BSG: Going Through Hell (2/2)

[waldos_writings]

Title: Going Through Hell
Chapter: 2/2
Rating: R
Pairing: Lee/Kara
Summary: She's back. But she's far from okay.  (Post KLG story, written before the start of season 2)
Other notes and information on Part 1.


Kara slept through to the next morning. Lee wondered if he was supposed to wake her up for her medication, but decided that since she was sleeping, she couldn’t have been in an unbearable amount of pain.

He’d barely slept. Anyone moving or making noise had him instantly alert, listening from his bunk to be sure she was okay.

He had no idea what came next. She was back. She was hurt and she was an emotional wreck, and he had no idea what to do with her. He toyed with the edge of his blanket wondering when she’d become his responsibility. He decided the ‘when’ didn’t really matter. She was. Maybe he was just continuing the pattern his dad had started when he’d brought her to the Galactica after she crashed and burned following Zak’s death.

Maybe he just wanted to be responsible for her. If he became the one who looked out for her, he might just be the one she came to when she needed someone. And maybe, when the walls came down a little, when she let him in, he’d be able to work up the nerve to tell her how he really felt. Explain his idiocy the day after Colonial Day. His blindness on Colonial Day.

But then again, if she didn’t return those feelings things would get awkward fast. She was already acting different around him – refusing to change in front of him, accepting his help without wise remarks or several flat-out refusals. She was actually easier to handle in her current condition and he hated that beyond the telling of it. He never thought he’d see a day where he wished for Kara to be less cooperative, more sarcastic and a bigger pain in the ass than he knew what to do with.

Someone rattled his curtain. “Captain Adama, sir?”

Lee didn’t immediately recognize the voice. Most of the pilots in their unit were up and getting dressed for their shift, but the voice didn’t seem to match anyone he bunked with. He shoved the curtain out of his way. “Costanza?”

“Sorry, sir, I thought you’d be up.” Hot Dog shifted nervously for a second.

“I’m up,” Lee confirmed, “What did you need?”

“Um… Cat and I were talking last night and we heard that Starbuck’s back. Someone saw her and said that she’s…” Costanza broke off and looked over to where Kara was sleeping. “I just wanted to tell you, sir, that if you want me to take the patrol you’re scheduled for this morning, I can. I don’t have a shift today. And Cat said that if you’re worried about any of us not getting a day of downtime, she’d split the shift with me. Three or four extra hours won’t kill any of us.”

Lee dropped his head back onto his pillow weighing the pros and cons. Tigh would be pissed if they started screwing with the duty roster just so a sick pilot could have a friend around when she woke up. But to Lee there was no better reason to do exactly that. He didn’t like to think of Kara waking up and finding that he’d left to go on a routine patrol; that he’d left her. Of course, once she’d gotten some sleep, she might not want to be coddled any more either. She’d barely tolerated some of his attention the night before and she truly hadn’t been able to take care of herself. He didn’t give a damn what Tigh thought, he decided, but he wasn’t sure what Kara would want.

He realized Hot Dog was looking at him, waiting for an answer. “Let’s do this,” he said slowly, “For right now, switch shifts with me. If she’s okay today, I’ll take your shift tomorrow. It should keep Colonel Tigh from having a fit about rearranging schedules and pilot downtime. I can’t imagine she’ll tolerate being baby-sat much more than another day.” Actually, he had no idea how long she was going to remain so compliant, but he was praying she’d snap out of her current funk sooner rather than later.

Hot Dog smiled, apparently impressed that Apollo thought she’d tolerate it for even one day. “Yes sir.” He turned to leave.

“Hey Hot Dog,” Lee called out as he left. “Thanks. And tell Cat thanks too.”

Hot Dog turned around and gave a quick salute. “If there’s anything else any of us can do…” he said.

"I'll let you know," Lee told him as he turned to the hatch.

Lee closed his curtain against the sounds of the other pilots on the day shift getting up and getting ready. He knew they were being as quiet as possible in deference to Starbuck, but there was still enough noise to keep him from falling back asleep. He realized he was smiling as he pulled the blankets back up to his ears. So far, so good, as far as Kara’s return went. Everyone seemed glad to have her back and seemed aware of the fact that she wasn’t exactly her usual, gregarious self. He wasn’t stupid enough to think that this wasn’t a honeymoon period, but he’d take any break he could get before all hell broke loose.

A few minutes later, the pilots had cleared out, leaving them alone in the bunkroom once more. Lee lay still for another hour hoping to fall back asleep now that he didn’t need to get up. When it became obvious that he wouldn’t be getting any more sleep, Lee slid out of his bunk and grabbed some clean clothes and headed for the shower. He could work on paperwork until Kara got up and then they could both go get some breakfast - or lunch depending on how long she slept - and go see his dad.

+++++++

She was sitting on the edge of her bed, head in her hands when he came back from his quick shower. He didn’t even get a chance to say ‘good morning’ before she looked up at him, her eyes narrowed and cold.

“So you’re blowing off your shift to ‘baby-sit’ me?”

Lee rolled his eyes. She wasn’t supposed to have heard that. Both he and Hot Dog knew he hadn’t meant that in a derogatory sense, but there was no way she wasn’t going to read this the worst way possible.

“You know I didn’t mean it like that,” he said quietly.

Kara levered herself up with her cane in one hand and the other on the ladder. “I think you did. I think you somehow got the impression last night that I’ve come back all beaten up and traumatized and that I can’t take care of myself any more.” She hobbled to her locker, throwing clothes on her bed.

Lee counted backwards from ten in his head. He wasn’t going to give her the fight she was spoiling for. “I think you are beaten up. And if you’re not a little affected by everything that’s gone on around here lately, then you’re even more crazy than Doctor Baltar – and he’s in restraints in sickbay because he’s gone completely 'round the bend.”

Kara glared at him and looked very much like she was contemplating throwing the shoe in her hand at his head.

