Title: Lifelines
Summary: Lee wasn't lying when he said he needed Dee.
Disclaimer: Don't own em, don't sue.
It's easy to fall in love with Dee.
Quickest way? Strap into a Viper, eject into the vast tomb of space, and wage suicidal war on endless legions of Cylons. That's how Lee did it.
It starts with the shrill whine of an alarm, a barking voice that blares "This is not a drill" from mounted wall speakers. A dead sprint through the corridors, a preflight check so ingrained by now its not even second nature, it's replaced his first – he actually has to stop and remind himself to breathe. Countdown to ignition that blurs by so fast it seems rather pointless. The weight of the world presses down tight on his chest, a real, literal physical weight; G-forces slam him back in his seat and hold him there, glued tight as thrusters engage.
Sharp sudden velocity. Speeds that would rip the skin right off his bones if not for the airtight canopy so small and shrink wrapped around him it practically demands a claustrophobic reaction. Seconds whiz by, the dark at the end of the tunnel grows bigger, blacker, hungrier, threatens to swallow him whole and then he's through it and he's out there. A tiny speck lost in that impossibly big canvas. One meant to contain planets, stars, entire galaxies – nothing so small and insignificant as him.
Racetrack's screaming in his radio and a Raider's plunging straight towards him and there's no more time for feeling humble. Now he's supposed to be Apollo, supposed to be a god, and that makes him just want to laugh. A high, sharp hysterical thing he manages to turn into a carefully controlled order. He tells Crashdown to watch his six, there's a Cylon gunning right for his tail, snaps at Hot Dog to brake hard right, there's a whole damn wave of the bastards headed straight on an intercept course for him. And gods, but if there's a bigger frakkin' hypocrite in this whole fleet he'd love to meet them.
He's been banking to the left and quick as Jupiter's lightning he dives to the right and backwards in a barrel roll. A tight, controlled spin and he's behind the Raider and level with it. Snaps his guns over and across and thick, heavy armor piercing rounds spatter its wing like rain drops; rain sent from the heavens by a god, harsh and punishing enough to break the wing right off, knocking the whole Raider into a tailspin that takes it out of the fight. It's done for. Good hunting Apollo, voices praise him from his radio, but he just barks at them to look alive, there's plenty more where that came from.
His mind fragments, compartmentalizes. There's a part that tracks the Raiders across the stark vista of space, a focused, calculating part that's just waiting for the perfect moment to strike each one. There's a part that keeps his eyes darting from his nine to his three and back again, quick, jittery glances that dance him safely through a storm of enemy fire; a part that holds his voice collected and in control, calmly snapping orders to his pilots while they bob and dodge, duck and weave across the heavens. There's a part that glances down to where his hands are gripped tight around the controls, slick with sweat and white knuckled from the strain – and it panics, shakes, what if he loses his grip, what if that lever jams, what if he puts too much pressure on the brake at exactly the wrong moment. Why have they never streamlined the control system, why so complicated, so many things that can go wrong? Even though he knows damn well why, knows the adrenaline, the fear, the complex mechanisms designed to keep the mind sharp and the body on edge, its all necessary, a pilot can't get too complacent or a pilot gets dead. Flying's fifty percent instinct, fifty percent skill and a hundred percent gods-blessed luck. He's known this since he was fifteen years old but it doesn't keep his heart from slamming into his ribcage with enough force he figures he could punch through a basestar with it.
And then its over, it's done. All the Raiders are gone, either dead or fled, and he really couldn't give a damn which at the moment. He's too busy trying to make sure he didn't crap his pants during the fight. Chatter's buzzing loud over the comm systems, phantom voices congratulating him, praising him, and he's such a frakkin' farce it makes him want to puke. Instead he sweeps back around, searching for any lingering hints of a Cylon presence, but they're really gone, and they're really alone again. Somehow during the chaos he put a moon between himself and Galactica and it just now sinks in that he can't see it anymore, just black empty space as far as the eye can see. Once more panic sets in, breath starts getting hoarse, shoulders start to shake, and he realizes, this is how he's going to die. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but this is where he'll be when it finally happens, this is what it's going to look like.
