Title: Reunion
Author: Choosing Sarah
Rated: M for mature content
Spoilers: Through Lay Down Your Burdens Part 2 (2x20) plus Unfinished Business (3x09)
Timeframe: Occurs six months after the Season 2 finale where it AUs.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Battlestar Galactica characters or stories (etc). No infringement is intended and no profit is made, but might I be so bold as to point out that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?
Summary: The Fleet takes back New Caprica, but the war is still in full force. As Lee and Kara make amends, they find a chance to redirect the future if they can only reconcile the past. KaraLee
Prologue Capture
The brightness burns through his eyelids as if they're made of glass. Perversely, the first thought to cross his mind is that he's gone blind—a terrible fate for the commander of a battlestar, to be sure, but a far worse one had Lee still been a pilot. He cannot move his body, cannot so much as look to left or right for Kara—Kara, who'd summoned him here with her precipitousness and still remained elusive. Instead he keeps his lids closed to save his eyes and stretches his other senses as best as he can.
He's been drugged, that much isn't difficult to ascertain, but even through his groggy state, it feels as though the cylon ship he'd walked into earlier that day—is it still the same day?—is still parked on New Caprica. At the very least the gravity that holds him to the hard table beneath him seems natural rather than artificial. It's impossible, though, to tell if he's still on the exact same cylon vessel he'd followed Kara into or even if they're on the same planet.
He'd only trailed her by a couple hours, knowing as he did that the armistice she'd posed in the Admiral's stead would only keep her alive for so long—gods! His jaw clenches at the thought. Even now, imprisoned by cylon captors, he's pissed at her for her godsdamned thoughtlessness. If only she'd let the marines do their frakkin' job, then neither one of them would be here now.
Abruptly he opens his eyes, which water immediately against the harsh light above him, around him, almost even inside him. Where the frak is she? He shouldn't have assumed she'd be near—just because the cylons brought her to him after he'd first come to establish diplomacy doesn't mean she's close by now. He shuts his eyes again, focuses all his energy on his throat, his lips and tongue.
"Kara!" he tries to yell and finally breathes weakly.
He senses movement somewhere near his head. Blessedly, the burning light dims, and a shape forms in front of his eyes.
"Commander Adama," it says, stiff in its politeness. It's a voice he never knew particularly well. Even with the vague form above him, he almost can't place it.
"Gaeta?" Lee manages, the question carried in the word acute.
"That's right," the other man continues, his voice detached even though he must realize Lee is drugged to the gills and holds the biggest secret Gaeta could have—which is itself the biggest secret and the best chance the decimated Colonial Fleet has going.
"What is—What the frak?" talking's not quite so difficult when he doesn't have to block out the blazing sun above him, but he still has trouble finding his words. "I—this is—we took out the basestars. We have New Caprica." He catches the other man's eye as carefully as he can, not knowing if he's even able to act surreptitiously at this point. "We called for an armistice."
Above him, Gaeta swallows and quickly diverts his attention elsewhere. Lee hopes his charged use of the word 'armistice' and Gaeta's reaction to it isn't as obvious to the cylons as it is to him.
Gaeta fiddles with some instruments or maybe controls on the side of the table—gurney?—Lee's lying on. "We know of the Fleet's control of New Caprican airspace, but I doubt you've completely overtaken cylon ground forces. It's only been eight hours since the last basestar fell," he says, and Lee is grateful to be given the timeframe. "And I worked under Admiral Adama for years," Gaeta begins again cautiously. "It seems unlikely he would seek peace with cylons. I know the cylons who allow us to work within the safety of the base must agree."
Lee narrows his gaze at the former lieutenant as best he can. Even knowing what he does, it's difficult to trust Gaeta's intentions when he plays the part of collaborator so well. "'Peace is a conversation.' Isn't that what Olirre used to say?"
Gaeta moves out of his direct line of sight—not that Lee could see much of him anyway, not with the backlighting—but Lee can still make out his shadow, can tell he's moving around. "I wouldn't have thought a Caprican to be so well versed in the works of an Aerlon Dissenter."
Again, Lee tries to gain a look around the room, but there's no way to decipher who (or what) else might be in there with him and Gaeta. Kara could be across the solar system for all he knows, and a hundred cylons might surround them. "I guess people can surprise you."
