I really thought I had uploaded this fic but I overlooked it and am so ashamed. I wrote this when I was missing my Kara and Lee and while I would never claim to know more than the powers that be, I didn't think Lee and Kara got a fair shake at the end. So here's my healing process. I own nothing and mean no harm. Reviews are loved.
Exploration had been fun at first. Lee had traversed their new planet for untold days; months had melted away as time was strange at first on this new planet. Wondrous discoveries had been his, breath taking sights that no one else had seen before. The memories of them calmed him even now.
The further he went though, the harder the pull of base camp became to ignore, each and every time he found a spot he thought could be his own, the tug was there in his chest and he made his way back to the point of origin.
Helo had laughed, claiming it was his company that Lee couldn't do without. Maybe it was. Close quarters on Galactica had done its damage and there was only so much open space a man could take.
Those were the simple answers, the easy ones, but half-truths. The truth was in the one spot that called him, one patch of hillside that called him.
"Hey Kara," he was here again, the last place he had seen her. The words came easy, he told her about where he had gone, and the things he had seen.
Thoughts came next, ideas, plans and updates on friends. The births and deaths she had missed. He wondered if it had been this easy to talk to her before how might things have gone differently.
He told her that too.
He told her that he missed her.
He told her that he loved her.
He told her that if she were to come back to him again he would do things right and proper in front of their friends and her gods.
He told her that he would marry her.
He told her that would hold her hair back when she threw up, morning sickness would not faze him.
He told her she would be an amazing mother.
All of this he told her time and again.
Building the shelter had happened in stages. A mat on the ground had turned into a tent which had become a rudimentary lean-to.
And then he had gotten inspired.
With tools he made himself and materials gathered by his own hand he built a home. A good and proper home she would have been proud to share with him.
Helo had been concerned, if not a bit awed by the undertaking. Lee knew Kara wasn't going to be there for him to cook a meal with in the great room or share a bed in the larger of the two bedrooms.
No amount of reasoning got through to him once the first nail had been struck. He had worked like a man possessed. House, rooms, furniture, a well, a garden, a barn with livestock he built them all; no detail had been spared or overlooked.
And when there was nothing left for him to build he had worked the land, turning the barn and gardens into a hub of fresh produce and meat.
The frost had finally come, the animals put to bed and his evening had been freed.
With nothing to do, no plan to unfurl he had begun to pace the length of the Great Room. A fire roared in the open hearth fireplace, a pot hung above it with his half-eaten supper. There was an ache in his chest anxiousness that hadn't been there in so very long.
Recognition had taken time; it had crept up on him unawares. Four years had passed since he had last seen her. Four years to the day.
"Kara," sinking onto one of the dining chairs, he had made six, and he wondered at how long it had been since he had thought of dates.
Would there be silver strands in her hair yet? He had found one or two in his own. Would there be more lines around her eyes and mouth? Would her skin be as smooth as when he had last tasted it?
With a groan he felt the blood rushing to his cock. It had been so long, too long, since he had been with a woman.
He didn't want any woman, he wanted Kara.
The house was built, the land thriving, and it occurred to him that he had been waiting, all this time he had been waiting and preparing; for her. Logically he knew she was gone, that she wasn't coming back.
His heart and his soul, and apparently his cock, thought otherwise. Every part of him that mattered was locked in, waiting for her to come back; all this time he had been holding onto the hope that she would come back to him.
Crazy; no wonder Helo had been so worried.
"The Lords of Kobol hear me now," he started the prayer, but the words were lost to him. Eyes closing he sent the words he no longer knew out from his heart where he knew no language was needed.
He needed to let go, he knew that now, he had too. So he prayed for her to be at peace, he prayed that he would find it too.
Prayer after prayer poured out of him. The sudden clarity and belief in what he was feeling was so far removed from who he had once been.
Everything about what he was doing was finally feeling right. He could let her go now.
Night had passed, he had fallen asleep his head falling onto the smooth wood of the table. Sunshine was beginning to creep over the horizon. Lee moved towards the view, leaving the door open he walked towards the rising sun, "It's so beautiful Kara," old habits would be hard to break. With his back to the house he turned his face up to the sky. "I wish you could have seen this."
"Talking to yourself now Apollo." With a jerk Lee stumbled forward, the voice startling him, stealing away his breath, his thoughts. He knew that voice.
"Kara?" his voice was a whisper of disbelief; he had to still be asleep.
"Who else would it be?"
Frak, it sounded just like her. The breeze picked up and he awash in the scent of her, cigars and fuel and, "Kara."
"Still here Lee, still staring at your back," the hint of annoyance was typical Kara, but he didn't want to turn around, was afraid too.
"If I turn around you might disappear," it felt good to voice his concerns even to a hallucination, "and more than likely you're just another figment of my imagination." How many times had he seen her or heard her voice?
Albeit none of those times had they come across as vividly as this, but it was more than likely, "A tick of the mind."
His Kara snorted, "I guess you're just going to have to turn around and see for yourself."
And there it was, the moment of truth, he had wanted to let her go, to let her be at peace; to be at peace himself. Only to have this dilemma thrown at him, if he turned the healing process would drag on. If he didn't, and there was a chance, "Frak."
His feet moved his eyes closed with the motion until he knew he had turned.
"Open your eyes Lee," there was a smile in her voice and he wanted to see.
What he was seeing took time to align with what he believed; it was her, Kara, Starbuck. Right there in front of him an arm's length away.
"Kara," it was not to be believed.
"Lee," her grin was blinding.
"Kara," he shouted, the next few moments was a blur. He reached for her, shocked when she didn't disappear under his fingers.
"What? How? Why?" he was torn between touching and kissing and information.
"Looks like I'm not done after all," he pulled back, not away, his arms were firmly wrapped around her waist and he had no intention of letting go, she would have to push him away.
"I thought you were OK with going," their last conversation had plagued him. The defeat in her voice, the resignation, but the Kara Thrace in his arms was neither defeated nor resigned, but he had to be sure.
Reading his thoughts, Kara had always known him best; she cupped his face, pressing a kiss to his lips, "I was wrong."
He laughed, arching an eyebrow at her admission, she shrugged. "It's been known to happen."
They would happen; he could feel it in his heart. With a shout to the skies he picked her up and swung her around until she was screaming with laughter.
And when he set her down, acquiescing to her demands for a tour, he showed her all he had done. What he had built, what he had started for them.
Only when she was awed and overwhelmed, and finally silent, did he tell her everything he had been too late, too stupid, and too stubborn to tell her before.
"You want it all don't you," she asked? Tears had formed at his insistence that she would be the best mother he would know.
"I will have it all," the Lords of Kobol, the One True God, whomever it had been had given her back to him and he wasn't giving her back or getting it wrong.
Kara smiled, "Okay Lee. Okay."
So say we all.