Title: Twice in a Field
Author: Kaynara
Pairing: Lee/Kara
Summary: Two years later, Kara comes back to Lee.
Spoilers: Daybreak and the rest of the frakking series
Rating: PG-13
She comes back two years to the day since she left me. I'm standing outside when I feel something jerk inside me. When I turn, she's walking out of the sunlight.
"I was hoping for a frak hello," is what she says when there's only a foot or two separating us. Her hair is long and straight and the strands slap at her face like needles in the wind. I'm thinking, "beautiful," and "touch," and "Karakara." I'm also thinking, dear Gods, I could use a haircut, and a shave. I look like some kind of mountain man, a wild animal, which is, by all rights, what we've become out here.
"Well?" she says.
I see death hasn't made her any less impatient. What I say is, "No." No, Kara, I will be neither kissing nor frakking your brains out. Sorry.
"Well. Gods, Lee, why the hell not?" And she actually looks pissed, eyes widened, jaw dropped at the indignity, at my frakking, excuse the pun, refusal.
She follows me inside, quick in my boot steps.
"What, am I not your type? You'd rather frak one of the half-uprights who can braid her own pubic hair?"
I laugh. I can't help it. She's standing there in her service tanks, telling me off for not doing her on the floor of my dirt shack. It's been two gods' damned years—if I were the type to holds grudges I'd point out it was the second field she left me in, and that I was effectively bare both times.
While she was gone, we measured the passing time in the number dead of disease; the olds friends gone; the crops that thrive in the most fertile soil we've ever encountered; and in Hera's extra inches. Helo and Athena built a little place for me during the months I was gone. It was good of them, payment of a debt long ago marked full. These connections are severing, slow but sure like the rivers that recede ultimately toward the sea. We still speak of things like loyalty, like fraternity, but the words have lost all but the most simplistic meaning. Whatever bound us is gone, fled to the corners of this beautiful, livable, breathable, and to me, stifling world we call Earth.
The house Sharon and Helo built for me is small and solid. During the days, I prop the door to let a breeze rush through the cabin and out the holes that stand in for windows. There's never enough air. And before you ask, I can appreciate the irony: years stuck on a spaceship and it's just now, in an oxygenated atmosphere, that I'm drowning. During the nights, I'm warm and dry. I sleep alone, my bed a pile of grass and leaves with a coat or two thrown over the top. When I dream it isn't of Galactica, the four years of war or poor Ana, who might have been the smartest of us all. I dream of the old times, Kara and Zak and me. Kara and me.
She's walking the perimeter of the cabin now. It's not going to take long, there's nothing here, and soon she's back at the start.
"So you're really not gonna frak me?" she says, sighing.
I make my face blank and bland, stare back at her.
"You've got a sunburn," she says. She reaches out to touch my nose—just a finger tracing the ridge. "Aren't you gonna ask where I was?'
"Do you mean what you are?" I shoot back. "It doesn't matter because I'm not going to do either one. I don't care."
I turn around and walk out the front door, keep going until I'm knee deep in a field of tall green grass and wild flowers. The little black insects congregate here, the ones that suck your blood till they're fat and bloated with it. I'll probably end up covered in them. I hope Kara winds up with more.
She weaves in after me, not stopping until we're striding side by side.
"If it helps any, I'm sorry—" she begins.
I cut her off.
"It doesn't. Frak, Kara. My dad, and then you …" Freedom is attractive until it's all you're left with. Then you start asking what it is you were so desperate to be free from.
I drop to my knees, and the reeds nearly cover my head. Beneath the sun and my fingers, the earth is warm and hopeful.
"I had to go. Something I needed to do. No way around it. I guess the question now is …"
She gets down in the dirt with me, the sun haloing around her hair, her eyes bright and dry.
"… can you forgive me?" We're facing each other, knees almost touching but not. "Huh, Lee?" And it's part challenge, part plea.
I look up into her eyes, study her nose, mouth, skin, freckles. I've known for a long time I loved this girl. Back when she was Zak's, if I'm being honest. Now I know for certain that I don't care about any other frakking thing. Whatever she is, she's mine. I'm decided on that.
"Are you begging me, Starbuck?" I ask, voice rising in mock awe.
She throws her head back and laughs.
"Yes, Lee Adama, God among viper pilots turned presidents turned … beard-wearing potato farmers. I am, in fact, begging you to forgive me and frak me right here in this itchy field of weeds. Think you're up to the task?"
"No."
"Excuse me?"
"Oh, I'll frak you later. And, Kara?"
"Yeah?"
"You better be ready, because when I do … I'm not gonna stop for a good long time."
"Promises, prom—"
I cut her off with my mouth, attaching it to hers. Together we topple forward into the dirt. I cup her head in my hands and kiss her cheeks, ears, chin.
"I don't wanna frak you, Kara. At least not yet. I want you deeper than that. I want you so deep I can feel you in every part of me."
I hoist myself up to hover over her, trying to read her expression. She's biting her bottom lip, so serious.
"What?" I demand. "You're not gonna laugh?"
"We have our whole lives, Lee." She smiles up at me, bright and true. "I'm sure there'll be plenty of opportunities to laugh at you."
And grabbing hold of my shoulders, she flips me over into the earth.