"True," Gaeta replies, and Lee sees a brief movement that seems to be the other man's nod. The idea is confirmed when Gaeta steps a little closer, back into view. "I know everyone on base was surprised to see Captain Thrace surrender at the outward perimeter," and when Gaeta speaks her name, he gestures to Lee's other side, as if unconsciously. Suddenly, Lee realizes she's been beside him all along.
Lee finds himself blinking rapidly, trying not to let the new data or his gratitude for it overwhelm him. "Well," he tries to shrug one shoulder, but it's too firmly secured to the table at his back. "You know Kara." His eyelids shut heavily over his gaze, without his leave to do so. It's as if saying her name aloud holds too much power over him now that Gaeta's confirmed she's alive and near.
"Not really," Gaeta moves around the table Lee's strapped to, flicking switches, moving dials, and finally shuffling towards where Kara must lay. "The only thing I ever really knew about Starbuck was that she always took too many chances."
Lee's lips try to rise at the irony. "Some chances are worth taking," he finally says.
Gaeta appears in front of him again without warning, tightens one of the straps holding Lee's head to the hard table beneath him. "Maybe," the former lieutenant allows, "but most aren't."
The shadows deepening Gaeta's features suddenly seem ominous when he leans over Lee. What if his father had been wrong? What if Gaeta had really been a collaborator all these months? What if the Fleet's call for armistice, however facetiously and calculated it truly was, hadn't been a product of Gaeta's work for the Admiral but had been a cylon machination from the beginning? What if the Fleet were truly at risk from this planet's last cylon stronghold? Lee can feel his blood pressure rise as the questions mount in his mind. What if he and Kara die for nothing?
But then Gaeta narrows the width of his mouth—as if to control his breathing. And he stills, as if unsure what to say. Eventually, the words he speaks are anticlimactic in their ordinariness, "I'll be ready to wake you up," he clears his throat as if a word had gotten stuck within, "later. I'll be ready to wake you up later," he repeats hurriedly.
No sooner does he finish speaking than Lee falls asleep.
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The screams that wake her up are her own. Kara realizes why she's yelling less than a second later—she's strapped down. Gods she's strapped down. She can't move a frakking muscle, can't even breathe deep. Oh gods, oh gods, please! Please, please, please! she begs within her own mind even as her voice keeps screaming without form.
"Can't you shut her up, already?" a harsh voice yells amid her screams, perhaps not for the first time.
"I had to wake her up to get a baseline," a second's tone, almost recognizable, begins more tentatively. "If I add another sedative now, it might limit the effectiveness of the experiment."
"Let me go! Let me go!" she hollers, the familiarity of the second voice spurring her own into words.
"Perhaps if we'd woken them at the same time—" that voice begins, only to be cut off by the first speaker, a woman with a distinctly Virgonese accent:
"Too late for that now," she says. Oddly, that brief phrase lets Kara recognize her first—she's a cylon. That frakkin' cylon reporter. Frakkin' cylon bitch!
"What the frak are you doing? Let me go!" Kara demands. "Let me go!" she nearly sobs the words.
"Pathetic," the frakking cylon dismisses her. "At least Commander Adama went quietly," she finishes smugly.
Lee, his name narrows her worries down to grief. Oh gods Lee's here, her memory rapidly spools through the battle for New Caprica, the brief but limited victory of the Fleet, and the chance she'd seen to better the Admiral's plan—to get their mole out, to steal cylon secrets. I brought Lee here. She thinks again, I brought this onto Lee.
"Maybe if we angle her head for a moment to see him she'll—"
"An excellent idea, Mr. Gaeta," the cylon bitch interrupts, at once effectively identifying the man's voice for Starbuck and seeming to take far too much pleasure in the idea of presenting Kara with Lee.
Clammy, male—human—hands settle about her face and loosen the hold of the metal across her chin and forehead. She twists her neck and finds Lee right away on a gurney beside her—so still. She's never seen him so unmoving, not when he crashed after nearly six days of no sleep just after the end of the worlds, not in the aftermath from when they'd fallen into bed together that night. She watches him, so still, and can't even breathe until she notes the slight motion of his chest beneath the cocoon of restraints the cylons have him contained by.