It took Lee a minute to realize exactly why that was the wrong thing to have said. He fell into one of the chairs at the table. “Ah frak it, Kara. I do not want to have a fight with you. And I don’t think you want to fight with me either. I wasn’t alluding to… before… the thing with the vice-president… He’s just the best example of ‘crazy’ the fleet has right now. If you’re feeling the need to prove that you can take care of yourself, knock yourself out. I don’t doubt it. But just in case we’re both wrong, I’m going to stay down today and do paperwork. Just in case.”

Kara let the shoe drop the floor and sank back onto her bed. “Why in the name of the gods do you put up with me? I had no reason to flip out like that. After everything I’ve done, I’m lucky you’re even speaking to me. After everything you did for me last night… Lee…” she sighed. “You’d be well within your rights if you smacked me in the head right now.”

Lee got up and sat next to her, his arm around her shoulders. “I think that hard head of yours has had about as many blows as it can take for a while.”

“Maybe that’s what this was. Can I blame that little outburst on head trauma?”

Lee laughed. “Sure. It’s as good an excuse as any other.”

Kara sobered, “There is no excuse. Lee, I’m really sorry.”

Lee closed his eyes as he remembered the last time she’d said those same words. Captain, I’m really sorry. And he’d known at that time that she was, and not just about her end run around him to Tigh. He squeezed her arm lightly. “It’s okay. Feeling better this morning?”

Kara took a mental inventory. “Stiff. I think I slept in one position all night. My stomach’s a little upset… Nothing major.”

Lee frowned. He doubted Kara’d admit if there were anything major. He’d just have to keep an eye on her. “Why don’t we get dressed and go see if there’s anything decent for breakfast?”

Kara nodded, albeit unenthusiastically. “Sure.”

Lee had offered to help her with her shoes again, but she’d refused and this time he could tell she meant it. His previous expectations of her emotional state her were becoming more and more useless. He liked being the person she relied on. It had felt good to take care of her the night before. He liked the way she held on to him when he held her. The way she’d accepted his help (even if he’d had to offer three or four times before she finally gave in). The way he somehow seemed to help her stay calm, more relaxed. There was something positive in her taking charge again, taking care of herself as she always had, but all the same, he’d liked being depended on.

+++++++++

The honeymoon ended that afternoon. The E.C.O. she’d recovered was cleared for light duty by Dr. Cottle and had come down to present himself to the CAG. Lee found Helo to be good guy, if a little cautious; but after being the last human on Caprica for more than two months, after being betrayed by the ‘woman’ he’d fallen in love with, that was more than expected. Helo had explained a little about how Kara’d rescued him, told him that he and Kara had been good friends before the war. Lee had thought it would be a good idea then, for the three of them to go get lunch together. He had no idea how a lunch invitation had turned into a knock-down drag-out fight. To further frustrate him, she’d been incredibly hurt that he’d decided to get dinner alone while he sat with his dad.

The next day it was about something missing out of her locker. Lee was sure no one had disturbed her locker and she wouldn’t even specify what she was looking for so there had been another blow up. The day after that he’d literally had to get between her and Tigh when Tigh had been dressing down one of her nuggets for coming in too hot. He wasn’t sure what it was that was keeping her out of the brig, but he knew that whatever thread she was hanging by had to be getting pretty thin by that point.

Most nights she cried herself to sleep and Lee was left trying to guess whether or not it was better to try and sit with her or if he’d get belted again, this time on purpose. He remembered wishing for her to be more difficult, more Starbuck-like. He looked up to the gods and mumbled, “This wasn’t quite what I meant.”

Every day there was something that left Lee feeling more and more like she might not ever be the person who left for Caprica in Cylon Raider. Even when she was right next to him, he found himself missing her.

Lee had to admit that Kara had reached the end of her rope. It was a good thing she wasn’t medically cleared for flight, because that meant he didn’t have to revoke her flight status until she passed a psych evaluation.

It had been four days since he’d found her at his father’s bedside, five since she’d returned and she was nothing like okay. She claimed she lay around in bed all day because the pain pills made her tired, but she wasn’t actually sleeping. The first night she had hidden, so he didn’t know if she had slept at all or not. The last three she’d had nightmares that woke half the room and she’d been physically unable to talk about any of them.

She came down twice a day to sit with the commander, but Lee never saw her go anywhere else on her own. She only went to eat when he or Crashdown or Helo dragged her to the mess. And even then she only poked at her food, claiming alternately that the mild radiation sickness or the pills were making her nauseous.

On her fifth day back, the commander finally opened his eyes.

Lee had been working on fuel consumption reports at his bedside when the Old Man finally groaned and blinked.

Of course, the first thing he did was ask for a status report, but he’d fallen asleep again before Lee had a chance to finish it.

A few hours later he’d woken again, pleased to see his son still at his side. He asked to see Colonel Tigh and, once he’d heard she’d returned, Starbuck.

Knowing that it was better for all concerned, Lee called Tigh down first. He’d call Kara once Tigh returned to CIC. The two of them in a room together wouldn’t do anyone’s blood pressure any good.

Tigh had explained that not long after Starbuck returned, they’d rescued the crew of the Raptor and then jumped away from the Cylons. They were currently orbiting a large gas giant, waiting for him to give the next order.

He had nodded at the update, but didn’t seem interested in giving any orders right away.

Tigh only stayed a few minutes, for which Lee was grateful. His father was on the mend, but still seemed tired. Frail. He didn’t need the burden of command put back on his shoulders quite so soon. Once he’d left, he’d gotten on the phone and called up to quarters to tell Kara the good news.

He had to give her a lot of credit for the performance she gave the Old Man. She smiled and teased, gave her standard, “You should see the other guy” reply when he asked about the cuts and bruises on her face.

She made him smile and he squeezed her hand. Lee had hoped that that would be the start of her healing, but it was at that point that he could feel her starting to shake. She managed through a polite good-bye and kept her head up as she left, but once she was around the corner, Lee could see her start to run down the corridor.

He thought his father had fallen back asleep, but when he looked back, the Old Man had an indulgent smile on his face. “Go find out what’s wrong with her,” he said quietly. “I’m just going back to sleep.”

