Chapter Text
Kara hesitated at the entrance to the senior pilots’ quarters, a room that she had occupied for nearly two years prior to the old girl’s decommissioning. There were a lot of memories there, just like the rest of the walls and pathways held, and as she gazed in through the open hatchway, she felt transported back to the days when she had called this place home. She stepped in to the room and the first thing she noticed was just how different her footsteps sounded compared to the sense memory in her head. It was her lack of military issued boots, having come to Galactica for the first time not dressed like a soldier. It wasn’t just her shoes that were off, though, but the feel of smooth fabric against her skin in contrast to the roughness of fatigues and uniform, her hair past her shoulders instead of cropped tight and short.
Her hand ran along the table still left in the middle of the room for posterity’s sake, fingers slipping to skim just an inch of the underside to feel for a very specific set of carvings left behind. She wasn’t sure what the Colonial Fleet had done to the aging battlestar after it was clear of all crew and personnel, if they had gone in and replaced a number of the most dilapidated items or simply just given everything a good washing for all the tourists. Fingerprints caught eventually and Kara crouched down, pushing aside one of the matching chairs to crawl underneath. It was dark, but enough light filtered in to let her find what she was looking for.
There, scratched into the ceiling the table made were a handful of names, all done with varying degrees of finesse. There was Dipper’s carved in steady block letters, Jolly’s barely scratched in at all. Duck’s hung close to Nora’s own neat name and it brought a smile to her cheeks to remember how the couple used to be back then, unsure of if they had anything at all while carefully skirting around the frat regs. It was three years ago when she was invited to their wedding, and only the previous year when she received a photo and birth announcement in the mail, showcasing the daughter born to the two Viper pilots she called friends. Her own call sign was towards the center of the underside of the table and she squinted to make it out in the dark. Starbuck.
The sound of footsteps alerted her to the fact that while she was on her trip down memory lane another person had entered, leaving her not as alone as she had once been. Most people tended to stick to the guided tours of the Battlestar Galactica, preferring to have someone point out all the interesting nooks and crannies of the ship while keeping them from getting lost in the A-shaped hallways of the ship. She had opted for the self guided tour, not needing to even take a map from the person behind the desk when she’d paid her entrance fee. Whomever had joined her had thought much of the same.
“This is where the pilots sleep,” the voice said as he circled the room, rounding the table.
Kara remained unmoving beneath the table, not sure how to crawl out without both making a fool of herself and startling the other person occupying the same space. She watched the heavy and slow footsteps, listening to them narrate aloud. It struck her as odd, a person talking to themselves in the middle of the dying ship, but a second later it was made astoundingly clearer.
“Down!” A childs’ voice rang out.
“You can’t run off, you remember what happened in the flight pod?” The man’s voice asked the child he carried in his arms. They had narrowly avoided disaster as the young boy had darted away and knocked down the velvet ropes, not understanding their meaning, and towards the more delicate relics. A passing tour guide had nearly had a coronary at the sight.
“Down!”
Kara could hear the struggle between father and son, the child presumably squirming to get free, determined as anything, while his father held on tight to reign him in. The boy won out in the end, though, because soon there was the extra pitter patter of feet echoing in the tiny bunk room and she could finally see the child himself, dressed in a pair of tiny blue jeans and a grey jacket. He immediately ran for the nearest closet door, tugging roughly on it until it opened, peering inside.
“Nothing here,” he stated with disappointment.
“No one’s lived here for a long time,” his father answered.
There was something familiar to the voice, but Kara, still tucked beneath the table, couldn’t place a finger on it.
“Where did they go?”
His father seemed to contemplate it for awhile, the boy moving on from the closet in an attempt to climb up onto one of the racks and the neatly made bed. “Some went to other battlestars, some went home to their families, some went to other planets.”
Kara continued to watch, the little boy bouncing on his knees on the bed, though it failed to give off any kind of bounce, much unlike the one he probably had at home. He was a bundle of energy, going from bouncing to throwing himself down on the bed like he was one of the people that had lived there in years and decades past. He rolled from side to side for a moment before coming to the edge where he stopped, eyes directly on her and where she was under the table. Eyelids widening, his hand raised and pointed. “Daddy! There’s a lady under there!”
“What?” For a second he imagined the kind of things that he knew soldiers tended to have plastered on their bunk room walls after months lonely out in space. How the crew that turned the battlestar into a museum could have missed pulling off one of these undressed magazine clippings from a table or chair, he didn’t know.
“A lady!”
She was busted. Just as she was about to climb out and reveal herself, the larger figure bent down on one knee, pulling a chair out to get a look.
“Kara?” The man asked.
She was frozen in place as he came into view and suddenly she knew why he had sounded familiar to her those moments before. At the end of the table was the face of Lee Adama, his features a twisted mix of shock and amusement. Kara let a smile take over for her, unable to keep it down when put in his line of sight. “Hi, Lee.”
“Kara… what are you… why are you under there?”
The sound of tinier feet rang out again and soon enough the space created next to Lee by the removal of a chair was filled with the little boy, dipping his head and body just enough to get a look in. “I told you, Dad,” he said with pride.
Lee took his son’s hand as he stood and stepped back, allowing Kara some clearance when she crawled out, her hands immediately going to try to fix her clothing from the rumpled mess she’d turned into. “I was looking at the names underneath, we carved them the day before we left,” she reported as her hands brushed back her hair. With herself a fraction more put together she lifted her eyes to fully regard him this time, able to take in the details of his face properly with the room fully illuminated. He was older, there was no question of it, but she realized that it was mostly because when she thought of Lee Adama, she thought of him from over seven years ago, the time before and surrounding his brother’s death. They had crossed paths on that very battlestar for only a few minutes on the day of the decommissioning, but it hadn’t been long enough to put a new image of him permanently into her head.
His head nodded as he took in her words and explanation, an awkward tension settling between them. He had thought of her over the last five years, since seeing her behind the bars of the jail cell, never truly knowing what had become of her. Lee knew his father would have known, but even after they had begun talking again after the birth of Joseph, he was never quite sure how to bring her name up without giving away the truth of a number of things between them.
“Long time,” she said, almost shy, though her gaze then shifted down to the boy with a hand curled into the fabric of his father’s slacks, looking up at her with curiosity.
She had heard Lee had become a father, perhaps six months after Galactica had been pulled from service, but never expected to come face to face with the product of his loins. Adama had showed her a photo when she saw him a few months after the birth. Preserved forever down on paper, had been Lee Adama, smiling wider than she’d ever seen before with his newborn son swaddled in his arms. Her chest had clenched with jealousy when she saw it, for a number of reasons she wasn’t sure she would ever be ready to deal with. Now there that child was, grown and a few months shy of five years old, the spitting image of his father, although his hair was blonder than she had ever seen on Lee himself.
“Hi,” she offered to the child with a raise of her hand.
He smiled and pulled himself in a little closer towards his father for protection. “Hi.”
“Joseph,” Lee started, looking down to his son then across at the only other adult in the room. “This is Kara. Kara, this is Joseph. Kara’s a friend of mine and your Uncle Zak.” He kept the details simple for the boy, not wanting to delve further into the reality of things.