"Lee," she breathes his name as an apology, even while she has to squint against the brutal sting his name invokes. If he hadn't hated her before, he should now—if he lives long enough to do so.
"Take a good look, Captain Thrace," the cylon taunts as she steps up beside Lee, as she slides her fingers from his hip up his chest and into his hair. "He's whole for the moment, but he needn't be for our purposes," she concludes and then nods above Kara.
Kara doesn't look away from Lee—can't—not until heavy hands—frak they're Gaeta's hands—try to force her head back in position. "Please just one more minute," she begs in a whisper, and Gaeta doesn't immediately capitulate—frakkin' lapdog doesn't let her loose until the cylon bitch consents:
"Very well. Finish the preparations before you strap her back in," she directs the lapdog.
Kara breathes out heavily, regret filling her as her eyes fill up on Lee Adama. Gods did she frak it up this time. She should've let Sergeant Biggs do his duty, to call for the armistice and die with the honor such an important task would afford. She never even knew who the frakkin' mole was. How had she expected to get him out? So stupid. She'd only wanted to do something right by the Adamas for once. She'd only wanted to give something back to them. Now look what she's taking away.
Her thoughts scatter, incomplete. They're drugging her, she knows. She doesn't have much time left. Gods, please. She keeps her eyes to Lee instead of closing her lids like she usually does when she prays. Please make this right. Let me make this right, she barely completes her plea when a loud rumbling—something like a bomb exploding—resonates from above the room.
"What?" the cylon bitch seems to yell through the tiers of unconsciousness Kara's quickly slipping beneath. "Turn if off, Gaeta!" the cylon screams. "For God's sake turn it off, so we can get out of here before Baltar's little invention kills us all!"
A scurry of movement, both fabric and metal, commence in panicked layers. She watches, almost disconnected from the moment, as Gaeta rushes to a console between her and Lee, pressing buttons, typing data.
"Kara," she sees her name come from Lee's lips.
"Lee," she tries to answer back, and she just barely has time to wonder if they've been saved or damned because there's no one even to ask before the darkness envelopes her and takes her away.
Chapter 1 Home
"Aren't you awake yet?" The soft tones of his mother reach him in the dark.
"Mom?" Lee tries to relax further into unconsciousness, to hold onto whatever dream he's having. He hears the pattern of shift and scratch as someone walks toward him.
"Lee? Lee." A gentle shake finally wakes him completely and brings him to pry open his lids. But instead of Pegasus' ceiling staring him in the face, it's his mother eyes.
"Mom?" He reaches out a hand, sure that her image will dissipate with his touch. "What's going on?" No sooner does he ask than the memory of his circumstances on the cylon ship on New Caprica return, of Gaeta—both traitor and savior, of the Armistice Operation set in place to take out the cylons' ability to pursue the Fleet, of waking up twice on a gurney—first to the coldness of calculations he feared he might not have been a part of and second to vague sounds of battle confusion and artillery. Last he recalls the memory of Kara's voice, calling to him as oblivion overtook him again.
"You must have forgotten to set your alarm." His mom brushes back his hair. "Michael and Jason will be here to pick you up any minute."
"Who?" For a second the names mean nothing to him.
"Your trip to Tauron. Your last hurrah before War College?" she says a little more wryly.
"Michael Jessup and Jason Saracen." The memory returns to him abruptly. "They were my friends at the Academy."
"So you've told me." Caroline Adama smiles. "You better hurry or you won't make your flight." She turns to leave.
"Mom?" Lee sits up and surveys the room, seeing his designated room in his mother's house. "How did I get here, back on Caprica?" His gaze returns to Caroline. "How did you survive?"
"Survive?" Even in the dark, Lee can see his mother's eyes widen in concern. "What are you talking about Lee? Did you hit your head?"
"No, no." He watches his mother sit on the bed and reach for his face. "I just…" He swallows, considering the unreality of the situation. "I think I had a nightmare." And for a moment Lee can almost believe that the last three years had been just that—only that. He shakes off the seductiveness of the idea with a shake of his head. "Where's Dad?"
Caroline immediately straightens and looks away. "I imagine he's on the Galactica. I haven't spoken to him since the last court hearing."