Lee waited until he was sure that his father was, in fact, asleep before leaving. The doctors had said things would improve rapidly once his father regained consciousness. He certainly hoped so, because Kara seemed to be going downhill faster every day.

++++++++

He found her exactly where he expected to. In her rack, the curtain closed. He could hear her muffled sobs from the doorway. Helo was floating around the room, clearly concerned for her, but not sure what to do. It occurred to Lee that he really should take the time to have Helo explain more about what had happened on Caprica, but he’d have to table that for now.

Helo looked pretty glad to have someone come in and make the decision on whether or not to approach her for him. Lee nodded to him. “Thanks,” he said glad that she hadn’t been completely alone while he’d waited for his father to fall back asleep. “Do me a favor,” he said as he threw his uniform jacket on his own bunk, “Close the door on the way out and if you see anyone headed this way, wave them off.”

Helo nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Lee took a deep breath and pushed her curtain back and seated himself on the edge of her bunk. “Kara, he’s going to be okay. The docs say that now that he’s awake, he’ll get better pretty quickly. He’ll be tired and, you know, sore; he’s been in bed for ten days, but he’s strong. You probably know that better than I do.”

She just nodded against her pillow.

There was a long silence.

“Talk to me,” he whispered, out of things to say, not even knowing what kinds of questions to ask any more.

She sniffled once and dragged the back of her hand under her nose before turning to face him. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Lee realized she truly had no idea where to start.

“He’s going to be okay,” he said again for lack of anything better.

She nodded again. “I’m so glad. Gods, Lee…” Her eyes teared up again. “If something I had done… If it was my fault someone else…After what I did to Zak -”

“Boomer shot my father,” Lee said clearly. “She was a Cylon and she shot him.”

“Because I wasn’t there!” Kara finally exploded. “Because I was mad at him for lying to me – to us. Nevermind that he had a good reason. I was pissed, and I left and because I wasn’t there to help pull off my plan, Boomer got tagged with the mission and she was compromised. She wasn’t any good as a sleeper agent for them any more, so they had nothing to lose by turning her loose!”

Lee wanted to stop her, talk her down, but this was the first time she’d actually talked to him since that first day in sickbay.

“Gods, Lee, when he realizes that… He took me in up here when I had nothing left on Caprica. He forgave me for Zak, which I still don’t understand, but when he starts to realize what I… He won’t forgive me again. And I don’t expect him to, really, I’m just… I have no where to run to this time.”

She actually got calmer as she spoke, resignation taking over frustration and grief.

Lee took her hand in his. He lightly stroked his thumb over the healing scratches on her knuckles. He had no idea what to say. There was an outside possibility that his father would blame her once he was alert enough to put together all the pieces. He really didn’t know. He’d long ago acknowledged that she knew his father far better than he did.

He sighed. Most days, she knew him better. Her depression was coloring everything these days. Which left him with no idea what to say to her.

Kara was looking at him. With dry eyes and a calm voice, she just said, “Right,” and turned her back to him.

Panicking, Lee grabbed her shoulder and turned her back to him. She’d mistaken his silence for agreement. “Kara… I wish I knew what to say,” he told her honestly. “My gut reaction is that he seemed awfully glad to see you tonight and to know you were back and okay, which means that whatever stuff you two have to work out, you will. You’re mad because he lied, he may be mad because you went A.W.O.L., but I don’t think he would have been smiling at you tonight if he hated you.” He let his hand slide up her shoulder until he could caress her cheek with the back of his fingers. “Look how many times we’ve been mad at each other, and we always manage to get over it. And you’re the one who’s always bitching that my father and I are so much alike.” He was actually smiling by the time she met his eyes. He realized that as he’d been talking, he’d been convincing himself as well as her.

The idea of being stuck between them if there was any kind of long-term animosity made him ill. He was just getting his relationship with his father back on track, thanks, mostly, to her. And during the six days she’d been gone, he’d finally stopped hiding the truth from himself. He loved her. There was no two ways about it. He wasn’t sure if she’d ever allow herself to love him back, but he realized that he had to stop lying to himself if he ever wanted to stop lying to her and find out. He couldn’t bear the idea of being caught between them.

He didn’t really expect her to take as much comfort from his words as she apparently did. She pulled her hand up and scrubbed her eyes. “Gods, I hope you’re right.” She sniffled. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever cried this much in my life. People have really started to think I’ve lost it, haven’t they?

There was wry humor in her voice, but Lee could tell there was a disguised urgency in her tone. She was starting to worry about what people thought; maybe she was even starting to worry about herself a little. Lee couldn’t help but think that was a good sign. “Kara,” he said slowly, trying to remain serious, “People thought you lost it a long time ago.” He let himself laugh as she swatted his arm.

She smiled up at him, and Lee realized how desperately he’d missed that look.

“In all seriousness,” he said quietly, “Yeah, people have been a little worried. We know you aren’t feeling so great, but you’ve been so withdrawn and pissed at the universe.” He stroked her hair. “You have a lot of friends, Kara. They just want to be sure you’re gonna be okay.”

In the face of Lee’s sincerity she couldn’t even give her standard reply to any show of concern. She wasn’t fine. She knew it. “I don’t know. I may not know until I get to talk to him.”

Lee nodded. “That’s fair. It’s honest. I need you to stay this honest with me. It’s okay to hurt. It’s okay to be scared. You don’t need to lie to me about that. All right?”

She pushed herself up into a sitting position and reached forward to hug him. Lee wrapped his arms around her, still mindful of her ribs, he held on tight, one hand skimming up and down her back. They both held on for a long time, neither speaking, though Lee sent a silent prayer that this was the beginning of her healing, that he might yet get her back. He realized he’d never prayed so much in his life. But between his father and her, he’d never had so much reason to reach for and accept any help he could get.

After a long while he lifted one hand to tip her chin up. “Why don’t you go wash your face and we’ll see if we can still grab a late dinner?” he suggested.

