The Dance You Choose

This is a story set somewhere after season three begins, approximately 3 months in. It's an introspective piece about Lee's life and where it's going. Spoilers for everything up to date - including season 3. LeeDee and LeeKara. The story title is borrowed from a song of the same name sung by (but I don't think written by) Aselin Debison, a Canadian artist.

ooooooooooooooooo

So it began again. Anther day, same as all the rest. Lee began to wonder if maybe the people who'd perished on New Caprica had been the lucky ones. He even envied Colonel Tigh - he'd been tortured and then killed. How sick was that?

But Lee's life had no flavour, no spice. It was nice and good ... mostly easy but boring. He'd taken on the job of XO of Galactica since Tigh was gone and the beast had been destroyed, but truth be told, he really wasn't all that excited about it. Working so closely with his father had gone much better than he'd anticipated, even though some had voiced concerns about the two top military positions both being held by people with the name Adama. The two of them had developed a good working relationship with the newly reinstated Laura Roslin and for the most part, things were going well between the military and civilian factions.

"Major? Are you with us?"

Lee blinked a few times. He still wasn't used to that title - he'd only had it a very short while before becoming a Commander and now he'd been demoted, being that there could only be one commander per ship. He was more used to being called Captain, as that rank had been his for much longer than Commander, but Major seemed to be what it was settling on for now. He brought himself back to reality with an effort.

"Yes, yes of course," he said, blushing as Roslin's face wore a bemused grin at his discomfiture.

"Well then perhaps you could get on that today already," Adama said coyly, knowing Lee hadn't been listening and wanting to give him just a little bit of grief for it.

Lee reddened even more. "Could you um ... give a quick summary?" he asked.

"Nothing like a little daydream," Roslin said, smiling. "Youth - they still have something to dream about."

"I'd hate to think the young have the monopoly on dreaming Madam President," Adama said, eyes twinkling.

She turned her mega-watt smile on him. "So would I Admiral. But at least we're still young at heart."

Lee could have sworn she was flirting with him. And he would be damned if his father wasn't flirting back.

"You look like you've only gotten younger since I've known you," Adama shot back, and the two of them rose from their chairs, eyes locked on one another's, oblivious to Lee still sitting there.

"Ahem ... my assignment?" Lee said pointedly.

"Oh yes," Adama said, clearing his throat. "We need to assemble teams to elicit whatever resources we can from the planet before we resume our search for earth."

"Okay ..." Lee said slowly.

"Since you have a better relationship with the ... residents of the Astral Queen, I thought perhaps you might be able to convince some of them to help us," Roslin suggested tactfully.

Lee's eyes narrowed but he couldn't help but smile at her. She had such a way with people.

"Well, things are little more strained with Zarek since the election ... the latest cylon attack ... I'm not sure he'd be willing to work with me now," Lee said honestly.

"There are others," Adama volunteered. "You have a way of convincing them that went over pretty well last time. Just give it a try. Our resources are stretched a bit thin, what with people rejoining us and training new pilots ..." Adama trailed off but Lee knew what he was thinking about. Kara. She'd had a lot of trouble readjusting to life on a battlestar and things were still going slowly. Very slowly. She had in fact not only had trouble readjusting to military life - which she still wasn't really a part of - but had had trouble readjusting to reality as well. The cylon occupation of New Caprica had perhaps been hardest of all on her. They'd taken her prisoner and kept her for a month - brainwashed her to believe her life was something totally different than what it really was, and she was having difficulty sorting out what was real and what wasn't. Lee's heart broke to see her this way. She wasn't the Starbuck he remembered, nor was she even the Kara he'd caught glimpses of every now and again when she'd dropped her defences and let him in. This woman was a total stranger. His first visit to see her had been worse than his scariest nightmare.

She'd had to brought on board in handcuffs. Despite her obviously malnourished and emaciated frame, she'd put up a hell of a struggle and had screamed and kicked, even when Adama, a hopefully soothing familiar face, had tried to convince her to come home.

