Safe Harbour

A/N: This story takes place just after "Flight of the Phoenix" but goes AU from there. Just to be clear, I'm pretty much following the plot of the series through Starbuck's return from Caprica, the events on Kobol and the building of the blackbird fighter. At that point, my story splits off and the narrative starts a few months down this alternate path. I have taken some liberty with events that take place before the show starts because I started this fic before I'd seen the episodes in which those elements were discussed or explained.

This story will contain relatively graphic violence and the suggestion and discussion of rape and torture. I don't know how graphic this stuff will get in the future chapters so if this is not your thing, please find something else to read.

This is my first Fanfic ever so pretty pretty please send me some feedback! I have tough skin and am not afraid of criticism so please let me know what you think!! I have more chapters written and will post them soon but please encourage me with comments - even criticism will make me want to write more so I can do better next time. Ok, enough begging, just take a moment to drop me a line and give me either the thumbs up or thumbs down, ok? (I haven't seen season 4 yet so please don't send me anything with spoilers in it ;)

I'd like to thank Phindle for betaing this piece for me. I've learned a tonne from her and am very appreciative of her patience and nitpicking ways!

I do not own the rights to any of these characters, terms or concepts. They have been borrowed from the creators of BSG with the best intentions and I hope they don't mind too much.

Chapter One

Lee Adama ran down the metal corridor, his feet pounding a steady rhythm as he turned aimlessly with no desire other than to run. An hour into his run and he had built up a decent sweat but still could not shake the dream that had pulled him from sleep. The one which crept up on him and, upon waking, always broke his heart. It had been over a month and still he woke thinking that he'd see her tousled blonde head in the rack across from his. It seemed that in all that time he'd had only two kinds of dreams; repeating night after night, they'd alternated, torturing him as he was forced to relive the two memories in excruciating detail over and over again.

--

'I want you.' Her voice snarled in his ear, his body pressed against hers as he'd pinned her to the wall in the bunkroom.

Full of the heat and need that statement had loosed in him, that dream was one of pleasure, sweat, skin and her. He'd wake with the taste of her on his lips, the feel of her under his fingers and the sweet knowledge that they'd finally taken that leap beyond friendship. A leap they'd both circled and carefully avoided for years. He'd lie in his bed relishing the memory that dream was based on before wanting more; wanting to see her even if he couldn't go to her across the crowded pilots' bunkroom. Anticipating her familiar sprawl on the opposite rack, her messy hair peeking out as she lay with her head buried under the covers and one leg somehow always managing to sneak out to hang over the side of the raised bunk, he would feel a warmth spreading in his chest. Thoughts of finding a way to get her alone again always flitted across his mind as he turned towards her bunk before the sight of the empty rack with the neatly folded mattress pad slammed into his gut. That bunk where they had lain together, moved together, now so cold and empty. The reality of their last mission together propelled him into his sweats and out the door, looking for a release in his run.

--

'Kara, I mean it, be careful!' His teasing had been undercut with an edge of concern. He'd admonished her for being reckless while admiring her guts and finesse with the Blackbird. One minute she was there, grinning broadly at him from her inverted cockpit hanging only a few feet over the crippled Cylon raider, the last in the group they'd just wiped out, and the next she was gone. Just gone. He stared into the empty space where the two ships had just been, calling her name out over the wireless and waiting for her to pop up beside him in the stealth fighter and laugh about the panic that was building in his voice. Time stretched out and he'd sat there calling for her over and over, staring into the black emptiness, knowing that the longer she was gone, the less likely he was to ever see her again.

This dream would tear him from sleep and have him starting up in his rack, drenched in sweat, her name on his lips. Each time, he'd look to her rack, knowing even as he did that it would be empty. This time, it wasn't Kara running off on some frakked up mission for the president on her own terms. This time she'd just vanished along with the Cylon raider and they had no idea what had happened to her. It had been over two months and her rack was still empty; somehow the new recruits had known that it was off limits. He was glad no one had taken over her spot, that no one had moved into the space they'd shared, but the sight of it took his breath away every time; the finality of the neatly folded mattress pad sending a stab of pain through him. These dreams pushed him up and out too, running until his body gave up and the numbness took over.

--

Hearing the familiar pounding footsteps, Petty Officer Dualla and Specialist Cally stepped to one side of the corridor. Lee pounded past them, his arms and legs pumping in a steady rhythm, his body the image of control.

"Another run. I heard him leave his quarters over an hour ago." Cally said, quietly "He always slams the hatch so loud, it echoes all the way down the causeway."

Dee nodded, "He's not on duty until 0900 so after this he'll probably hit the gym for another hour or so."

