Just a K/L oneshot set around sometime in Season Two. Kara is thinking about Lee and how much she misses him. Just a little experiment,
She Missed Him-
She missed him. He was still here, still alive and that was more than could be said for most people, but he wasn't with her. They weren't who they used to be, a seemingly unbreakable team, and she missed the easy banters, the secret jokes they shared.
She missed the smile he had, just for her, she thought then. Now it is given to another woman, not her, who glows just as much as she did under its light whenever it appears. The secret glances, all too knowing glint in their eyes when they see each other, it used to be their thing, they had those glances and the promise of something only they knew about. The understanding, the feeling someone knew your entire soul and kept it safe just as you would with theirs. It wasn't there anymore. She missed those damn blue eyes of his, knowing what she was up to, and with just a look, have her spilling all her secrets when he asked her anything. The looks he gave her that made her feel like she was the best at anything, that she mattered, that maybe she was loved again. The look that let her know he cared more than a CAG and pilot should.
She missed his laugh, always in the end giving in when she gave him a hard time, both knowing she wasn't serious about whatever they were talking about. The way she got him to laugh whenever another setback came, be it wave after wave of Cylons, she could always make him smile when another face was gone. Smooth over tension between him and his Father, making some rude joke about the XO to get their attention away from the argument, the role of peacemaker still feeling foreign to her.
She missed his arms, the way he smelled. Whenever he hugged her it had been the time she felt the safest in a long very time, ever since Zak if she was really being honest with herself. He had held her when she needed it and she would fall back to it when the times got really bad and she just couldn't take it anymore. She missed the way he would never ask or pressure her into talking, knowing she would talk when she was ready, just held her and comforted her and surrounding her senses with the scent of him.
She missed the way he stuck up for her, his protectiveness, plenty of people would talk shit about her and he wouldn't tolerate it. He'd tell them to leave her alone and that the rumor, whatever it was this week, wasn't true. When pilots ganged up on her about Helo he put a stop to it, making some remark about how if she was a cylon they'd all be screwed.
She missed the way he pulled her out of scrapes, reminding her to behave herself, but letting her know she was right but not in execution. He kept her calm, and slowly a bit of that self control she missed so much rubbed off on her when he'd been around. He made her be on her best behavior and she even missed the way he glared at her when she let him down.
She missed the way he'd play cards with her, good at them but never good enough to be too difficult a challenge. She missed teaching him all the ways to make people think things during the games, how to bluff, pretend you are drawing two not one to not seem so desperate. She missed being able to take whatever little prizes he had for her knowing he would lose, a cigar, vanilla lotion, paints, a bottle from Tigh's secret stash, doing her paperwork for a week. All the little things you never noticed until they were gone.
She missed flying with him. The impossible air maneuvers they tell even trained professionals to never ever do. She missed the way he knew what she was doing, during combat, moving in perfect sync with her, killing cylon after cylon after cylon. The tricks, the thrill she felt as she completed a perfect triple barrel roll canopy to canopy and proceeded to wow the observation lounge.
She missed the way she could always tell what he was thinking. He had never been easy to read but after a while practice had made her an expert in all things Lee. She missed the way his eyes glittered when they got mad for something she would be forgiven for in the next 12 hours. She missed the way his lips would curve up into the smallest of smiles when he found something she did funny but couldn't admit it because he had to set a good example.
She missed that she could be Kara with him and not Starbuck. She missed the fact that she could be who she was underneath the bravado, fearlessness and the loudmouthed pilot who could out-play, out-drink and out-fight anyone who was stupid enough to challenge her. She missed being Kara with him, the long discussions over this or that, but most importantly, the feeling that she really was someone worth listening and talking to, not just a pilot whose usefulness was only in war.
She missed their morning runs. The way they would race to this bulkhead or that bulkhead and he would let her win most of the time. She missed Admiral Adama smiling at the two of them as they ran by him on his way to CIC or running through the hanger deck causing Tyrol to have a fit. She missed having similar races when she would steal something, his jacket, his shoes, once she had stolen all of his clothes and his towel when he was in the head using the shower and had to convince Hot Dog to get him some spares.
But mostly she misses the promise that he would be fully be her's one day if she played her cards right and she had just enough luck. Her's to hold, whisper 'I love you's to, be the last thing she saw at night and the first when she woke up. Him the role of her knight in armor in some strange fantasy her mind cooked up when she was bored to tears by a briefing or paperwork.
She doesn't have that promise of him being there for her anymore, he wants nothing to do with the worthless frack up named Kara Thrace. She doesn't have the smile, the card games, runs in the morning, the exhilarating air maneuvers, the glance her way, the fact she could be Kara with someone. He belongs to someone else more than he ever belonged to her now, and she has to live with it. Still has to go through the daily grind as though nothing is wrong and that she doesn't miss him like crazy and that she'd give anything to have it all back. Still has to go through the pain of answering the question of if she minds he is with someone else by saying he was never hers in the first place. Still has to live with the pain that her own inadequacies were what caused him to run in the first place. As he should before she hurt the man she secretly loved. A voice in her head reminds her, bring with it reminders that even though they were friends once, she was a fool to think they would be anything more, a fool to think Lee Adama would ever look at her with anything more than friendship in his eyes.
In her want for someone to to love her, she had created thoughts that didn't exist, because if he loved her like she'd thought he did he would be here right now right? He wouldn't be with someone else, making her smile and feel like she was on top of the world. He'd been right to run in the bunkroom that day.
Now she has to sit out and away from it all, while he won't even speak to her, while he makes another woman happy, and know that he cares for her much more than he ever did Kara Thrace, and that is what she misses most of all. The idea that defied everything her childhood ever taught her. That someone loved her and that someone's name was Lee Adama. Even if that idea wasn't actually true. She could pretend it was.
She missed that idea because it meant she mattered to someone. That maybe she actually had a chance with someone who loved her the way Zak had and every bit as much.
But now she's just a CAG, and he's just a Major who is dating the Comms officer. And maybe that's all they'll ever be now. She missed the days back when it wasn't like that. When it was he who was the CAG and she guarded his wing and the Comms officer was nothing more than a voice that told them where to go and to shoot or not.
Because back than it was simple. Because back than it was easy. And back than she didn't miss him, because she had him.