Kara Thrace stood staring at the Vipers that flew in the sky above her. She missed flying like crazy, but days like today made it a little easier to deal with. Caprica was having another one of its typical summer days. Warm. Sunny. Beautiful. Perfect.
She would have to remember to thank Flattop for telling her this place was on the market and suggesting that since the freight business was going so well, she indulge herself in a summer home. He had been right. The cargo hauling business she had been running since she frakked her knee up five years earlier was flourishing. And a summer home was nice to have when the weather got nice and people's demands for goods got less frequent. And the city got so hot and sticky that her little apartment just wasn't comfortable to even breathe in.
She was happy to remember one of her contacts telling her earlier how it was supposed to cool off rather significantly that night. Good thing she had Dreg Kellerman, one of the electricians on her payroll, fix the heater that had been acting up. She would need it.
The thought of curling up in her large master bed underneath all the covers as the world cooled off made her smile. She had gotten to enjoy the simple things like that over the years. It was a nice change.
There was a brisk knock on her front door which snapped her out of her little daydream. Sighing, she put the cup of coffee she had been nursing for the past half hour on the counter and made her way to send whoever was at the door far, far away. It was probably someone asking her to take another shipment of fruit to Picon, and she just was not in the mood right now.
However, she did have to keep up appearances so she smoothed out the sundress she had slipped on earlier that morning and fixed where her long hair had slipped out of its ponytail. She didn't bother to look through the peephole. Everyone knew, frakked up knee or no frakked up knee, she was still a force to reckon with.
She opened the door, and her heart froze while a smile leaped to her face.
He was leaning against the doorframe, looking like he had just flown two twelve hour patrols and then rolled around in some mudhole. His clothes looked like they hadn't been cleaned in a month. His hair was a few inches longer than she had ever seen it. And it looked like he hadn't shaved in a week.
In short, he was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.
"You look like shit, Lee," she said with a smirk.
"I was hoping you could help me with that," Lee Adama said, giving her that famous smile.
Gods. Who wouldn't love a man who could smile like that?
"What the hell are you doing here?" she asked, trying her best to keep her knees from buckling because of the fact that he was actually standing right in front of her eyes for the first time in over a year.
"I had a twenty-four hour leave pass to use up. Figured that since I was on Caprica, I'd drop in."
She noticed the knapsack tossed over his shoulder. "You have a lot of gear with you for just a visit."
He gave her a sheepish look. "I need a place to stay."
"You can't tell me that the military of the Twelve Colonies couldn't put you up in some hotel here on Caprica. You are one of their best pilots last I checked."
"The best, now that you're out of the game. But that's besides the point."
"You didn't answer my question."
Well, the military probably would have given me somewhere to stay if they knew that Caprica was where I was planning on coming."
"I thought you said the only reason you're here is because you happened to be on Caprica. That would imply that you knew you were coming here."
"I had business that the whole military didn't need to know about." Lee shifted from side to side in impatience. "Are you going to let me in or not?"
Realizing that indeed she was still blocking the door, she took a step back. "Of course. You know I'd never turn away a visit from the elusive Apollo."
He rolled his eyes and brushed past her. "The freight business is treating you well."
"Yeah. Only the lucky can afford to live on beauty alone." She glanced out the window. Even if she couldn't live off her good looks, at least she knew that she could live in the middle of pure physical beauty. Looking back at where Lee was standing, she realized that maybe she was even luckier than she thought. Not everyone has physical beauty visiting them, too.
"What's so funny?" he asked, noticing her smirk.
"I can't figure out how you knew to come here. I just bought this place a few months ago. I haven't even told anyone besides your father about it."
"I have my ways." She raised her eyebrows at him. "All right. I ran into Flattop at some shitty little bar on Geminon. He told me about the deal he convinced you to do."
"I still think it's hilarious that Flattop ended up getting into the realty business for all Twelve Colonies after he took that bad turn in his Viper. It makes me happy that at least I didn't end up permanently damaged when I was forced to stop flying." Realizing that she was moving the conversation to sadder subjects, she decided to change the subject. "So, how is Crashdown doing lately?"
"Good. He says hello."
"He knew you were coming to Caprica even when you didn't?"
"No. But he knows that I keep in contact with you. And he always respected you for being so good of a pilot. So from time to time he asks me how you've been."
"And you tell him I'm still screwing up my life like always."
"Of course."
"I can't believe Crash got assigned to your little pseudo-military unit."
"It's not pseudo. We are a part of the military."
She rolled her eyes. "Anyway, all I mean was I never pictured him as the undercover, secretive type."
"Unlike me?" Lee said with a laugh. He dropped his pack near the couch and took a seat, stretching out his legs.
