This will be a series of stand-alone stories which deal with the choices that the characters on Battlestar Galactica have made throughout the first half of the second season (I'll be posting in as much of the order of the season as I can). I want to explore what would have happened/changed if things had gone differently. Some of the stories will be angst, some will be shippy, some will be funny. There will be different pairings throughout. Don't feel like you have to check out each one to understand the others. All I ask is that if it intrigues you, then give it a try. Hope you enjoy reading the stories as much as I enjoyed writing them!
There are pivotal moments in one's life where if you take the wrong path everything may change. Those changes may be for the good or for the bad. The possibilities are endless.
It had taken Dee one shared look and one hell of a kiss to know that she had found something worth hanging on to.
Too bad it also took one shared look and one hell of a kiss to figure out she was probably in for the fight of her life.
When the blast from the communications panel sent her to the sickbay with light burns to her hands, Dee felt like it was the end of her world. She had developed this unexplained need to be in the thick of the action. It was almost as if she needed her job in the CIC to prove she was still alive. With that gone, her life was a mass of confusion. She had silently scolded herself for being so weak that a small electronic malfunction could take her out of the action.
By some miracle, Dee had looked up from her bed to see Captain Lee Adama leaning heavily on his best pilot as Kara Thrace did all she could to pull his dead weight into sickbay. Somehow she knew if Apollo could fall, then she might not be so weak.
Doc Cottle had put Lee in the bed next to her. He said that it would help the Captain. Lee Adama needed a kindred soul of frustration with which he could loudly air his grievances. Dee had smiled and nodded, secretly glad. It would be nice to spend some time with Lee outside the normal circumstances. At the time, she didn't dare to let herself imagine why.
The whole sickbay began to fill up with people affected by the attacks of the Cylon virus. Dee's slight burns and Lee's small bout of oxygen deprivation were classified as minor injuries, and Cottle released them with the strict order to keep off active status. Lee had immediately complained that there was nothing to do on this ship if you weren't in the air. His words stuck with her.
Dee came up with something for them to do rather quickly. At the time, she figured she had done it to keep the CAG from going insane. Now she knew that she just wanted to spend more time with him.
The Chief was happy to have their help on building his new fighter ship from scratch. Plus, with her communications skills and Lee's inborn understanding of what makes a ship fly, the ship came together in no time at all. The question of who would pilot the first run went unanswered for days. Everyone knew it was suicide. Dee realized that should have been a hint.
Regardless of her initial denial, Dee was still the second person to find out someone had finally volunteered, even if it was purely by mistake.
She had been under the Blackbird checking the wiring for flaws when she heard a pair of raised voices. Wheeling out an inch, she saw Starbuck and Apollo arguing in the far corner of the hangar bay. Lee looked like he was about to punch her.
That was when it all made sense. Starbuck was the only pilot crazy enough to fly a man-made ship into space and Apollo was just stupid enough to try to forbid her. She watched them argue for another few minutes, the anger in their voices becoming louder. Then, out of nowhere, Kara Thrace broke down in tears. Later, Dee would wonder what Lee had said to her.
It didn't surprise Dee when she saw the CAG reach out to comfort Kara. She had always expected the two of them had something going on under the surface. It was just her own silly imagination that thought Lee had been sending her signals the past week or so. There was no way he could be in love with Starbuck and still attracted to a small, quiet girl like her.
Dee had wheeled herself back under the Blackbird and tried to not be upset for breaking things off with Billy earlier that day. She had thought it was the right decision, what with the way things between her and Lee were progressing. Now she wasn't so sure.
Her doubts were erased from her mind exactly three hours and twenty-nine minutes later. She had been trying to keep Lee from exploding with worry as Starbuck went through the pre-flight checks. He kept muttering something about how he should be the one out there watching her back. Dee told him Starbuck probably wanted him out there just as much as he did, but it couldn't happen. She also pointed out that Kara Thrace was one of the best pilots they had. She could handle the new stealth ship.
They were side-by-side when Starbuck's whoop of triumph resounded through the whole ship. The Blackbird had found its wings without a "god" by its side. Cheering and applause echoed off the walls of the hangar, and the whole ship let their worries go for a moment. Dee couldn't say who was more surprised, herself or Lee, when they found themselves kissing as everyone around them celebrated. All Dee could think was maybe she had been wrong about Starbuck and Apollo.
From that moment on, she didn't doubt the attraction she and Lee had with one another. It crackled in the air around them.
Their relationship was a simple one. When he had down time, he would work his magic and get someone to cover her CIC shift. When she wasn't at the comm boards, she would take the time to help him figure out the next week's flight rotations. She liked how he always told her it was easy to get his work done when she helped. They worked well together as a team.
