Part 38: Third Step to Resolution
Kara woke in stages. Consciousness was initially nothing more than an awareness of the warmth radiating within her chest and through her torso. It slowly radiated outward through her limbs and into her extremities.
With this awareness eventually came actual thought, which bled down to 'That feels good' and 'I feel good'.
Thought quickly invited memory: 'I touched Lee' and 'Lee touched me'.
Memory brought with it detail -- and those images were enough to cause her eyes to snap open and have her sitting up. The fact she fairly close to the edge of the mattress didn't register until she nearly tumbled over it in her haste. Only by blindly reaching out and grabbing the first solid thing she could was what kept her ass planted on the bed.
No small irony that it was Lee's leg that she grabbed, or that in doing so she startled him awake. He actually squeaked in a way both would have found silly in the extreme, if only both weren't so momentarily shocked into silence. They stared at each other, wide-eyed and panting for several long seconds in the early morning's early light.
"Uhhh," was all Kara could verbalize, apparently unaware of the sight she was presenting uncovered and out of sorts as she was. Lee continued to stare, not blatantly or lasciviously though, and gave a small chuckle. Kara blinked and pushed at his hip with her foot. "What?" She was answered with another chuckle, which lit a small fire of anger in her.
She pushed at his hip again, harder this time. "What?"
Lee simply shifted so he was fully on his side, balancing his head on a crooked arm and said, "My gods, but you're beautiful."
Kara immediately looked down, throwing both arms over her breasts. Lee actually laughed at this; it was a soft one to be sure, but loud enough to earn him a harsh scowl. "A little late to be modest, Kara," he pointed out, reaching out to coax her arms down. Kara held fast for a moment, then allowed herself to be led so.
She probably would've put more of a struggle were she not nearly drooling at how the comforter covering Lee's lower half had slipped to one side. His pubes were peeking out over the edge, as was the curve of his cock. He wasn't even posing, never mind offering a complete show, but it easily a hundred times more enticing than if he were.
However, something stopped her from pulling the blanket aside and giving herself a clearer look at him. "Did we --" she asked, voice dying as she tried to come up with the proper words. Frak for once sounded wrong, but what else could it have been?
"Did we make love?" Lee finished for her, again startling her with how quiet, how reverent he spoke it. Kara forgot the rest of him and focused all attention into his eyes, seeing no mockery there, only open honesty. It shook her to her core.
"I -- I didn't --" she heard her voice stammer. Lee frowned ever so slightly to this.
"You didn't what?"
"I -- when I -- uh --"
Lee stared at her for another beat, then rolled his eyes. "Kara, you are in charge here. That includes here, in this bed." He grinned in that cocky way she'd so rarely seen but loved anyway. "Just think of me as your personal body slave here."
"Gee, that's --" Kara started, only to stop again when she saw he really meant it. Of course he couldn't really mean it, it was just something to say because -- because --
Her conflict must have shown because Lee again reached out and took one of her hands, holding it gently. "I mean that, Kara. You can do -- whatever you want. Whatever makes you feel safe here."
"Careful, Lee," she warned. "I'm pretty frakked up right now, last night notwithstanding. I might just --" She narrowed her eyes, bloody visions suddenly coming to mind.
"It was all of yesterday, Kara," Lee pointed out, Kara appearing surprised to hear this. He quickly pressed on. "And you can tear my fingernails out with a pair of pliers for all I care." Lee then straightened and sat up, the blanket falling completely away. Neither of them took,note of what was now in display.
Instead Lee leaned in closer, capturing her eyes and her full attention. "You can shoot me, stab me in every major organ, flay me alive, and bury me still breathing next to an anthill on Leonis in the middle of summer before I get even a little mad at you."
"C'mon, Lee," Kara scoffed.
"Okay, okay. I'll get a lot mad if you do all that. My point is, I don't care how frakked up you think you are. I promise you I'm just as bad. Worse, probably."
"And that's supposed to reassure me?"