"I've got to talk to him," he says, mostly to himself.
When his mother quickly turns back to him, Lee realizes the strangeness of his announcement, or rather how strange such an announcement would be if he were actually speaking to his mother. "I…Its about work."
"I—I'm happy," she stutters, "If you're speaking to your father again. You know we both love you very much, and that's never going to change."
He and Zak had rolled their eyes to this same speech more than once after their parents announced their decision to divorce. "Mom, I'm nearly thirty."
"Lee Adama, you're twenty-two years old. As your mother, I can assure you that is most certainly not 'nearly thirty'."
"Twenty-two?" He'd been twenty-five when Zak died. If he were really twenty-two now, did that mean… "Zak?"
"His classes start Monday if that's what you're asking." Caroline grabs his hand. "Maybe I should take you to the emergency room."
"No." Lee holds her grip and looks at her—really looks at his mother, and lets himself believe—could it be possible? "Mom. I'm all right, but I'm going to cancel my trip to Tauron. I'm going to go see Zak instead."
Caroline's hand relaxes slightly in his. "I think that's a good idea. I know it's his sophomore year, but it's his first year without you there to guide him. That campus is so big. In any case, I worry less when the two of you are together."
She barely finishes speaking when he opens his mouth again. "I love you, Mom." That must've sounded as abrupt as it felt—Caroline crinkles her brow a moment, but then she simply smiles.
"I love you, too, pumpkin." And when she hugs him, she still smells like lilacs.
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Kara wakes at once, with no desire to linger in sleep. She sits up immediately, tears the covers off her legs to stand and be rid of anything that would hold her down. It's only then, as she can freely move and look about the room that she really takes the chance to breathe in, calm down.
The small bedroom and soft light make for only vaguely familiar surroundings to her in her frantic state. She turns to the bedside table, freezes when she sees the picture of her dad and her leaning against a table lamp. It had been taken just before her eighth birthday on one of his last regular visits to see her. She'd burned it when she'd heard from a radio announcer that he died—over five years ago.
It has to be a copy. She picks up the picture, breaks the frame to get it out. She flips it to the back and there, in bold red lettering, is her father's handwriting, A winter's day with my snow angel. "What the frak?" she asks aloud. She throws the picture on the bed and backs away, clawing for the closet behind her so she can grab the tire iron leaning against the wall. It isn't until she opens the bedroom door that she realizes how she knew the tire iron was there: She's in her old apartment. On Picon.
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Lee hasn't even found his luggage when he hears a low familiar voice behind him. "You crazy motherfrakker, what are you doing here?"
"Zak," Lee says his name like it's as breakable as the man who held it. A young and skinny Zak Adama strides over to his big brother. He gives Lee a brief hug and would've moved away after two pats on the back, but Lee holds on.
When Lee finally lets his little brother go, he notes a worried look on Zak's face. "What's wrong? Mom said you'd been acting weird."
Lee simply smiles through a shrug and keeps his eye on his brother. Zak leads him through the airport, all the while detailing the stats of his new roommate's "utterly hot" girlfriend as they trudge towards the old junker Lee bought when he was a junior at the academy. He'd given it to Zak after graduation. The little coup is exactly the same—right down to the miniature island dancer on the dash.
Lee watches his brother drive through familiar streets, streets that should've been annihilated years ago by the nukes directed at Fleet Headquarters, near the colonial military academy they'd both attended. It's already evening on this side of Picon, and the planet's three moons shimmer in the bay as Zak takes the bridge over to the campus. Still everything Lee sees on this trip, everything he's seen since he woke up and saw his mother, is more plausible than finding Zak, alive and jabbering, like he always does in Lee's memories and dreams. Lee shakes his head. "It isn't real," he whispers to himself.
"Did you say something, bro?" Zak interrupts his debate with himself on the girlfriend's possible measurements.
"Umm," Lee thinks but can't pick up on that thread in the conversation, so he changes the subject. "Have you talked to Dad lately?"
A look of incredulity is Zak's first response. "Are you serious?"
Lee shrugs. "Yeah. Why?"
"Why? Oh maybe because six months ago you told me not to mention that we had a father unless it was absolutely necessary."
"I know what I said, Zak," Lee nearly stutters his brother's name, a reflex atrophied through lack of use. "I just need to talk to him."
