I thought the end was in sight, but a couple of ideas came to me and this baby just got longer. Hopefully once I figure out the pacing, I can start updating at a fairly decent clip again.
Lee sat at his desk in his ready room, staring up at a random point where the bulkhead met the deckhead. He was supposed to be writing up a report on how the morning's interrogation of their Cylon prisoner went; to be triplicated with one copy for him and one each for Galactica and Colonial One. But he had done nothing beyond writing down the date.
In the span of a single conversation, he had discovered the cause of why the remainder of the human race was living in the current hell. And it was a blonde machine passing itself off as human.
His heart still hadn't stopped pounding inside his chest, and his knee-the one he'd injured in the explosion-kept on bouncing up and down, occasionally so hard that it banged with painful force against the underside of his desk.
But Lee barely noticed. He kept on staring at where the bulkhead met the deckhead, alternately raising and lowering his face so that either his mouth or chin was pressed against his joined hands.
Lost in his own thoughts, he didn't hear the knocking on the hatch until it progressed to heavy pounding. The loud noise startled him, once his brain registered it, causing him to jerk straight up to sit at attention, and not doing his heart or his nerves any favors.
Lee squeezed his eyes shut and willed himself to calm down. He wiped at the cold sweat that suddenly appeared on his brow and took a shaky breath before calling out: "Come in."
The hatch groaned open to reveal Kara with her flightsuit partially unzipped and locks of her hair falling out of her ponytail. She'd flown CAP earlier, but had been too busy with the more boring aspects of her job to shower and change into clean clothing afterwards.
Lee immediately felt somewhat more at ease at the sight of his wife, but then Kara said, "Hey. You stood me up."
Lee frowned, unable to recall whether or not they were supposed to meet, and the pounding in his heart returned. The last thing he needed right now was a pissed off Kara.
"What?" he asked completely confused.
"Lunch. You know. The meal that comes between breakfast and dinner?" Kara chided while gesturing with her hands. Her tone said that she was more amused than annoyed. "You weren't going to make me eat all alone in the wardroom, were you?"
Lunch?
Lee looked down at his watch, saw the time, and remembered that indeed, they'd agreed supposed to meet for lunch nearly an hour ago.
"Ah shit…I am so sorry," he said getting up and quickly walking around his desk to where Kara was standing. There was a slight limp in his step from the pain in his knee. He lightly placed his hands on her upper arms and leaned in for a quick peck.
"It's just been a crazy morning."
Kara leaned back so she could get a clearer look at her husband's face. She'd noticed that his gait was off, and the lightness she had been feeling just a few moments before was replaced by worry.
"What's wrong? Did the interrogation go okay?" Kara asked, remembering how disturbed she had been when she interrogated that other Cylon years ago.
She gently ran the backs of her fingers along Lee's forehead. The deep lines on his face were back in full force after a significant period of time when they barely appeared, and looked pale. Even as his eyes closed at her soothing touch, Kara could feel the lingering dampness of the cold sweat he had tried to wipe away.
"Yeah. Yeah…" Lee said as he pulled his head back and opened his eyes to look at Kara. "I've just been on a conference call with the President and the Admiral all morning. They both want a detailed report and the President wants a personal meeting on Colonial One."
He gave Kara a smile to try and reassure her that it was just the administrative and bureaucratic aspects of his job that had him down, but she could see that he was bothered by more than that. The corners of Lee's eyes weren't crinkling like they usually did when he smiled at her and the lines on his forehead did not get any shallower.
And while she was making these observations, Lee was tugging her towards the couch and urging her to sit down.
"Uh…why don't we eat here?" he said with forced lightness. "I can get York to bring us whatever it is they're making in the galley."
Kara mentally noted the time. She really couldn't stay. She had too much work to do.
But the look in Lee's eyes made it obvious that he needed her close by, and Hammerhead was more than capable of running the air group for a while.
"Sure," she said with a reassuring smile and leaned back in her seat to show that she wasn't going anywhere.
The hastily scheduled nature of most of his meetings with President Roslin meant that, according to the fleet's clocks, Lee was making trips to Colonial One late at night, after they'd both have had busy days. That meant that they were both in slightly snippy moods-particularly Lee, who had been on edge all day.
They were sitting in the President's office, across from each other at her desk, and Lee had been droning on for a few minutes, pretty much paraphrasing what he had written, before Roslin finally had enough and held up her hand to stop him.
"Yes. Yes. I read your report," she said with a slightly annoyed whine in her voice. "It's a good play-by-play, but you've obviously forgotten the most important thing about writing: 'show don't tell.'"
"I wasn't aware that it was supposed to be a piece of creative writing, Sir."
"Oh, don't give me that, Commander," Roslin said, scrunching her face in distaste. "I want to get a feel for what's going on. What do you think is going on? Is she playing mind games with you? Do you think that this is all a part of a Cylon plot to mislead us?"
"If she is playing with my head, then she's much more subtle than that Leoben model Kara interrogated. I think she just has a lot to get off her chest, but I'm not sure how much of her venting will be useful to us."
"And how would you describe her mental state."
"She's just flapping in the wind right now. But more than that...she's angry. Bitter would be a better way of describing it. From the way she easily gave up the information about getting access to the CNP, I think it's safe to say that Baltar has a lot to do with it."
"How can you be so sure?"
"I just am."
Lee gave Roslin a tight smile that told her all she needed to know. She knew enough about the Adamas' history to know that Lee's parents' divorce fell well short of amicable, and that much of it was Bill Adama's fault.
She decided to move on. "Who else knows about this beyond you, me, and your father?"
"There were four marines present in the room while I was interrogating the Cylon, Madame President."
"Can they be trusted to keep their mouths shut?"
"Yes sir. I spoke to them about the need for utmost discretion."
"Good. Good."
Roslin leaned on her elbows on her desk and then asked: "Did she say how 'close' she got to Dr. Baltar?" knowing full well the nature of the relationship between the Cylon and her successor/predecessor.
"No, Sir. But I got the impression that it was a sexual relationship."
"I see…"
Roslin's tone and the way she nodded told Lee that she wasn't all that surprised, and he remembered a desperation move made by the President against Baltar during the debates of the last election. When she alleged that she saw Baltar kissing a tall blonde woman.
Lee decided not to ask the President about it though.
"Keep on talking to the prisoner. Get as much information as you can, even the philosophical stuff. From what I've seen of the transcript, if we read between the lines, there's plenty of insight that we can use."
"Of course, Madame President."
"I think that's enough for tonight. You may leave," Roslin said dismissively, obviously signaling that the meeting was over.
Lee got out of his chair, stood ramrod straight and brought his right hand up in a crisp salute. "Madame Presidet."
Roslin brought her own hand up and back down. "Good night, Commander."
He made it as far as the curtain partition when the President called him.
"Commander."
Lee turned back. "Yes, Madame President."
Roslin was looking at him from above her glasses and had a sly smile on her face as she said, "'Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned'…keep that in mind."
Lee nodded with a smirk of his own. It was his first genuine smile in almost twenty four hours. "Of course, Madame President."
"Have a good night, Commander."
"Good night, Madame President."
Observation 1: Kara and Lee seem to do a lot of sweating in this story, but not for the reason all you smut fiends out there prefer.
Observation 2: That line I pulled from William Congreve's The Mourning Bride is probably one of the most misquoted phrases in English literature.
Plus, the questions running through many of your heads right now: Why the hell would Roslin quote William Congreve? And who the hell is William Congreve?