"I never imagined you there either. But now that you are, I have to admit that it fits you. Flushing out the remainder of the Cylon forces is something I can see you doing."
"Because it's the right thing to do?"
"Because you get to fly every day and make your own decisions. You always wanted your freedom."
"And I got it," he said with a smile while kicking his feet up onto the coffee table. His eyes landed on a pile of pictures in front of him. "Taking a walk down memory lane?" he asked as he leaned to pick them up.
"No. I just like to keep close the reminders of why I try so hard to keep on living." He nodded, obviously understanding exactly what she meant. "Now if you'll excuse me, I do have a few calls to make for my business. After that, I'm all yours."
Lee found himself shuffling through the pictures while she was out of the room, attending to her work. There was surprisingly few for the rather hefty purpose they served. On second thought, though, it didn't surprise him that she would only have three pictures to remind her of why she was alive.
The first one was of his father, William Adama, and her. It was taken the last day she was on Galactica. Lee had laughingly joked that they were retiring two old birds that day. Galactica and Kara Thrace herself. She looked happy in the picture even though he knew for a fact she was mad about being grounded pretty much permanently.
The second picture looked like it had been through at least four or five Cylon Wars. It was tattered around the edges, and the color was slightly faded. But that's what you get when you keep one picture pinned up in your locker for over three years. He smiled down at Kara's young face where his brother had her pulled into his arms. Lee himself was standing on the outskirts of the picture. It was the perfect summation of the three of them at that moment in time.
The last picture surprised him. It was simply a picture of him and Kara that someone must have taken for the decommissioning ceremony that never really happened. The ceremony had only been half complete at the time they were called to a state of war. It would take two months after he left Galactica for the ship to be properly retired.
He looked down at the picture. It had been taken during the small party after he flew his father's old Mark II in a quick memorial fly-by. They hadn't had much time to celebrate seeing as how one hour into the party they got a call from Caprica indicating that there was trouble with the Cylons.
There had been time for this, though. Kara was sitting on his lap and smiling at the camera in what was probably the first genuine bit of happiness she had had for a long while. He wasn't looking into the camera at all, instead having chosen to stare at the woman in his arms.
It was odd, this moment in time. It was a memory of something that had never happened. He and Kara were still in a constant state of nerves when they were around each other. They hadn't spoken in two years when he showed up on Galactica. He had only come to this little celebration because there was press there and he didn't want to disappoint the Commander of Atlantia who had worked so hard to get him a few days pass to Galactica. Not that he wanted it.
He looked down at the innocent surprise on his face. So much would change for him an hour after the picture was taken. The Cylons would attack, and Kara, feeling certain she was going to die, would confess her sins to him in that hangar bay. She felt responsible for Zak's death. He couldn't imagine how much torture she put herself through with that stupid thought.
No, her hands weren't completely clean, but it hadn't been all of her fault.
"That was a long time ago, huh?"
He startled, having somehow missed when Kara came back into the room. He was quick to recover, though. "The picture doesn't seem right. That's not how we were that day."
"For that one moment, we were," she said, taking the picture out of his hand. "I like to think of it more as a sign of things that would come than a false memory."
"I'm sorry. I didn't intend for that to be an insult."
"I know. I just didn't want you thinking that I didn't realize that the happiness in the picture was a little bit of a lie." Smiling at him, she motioned towards his pack that had been thrown on the floor. "You brought your running gear with you on this little excursion?"
"Why?"
"Because I want to see if I can still run twice as far as you can."
He let out an exaggerated laugh. "You never could, Kara. You're just a girl."
"You know what those words do to me."
"I know," he said, giving her a wink.
"I take it that means you do have your clothes. Because you sure as hell don't throw those words at me if you don't intend to give me the chance to make you eat them."
"I haven't even been here ten minutes and you're issuing challenges."
"Actually, that was just my creative way of getting you all sweaty so that you'd have to take a shower. You're starting to smell, Lee."
He rolled his eyes. "It's just dirt from the shuttle I took to Caprica."
"What was on that shuttle? A whole farm?"
"I did some manual labor for them. Loaded up a shipment of what I think were Tauron ground worms."
"That's interesting. So the military didn't set you up in a hotel and they didn't give you transportation to Caprica? How shady was your business here on planet?"
He ignored her question and reached for his pack. "Give me a minute and I'll be ready to leave you in the dust."
She nodded. There was obviously something he didn't want to talk to her about. That was fine by her. At least for now. "I'll be changing upstairs."
He was already too busy rummaging through his belongings to give her more than a shrug of acknowledgment. She had definitely awoken the competitive side of him that probably hadn't had a good challenge posed to it in quite some time.