The mention of Zak made her smile, finally enough distance between his death and her currently to take away some of the complete overwhelming pain she used to feel. He had been dead before this child was born and yet, Lee had continued to keep his brother’s memory alive. For that, she was happy. She extended her hand to the boy, surprised to find that he understood the gesture and placed his smaller one in hers. With a shake that sealed their introduction, Kara motioned towards the bunk he had been previously playing in as she stepped closer to it. “This was my bunk.”
“You’re a pilot?”
“Uh-huh,” she nodded and her face beamed with the pride she always felt when saying that to someone for the first time. “I’m even better than your dad.”
Joseph looked skeptical as he looked back up to his father, though Lee was already shaking his head in denial. “You wish, Starbuck.”
Kara smirked, her cheeks feeling the hint of heat at how well she knew the usual exchange of words between them already. It was like no time had passed, except it had, and there was one tiny human between them that attested to it.
“What are you up to these days?” Lee ventured to ask her, leaning down to scoop up his son, holding him to his hip for support.
Her shoulders rolled up in a shrug as she moved away from where her bunk had been, though she didn’t close the distance between them. “I was on Pegasus for awhile, then training nuggets on Picon. Now I’m back here.”
“Teaching?”
“Teaching.” It had been a position she’d been offered again years ago, but had turned it down due to the associations she had with the base near Delphi. That had been where she trained Zak, where she’d fallen in love, and where she’d been when she lost it all even quicker. Seven years later and only now did Kara feel ready to finally start healing and letting things go. “Your Dad told me you’ve got some cushy office job with the Fleet now.”
“Not exactly what I wanted to be doing.”
“I remember.”
“But I get to be with Joseph when it’s my turn and the pay is…” His words trailed off.
“Disgustingly good?”
He held back his laugh though some of it made it through. “Something like that.” His hand raised to rub at his son’s back, feeling the boy start to doze against his shoulder.
“It was good to see you, but I should let you go, probably getting past his nap time—do kids that age still take naps?” How little she knew about children came out.
“Mmhmm,” Lee nodded, his weight shifting gently back and forth on his feet, the soft rocking motion he learned on his first day as a father coming out as he tried to help coax his son to sleep.
Kara watched the pair they made, taking in all the differences in the man he was now and the man he had been back then. He’d been legally an adult, a fine soldier and officer, but he had been little more than a boy back in the days when she and Lee shared a friendship. Now, though, he was grown up, as much as anyone ever could be. She turned to leave, but paused her movements as Lee spoke again.
“Kara—wait.”
“Yeah?” She turned to look at him again, thankful for another reason to drink his presence in one more time.
“Did you eat?”
It took a moment for his question to sink in and in response, she shook her head. “No, not yet.”
He closed the gap of space between them, leading the way out the hatch, though he didn’t leave without making sure she was at his side. “I heard the food’s better than it used to be.”
For the first time since she set foot inside Galactica, she wasn’t plagued by memories, both bad and good. All she saw was him. “Yeah? Somehow I don’t believe it.”
—
It was a few weeks before they saw each other again after their run-in on the decommissioned Battlestar Galactica. This time, they were planet side, both within the atmosphere of Caprica. Kara sat on her knees on lush green grass, a cellophane bundle of mixed flowers laid out before her in offering. She was there for Gods knew how long, alternating between quiet contemplation and speaking to herself in a soft tone, before she leaned forward and kissed the carved stone in front of her. Instead of pulling back right away, she placed her palm against the gravestone as well, her forehead resting into it like it made her closer to the person beneath her own body. With her eyes shut, Kara lost track of time and the world around her, surrendering herself and what little control she had to the elements.
When she finally did pull away, she wasn’t alone anymore, something she could easily tell by the shadow cast by the person beside her. Kara didn’t need to turn her head to know who it was, though it could have been a number of people. A breeze cut through the air and caught the scent of his familiar cologne, her nostrils breathing in the whisper of who the man was. In any other moment of vulnerability, she may have been embarrassed, but not like this and not with him.
Lee was the first one to speak, and he didn’t do so until he kneeled down beside her, his own wrapped dozen or so of flowers on the grass. “I haven’t seen you here on his birthday before,” and he hadn’t, in all the years since his brother’s death. Come hell or high water, no matter where he was in the universe, Lee had always made sure to take his leave during the couple of days that coincided with his brother’s birthday just to visit him and be close.
She cleared her throat, eyes still stuck on the name before them both, Zakary Adama. “First time I was nearby for it.” That wasn’t completely the truth of it either, though it was the easy answer. Kara hadn’t been brave enough to visit him many times before, especially not on the anniversary of the day he left the worlds and the day he came into it. Closing in on a decade since his departure, she was only now ready to begin gaining some closure on the matter. It wasn’t that the pain was any less, no, she felt the ache of his death in her just as solidly as she did the day the news came to her. It just became easier to deal with, to realize and accept that it would be with her as long as she lived, and that she would have to go on with herself anyway.
Next to her, Lee leaned in like she had just done before, lips touching briefly into the stone bearing his late brother’s name. He pulled back and sighed loudly, his body visibly slumping once his ritual was over with. Lee knew he could stay there forever like that, feeling the warm sun on his face and the moisture of the grass seeping into the knees of his pants, knowing his brother was just a few feet below him. He didn’t though, instead moving to lie down on the grass upon his back, both arms tucked up beneath his head as he laid parallel to his brother’s coffin.
Kara blinked as she watched his sudden shift, then gave in and mirrored his actions until she was beside him, eyes shut to the sky with her forearms crossed underneath the back of her skull. She didn’t expect to see anyone there even though it was Zak’s birthday, but she was glad for it. To be reminded that there was someone that still felt his loss after seven years was both comforting and depressing at the same time. Comforting to not be alone, but depressing because she never would have wished the pain she felt on anyone else. She had only known Zak for a year when he died, Lee had been his brother since the day Zak was born. For the man beside her, it was a different kind of loss, but shared just the same.
“Do you remember that time we all went out to my grandfather’s cabin for a few days?” Lee asked.
“And the shower stopped working halfway through so we had to bathe in the lake?” There was already a hint of a laugh to her words. “That girl you brought made you take her to catch a bus home, she was so mad.”
“It’s not like it was my fault…”
“Things were better without her.” Opening her eyes, she squinted against the sun and turned her head to regard him. “Whatever happened to her?”
“Nothing. We were barely seeing each other at all, I just didn’t want to be the third wheel so I asked her to come.”
Kara said nothing, but corrected the angle of her neck until she was looking back up towards the cloudless sky, eyes closed just enough to protect them from the harsh brightness of the sun that burned nearby.
“You came out all the way from Delphi?”
She nodded, mostly to herself. “Had the day off.”
Lee pushed himself up onto his elbows, leaning back on them as he surveyed the rows of grave sites around them. He could remember the day they buried Zak there, even down to the smell of the air and the temperature of it on his skin, the look on Kara’s face as she stoically tried to play the soldier instead of the lover, and the weight of the anger that burned in his chest at his father. That was years ago, though, a lifetime away.
“I should probably get going,” Kara said as she pulled herself into a seated position. It wasn’t that she wanted to go and the tone of voice she used indicated her reluctance.
