Authors Note
Set after "Sine Qua Non" so spoilers for all of season 4 so far, including "Sine Qua Non". Big spoilers, oh yes. Read at your own risk.
Pairings : mainly Adama/Roslin implied, very slight Lee/Kara reference, even smaller Ellen/Tigh reference
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters what-so-ever, so please don't sue. If you're still keen on suing me, then do it over the story that you think is the best. Leave me a little bit of ego as I go to prison.
President Lee Adama stepped through the hatch hesitantly. He couldn't believe it. Had it really been a day since these quarters had become deserted? His father's quarters always used to radiate warmth and business. It was a comfortable place to just sit and relax, talking about the events of the day or just sitting in silence, mulling over thoughts with a drink or two.
As Lee's gaze swept over the furniture now, however, there was no warmth. It seemed to have left with his father, and now just emptiness greeted him. The only source of light in the room came from a small lamp, sitting over on the table by the couch and armchairs. It barely illuminated the seating, perfect for intimate chats. Briefly, Lee wondered whether these chats were always with a certain woman, but figured it was best not to ask something he didn't want to know the answer to. There were questions that he didn't need to ask.
Files littered the coffee table in front, haphazardly strewn around, piling up precariously and balancing on one another. Moving forward slightly, Lee could barely make out the loopy, elegant handwriting of the former President. The files were nothing of interest, just Quorum reports and fuel supply charts. What interested Lee was that they were from weeks ago. Why had his father been perusing the contents of papers that were no longer of use to him? He noticed an untidy scrawl annotating the reports, his father's handwriting, placed lovingly alongside hers.
The position of the files meant that he had left in a hurry, Lee realised, as he slowly walked around the quarters, taking in everything around him. His father was really gone now; he wasn't going to step through that hatch for a while now, not until he'd completed his objective. An impossible objective, he thought bitterly, looking around. Anger fuelled him, pumping blood through his veins rapidly. He wanted to do something, anything to bring him back. His father was on a suicide run, and he knew it. Why didn't he shake him? Knock some sense into the Old Man? They had a fleet to look after, and now he was gone.
Glancing over at a table, he noticed a model ship, torn into pieces. The remains scattered the quarters, a piece of sail sitting uselessly on the couch, a piece of the deck crunching beneath Lee's feet. He looked up and a small smile spread on his face. Photo's hung from the walls, staring at him. This was a home, he decided. He felt at peace in these quarters. Photos of the former Admiral getting his wings, photos of him, Zak and Lee smiling near a viper, photos of him and Roslin ….
Lee looked wistfully around the quarters once more. They still had his presence, his commanding authority, but also his softness, his peace. Lee expected a voice to carry from the next room, a low reverberating voice, telling him to 'enter'. Yet no words greeted him as he moved further into the quarters, towards his father's desk. The chair behind caught his attention. An admiral's jacket hung precariously over the back of it, missing the pins. His hands softly touched it, remembering the texture, committing it to memory. As his hand continued its travels over the soft material, a voice spoke up from behind him.
"What the frak are you doing here?"
Lee's head snapped up at the sound and he craned his neck, squinting in the low light to see who had spoke, who had intruded upon his moment of comfort.
Saul Tigh was turning around, securely spinning the wheel and effectively locking them both in the room. He looked appraisingly at the young man, biting the inside of his cheek from making a short remark or tossing him out of the quarters. He wanted to hear what the president had to say for himself.
Lee stiffened imperceptibly, turning towards Tigh. He slowly and blindly moved his hand behind him, searching the desk for something, anything that could explain his presence. His hands slowly came into contact with a folder and he pulled it up behind him.
"Collecting reports for the Quorum meeting." He lied glibly, emphasising his sentence by brandishing the folder out from behind his back. Tigh smirked at him. He was a good liar, he'd give him that. Any other official would have believed him, but Tigh knew that he was lying, as that was the report that he himself had given the Old Man just hours before he had left. He didn't want to embarrass Lee further however, and decided to play along.