Reaching the stairs to the second floor, Kara paused and looked back at where he stood in the room. She wanted to check one last time that he was actually there in her house. Just to make sure this wasn't another one of her vivid daydreams that had been increasing in frequency every year. Lee had managed to play a pivotal role in all of them for the past eighteen months or so. So this could totally all be in her mind.
She looked back and immediately wished she hadn't. This was a man still used to living a military life where there was little to no privacy, especially in the living quarters. He had already shrugged out of his shirt and was proceeding to unbutton his pants.
That would probably be too much for a weak-minded woman like her. At least, Kara was willing to admit that she was weak-minded when it came to the eldest Adama. Frankly, she hadn't been all that good at saying no to Zak, but it was almost twice as bad with Lee.
Sighing, she began making her way up the stairs. Her running gear was sitting on the chair to the desk in her office. She had flung it there after her midnight run last night. Paperwork always made her tense, and running helped.
Once she had slipped into the familiar double tanks and shorts, she slid the tight white sheath of cloth over her right ankle and pulled it up to her knee. Flexing her leg to make sure she still had a good range of motion, she slipped into her running shoes.
Excitement was starting to build in the pit of her stomach. She hadn't run with Lee in years. It was an experience she sorely missed.
When she knocked lightly on the doorframe and entered the room, Lee automatically looked her up and down. She could feel his eyes settling on the brace she had slid onto her knee. "Are you sure you're up for this?"
"I can do it," she said shortly. Truth be told, she really wasn't sure. It wasn't like she hadn't been running every day since she settled into her life on Caprica. It was just she had never done it with an audience. Especially an audience that was as athletically capable as Lee.
On second thought, though, she really had nothing to worry about. Running had never been a competition between her and Lee. They had always played at it being a race, but their actions definitely proved it was otherwise. The few times that Kara had gotten fatigued in the middle of their run, Lee had always slowed down his pace to let her keep up. And Kara always pointed out where they needed to turn. Lee had always had the worst sense of direction whenever he wasn't in a cockpit.
It was time to restart the tradition. "We can cut through the backyard and into the woods."
"The woods?'
"What? Can't handle it if the terrain isn't the smooth concrete metal of a spaceship?"
He simply gestured at the door. "Lead the way before I leave you behind."
"You would get lost in two seconds," she called out as she opened the door and started into a slow jog. They never ran for speed. It was always about the distance.
The first mile or so was in silence as they both fell in line beside each other. Lee was too busy looking at the environment around him to talk, and Kara was too busy trying to decide if maybe this wasn't actually happening. It was still hard to believe that he had actually chosen to visit her in what little free time he had. According to what he had told her through the years, he was more the type to try to get some extra work done when he got a break. He wouldn't squander his precious time stopping in to see what she was up to. They had letters for that.
"How's Helo doing?" Lee asked out of the blue.
"Fine," she said, giving him a strange look. In the five years since Lee had met Helo, he had never once asked about him.
"I heard he was on Caprica."
"Yeah. He has a long-term assignment with the military patrols. Says that it's nice to have something permanent but he really misses the action of being out in deep space."
"You must see him a lot considering you're both permanent residents."
"Yeah. He stops by every week or so."
"I thought you said that only my father knew you moved into this place in the country."
"Well, your father and Helo are the only two. Though it seems like the information is getting around, so maybe I'll have more visitors soon."
"You spend a lot of time with Helo?" Lee said, bringing the conversation back around to the Raptor pilot.
"He likes to encourage my extracurricular activities as a triad shark. It's funny how many people are willing to believe I can't play the game because I'm a blond. Idiots."
"I would have thought you'd have a reputation by now."
"I do. Helo comes up with new places for me to play. He gets the intel from his buddies on the Caprican Patrol."
"Funny way to go on a date," Lee said, picking up some speed.
Determined not to let him force her into dropping the conversation by making her work harder, she sped up to stay in stride with him. "If you want to call what I do with him a date," she said, hoping Lee would pick up on both the sarcasm and the mocking laugh she let out.
"Well, what else would you call it?"
"Two kindred souls making sure that neither one of us forgets what we went through."
"That's very poetic."
"I can be nice when I try."
"You never try," he said, shooting her a wink.
"There's never reason to."
They lapsed into silence again as they continued at a faster pace. Kara found herself slightly amazed that she wasn't getting out of breath yet. Lee was definitely pushing her, but it didn't seem to be doing anything. Maybe it was because her mind was racing at a hundred miles per second. Her heart felt like it was on vacation comparatively.
Something Helo had told her when he came to visit her a few days earlier was starting to make her uneasy. She had planned to ask Lee about it in her next letter to him, but it would seem stupid if she did that now that she had him there in person. But to be truthful, she wasn't sure this was the kind of topic she couldn't bridge while standing face to face with him.
Starbuck had never been one to back down, though.
"Helo told me that he saw you in some dive on Sagittaron about a month ago."