One arm of his stretched forward, tips of his fingers brushing at small flecks of brown and green, little bits of dirt and grass that clung to her back and the visible portion of the seat of her pants. It was a move made on pure instinct, acting as if she was an extension of himself and looking to remove the detritus, and only when he saw her head turn did Lee realize what he’d done. The worst of it was that he wasn’t apologetic, at least not internally, for breaking the unspoken rules of personal space and barriers that existed between most people. Kara’s eyes were on him, Lee’s own meeting hers, as his skin lingered against her back, trying to will himself to pull away. It was an innocent gesture, at least it had started that way, but now faced with the burning gaze from her, he felt his own temperature start to boil. “You’ve got a long drive. Let me make you dinner.” His words carried a boldness he hadn’t felt in years.
Kara could still feel the light pressure of his hand to her back, and every square centimeter of her that he had touched felt the echo of his skin previously on her. It scared her how much he could work her over with only the gentlest of movements, and though she would be lying if she said she hadn’t thought of him over the last few years, she was genuinely surprised at how much her skin beneath her clothing responded to him like he was familiar. More familiar than he ever should have been.
A moment ago they had been talking about Zak, thinking about the way their lives had once been when they were still practically children instead of Lee now having his own, and suddenly the thing furthest from her mind was the man buried down beneath them. Years ago, she would have pulled away from him and what she knew a touch like that meant out of guilt and honoring his brother’s memory, but the will and power of it had been lost to her seven years out. Kara nodded, the angle at which her head was turned causing her cheek to gently rub against her shoulder. “Okay.”
—
Kara followed him all the way back to the small home he kept. Her car, bulkier and barely still holding itself together, was in perfect contrast to Lee’s own smaller and more practical sedan, and as she stared at the license plate affixed to the back of his vehicle the entire way there, she couldn’t help but realize even something like the cars they chose to drive were the perfect comparison for who they were as people. He was safe and dependable, and she… she was none of those things, or at least she hadn’t ever been before. When she wasn’t busy thinking about how odd her car would look parked behind his in the middle of the suburbs where he of course lived, Kara’s time was occupied with trying to not let herself lose her nerve for whatever the night was supposed to be. It was just dinner, that was all they had said and agreed to, but unlike on the Battlestar, dining in the mess hall that she’d eaten in for years before, there was no buffer of his sleeping son between them or the presence of other tourists lined up to pretend to be soldiers for a single meal. What she was both worried and excited for was everything else unsaid between the lines.
She put her car into park behind his in the empty driveway, pulling reflexively at the emergency break though it had stopped working years ago. Lee got out of his in front of her, hand raised in a wave, the expression on his face something of surprise—like he was shocked to see that she hadn’t actually turned off at another exit, cut bait and run. She was sure he had kept an eye on her from his rearview mirror the entire time though, and the fact that he actually did the speed limit so he didn’t lose her behind the other cars on the roadways both made her smile and infuriated her. Like she was as a Viper pilot, she tended to have a heavy foot when it came to the gas pedal of her car.
“You drive like an old man,” she said with a smile as she climbed down from the extra height her vehicle sat at. “Just not your Old Man.”
“I don’t know how both of you haven’t had your licenses pulled for how many tickets you’ve probably gotten.” Lee led the way up the front path.
“I haven’t been here long enough for it, but I’ll probably have to call in some favors eventually.” She looked up to the house as they approached. It seemed odd for him to have it for himself, though she began to wonder if this had been the house he had shared with Gianne and Joseph before things hadn’t worked out. She didn’t really want to know the answer to it.
“See this walk?” His hand gestured to the stones upon which they stood, keys jingling in his hand as he did so. “I laid it myself.”
“Wow, Lee, you’ve gotten domestic.” Her eyebrows rose, looking to her feet as she suddenly felt the need to tread softer. She could imagine Lee on his hands and knees for a weekend out in front of the home, digging up the dirt, laying down the cement and fitting the stones all into place. It would have taken him longer than the average person, she thought, because by the perfect edges and interlocking pieces, Lee would have made sure every inch of it was in the proper place before being happy with his work. “Where’s Joseph?”
The front door opened with a light push to it, and he stepped in, holding it open for her as she followed inward to take in the details. There were photos on the walls, mostly of Joseph in varying stages of growth, turning from the tiny infant he started off as and down into what looked like a pre-school portrait.
“With his Mom. I’ve got him tomorrow for the weekend.” With both of their keys set aside on the nearby table, Lee turned to find her attention elsewhere. “That one was from earlier this year. He was so scared on the first day, Gianne and I were both there with him, showing him into his classroom and putting his coat away in his cubby and he just followed us around crying the whole time, I thought we—-”
Her focus was on him as he spoke, rather than the picture, studying the new expressions he wore when he talked of his son. She’d seen a lot of the looks he gave over the years, in fact, up until this moment, Kara would have said she’d seen them all. These, though, they were all new, showing a kind of happiness and serenity she knew she had never experienced.
“Sorry.” Lee blushed and ducked his head, hand rubbing at his scalp to hide himself away.
“No, it’s okay,” she insisted, her hand gently tugging at his wrist, giving him permission not to be shy or ashamed. “I like hearing about him.”
He softened as she spoke. It had been easy to think of Kara Thrace as Starbuck and nothing else, but this was one of those moments she was devastatingly honest with him, whether she knew it or not. “It’s nothing really, we just thought we would have to take him home with us because he was so inconsolable.”
“What happened?” Her voice gave away her genuine interest.
“He made a friend. A girl there who wanted him to sit next to her at their table and he forgot all about us.”
Her lips spread wide across her face, quiet laughter leaving the back of her throat. “So he’s like all Adama men, then? Just takes a pretty girl and they’ll do whatever she wants.”
Lee’s cheeks warmed further, not looking across to her in hopes she wouldn’t do the same. “Doomed to follow the rest of us.”
The moment passed, bringing them back to the present and away from the series of thoughts that plagued them both. “Bathroom?” She asked in a shyer voice than she had only a minute before.
“Down the hall, on the right.”
She followed the succinct directions, shutting the door and locking it behind her to seal herself away. After flushing the toilet, Kara rinsed her hands and took a look at herself in the mirror. Gods, she was a mess, her hair windblown and in slight disarray, her hands trying to quickly finger-comb it all back into some kind of proper place. She splashed some water over her face, drying her skin with the nearby hand towel neatly hung in place. Kara was careful to leave everything where she found it, not wanting to be the usual tornado that she was, leaving a mess in her wake wherever she went. When she’d finally found the courage to step back outside the bathroom, she followed the only sounds in the home to the kitchen to find Lee standing at the refrigerator. Both doors were pulled open as he stared in, as if waiting for some of the contents to jump out at him.
“Drink?” He asked with a lift of his head, reaching to the door to pull out a pair of beers.
Kara nodded back to him and when he popped the caps off of both of them, she took one of the offered bottles, bringing the opening of it to her lips. “I probably shouldn’t have agreed to come here for dinner,” she said after swallowing down a mouthful. “I remember how bad of a cook you used to be.”
“Hey—” Lee said, sipping at his own drink and then setting it down on the counter. “I’ve improved! I do make some delicious macaroni and cheese and chicken nuggets for Joseph.”
She stifled a laugh, biting into her lower lip as she did so. Her eyebrows rose skeptically. “And would this mac’n’cheese happen to come from a box, and these chicken nuggets come frozen?” It wasn’t as though she had been anything of a good cook, but teasing him hadn’t lost its luster.
