Huge thank you to my Beta Ruth.
Capsized part one
Laura ran a hand through her hair and rubbed her eyes, she was so tired she was ready to drop into the first available bed that presented itself. She struggled to keep up with the fast stepping Admiral and he showed no sign of slowing down. Frankly she thought she could have stopped, wolf whistled behind him and it still wouldn't have drawn his attention. All around them the crew worked to repair the vastly damaged vessel.
Having given up on trying to keep up with the retreating figure of Adama, she looked more carefully at the men and women of this ship, each and everyone of them were tired and shell shocked from the past few hours, they all were - she had little doubt that Bill and her were any better off. They were exhausted, the last time they had slept was a distant memory and although the Admiral's step was quick she knew that had more to do with adrenalin than energy.
She entered his quarters behind him; the interview with Kara Thrace had seemed to last for hours, she had absolutely no idea for how long it had gone on. Since the trial verdict and jumping into the nebular, time had lost all meaning; it had simply become a fight for life.
Bill had been quiet all the way back here in direct contrast to earlier in the detention cell. He had been relentless in his interrogation of the Captain. Over and over he had questioned his former officer looking for any tiny cracks in her story; Laura had simply waiting for a how and a why from her but it didn't come. Thrace had been true to form with a mixture of sincerity and sarcasm which had only infuriated the Admiral more, perhaps for the very reason that it was the exact thing you would expect from Kara and that made the whole process more emotional and human for the stoic military leader.
What was he to believe in, his heart and his eyes or his head and past experience?
He had reached his desk by the time she had closed the hatch and locked it. Turning back to him she spoke for the first time since leaving Kara, "As crazy as this all is, I can't see why the Cylons would use her like that, and they surely couldn't think we would take her back as if nothing had happened. You know, I'm actually starting to believe she is our Starbuck."
She waited expecting an answer from him and frowned when no acknowledgement came. She studied the man before her as he stood; back turned to her, arms outstretched, hands fisted pressing down onto his desk. She imagined it was not a pose seen by many and rarely had she seen it herself. His posture screamed defeat and something else she wasn't quite sure of.
She tentatively questioned, "Bill?" trying to get an answer to her earlier statement.
Seconds before it hit she realised the missing emotion in his stance was anger and it burned brightly.
"No" his voice was quiet initially but the volume rose with force as he repeated "No!", his hand unfurled and he arm swept the majority of the contents of his desk to the floor in a swift raging fury. His arm continued its destructive path until the desk was devoid of objects for him to take out his wrath upon.
With nothing left to take out his violent frenzy on, he rounded on Laura. She couldn't help the small step backward she took as his glare settled and burned through her.
In all these years of dealing with William Adama she had never witnessed this man so out of control and she hated to admit it but it frightened her. Oddly she wasn't concerned for her safety, she feared for him, for his sanity, this man was on the edge and there was precious little to stop him falling over, was this the last straw, had he hit that wall were you couldn't face any more? Was this one too many set backs in a ridiculously short amount of time? The last few weeks had been building for both of them into an emotional whirlpool.
They had barely survived the Cylon fighting force that had descended upon them only hours ago, she could still hear the shouted orders and feel the straining tension as Adama had taken charge of the battle and by gods he had fought. For once they had caught a break and had an advantage over the Cylons. The Cylon fleet like themselves earlier on, had appeared to suffer the same power outage that the fleet had experienced. For a few precious minutes they had inflicted carnage and even when the Cylons regained their power they hadn't seemed to be quite the slaying force they had grown to expect, the raider had been more easily picked off by their vipers, the base stars where sluggish in movement.
Not that Laura could comment she had felt decidedly rough through the whole fight; thankfully the pressure she had felt weighing down on her since they had jumped into the nebular had disappeared the minute they had jumped out. She had been meaning to ask anyone else if they had felt uncomfortable but there simply hadn't been time and it was small in importance.
Even with the break they had gained the sheer number of Cylons grossly out matched them, but Adama had never the less achieved the unthinkable and held out for those precious twenty minutes but the casualties had been high, Galactica was limping the fleet barely better, walking through the corridors the battle was evident, the cost almost too high.
Then just as the idea of them catching a breath and relaxing for a few minutes became a real possibility, they were whisked off again to be confronted by the one thing that would have more effect than any other on him – the return of Kara Thrace. The viper containing her had been kept on hold since its manifestation out of the blue. The ship and pilot had literary been shoved into the corner of the hanger deck under armed guard. Until the time had come for her to be led through the ship to the detention cells.
Bringing her back to the present, Adama verbalised his anger savagely almost screaming in her face, "How can you say that, this can't be happening, people don't just come back from the dead!"
He swung away from her again like a tornado, bellowing his thoughts in an unordered rant, using the whole room to pace around at high velocity the objects from his desk unheeded by its owner crunched under his feet.
All she could do was helplessly stand and watch him self destruct. They had been through crisis after crisis and he had stood tall and unmoved, now all his emotions were being ripped from him in an uncontrollable tidal wave. The intensity of which she had never
witnessed from him before and never wished to again!
His agitation seemed to be at last running out of steam as he slowed to a
stop, facing the wall unable or unwilling to face her with his demons. This time his arms appeared to hold up his whole body as they leaned against the wall. She took a small step closer and called his name, but he wasn't quite finished with his anger as his fist suddenly flew back and slammed into the wall. She rushed instantly up to him; she wanted to stop him from further damage if she could. She wrapped her arms around him only to feel his body sag against the wall and start to gradually drop down to the floor, she went with him as he ended sitting in an untidy heap with her kneeling behind him.
"Stop Bill, please stop", her voice whispered in his ear. His head dropped the fight having left his body.
