Authors note: Set at the end of "Crossroads Part Two." Very mild spoilers for most of the show until this point. Also, this is a departure from my regular writing style, and any feedback, negative or positive would be appreciated.
Moth and Flame
Kara Thrace is not a phoenix. Lee Adama does not expect her to rise from her own ashes. Yet, somehow he thinks it fitting that she went down in flames. She is fire; always has been. For Lee, Kara is eternal and inescapable and loving her was inevitable. She is a flame and he will forever be her moth.
The first time Lee Adama met Kara Thrace, appropriately involved fire. He lit a cigarette for her, to be exact. He knows that it seems strange that he considers the moment they met the moment their relationship failed.
She was so beautiful, outside of that restaurant, asking him to light her cigarette. Unknowingly they were both waiting for Zak. Waiting to meet each other: Kara to meet the brother of her boyfriend, Zee to meet the woman who'd made Zak inarticulate on the phone. He'd said, "You just have to meet her, Lee. Then you'll understand."
And Lee understood. All it took was that moment. Kara looking beautiful, dangerous in the growing darkness and leaning into Lee's lighter with a cigarette in her mouth. She was irresistible in a way Lee had never experienced before, never imagined.
When Zak had arrived, late as always and laughed at the two of them staring at each other in the dark, Lee wasn't really even surprised. Kara and Lee had met each other, even without Zak's guiding force.
Yet Zak is the thing that Kara could never move past. Kara is fire; ghosts don't burn. Lee knows now that he should have made his move that first moment he met Kara. Because later, much later, she was willing to betray her husband for him. For Kara, ghosts are sacred. The ghost of Zak, the remnants of the love and the guilt she feels will never disappear. Betraying a living breathing person has always been easy for Kara. But while Kara is fire, ghosts don't burn.
Lee knows now that alive, Zak would have been easy to leave. The engagement would have been easy to throw away. All it would have taken was to give into the astounding attraction he felt towards Kara. Resisting was really the hard part, because no matter what, that attraction never changed.
Life would be easier, Lee was sure, if Kara could be content just being fire. Lee didn't really mind being drawn to the light she produced like a moth, but Kara wasn't satisfied. Sometimes he was her fire and she was the moth. He was just as irresistible to her, and that made it so much more difficult. She always changed the rules. Just when he got close, she would burn him. He thinks now that marrying Sam was simply one more way to keep him at arms length, to changes the rules in the game once more.
Her last few days alive should have told Lee that something was wrong, her fire was lacking. She didn't argue or burn, she even held a stable conversation with him. Her edge was gone, she was almost complacent. The fire had almost gone out.
And now sitting in a cockpit in the middle of a battle, Lee is not surprised to see her, not really. Because Kara Thrace is not a phoenix. She is fire, and cannot die by it. And what this means, he cannot comprehend in this instant. But the dance, the moth and the flame is far from over, he's sure of it.