"Did something happen?" His little brother looks suddenly so concerned. He always used to do that, Lee remembers in a flash. Zak could switch gears at the speed of sound. "Is there something you don't want to tell Mom about?" Zak asks.
Lee shakes his head, then stops, just looking at Zak. "Everything's OK, I just…" He clears his throat. What if it is real? What if there's even the slightest chance? "I'm not sure what's happened," Lee confesses. "I just need to talk to Dad."
Zak nods as he pulls into the only parking space left on the block, respecting Lee's privacy—for now. He was always the nosiest little SOB when it came to Lee's secrets. "Galactica's taking part in war games somewhere near the Clusterfrak at Geminon," Zak informs him.
"Does anybody actually know the name of that nebula?" The brothers exchange grins.
"Nobody in my year anyway." Zak retrieves Lee's duffle from the trunk.
Lee's lips fall at that pronouncement. "That's right you're a sophomore." He grabs his bag from Zak's outstretched hand. How the hell is Lee going to meet Starbuck if Zak doesn't know her already?
Zak rolls his eyes. "Everybody's got to start somewhere. Don't start that 'I'm older than you and know so much better' crap."
"No, no, nothing like that." Lee shakes his head, trailing behind Zak as he leads toward the underclassman dorms. "It's just that you don't start basic flight for another year and a half." Zak's look of puzzlement causes him to continue. "It's just that there's this instructor, but you wouldn't have met her yet."
"Is she good?"
Lee chuckles. "She's a force of nature."
"What's her name?" Zak ushers Lee through the double doors of the dorm entrance.
"Kara," he speaks on a sigh, adjusting the weight of his bag. "Kara Thrace."
"Oh it's like that?" A grin emphasizes the connotation.
"What? No! Of course not!" he flusters. "Get your mind out of the gutter!"
Zak eyes him dubiously. "Is she somehow in your chain of command?"
"No," Lee strives for casual. When Zak continues to watch him, Lee elaborates, "Kara is more your speed than mine."
Zak nods and looks away. He seems not to notice when Lee changes the subject to ask about Zak's class assignments, but Lee knows he is aware.
They barely get through the dorm lobby when a cute little brunette eyes his brother up and down, posing invitingly in her room's doorframe. "Hey Zak, are we still going to Chalmer's tonight?"
Zak eyes her right back, then looks to Lee before turning back to the girl. "My brother just got back in town."
"Don't change your plans because of me," Lee is quick to interject.
The younger Adama winces. "Well, I don't want to leave you when you came to see me, and it's not really your scene," Zak explains. "It's a dance club, not a jazz bar."
"No, I'm cool with it." He'd enjoyed Chalmer's many times before with Kara or Zak or both. "I've been there."
The brunette shakes her head at Lee, a frown on her pretty face. "How could you have been there? It just opened up two weeks ago."
Lee clears his throat. "I meant metaphorically."
Zak exchanges a glance with the girl, and Lee realizes he knows her. Her name is Rachel. She'd been Zak's on-again, off-again girlfriend until he met Kara.
Zak shrugs and smiles. "If you want to go slumming with a bunch of sophomores…" He grins, but thankfully leaves it at that. "We're going to go get ready." Zak indicates Lee, and when he leans in to kiss his girl, Lee moves down the hallway to get out of their way. He hears his brother follow him, but then Rachel calls Zak's name.
Zak's only a couple paces behind Lee when she asks, "Are you done with that Military Tactics book I gave you?"
Zak shifts his feet before answering. "Um, yeah," he looks at Lee, "Give me a minute, and I'll bring it right down."
Lee and Zak take the stairs to the fifth floor, passing all tastes of music and at least one flooded bathroom. No sooner do they reach Zak's room, than he ransacks it and hurries out the door. "I'll be right back," he calls over his shoulder.
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Kara looks at the underclassman dormitory. The directory listed it as Zak Adama's residence. She's never been here before. He'd already moved out by the time he'd met her. "He's alive," she tries to convince herself. "He has to be alive because you're not even a flight instructor yet, and you've never even met him." She imagines she must look crazy sitting on the curb across the street from the building talking to herself.
