Forgiveness

By Crystal Wimmer

Chapter 1

If there were such a thing as starting over, Kara Thrace would have done so. Immediately. Without thought. Without regret. But some things you couldn't take back, and lying to your best friend for two years about the most important thing in either of your lives was one of them.

She had lied. Yes, she admitted that much. Further, she'd admitted it to him. But at this point she couldn't decide which had been worse: the lie, or the action she had lied about. How did you just tell a man that you'd killed his brother? Straight up with no warning and less explanation certainly wasn't it. The look on Lee's face when she'd told him had been worse than when she'd killed his brother.

Okay, she hadn't actually pulled a trigger, or done anything direct to make sure the plane crashed. But she hadn't prevented it either, when she'd had the power to do so within her grasp. Granted, she hadn't known what her tolerance would do. She hadn't known she wouldn't have the chance to fix her mistake. But she had done it all, just the same. If anything, her good intentions had made the action worse.

But good intentions aside, she couldn't lie any longer. Lee had been her best friend for longer than she could remember. From a time when she had been a scabby kneed brat who didn't know her fist from her foot, she had relied on his judgement and his understanding. She simply couldn't accept those things from him under false pretenses any longer. He had always given her honesty, whether she liked it or not. Did she really have a choice about giving him the same?

"Hey."

Kara looked up, startled from her thoughts by the very man she had been thinking of. He stood in the doorway of the pilot's quarters. Lee Adama was far more welcome than her last visitor had been, and yet she still wasn't entirely comfortable with him at the moment. She settled for a simple, "Hey," in reply, rather than giving him the hug that she so desperately wanted to give, and maybe needed in return. She was in no mood to be rejected outright.

"Can we talk?"

He entered slowly, and he didn't look any more sure of her than she was of him.

"Yeah."

She hadn't yet managed to stand, caught somewhere between shock and fear at his appearance. He didn't look like he minded. In fact, he sat down next to her on her bunk with a sigh that rivaled what she was feeling. With the load she had dropped on him, there was little wonder why he looked like he was carrying a heavy burden.

"I don't know where to start," he began. His eyes met hers and then dodged away. It had been a long time since he hadn't been able to look her in the eye.

"The beginning's always a good place," she suggested wryly.

His mouth quirked in what could have been a smile, and Kara's stomach relaxed a bit. He was still Lee, whatever she had done to him.

"When was that?" He asked as he lay back on her bed, eyes closing. She smiled at him finally, while he couldn't see her. "You've always been there," he muttered, echoing her previous thoughts. "You've always been around, one way or another. A part of me figured you always would be."

Kara lay back next to Lee and smiled broadly. "Two peas in a pod?"

"Three," he corrected simply. "You, me, and Zak."

"I remember." Her voice was soft with regret and pain.

"Even though you were in my class, you spent more time hanging with him than me in school," Lee reminisced. "Half the time I felt like I had two kid brothers instead of one."

"You two always put up with a girl hanging around."

He did laugh at that. "You weren't a traditional girl," Lee reminded her. "I don't think I ever saw paint or skirts on you."

"Would've slowed me down," she told him. "I had to keep up with you two."

Lee reached over and took her hand, making her stomach drop. It had been a long time since he had offered such a gesture. The last time, as best she could remember, had been at the funeral. She had been hurting so much that she'd pulled away when what she had wanted was to grab on and hold tight. "I was surprised you left him for the academy. He was only three years behind us."

"I wanted to fly," she said simply.

"And fly you did. Hell, you even left me in your vapor trail. You went from student to instructor in record time. I don't think I've ever seen anyone more comfortable in a cockpit. You have instincts I don't even understand."

"It felt right," she told him softly.

"And teaching?"

She shrugged, then squeezed his hand realizing he couldn't see her with his eyes still closed. "I enjoyed it," she admitted. "And I hated it."

"When someone didn't have it," Lee said gently. Then, looking at her, "Someone like Zak."

"I loved Zak," she whispered, admitting to him he must have already known. "He was a brother, and a friend, and my fiancé, and more than anything in the world he wanted to be like you, like your father. No, he didn't have it. He wasn't a natural in the cockpit, but he could have learned. What he lacked in instinct he could have made up for in hard work and logic, like he always had. But he couldn't move forward until he'd passed Basic Flight."

"So you passed him," Lee said, his voice breaking. "Knowing he wasn't fit to fly, you passed him."

"He could fly, he just couldn't land," she said on a sigh. "I passed him," she admitted again. "I thought we'd have time to work on his technique. Hell, I was looking forward to it."

Lee picked himself up onto one elbow and looked down at her. "Why couldn't you have done that and then passed him?" he asked, his voice strained.

"Because he wasn't you," she said, her voice breaking slightly. She cleared her throat before continuing. She'd never fallen apart in front of Lee, not even at the funeral when she'd felt like she was dying. She wouldn't start crying like a baby now. "Lee, not everyone has the confidence that you do. You know what you can do, and how to do it better than anyone. Even when you're wrong you have this way of making it sound like you're right. Zak didn't have that. He was young, and scared, and that was half his problem in the cockpit. If he could have found half the confidence you have, he would have been an ace. But he didn't have it. He wanted it, though. Lords, how he wanted it. It was all he wanted. I knew he couldn't do the job, but I couldn't take it away from him. I don't think he could have survived it, so I decided to do it my way."

"Your way cost him his life," Lee reminded her.

"I know that," she said, finally losing the hold she'd kept on her emotions, and with it control over the single tear that would give her away. She felt its warmth trailing down her right cheek, followed by an icy chill. "I don't expect you to forgive me," she admitted, shrugging to wipe the tear away on her arm.

"I already have."