"I'm not leaving! My husband is here! My baby - I'm not leaving them here! I don't know who you are or what you want, just leave me alone!"

Adama had ordered her handcuffed and brought to Galactica anyway, in the hopes she'd regain some sense of calm in a familiar environment. It hadn't worked well at first and she'd had to be taken to the brig and secured in order that she not hurt anyone in her desperation to get back to the planet.

Lee had gone to see her that first day, of course - despite their monstrous fight just over a year ago, he still cared for her and needed to see for himself that she was okay. But she was far from okay.

"Who are you and why are you keeping me here?'" she stated defiantly, arms crossed over her chest. Lee couldn't help but notice how thin her arms were. All her usual muscle definition was gone, replaced by bruises and scars.

"It's me, Lee," he said gently, approaching her slowly. "Don't you recognize me?"

"Stay away from me," she said warningly, a cold look in her hazel-green eyes. "You're one of them aren't you? I've seen you before. Which model are you?"

"I'm not a cylon Kara, I'm your friend. That's why you remember me."

She snorted. "Yeah, right. You're one of them. Always messing with our minds to try to make us believe what isn't true."

Lee sighed in frustration. "I'm not the enemy. I'm your friend. We've known each other for years. You were engaged to my brother, don't you remember? Zack?"

"My husband's name is John," she said coldly. "We've been married six years."

"Kara, Zack died four years ago. You married Sam last year. Samuel T. Anders, the Caprica pyramid player. Don't you remember?"

She laughed out loud. "That's funny - me marrying a celebrity. I thought you machines had no sense of humour, but I guess I was wrong." Her smile dropped suddenly. "Now let me go. I'm not going to cooperate with you no matter what you do to me."

"This is your home Kara - we're your family. We're not going to hurt you."

"No you aren't!" she screamed. "Let me go!" And she began pacing the cell like a caged animal.

Lee backed off, determined to come by again later. In the meanwhile, he needed to think about the things she'd said and figure out what was going on with her. Obviously they had done some serious messing with her mind in order to make her forget everyone and everything she'd known before.

Lee stood up slowly and exhaled. "I'll get on it right away," he said, mind still a million miles away. Scratch that - as far away as the brig; only about a ten minute walk from the briefing room.

"I'll expect a report on my desk first thing tomorrow," Adama said as Lee was leaving.

"Yes sir," he answered quietly. As he left the room, his mind was already on the task ahead - a daunting one to be sure - but for some unknown reason his feet were taking him in the opposite direction from his office. Taking him towards the brig.

He was all but a corridor away when he happened to run into Dee.

"Lee," she said, a smile lighting up her dark features. "How was your meeting?"

He shrugged. "Like usual I suppose. More work to be done."

"I'm off shift in a few hours - do you think we could grab a little ... R and R time?" she winked at him and linked arms with him.

"Doubtful. I have a lot of work to do. I'll be leaving Galactica for a while, and I'm not sure when I'll be coming back."

"Oh," she said, eyes downcast. "Well, I'll see you tonight then?" she asked hopefully.

Lee forced himself to smile. "Of course." They shared a room; now that he was XO he had Tigh's old quarters and Adama had allowed Dee to move in with him. Their relationship was no secret, never had been, but discretion was paramount and the Admiral refused to have people sharing beds in common bunkrooms.

Lee began to walk away.

"Aren't you going the wrong way?" she asked curiously. "The flight deck is that way." She pointed back the way Lee had come.

"I have something to do first." The determined look on his face told her exactly what he was up to.

"You're going to see her again, aren't you?'"she asked coldly.

Lee's eyes turned to steel. "Don't start this with me again Ana, please. You know she's my friend. It's my responsibility to help her."

"It is not your responsibility at all. She's the one who hurt you, she's the one who left - whatever happened to her is exactly what she deserved. She doesn't need you."

"Gods Ana, when did you become so bitchy?" Lee demanded. "No one deserves to be treated the way she was. Torture is never an option, even with the enemy. Stop being so frakking jealous and go get back to work."

"Is that an order, sir ?" she asked, face set resolutely.