And then his radio comes to life again. This time there's only one voice, her voice. Petty Officer Dualla, her words crackling with static and laced with gentle concern as she calls the A-Ok for the pilots - for him - to come back aboard. There's nothing sweet or dulcet about her tones, at times it's scratchy, almost coarse, but listening to it he's sure he's never heard anything more beautiful in his life. His breathing slows; his eyes stop watering, he looks down and watches the white around his knuckles fade away as he lets her voice guide him home. Back through the launch doors and gently atop the landing pad, down, down and he's out of the cockpit. Artificial gravity reasserts itself and he shifts from foot to foot, testing his weight, testing the firmness beneath him til he's sure he can stand straight, and it's only then that he can breathe again. He's back, and its over, and somehow he beat the odds again and lived to fight another day.
'Welcome home, pilots' she signs off cheerfully, and in that moment he wants nothing more than to hug Petty Officer Dualla and plant a great big kiss right on her lips. The moment passes.
But that's only the first time.
Alarms sound again, day after day after day. Vipers launch into space, week after week after week. The battles get harder, the distances get further, the despair gets thicker, so thick it's tangible, its palpable, its damn near edible, and there's enough of it for the whole fleet to choke on. He's lost count of the times he's sat here, right in this same spot – because really, in space who can tell the difference anyways – convinced that this is it, he's finally dead but he's been living in hell for so long he can't even tell the difference. And each time her voice speaks up and proves him wrong. Strong, steady, without deviation. Utterly reliable no matter how many times his guidance systems crash or his engines misfire. Always there to welcome him home, and every time it makes him want to hug her and kiss her and never let go. And each time, the moment passes, and its back to business - until the day it doesn't. And just like that, he's in love with Dee.
And he knows he's more than a little in love with Kara too, and so he wills it a passing fancy and waits for it to go away. Until the day it doesn't. And it's not rational, and it doesn't make sense, but its space and nothing makes sense in space. Every direction is the same as any direction and up might as well be down, and somehow time passes and there's a proposal and he's down on bended knee. And it's not even until later he realizes it's him that did the proposing and it's her that said the yes - and maybe there was a hint of uncertainty in her eyes, and maybe there was a voice in the back of his head that whispered Kara. But its space, and they're all hopelessly lost anyways. Right?
So here he is, in this tiny space they share together, doting husband and loving wife. The knot in his throat thickens, revulsion and self-contempt lending it weight and substance. He leans over the sink and splashes water on his face, looks up in the mirror and stares back at himself with bloodshot eyes. Except it's not himself, but its not some stranger, it's….its some other Lee. Familiar yet strange, and gods, but he doesn't know how he got here. Hair messy and unkept, eyes watering from all the liquor he chased down his throat at the bar. Shirtless, chest marked with tiny nicks and scratches, and he runs one hand across them, self consciously. Not Dee's work, never Dee's work, because Dee makes love; its Kara who makes him fight for every scrap of pleasure he can get from her.
And just like that, reality's reality, and it hits him hard. He's cheating on his wife, he's having an affair, he, Lee Adama of the uptight rules and regulations, 'paragon of values and morality,' president of the do it because its right club is betraying his wife, his marriage, his gods – and even that knowledge isn't enough to make him stop. A sudden, wild thought chases the self-hatred around his brain, what would his mother say if she could see him now. He slams his eyes shut and pictures her in mind's eye, gentle, stern – faceless. He can barely remember what his own mother looks like.