If only Lee had been at his mother's house when she called. Then she'd at least know if she is in this alone or not. Earlier she'd prayed that whatever the cylons had done to put her here, they did to Lee too. She'd felt so guilty afterward, but couldn't bring herself to take it back, couldn't stand the idea of being adrift in the past without a tether to cling to. "Please be here Lee." She stands and fishes her cell phone from her pocket. "Please remember me," she says a little more softly and steels herself for hearing Zak's voice.
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Lee studies his brother's dorm room. Zak's roommate isn't in, but he's left his mess all over the carpet. The sloppiness of his belongings had always epitomized his character, Lee quickly remembers. It had gotten Zak in trouble on more than one surprise inspection, and Lee had never been able to tolerate the roommate as a result. Lee stands there for a long moment trying to remember the man's name. Then in lieu of that, he tries to remember if he's supposed to know it. The phone rings. He peers in the hall, but Zak is nowhere in sight. He picks up the receiver, nearly answers as 'Commander Adama,' recalling just in time that he isn't. "Hello?"
"Lee?" the voice is emphatic, without pause.
"Kara?" he responds automatically. It occurs to him a moment later that if events are as they appear, then the two of them shouldn't have met yet.
Kara recovers first. "So, Apollo. What the frak is going on?"
"Where are you?" He has to know, has to see her.
"I'm outside. I couldn't…" she trails off. "I just couldn't."
"It's OK. I know. Stay there, I'm coming." He doesn't bother saying goodbye. He just runs for Starbuck.
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He's coming. She shuts her eyes and closes her phone. "Thank you Lords of Kobol." Kara takes a deep breath, peers into the lobby through the picture window, and opens the front door to the building. She doesn't know what direction Lee will come from, so she makes sure she's visible from all angles. She keeps her ears open for his footsteps and waits.
Her feet are planted next to a dilapidated plastic tree that she doubts she could identify if she were a botanist. And then she hears His voice—Zak's voice—he is somewhere close by, probably in a dorm room and definitely in the middle of an argument. She has to find him, has to see him talking, walking, gods—just breathing. Numbly, she follows the sound down the hallway to an open doorway. And there's Zak Adama, in tanks and sneakers having his particular type of conversation with a delicate-looking brunette, just his kind of woman before he'd met her. He takes her breath away.
"Why the hell is your tight-ass brother coming tonight anyway?" the girl yells at Zak. Before he can respond, Kara hears herself speak,
"You have got to be talking about Lee Adama."
Zak startles at the sound of her voice. He turns to her, a scathing comment on his lips she's sure, until he notes the bar on her uniform. He narrows his eyes at her instead. "Do you know my brother, sir?"
"Yeah." You introduced me to him. "I know Lee." She leans against the doorframe and watches Zak Adama take two steps toward her, a gleam beginning in his eye as it roams from her face down. Despite the pleasure she takes in seeing his beautiful body moving and shifting in front of her, and despite the fact that he's less than a meter away, the clearest emotion she feels at this moment is the loss of him. On his way back up, Zak catches sight of her name printed so neatly on her breast pocket, and, oddly, he backs off.
"Lieutenant Kara Thrace," his voice is polite but warm, inviting.
She searches his eyes. "You've heard of me." Does she sound too hopeful, she wonders?
"Lee told me you're a flight instructor."
Her stomach clenches at his words like they're an accusation. "Um, no." She looks down, can't quite meet his gaze. "But I will be by the end of the semester."
"Lee also said you're a force of nature, sir."
The description catches her off-guard, tricks her into looking back into Zak's face. "Call me Kara, Cadet," she tells him, feeling like she's stepping back into herself after a brief respite.
He stretches out his hand to her. "Zak."
She shakes the hand briefly, snatches her hand back, but then doesn't quite know what to do with it.
"Kara!" Lee's voice calls to her from down the hall.
"Lee!" she yells back, running to him before she knows it. She whispers when he grabs her, "Oh gods, Lee!" And Lee Adama folds her in his arms with a warmth she hasn't felt from him since she left his bed for someone else's. She hides her face against his chest to discourage tears or at least to hide them. He strokes her chin-length hair and calms her heart beating so furiously in her chest.
