
She gave him her best 'you-shouldn't-have-asked" face and bit her lip. "Well. It's hard to explain."
"Try me."
"Okay." Kara's mind had come up with this plan while she was still half under the intoxication of sleep. Now that she actually had to say it out loud, she wasn't so sure of herself. Figuring there was no other way to get them off the planet, she took a deep breath and began her explanation. "Have you ever fraked in the cockpit of a Viper?"
He just gave her a horrified look and pulled to a stop. "Explain."
"Obviously you haven't otherwise you would realize where I'm going with this." She looked at him out of the sides of her eyes. "You haven't, right?"
"I don't see why whether or not I've fraked someone in a Viper cockpit has anything to do with getting off this planet."
"That's a no," she said with a smirk. "If you had done it, you would know that theoretically two people can fit into the cockpit even if it's a tight squeeze. What I'm thinking is that it might be a tad bit uncomfortable, but there should be enough room to get your Viper off the ground with both of us inside."
"That's a stupid idea."
"I'm working on the fly here, Lee. Give me a break." She leaned him against the side of the ship in question. "Besides, do you have any better ideas?"
"Nothing quite as out of the box as you, no."
"Out of the box saves the day," she said with a laugh. "And it beats wasting time making promises I never intend to keep."
"I knew you were lying," he hissed, giving her about the meanest look she had ever seen on his face.
"Like you actually thought I would leave you behind. As long as I'm still breathing, you will make it off this planet with me."
"I hate you."
"So you've said. But let's not get off topic here." She moved her head up to look up at the cockpit. "We need to figure out how we're going to get up there."
"No problem. I used to skip the whole ladder thing all the time when I was assigned to the Atlantia." Lee went to grab a hold of the wing and swayed slightly.
Kara's hands immediately darted out to steady him. "You're not going to be able to do this. You've got one foot in the grave right now."
"Just give me second."
Kara watched him stare at the metal wing in front of him before grabbing hold and slowly and painfully hoisting himself up inch by inch so that he lay across the metal surface. She noticed that his face had gone rather pale again. "Are you going to pass out on me, Captain?" she hissed as she grabbed the wing exactly where he had before.
"My hands just throbbed for a second there," he said, grabbing hold of her wrist and helping hoist her up. "I'm better now."
"Just don't die," she scolded, standing up. Her hands pried open the canopy and she looked down into the cockpit. "There should be just enough room. Get in."
Lee didn't argue with her command. That was a sure fire sign that he really was in too much pain. They never let an opportunity to argue pass by. All signs pointed to his hurt condition improving, but she knew that most of it was probably a front. He was being brave because he finally understood that she wasn't leaving him behind. He had to make it off this planet if he wanted to be sure she did the same. So he was doing his best to put up the façade that he could do just that.
"Come on," Lee smirked as he patted his lap once for her to sit down.
Kara smirked. "You're loving this."
"It was all in my master plan," he said with a shrug as she lowered herself down between his legs. "Figured that making you crash land and destroy your bird was the only way to get you this close."
"Very funny," Kara said absentmindedly settling herself down into the cockpit seat.
Lee grabbed onto her waist and pulled her back into him. The right side of her head rested gently against his cheek. "You know I have been in a Viper cockpit with someone else before."
Kara's eyes got bright with the idea that by-the-book Lee Adama had actually done something risky. "Really?"
"Yeah. On Atlantia."
"And what did you think?" she asked.
"I'm thinking the way you talk about it, I must have been doing something wrong. It was not an enjoyable experience."
"It's supposed to be uncomfortable, Lee. But you're also supposed to be so busy that you don't even notice."
"Maybe you can help me with that when we're back on Galactica."
"You wished," she said with a huff. Her eyes went from joking to completely somber in seconds as they looked at the controls in front of the two of them with dread.
"Problem?"
"I'm not sure how we're going to pilot this. Normally, I would just suggest that you do it since you're in the more stable position. But your hands are too burnt for you to get the steering right."
