Three days and she is still a bundle of aching muscles and stiff joints. She can still feel the weight of his glove and the sting of fresh wounds and the salt-and-copper taste on her lips. Her entire body aches and thrives and it's more than a little confusing. If it were anyone else who had done this to her she'd be on the warpath, all rules of engagement forgotten, but it wasn't anyone else. She keeps up a mask of anger and resentment, but it's a lie.
Between CAPs and maintenance and rack time, it's almost sixty hours before they cross paths again. She isn't counting, she's not, it's just that her entire life is divided up into hours long increments that she can't help it.
She sulks into the head, dogs the hatch and presses her aching back against the cold, metal wall. Kara sighs and lets her head fall back, enjoying the hollow Ithump/I sound it makes against the bulkhead.
"What's the matter, Captain? You get in fight?" He says and she looks up, surprised.
He doesn't look so different from her and she has a tiny, misplaced moment of pride in the damage she inflicted before she realizes how wrong that is. He walks toward her and he's favoring his left knee and she doesn't have to think to know she feels bad about that. His eye is still swollen and there are bruises along his jaw and she would be cursing herself if she weren't just so damned glad it was all over.
"Yeah," she says back, stepping away from the wall, "I think I won, too."
He smiles and she knows -- he's not mad, he's still walking toward her, he meant it when he said he missed her.
"You did not win." But he's already right in front of her, his hands tugging at her flight suit and she's not about to stop him.
They don't have to talk about it; don't have to feel the other out for the right path or the right words or anything of the sort, actually. It's all instinct and feeling; the blind leading the blind. They've been blind for so long.
His hands are at her waist and she's nearly got his tanks off when she feels him sigh and his forehead falls to her neck. He breathes in and out and in. He slides his palms down her back and up again, his lips finding her pulse point and making her moan.
It's different and for a moment she attributes that to their collective injuries, but she knows better. They hurt each other to heal each other. This has all happened before.
Reverent, she thinks, as he bends to slip off her flight suit, losing his at the same time. He kisses up her legs, pauses at her thighs to nibble on the soft skin there, and she's pretty sure someone heard her moan that time. She should care, but just can't find it in herself to do so.
Kara tears off her tanks and her bra while he's still meandering up her body and she can feel his chuckle when he realizes they're off. A weight lifts off her conscience.
His mouth is warm when he finally makes his way to her lips. He smells of metal and grease and sweat and she breaks away for a moment to rest her forehead to his and breathe him in, like she doesn't smell a hundred people that smell just like that everyday. But none of them are Lee.
He nuzzles her with his nose before capturing her mouth again and sliding his hands under her panties. She arches without meaning to and he meets her with his fingers, strong and sure.
She doesn't really know when they ended up on the floor, but she's not going to argue because her panties are gone and together they're trying to shimmy off his trunks. She bangs her elbow against his shoulder by mistake and they both say IOw/I and laugh.
"Stop hitting me," He says, his eyes squinting in that way he does when he's teasing her. It's beautiful.
Tugging him back down to her mouth, Kara loses herself in him, just lets it all go and she doesn't even remember that her body is supposed to be sore. Instead it's singing.
Lee's hands find her face and he frames her -- his arms, his hands, all of him -- before watching her arch and writhe when he drives himself inside her and it's like they've never Inot/I done this, like all sense of walls and separation and anger are gone.
She mumbles his name and he shifts, pressing deeper, harder, staying inside her longer, letting her rut against him and it's killing him, she can tell.
"Oh, gods, Lee," she says and he finally stops holding back, finally has his fill of reverence and worship and giving thanks. His eyes fall closed and he drives faster now, harder. Her legs come up and around his back and he loses his rhythm for a second, her name hard on his lips, until she calls his name again, her body clenching and shuttering and he can't stop himself from coming right along with her.
They stiffen and shift involuntarily for a moment, their bodies soon falling loose and warm on the cold, hard floor of the head.
Lee kisses her, his eyes closed and he breathes her in. She grips him tighter against her, hoping he wont shift, hoping she won't lose contact. He stays.