Lee took her to Cloud 9. She showed him the observation deck on Level C. He surprised her with little gifts such as an orange or a new perfume. She helped him find his stuff when the pilots decided to play another practical joke on their by-the-book CAG. They were on equal footing.
Dee had thought life was pretty easy to understand. She had a boyfriend who didn't make her feel like she was just settling for what everyone expected. Her job returned to normal as soon as her hands healed up. President Roslin even stopped looking at her in disdain. It hadn't occurred to Dee how hard it must have been when the girlfriend of her presidential aide suddenly become the girlfriend of her military advisor. Somehow, things got past the weird stage quickly. Everything was normal. She never once considered Kara Thrace a threat to this happiness. Starbuck had her own issues she was working through.
Then, that all changed.
Starbuck had a close call with a Cylon Raider, and upon exiting her Viper, the CAG chased her out of the hangar bay with screams of how stupid and reckless she was being. It was their normal routine which was why Dee didn't feel she was intruding upon anything when she chose to follow them. The two-day pass for her and Lee on Cloud 9 just got approved, and this was probably the only moment in the next few days that she would have the chance to tell him.
Dee got close enough that she could hear Starbuck yelling at Lee. It seemed Kara Thrace was mad at him for being oblivious to the fact she almost died out there. Lee's face lost all its color as he asked her what she meant. Dee pushed herself back against the side of the corridor. Starbuck was beginning to explain exactly what was wrong out there, and it felt incredibly private to Dee.
She knew she should probably leave before either pilot saw her. Her news could wait until a better time. Yet Dee found herself unable to move. Those long-buried doubts were beginning to rear their ugly heads as Kara asked Lee why he never seemed to understand that she didn't ask for these close calls. Lee's answer would haunt Dee for days.
"Because I can't let myself believe that you could die. I need you here with me, Kara. I always have."
Dee had to clamp a hand over her mouth as she watched Kara pull her boyfriend into a rather heated embrace.
She forced herself to back down the corridor, out of sight. She didn't have to stay to know Lee pulled himself away from Starbuck, to know that the embrace ended in a few awkward words. It might have been naïve of her, but she couldn't let herself imagine it ending any other way.
As she stepped into her bunkroom, Dee laughed at the simple irony of it all. She and Lee might be the perfect team on the ground, but in the sky, the very place Lee Adama's heart rested, it was Starbuck who was his perfect compliment.
Dee waited until Starbuck jumped down from her Viper before walking over. Coming to a stop, she found herself shifting from side to side as the battle-worn pilot did her final post-flight checks. Now that the moment was finally here, Dee found herself having trouble forming the words. Her throat was way too dry.
"Something I can do for you, Dee?" Kara asked as she handed her clipboard to a nearby specialist.
She couldn't do this in front of everyone. "Can I steal a moment of your time in private?"
"Sure," Kara said, motioning for Dee to lead the way. "Is something wrong with the Old Man?"
"No," Dee said. Her eyes caught on an equipment locker, and she figured that was as good of a place as any. It had probably never been used for something like this.
"Then is it Lee? Did something happen to Lee?"
Dee tried to ignore the raw concern in Starbuck's voice as she shook her head. "Nothing happened to Lee that you don't already know about." She motioned behind her. "Shut the hatch, would you?"
After a moment's pause, Kara did as she was asked. "So what's the problem, Dee?"
Dee took a deep breath and launched straight into it. "I came here today to ask you not to take Lee away from me."
Confusion spread across Kara's face. "What are you talking about?"
"Listen, Kara. I can't compare to you. You walk into a room and every single man on Galactica takes pause. There's something about you that's magnetic. You speak, and they listen. Most of us women on Galactica don't care. We know that even if you pick one of our men, your fascination will wane within days." Dee shook her head. "We always found it entertaining."
"You called me here to point out my role as the official other woman on Galactica?"
"No, it's a lot worse than that. I just meant to say no one cared what you did in your personal time until Lee Adama came on board our ship. Something shifted in you, Kara. You stopped your one-woman quest to feel no pain by fraking every available man. The only man you even touched was Vice President Baltar, and we all kind of chalked that up to a fluke." Dee looked up to see Kara staring back at her expectantly and realized she was rambling. "I'm sorry. There was a point in there."
"You might want to make it sometime soon. I have a date with the XO in about fifteen minutes, and I'd prefer not to start that meeting already in a bad mood."
"You know a lot about Lee, what with the history you two have."