“Don’t doubt how good frozen food can be.”
“I’m not, I’m not,” she shook her head and took another long sip, the side of her hand drawn over her lips to wipe away the excess moisture. “Listen, anything is good compared to the stuff I eat for lunch on base or whatever the frak that slop is they serve you on battlestars. Mac’n’cheese and chicken nuggets it is.” She tipped the neck of her bottle towards him, a challenge should he rise to the occasion.
—
Fourty minutes later, Lee and Kara both sat at his kitchen table, their pair of beer bottles having multiplied into a few more empty ones littering the tabletop, their plates nearly clean of the neon orange noodles and breaded chicken. Kara went for the last one, still barely warm from the oven they’d been pulled out of just before they’d begun to burn, dragging the side of it in the ketchup that remained on Lee’s plate, her own reserve having gone dry two nuggets prior.
“Gods, you can really put it away,” he laughed his words out as he finished his third beer and set it with the rest of the other empty bottles in what was now the beer bottle graveyard.
Her shoulder shrugged as she devoured the last one in three bites, rinsing it down with her own drink. With a childish smirk, she spoke. “Best meal I’ve had in ages.”
“Very funny.”
“I mean it!” Both of her hands gestured to her barren plate, only crumbs and sauce remaining. “Don’t I get dessert for finishing?”
“What do you want?”
She licked her lips, tasting the yeasty remains of her last sip of beer. “What do you have to give me?”
Lee wasn’t sure if it was his head playing tricks on him, a wish fulfillment of sorts, or if she really was asking for more than a scoop of ice cream to finish the night off. Lee knew what he wanted, what he’d wanted for what was now getting close to a decade, but when it came to her, he never quite knew where he stood. He took the chance though, prepping his cheek for the feel of her palm, as he leaned in and touched his mouth to hers, forceful and urgent.
It was like all those years ago again suddenly, since the last and first time they’d done this. There had always been tension between them in those months after their meeting but before Zak’s death, but they’d never acted on it, despite how much either of them may have wanted to. What had happened that first night had been a mistake, a poor drunken decision, and the betrayal of the worst kind to Zak. As much as Kara had thought about how his lips felt against hers in the days, weeks, and months afterward, she hadn’t let herself give in. Kara had never been one with good self control, but when it came to Lee Adama, she had become something of a saint, letting herself live in denial of what she wanted.
Without hesitation, she returned the warmth of his mouth, lips parted to welcome him in fully and hungrily, like she was starving despite her stomach being freshly full. Kara fisted her hand into the shoulder of his shirt, using it to pull them both closer together, and before she knew it, Lee’s arm was blindly sweeping at the table, shoving dishes and utensils back and away to clear a space for her. She followed his lead, pushing off from the floor and her chair until she was seated just on the edge of the table. Lee likewise abandoned his seat, standing between her parted legs to keep his mouth locked to hers. This kiss was unlike the first though, in that they were so much sure of it now, all this time later.
Kara’s hand reached back to the table to support her, coming in contact with one of the empty beer bottles as it tipped over and rolled towards the side. Gravity took over, just as it had done to a similar bottle in her apartment, sending it hurtling towards the wood floor. It didn’t break, but made a clatter nonetheless, that sent them both pausing in an eerie sense of deja vu. She pulled away from Lee as he did to her, both of their faces coming in to focus as they took in the other.
“Lee—we…”
“We don’t have a reason not to do this anymore,” he said with determination, afraid to let her slip through his fingers again.
“There’s a million reasons—you’ve got a son, Gianne—”
“Joseph’s not here,” he shook his head as he fought with her. “It’s just me and you, there’s no one else.” Without saying the name of the elephant in the room, he was trying to remind her of the timeframe they actually existed in. “I’m not married, Kara, and you—” He stopped, brows furrowing as he pulled back just a little more. “You’re not, are you?” His words nearly froze in his lungs as he asked. He hadn’t heard anything from his father about it, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be true. Back on Galactica, he hadn’t ever asked, and now he was regretting nestling himself between her legs without knowing the answer to such a question.
“No—no, I’m not,” she answered and the look of relief she saw on his features broke her resolve. “Just… we can’t do this, not—here—you understand?”
It was a different kitchen in a different home, a different year and a different lifetime away from what had happened before, but it still felt like a betrayal to her. Lee understood her words and he took her by the hands, tugging at her until she was on her feet again. His skin tingled all over at the prospects of what her words brought, though he knew there was a lot of ground to cover between the kitchen and his bedroom upstairs. A lot of time and space for Kara to run and shy away from whatever this was between them. As if to solidify it all, Lee kissed her again, hand on her cheek, relieved when he felt her respond.
“Which way?” She asked in a whisper as she went for his hand.
Without so much as a word, Lee interlocked his fingers into hers and followed the path back into the hall and up the lone staircase in the home. They passed by a series of doors on the way to their destination, those belonging to a closet, an extra bath, and even his son’s room, before they met with the door ajar to the room where he spent his nights.
It was the first time she’d seen a real space of Lee’s before. When they’d been friends previously, he had been making his home within the Colonial Fleet, his belongings shared between his mother’s home and whatever bunk was his elsewhere. Now though, he had a space for all the things that made him… him. There would be a million details she would have to take in later, and in a clearer head she would have started to memorize them already, relishing the fact that she could take such an intimate peek into the man that he was behind closed doors.
There was something else more important, though, and that was the man attached to the hand she held, looking at her with heavy lidded blue eyes. He was so unlike his brother in almost all regards, from the lighter hue of his hair to the color of his eyes, from his bone structure to his stiffer attitude. Sometimes, there was a look Lee would give her and all she saw was his younger brother. With his son in his arms on Galactica, Kara had seen Zak in him. Staring at him now, though, she didn’t see Zak or any number of her past lovers. No, he was just Lee Adama, and she was thankful for it. She hadn’t ever wanted to see anyone else when she looked at him, didn’t want to be haunted by the memories of the past. For them now, whatever this in fact was, it was just a clean slate.
She curled herself in close to him, gripping again into his clothing just as he did to hers, content to feel his mouth. It wasn’t enough though and Kara nearly ripped at his shirt, tugging it up and over his head with the kind of force she hadn’t brought to her frakking in the last few years.
“There’s no rush,” he said to her jaw, though he equally felt the temptation to put everything into motion as fast as possible.
“Like frak there isn’t,” she said with her laughter loud in the dim lighting.
He returned her smile, giving in to remove her shirt almost as quickly as she had his. The truth was they were both making up for lost time, a lost nearly eight years between them. Though the feeling in his gut and his groin often told him he should have stopped at nothing to make Kara his, his head and his heart knew he had done right by Zak years ago. Even if he and Kara could have been happy, the happiest people in the twelve worlds, what they had would have always been tainted by the faint memory of how they got there. Who they broke to have what they wanted. What he compromised in himself to get her for himself.
The number of times over the years he had wished to see her again, that he had begged for the strength to locate her and see her just once more, was innumerable. Lee had thought about her every day and all the possibilities that could have been. Sometimes, he would try to talk himself out of his feelings for her that still lingered, by saying that their explosive personalities would never have worked together. They would make each other miserable. By not being together, they were doing the best thing for one another, but then he would remember the sound of her laugh or the taste of his mouth against hers, and that would remind him of all the things he wanted from her and loved about her. That electric personality that got her into trouble so often was what he adored about her, maybe they could have made it work.
