Apologies

by BeethovenFA03

Leecentric missing scene for Scar “If he’d been thinking, he would’ve called her bluff when she said that there was “no us” and told her he had been in love with her since before the worlds ended.”

Title: Apologies (1/1)
Author: Steph
Date: 7/8/06
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,512
Pairing: Kara/Lee
Category: Vignette
Archiving: AS list, Fallout Shelter
Spoilers: Scar
Disclaimer: Ron Moore owns them, etc. I don't have money for them to take, etc.
Summary: Leecentric missing scene, "If he'd been thinking, he would've called her bluff when she said that there was "no us" and told her he had been in love with her since before the worlds ended."

A/N: First BSG fic, just kept bouncing around my head, and I couldn't get the idea out any other way. Enjoy!

Apologies (1/1)

"You're fine with the dead guys. It's the living ones you can't deal with."

The statement echoed in his head, like a rerun of an awful Caprican soap opera. Why exactly had he chosen those words?

"You're fine with the dead guys. It's the living ones you can't deal with."

Great, Lee. Good way to get her back for hurting you, his conscience sneered. Of course, he hadn't really been thinking at the time. If he'd been thinking, he wouldn't have said something so absolutely spiteful. If he'd been thinking, he would've told her to cut the bullshit. If he'd been thinking, he would've called her bluff when she said that there was "no us" and told her he had been in love with her since before the worlds ended.

And to top it all off, he certainly would've held on to her when she kissed him before storming out the hatch. His mind had barely grasped the concept that she was actually there, with her lips crushing hard and fast against his, her hands grasping desperately at his hair, before she was off again. In the moments after she left him in a befuddled mess, he collapsed against the counter with a dazed look on his face. "What the hell just happened?"

And now, he was wandering the ship in the middle of the night shift, with paperwork still to be done on his desk, a CAP rotation in the afternoon, and immediately after he dragged himself from his viper, a briefing with his father and Colonel Tigh. But rather than sleeping, he tossed and turned with those dreaded words clamoring for his attention.

He had sighed and thrown his covers back, dreading any possible confrontation with her, hoping only to check to make sure she was soundly asleep before attempting to get comfortable again.

He'd done that more than once after a particularly rough day, or a particularly horrible fight. Usually, he'd just trace her features with his eyes for a few minutes, send a short prayer of thanks to gods he wasn't sure he believed in, and go back to sleep. Sometimes he'd trace those features with a fingertip, just to make sure she was still there. On the rarest of occasions, she'd stir briefly, sleepily smile at him and squeeze his hand before rolling over and falling back into unconsciousness. She had the most amazing ability to put him at ease when no one else could.

Unfortunately, Kara Thrace also had a profound talent for driving him absolutely berserk.

He had quietly thrown on some tanks and sweats over his sleep shorts and found his running shoes. As he stood, he took one last glance at her empty bunk, then started out on his search. He checked the brig almost immediately, realizing how drunk she must've been when she'd thrown herself at him and remembering how full the bottle she left with was. After seeing only empty cells, he braved the hanger deck, but the crews there looked at the disheveled Captain like he was a gimbal short of a full set of landing skids, and resumed their duties. No Starbuck.

As he made his way through the empty gym and back down the corridor to the briefing room, he was beginning to worry that she had passed out somewhere obsolete, or regained her nasty habit of frakking any man she could find until she forgot why she'd found the guy in the first place. The poor bastard would never know what hit him.

He sighed, knowing full well that if she had chosen that particular route to self-destruction, no one could've resisted her. She was a knockout, plain and simple. She could fight and fly better than most people walked and talked. She was beautiful, but didn't believe it. She had a presence that made everyone in the room take notice when she walked in…he shook his head and sighed again. This was why he was the worst CAG in the history of CAGs: he was head over heels in love with the best pilot he had, and he wouldn't change a damn thing.

Finally rounding the corner to the briefing room, he saw a blue glow flickering in darkness beyond the door. It took him a few seconds to realize he was watching the Scar footage repeating over and over, and knew he'd found at least one pilot who needed his help this evening, even if it wasn't Kara. He stepped from the shadows, and looked to the front row, and he relaxed as he realized who was slouched in the center seat.

He slowly approached her, worried he would startle her and end up with a bigger fight on his hands, but he realized later that he probably could've marched a parade band through there and she would've stayed unconscious. If they had a parade band left.

Lee sat carefully in the seat next to her, and pried the bottle of ambrosia from her fingers. There was more left in the bottle than he expected, but much less than when she had left him in the bunkroom. That thought brought a fresh wave of indignation at her attempts to use him as a replacement for her pyramid player on Caprica. By all rights, he should've stayed in bed and let her deal with the fallout of her stupidity herself. She had told him before that she was a screw-up, but he never remembered how catastrophically she could muck up his life until she did it again. He supposed he should be angry at himself, for not stopping her sooner, but if he was being honesty, he knew he couldn't resist her.

She whimpered a bit in her sleep, and a frown creased her forehead, pulling Lee out of his ruminations, and focusing his attention on her face. He noticed the dried paths her tears had taken, and his heart constricted. She may have hurt him, but she had hurt herself more. He knew she was lying when she had said that there was nothing between them. They had been through far too much together for him to be fooled by her self-deception.

She obviously cared about him, as a friend or as something more, he couldn't say. But people don't ram their ships together to save acquaintances. People don't have all the emotional ups and downs if they have nothing invested in the relationship. Apollo and Starbuck complemented each other in the sky effortlessly. Lee and Kara managed to do it on the ground sometimes, too—when they weren't arguing and spitting mad at each other. Really, they were laughable. It was the end of the world, and they were both too emotionally damaged and insecure, with too much history and too little communication to be thinking about taking their friendship to the next level.

He brushed an errant lock of hair out of her face as he pondered their next moves. Samuel T. Anders may possibly have claimed a space in her heart, but that didn't mean there wasn't room for him too. And he loved her enough to want her happy, whatever that meant. He had been willing enough to be miserable without her when Zak had proposed to her and she had accepted. If he had to remain her best friend, he'd make the most of it.

He smiled gently at her, realizing that all the contemplation and sacrifice in the world couldn't save their relationship if he left her sleeping in an awkward position in the briefing room for too much longer. He put the bottle behind the podium where he would find it at the next briefing, then went to gather her in his arms. She came easily out of the chair, and he shifted her weight to carry her back to the bunkroom. He was surprised when she wound her arms around his neck and opened her eyes blearily.

"Lee?" She managed to croak out his name, dragging her head away from his shoulder in an attempt to draw his blue gaze.

"Yea, Kara." He shifted her a little closer, adjusting her arms draped around him and avoiding her eyes. When she didn't respond, he wondered if he was going to get a drunken tongue lashing for carrying her.

"I'm sorry."

He finally looked at her, and his heart warmed a bit more at the child-like look of remorse on her face. He slowly leaned his face down to hers, making sure she knew this was a deliberate move on his part, and praying that she would remember this in the morning. He gently caressed her full lips with his own, then pulled back. He smiled softly at her, whispered "Me too," and started out of the room, holding her to him securely.

He was about halfway back to the bunkroom when he felt, more than heard her mumble his name into his neck before slipping back into unconsciousness. A smile broke across his face as he carried her through the silent corridors of the Galactica. There was always hope.

FIN