"So you do it and I'll let myself slid back to sleep. You can wake me up when we get to Galactica."
"No can do, flyboy. My knee's still smarting from the crashlanding. I don't think it can handle the pressures of space. So I could steer but there's no possibility of thrusting."
"Okay, so we'll do it together," he suggested.
She gave him a look of complete and utter surprise. "Are you crazy? There's no way we can do it."
"Pull the hatch closed, Kara. This is my only shot to get you off this planet. Anyway, I'm pretty sure it's not going to be that hard. We already fly together as if we're one person. It should be easy to do the same thing only with both of us in the same cockpit."
The truth to his words hit her abruptly. This was really their only option of getting off the planet if she still refused to abandon him to return by herself. And there had always been something special that went on between them when they were in the air together. Letting out a deep breath, Kara reached out and slammed the canopy door down. "All right. Let's power this thing up and go home."
The Viper hummed to life, softly quenching any fear either pilot might have had about Cylon tampering. The machines were too focused on capturing the two of them that they ignored their only definite means of escape.
Kara finished the quick pre-flight checklist and smiled back at her co-pilot. "Are you ready for this?"
"Let's do it."
Kara pulled back on the stick as Lee simultaneously pressed on the thruster pedal. The ship bounced awkwardly off the ground, but after a few screams of correction on both their parts, they were in the air.
"See? Not so bad," Lee said with a nervous laugh.
"We're not in space yet, flyboy."
They both lapsed into a calm as they concentrated on keeping their ship in the air. They flew in low against the canopy of the trees at first until they got a feel for what they were doing. Both were on edge in case the machines realized they were making their escape.
Lee was tensed up as he pushed himself as hard as he could. His body was struggling against him. It wanted to rest, not to keep moving and causing itself pain. He didn't have an option to listen to what his every nerve ending was screaming. He had to get Kara home if he was ever going to feel relief from the burden of his guilt.
"What's that?" Kara asked, pointing out the front of the cockpit.
Pushing all thoughts of guilt away, Lee shifted so that he could see what she was referring to. There was a piece of scorched earth about three hundred feet below, a sign of an explosion that occurred not too long again. He noticed the spare pieces of metal and burnt husk of a building that had once stood tall.
The recognition of what it had once been was immediate. He let out a chuckle.
"What?" she asked, turning around to give him a funny look.
"Nothing. I just remembered that I might not have taken that Cylon Raider directly off planet and back to the Fleet. I think I took a little detour."
Kara turned back to stare at the remains of what had once been a Cylon base before turning to give him the biggest, brightest smile he had ever seen on her face. "I knew they couldn't break you."
His lips turned up in what he could only describe as a mirror of her emotion. "Let's go home."
The Viper picked up speed as Kara steered it straight up through the atmosphere. There was nothing to stand in their way now that they both knew the Cylon base had been destroyed. Lee had unknowingly saved his own life months earlier when he had give the toasters one last parting shot.
Once they hit the stars, Lee lost all the restraint he had been hanging onto and pushed the ship to its breaking point in speed. He didn't want to be anywhere near this retched planet any longer. The fact that Kara didn't scold him for his reckless driving was not lost on him. She wanted out, too.
As they pulled within comm range, Lee finally let himself believe that they could actually be returning home. He felt the resolve to stay awake slowly slid away as the Fleet got closer.
"Do you want to do the honors or should I?" Kara asked, still staring ahead at the space they had yet to cross.
"You probably should. I'm feeling a little light-headed."
She turned around to look at him and her eyes widened with concern. "Do not do this to me now, Lee. We're almost there."
"I'm fine," he said, shaking his head and giving her the best smile he could. "The pain's just starting to drift back a little."
She nodded, holding his eyes for a moment more before turning back to the Viper controls. "Attention, Galactica. This is Starbuck and Apollo, requesting clearance to land in whatever fraking flight tube you can make available for us."