Like the waters of the river Lethe, the vast dark empty of space has worn that away until only a memory of a memory is left. Like rain, he can't remember the feel of rain on his face – even though they've stopped planet side more than once. Can't remember what a child's laughter sounds like, real laughter, genuine, innocent, free of cares and worries. Can't remember what it feels like to sink down into a chair and just drift off to sleep, relaxed, no concerns, secure in the knowledge he's on leave for a whole week and he's going to see Gianne tomorrow. Can't remember what it feels like to be him, to be Lee, when he knew who he was and he was damn proud to be with. Maybe that Lee could have been the Apollo everyone needs now, but he's not him, oh gods, he's not him at all. Just a pale, cheap imitation of the original.
There's enough scorn in that thought to jerk his head back up to the mirror, study himself, study that face in front of him hard. Scrutinize every last each for a hint of plasticity, metallic numbness – a sign of something unreal, something fake. Maybe he's really not Lee, maybe he's just another Boomer. A frakkin' toaster that doesn't even know it's a toaster, just goes around living and breathing and dying like everyone else, a weapon waiting to be primed and activated so it can attack or maybe even self destruct. Hell, even if he was, there's no way he could actually know. The thought sends a chill down his spine, but as chills go its not nearly cold enough. The thought not nearly frightening enough. Just one more reason to stop pretending, to just…..stop. Just head out the nearest airlock, don't come back the next time they drop planet-side, maybe just jump down a Raider's guns, go out a 'hero', with a bang. And all that right there's just one more way he's not Lee Adama, not any more.
Fabric rustles behind him, there's footsteps against the ground and shadows on the wall. He doesn't know when she came in the room, how long she's been standing there just watching him. Long enough, though, right? Shouldn't she be able to see what he sees in the mirror? She comes to stand behind him, and he shuts his eyes before he can see her. He doesn't want to see her, doesn't want to look in those big, dark eyes of her and face the worry and betrayal he'll find in equal measure there. He's such a coward, but as long as no one else can see it in his eyes, as long as no one else calls him on it, he'll keep on pretending. He'll go on being their precious Apollo even though he knows that's not going to be good enough, they need him to be more than that now -he- needs himself to be more than that.
"Lee?" She questions softly, that beautiful, strong voice - and just like that, he knows he can never leave her. Starbuck or no Starbuck, he needs this, he needs her, one single word and that's all it takes and he's hanging to it like a lifeline, clinging to it with all his strength, like it's the only thing that can save him. And maybe it is. She's guided him home enough times, maybe she can do it again. Maybe she can bring him all the way back home, back to when he was really Lee. Time freezes, trapped in the echo of her voice, and just like the proverb wild hope springs eternal. Maybe he really could be Lee again, maybe he could be the Apollo they all need.
And he knows its not right, he knows its not rational. He's not that far gone. Lee's not a stupid man, he knows what he's doing. He knows he's put her on a pedestal, fallen in love with an ideal that's as superficial and arbitrary as the name Apollo, and if the damn President of all Twelve Colonies can say they need him, then why can't he need her? It's not fair to her – gods, he knows its not fair, but where's the fair in twelve home worlds lying dead and radioactive in their wake? Where's the fair in all the dead friends, lovers, family, where's the fair in great expectations and looking to one man, one woman, one vision, one anything to be the salvation for an entire race? Where's the fair in Boomer not being Boomer and Chief drunk at the bar while Cally watches the baby and Helo being so in love with Sharon and she's not really even Sharon? Where's the frakkin' fair in any of it?
"Lee?" She asks again, resting a hand on his back. He flinches, but just for a moment. Then leans back into it, the rough, calloused skin of her hand, worn down from years of selfless service to her people. Eyes still closed, the back of his eyelids starts to look like space, tiny pinpricks of white shining through. He's so frakked up and she's so frakked up and they're all such a frakked up people – but then, they always have been, haven't they? He reaches behind him and pull her tight up against his body, and its not an act. He might love Starbuck but he knows damn well he's in love with Dee, and maybe that really can be enough. She's tight and resisting at first but then she gives in and lets him draw her close, and he can feel her looking up at him but his eyes are still closed, waiting for her to say something else – lost in the black, waiting for her voice to find him and prove he's still alive, so she can guide him home again.