Lee could only sigh, equal parts frustrated and frightened, realizing how this must be sounding to her. "Okay, fair point." He closed his eyes for a moment, and then stared into hers again. "Did I do anything you didn't like? Have I ever done anything you didn't like?"
"No," Kara admitted after a single beat.
"What makes you think I'd start now?"
"Gee, maybe because I killed our baby?" The words were out of her mouth before her brain could catch up. She instinctively braced for Lee literally kicking her out of his bed for the crime.
All that hit her instead was his voice, softened to a feather's touch on her soul. "A driver speeding the wrong way -- killed our baby. It could have killed you, too."
"But it didn't," she mourned.
"No, it didn't." Lee waited until Kara looked up again. "Do you think I could have survived losing you?" Kara simply stared at him, apparently shocked at the concept, if her blank expression was anything to go by. Lee decided to press his luck a little further.
"I want our baby to be alive, too. I want you to love me again." It was a little cruel, perhaps, to use her own words, however true they may have been. Lee didn't feel any cruelty in doing so however, and there were no words he could have offered that were any better, any more true.
"I -- I --" Kara stammered, staring down at her hands now.
"Kara? Kara, please --" Lee was saying, reaching for her, drawing her close. She let him, but didn't return the embrace. At least not immediately. She instead rested her forehead on his shoulder, shuddering hard as he turned his lips into her hair.
"Five years --" he whispered to her, to the universe. "I lost you for five years -- please come home. Kara? Please come back to me."
His plea broke the last barrier she had erected and held fast since that day. She threw her arms around him, her anchor, and the one thing keeping her from flying entirely apart. "Oh gods," she panted, breath suddenly coming in deep, desperate gasps even as her throat closed. "Oh gods -- she's -- she's really gone!"
There was no reason for her to think the baby had been a girl. There was only the bone-deep certainty of it and Kara didn't, couldn't question it. All she knew then were her tears and a pain denied far too long. She'd never mourned. She'd run, hidden, denied, and ignored it all this time, but that time was over. She could feel Lee's nose and chin brush against her neck as he nodded.
"She's -- gone," he whispered, equally broken by it.
"Oh gods," was the last thing Kara could utter, voice choked off and tears now flowing.
They mingled with Lee's as he shuddered and choked and cried with her, mourning her -- his -- their loss. And in that mourning, finally let go.
Finally began to heal.
They had drifted back to sleep at some point. Neither could remember when or which had managed to cover them with the blanket again. It was later in the day, the sun still shinning outside. Kara again woke first, finding she had shifted so the two of them were lying on their sides, face-to-face.
Lee's eyes opened just moments later. They regarded each other for an unknown span.
"I don't want a body slave," Kara told him.
"What do you want?" Lee asked in exchange.
In answer, she reached under the comforter with her right hand, groping a few seconds to find his left hand. She interlaced their fingers and drew them out. She still wore his ring, which sparkled there in the afternoon light.
Lee chest shook and shuddered. "Now?"
Kara bit her upper lip, and then moistened them with her tongue. "Forever."
Whatever else might have been said was stopped by a sharp knock on the half-open door, causing them both to start but not separate. "Lee? Kara?" Caroline's voice called out. "Are you two awake now?"
Kara blushed slightly at the question, as did Lee, who answered "Yes."
"Good. Both of you get dressed. There's someone downstairs I want you to meet." She moved off before either of them could offer a protest.
Neither did they move for a few seconds, sharing a look that quickly led to an equally mutual, tension-relieving giggle between them. "Guess we should get up," Lee observed.
"Yup," agreed Kara. Neither of them moved.
Lee tried again. "Like, right now."
"Yup." Still they didn't move.
"Think if we're really, really loud, Mom will stay away?"
Kara's eyes sparkled at the suggestion. "You want to try it?"
Lee looked as if he were seriously considering it for a moment, but then shook his head. "Not really. You?"
"Hmmm, not really."
"We'd best get up then and see whoever this is."
"I'm not sure I can get up."