"Starbuck, Galactica." Dee's voice was a welcome sound to their ears. "We're only registering one Viper on our scans. Did you say Apollo was with you?"
"I'm sitting on his lap," she said with a small smirk. She could feel Lee's breath against her neck as he let out a small chuckle and suddenly felt very proud that she was the one who could make him laugh despite all the pain.
This time it was the Old Man's voice that responded to her words. "Starbuck, now is not the time to be joking. Where is Apollo?" The concern for his son was evident in his voice. Kara had been right to refuse to leave him behind, no matter how hard it got.
"I'm right here, Galactica," Lee choked out. Kara could hear his strained tone as he struggled to talk through the pain. "We're coming in with only one Viper."
"We need to be cleared now, Dee," Kara yelled into the comm as she saw Lee's head drop slightly before he pulled it back up. He was losing consciousness.
"Tunnel C is open for docking. Bring her in, Starbuck."
"Acknowledged. We're going to need the med crew to meet us, and you should probably get Doc Cottle to the sickbay. Apollo and I took out six Cylons together, and our bodies are a little worse for the wear." She cut off the comm line before anyone could ask her more questions. There wasn't time to answer. She stole a glance back at her fellow pilot. "Do you think we can land this thing without scorching up the flight deck?"
"I might be half dead, but I can land a Viper," Lee hissed as he pulled back on their thrust.
Together, they did exactly as they said and performed a perfect three point landing. Kara smiled as she had realized Lee had been right all along. They already flew like they were the same person. Actually flying the same ship was no different. They were two halves of a pilot whole.
There were a few familiar clanks against the side of the ship as the deck crew wheeled the docking stairs into position. "Are you ready to admit that I was right not to leave you behind?" she asked, watching the cockpit hatch hiss and begin to fly up. When he didn't respond, she turned to taunt him more.
Kara froze as she saw him slumped against the back of the cockpit seat, a small line of blood trickling down from his nose. She ripped the safety belt off and twisted around to grab his collar. "No, no, no. Don't do this to me, Lee. Now when we're home," she whispered, shaking him slightly. Her hand unconsciously reached up to rub the blood away. "Come on, Lee. You only have to be strong for a few more seconds."
He didn't respond.
"I need a medic in here now!" she screamed to anyone who could hear. "Fraking come on, people!"
The next few minutes were a blur. A couple of the men standing around the hanger helped pull her and Lee out of the cockpit. They were careful not to jolt Lee too much as they laid him down on a stretcher and started hooking him into a few of the emergency machines. Kara silently thanked the gods that Dee and the CIC had taken her request for medical personnel seriously. She had been right to have worried that they would be needed immediately.
When the medics finally convinced Kara they couldn't do their job properly if she didn't let go of Lee's hand, she found herself placed on a stretcher and immediately injected with some kind of pain relieving drug. She didn't even have a second to protest. The drug in combination of the stress of the past twenty-four hours and the injuries she had sustained herself knocked her out within thirty seconds.
The last thing she felt herself wonder was whether or not Lee would be alive when she woke up, and then the pain was gone.
Kara woke up in the middle of a curtained off area of sickbay. She waited for her eyes to focus as there was a gentle shuffling next to her. Her head still hurt as bad as when she was down on Kobol.
"Sleeping Beauty awakens," Helo said with a laugh, releasing her hand and standing up. "You've been out for almost two days now, Kara. I thought that maybe your luck had finally run out."
"Not until I say so," she said with a grunt as she pulled herself up. The familiar stabs of pain in her ribs greeted her. And she knew it hadn't all been a bad dream.
"Doc Cottle says that it's a miracle you didn't die," Helo said. "Over half your ribs were busted. I don't even think I want to know how you pulled that one off."
"Toasters," she said as if that explained it all.
"Right." Helo lapsed into silence for a moment before looking at her out of the corner of his eye. "Aren't you going to ask about him? I would have thought those would be the first words out of your mouth now that you're awake."
"I'm scared," she said simply.