"That's the Admiral's job. I'll have it to you when necessary."
Lee's anger fuelled up again upon hearing the military title and the obvious implications. His voice rose slightly, condescending and mocking. He was this man's superior and he would not stand and listen to him parade his false title around.
"Will all due respect," Lee stated, although there was no respect within his words, "you're not the Admiral."
Tigh's smile dropped slightly, and his brow furrowed in annoyance. Two could play at this game.
"And you're not the President."
Silence greeted them as the words fell heavily on their shoulders. Their eyes met, both daring eachother to challenge authority. This must be how Roslin felt when she first met dad, Lee thought, glaring at the man opposite. Tigh's good eye remained on Lee, staring him out. There was no hate there, however, just curiosity. What had made Lee come into these quarters and defend himself so quickly?
He decided to break the animosity between them. Otherwise, this fleet is going to fall apart, he reasoned. Glancing once at the couch, he proceeded to talk to Lee.
"Sit down."
Lee's eyes widened slightly in surprise. There was no rebuke, no insults. He voiced his caution.
"Excuse me?"
"We can either sit down, share a drink and talk about this like real men, or we can stand here and continue this battle of logics."
Lee stood in silence for a minute, gauging what Tigh was offering. A truce? Saul didn't wait for an answer from him. Instead, he pushed past and went to a cabinet, pulling out two glasses and filling them generously with Bill's secret stash of liquor. When he turned around, he found Lee sitting on the couch, his posture slumped and his elbows resting on his knees. It wasn't the President in front of him, just Bill Adama's son.
Handing him a glass, Tigh sat himself in the armchair next to the couch. It was always his chosen place, he sat there during his chats with the former Admiral and during meetings held with Roslin and Adama. Those two always sat on the couch, at first on opposite ends, but as time went on, they seemed to start sitting closer to the middle, closer together. Tigh suspected something between them, but nothing that'd make The Old Man go off and-
"When will he be back?" Lee's voice grounded Tigh, whose thoughts were slowly moving towards where Bill was now. Tigh took a sip of his drink, his voice rough from CIC.
"When he finds her." He stated simply, looking around the quarters. He spotted small broken parts of a ship, and a sadness swept through him. His best friend had gone, leaving him in a frakking job he didn't want to begin with. Lee's head slowly rose, looking at the man in confusion.
"No, I mean what set time has he got before he rejoins the fleet?" he re-iterated, not sure if Tigh understood him the first time. No look of understanding passed behind Tigh's good eye, and Lee felt his heart sink. He knew the answer before Tigh could reply, and it hurt more when it was voiced;
"He hasn't."
Lee couldn't understand what his dad was possibly thinking. Something just wasn't right. He wouldn't give up the fleet and his command just to go chasing someone who probably would not be seen again. He held no hope for Roslin's return, no-one had. Just his father, and it had driven him to extreme measures.
"He's gone off in a raptor all by himself to chase a basestar through space? A basestar that could be on the other side of the nebula by now?" Lee needed clarification. It still refused to sink in. The situation they found themselves in was absurd.
"You got a problem with that?" Tigh asked, his focus on the drink held in his hand. Taking a long sip from it, he waited patiently for Lee to come to terms with what was going on. Frakking naive little boy, he thought, looking over at him.
"To be perfectly honest? Yes, yes I have. This fleet is being put at great risk for a personal reason and-" Lee started off meekly but soon his voice held political assuredness. However, he was cut off mid-rant.
"You're saying he's lost objectivity?" Tigh asked, amused. A small smile was playing about his lips as he asked it, knowing full well that Lee was starting to get flustered slightly.
"Yes I am." Lee concluded, knocking back his drink in one large gulp. He placed the glass down in amongst the files on the coffee table in front, careful not to rustle them from their previous positions.
"Maybe he has." Tigh agreed solemnly, his focus now on Lee and not his glass. He needed to prove a point to Lee, "however, when Starbuck went missing on that godsdamn planet, you and Bill never quit searching for her. It took intervention from your frakking superior to get you both to listen! And you're complaining and whining to me because your father has 'lost objectivity'?"