She pulled back. “I… I still… my stomach’s still not so great.” She stared at her lap.

Lee pushed her hair out of her face. “Your stomach’s not so great because you aren’t eating.” He pulled the bottle of pills off the small shelf over her bunk. Pointing to the label he read, “Take with food.” Kara rolled her eyes and took the bottle out of his hand and slammed it back on the shelf.

“Fine,” she agreed with a sigh, “I’ll go eat.”

Lee had never been so glad to see her roll her eyes at him in his life. It was just possible that she’d survive this after all. And, he decided, that just maybe there was someone out there answering the prayers of frustrated and frightened sons and best friends.

++++++++


A week later the commander was talking short walks through the corridors and working from his own quarters. He still fatigued quickly, and Tigh had quietly passed the word that anything he did or ordered should be double-checked, just in case, but so far he seemed to be improving nicely.

Lee had come in to give him the CAP schedules for the next few days and check up on him when his father waved him into a chair.

“Has Tigh grounded Starbuck?”

Lee took a deep breath. He’d been waiting for this to come up. Now that it had, he found that he couldn’t read his father, and had no idea what tack to take. “Kara’s still on medical restriction. She’s still on pain pills – back on pain pills – for her knee, so she won’t be cleared until she’s off them.”

Adama didn’t say anything.

Lee got impatient. “Do you want her grounded even once she’s cleared?”

“What did we do to her, Lee?” his father asked after a minute.

“Sir?”

“I won’t pretend I don’t feel like she deserted us. But I recognize that she was put in an untenable position. She would never have followed the president’s ‘suggestion’, if I hadn’t given her cause to doubt me. I never questioned her loyalty, and she never questioned my integrity. Until I gave her a reason to.”

Lee put the schedules on the desk and ran his fingers through his hair. “She’s beating herself up over all this. She blames herself for Boomer getting activated, for you being shot… all of it. She’s decided that it would only be fair if you hated her, took away her wings, put her in the brig… whatever.”

“I figured. She’s been avoiding me.”

Lee nodded; he knew that. He’d called her on it a few times, but she’d just shut down and refused to talk to him about anything.

“You two need to talk,” Lee said as if it weren’t the most obvious thing in the universe.

“I don’t know what to say to her,” Adama admitted.

“Do you blame her? ‘Cause either way, you need to tell her. She’s in this emotional limbo that’s tearing her apart.” Lee wondered if this was how Kara had felt when trying to pull him and his father together. He hated the feeling of breaking a confidence, but at the same time he was just so hopeful that doing so would yield positive results.

“It would have been easier if she hadn’t done what she did. I can’t ignore that. But at the same time, I never ordered her not to go. She gave me the chance to come clean about Earth, but I lied to her. In retrospect I realize that I could have told her the truth. She wouldn’t have said anything to anyone. She understands the need for morale within the fleet.

“She had a reason to question me. She needed to know if Earth was real. If Earth wasn’t real then there would be no reason for her to go chasing arrows. I let her think there was a reason – a good reason – to go back. She didn’t believe me – she let me know that much – but she did it anyway. And I didn’t tell her not to. She made the decision, but I knew exactly what she was doing, and I never told her not to. So I guess that makes me at least equally as culpable.”

Lee’s eyebrows shot up. He hadn’t known that. He had still been working under the assumption that she had gone completely A.W.O.L. He found himself very glad to hear that there was a way of getting some of the responsibility off Kara’s shoulders. “You may need to remind her of that.”

“I will,” Adama answered.

Lee nodded and laughed a little under his breath as he realized what was really happening. This was a dry run. His father wanted a chance to practice what he’d say to her once he saw her. Lee wondered why he found it comforting to know that the Old Man was as nervous about the confrontation as she was.

“Should I tell her you want to see her?” He knew that forcing the confrontation wouldn’t make it easier on either of them, but neither would putting it off. And the sooner they dealt with this, the sooner the whole damn ship could stop holding their collective breath.

Adama nodded slowly. “Tonight. Tell her to come by after nineteen-hundred.”

Lee nodded. “She’ll be here if I have to drag her myself.”

The commander smiled. “From what I’ve heard, you may just have to.”

+++++++++

In the end, Kara had just nodded when he gave her the message and at ten-to, he had watched her change into her blues, say a quiet prayer, and leave the bunkroom.

Lee pretended to work on a couple of evaluations while she was gone, but he couldn’t concentrate. He’d skipped dinner, and thought about going to the mess for something, but he wanted to be there when she came back.

It was going on twenty-two-hundred when there was a knock at the hatch. Lee jumped off his bunk, heart in his throat. He just knew something was wrong.

“Racetrack?”

The way Racetrack’s eyes shifted back and forth told Lee he was right. “I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but um…”

Lee cocked his head, waiting for her to finish. She seemed more chagrinned about being there than panicked. Lee relaxed fractionally. “Racetrack?” he prompted again when she didn’t finish.

“Um… Starbuck’s been throwing up for like half an hour. I can’t get her to go to sickbay, and I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Where is she?” Lee asked quickly.

Racetrack led him down the hall to the public bathroom between his father’s quarters and the bunkroom Racetrack lived in. She pointed to the door, but clearly had no intention of going in herself.

“Thanks,” he said, before shoving the hatch open.

“Kara?”

He heard her retch and then a very labored, “Go the frak away!”

Lee smiled. This was typical Kara. He found himself grateful that she was back to not wanting to be seen during her moments of weakness. It was something normal, and he thanked the Lords for it. Given the discussion he’d had with his father that afternoon, and her current reaction, he guessed things had gone well. He chalked the vomiting up to relief. He’d seen her do that before.

He leaned on the divider between the stalls, and pushed open the door she’d neglected to lock. “Something’s wrong with one of us when the best thing to happen to me all week is you telling me to ‘frak off’”, he said deadpan.

She leaned her elbows on the toilet seat and her head on her hands. “I didn’t say ‘frak off’, I said ‘go the frak away.’ She spit into the toilet and reached up blindly to flush. “And I meant it.”