His body functioned on auto-pilot as his brain worked a million miles a second and he would regret not being able to recall every detail as to how he got her pants unzipped and unbuttoned later. As it was, she was toeing off her shoes and socks before stepping out of them, her hands slightly shaking as she went to start the process of his own. The quake to her appendages wasn’t lost to him and for a second, fear flared inside of him that maybe this wasn’t what she wanted and he had been too forward with her. That wouldn’t be like Kara at all, since she was usually the one calling the shots and pushing others back into line, and when she lifted her eyes to meet his, all of that fear was pushed away. No, she was nervous, just as much as he was.
Lee’s hands covered her own, hoping to act as a beacon of steady and calm to her, despite how little of it he had for himself. Perhaps together, he thought, they could share what they each had. “Are you okay?” He whispered.
Kara looked away and nodded. This hadn’t ever been an aspect of her life she’d approached with such a coil of nerves in her stomach, except maybe that first time when she was a teenager. She didn’t know where it came from or why, but it was overwhelming her on top of everything else, sending her world tilting off its axis as she tried to cope. “Your zipper—it’s stuck,” she said in frustration, but also a distraction from herself.
His fingers helped her out and when the metal teeth of the zipper were fully separated, they both worked to remove his slacks, his shoes and socks having been removed minutes ago and laid scattered across the floor of his bedroom. Kara took his hand and this time she had the lead, pulling him towards the bed as she climbed upon the solid colored bedspread he slept beneath every night. “Ow—frak!” She called out and the spell of the mood was slightly broken as her barely dressed form twisted and shifted on the bed, her hand pushed beneath her until it captured the small toy dump truck in her hand and held it between them.
“Sorry,” he apologized and took the child’s toy from her, tossing it towards the laundry hamper in the corner of the room. He would have to remember to fish it out later on.
Kara laughed. “This is not how I ever imagined this going.”
“No,” his head shook but he smiled anyway, praying that the constant reminders of his fatherhood and the fact that in some way he would always belong partially to another woman weren’t enough to drive her away at the last minute. “This isn’t how I imagined it would go either.” He kneeled on the bed and took charge, one hand sliding around until he felt the notches of her spine, fingers pushing together the fabric of her bra until the clasp released. Lee was careful as he slid the straps down her shoulders, almost reverent in fact, until the cups of the bra fell down and away, leaving her exposed. He had never seen her like this before, despite their trips to the beach and the lake, and even that time they’d talked about at the cemetery, when each of them had to strip down and soap up in the lake to get any kind of clean. No, back then he’d been the gentleman, envying his brother for what he got to see every night.
Nudity had never been a thing that she shied away from after all her time in the military, but the look of him as he drank her in was something she had never felt before, not even with any other kind of lover in the past. It was like she had given him all his wildest dreams in that moment, just by being there, and it set a kind of excitement that she didn’t even know existed in her stomach and even lower. She leaned back on her elbows as Lee came nearer, watching his head dip down to kiss from the center between her breasts until he chose a side, favoring one over the other. He was hardly touching her and yet she felt the build of a moan in her throat and she let it out as his mouth came to capture one hard nipple. He was gentle at first, kissing and his tongue lapping over it, then she felt the sharper tug of his teeth against it, pulling and plucking. One palm of his came to cup the rest of the fullness of her breast as he suckled against her, then departed entirely to treat the opposite breast with the same kind of devotion.
His lips trailed southward over the flat plane of her stomach to her navel, kissing at the waistband of her panties. They weren’t the ones given to her by the military, that much he knew, but still reflected the job she held, with the grey coloring she chose of them and more sensible cut. He wondered if her entire drawer was filled with underwear like this, or if Kara Thrace would have worn something else if she knew that this was what she would be doing that night when she dressed for the day. Either way, it didn’t matter, and Lee would admit that all his fantasies of her usually involved undressing her from the uniform she seemed to always wear.
“Move back,” he ordered from her waist, and Kara, dizzy because of his touch, complied, her body shifting up and back until she was as far as she could go. Her head rested against his pillows, neck craned to the side to breathe in the smell of shampoo and cologne on the fabric. Gods, she was lost in him, so surrounded in every meaning of the word that she couldn’t even think straight. It was consuming, just as she always dreamt it would be with him.
Lee hooked his fingers into the sides of her panties and tugged them down, leaving the last portion of her that was a mystery to him, finally and fully bared. He helped coax her into parting her thighs, one hand at her outer thigh as he held it steady, kissing up the unimaginably soft skin of the inside of that same thigh. Her legs shook again, just as barely as her hands had minutes before, and Lee made soft soothing sounds against her skin. “I’ve got you, Kara,” he said and looked up the length of her body to find her watching him, teeth biting at her lip in anticipation of what she knew he was about to do.
His own body laying across the bed on his stomach, Lee dove in, finding her already sopping wet between her thighs. The taste was like nothing he’d ever had before, unique and completely her, and all Lee knew was that he wanted more of it. His tongue ran the length of her, from her entrance to the swollen and red bundle of nerves higher up, reading her body for physical and audible responses as he began to learn what she loved for the very first time. He hiked one of her legs up over his shoulder, immediately feeling her heel digging into his back as his tongue ran slow circles around her clit. From where he was, he could see the fabric of his comforter bunched up in her tight fist while she simultaneously let out a call of his name.
She was close and he’d hardly even begun, something which brought a stirring of pride inside of him to know that long before he’d even touched her, Kara’s body had been anticipating all of this. He wasn’t ready to let her go though, so he backed off his focus, slowing himself down. Lee wanted to enjoy her, a part of him inwardly fearing that this would be not only the first, but the last time she would allow them to join together after guilt and worry washed over them both when their raging hormones had faded and cleared from their systems. He was going to enjoy her as long as he could. Lee slipped a finger inside of her, then another, feeling her tightly clench around him instantaneously, leaving him begging to actually, fully be inside of her and experience that in another way. The pads of his fingers rubbed her internally as his mouth once more took action and not more than a few seconds later, Kara’s keening moan was let out as she came, hips bucking on pure instinct. His other hand curled around her and palmed the skin below her navel, holding her as still as he could as he continued to work, carrying her through every last wave of pleasure she could feel.
Kara ran a hand over her face, ears ringing with the sound of her own voice and the steady thump of her pulse jumping loudly inside of her. Her body pleasantly hummed with the comforting echo of orgasm, her senses sharpening and coming back to her slowly. She opened her eyes and looked down to him, down to the man that had given her that overwhelming roll of ecstasy and had finally ceased his ministrations against her to more delicately kiss to her inner thigh yet again. “Come here,” she demanded of him, hands reaching to encourage him closer, though Lee didn’t exactly come as quickly as called, instead taking his time to leave a trail of her own wetness over her abdomen and breasts until their mouths met. She could not only taste herself on him, but feel some of the warmth the core of her body had passed on to him, his mouth still slightly slippery from what he’d done for her.
“You don’t know how long I’ve thought of doing that,” Lee said into her neck, his body laid against her own.
“Lords of Kobol, Adama, you can do that the rest of your frakking life and I wouldn’t complain.”