"He's fine, Kara. You got him back to Galactica with plenty of time to spare. So there's absolutely nothing to be scared about."
Kara let her breath out in a whoosh as she realized that Helo wouldn't lie to her about something as important as this. If he said Lee was alive, then it was the truth. She felt the dam she kept up to hold her emotions inside break as the relief washed over her. She didn't even fight to hold back the tears.
Helo made no move to pretend that she wasn't showing such an obvious sign of relief. He knew how much Lee Adama meant to her. Even if he didn't know, he was already hearing the rumors of what the Fleet's two top pilots had gone through down on the surface of Kobol. It sounded like the worst hell one could imagine, and yet they got themselves back here, together and in relatively one piece.
It also sounded like the two of them loved and respected each other a hell of a lot. And that just wasn't something you questioned or teased, in Helo's opinion.
"Where is he?" Kara asked tentatively after she had gotten the tears under control. "When can I see him?"
"He's still sleeping off the trauma of what happened. He did wake up for an hour yesterday. Insisted that he be allowed to see me."
Kara sprang up a little. "You? Why would he want to see you?"
"Don't be insulted," Helo said with a laugh. "You were the first person he asked about when he woke up, but you were still sleeping."
She gave him a sheepish shrug and settled back down into the bed.
"He wanted me to do him a favor." Helo walked over to the table against the wall and picked something up. "He wanted me to give you this."
Kara stared in awe as Helo placed a incredibly-worn military issue jacket into her hands. Her hand went up to rub the tattered patch on the right sleeve. There were small stitches holding it in place, and she ran her hands over them as the memories began to cascade over her.
"I didn't even understand at the time that it was yours. The whole thing seemed a little odd. We were running from the Cylons with that damn Arrow of Apollo, and all of the sudden he made us take a pit stop in some dump of an apartment. He grabbed that thing off a chair, took a few guns from one of the cabinets, and ordered us to move on. I actually think we might have lost the Arrow to the Cylons because we made that stop. Told him that myself on the flight back to the Fleet." Helo shook his head with a laugh. "The stupid frakker told me that I had no idea what I was talking about, and that the stop in that apartment meant a hell of a lot more than finding some diamond-studded museum artifact."
"It was my apartment," Kara said, absentmindedly stroking the piece of clothing in her hands. "He made you stop at my old home."
"He told me to give you this, too," Helo said, holding out a piece of paper for her to take. "You should have seen him struggle to write it with the burns on his hands. I offered to do it for him, but he just glared at me. Obviously it's something important."
Kara tentatively opened the parchment and smiled. In his inky scrawl was written: "Sometimes the mere words of thank you do not begin to cover it. Lee." She stared down at the jacket for a few seconds before looking up at Helo with tears in her eyes. "It was his, you know."
"Apollo's?"
"No," she said with a smile, returning her gaze back to the jacket. "Zak's. It was his favorite jacket, and he gave it to me to paint in. He loved me that much."
"Right," Helo said, obviously thinking she had gone insane. Why would one brother who was so hopelessly in love with her risk his life just to give her a token of his younger brother's love? It made no sense. "I think you need more rest now, Starbuck."
Kara gave him a vague wave as he left the room. She knew Helo would never understand what Lee giving her this jacket meant. It was the one thing she missed most about never having the option of returning to Caprica. He had understood that without her even having to tell him once. In fact, he had understood it so much that he had risked his life and the lives of the Fleet just to make sure he picked it up for her while he was on the stupid mission from the President.
She reread his note again and wondered how long it would take before she was allowed to see him. Common sense told her neither one of them would be on their feet for days, maybe even weeks. She couldn't wait that long.
Checking real quick to make sure that no one was around to monitor what she was doing, she pushed herself to her feet. It only took a few seconds for the room to stop spinning. When it did, she slowly pushed herself along the wall until she was at the doorway. The jacket was still clutched tightly in her hand.