"Oh, yes, you can," Lee groaned as he forced himself to rise, rolling his shoulders and rotating his neck as he did. "C'mon, Thrace. I'm not facing this on my own."
Kara offered no response beyond a loud yawn, although she did roll herself about in order to get up. She looked around the floor and mutter "Aw, frak."
"What is it?"
"She must have taken my nightshirt." She huffed. "And the robe."
"Hmm," Lee hummed, eyes not making it past her bare back and shapely backside. He quickly looked away when Kara glanced back over her shoulder.
"Lee?"
"Huh?"
"Clothes? For me? Unless you'd like me to go downstairs, to your mother like this?"
"Oh, uh, right. Right, right. I've got -- I'm sure I'vegot another robe here." Heedless of his own nudity, Lee quickly moved to the closet and rooted through the hangers toward the back. Now it was Kara's turn to cast an appreciative eye over him. She had to consciously stop herself from smacking her lips at the visual feast before her.
Lee soon found what he sought and pulled out a terrycloth robe. Kara accepted the garment and quickly wrapped it around herself, her eyes not wavering from the Lee's form. Only when she caught sight of the emblem sewn into breast in a nearby mirror did her eyes leave him. "When did you stay on Cloud Eleven?" she frowned.
"Uh, let's talk about that later, okay?"
"Okay." She gave him a final once over and haughtily added, "Get some clothes on, will you, Lee? We've got company." She then turned on her heel and marched out of the room, leaving a mildly stunned Lee Adama in her wake. Lee was nevertheless quick to shake it off as he began pulling on tanks and sweatpants, equally quick to set off after her.
The guest was waiting for them in library; Caroline had met them at the bottom of the stairs and directed them both there without offering any explanation. This guest proved to be a honey-skinned woman approaching her middle years and wearing the pastel colored robes of a Temple priestess. She wore no jewelry or any kind of headgear, suggesting she was of one of the modern religious orders that preferred esthetic dress and manner to ornaments and aloofness.
Her smile was welcoming, as was her greeting. "I am Alyana Gale, Sister Resident of the Caledonian Reform Temple. Please let's all sit down." Lee and Kara did so, taking the same sofa Kara had occupied a few days earlier. Sister Gale took the high-backed chair facing the sofa and quickly rearranged her robes.
She regarded the pair before her for a moment, and said, "Your mother has already explain a good bit to me, but I'd like to go back over it, if you don't mind?" Taking their silence as agreement, Sister Gale pressed on. "I understand that you, Karissa --"
"Kara," was the immediate correction. "I go by Kara, okay?"
Sister Gale simply nodded in acceptance. "As you wish. I understand that you, Kara, suffered a terrible accident five years ago and fled from your family here." She turned her gaze onto Lee. "But it wasn't your loss alone, was it, Kara?"
"No," Kara agreed softly, head bowed.
"You've lived with this, not sharing it with anyone, all this time?"
"Yes." Kara hugged herself tightly. Lee nearly reached out to her, but stopped himself as she pulled even further into herself, as if she were trying to become a smaller target. He threw a warning look towards the priestess.
Sister Gage was undeterred, however. "Have you ever accepted what happened, Kara?"
"I -- yes."
This elicited a nod from the priestess. "I'm relieved to hear this. More than I can say, in fact. We don't need to go into it any further -- unless either of you feel the need to broach it?" When neither of them moved, Sister Gage settled herself back into her chair. "I'm relieved."
"So, what are we going to talk about?" Lee asked.
"You're impending marriage, I suppose." Sister Gage gazed at them with an appraising eye. "Your mother mentioned you had made pledges to each other."
"We've done a frakking lot more than just that," Lee muttered, causing Kara to snicker in agreement.
"Oh?" Sister Gage's brow furrowed. "How so?"
The look that passed between the two young people communicated a host of things and a range of emotions. It apparently told the priestess something significant, although she didn't immediately press for elaboration to it. Rather she let the pair before her play out their silent communication, watching them carefully, taking in every nuance and mannerism involved.
It was Lee who started out with "We've, um --"
"Frakked," Kara finished for him with her trademark bluntness. "A lot."
