Part 29: Confessional: Admissions
"Um, where do you want me to start?"
It wasn't quite the opening Chapel had hoped for. "Where do you think you should start, Lieutenant?"
Lee wrestled with his words, ultimately opting to ask "I -- what do you know?"
Chapel's face gave nothing away. "I know that you recently -- found -- a certain Lieutenant Thrace, who had been dismissed from the fleet on fake charges and subsequently disappeared. I also know you had some connection to her that was a decidedly -- intimate nature." He regarded Lee evenly and added. "I also know she has some connection to the Favor's Trading ugliness. Not as a direct participant, but not one wholly untouched either. Is that a fair summary?"
"It -- is, yeah." Lee swallowed hard. "I didn't know about -- what happened to her. Not the -- the details --" His gaze drifted off to somewhere beyond the room they were sitting in. Before he got too far away, Chapel gently rapped his knuckles on the table between them, the sound like a canon shot tearing through a once-silent valley.
"Lieutenant? Where were you just now?"
"I -- uh -- sorry."
"I didn't ask for an apology, Lee. I asked where you were."
"Sitting right here."
"Now you're being obtuse, but never mind. I presume you were remembering something you just learned about, yes?"
"Yeah," Lee nodded. "I -- I read the complaint Kara had filed -- right after --"
"Kara being the name of the officer we were just speaking about?"
"Yeah."
"Is that their first or last name?"
"First."
"And the family name?"
"Thrace."
"I just felt I should ask --"
"What?"
Chapel nodded and held up a hand. "I meant no offense to you or her. I've simply learned not to make too many assumptions." Lee continued to scowl, but directed his eyes towards the mug cupped in his hands. Chapel let him stew for a few more beats then began again. "Judging by your reaction, Lieutenant Kara Thrace is important to you."
"You could say that."
"Have you known her for very long?"
"Since I was -- fourteen -- I think." Lee shook his head. "It feels --"
"Yes?"
"It feels like I've known her all my life."
"Do you know if she felt the same?"
"I -- I thought she did."
"But now you're not sure?"
"No."
"Did you question this before?"
"No, not really."
"So what makes you question this now, today?"
"I --" Lee took a long drink from his mug. "She -- she left --"
"Left -- what? Left you?"
"Yeah."
"After her attack by Major Lake?"
"No -- wait. You know about that?"
Chapel nodded. "I'm familiar with almost every aspect of the Favor's Trading network. And believe me when I say Major Artos Lake was a very big element of it." He paused, seemingly for affect, and added, "As was his attack on Lieutenant Thrace."
Lee felt his jaw clench tight. "Do you know where Major Lake is presently?" his voice asked in a nearly unrecognizable tone.
Chapel simply offered a thin smile and said, "Nowhere you need worry about, Lee." He immediately sobered and asked, "I've read through Lieutenant Thrace's original complaint. I'm beyond relieved to know she's still alive." Lee felt himself visibly flinch at the words, prompting Chapel to ask, "She is alive, right?"
"She was when I left her at my mother's house this morning." Lee consciously resisted parting with any further details on that score. Strangely, this prompted something in him that was starting to thrash about in panic, and it was taking a fair bit of effort to keep it from showing in either voice or expression.
Chapel hummed a bit, contemplating his mug. Chin still down, he stated, "It must have hurt a great deal."
"What?" Lee asked.
"Oh, many things," Chapel said airly, seemingly unconcerned. "The attack on Kara. Her getting shit-canned out of the fleet."
"I -- I didn't know about any of that --"
Chapel either didn't hear this, or more likely, simply chose to ignore it. "Then there's her rejection of you. I'm sure that hit you where counts, right?"
"Now wait a minute --"
"Tell me I'm wrong."
"You're -- uh --" Lee took a breath, not willing to accept the interpretation but not able to counter it either. That actually hurt worse than -- well, he couldn't immediately think of an instant where he actually felt this kind of pain. Even finding Kara's old apartment empty, or watching her collapse in front of him just nine days earlier, didn't measure up. "Frak," he muttered aloud.
"You never thought about it like that, did you?" Chapel actually sounded like he understood it, which only twisted the emotional knife deeper.
"No. No, I didn't." Odd how easy that admission was, even as he was having trouble breathing through it all. "No. I frakking didn't," he repeated unconsciously.
Sweat suddenly started beading on his forehead as his heart hammered against his chest. Gods, why couldn't he breathe anymore? His head was going light. It felt like it was turning into a balloon that just -- floated -- off his shoulders --
What the frak was happening to him?
"Easy, Lee. Easy," Chapel's gentle voice soothed, which frankly was the last thing Lee wanted. That something was panicking inside him hadn't quieted in the slightest. Despite whatever those words had evoked inside him, Lee found its taste and fire addictive.
His grip on the mug tightened, nearly enough to start to crack the porcelain. Lee forced himself to let go of it, even nudge it aside, instinct warning him against having anything at hand right then. He was back to envisioning hammering his fists into someone, anyone, the blonder the better.