"I must have been working."
Kara shook her head. "No. He said you were definitely not working."
Lee gave her a funny look but didn't ask why Helo had been so sure. He wasn't even sure where Kara was going with this train of thought. Like always when he talked to her, questions would only serve to confuse him more so he kept his mouth shut.
"He told me that you seemed to be having fun. I just wanted to say that it was nice to hear. Sometimes I imagine you getting too wrapped up in your job to even think about having a social life let alone a love life." She cringed. She hadn't meant to get that specific.
"Love life?" He let out a laugh. "Why the frak are we discussing my love life all the sudden?"
This time it was Kara who picked up the speed to hide her embarrassment. That still didn't mean she was going to drop it. She had brought this up for a reason, and she wasn't going to stop until she got the information she wanted.
She turned to run backwards for a few seconds and called out, "Well, Helo told me that you were with a woman and you seemed happy. I just wanted to say that it was good to hear."
"What that I was happy or that I still like women?"
Kara's mind flew back to their days in flight school. There had been a nasty rumor circulating that the eldest son of the great Viper pilot, William "Husker" Adama, preferred those of the same gender as him. She had laughed in the face of the first few people who told her that Lee was gay. It had seemed completely ludicrous. She had seen his face when a nasty little game of triad got particularly bad and one of the other female cadets ended up streaking across the quad in the nude so that Starbuck wouldn't force her to pay up her marker that added up to at least half of the cadet's savings.
Yeah. Lee definitely liked women.
After about the tenth person asked her if she knew if the rumor was true, she began to defend him. She kept explaining that Lee studied so that he would live up to his father's expectations and not so that he wouldn't have to be in public and have to suppress his feelings for the other male cadets in their year. The memory of her particular brand of defense always made her chuckle. If she remembered correctly, she had said something to the effect of 'He was trying to get ahead, not avoid giving it'.
Yeah. She had always had a way with words.
Eventually, she put a stop to the rumors all together. It was a relatively simple thing to do once she thought of it. All she did was plant the best kiss she had in her romantic repertoire on him when he had a particularly successful run in the simulators. Anyone that saw his reaction to that could tell that he wasn't into men.
"You're remembering, aren't you?" Lee said, cutting into her thoughts.
"It was the best time I've ever had squashing rumors," she said with a laugh. She pointed to a break in the trees. "Let's cut through there. It should bring us past the waterfalls."
They ran in silence once more until Kara realized that she hadn't really quenched her thirst for information about Lee's love life. "So, who was she?"
"Who was who?"
Kara rolled her eyes. He was playing dumb, and they both knew it. "The woman you took to the bar."
"Lieutenant Crawford. She's a member of my unit."
"The fraternization policy has gone lax?"
"No. They just don't pay particular attention to us. We're not exactly the most obedient group of pilots."
"By-the-book Apollo isn't obedient?"
"Those few weeks on Galactica with you five years ago killed any sort of obedient streak I had."
"Glad to know I could be of some service." Kara caught sight of a shallow end of the river leading out of the waterfalls and started running through it. "Time to get wet."
"You're enjoying this."
"I like to keep you on your toes." She gave him a smile. "So, tell me more about this Lieutenant Crawford."
"When we have a spare moment, sometimes I take her out for a drink. That's about it."
"Helo said there was more than drinking going on."
"Why is Helo spying on me?" Lee asked, his tone only slightly icy.
Kara had never noticed how much Lee seemed to dislike Helo. It was odd. "He thought I'd want to know what you were up to. He's one of the few people that knows I keep track of where you are."
"Of course you would tell him that."
"What the frak is that supposed to mean?"
"It means what it means."
"I have no clue what it means, so that doesn't help, Adama."
"Crashdown was joking the other day about how weird it was to see the legendary hellion that was Kara Thrace settling down to a nice little domestic life with one of her old comrades."
"Helo? Crash thinks that I'm settling down with Helo?"
"Aren't you?"
There was a slight dip in conversation as they both thought about that for a minute.
"Kara, it's all right to tell me if you're finally moving on from Zak. It's been long enough. You deserve to have someone stable in your life."
"As opposed to the unstable ones?'
"Well, you did leave a string of bodies behind back in the day."
"Lee, that little chapter of my life ended four years ago."
"Exactly. Helo got reassigned to Caprica about four years ago, didn't he?"
"Just because I spend time with Helo doesn't mean I'm planning on starting a life with him."
She stopped at a dead halt. When Lee realized she wasn't with him anymore, he turned around and jogged the few paces back to her side to find out why she had stopped. "What's the matter?"
He didn't see her fist coming at him until the pain was already shooting up his left arm. "Ow! Gods, Kara! What was that for?"