“Same difference,” he told her, grabbing a towel from the stack on the sink and wiping off the back of her neck and her forehead. “Come on, let’s get you up; you’re freaking out young, impressionable E.C.O.’s.”

“Too damn bad.” Kara made no move to get up.

Lee rinsed the towel off under the cold tap and washed her face for her, getting the back of her neck and even pulling her tanks back to wipe off her shoulder blades. When he pulled back, she took the towel from him and pressed her face into it. “Why do I feel like I’ve been on a three day bender?”

Lee took her elbows and helped her to stand. She let him this time. “Because in a way you have,” he bent over and picked her jacket up off the floor and helped her into it, “Adrenalin crashes are worse than any kind of ambrosia hangover. And you, Lieutenant, have been subsisting on pain pills and adrenaline for almost two weeks.”

She turned towards him, wrapping her arms around his neck and resting her head on his shoulder. “He doesn’t hate me,” she said into his shirt. “He’s not happy about the decision I made, but he doesn’t hate me.”

Lee smiled. “Told you.”

She thumped him in the chest. “Oh, so now, of all times, you’re gonna say ‘I told you so’.”

Lee shook his head; it was so good to see her being difficult again.

“I…” she stopped and cleared her throat. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say things are back to normal between us. I think we both feel kind of let down, a little betrayed, but… it’s manageable.”

Acting on instinct, Lee turned and kissed her temple lightly. “Good.”

Kara straightened up and Lee swore she’d gotten a little color back, maybe a little too much. “Did you just um…?” She was looking at him sideways.

“Yeah, sorry. Should I not have?” So much for being subtle, he thought.

She was definitely blushing now. “Um… we should really, you know… we never really talked about… and we should.”

Lee nodded. “Yeah, we probably should. But not tonight, huh?”

Kara shook her head. “No, I think maybe it should be tonight. I have a feeling that if we don’t deal with this while it’s been brought up, we never will. We’ve already proven how well we handle letting things fester between us.”

Lee sighed, she was right. “I’m just thinking… you’ve been through enough tonight. If you start throwing up again, you may lose some kind of vital organ or something.”

Kara grinned, a trace of her natural cockiness coming through. “You gonna say something that’s going to make me want to throw up?”

That was when Lee realized that it really was going to be okay between them. “Let’s go find somewhere quiet.” He offered her his hand, not really expecting her to take it, but figuring if he was going to push his luck, this was the time to do it.

She looked down at his hand, her cane in the hand nearest his. She knew she could use that as an excuse to keep some distance, but decided frak it and let him take it from her and she leaned on him instead.

“Can we stop at quarters before we go… wherever?”

Lee squinted at her. “Why?”

“I desperately need to brush my teeth.”

Lee laughed. “I’d imagine.” He smiled at her, as he realized that if their discussion went as well as he was hoping for, he’d be pretty glad she’d cleaned up a little before it was over.

+++++++

He walked her back to quarters and changed from his blues into a set of sweats while she brushed her teeth and cleaned her face with soap. When she came back in and saw him in his sweats, she decided to follow his example, and changed into a pair of BDUs and her zippered sweatshirt.

“So…” Lee said looking around the room, indicating the half dozen pilots chatting in small groups or reading on their bunks, “Where should we go?”

Kara thought for a minute, “Come on.”

She led him down the halls, up to the very top level of the ship to an old observation dome. With the draedis update they’d gotten just months before the announcement of the Galactica’s decommissioning, they’d been able to pull some of the more sensitive equipment out of the plexiglass dome and install it in CIC. Now it was just a plexiglass dome with brackets that used to hold equipment. It was technically off-limits, but it was an understood thing more than a regulation thing.

Lee sat against the far wall, looking up at the stars. “Wow. I can’t believe no ever comes up here.”

“It’s sort of off-limits,” she said. “During an attack, it wouldn’t take much to cut through the pexiglass, so we’re really not supposed to be in here, but it’s more of a don’t-get-caught-thing. I doubt anybody who wasn’t on the Galactica a year and half ago even knows it’s here.

Lee held out a hand, “Come here.”

Kara crossed the small space slowly, leaning heavily on her cane again. Now that they were here she wasn’t sure what to do or say. Her natural defenses, which seemed to have crumbled away after talking to the Old Man, had snapped back into place during their walk from the bunkroom.

She sat down, facing him - her left leg tucked in, her right stretched out next to him - instead of next to him, keeping a little space between them. She took a deep breath. “Lee… I think things are going to be okay between your dad and me, and I’m glad you aren’t completely pissed at me, but you have to understand, there’s still a lot going on in my head.”

“Want to tell me any of it?” he asked patiently.

“No." She rolled her eyes up and shook her head before adding, "Well, yes and no. Actually it’s one of those conversations I desperately want to be on the other side of. I want you to know what’s going on; I need someone to understand why I am the way I am right now, but I’m really not looking forward to the telling of it.”

“Tell me what I can do to make it easier,” he told her.

“I have no idea,” she told him.

Lee looked at her, but didn’t say anything. Finally the silence became uncomfortable, so Kara let her breath out in a huff and said, “You of all people know I’m not real good about the whole opening up thing. I’ve realized lately that there’s a difference between being independent and being an asshole and I know which side I fall on more often than not. I’m not proud of it, but I don’t know that I know how to change it. I guess you learn how to talk to people at some point… I think I was sick the day they taught that at school.”

Lee wanted to say something, to tell her that she wasn’t generally an asshole, and that when she chose to she could let people in, she just usually chose not to, but there was a strong vibe coming off her that told him that the best thing he could do for her now was to just listen and not interrupt. To not pass any kind of judgment. To let her try and get this all out before offering any opinions.

“There’s a lot going on in my head,” she said again. “I don’t understand it all and I know you’re going to tell me that if I talk about it you can help me understand, but I really don’t think you can.”

Lee nodded, and carefully schooled his face to look neutral, but he had a horrible feeling that she was already locking herself away.