He laughed, his body vibrating against hers which elicited her own matching giggle in the room. Kara’s hand pushed through his hair, slightly longer than she’d ever seen on him, but matched the years that had been put on him. He was no longer that boy anymore and the change suited him. “Please,” Kara begged against his ear as her teeth tugged on the lobe. “I want you—” she paused and corrected herself. “I need you inside of me, Lee.”
She wasn’t just speaking as Kara Thrace, thirty year old woman bedding the slightly older father of one on top of her. It was every version of herself since they’d first met. That girl that had so desperately wanted him to frak her on her kitchen table despite knowing how wrong it was. The Kara that saw him every time afterwards and thought about what it would be like to see his face when she came instead of Zak’s. A grieving no longer wife-to-be that had wanted to drown her sorrow in her lover’s older brother. The lonely soldier tucked away on battlestars or bases throughout the Twelve Colonies, using dreams of him to help her come to completion by her hand when she was alone in her bunk late at night. Every person she’d ever been since she’d seen his face, they were all begging aloud for him.
Her words were his undoing, as if he had any resolve left at all while he was throbbing against her thighs. It had been Gods knew how long since he’d been inside of a woman. There had been Gianne and after things had finally and fully fallen apart, there’d been another woman that he sought comfort in casually, but never seriously. If he was honest with himself, he was always waiting for her again, fearing the worst but always hoping for the best. Lee pulled back and looked down to her to memorize her in this instant, the pink of her cheeks, the way her golden green eyes looked when heavy with desire, how her hair fell against his pillow. He wanted to keep her there forever, never let her go again, but he knew that would be her choice to make.
“I need to get…” He trailed off and began to climb off to begin a frustrating search for what he hoped wouldn’t be now expired condoms. Kara’s hands stilled him, though, pulling him back before his weight had even shifted off of her.
“I’m up to date on my shot, don’t worry about it.” With others, one night stands especially, she would have insisted on the extra layer of added protection between them to guard against disease and pregnancy, but the thought of losing the warmth of him against her was absolutely unimaginable. That, and she wanted to feel him, really feel him, for the first time, and she knew he craved the same.
Lee nodded, kissing her lips as both of her hands came to his cheeks to steady him. He couldn’t get over how absolutely right it felt with her and they truly hadn’t even begun. All the women he’d been with in his past, the sex had been good, great even, but it was nothing like this. Even knowing he had loved Gianne and coming to terms with the fact that she was the mother of his child so much so that he was unbelievably happy and thankful for it — not once had he ever felt so lost inside of her like he did with Kara.
Her hands slipped from his cheeks and down to his lower half, her hands pushing inside the elastic of his boxer-briefs to force them down. He helped her the rest of the way until he was truly free, feeling her warm palm grasp around his cock, already stiff and waiting for her. He groaned into her neck, face buried there temporarily as her body shifted slightly, legs parting wide around him in a sign of welcoming. Lee lifted his head and kissed her once more, hips and legs angling himself at her heated entrance. One hand joined hers, rubbing the head of his cock against her teasingly and he reveled in the look she gave him that admonished him for such an action, but also gave away how much she enjoyed it. He gave in not long after, though, pressing against her until he slid in just barely, Kara’s eyes shutting tight as she bit roughly at her lip to hold back the moan in her throat. A second later Lee pushed in the rest of the way, careful not to force himself inside too hard and fast out of fear of hurting her. That moan Kara had been trying to rein in escaped finally as she felt the fullness of him inside of her, her finger nails digging into his back as she called out to all the Gods she fervently believed in.
She was hot and tight, wet and soft around him, and it was a kind of perfection Lee had come close to finding but hadn’t ever experienced before. One leg curled around him and she pulled him in closer, forcing him inside just a fraction of an inch deeper, Lee letting out his own matching moan to join her. The pressure of her leg relinquished a moment later, however, and Lee took the hint, pulling out of her slowly and then pushing back into her tight fit. He built a rhythm with her, his mouth abandoning her own to find her breast again, this time a little rougher than the first. His hand squeezed and his mouth tugged as she sharply moaned with each thrust inside of her. Lee could feel her clenching around him even tighter than before, pleading with himself to hold on just a little longer for her. The focus paid off as Kara came, back arching and toes curling, this orgasm more intense than the first he’d given her. The tightness of her orgasm forced his own as well, and he felt himself tighten and release, spilling deep inside of her for what he hoped would be the first time, rather than the only time.
Spent and exhausted, Lee nearly collapsed against her breast, one of Kara’s arms weakly curling around him as she stroked over his sweat-sticky skin. Her chest rose and fell as she worked to gain balance, though she never honestly wanted it to fade away. Lying in his bed with him on top of her, she wanted to stay there forever, without complication of what this was or what it meant. She didn’t know her own answers to those questions and she feared Lee’s, it was far easier to exist in a place where neither of them had to think of such a thing.
With reluctance, Lee eventually pulled out and rolled off, lying on his back beside her. He groped around for her hand, drawing it to his lips when he found it. “Kara?” He asked.
She swallowed hard, her head full of all the possibilities of what he was going to ask next. Were this anyone else, she would have already been planning how to slip out of their bunk or apartment with as little sound as possible. For one of the few times in her life though, Kara didn’t want to wait for the man beside her to fall asleep so she could visit the bathroom to clean herself off between her thighs and redress in darkness, making a clean and quick getaway. “Yeah?”
“You’re going to stay the night, right?”
Every worry she had faded away, though a million new ones began to slowly grow. She would ignore them for now. “Yeah, Lee, I’ll stay.”
He sat up slightly, leaning over to kiss her again, though it wasn’t his only intention. Lee pulled at the blankets beneath them, their bodies both shifting until the fabric was free. He covered them both, but her first, like he was shielding her from prying eyes or perhaps just the chill of the room. When they were both beneath them, he curled himself to her and she reciprocated, turning on her side until he was spooned up against her, holding her tight.
—
Lee woke in the morning to the sound of a ringing doorbell. He could tell immediately that it wasn’t the first push or the second, perhaps not even the third, by the way it was urgently pressed a few times in rapid succession, as if it could actually indicate the changing mood of the person standing on the stoop. Kara stirred but didn’t wake beside him, and though they’d separated during the night, he leaned back over the gap of space between them to kiss her shoulder.
The doorbell sounded again, this time even angrier than the last, and Lee climbed from his bed and immediately went for his dresser to pull out a pair of clean boxers and a t-shirt for his torso. He could hear the front door downstairs opening roughly and the clack of shoes on the hardwood entrance way as he dressed speedily, closing the bedroom door shut behind him to keep Kara safe. He ran his hands through his hair as he stepped into the bathroom, trying to work out any signs of sleep before quickly brushing his teeth with the kind of quickness he hadn’t had since alert drills on Atlantia. Some semblance of cleanliness restored to him, he moved down the stairs, catching sight of Gianne and Joseph shutting the front door behind them.
“I used my keys,” she said, words somewhat terse as she set down the small spare bag that carried a few of their son’s items he tended to shuttle from one home to the other.
“Sorry—I was asleep,” Lee offered as an excuse before he finally made it down to the main floor, leaning in to politely kiss Gianne’s cheek in greeting as Joseph took off towards the living room, wide awake and ready to make himself at home.