There were people everywhere, staring at her. It was obvious she didn't belong out of bed, but the looks of death she was sending to every person who dared to meet her eye were working. No one stopped her. In fact, one relatively young looking guy came up to her and pointed out where Lee's room was. She tried to get his name so she could thank him later, but her mind just wouldn't focus.
Eventually, she made it into his room and found herself standing beside his bed, looking down at him. He looked a lot less pale than when she had last saw him. Things were obviously healing quickly. He had always been something of a fighter. Smiling, she rubbed his cheek softly with the back of her hand.
Lee surprised her by immediately opening his eyes and turning to look at her. "Kara."
"Hi."
His look of relief melted into one of confusion. "I didn't realize they put you in the same room as me."
"They didn't. I broke out of my makeshift prison cell to come get a look at you."
"How am I looking?"
"Pretty fraking good."
Lee motioned for her to sit down. "You look tired."
"I am," she said resolutely. Looking the bed over, she decided if she was going to sit down, she might as well go the rest of the way.
Lee didn't complain when she stretched out to lay next to him. He simply wrapped his arms around her and let out a long sigh. "Not as comfy as some cave in the rains of Kobol," he said with a laugh.
"It will do." She smiled up at him. "Thanks for the present, by the way."
"You know, I wasn't sure when the right time would be to give it to you. I didn't want it to seem like I was sending you the wrong message."
"No, I got your message loud and clear. And I appreciate it."
They lay in silence for so long that Kara was almost afraid he had fallen back to sleep on her.
"So, what do you think we do now?" he finally whispered, pulling her in a little tighter.
"Well, we know what the Cylons want."
"You."
She nodded. "Right. Me. And we know what they can't have.
"You."
"And they can't have you either."
"So I guess that's progress," he pointed out.
"The Cylons made one big mistake in all this."
"And what would that be?"
"They didn't poison your mind enough to break through how much you loved me," she whispered. "And they couldn't stop me from fighting to keep you safe. If they really wanted to bring either one of us down, they would have had to take us both at the same time. And even then, I'm not so sure it would have worked."
Lee kissed her lightly on the top of her head. "The toasters didn't understand that there was no way they could win that battle. You and I are just too strong to give in to something as weak as that. There's too much past between us."
"Fraking idiot toasters," she said, yawning slightly.
"Doc Cottle is going to kill us when he finds out that we're together. I think he separated us on purpose to speed up the healing process. I would pay money to see his reaction."
"You know who else I would kill to see?" She grinned. "The Old Man."
"He'll just laugh and say that the Cylons were idiots to think they could prey on our vulnerability. He never lost faith in what we could do."
"He is one of the few people that understand why you and I work so well. Hell, he's probably the only person. Because I know I sure as hell don't understand us."
"Me, either. I kind of like it that way."
"Me, too."
Kara felt Lee's hand rest lightly on her neck as she felt the beginning twinges of the rest she still desperately needed take hold. "I think they're going to have to start up that pool again."
"The one to see how long it takes us to forget our responsibilities and just go at it like two sex-starved teenagers?"
"Yeah, that's the one," Kara said, not surprised at all that Lee knew what she was talking about.
"Well, let me know which day you sneak a bet on and I'll make sure to have you clear my schedule."
She let out a small laugh as sleep began to take over all her senses.
A sort of calm fell over her as she suddenly understood she had finally gotten her wish from months before. She had been able to apology to Lee for doubting him on the mission that started this whole mess. She had apologized, he had forgiven her, and they both had lived to tell the tale. Things had finally returned to the state they liked to call normal in this ragtag group of survivors.
For once, she actually imagined the Lords of Kobol smiling down at her. All those times she had talked to the gods and asked them to let her know why they tortured her, they had never answered. Now she understood that this was the reason her whole life had been full of pain and suffering. She had been working towards this point.
Lee shifted in his sleep, and Kara felt her lips stir into a small smile.
This was what she had been praying for all along.
Strength in the guise of Lee Adama.