Lee contemplated the words coming out of Tigh's mouth, and yet he knew instantly there was difference. He and Starbuck were different.
"That was different, that was-"
"-love." Tigh finished abruptly, glaring at Lee. Bitterness always escaped him when they were on that topic. He knew morosely, that it would continue to do so.
Lee could do nothing more but sit there, stunned. He'd never admitted to himself that he loved Kara Thrace, and so to hear it from someone else's mouth completely brought him to a halt. How did he know?
Tigh seemed to sense the question and let out a dark chuckle, placing his half full glass down on the coffee table.
"Frak you thought you were subtle? The whole fleet knew about you two."
"I just … I-"
"Now if there was a chance that Ellen, gods rest her soul, was alive right now, I'd be the first to jump on a raptor to find her. If Starbuck was the one on that basestar, would you leave her? Huh?"
"He shouldn't have left for her." Lee stated, avoiding the question fully, "couldn't you have stopped him?"
"Bill Adama is a stubborn son of a bitch. Hell I didn't want these pins, not after last time. Yet here we are." Tigh replied, picking his drink back up and slowly rolling the glass in between his hands. The last time he was left in charge, he had royally screwed up, and yet here he was again, the same threat of permanent leadership placed on his shoulders. So why does it feel so different? he asked himself silently.
"He said he couldn't live without her." Lee stated, looking up suddenly.
"He'll find her then."
"And if he doesn't?"
"Then we should start to co-operate a bit better don't you think?" Tigh's comment brought a smile to Lee's face, but it disappeared quickly afterwards. The fact that his father had left still hadn't sunk in yet.
"He'd die for her?" Lee asked, looking towards the man opposite for some sort or confirmation. Tigh didn't know what to say. Yes, Bill would die for Roslin, no question about it. He couldn't bring himself to voice that thought, knowing that it would bring about the possibility that Bill would not come back.
"He'd travel the length of the universe for her. She must be one hell of a woman." Tigh replied, evading the question asked. Lee knew that he wasn't going to get an answer to his previous question and so decided to push on.
"I always suspected there was something there," Lee said honestly, "but their job titles-"
"-mean frak all now. He gave up his command, his passion, to find Laura frakking Roslin." There was a bitterness there, Lee could hear it. Tigh didn't like Roslin. Sure he had respected her back on New Caprica a bit, but he was wary of her. Bill was infatuated and she had managed in such a small amount of time to break his best friend, telling him of her cancer. He knew it was not her fault, but just seeing Bill in CIC or in his quarters, the sorrow in him was tangible, and Tigh hated that this woman managed to bring that out. And now, for him to run off in a raptor to find her?
"He's risking his life for a woman who is likely to die." Lee spoke up.
Tigh looked up, gauging his expression as the words came out. Lee was obviously in the same piece of mind as himself. The Admiral had left the fleet in search of a woman who was just going to break his heart.
"He doesn't see it that way. He's risking his life for a woman he loves." Tigh said evenly, knocking back the rest of the contents of his glass.
"Where does that leave us? The fleet?" Lee asked suddenly. His eyes were searching, pleading with him for some sort of clue as to where to go next, what to do. The honest answer was, Tigh had no idea. It was always Adama and Roslin that made the tough calls, decided what to do. Now it was down to him and Lee, and that thought alone scared him. He needed to remain strong.
"It leaves me as Admiral and you as President. Until Bill returns to his command, I'm going to see to it that this Fleet remains undamaged." Tigh stated evenly, conviction in his voice that Bill would come back. He just had to. With Roslin, yes. Bill Adama would rescue them all.
"So say we all." Lee spoke up, smiling slightly. His father would come back to them with the woman he loved, because he was a hero, and that's what heroes do.
A/N
Well I hope you liked it. It's not every day that you get a Tigh/Lee interaction so I thought I'd be different!! Reviews are welcome and appreciated.