“I bet,” she said, her lips upturned slightly as her eyes rose to the staircase he’d previously descended. “Saw a car in the driveway…” Her words trailed off and she looked back to him, this time a little more stern than she was before. “If you need me to take him because you’ve got something better to do, Lee,” Gianne didn’t finish.
He had no real intentions of keeping it all from her, but he hadn’t intended on it coming out that way either. “No, it’ll be fine,” Lee insisted and looked to where his son bounced on the couch, TV already on and cartoons streaming in.
“So who is she?” Gianne asked as she and Lee both proceeded towards the kitchen which featured a mess he had planned to clean up before mother and son had arrived. “Don’t tell me it’s that girl you were seeing again—”
“No,” he laughed with a shake of his head as he began to collect the bottles of beer quickly, like the movement would keep her from realizing how much the two of them had imbibed the night before. “She’s…”
Meanwhile, Kara had found full consciousness returning to her when she woke alone. The space beside her was still warm though, and she vaguely recalled his touch only moments before. She forced herself out of bed, pulling on her underwear and shirt, the rest of her clothing in hand as she peeked her head outside of the bedroom door. Finding the hallway vacant, she hurried across to the bathroom she’d seen on their way to his room the prior night. Dressed and cleaned, at least as best as she could get without fully taking a shower, Kara reopened the door, only to be stared down by the pint-sized version of the man she’d made love to the night before. She could remember now, how Lee had said Joseph would be there starting today, but had assumed it would be later on, long after she’d had time to leave. “Hi,” Kara said, echoing the greeting they’d first shared. “Do you remember me?”
Joseph stared at her and shook his head, face crinkling in something akin to fear at the stranger in his house. “Daddy!”
“She’s…” And Lee’s words were cut off as he heard the call of his son, sharing a look with Gianne as he quit the kitchen and headed up the stairs to find his lover and his son in something of a stand off.
“Lee, Gods I swear, I didn’t do anything!” She was frantic, comically so, hands held up in a mock sign of surrender to the child.
“Joseph,” he started, and scooped the boy up in his arms. “You know Kara, we saw her at the museum. She flies Vipers, remember?”
This time, in the comforting arms of his father and given some facts to remember, the four and a half year old did recall her, his little head nodding as he looked across to her without all the apprehension.
Kara was visibly relieved though somewhat shaken by the encounter with the child, this time for entirely different reasons than the first. She followed father and son down the stairs, the elusive Gianne already waiting. Kara had never seen her before in anything more than the photo Adama had shown her of the day his grandson was born, but she would know her just the same, some of her features reflected in her child’s face.
“So, Kara, Zak’s fiancee?” Gianne asked as she looked from Kara then to Lee pointedly. Clearly she’d heard of the her at some point, whether that be in tales from Lee’s father or the showing of photographs of the Old Man’s late son and the woman that had once been promised to be his wife.
It made Kara feel guilty all of a sudden, but she held herself together, nodding as she offered a hand. “Nice to meet you, Gianne.”
Lee watched the exchange between both of the blonde women as they forced themselves to shake hands with one another in the common expression of greeting.
“It’s good to finally meet you.” Gianne looked back to Lee and their son curled up in his arms. “You sure you don’t want me to take him?”
Part of him wanted to take her up on the offer, but he didn’t. His time with his son was precious, every last minute of it, and he knew the next time he saw Gianne, he wouldn’t hear the end of it. Deep inside of him, as well, there was some ounce that wanted Kara to get to know his son better than she had briefly gotten to on Galactica, having already subconsciously decided that she was going to be a permanent fixture in their lives, though he didn’t know how she would feel about it. “No, we’ll be okay. I’ll have him back to you tomorrow after dinner,” Lee said with a nod to her.
Kara felt out of place in the exchange, avoiding looking at any member of the family. Her thoughts were irrational, going back to her own father and his abandonment. She was proud of Lee for sticking with it, despite the fact that he could have easily run away and just been a father by way of sending his support payments. Though she knew Lee and Gianne hadn’t been together in quite some time, if they ever were even happy together at all, she couldn’t help but feel like she was some wedge in their lives and their routine. She didn’t want to be the thing that pushed them further apart, or the woman that inserted herself into the life of his son and tried to act as a replacement mother. Aside from all of that, she wasn’t even sure if she should be trusted around children at all, having never had any real experience with them in her life.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Joseph,” his mother said as she leaned in to kiss the boy and he returned it wet and sloppy to her own cheek. “Don’t be late, Lee, he’s got school Monday,” she reminded him, as if he could forget. Gianne headed the few steps to the door, turning to Kara before she left. “Again, nice to finally meet you,” she spoke and departed.
Lee mouthed his words of apology to Kara, leaning in to kiss her cheek. She hesitated, though, pulling away at the last second as her eyes motioned directly over to the boy still in his arms. He understood, though he wished he didn’t, and finally set Joseph down as he followed him into the living room. “Did you have breakfast?”
“No,” the boy said with a shake of his head, going for the small bin of his toys kept in the corner of the room. “You said,” he stopped, sputtering over his words and starting again. “You said you’d make pancakes.”
“That’s right,” Lee leaned down to kiss his son’s head, ruffling his blonde hair out of place. “I did. Kara’s going to help me, all right? We’ll be in the kitchen.”
He met Kara in the kitchen, arms going to pull her into a hug as he kissed her cheek, finally making contact this time. “Gods I’m sorry,” he said, feeling how stiff she was in his arms. “What’s wrong?”
Kara pulled away and shook her head, looking back to the open entranceway towards the hall that connected to the living room. “I shouldn’t be here.”
“Listen, sometimes they come early depending on what Gianne’s got to do today. I didn’t think…”
“Last night was great,” she started, trying to disconnect herself. “But you’ve got a family and I don’t fit in, I know how this goes.”
His brow rose as he moved around the kitchen, gathering their plates from the night before and piling them in the empty dishwasher, then pulling out the box of pancake mix from the cupboard. “Well I don’t, so how does it go?”
She let out something between a sigh and a groan, working hard to not let her frustration come out in the volume of her voice. “Your son, he’s got a mom and a dad, he doesn’t need this,” her hands turned, gesturing to herself “on top of it all.”
“So I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life alone?” He questioned.
“No,” she replied quickly. “Just, me?”
“Yeah, you.” Lee smiled at her over the mixing bowl of pancake mix as he added the proper measured liquid into it and began to stir.
She took a seat at the counter off the island he worked at in the middle of the kitchen, elbows resting into the cool granite as her fingers pushed through her sex-mussed hair. “I’m not the person for you, Lee. Did you see the way Gianne looked at me? Oh,” she stopped, this time doing her best to imitate the tone of voice the other woman had used, “Zak’s fiancee?”
“She’s harmless,” he insisted, his spoon coming to rest on the edge of the bowl as he put his attention fully on her this time, instead of sharing it with the pancake batter between them. “Gianne’s been seeing a guy for the last year anyway, so she can’t talk about it.”
“It’s not just that! Lee, Gods, it was just one time, we don’t have a commitment between us.”
He turned his back to her, standing over the stove and the pre-heated pan on the burner, sighing as he allowed small pools of the batter to form and start cooking on the teflon. “What if I wanted it to be more than just one time?” Lee said, still facing away.