He was revolted he felt that way. He was elated he felt anything now. He wanted nothing more than to run out of that room and -- find Kara -- and -- and --
Chapel's voice drew him back. "Lieutenant? Did you hear me?"
"Eh?" Lee looked up, frowning slightly. His hands ached oddly. Lee looked down at them and noticed with clinical detachment how his fists were now clenched so tightly the knuckles looked ready to punch through the skin. "What was that?"
"I was just asking if you've had a chance to talk with her."
"'Her?'"
"Lieutenant Thrace."
Lee let out a long breath, trying to process the name. "Kara? You mean Kara?"
"That's right."
"Have I --? Um, I've been with her --"
Chapel shook his head. "That isn't what I asked, Lee."
"Um --"
"Have you actually spoken with her?"
Lee swallowed, his blind anger gone. He couldn't quite identify what replaced it, but it left his guts utterly cold. What could he say that didn't sound -- stupid?
"I haven't -- I mean, there hasn't been much time to --"
"She's been in recovery for over a week, Lee."
"Yeah, she has."
"And you haven't spoken with her in all that time?"
"No. I mean, yes. Yes, I've spoken to her."
Chapel sipped his coffee, his gaze unflinching and level with Lee's. He said nothing for a very long, very tense minute. "I asked if you've spoken with her, Lee."
"I just said --"
"You said you spoke to her. I don't have to explain the difference, do I?"
"I'm – no. No, you don't. Sorry."
Chapel snickered, as if privy to some small jest Lee couldn't grasp. "Why do you feel the need to keep apologizing, Lieutenant?"
Lee shrugged helplessly. "Um, long habit?"
"I find that hard to credit, going by your service jacket."
"I thought you hadn't read my biography."
"I haven't read the entire thing, true." Chapel reached down and retrieved something from beside his chair, then straightened and dropped a thick folder on the table between them. "Do you know what that is?" he asked, nudging the portfolio with a finger.
"My service jacket?" Lee hazarded.
"Your two-ten jacket, actually." Lee's eyes flickered between the portfolio and the man sitting across from him. "That's right, Lieutenant. That's the complete, unabridged, stuffed-to-gills record of your service in the Colonial Fleet. Every memo, citation, commendation, disciplinary note, and sticky note with your name on it is in here. And before you ask, no, I don't have clearance for stuff like this."
"So how --?"
"Is that really so important right now? Suffice it to say it landed on my desk last night and I've spent the last six hours skimming over it." Chapel pursed his lips. "As I've already mentioned, you make for interesting reading."
Lee said nothing to this, struggling with whether to be supremely angry, profoundly worried, or paralyzed with hysteria. There was an unspoken rule within the fleet that an officer's two-ten was only ever examined if said officer were about to tried for a capital crime. Chapel hadn't been exaggerating about the contents, and Lee had little doubt there were all manner of tidbits in there that should by rights get him not just shit-canned, but medicated and committed to some asylum outpost beyond Virgon.
He found the prospect of such exile didn't bother him overmuch, provided he could somehow pull Kara along with him. Given the apparent state of her own head, it might not prove such a tough sell -- his mother on the other hand --
Chapel again neatly derailed his train of thought. "That's a nasty-looking grin, Lieutenant."
"Eh?"
"You looked like you were imagining something -- well, I'm not sure what."
"It was nothing."
"It didn't look like 'nothing.'" Chapel cocked his head to one side. "In fact, it looked like something quite definite."
"I was -- thinking --"
"That much was clear."
"About -- well, you already said you think I'm nuts."
Chapel shook his head decisively. "No, no. I said that what I had read of your service jacket leads me to think you are what's termed 'walking wounded,' quote unquote. You've clearly been holding onto a huge load of hurt and anger, and probably for a very long time." Lee grimaced. "Tell me I'm wrong," was Chapel's challenge.
"No. I'm -- yeah, I'm mad." He grimaced again. "Pretty frakking outraged, actually."
"At who? Major Lake."
Lee snorted in the affirmative, adding, "I didn't even know he existed until yesterday."
"Who else?"
"Hmm?
"Who else are you angry at?" Chapel waited patiently for a response. When none came, he prompted "Your parents, perhaps?"
"My -- wha? No. No. Why would be angry with them?"
Chapel contemplated this, then answered, "Well, there's the small fact your father all but abandoned you and your family for service in the fleet when you were much younger. This would be the same fleet that allowed Kara to be savaged by her superior officer, then discarded like trash. I'm not in the service and I'm outraged by this.
"Then there's your mother's part in all this. I mean, going by the transcripts I've read, she seems to treat Kara more like her own child than she did with you. She even went so far as to ban you from Kara's room at the hospital; probably treated you like you were half your age in front of gods know how many others. I'll wager you don't call home very often, even when you're on-planet, hence you're being in Sparta as opposed to Caprica City when you found Kara."