She looked up at him and he became instantly aware that he hadn’t managed as neutral an expression as he’d hoped. “Shit, Lee… I’m not saying… I didn’t mean…I’m not trying to shut you out, but… sometimes if you haven’t been through something, you just can’t understand it. A lot of the crap… a lot of the really bad things that have happened in out lives we’ve both been through together, but what I saw…” She was talking faster now, trying to get the words out, before she became too choked up to speak.

Lee reached up and caressed her face, still not speaking, just making sure she knew he was there, that he was listening and that he cared.

Kara sniffed and passed the back of her hand over her eyes. She looked up and to the side, hoping that if she could will her mind to be blank, she could get the words out without the feelings and the images and the sensory memories assaulting her again. She was quiet for a long minute, hoping Lee would say something, give her a place to start, a way to change the subject. She knew she’d hurt him by telling him that he couldn’t understand, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to convince him that just because she didn’t think he could ever truly understand that it didn’t mean that his support wasn’t the only thing that was holding her together - as together as she was at any rate - while she found her place back amongst the crew.

She remembered something an instructor at Officer Candidate School had told her during a simulation – ‘but’ was the great eraser. No matter how much you meant whatever you said first, as soon as you said, ‘but’, all the other person would take away from the conversation was the criticism that came after it. She wasn’t sure how she could fix it. How to explain to Lee that she wouldn’t have survived any of the last few months without him. The end of the colonies, the death of her squad, the pilots in that stupid com-drone accident, facing Zak’s death again, losing faith in the commander and then being forced to chose between him and the president, the frak up with Baltar, the nightmares after she interrogated that Cylon…

Her head started to spin as the list grew in her head. So much death and pain. How was she expected to survive all that and stay sane?

“Talk to me, Kara. You don’t look so good right now. Tell me anything.”

Lee’s hand was still on her face and she was torn between turning into it and storing up all the warmth she could get while she could and pulling away before it was taken away from her. Pulling away won. She couldn’t face the thought of him pulling away from her.

When she took a breath to speak, she had no idea what was going to come out. She was as surprised as Lee when she began talking about a conversation she hadn’t been meant to overhear. “I went into the rec room the other day and caught someone asking D. if I was suicidal. Not in the way that people ask me that when I’ve pulled some crazy-ass stunt in the air. I think she was actually worried that I was going to do myself in.” She picked at the seam of her pants, refusing to look at him.

“Are you, Kara?” Lee asked softly.

“It’s crosses my mind, briefly. Every once in a while. I couldn’t screw up any more if I wasn’t alive, everyone could stop freaking out over what dumb-ass thing I’m going to do next, but I guess I have too much ego to seriously consider it. I know the fleet needs pilots. If we get another Raider, I’ll still be the only one we have who can fly it as far as we know. And if that’s not enough reason to stay alive in the long haul, I guess it’ll have to be good enough for now.”

“But you are depressed,” he suggested.

Kara barked a short humorless laugh. “You think?” She studied her pants again for another minute. “Lee, when I jumped for Caprica I thought I’d lost everything. Sometimes I still worry that I have, but you’re too polite to tell me. It’s never been easy for me to trust. Somehow, somewhere I learned to trust you. Because I could trust you, I figured I could trust Zak. Because I could trust the two of you, I figured I could trust your dad. When Zak died… I lost you both. But your dad, who barely knew me gave me a chance to start over where no one knew about Zak or the accident or any of it. I could just… be me. I wasn’t the poor pilot who’s fiancé died. He barely knew me then, yet he knew exactly what I needed to get past it. It… it hurt when I found out he lied. I… before I left for that test run, I asked him about Earth. I had hoped that maybe one-on-one he’d tell me the truth, but he didn’t. I got these run around answers that I couldn’t stand. And that was just the latest in a string of really shitty things that had happened lately.

“You hated me. I was sure of that. I felt bad enough about what happened on Colonial Day, but when I realized that I had lost your respect… I think, after a while, I began to understand what that whole thing in the hangar was about, but at the time all I could hear was you calling me a slut.” She leaned forward and rubbed her hands over her face wondering briefly where the hell all those word had been dragged up from. “I thought that was as bad as it could get. I’d lost everyone who meant anything to me. I thought that maybe at least I could be useful if I couldn’t be…” she trailed off.

“Loved?” Lee asked quietly.

She didn’t acknowledge him at first, but then she uncovered her face and looked at him. “I thought maybe if I could help get us to Earth that… maybe I could… I don’t know…”

“You’d be important to someone?” Lee reached a hand out, not touching her, waiting to see if she’d let him hold her hand. He’d known for years that Kara had a hard time accepting that she was worthy of being loved, of being appreciated for who she was, not just what she could do. Zak had asked him more than once how to deal with that aspect of her personality, and every time Lee had to admit that he hadn’t figured it out either. He had no idea what kind of damage he and his father had unwittingly done to any self-esteem she’d been building.

“I didn’t think it could get worse than losing the respect of the only two people who mean a damn to me. I didn’t know if I’d get to Caprica and even if I did, I had no idea if I’d make it back. But it didn’t matter.” She sniffled and finally met his eyes. When she looked up she saw his hand in the air between them. She wondered how long he’d been waiting for her to acknowledge him. She put her hand in his and squeezed, offering a tight but genuine smile, before closing her eyes again. “But it just kept getting worse and worse.”

Her head bowed and Lee could see the trail of a tear on her cheek. “Caprica was awful.” She bit her lip and tried to force the more gruesome memories to the back of her mind. “When I landed, I went straight to the museum. There was a Cylon there – tall, blond bitch – she tried to keep me from getting the Arrow.” Kara smiled tightly again, “I’m not used to losing a fight.”

“Apparently you didn’t,” Lee said quietly. “You’re here. I’m guessing she’s dead.”

Kara nodded. “I managed to knock her through a hole in the floor. There was a metal bar sticking up… she fell on it. I almost did, but I managed to roll at the last second.”

Lee grimaced as he imagined what that had to have looked and felt like.