"It's so good to see you," she emphasizes, but he hasn't spoken another word. He puts his hands on either side of her face and gently tugs. Kara lets him guide her eyes to his. She finally sees his face. "You're so young," she gasps, tracing the corner of his eye where the little worry wrinkles were starting to appear back in their real life. He smiles, but remains eerily silent, panicking her into feeling she's all alone again, like when she woke up this morning, but somehow worse. She slides her fingers to the side of his face, pinching his ear hard. "Frakkin' talk to me Apollo!"
He winces and slaps her fingers. "Aah! Son of a toaster, Starbuck!" She breathes deeply again. "Must you always resort to violence?"
"I must," she affirms with a grin. "I really must." The kindness of his smile captures her completely. Then the shuffling of feet behind her distracts them both, and Lee lets go of her like she's fire.
She turns to see Zak walking—actually walking—towards them, and she reaches for Lee's hand with both of hers, her only grip on reality. She can see Lee turn to her out of the corner of her eye before refocusing on his brother. "Kara Thrace," Lee indicates her with his free hand, "this is Zak Adama—my brother and one of the best men I've ever known."
"Thanks Lee." Zak's eyes shoot from her to Lee at this pronouncement, and Kara knows it's because he'd never felt good enough to even be Lee Adama's kid brother, let alone someone Lee could admire. "Kara and I already met," Zak announces, and Kara can feel Lee's hand tense beneath hers. "She introduced herself about two minutes ago. Oh but," he indicates the girl he'd been arguing with, "I didn't get to introduce my friend. This is Cadet Rachel Terrence."
"Sir." Rachel nods to her.
Kara shakes her head. "It's Starbuck." She looks between Rachel and Zak, finally connecting her name with an old memory. "Or you can call me Kara."
"Kara." Rachel smiles at her, such a wide smile to give a stranger. "A group of us are going to Chalmer's tonight if you want to come." The Cadet sneaks a look at Lee. "Zak already talked Lieutenant Adama into going."
"Lieutenant Adama?" Kara raises her eyebrow at Lee, who just shrugs. "If you're as good a friend of Zak's as I think you are, you need to call this hemorrhoid on a cylon's ass Lee."
Rachel tries not to laugh. Kara can see it in the way the other woman's ears turn red before she finally gives into a guffaw. The girl looks to Lee in horror. "I'm so sorry, sir, I just—"
Lee waves her off. "It's OK. Kara's right."
Kara exhales and smiles through her teeth. "If only there were a way to laminate those words."
Lee puts his nose to hers. "And yet," he smirks and whispers, "there's not." Kara bites her bottom lip in a vain attempt to contain her smile at the lack of pretence between them. Lee's eyes check the motion. Then he blinks slowly and backs away. "I…" Lee clears his throat, maybe his vision too, before looking up at Zak. "Somehow I doubt that Starbuck even owns a dress."
She socks his arm. "Hey!" He uses her preoccupation to slide his fingers from hers. Starbuck's brow automatically furrows at the loss of his warmth. When she looks up, she notes Zak very carefully following the byplay. Her cheeks heat with guilt before she can remember he doesn't even know her. "I'll have you know I own several dresses, Lee Adama. All of them earned in some hard-won games of triad."
The only recognition Lee gives her joke is a look both cool and fleeting, but across from them Rachel and Zak start chuckling. Kara laughs with them, but in reflex, not in humor.
"I think this is where we separate." Zak motions to Lee when the laughter dies. "You're coming with us, right, Kara?"
She starts when he says her name. "Right Zak." She points toward the front door. "I'll just go home and change, and I'll meet you there."
Lee grabs her hand as she moves away. His grip is hard, but his thumb moves in a caress that's so light over her wrist, she has to stretch her awareness as far as she can to keep feeling it. "Kara," he says. And she tries not to hear any promises in the way he says her name.
Slowly, she looks up and meets his gaze. "Later," she answers automatically, but he doesn't let go. His eyes search hers, concern shining clearly, like he hadn't just discarded her hand like it had hurt him to hold it. She smiles, oddly reassured by his need for assurance. She turns to Rachel. And Zak. "23:30?"
"Yes," Lee affirms, loosening his grasp, sliding his grip down her hand. She squeezes his fingers, and then, like always, Lee Adama lets her walk away.