Kara met Lee's eyes, seeing only honesty and sadness there, rather than the anger she had feared. She didn't understand. "But, " she began, and had no clue how to continue.

"I know you loved him," Lee told her. "I know you would have died before you let him hurt himself. When we were kids, we used to spend half our time getting him out of one mess or another. I can't blame you when you're so busy blaming yourself."

She didn't understand. Lee could, and had, held grudges for less reason than this for years. There was no way it could be this easy. He'd never even forgiven his own father, and William Adama hadn't done anything in the first place.

"But," she tried again. "If you can forgive me?"

"Why couldn't I forgive my dad?" he finished her question.

"Yeah."

He shrugged his upper shoulder, then lay back down on the bed, eyes closing. "Maybe because he never admitted responsibility," he wondered aloud. "Or maybe because his goal would have been personal rather than for Zak. You did it because you wanted him to be happy and have a chance. I figured Dad did it because he wanted Zak to be like me. I don't know. Maybe I can forgive you because you're human, and Dad's never seemed like that. A ruler, yes. A god, sometimes. But he's never just been my dad."

"You had to know he loved Zak," Kara offered. "I knew that, even from the outside."

"What I knew is that he always pushed," Lee told her. "He pushed for grades, pushed for choices, and even pushed for relationships. He made all the choices for us, and unless we just flat out told him 'no' he couldn't let it be. I got really good at telling him 'no', but Zak never did."

"Relationships," Kara muttered, latching on to that one word. "You're saying that the only reason Zak and I were together was because of your dad's master plan or something?" She didn't like the implications of that statement. She really didn't like the idea that Zak might have been with her because of anything besides who she was. Lee was silent for a long time. Too long. "Lee?"

"I'm just saying that Dad thought a lot of you. He was really happy when you and Zak got engaged."

"But, was it his choice, or Zak's?"

"Zak could have told him 'no'," Lee said gently. "Just because he may have encouraged it, he couldn't have changed Zak's feelings. I'm just saying that Dad always had a hand in what we did. He pushed us, sometimes in big ways and sometimes more subtle, but he was always pushing."

"Zak didn't have the same defenses against him that you do," Kara said quietly. "You'd do just the opposite to prove that you could, but Zak would aim to please."

"He wanted my dad's approval, yes."

"Did he ever push you in my direction," Kara asked, fearing she already knew the answer. "Or was it just Zak?"

Lee's silence stretched this time, longer than it had before. Finally, he answered her. "It's hard to know, because I was always headed your direction in the first place."

"What?"

"When he suggested you for accompanying me to closing ceremonies, I'd already pretty much decided it was a good idea. When he suggested that we look into the same Flight Training center so that we'd have a friend nearby, I already had the same idea. So it's hard to know if he was pushing me or not, because I was so damn busy agreeing with him that I wouldn't have noticed. It's probably the same with Zak. Even if Dad was suggesting, Zak was already facing your direction. He'd been half in love with you since you turned fifteen and he caught you coming out of the shower. Nothing like hormones to ruin a kid for life." The last had been said with a distinct grin what could have been a wink.

Kara wasn't sure. She wasn't sure she cared. She sat up on the edge of the bed, only vaguely realizing that her eyes were dry again and she was feeling more fury than fear or uncertainty. "Was your father responsible for suggesting that Zak ask me to marry him?" she asked simply.

"I don't remember," Lee answered. "But it wouldn't surprise me. He suggested that I ask you out a couple of times. He figured because we were friends, and closer to the same age, that we might be a good match."

"Thank goodness you're immune to your father's wishes," Kara said bitterly. She didn't like to think of herself as requiring a cheering section to get a date. No, she hadn't had many dates in school. She tended to intimidate boys, and that didn't bother her. If they couldn't get up nerve to ask her out, she certainly didn't want a relationship where she could ride herd over them. She was better off alone, as she'd always been. Always, except for when she and Zak had been a couple. Knowing that might have been coerced bothered her more than she cared to admit, on more levels than she consciously understood.

"I'm immune," Lee granted. "But I still wouldn't have dated you."

"Thanks."

He smiled at that. "You were - are - my best friend. That isn't something I want to mess with. I was worried enough about having you as a sister-in- law without everything changing. When something's good, I don't want to mess with it."

"So that's why you've forgiven me," she reasoned quietly. "Because you don't want to mess with a friendship?"

"No, because you never meant to hurt him. Because your reasons were noble, even if your actions weren't. And maybe because you're hurting enough without me adding to that. Maybe I'm just tired of blaming anyone. Mostly though, because you're the one other person in the world that loved Zak for himself, and not for what he could have been or might have been. He needed that from someone, and he wouldn't take it from me."

"He'd take anything from you, Lee. Even scraps."

Lee sighed heavily, then reached for the hand she had taken back when she'd sat up. "You, too," he said softly. "That's why I really can't blame you for giving it to him."

"He never felt good enough," she agreed. "His father was the mighty Commander Adama, and his brother the great Apollo. He didn't think being 'Zak' was good enough."

"And his girlfriend the legendary Starbuck," Lee added. "I guess that is a lot to live up to."

She lay back on the bed, half tugged by Lee's hand and half resigned to the guilt that had become a part of her. "Either way, I let him down."

"We both did," Lee agreed softly. "I could have worked with him before he tested, maybe got his skills up to snuff, but I didn't have the time. Or, I wouldn't take the time is more like it. I wanted him to realize that he wasn't a pilot and move on to something he liked more. Something that he could be good at."

"So, you were pushing him just as much as your father was," she reasoned.

"In a different direction," he admitted. "But yeah, I pushed him, too."

"And now we don't have anyone to push," she said softly.

"Yeah."

(to be continued)