“That was when I ran into Helo and Sharon… Boomer… the other one, whatever they’re calling her now.” Kara wiped a tear off her cheek. “It took us four days of ducking and hiding from the Cylons to make it to the Delphi Launch Station and get a shuttle and get the hell out of there. We would hide out in whatever building we could get into… and there were dead bodies in every one of them and some in the streets...” She bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut again. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “Gods, you don’t want to know what I saw there. No one needs to know what I saw. It was awful. I don’t know how Helo survived there for so long.” She shivered. “It’s weird, I asked him if anybody has asked him about Caprica and he said they hadn’t. No one asked me either. I don’t think they think of it. I mean, we all think of home, but I know that before I went back… When I closed my eyes I saw a planet with no people. Buildings and trees and streets and… But all the people were just gone. Not dead in their beds or on the sidewalks or… or…” She closed her eyes and took several breaths that Lee suspected that were supposed to be deep, but weren’t making it. “I’m sorry, no one wants to know. It’s why they haven’t asked either of us. I know you don’t want to know.”

“Kara, come here,” Lee held his arm out and tugged on the hand he held. After a few seconds, she finally allowed him to pull her in between his legs, facing sideways, with her legs over one of his. He tilted her head into his chest. “I’ll listen to anything you want to get out.” He wasn’t sure if she was ready to tell him anything more, so he didn’t want to push, but he didn’t want to cut her off either.

“I really don’t think I want to get into the details,” she said with some force. “Maybe later, but right now… right now, I can’t. Okay? Let’s just say that if we ever wipe out every Cylon in existence – something I have rededicated my life to, by the way – we can’t ever go back there. There’s… It’s a tomb. It should be left alone.”

Lee nodded and stroked her hair. “Okay.”

Kara leaned harder against him, wiggling the arm between them out to wrap it around his back. She rested her head against his chest and just took a minute to relax in the quiet. Lee honored her stillness and simply rubbed her back gently with one hand.

Without opening her eyes she finally said, “You know the rest. I get back here and find out the Old Man’s been shot, by someone I had once thought of as friend, the president’s in jail, so now no one knows what to do with the damn Arrow now that we have it, Tigh’s in charge…” She took a deep shuddering breath. “It was like every time I thought that it couldn’t possibly get any worse, it did. And it all just… snowballed and before I could deal with one disaster there was another and then another and suddenly everything was out of control. Including me. Or maybe I was out of control before I left. I don't know anymore.”

Lee hugged her tighter. He hadn’t expected all that to come out at once. He’d figured he’d be doing good to get her to discuss just his own involvement in her life and how he’d screwed up. He never expected all this. And he hadn’t even thought about the fact that all the people who died on Caprica had to be somewhere and how horrific had to be. Dying of radiation poisoning wouldn’t have been pretty either. He squeezed her tight as he realized how right she was about how much he didn’t want to know the details of what she’d seen. If she ever decided to confide in him, he’d listen. It would be the least he could do, but even hearing her explain it, he knew, wouldn’t ever come close to letting him understand what she had seen, what she had felt. His stomach curled as he thought about how the planet must smell by now. He selfishly reached up and gently scratched her head, letting the scent of her shampoo fill his nose to block out even the imagined stench of a dead planet.

She snuggled into him, eyes closed and breathing slowing. Lee felt himself smiling, wishing that it hadn’t taken such an enormous amount of tragedy to get her here, to be able to hold her and touch her and make her relax. “Feel good?” he asked quietly as he scratched lightly at her scalp again.

She nodded against him, but stayed quiet.

“Good,” he said quietly. He continued to hold her, to stroke her hair and rub her back for a long time. Neither of them spoke, but he was sure she hadn’t fallen asleep. He thought back through everything she’d said, about the horrific chain of events her life had become.

He shifted a little, holding her against him with both arms. There was so much he couldn’t fix, and he berated himself for adding to her hell. He needed to do what he could. In the grand scheme, he suspected it might not be much, but just maybe getting a little pressure off of her would let her start to heal. He squeezed her tight, one hand coming up to hold her head against his shoulder. He wasn’t sure he could look her in the eyes and say what he needed to say. “Kara?”

“Hm?”

He took several deep breaths before he could say what he had to. “I’m so sorry I made you feel… cheap. I won’t say I didn’t mean to, because I was so mad, so hurt, that at that time I did mean it. I wanted… hell, I don’t know what I wanted from you at that moment, but it didn’t give me the right to say that. What you and Doctor Baltar did was your business. I acted like you were… cheating on me, which is ridiculous since we’ve never… I’m so sorry.”

She nodded, but he wasn’t sure if it was enough. “Kara? Can you forgive me?”

She wrapped her arms around his waist and squeezed in response. After a few minutes she finally said, “I didn’t get a lot of sleep on Caprica. I never knew when we’d have to get up and run and everything was so… frakked up… Anyway, I did get a lot of time to think. In my better moments I tried to convince myself you were jealous. And when I couldn’t do that I realized you were just… right. When I start feeling like the worlds have gotten out of control, I… I get out of control. I do stupid, self-destructive things and, usually, I’m well aware of how stupid I’m being, but I don’t care. I need… I need someone to care for me. Maybe it’s the only way I can ask for help. I do something stupid, and you bail me out and usually you make me own up to why I was being stupid in the first place. You’ve been the only person who’s tolerated me for long enough to pick up on the pattern. That day in the hangar… you were just pointing it out.”

Lee shrugged, “Even if what you say is true, that still didn’t give me any reason to talk to you like that. Especially in public. I’m so sorry about that. And…” he stopped and took a deep breath and then decided to just say it, “And in your better moments, you were right. I was jealous, so I acted like a jerk. I’m sorry.”

“I know,” she said, “That you’re sorry, that you didn’t mean it, not that you were jealous. I wasn’t sure about that. I just hoped.” She took a deep breath. “If the night with… If it hadn’t been such an unmitigated disaster, I might have found your remarks that morning when we were jogging, funny. As it was, I really, really wanted to forget that it had happened. We’ve always teased each other about getting laid, whether we were or not, I was just being over-sensitive.”

