Well now, since it seems I forgot my disclaimer in the last chapter, here it is: I don't own it.
The fifteen minutes it took for the medical team to land and disembark seemed like hours, but Lee was exceedingly glad that the training exercise had been just that: practice. There was no actual need to get to the top of that awful plateau to get a signal out. At last on board the Raptor, strapped into the cramped hold and squashed up against the hull beside a nowhere-near-lucid Hotdog, Kara's stretcher digging painfully into his knees, Lee made a small mental offering of thanks to whatever gods had let the rescue go so smoothly and quickly.
The engines thrummed their familiar tune and Lee's mind drifted, quite unintentionally. What he wouldn't do for a steak right then… a steak and some white wine. White, always, not red. Kara'd never let him get away tease-free if it was red. He frowned slightly, trying to remember why. There was something… something to do with a chair, and… white scarves?
He shook his head to bring himself back to reality, stretching his eyes wide to keep them open when they threatened to close. He'd probably hit his head harder than he'd thought, too…
That dazzling smile. Gods, she was so beautiful when she smiled like that—over her shoulder as she strode confidently away, gold hair gleaming in the harsh lights. And there it was again, taunting this time with just a touch of seduction; she'd just won a pair of boxers off him at cards. Had he ever actually handed those over? He couldn't recall…
Before he knew it, he was in the medical ward, lying on a wonderfully comfortable bed. He sat bolt upright, staring around. Kat, Racetrack, and Hotdog were sleeping on the beds adjacent to his, covered in bandages and smears of sticky cream. Someone had cleaned them up—there was no more blood, no more dirt, no more of the mountain that had fallen on them all. Through a plastic curtain several compartments away, he could just see a blonde head over the top of a pillow.
He swung his legs off the bed and stood, finding his balance to be iffy but present. He made his way unevenly out of the partitioned room and along the narrow hallway until he reached the see-through curtains surrounding a bed. The bed was facing away from him, that blonde head all he could see of its occupant, not including the wires trailing off of it and into various machines. He entered carefully, silently, and seated himself in the lone chair.
She was asleep, or unconscious. Her right hand and half her forearm were in a cast, perched stiffly on her midriff. A bandage on her cheek had come loose and he reached out to smooth it back on. She stirred, her eyelids fluttering slowly and then pulling back to reveal bleary eyes. She looked around at her surroundings with an air of dim recognition.
Finally, her gaze fell on him. "Lee?" she questioned after a moment. Her eyes brightened, the thought visibly coming back into them, and she smiled. "Hey. What's going on?"
"We got caught in a landslide, remember?" he told her gently. "You must've taken a hit to the head like the rest of us." He chuckled a bit. "See, you're mortal, just like everyone else." He pinched her knee through the blanket for effect.
Her smile vanished. She stared down at her legs, an odd expression on her face. "Lee…" she said quietly, "Lee… what happened back on that planet?"
"The cliff fell on us," he told her. "You remember, don't you?"
She gave a small nod and turned wide eyes on him. Her voice was flat. "I can't feel my legs."
He froze. Can't feel… cold grabbed at his heart and his mind leapt into overdrive, trying to find reasons why. "It's probably just an after affect—you had a concussion, I'm sure, probably a severe one—maybe the shock, maybe it's not really—"
"I can't feel them," she repeated, her voice rising to cut him off. "I can't feel them." Her words were slow, deliberate, but Lee could hear the panic building underneath. Her mouth twisted as her brows drew together. "Lee? Lee, frak you, say something!"
He couldn't. He was caught, frozen. "K—Kara—" he managed to choke out.
She punched him, her cast cracking as it bit painfully into his shoulder. She cried out in pain and fear, tears tumbling from her eyes as they squeezed shut.
Curtains rattled and instruments clattered as the doctor shoved his way into their compartment. "What's going on? What's the matter?"
Kara yelled again, an inarticulate howl. Lee took her face in his hands, finally regaining control over his petrified body. "Kara, look at me," he instructed. She twisted and flailed at him, crying out again as her broken hand was bent within its now-shattered cast.
"Hold her steady!" Cottle shouted, fitting a capsule onto a needle and trying to get a safe angle.
"Kara," Lee begged, "please. It's okay. You're okay. Please calm down. It's okay."
She didn't stop thrashing, but Cottle managed to find a target nonetheless. She sagged immediately, eyes meeting his foggily. "Lee?"
He smiled back at her. "You're gonna be okay."
Her eyes rolled back in her head and she went the rest of the way limp, slumping back into the pillows. Cottle let out a heavy breath of relief. "Fiesty, that one."
Lee looked up at the older man as he adjusted his cigarette. "Will she be okay?" he demanded.
Cottle's dark gaze met his. "The arm'll heal. So will the head." He glanced down at the unconscious Kara. Her hair was mussed and the blankets had gotten twisted. Absently, the doctor tugged the sheet out from where it was clenched tightly in her fist. "She won't walk again."
Lee shot out of his chair and grabbed Cottle by the collar. "No," he hissed. "No."
The doctor stared back to him placidly. "Look, kid, her back's broken. There's not much I can do."