"That's for acting like an overprotective father and a jealous boyfriend all rolled into one." Without another word, she started running again.
She could feel him running a few steps behind her as they hit what she guessed was their sixth mile. He didn't mention a word about her hitting him. It was the typical way she worked out her frustration with him.
Finally, after a few moments, he picked up the pace and ran shoulder to shoulder with her.
"I'm sorry," he finally said through deep breaths. He was getting winded, but so was she.
"For what?"
"I don't know. I just know I'm sorry."
"It's okay. Our love lives are something we don't talk about. And I'm not surprised people think I'm involved with Helo. He's really the only person who comes to visit me these days."
"I came," Lee pointed out.
"Not often enough for people to take notice." In the back of her head, she added 'and not often enough for my liking'. But there was nothing she could do. When the military called, Lee Adama answered.
As the house came back into view, Lee must have finally gotten the courage to continue on with whatever questions he had been dancing around for the majority of their run. "So, if you haven't been dating, Helo, who have you been seeing? Because I know there has to be someone."
"Unlike you, I don't have someone at this moment in time."
"I never said I had a girlfriend."
"Then who is Lieutenant Crawford?" Kara asked, giving him a knowing look.
"Someone who keeps me from being serious all the time."
A pang of jealousy rose up in her heart, and she couldn't hold back the words. "She make you laugh?"
Lee shook his head. "No. No one really does these days. The world I live in doesn't allow me to laugh much."
Kara felt a smug satisfaction come over her. She knew that she should be disappointed that Lee was still living such a hard life. But instead she was simply recalling the fact that he had laughed multiple times in the few hours he had already spent with her. She did always have a knack for keeping his sour face from staying that way permanently.
"Why don't you have someone?" Lee said.
"That's a very personal question to be asking."
"I think you can handle it."
"I just got tired of settling on whoever was available."
"A pilot that can keep her pants on? That's a miracle."
"You can't replace the thrill of flying with the exhilaration of sex. So why try? Besides, my life isn't so hectic now that I'm out of the Viper cockpit. I've had the time to figure out what it is I really want."
"And what is that?"
"Something that's not feasible right now," she said. All of the sudden she was glad that she had pushed herself so hard on this run. She knew her cheeks were pink from the exertion. There was no way Lee could tell that she was blushing from the thoughts that were running through her head. If he couldn't notice, then she wouldn't have to explain the reason why having a man in her life wasn't a feasible option.
Because she had told him the truth. She had thought long and hard about what she really wanted now that her life was calm. And she kept coming back to same conclusion.
She wanted a man who could make her forget that she probably would never rekindle the feeling of flying a blind backflip roll in her Viper because being with him made her heart beat with excitement twice as much. She wanted a man who could understand that, as a person, she was terribly flawed, and instead of condemning her for it, he would love her because she had flaws. She wanted a man who wasn't afraid to tell her when she was screwing up and would help her make things right when she didn't listen to his advice. She wanted a man who she would miss the second he was gone but who would always come back to her so she wouldn't have to spend another night on her own.
In short, she wanted Lee Adama.
But that wasn't something she could just blurt out to him.
Still, he asked the question she was dreading. "Why isn't it possible?"
She hesitated before answering, "Because I'm not good enough for the kind of man I want."
Lee shook his head. "If you actually believe that, then maybe you just haven't found the right kind of man. Because a man who could think you're anything but the best thing to ever happen to him isn't good enough for you."
"I missed your corny little anecdotes. Even if they're completely illogical, they make me smile."
"It's nice to see you smile," Lee said as they slowed to a halt. "You've changed a lot since I last saw you."
"I had to grow up fast when I crashed that Viper." She looked out at the piece of grass she called home. Unconsciously, she pulled her hands up to rub her arms. The air was already started to cool down now that the sun was setting. Maybe her contact had been right and Caprica was in for a cold, summer's night. "I never realized how nice it would be to have a home to come back to."
Sometimes it surprised her that she could be this happy.
Grinning at Lee for no reason at all, Kara let herself into her home through the unlocked back door. It was also nice to have such a big feeling of security that she didn't have to worry about keeping everything locked away. That was one of the reasons why she had chosen to return to her home colony. Caprica had always made her feel safe.
She wiped the sweat off her forehead as Lee followed her into the kitchen and wondered why she suddenly felt self-conscious about the way she must look. Ignoring that little bit of vanity that was creeping up on her, she reached into the refrigerator to grab a few bottles of water.
"I don't know about you, but I could sure use a shower," he said, catching the bottle she threw at him.
"A shower does sound nice. I haven't been pushed to run that far in years." She glared at him as she took a sip out of her water. "Damn you and your crazy military fitness."
