One of the first things they did in boot camp was tell you that you would be sharing a locker. By the end of boot camp, there'd be plenty of empty lockers, but at first, everyone doubled up. Kara's first lockermate was a girl named Amy, who washed out in the first week. She enjoyed the freedom of having her own locker, messy as it was, for two entire days. She came back at the end of a very long day to find her locker neat and tidy, her discarded clothes folded and stacked, her books upright and all facing the same direction. She just stared for a few seconds, before realizing that the other half of the locker was now taken up again - she wasn't alone anymore. She shrugged and tossed her stuff into her locker willy-nilly anyway. For four days, she didn't see her lockermate; she didn't know if they were in different squadrons (entirely possible if whoever it was had started a week later) or if he or she was just in a different training track.
On the fifth day, she came back to her locker to find someone kneeling in front of it. He was big, or more accurately, tall. He was straightening up the locker, which she had made a point of not doing, and when she came up behind him, he turned on the pads of his feet and grinned up at her.
"You Thrace?" He held out his hand. "Agathon. Karl C."
His open, friendly smile turned her stomach upside-down, and she refused to examine why, but she didn't like it. So she shook his hand, curtly answering, "Thrace, Kara," and tossing her books into the bottom of her side of the locker. He didn't bat an eye.
This continued for about a week: their paths crossed minimally, and when they did, he'd smile and she'd wish she was immune, and she'd be a bitch because she couldn't handle whatever he was doing to her. And their locker stayed neat.
Finally, that puzzle drove her to ask him, "Why do you do that? You have to know I'm doing it on purpose now."
"I know. Doesn't bother me, I guess."
"What is it you want?"
"Nothing. It's not like it costs me anything to spend a few minutes keeping it all neat."
"Everybody wants something, Agathon, Karl C."
He looked up at her, his smile faltering just the tiniest bit. She wondered first if he knew that while his smile in general made her fuzzy, when he smiled up at her it made her want to tackle him to the ground and frak him. Then she wondered what she'd said that hit too close to home. She didn't like it that she'd somehow dimmed his good humor.
"Maybe everybody else has always wanted something from you. I'm only trying to be your friend."
She frowned at him. Friend? Even her friends had always wanted something.
"Haven't you ever had a friend before?" He stood, and she'd been right. Upright, he towered over her. Oddly made her feel safe standing next to him.
"Of course I've had friends! What kind of person doesn't have friends?" Not that she'd ever been sorry to see any of them go. She was beginning to feel like Agathon, Karl C might be the exception. In more than one way.
He shrugged. "Dunno."
"Well, I don't like feeling like I owe you something, so what do you want?" Belligerent. Cold.
His gaze roamed her face carefully for a long enough beat that she nearly squirmed under his scrutiny. "If you don't like feeling beholden to someone, that's your baggage. But I do need a sparring partner, and could use a study buddy."
Okay. Quid pro quo. That, she could handle. Finally, for the first time, she smiled at him - UP at him. "You've got yourself a deal, Agathon, Karl C."
"Nice to finally meet you, Thrace, Kara."
She laughed, genuine and unfettered, for the first time in recent memory.