She doesn't ask what they're going to do because she doesn't have to and she doesn't like his answer anyway; oversimplified and trite, right though it may be. She will follow him almost anywhere and by Gods she needs him, but she turns away from that thought. That way leads to madness. She closes her eyes, follows his lead and soaks in as much of him as she can. It'll have to be enough for now.
XXXX
She's winning this hand just like she won the last and the one before that and thankfully everyone is starting to clear out. Lee smirks a little at her and touches his ear and she knows he did it on purpose. They work in tandem in everything, apparently.
Helo pours out another round and everyone drinks before Kara calls, forcing them all to pony up. Lee drops his meager hand on the table and acts affronted, like he isn't throwing the games and helping Kara win just to get everyone the hell out of the damn rec room.
Helo laughs and shoots them each a look. "I'll just be going now," he says loudly and with too much emphasis on intent rather than words. Kat makes a face, keeps her mouth shut for once, and trails him through the hatch.
"Frak," Tigh grumbles and follows it up with a, "you two shouldn't play together. I know you cheat." But he takes his booze and his meager pile of winnings and leaves the room.
Tigh's not even out of the room when Kara laughs in that almost drunk way she has and scoops up her loot. But Lee's out of his chair and his mouth is hot on hers before she can even grab her earnings. He pushes her chair back from the table and tugs her up impatiently, hands and lips everywhere. He's tugging at her tanks and she just barely has the presence of mind to tell him to shut the frakking hatch.
He groans, annoyed at such a detail, annoyed at their situation, but she's got her tanks and bra off in the span of time it takes him to dog the hatch and damn if that isn't just distracting. Lee sheds his own tanks and his boots as he walks to her, backs her up against the table and kisses her.
"What's the matter, Lee? Not satisfied at home?" She says, harshly, trying to make him angry because while Ithis/I is the only thing keeping her sane right now, it also pisses her off.
He pulls away, stricken and frustrated. "Frak you, Kara."
"That's the idea."
He steps back and glares at her. "Don't you dare start that with me. We both know why we're here in gods damn rec room, like teenagers and it isn't because of me."
Uncaring that she's half naked or that she's picking at a wound she has no right picking at, Kara steps into his personal space and does her best to look furious instead of scared and hurt because Starbuck doesn't get scared or hurt and neither does Kara Thrace.
"Well, if you wouldn't wait until the competition was passed out drunk to make your move –" but she never finishes her sentence because Lee's fist connects with her jaw and snaps her mouth shut.
She smiles at him and he's already leaning in to kiss her, anger and resentment threading a line between them making the existent tether even stronger.
Their teeth clack and his hands are tugging down her underwear before she registers that he's doing it. He lifts her up and sets her on the table, pressing his hips against her, the rough fabric of his pants rubbing her clit, making her gasp little breaths of air. She arches into him, wrapping her legs around his waist and trying to force him to move just right, but he's not having it. He shifts to counter her, fighting with her hands and her mouth and her legs until she reaches between them and stuffs her hand down the front of his underwear.
"Gotcha," she smirks, but he just presses into her again, trapping her hand. She relents because gods damn it; it's good when he rubs against her like that. She catches his earlobe between her teeth and juts her hips forward and he jerks involuntarily, making her moan and mutter something in his ear that sounds too much like a statement and an emotion so he ignores it. Instead, he slides a finger across her thigh and straight into her and frak she's wet.
He pulls away far enough, just far enough, to get his pants and underwear off and then he's pressing his dick into her and she's gripping at him. She's digging her fingers into every inch of his back that she can find and he's pretty sure she'll have bruises in the morning from where his hands are gripping her hips and he fraks her harder just thinking about it.
She mutters his name, fragmented and punctuated by indrawn breath and he can hardly stand it anymore. The table is banging against the floor with a clanging noise and she thinks she heard someone try the hatch but she doesn't give a frak because Lee's got her so thoroughly dizzy that she doesn't even care anymore that she had been trying to win this one.
She shudders around him, her whole body pitching forward against him, curling in on itself. Her face is buried against his shoulder as she rides through the end of her orgasm and just as she goes boneless, Kara rocks her hips forward and bites his shoulder. He grunts something that sounds like her name and ruts into her hard one more time, before his legs give out and they slide together to the floor.
"Frak," she mutters a minute later and he answers with a breathless, "yeah."