"Yes it is," he growled. "Dismissed."

As he heard he steps walking away, he felt bad for jumping all over her. He knew he shouldn't use his rank in order to make her do what he wanted, but sometimes she was just more frustrating than he could handle. Things had gone really well for them ... until his fight with Kara. They'd been rocky for some time after that but had managed to iron things out, since Kara had conveniently gone to the planet and not been around anymore. Now that she was back, Lee was spending a fair amount of time with her. She was one very damaged woman and he knew that the only way to get her back was for her to have people who cared about her and loved her around to help her. Dee didn't seem to be able to handle it though. She'd always been jealous of Kara - she and Lee had been very close and many crew members thought there was more to their relationship that they let on - and she just couldn't deal with her being back. Lee had always thought she was such a nice girl and hadn't realized the extent of her jealous nature - until now.

"Hey there, how are you doing today?" he asked as he walked in and sat down outside Kara's cell.

"Nice to see you too number four," Kara quipped dryly. She still wouldn't believe he wasn't a cylon, but since he came to visit her every day she'd given him a nickname.

"My name is Lee," he said patiently, like he did every day.

"So you say. I've only heard you refer to each other as numbers though, so why would you need a name?"

"Boomer had a name," he objected.

"Yeah, and she was a cylon pretending to be a human. Are you one too? Pretending to be human in order to convince me that what you're saying is true? 'Cause I'm just not believing you."

Lee didn't answer. Instead he studied her carefully. She'd been with them five days now and there was no sign of her memory returning yet. She still thought her life was down on that planet and that he and his father were her captors. She looked tired - there were dark circles under her eyes and from what the guard had told him, she hadn't slept at all since being brought in. Lee decided then and there to get the doc to give her some sleeping pills. She needed her rest if her mind was ever to be intact again.

"I've got to get to work now. I just wanted to stop in and say hi and see how you were doing."

"Well, other than being locked up, forcefed disgusting food and being kept away from my family, I'm doing fine," she spat out angrily.

"I really hope you come back to us soon Kara," he said softly, wishing he could touch her, but she wouldn't let him within two feet of her.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The day had been a long and arduous one for Lee. He'd negotiated with terrorists, sorry, former terrorists, recruited people from the Geminon Traveler and been to the planet and back. Fortunately though, there had been little objection on anyone's part to helping. It seemed everyone was only too happy to leave their experiences on New Caprica behind as fast as they could.

He climbed into bed, much later than usual, to find Dee's sleeping form hidden under the blankets. Good, at least he didn't have to justify himself again. He was getting awfully sick of arguing with her, even though it had only been a few days. He fell into a dreamless sleep but was woken a few hours later.

"Major Adama to the brig. Pass the word to Major Adama - Major Adama report to the brig."

"Frak," he said, pulling himself towards consciousness slowly. Then he realized exactly what the announcement had said. He was to report to the brig - something must be wrong with Kara.

He dressed quickly after that and ran all the way there, somewhat out of breath by the time he arrived, considering his unfit condition.

"What's the problem?" he asked the guard as he burst through the door. The guard just pointed at Kara. She was laying curled up in the fetal position on the bed, shaking like a leaf.

"Lee! Lee - help me!" she shouted in her sleep. "Lee! Lee ..."

"Let me in," he demanded of the guard.

"But sir, the Admiral said ..." he objected.

"Frak the Admiral, LET ME IN!"

"Yes sir."

Lee strode in and sat down on the bed beside her and began to stroke her forehead. "Kara, it's me, Lee."

She opened her eyes and for a moment he saw the old Kara there. "Lee, you came," she whispered and flung herself at him. He lay down on the bunk beside her and gathered her into his arms.

"It's okay, I'm here. I won't let anyone hurt you," he whispered into her hair, and began to stroke her back gently to lull her back to sleep. It took a little while but eventually the shakes stopped and her deep, even breathing told him she was asleep again.

Lee sighed. It was going to be a long night. And perhaps an even longer day tomorrow.

TBC