He let out a laugh as he rolled his shoulders to work out a little of the leftover tension. "To be honest, I don't think I've run that hard in a long time either. No one can push me like you do, Kara." Setting his water down, he scrunched up his face. "Gods, I feel gross."
"Me, too." She turned and smiled at him sweetly. "We could save some time and shower together if you wanted."
"Very funny," he said, tossing the empty bottle into the trash.
She shrugged her shoulders. "I'll only be a few minutes. Amuse yourself by looking through my possessions while I'm gone."
"Oh I will." He waited until she was halfway up the stairs before yelling, "And don't you dare use up all the hot water. I haven't taken a heated shower in over ten months."
"Lee, you're on a planet now. We don't have to ration out electricity and hot water." Kara smiled. She could remember what it had been like when she first realized that she could take a hot shower every day for the rest of her life. Ecstasy didn't even begin to cover the feeling she had felt.
She kicked her shoes off as she reached the top of the stairs and sighed. She couldn't remember the last time a run had made her this tense. I mean, weren't they supposed to be relaxing?
Then again, she was pretty sure it was the running that had made her so tense.
She stripped her clothes off leisurely as she made her way through her bedroom to the bathroom attached. Usually when she was this tense, she made for the bathtub and not the shower stall. Bubbles were a sex-starved woman's best friend.
This time, though, she didn't think it was a good option. If she took the time to draw a bath, then by the time she was in it, Lee would be dying for his own shower. And she didn't fancy having to sit in a bathtub while he showered five feet away. That sure as hell wouldn't help with the tension.
She knocked the water on, setting it to be slightly on the chilly side, and stepped in. The insistent pressure of the water felt good on the tension in her back and shoulders from all the running, but it was really doing nothing for the tension that was more inside than out.
Knowing it wasn't a good idea, she decided she had no other option. She leaned against the wall of the shower and trailed her hand up the inside of her thigh until it hit just the right spot to make her quake. In her mind, her hands became his hands. The moans she tried to choke back were because of him and not her.
She could just imagine the intensity he would put forth into making her shiver with his name on her lips. He would slowly push into her with his fingers while lightly nibbling on her throat. The sensation would drive her to the edge almost immediately, but he wouldn't wait for her trembling to stop. He would kneel down on the shower floor and lightly tease his way up her thighs with his tongue. Just when the beating of her heart had settled slightly, he would pull his hands away and continue his ministrations with his tongue and lips.
"Oh frak," she muttered as a moan slipped off her lips.
"Kara?"
His voice made her freeze in the middle of a particularly good fantasy. When did he come into the bathroom? Had he heard her? Oh gods.
"What do you need, Lee?" she asked tentatively.
"Um. I was wondering if you would mind me sitting here while you took your shower."
She squinted through the fogged up glass and saw the vague shape of him standing in the doorway. Had she really forgotten to close the door? Had he gotten to her that much?
Realizing her hand was still in a not too subtle place, she pulled it away and peeked her head out the shower door. "When did you turn into a complete perv?"
"Funny."
Kara's mind flashed back to the first few weeks she spent in her little apartment in the heart of Caprica City. She had felt scared any time she was by herself in her apartment. The lack of noise and blatant calmness of the situation was something she hadn't experience since before she entered the academy.
And Lee was probably the same way.
"The quiet?" she said, giving him a small smile.
"Yeah. I've gotten too used to my unit."
She gave him a small nod and pulled the door shut again. He immediately started talking about his unit and how they would put her old Viper Squadron to shame when it came to loudness. She could tell that he was smiling even though she couldn't see him.
Thank the gods, she couldn't see him. That would be pure torture. The water was still beating down on her, but she was frustrated to realize that the tension was twice as bad as before. Lee had interrupted, and now she had no way of fixing her little problem. Because she surely couldn't finish with him sitting outside the shower.
Could she?
The wicked thought of what he would do if he realized what she was doing underneath the spray of the water was hard to ignore. Maybe he would take her up on that offer of a joint shower after all. And then she wouldn't be responsible for what her hands did. Her mind could say no a thousand times, but her hands could never do the same.
She bit her lip hard as she realized her hands had already been doing a little thinking of their own. They had brought her right back up to the point she had been at when Lee called out her name.
Lee calling out her name. That wasn't going to help convince her to stop.
Frak. Frak. Frak.
She needed to start talking to him about something safe. Something that even her warped brain couldn't turn into another daydream about him.
Wrenching her hands away from her body, she waited for a break in his story and then asked. "How is Cally doing?"
"Fantastic. I swear to the gods, she's better than any other Chief I've ever seen. Whatever accident sent her my way, I'm grateful."
Kara laughed as she reached to grab the soap from the holder on the wall. "Well, it depends on whether you want to call a formal request an accident."
"What are you talking about?"