They dress in silence, neither one really willing to address anything that just happened and both being oddly comfortable with that. This is just what they do -- strike at the blind spots, hurt and heal. It's a pattern and one of these days it's probably going to kill them.
XXXX
Bill Adama knows what happens on his ship, though it has become apparent that no one believes that anymore. He isn't so much disappointed as he is annoyed. His crew, excellent though they are, has lost respect for his knowledge. They've lost fear in the repercussions. Considering the situation, he can't exactly blame them. No time like the end of the world to stop caring about frat regs.
Still, the two people under his command who should have some lingering respect for his position seem to be the two who care the least.
He walks through the hall, determined and rigid, his mind weighing options that he really wishes he didn't have to.
Tigh rounds the corner ahead of him and stops. "Bill," his friend says by way of greeting. "Where're ya headed?"
"Rec room," Bill sighs, not giving him any more information than that.
The Colonel grunts, clearly growing uncomfortable. "Might not want to do that."
"Why?" Bill questions, his tone hard, face forcibly blank.
Tigh is silent a moment, his good eye holds Bill's and it seems unbearably like his friends is trying to convey a message with out actually saying it aloud.
Bill sighs, defeated and Tigh says, "You want me to put a stop to it?"
"You and I both know it won't do any good."
"Maybe if they know they're not getting away with it – "
"Saul," Bill cuts him off, his glare deadly.
"Yeah, you're right." Tigh sighs and gives Bill a look of pity or maybe regret. "Come on, I'll buy you a drink."
XXXX
She's still awake when Lee sneaks into their quarters. Dee's not an unforgiving person; in fact, she thinks she's more forgiving than most, which is partly why she pretends she's still asleep. The other parts… well, she's just not quite ready to address that yet.
Lee trips, curses and then falls silent and she knows he's listening to see if he woke her. She sighs and says, "Hi," in such a sad voice that it even surprises her.
"Hi," he mumbles, kicking off his boots, his voice thick, like maybe he feels guilty. He smells of smoke and booze and sex and it's pathetic. Except, if she's honest, she's the one who's pathetic.
She knew this day would come, knew it before she married him and now that's it's here, now that she's been living in the shadow of this huge Ithing/I, living even deeper in the shadow of Starbuck-and-Apollo than before, she feels sorry for herself and knows she has no right to.
She watches him pull off his clothes and toss them to the laundry bucket and she really wishes things weren't this way. She loves him, but she doesn't like him very much.
He sleeps silently and she has to scoot as far away as possible to get the smell of Kara out of her nose. She wishes she could blame them, but the truth is they were headed for this from the beginning.
Dee arrives for her shift in CIC and the Admiral nods once and then refuses to meet her eyes. It's mortifying, but at least she has one thing to be hateful about. She married Lee knowing he was only hers so long as Kara was busy elsewhere, but they had no right to make the admiral look at her like that, they had no right to embarrass her in front of him.
She wonders where her dignity went.
XXXX
After Kat dies Kara can't stop herself from cornering Lee after a briefing in the Ready Room. He's handing out assignments for the algae retrieval and she spends the entire briefing touching her ear so he gets the message.
"Dismissed. If you have any questions, I'll be in my quarters at 1500."
The pilots file out and he fiddles with his papers and wipes the board clean, waiting for everyone else to leave. He isn't prepared for it when she comes up behind him, wraps her arms around his waist and says, "I love you."
Things are harder after that. They sneak moments in raptors or behind tents or sometimes behind the rock formations that dot the landscape. She never says it again and he never asks. She meant it, just like they both meant it on New Caprica, but it's too much, too intimate for them. It's just another way to scar each other, even if they don't mean to, eventually they will. It's just another blind spot and gods help them, they have enough of those.
So, a few days later, when her raptor crashes and he lays it all out for Sam and then sends his wife to save his…whatever she is these days, Lee can hardly breath under the weight of all the conflicting emotions. But suddenly, breathing isn't as important anymore because he can see.
He sees the cycle, the need to hurt each other and the need to heal each other and he wonders if they would need healing at all if they didn't let the other wound so deeply. This noose that tethers them together is unbreakable, but maybe they don't have to hang by it.
IFin/I