Kara said nothing, recalling every moment of the night before and how much she hadn’t wanted it to end, and now couldn’t imagine ever not having it again. Now she knew it wasn’t just one sided, his voice doing a little pleading in his words as he asked her. “I work in Delphi, Lee…” She scrambled for an excuse.
“It’s not that far,” he insisted as he used the spatula to flip each pancake, perfectly golden brown on the cooked side. “You can stay on base during the week, come out here on the weekends…” He was getting ahead of himself with what he was propositioning her with.
“You hardly know me, Lee.”
“I know you enough.” His shoulders slumped and his head shook as he reached for a plate from the nearby cabinet, holding it out as he dropped each pancake down onto it. He repeated the process with the next ones, batter spaced out on the pan to begin cooking. Lee headed to the fridge next, pulling out the containers of syrup and butter, jug of orange juice in his free hand as he nudged the door shut with his shoulder. He didn’t have the heart, nor the energy, to look at her as he cut across the kitchen and placed the items on the table.
“Kara, I’m thirty-two years old now, I know what I want.” He turned around to her, his gaze unwilling to let her go free. “I knew what I wanted eight years ago when you were with my brother, I knew what I wanted five years ago when I saw you on Galactica. I don’t give a frak—” He stopped, looking to the doorway to make sure his son wasn’t nearby to hear him using the language he and Gianne had agreed to curb around the boy. “I don’t care what anyone else thinks. I’ve wasted a quarter of my life worrying about everyone else and I just don’t care about it anymore.” When he was finished speaking he returned to the stove, just in time to flip the pancakes over, these ones slightly browner than the others.
She was running scared, something she did all too often when it came to her personal life, despite how fearless she was in the cockpit. It was one of her many contradictions. Kara slid off the stool and went for the cabinet she’d seen him get their plates from the night before, pulling out a trio, then reaching into the drawer for three forks and two knives, figuring the four year old wasn’t yet skilled enough to be trusted to cut his own pancakes. Silently, she set the table and when she finished, she headed to retrieve them three glasses.
“He likes the blue one,” Lee said from the stove, his pile of pancakes slowly growing.
Kara nodded and she grasped the smaller, blue plastic cup with cartoon characters coloring the sides along with their two regular ones. She placed it at the seat she set for his son, in front of the chair with the small cushioned booster seat she presumed Joseph was still using.
“Watch these while I get him?” Lee said, motioning towards the last of the pancakes cooking on the stove.
“No—let me,” she insisted, trying to show him that despite the silent treatment they had both quickly enacted on one another, that she could behave like the person he thought she was.
When she made it to the living room, she found his son there, on the floor and immersed in the mess of toys he’d created, talking to himself. “Joseph?” His head turned to look up to her. “Your Dad says pancakes are ready.” He wasted no time in hurrying from his spot, the jacket he’d been wearing earlier tossed aside in the middle of the floor as he rushed past her and down the hallway of the house he knew well. By time she made it back, only a few steps behind him, he was struggling to get up onto his seat and Kara reacted instantly, lifting the boy up and sitting him down. “You okay?”
Joseph nodded to her and looked back towards where Lee was as he approached with the plate of steaming pancakes in his hands.
“You better be hungry,” Lee said and served out a few of them onto Joseph’s plate, reaching for his son’s fork and his own knife as he began to butter each one, then cut them into small, easily chewable sections.
Kara took her seat as Lee loaded Joseph’s plate up with the amount of syrup he knew his son would need, then sat down at the end of the table, with Kara and Joseph on either side of him.
“These are good,” she said, trying to make small talk with Lee, despite knowing he wouldn’t be much in the mood for it since she’d basically blown off his attempt at pouring out his feelings to her.
“Thanks,” he forced a smile at Kara then looked to Joseph, his expression turning genuine.
“Are you going to eat pancakes with us every Saturday?” Joseph asked with his mouth full as he chewed.
Kara looked to Lee for help in answering and he lightly patted his son’s arm. “Not every Saturday, no,” he answered and left it at that, hoping it would appease him.
“Would it be okay if I was here sometimes?” Kara suddenly asked, looking across to the little boy.
Joseph’s familiar blue eyes, just as bright as his father’s and the Old Man’s, gazed up and over at her, head nodding. “It’s more fun this way.”
With a reserved smile, Kara glanced to Lee out of the corner of her eye. “It is.”
A few pancakes and a tall glass of orange juice later, Kara started to fill the dishwasher with their syrup covered plates, while Lee held his son at the sink, helping him to rinse off any of the remaining stickiness from his small hands. When he placed Joseph back on the ground, the child obediently waited, and Kara couldn’t help but observe the act that was obviously routine to them. Lee bent down with a wash cloth, cleaning his face as the last piece to the puzzle before his son darted off again, filling the home with an echo of his excited yell as he returned to whatever he had been doing before.
“Seeing you with him,” she began as she placed the frying pan inside and closed the door, sealing away the dirty dishes within. “It’s the strangest thing. Nothing’s really happened in my life since I last saw you and you…” Her head shook but she smiled to him. “You’re a dad, Lee. Not just a father, but a dad. One of the good ones, too.”
He blushed a little at her words, clearing the table of the orange juice container as he spoke. “It’s been insane. I feel bad about how I reacted when she first told me, I was so scared, after losing Zak and the relationship I had with my father, especially at the time… I didn’t think I could do it. Now, though? I don’t really remember what it was like before him.”
“Is he why you quit flying?” She asked gently, not sure of how touchy of a subject it was for him. His father hadn’t been too happy, or that was what she got out of Adama at the time, but he had understood his son’s choice nonetheless.
Lee looked to her and then nodded. “I wasn’t going to, but then he was born and Gods, flying didn’t matter anymore, it was never to me what it is to you. It’s safe, especially when there isn’t much going on out there, but accidents happen, and I couldn’t continue to get into that cockpit everyday knowing that something could happen and he wouldn’t grow up with a father. What if the cylons returned? I’d be going to war and leaving him behind. I used to love watching my Dad fly, but I remember how nervous I was for him as I got older and understood that sometimes people died doing what he did. I don’t want him to ever feel that.”
He was the same and different at the same time and she felt inadequate over how little her life had changed since then. She’d gotten a promotion to Captain while on board Pegasus under Commander Cain, she’d moved around and acted as a CAG for a brief moment in time, she’d dated and had a few casual boyfriends over the years, but no commitments. Nothing big. Nothing as changing as what Lee had lived through.
“I still fly, Lee. I could go out there tomorrow and frak up or something could go wrong with my Viper and I might not come back. Why would you want to have to worry like that again?”
He approached her, hands clasping her upper arms as he gently rubbed the somewhat exposed skin there. “I can handle it. If it’s having you and worrying, then I’ll take it over not having you at all. Just…” He sighed. “Give this a chance, all right?”
“Lee…”
“Kara,” he kissed the corner of her mouth, happy to find that she didn’t pull away. “Whatever excuse you’re going to give me, we’ll work it out. Just don’t say no.”
Her eyes shut and it was the previous night all over again, breathing in the scent of him on his sheets. Kara swore she could feel her heart clench at the thought of saying goodbye to him in something of a permanent fashion, the ache spreading out from her chest to her extremities, forcing her mind to comply with what her body knew it wanted. “No,” she answered. “I won’t say no.”