Chapel gave Lee a moment to absorb these insights, ones that he evidentially hadn't been consciously aware of. His guts fairly churned with a volatile mix of puzzlement, rage and sadness, telling him clearly just how little he'd actually attended to his own feelings here. But then again, looking at what his emotions led him to contemplate these days --
The priest apparently wasn't finished. "Are you angry with Kara, Lee?"
"No," he whispered immediately, even as the whole of his withered soul screamed Yes!
"No? She abandons you without a word, won't share her troubles or anything else with you --"
"You don't know what the frak you're talking about, Mister Brynn."
Chapel was unfazed by this outburst. "Don't I?" He sat back and tented his fingers. "You aren't angry with her at all?" His tone and stance fairly radiated disbelief.
"No," Lee replied with a brittle calm, a crazy tremor gripping his fingers. He hid them under the table, not wanting Chapel to see them for some reason.
The priest however a completely different target in his sights, one that Lee could never hope to muster a defense or shield against. "It's perfectly normal to want to hurt the people who hurt us, Lee. It's normal and it's human."
Lee stared at him, body back to being frozen.
"You don't need to be afraid of feeling anger, or rage, or just plain feeling. You're human and you've been hurt, by many different people, many different ways. You've been hurt, Lee. You've been betrayed, ignored, demeaned, insulted, and dismissed several different times. Did you think you could just -- what? You could just -- shrug all that off without at least feeling something?"
"I -- I --" Lee couldn't speak beyond those simple sounds.
"What are you afraid of?" Chapel practically barked.
"Me," Lee half-screamed. "I'm -- frakking terrified of what I'll do if -- if I --"
"Terrified of what?"
"I -- I've been imagining -- gods -- godsdammit!"
"What, Lee? That you'll hurt them?"
"I -- hurt them?" Lee looked at him with wide eyes, then something that could have been mistaken as a laugh. There was no humor to be heard in it, and barely a trace of sanity. "No, no," he snickered. "I'm not going to -- hurt – them." He leaned forward with an almost ghoulish grin.
"I want to frakking kill them," he declared harshly, planting both fists on the table and rising like a mushroom cloud from a nuke detonation. If anything, his grin became even scarier.
"I want to strangle every officer in uniform for what they did to her! I want to drop a bomb on the Senate because they let it happen! I want to ram a Viper down my father's throat because his beloved fleet is a -- did all this! I -- frakking hate my mother because she let Kara get away from us!
"And Kara! I had to take the firing pins out of my gun when -- right before I found Kara -- or I would have --"
"I get it," Chapel nodded. Lee shook his head, as if deaf to him.
"And since then -- I've been -- thinking -- about -- every other five frakking minutes I -- I want --"
"To do what?" Chapel asked calmly. Lee felt his nostrils flare in answer; he was sure steam must have coming out of his ears. Surprisingly, Chapel appeared nonplussed by this display, pressing forward with "You want to hit her? Break her legs so she can't run off again? Grab a stick-bowl bat and bash her head in?"
"Yes!"
"You haven't actually done any of that have you?"
"No!"
Chapel nodded, then took a long sip from his mug as if utterly unconcerned with the raw emotion burning across the table from him. "Well, congratulations. You've just described a perfectly normal marriage."
"I -- say what?" Lee virtually screamed.
"Lee, I've been married for fifteen yarens. I've lost count of the number of times I've been tempted to strangle, mangle, and otherwise tear my wife limb from limb. The same with her."
"So? So what?"
"So what you're describing here is a perfectly normal, perfectly healthy reaction to what you've been subjected to." Lee couldn't, literally couldn't respond to this. Chapel quickly added, "It's sane, Lee. All that squealing and anguish is what families do when they love each other. When they belong to each other."
"Imagining blowing my -- Kara's brains out, followed immediately by blowing my own out -- that's normal?"
"Last monen I wanted to crack a wine bottle over my eighteen year-old's head because she spent her savings for a fashionable purse." Chapel shrugged and lifted his mug. "So long as you aren't acting on those little fantasies, they do no harm."
Lee sat back down; coloring as the impact of what he'd said -- more importantly, what had been said to him -- hit him like a missile. He could barely breathe, could barely keep himself on the chair. Breakfast threatened to revisit him, which Lee was sure Chapel would likewise tell him was a good thing.
Maybe the priest was right there and he wasn't a sick animal that needed to be put down. Maybe he should throw himself out the nearest window, just to make sure he was never a danger to Kara or anyone else.
Lee took another draft from his own mug, wincing at the taste.
Maybe this coffee would do the job for him.
TBC...
Credit where it is due: A fair amount of Chapel's dialog is courtesy of British television writer Paul Abbott, as delivered by the seminal Robbie Coltrane in the series "Cracker". I've also left Chapel's description -- ambiguous for a reason. Hope you enjoyed it so far because the fun is just starting!
Please review.