"Cally came to see me on Caprica about two or three years ago. She told me that her assignment as a Specialist on Pegasus was up and there was talks of assigning her a crew of her very own somewhere. The kid was scared to death. No one gets promoted that quickly."
"But she's really good," Lee interjected.
"I know. I told her that. Told her she had a lot of fraking potential that she shouldn't be wasting away working under someone on a ship. I asked her if she wanted to be the best at what she did. Do you know what she said? She said that maybe she already is the best and just no one knows it yet."
"That sounds like Cally."
"I think my year with that kid did some good. Anyway, then I told her that if you want to be the best, you need to surround yourself with the best. Which was when she brought up the fact that the military had brought up the idea of her working on a mobile unit considering how much Chief Tyrol insisted that she worked best when she was under pressure. I told her that you had mentioned that you were going to sign up for some crazy Cylon bounty hunter unit."
"I never called it that."
"But that's what it is all the same," she said with a laugh. "Anyway, she said that she knew already. The kid did her research. She said that she wanted to work with you. That she knew she could trust you with her birds."
"I'm grateful for that because she's the only one I trust with them, too. She sure is one hell of a crew chief."
The admiration was thick in his voice, and Kara found a few pangs of jealousy ring through her body as she grabbed some shampoo and worked it through her hair. Cally got to see Lee every day. She got to joke with him and make him laugh. She got to see that wonderful face light up in a smile when he completed a mission, and she got to be there to see him give his all to make the world a better place.
Something suddenly occurred to Kara. "I think I recommended that she request your unit because I knew I could trust her, too."
"That makes no sense. You obviously weren't going to have to depend on her to fix your Viper anymore. Why would you need to trust her?"
"I needed to trust her to keep you alive. To me, that's practically the same thing."
She cringed as soon as the words came out of her mouth. There was no way she had meant to admit to Lee that she was worried about his safety. They were both officially trained pilots of the Military of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. They were taught to worry about no one's safety but their own.
She needed to change the subject quick. "Hey! Did you know that Cally developed quite a crush on you when you were on Galactica for the decommissioning ceremony and the Cylon hunting afterwards?"
Lee let out a chuckle. "Yeah. She told me about that. I felt honored."
"She was such a little innocent girl back then, though."
"Not anymore."
Kara's hand froze in midair as she took in the hidden meaning to his words, and soap slipped right into her eyes. "Damnit," she hissed to herself, frantically massaging the stinging area until the soap was out.
After a moment, she remembered why she had slipped and caused herself so much pain. She stuck her head out the shower door and gave him the best death stare she could muster up, even though the soap residue was keeping her eyes from focusing. "I swear to the Lords of Kobol and everything this world holds sacred, if you did anything to seduce that girl, I will frak you up."
"Whoa there, Kara. I did nothing of the kind."
She let out the breath she had been holding and pulled herself back into the stall to get rid of the remnants of shampoo. Lee made it a habit to never lie to her. And he knew better than to frak with the people she considered her friends.
"And anyway, to be honest, all the seducing was on her side."
Kara knocked the water off. She could have sworn he had just said that Cally seduced him. "Would you repeat that?"
"What? Just because I haven't had a meaningful relationship in awhile, you assume there hasn't been anyone in my life. I'll have you know that Cally was probably the only really significant chance I had at loving someone in a long time."
"And she seduced you to get you to admit that?"
"Well, it's kind of lonely out there on the run. And she said that I sure as hell hadn't changed a thing about myself that had attracted her in the first place." She heard him let out a whistle. "Boy. I never would have thought that Cally was capable of what she did. I have no clue where she learned to do that, but it was pretty damn effective."
Kara felt herself clam up. She didn't want to know this. This hadn't been the safe topic she was searching for. Granted, in the beginning, it did its job. But now it seemed to be heading back down the route she had been trying not to take and the faint tension in her lower regions was coming back. "Hand me a towel, Lee," she demanded, trying to keep herself mostly in the shower. She didn't want him to see even an inch of her naked. Somehow he might figure out how on edge she was. And she did not want to explain why.
She felt the fluffy towel hit her hand and quickly wrapped it around her body. She stepped out of the shower and immediately wished she hadn't.
She had expected to see Lee sitting on the counter in his running clothes. He had been wearing them when he came into the bathroom a few minutes before. She definitely hadn't expected him to be dressed in only a towel with the running clothes carelessly discarded in a pile on the floor. Though it made sense to some degree. He had admitted that he felt incredibly gross and she had taken an awfully long time in the shower. Plus they had been getting really chatty. How was he supposed to know how much longer she would be?
"It's all yours," she said, giving him a quick smile before she dashed out of the bathroom. Two more seconds in that steamy room with him and her hands were going to start walking to places they didn't belong.