Cally shook her head sadly, "Do you think it's because of Starbuck?"

"He doesn't talk to anyone about it, as far as I know, but yeah," Dee sighed with a little more regret than she would have liked, watching the running figure disappear around a corner, "it's about Starbuck." It's always been about Starbuck, she finished silently, with regret but without bitterness.

--

Move, keep moving, move faster. Lee chanted in his head as he rounded a corned and leapt down a short flight of stairs. The dream still clinging to him, he pushed himself harder, exorcising the memory of her as he pounded the metal walkway with each step. Don't think of Kara, think about today's equipment run to Cloud Nine. Half a day's leave. Spending an hour just sitting in the simulated sun - in the garden where Kara doused you with the hose – Gods, no! No, no. Sitting alone in the garden, feeling the warmth of the sunlight - the warmth of her body, her breath, the sound as it caught in her throat as your hands - No! Flying Dad's old viper, list the differences you must take into account when flying the older model, he tried to force his mind onto a safe subject.

'Oh Lee'-her voice rasped deep in her throat as her hands gripped his back, 'Lee, oh Lee, Lee Adama, Captain Adama. Captain Adama.'

Lee shook his head and realized he was hearing his name over the ship's loudspeaker.

"Captain Adama to CIC immediately. Repeat, Captain Adama to the CIC ASAP."

"Frak." Lee turned and headed off down another corridor, wishing he'd at least had time to shower before starting what would probably be a very long shift.

--

"Lords boy, you look like hell." Colonel Tigh greeted Lee as he entered the relatively quiet command centre clad in only his tanks and sweats.

"Really? You look a fresh as a daisy Colonel." He retorted, forcing a good-natured tone and smirking as the obviously exhausted and probably not quite sober older man snorted in response.

"Zarek is on long-range wireless and is demanding to speak to either you or the Commander via video comm."

The mention of his father sent a flash of guilt through Lee. Lee had known something was wrong with his father for a few weeks but had chalked it up to the loss of Kara or even the general stress of their situation but he'd been too wrapped up in his own grief to really worry about the old man. When the fleet had had to move on after a few days without any sign of her returning, Lee had felt his world collapse and he knew that in having to make that decision, to protect the fleet regardless of the personal cost, his father was probably feeling even worse. The look on the Commander's face when he'd told his son they were moving on showed how much it hurt the older man to make the decision and Lee had assumed that losing yet another one of his children was what was making his father look so pale and worn out.

Finally, about a week ago, the Commander had collapsed in CIC and been taken to the Sickbay. The doctor had explained to Lee that while the initial injuries from the shooting had healed, the scar tissue that had formed as a result of the trauma was causing blockages in one of his father's major arteries. The surgery had gone well and the doctor said that the old man would make a full recovery but that he would need time to heal. The Commander had been laid up in the Sickbay recuperating slowly ever since.

Lee had avoided visiting his father as much as he could, just as he'd avoided spending any time alone with the old man ever since Starbuck had disappeared. He knew he was hurting his dad but he just couldn't face the sympathy and anguish over their shared loss that despite his best efforts, his father couldn't hide from him. Every time the commander looked at him with that mixture of pain and sympathy, Lee had felt as if his chest was caving in and he would make an excuse and beat it out of the room before he broke down. Lee had to keep going, he had a responsibility to his pilots and his fleet and breaking down in grief would keep him from doing his job.

Just before they made the jump away from where Starbuck had vanished Lee had found his way to the observation room and stood staring out into the empty sky, the last place he'd seen her. He'd stood there knowing that if they left, the chance of her finding them again, even if by some miracle she was still alive, was minuscule. The pilot in him knew she would have run out of fuel and oxygen hours before they jumped but still he looked, the man in him hoping against hope she would leap back into his life before it was too late. She didn't. They left. She was gone and the pain of it tore at him every day.

Shaking himself out of his thoughts and cramming the emotions back into the tightly sealed box in the pit of his stomach, Lee turned to the Colonel, "Why does he want to talk to me? Doesn't he know you're the acting C.O.?"

"Oh, he knows." Tigh growled, avoiding looking at Lee's face by studiously watching the icons that represented the civilian ships moving around the battlestar on the DRADIS monitor. "I told him that I'm in charge but he just keeps asking to speak to you or the Commander." The older man shifted his gaze without turning his head to stare intently at Lee out of the sides of his eyes "Said he has something important you'll be interested in."

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Sooooo, what do you think? Is it total crap? Should I post more chapters? Anything I could be doing better? I know it's a slow start but I promise it will pick up after this and get more angsty.