"More than once?" asked Sister Gage, seemingly nonplussed at the admission.
"Yeah," Lee nodded.
"A whole frakking lot," Kara affirmed.
"That's -- interesting." The priestess' gaze lost its laser focus, her mind turning inward. For some reason this grated on Kara's nerves, leading her to clear her throat loudly.
"Something wrong, Sister?" she asked as politely as possible. Lee couldn't help but grin, Kara at that moment was sounding far more like her old self. It was -- good -- to hear. So much so he nearly missed the priestess' answer.
"I just suspect you've rendered any talk of an actual wedding ceremony moot."
Kara shook her head. "Eh, what?"
Lee was speaking at the same moment. "What? Based on old Picon law?" Both Kara and the Sister looked at him. "What?"
Kara found her voice first. "'Old Picon law'?"
"Er, yeah."
"What do you know about it, Lee?" was the question from the Sister.
"I -- um -- just the basics --"
"The -- the basics? What basics?" Kara croaked.
"Yeah," Lee nodded, glancing to the priestess for a beat, then looking back to Kara. "If an intended doesn't reject the offer -- and the couple, um --" He cleared his throat, looking not a little embarrassed. "If they -- if the couple -- um, consummate -- the relationship -- it constitutes a legal binding between them."
This last come out in a bit of a rush, with Kara staring at him slightly slack-jawed while the priestess nodded. "That's part of it," Gage began to say, only for Kara to pipe up as she looked between them.
"And that's considered legal? You're frakking kidding me!"
Lee tried to defend himself, saying "Kara, it didn't occur me --" Kara looked ready for another outburst, only for Gage's voice to override everything.
"That's only part of it."
This silenced everyone for a full minute. Kara then asked, with the most exquisite calm and patience "What's the other 'part'?"
"An exchange between the pledged, to seal the union before the gods."
"What kind of exchange?" Lee asked.
"A separate motion from the exchange of vows, later in the ceremony, is usually held where they will drink from the same chalice cup --" She paused, noticing how quiet one of the pair had become. "Kara?" she asked.
When there was no immediate answer, Lee himself tried, even daring to physically nudge her. "Kara, what is it?"
"Um, does it have to be a, um, chalice?"
"Not necessarily." The priestess gave her another appraising look. "Why?"
"Umm --"
Now it was Lee staring, slack-jawed. "Kara?" He swallowed hard. "When? H -- how?"
"The, uh, night you -- you gave me the ring. Remember?
"Yeah. When did --?" He stopped and frowned. "Wait a second."
"I knocked you out --"
"You frakking near broke my jaw."
"Yeah, yeah. I knocked you out -- and then I, uh, needed a drink --"
Lee groaned and held his head. "You're kidding me."
"Well, that tea helped -- even me out."
"Even you out? I woke up stark naked on the floor and my uniform sliced to ribbons."
"Hey! There wasn't so much as a single nick on you, was there?"
The priestess watched this exchange with rapt fascination.
"You actually drank that -- that -- stuff."
"You'd prefer I stomp your damned head through the floor?"
"Oh, thanks."
"You're welcome."
"Frak you."
"You already have, you -- you --"
"That's -- what are you --"
"Would you two like to be alone?" Gale's calm voice silenced the room, not that either of the pair before her spared her a single look. Probably just as well.
The gods rarely looked kindly upon those who interrupted true love.
Tbc...very, very soon.
De author seez: I've been debating the past day or so whether to hold out until I have the last two chapter written, or to just post these four and hope your enthusiastic reviews (hint, hint) will carry me to the finish line. I do have the last two planned out, but confess my energy has been flagging in the flurry to get this finished by the 28th. Its looking more like it'll be by next Friday as opposed to this one, but you never know. I've nevertheless decided to put these out and see what y'all think. Please be honest, be brutal, and just lemme hear from ya!
With a belated and inadequate thanks to my beta team; you guys are saints! I owe you more than I can hope to repay in a hundred lives.