She grabbed a fresh shirt and pair of sweats out of the closet and, after putting them on, practically ran down the stairs. If she stuck around in her room, her mind might actually begin to dwell on the image of Lee naked in her shower. And she was beginning to truly understand how much her willpower disappeared when he was near.
Her eyes fell on the coffee maker as she entered the kitchen to lock the back door. Lee had been drinking the synthetic crap the military served up for longer than she could remember. Smiling, she plugged it in and watched it slowly fill up with what she considered the world's best brew.
She flipped on talk radio to give her something to listen to other than the naughty voices in her head. There was a story on about the trial of Dr. Gaius Baltar.
Now there was a strange man. He was credited with being the main reason the Cylons were unsuccessful in their attempt to extinguish humanity. Days before the Cylons attacked, he pointed out several fatal flaws in the defense system of Caprica. These flaws were generalized across the security of all Twelve Colonies. People worked around the clock supposedly, and the problem was resolved only hours before the Cylons showed their hand. Without that defense system, humanity would have been sitting ducks for the toasters to prey on.
And now Gaius Baltar, hero of all Twelve Colonies, was on trial for killing one of the President's military advisors with a toaster. How was that for semantic irony? When the Marines hauled him in, he had been quoted as mumbling something about Six made me do it. That this Six person was in his head and she controlled what he did. That he did it only because she was made at him for making the Cylons have to wait another thirty years.
Kara shook her head. Personally, she thought the good doctor had seen one too many bad science fiction movies. Pretty, blond women residing in your head? That never would happen in real life.
It was a pity to see such a great mind of their time fall to such lows. Especially the mind of this man. People thought he was going to be President one day, and safe to say, he wasn't a complete flop with the ladies. In fact, one of Kara's bunkmates on Galactica had claimed to have spent the night with him while on leave in Caprica City. She said it was very delightful. Kara just thought it sounded gross. The man had this weird, slimy pervert quality to him. She wouldn't be caught dead writhing in the sheets with him.
She wasn't surprised as the radio went on to discuss her old XO Saul Tigh's appointment as the judge on the case. The Caprican government liked to give him all the high profile crimes since he was part of the most successful Battlestar command crew during the Cylon attacks. It was their idea of a reward for years of service. To her, sitting in a hot courtroom for hours listening to the incessant rambling of a lunatic she didn't even know how to begin describing was not her idea of a dream job.
"Pathetic. That's what the dear Doctor is. Pathetic," she said with a laugh, focusing on the task at hand.
A better reward for the XO might be keeping his frak-up of a wife twenty miles away from him. Then maybe he could kick that nasty alcoholism habit that was circulating the gossip circuit. Now that she really cared. She and Tigh had never really gotten along that well.
She shuffled some more things around in the area in front of her as she tried to push her old XO's current situation out of her mind. She was done with that part of her life.
It took her ten minutes to dig out the bottle of ambrosia that she had been given upon leaving Galactica. By that time, the newscast had moved on to detail the latest discovery in Cylon counter-intelligence. She didn't feel like listening to that bullshit right now. Long ago, she had decided if she couldn't do anything to stop the toasters, then she didn't want to hear about them.
Looking down, she saw there was over half the bottle of ambrosia left. She had only been drinking it on special occasions. And she figured Lee taking the initiative to come see her new home was a very special occasion indeed.
"What are you doing down there?"
She smiled over her shoulder from where she crouched on the ground and wiggled the bottle in the air. "It's time for some of Starbuck's infamous coffee."
Lee let out a long moan of pleasure as he took a seat at the table, and Starbuck was content to know that her decision to give him a taste of home had been right on the money. As she turned to pour the cool green liquid into the steaming hot coffee, she thanked the gods that Lee had taken the time to locate some clothes in his bag.
It was the little things that made her grateful, she thought to herself with a laugh. Handing him the cup, she managed to make eye contact with him for the first time since the shower incident. She immediately noticed that he was still as scruffy as when he first came in. "You didn't shave," she commented.
"No, I didn't."
He didn't elaborate, and she figured it wasn't her place to ask. Anyway, it was probably something stupid like he thought shaving would break the winning streak of his favorite pyramid team. Men can be so stupid sometimes.
In the back of her head, a small voice kept asking her if she had forgotten the time she hadn't washed dishes for three weeks while the Picon Starbucks were going 10 and 0. Some of her old classmates at the Academy had been on that team, and they told her that she better not jinx them. So no dish washing until the pyramid team lost a game.
Determined to keep her mind off both the stupid topics such as her own superstitions and the dangerous topics such as every single thing relating to Lee, she waited for him to say something. When he didn't, she searched for a topic that would be relatively safe. It wasn't like the silence was uncomfortable. She just found it harder to keep her thoughts where she wanted them to be when there was nothing to keep her occupied.