Lee took one of her hands in both of his and started a slow, gentle massage, carefully avoiding the scabs and yellowing bruises. “Maybe that morning you were, but I was still a total jerk in hangar.”

She laughed a little and finally let it go. “Yeah, you were okay, can we not talk about it any more?” Lee could feel her muscles soften under his hands. He knew it was temporary, but any break in the storm.

They were silent for a few heartbeats. Lee decided to see if her laughter was an indicator that she was really relaxing about it all. “It was really that bad, huh?” He paused, thoughtful, “Funny, with the swarms of women he seems to attract you’d think he’d be better at it.” Of all the things she was dealing with, this really was the most minor, the easiest to put to bed. Lee groaned at the poor mental choice of words.

Kara sat up and pulled away from him, letting him keep hold of the hand he was massaging, but moving to where she could see his face. If she was going to tell him this, she wasn’t going to miss his reaction. “It wasn’t him, Lee… I said something… something I shouldn’t have at a really inappropriate time.”

Lee’s eyebrows climbed up. “How inappropriate?”

“Really inappropriate,” she confirmed. “He has a ridiculous name. How could he really expect me to remember it at... that… moment.”

Lee’s eyebrows moved together as he thought, “You said someone else’s name? Oh, Kara, that’s bad.” He gave a dramatic shiver. “Yeah, that’s really bad.” His eyes went wide, as he remembered Baltar at the card game. “Kara…?”

“Here it comes,” she whispered to herself.

“I’m better off not asking, right?” He smiled at her blush.

“Oh, feed your ego,” she groaned at him.

“Kara? Seriously? Me?”

She sighed. “Do you seriously think I went through all the trouble of hunting up a decent looking dress for that lunatic?”

“Wow,” Lee whispered, blushing. “We could not have screwed this up any worse could we have?”

Kara laughed and leaned back into his chest. “Probably not. But then again, we’ve never done things the easy way. I think ‘complicated’ is all we know.”

Lee shifted so that they could both look up at the stars. “Complicated isn’t always bad.”

She turned on her side and lay her length against his. “I guess maybe it means we’re serious about this. Neither one of us would work this hard, take this many chances, if we just wanted someone to screw around with.”

She looked up with a hopeful expression, hoping it meant the same thing for him than it did for her.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “Come here,” he pulled her up to lay next to him on the floor so they could look up at the stars, and both jumped a little when one of the Vipers from the CAP buzzed them.

Kara caught the wing number as the ship zoomed past. “Kat. I’m gonna kill her,” she said with a wry smile.

Lee tilted her head towards him, “Kill her later,” he said and kissed her.

Kara closed her eyes and let him kiss her for a few seconds before becoming less passive. After several seconds more she was clearly an active participant. His hand came up and he threaded his fingers through her hair, holding her against him. Hers wound around his bicep.

When she finally pulled back, they were both red-faced and breathing faster. “I guess I’ll kill her later,” she mumbled.

“Of course, if you kill her, you’ll have to explain how you know how close she was coming in to the Galactica. And then she’ll want to know what you were doing up here and then you’ll be forced to explain that you up here making out with the CAG.” Lee smiled and pulled back to see her face.

Kara’s face grew serious. “Right.”

“Kara?”

“You know this doesn’t make me okay, right? I’ll admit that I feel better than I have in weeks, but… our passive/aggressive thing is just part of what has me so frakked up right now.” She sat up and stared across the room.

Lee sat up with her, moving behind her to hold her again, molding her body to his, one arm wrapped around her waist, the other coming up across her chest, his hand hooking over her shoulder, his chin resting on the other shoulder. “I know. We should probably get you set up with one of the ship’s councilors, really. I’ll help any way I can, but you were right when you said I can’t understand what you saw on Caprica. And that may be true about some of the rest of it too. I’ll put in you and Helo both actually. He seems okay, but this can’t be easy on him either.”

Kara smiled sadly at him. “He fell in love with Boomer. He thinks she’s pregnant with his child.”

Lee winced. “Yeah, definitely need to get him some help.” He rolled his eyes as a second thought occurred to him, “And Chief Tyrol… oh man, we may want to keep the two of them out of the same room for a while.”

Kara shrugged. “Or maybe they’ll be the only ones who can understand what the other’s going through. More or less they were both betrayed by the same person.”

Lee thought about that, decided he had no idea which way that coin would land. Either way, he decided he really didn’t want to be there when it did. “I suppose you’ve got a point. Either way, they’re both going to need help dealing with all this. And you too. This war hasn’t been easy on anyone, but you seem catch more of the crap than anyone.”

“I feel like I should be fighting you. Insisting that I don’t need a shrink, but I just can’t find it in me to pretend any more. I don’t want to feel like this any more. I hate the way everyone looks at me like I’m either going to fall apart or take them apart. And neither of us knows which will happen first.”

Lee hugged her and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll get the referral in tomorrow. If you ever want me to go with you…”

“I’ll let you know, but my guess is that it’s going to be bad enough coming apart in front of a stranger on a regular basis. I’m not sure I want you to see that.” She looked up to see how badly she’d hurt him this time.

He actually looked pretty accepting. “There’s a difference between counseling and talking to a friend, huh?”

“I actually know one of the ship’s shrinks… your dad made me go when I first got here. I was pretty messed up then, too. She doesn’t pull her punches. At which point neither do I. I’d rather not have any witnesses, you know?”

“Fair enough.” Lee hated the way he felt like he was pushing, but he had to ask, “But you’ll talk to me too, right? Just to let me know you’re okay?”

“I promise,” she answered sincerely.

“You’re going to be okay,” Lee promised.

“Eventually,” she agreed, shifting to put her head on his shoulder and letting him hold her for a while.

They certainly did take the long way around, but she knew from the warmth and the strength that surrounded her, that she’d never thought she’d want, let alone need, that it would be worth every painful step.

.....end.....

"To ease another's heartache is to forget one's own. "
Abraham Lincoln