Kara shook her head. "No, it's never been like that with Lee. He's always been a big mystery to me, nothing like his father or brother. I've been trying to figure him out for years."
"I think I've got him down, but that's only because I want to let him in," Dee said, trying to keep her smugness in check. It wasn't like Lee was purposefully holding back from Kara. "You keep him at arm's length. That's why you could never really know. He would open up to you in a second if he thought it was what you wanted."
Kara crossed her arms in front of her. "Dee, you're starting to piss me off with this aloof bullshit. I'm skipping lunch as a favor to you because you wanted a private moment. Start explaining to me why that was a smart choice."
"Lee talks about you in his sleep. He's really worried you're going to get yourself killed one of these days."
"I know he's worried about me, Dee. He's always been like that."
"For you, maybe he has. But he's the CAG of this ship. That puts a lot of pilots under his watch. The only thing is he doesn't lay awake on the nights everyone else is flying CAP because he's afraid a Raider might get in one lucky shot."
"Dee, you know better than anyone that shit Lee and I have gone through together." Kara gave her a small smirk. "He's close to you."
"We're not as close as some would believe. People might even say he spends a lot of his free time with a completely different woman," Dee said, turning her eyes down to the floor.
Kara let out a chuckle. "Gods, you act like I'm getting in the way of your love life."
Dee looked up in time to catch the look as it flashed across Kara's eyes. She knew she was lying. "You are in more ways than one. That's why we're here."
"I don't understand."
"The other day, I managed to get the observation deck with no one around to keep us company. It was nice for the first few minutes until Lee obviously lost perspective." Dee's eyes narrowed as her anger came flaring up again. "He called me Kara."
Kara's eyes went wide, but she maintained to keep her cool and maintain the lies. "I don't see how that really has anything to do with me. I've never changed one aspect of how I am with Lee from the moment he showed up for the decommissioning ceremony. If you can't take what I am to him, then that's your problem."
Dee gave her a short nod before biting her lip in determination. "I'm going to be honest here, Kara. I need Lee. Maybe not as much as you do, but in my own small way, I need him." Dee shrugged. "He's been a rock for me."
"He tends to have that effect on women," Kara pointed out.
"Listen. I'm tired of having to look over my shoulder every time you two are together." Dee walked over to the table in the middle of the equipment locker and leaned up against it. She focused on the rack of tools in front of her. "The truth of the matter is you could have him in two seconds if you wanted him. You could take him from me without even breaking a sweat." She looked back over her shoulder. "I'm here asking you not to."
"I'm confused, Dee. Are you threatening me or something?"
"We both know I could never do something like that, Kara."
"So then what are you doing?"
"I'm asking you to let Lee have a chance at being happy at least for a little while. You could have your choice of men on this ship. Most of us don't have that luxury. When a girl like me finds a decent guy, she has to do everything within her power to hold on to him. I'm not above begging." Dee waited to hear another snarky comment from Starbuck, and when it didn't come, she took that as a good sign. "My happiness depends on whatever you decide."
Dee didn't look back as she stepped out of the equipment locker. She had done all she could in terms of damage control on that kiss. Her cards were on the table, and the bet was to Starbuck.
Dee would never know if her words that day were what pushed them over the edge or if it was the kiss he shared with Kara. Either way Lee was never the same around her. It was like he had gotten a taste of the very thing he had been denied all his life, and he couldn't give it up. They had struggled with their relationship for months after that fateful day, but something was suddenly missing. When Lee told her it was over, she couldn't say she didn't expect it.
The only regret she had was waiting to see the sparks between her boyfriend and his lead pilot firsthand. After their talk that day, Kara had pulled away from Lee, proving that she did care more about his happiness than her own. Dee could admire that.
Too bad it didn't work. Like Lee had always told her, nothing could stop him when he put his mind to something.
Dee knew without a doubt if she had asked Kara to step back prior to the close call in the Viper that led up to the kiss, Lee would still be hers. He wouldn't have gotten a taste for another woman, and he probably would have contented himself to a life with Dee. She had no idea why she seemed all right with settling for a man who is only content with her, but something about Lee Adama made that prospect better than nothing. That was besides the point now. Lee couldn't even settle for her.
Sometimes when life on the Battlestar got lonely, Dee would find herself playing out the what ifs. Since she was a little girl, she had loved imagining how different her life could have been if she had only turned right instead of left. Her life wasn't bad at the moment, but it was hard. It was difficult to taste something extraordinary only to find out it was meant for another woman.
She had thought about every possibility under the suns, but the day Lee announced he was going to marry Starbuck was the first time Dee ever let herself wonder if maybe it would have been better to have been on Sagittaron when the attacks happened.