"'Not much'," he echoed, still clutching the man's collar. "So there's something."
Cottle pushed Lee's hand away irritably. "There's always something. She's feisty, like I said. Strong. She's welcome to try all the physiotherapy she can find, but I'm afraid it doesn't look good."
"Frak," Lee swore vehemently, pacing away from the doctor and looking sidelong at Kara, fist pressed against his mouth. He took two steps back towards Cottle, turned, took three away, three back, and finally returned to stare the doctor in the face from several small inches away. "I want to be contacted the moment she wakes up, you understand me?"
Cottle nodded, unperturbed, and Lee strode out of the medical bay. The doctor sighed softly and took a long drag on his cigarette, looking back down at the motionless captain. He straightened out her blanket distantly. "Pity…" And set about fixing her ruined cast.
Circles within circles danced leisurely on a floor of shiny black. A figure skater sped by, lit up from below in blue and red from above, her body no more than the two outlines. In the distance there was a voice, female and horribly familiar: You never could finish anything you started, could you? A door slammed closed and someone screamed. Circles danced, reds and yellows and blues on the black glass.
Kara floated, face down and staring at the reflections in the mirror below her. The figure skater passed by again, leaping and landing gently to the strong chords of her father's piano. The water rippled slowly, distorting an already-warped reality. Leoben kissed her hard, pushing her up against the wall, slick with white paint. The white dribbled away over the glass, leaving a startling trail… he whispered his lips over her chest and she tilted her head back, watching the path as it dragged juxtaposition kicking and screaming into her world.
Her body tensed, sending out the impulse to lift her legs and wrap them around Lee's hips. Hey, slow down! It's not a race! Nothing happened. She tried again, looking down her invisible torso. He was gone, vanished. She slammed a fist into the table in frustration. You get that? There's nothing here!
Frak! she tried to scream. Her legs wouldn't move, she wanted to kick but nothing would work. A hand slapped her hard across the face. Circles danced.
Kara's eyes snapped open to an unfamiliar ceiling. Covered in cold sweat and gasping for breath, she stared around. Sickbay? What the…?
She made to swing her legs off the bed and nearly fell off head-first as they traitorously refused to budge. Regaining her balance, she stared down at them. Memories slammed back into her head, kicking off a pounding migraine. She flopped back against the pillows. "Frak…" she breathed, the panic and anger building again. "Frak. Doc!"
A moment later, Cottle pushed aside the curtains surrounding her bed and stepped inside. "How're you feeling?" he asked.
"Is it permanent?" she demanded, ignoring his question.
"I'm afraid so," he replied grimly.
"Isn't there some surgery you can do?" she pressed. "You're our best doctor, for frak's sake! Can't you do something? Just stitch the nerves or whatever the hell is frakking broken back together?"
"'fraid not," he replied, lighting another cigarette. Cold, unfeeling bastard, she thought vehemently.
"Gimme that," she snapped, reaching out to snatch it out of his hand.
He jerked it out of range. "Not a chance in hell," he told her. "No smoking in here."
She laughed callously. "Frak you."
"Good to see her attitude hasn't changed," drawled a gruff voice from behind her. Colonel Tigh was stepping through the curtains, followed by the Admiral and Lee.
They assembled themselves at the foot of her bed. "Sir," she greeted them generally, formally.
"Captain Thrace," the older Adama replied. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I hit my head," she replied honestly. "Don't suppose I could get a painkiller for that, huh, Doc?"
He shook his head. "Gotta conserve them for emergencies. A headache doesn't make the cut."
"Figures," Kara quipped harshly. "Sadistic bastard just wants to see me suffer. Don'tcha, Doc?"
Cottle rolled his eyes and adjusted her IV. "Her L5 vertebra is broken," he informed the three officers.
"What does that mean?" Tigh inquired, his rough voice surprisingly quiet.
Cottle picked up a pencil from where it lay on the desk and carefully prodded Kara's hip with it. She glared at him, looking like she wanted to move away. "Feel that?" he asked. She nodded. The pencil moved lower, to the base of her thigh. "That?" She nodded again. The pencil moved lower. "That?" She stared down at it where it was pressed against the side of her knee through the covers. She shook her head, and the pencil moved lower. She shook her head again. And again. And again. All the way down to the end of her foot. Again.
Nothing.
She couldn't look up at the three officers standing at the foot of her bed, couldn't bear the looks of pity and disappointment she was sure they were sporting. She kept her eyes on her dead legs and fiddled aimlessly with the blanket as Cottle answered Tigh's question.
"It means she feels nothing below here," a hand divided her thigh in two. "She'll probably gain some sensation over time, but chances are slim she'll ever be able to move her legs, let alone walk, again."
The words hit her harder than anything else ever had, sinking deep into her gut to knock the breath out of her and slapping her jarringly across the face. She shut her eyes and willed this sick reality away.
Also, another note, and perhaps more important than the first: I'm not a doctor. I don't know anything more about recovery from spinal injuries than what I read on Wikipedia. So, there will almost certainly be inaccuracies. If you can see them, bear with me, please, and if you can't, well there's not really much of a problem then, is there? ;)