Fic: Masks
Part: 1/1
Parings: Lee/Kara
Genre: Romance. Angst. Drama
Spoilers: Six and One (4x04 or 4x02 if we're not including Razor)
Disclaimer: I don't own BSG. It belongs to Ron Moore and the wonderful people at Sci Fi Channel. I don't make any money from this. I don't make money from much. I'm just playing with these characters for a little bit, so please don't sue me. I own nothing except for my books, dvds, computer and geriatric cats.
Summary: Lee/Kara in the brig in 4x04/02. Kara POV. As soon as I saw this scene, I was dying to fic it, me and half of the free world I'm sure. Hope you like :)
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Toes balanced on the hard mattress, face play kissing at the floor, Kara Thrace did pushups. This was her third set of forty. Her arms shook. On each ascent, salt water slid down her face. Frustration. Anger. Sweat. Not tears. Salt water fell in puddles. On each descent, the muscles in her neck tightened, amplifying the pain in the back of her head where Adama, the Admiral, the man who once said he loved her like a daughter, had grabbed her by the throat and slammed her into the deck.
Up.
What were you thinking?
Down.
What happened to you?
Up.
The bruise was nothing; she'd given and taken worse in spaceports bars of Caprica City or on the floor of the boxing ring. Metal, sweat, and the undertone of vomit that permeated the floor almost comforted her. She'd spent enough time in brigs, shoulders, back, and ass burning, waiting for whoever she'd ticked off this time to get over it and put her back in the cockpit. Brigs were a fact of life when you followed your instincts better than you followed orders.
All she had to do was wait it out.
She had found Earth, and they would believe her. They'd stop this mad jumping and let her lead them home.
She told herself this because she had to, like when her mother had broken her hand, and she curled up on the carpet, hugging it to her chest and pretending to laugh. Better that than believe the truth, to know the pain wasn't a punchline, that it wasn't something she could control. To know she had no family. No friends. To know the Old Man was right and none of them would help her now.
"Forty." She swung her feet to the deck and kneeling, caught her breath. Sweat poured down her shoulders, soaking the inside of her flight suit and stinging her eyes. She licked salt from her lips. This was real. Her body. Nothing artificial . But Leoben had tasted real when she kissed him too, on New Caprica, before she stabbed the knife into his stomach.
The dull clank of the outer door opening forced her to the far end of the cell. Another visitor. Or execution. The more room between them and her, the better her chance to make a break for it. Or catch a bullet, if it came to that, which it wouldn't. All she had to do was wait this out. She sat, back to the wall, eyes on the door, and wiped her sleeve over her cheeks to rub the sweat away. Distorted voices echoed from the hall. "Thrace . . . visitor . . ." Laughter. ". . . job."
Skinjob? Was that fracking guard calling her a skinjob? She was not a fracking skinjob. If she had been a Cylon, wouldn't Leoben have known?
Or maybe he had, and the games, the months of isolation and torture in the name of playing house, had all been his programming.
The guard seated in front of her cell door readied her weapon as Lee entered, decked out in a civvie pinstripe suit. He slid her cell door open as the outer door clanked firmly shut. She grinned because she was so terrified glad to see him; like years ago when she crashed on that moon, crawling across burnt orange soil toward the downed raider, gun ready, knowing in that moment it held the potential to save her or riddle her with bullets. Terrified glad either way because dead or alive, at least she wasn't alone.
"Umm . . ." Lee stared awkwardly down at his hands. "Zarek nominated me for the vacant Quorum spot, so uhh . . ."
The knots in her shoulders loosened. They were lying, of course, both of them a little bit, ducking behind the masks they always wore--favored son and rebel pilot; husband and wife; friend and lover-- and that was okay. Terrible. Wonderful. She laughed. "You're Zarek's wingman."
"All right, all right, you know. Stow it. Okay. I've heard it all before, I know." He kept his gaze on the corner, hands in pockets, punctuating his words with nervous drops of laughter. "His head is as big as the house I grew up in, but I'm pretty new to all of this and I could use the help." He turned his head to her, met her gaze beneath half lidded eyes. "Besides, I never really could say no to anything."
"Except me." She wished she could break his gaze, push even further away. Honesty wasn't what she wanted. What they wanted. But maybe it was what they needed. Without the Old Man's support, how long would it be before Roslin showed her the wrong side of an airlock? Lee was here to say goodbye. Not to chat about his career. Or Zarek. Or even her act of treason. He was putting her to the deck, not as hard as the Admiral had, but the result was the same.
"Especially you." He dropped his eyes first. "You know, I think I finally understand what you meant about having a destiny. I've got to do this, and the fact that I don't have an explanation why, doesn't," he shrugged, "doesn't really seem to matter anymore."
In that moment, in the turn of his body, the tilt of his head, she was able to let herself believe that maybe he had not abandoned her. That more than loving her--love was a tangled and slippery thing that held more sharp edges than smooth ones--he believed in her. Believed in what she had done, or tried to do. Believed that following her destiny had been the right thing, even if it brought her back from the dead.
Her eyes threatened tears. Blinking rapidly, she smiled. "So say we all."
"So say we all."
But it was still goodbye. She stood, walked to him, and held out her damp palm. "Good luck on your journey, Lee Adama."
He took her hand. "You too, Kara Thrace."
"Okay." She pulled her hand away. Better to have the illusion of ending it first. She couldn't be less than herself.
And Lee, thank the Gods, held firm, placing his left hand over where they joined. "Yeah."
He released her too soon.
Popping open the hatch of her Viper, smacking her boots against the floor of the hanger deck, the hum of Galactica's engines rising from her soles, Lee's arms around her, a hint too long, and a hair too tight-- it had seemed so easy then. Kara Thrace had found Earth. Her destiny. For once in her life she wasn't a miserable frack-up. But with each jump the certainty faded. Strand by strand it frayed, until the scream calling her home faded to whine, to a hum, and soon even that would be gone.
Just like Lee.
Why had she come back just to lose everything she loved?
"Lee?"
He froze, back tense, hands hovering over the cell door.
She couldn't be less than herself, but who was she? What was she? Was she even real?
Then Lee turned, left hand cupping the back of her neck, lifting her towards him, and she couldn't touch him enough: the ridge of his cheek, the fine grain of his hair, the hint of ambrosia on his lips. The cruelty that usually wove through their affection had vanished. No anger. Frustration. Betrayal. No masks. Only themselves. He kissed her forehead, her eyelids, pulled her tight to his chest, pressed his lips to her ear, and whispered, "I believe you."
He left, of course. It had always been a goodbye. And Kara let herself fall back against the deck, the pinhead extrusions of the floor wakening the bruise the elder Adama had given her earlier.
They were still going the wrong way.
End.