Enjoy.
It was a long time before Kara's sobs subsided.
Lee held her until her breathing grew steady. She'd fallen asleep, but her beautiful face was marred by a furrowed brow and tightly drawn lips. He could see her eyes moving rapidly beneath their lids as she dreamt, and all he could do was hold onto the futile hope that her dreams weren't nightmares.
Lee gently separated himself from Kara and eased himself off of her hospital bed. He slipped out from the curtained area and into the rest of sickbay. He headed towards where the doctor was completing paperwork in his cramped office.
"I need to use your office," Lee said softly. His tone left no room for negotiation.
The doctor nodded and after gathering several folders, exited without a word.
Lee sat down in the recently vacated chair and took a moment to adjust to its feel before he reached for the phone.
"CIC. Lieutenant Hoshi speaking."
"This is the Commander. Give me a private channel to Galactica Actual."
"Yes sir. Right away."
Several seconds passed. Lee could hear several clicks as his call was put through.
"Galactica Actual. Go ahead, Pegasus."
"Are you alone?"
There was a slight pause as his father registered his brusqueness. "Yes."
"Kara-just had a miscarriage."
Silence.
"Did you-?"
"No."
"I'm coming right over."
"No. Don't," Lee ran his free hand over his face. "It's been hectic enough already for her…"
His voice trailed off when he noticed his hand when he pulled it away from his face.
"Take care of her."
"Yeah." He stared at his hand. "Yeah. I will."
There was a click at the other end indicating that his father had hung up. Lee let the receiver drop into his lap as he stared at his hand. There were dried red streaks along his palm and fingers from where he'd held Kara's hand earlier.
He stood and walked out of the doctor's office to a hand washing station. He was about to turn on the water but stopped to look at his palm again.
He looked down at his uniform and the red that was just visible against the blue fabric from where the balled up sheets had been pressed between them and a dark patch at the shoulder where Kara's face lay as she cried.
Behind him Kelly had just come out of the curtained off area where Kara was sleeping, carrying the lengths of fabric Kara had refused to relinquish earlier. The corpsman was presumably going to send them off to be cleaned.
"Wait," Lee suddenly said.
Kelly started in surprise. "Sir?"
Lee gestured with his hands. "Give those to me," he said, giving little thought to what he was doing.
Kelly looked down at the bundle in her hands and handed it over with a little hesitation.
Lee took it and stalked out of sickbay to the commander's stateroom, ignoring the odd looks some of the crew gave him. He didn't break his pace until he was in his quarters with the hatch dogged behind him.
He walked across the deck, dropping the sheets, the pillow case, Kara's gown, and the cloths the corpsmen used to clean Kara up along the way.
His hands flew to the top button of his uniform jacket while his toes roughly ripped his feet out of his boots. He left a trail of clothing in his wake until he stood in front of the mirror in the head wearing only his tanks, boxers, and socks.
Staring at himself.
Now what?
At a loss for what to do now, he finally washed his hand.
Slowly.
Watching the blood, water, and soap swirl around in the sink as it went down the drain to be recycled and used again.
Dressed in a fresh uniform, Lee stepped back out to head towards the old Cylon holding cell. The original marines standing guard were gone, having been relieved after none too gently washing their prisoner with buckets of water and long-handled brushes normally used by the snipes to scrubs grease off of the bulkheads.
"Commander on deck!" the Sergeant Major in command of Pegasus' marine contingent barked.
"At ease."
Lee walked over to the ballistic glass to see their prisoner chained to the deck. It looked as if the marines had simply used their combat knives to chop off the prisoner's hair and beard, and judging from the number of nicks on his face, used them to shave him as well. The man's rags were gone, have been sliced off as well, and were replaced with a generic shirt and pants.
But despite those indignities, the prisoner stared back at Lee with defiant-even wild-eyes and his lips twisted into a disgusting leer.
Lee knew who it was even before the Sergeant Major came up beside him with a folder containing pictures.
"We have a positive ID. He's a match for the Cylon known as Leoben Conoy."
Lee took the proffered folder and tucked it under his armpit without looking at its contents. He'd read the files on the Cylons they knew about over and over again to know them by heart. Talking to this model would be an exercise in futility. But they couldn't risk airlocking him because of they didn't know what sort of information he could have gathered while aboard Pegasus.
"Round up the refugees and lock down the cargo bay," Lee said. "No one goes in or comes out until I find out how the frak that thing got onto my ship. Clear?"
"Yes sir!"
Lee turned on his heel to exit the brig, but paused when the Sergeant Major brought up a valid point.
"What if they need to use the head, sir?"
"Give them a bucket."
Caprica was sitting on her bed, reading a book, when Lee walked into the newer, purpose-built Cylon holding cell. She looked up from her reading when she noticed movement on the other side of the glass out of the corner of her eye.
The sliding glass door opened and in walked Lee, clutching a folder in his hands. Caprica assumed that he was there to interrogate her again, so she set her book down and waited until Lee pulled the chair she'd been given into position in front of her.
"Good evening, Commander," Caprica said as Lee sat down.
Lee didn't speak. He just stared at her and they sat in awkward silence.
"I heard that your wife is in sickbay after some kind of problem out on patrol," Caprica put forward hesitantly.
Lee's head jerked in surprise. "How did you know that?"
Caprica shrugged. "Today was my day to shower," she said matter-of-factly as she gestured towards her protective detail on the other side of the glass. "They talk when they think I'm not listening."
"Don't worry," she said laughingly at the look he gave her. "It's just gossip about what's happening on the ship."
Lee spared a glance at the marine guards. There was a potential security breach that needed to be nipped in the bud. But that wasn't the issue at hand.
Caprica beat him to the punch though.
"So…what would you like to know today? It's been a while since we've talked."
Lee opened the folder he'd brought with her and pulled out a photo. It was of the corpse of the Leoben his father had bludgeoned to death at Ragnar Anchorage.
"What can you tell me about this model?"
He was surprised to see Caprica shudder at the sight.
"They are among the most fervent believers in our religion. And if one of them is aboard this ship, it is best if you keep your wife away from him."
Immediately alarmed, Lee leaned forward, his shoulders hunched and his muscles tensed like a cat ready to pounce. "Why?" he asked in a low tone.
"There are those among us who believe that Kara Thrace has a destiny. That she is a harbinger of some sort. He is the most fervent of them."
Caprica was truthful. She always told the truth to Lee. He'd unconsciously shown her that humans were not the barbarians Cylons had been led to believe, and if she was honest with herself, she was finding herself attracted to the man. Or at least the archetype he represented.
"But more than that…" she continued. "He believes that her destiny lies with him. It's an obsession. Almost to the point of delusion."
Horror was beginning to creep into Lee's features as Caprica spoke.
"When we arrived at New Caprica, he tore apart the city to look for her. He terrorized the women so badly that we even stopped doing anything every time he resurrected."
Caprica shook her head at the memory. "I'd thought that he'd be the first model to be boxed as an entire series. Instead, it was the model you know as D'anna Biers that was completely abandoned. But you already know that."
Silence.
Caprica and Lee stared at each other before he eventually hesitantly said, "Would he…do anything to hurt Kara?"
Caprica sighed. "I don't know."
Silence again.
Caprica looked down at the deck as she waited for the inevitable question.
"Do you believe that Kara has a special destiny?"
She looked back up.
"I espouse the teachings of my religion because they're what I know. But I'm not sure what I believe anymore. I feel-"
"Lost?" Lee finished for her.
"Yes," Caprica nodded. "But it's refreshing as well."
"I have a lot of time to think in here. See?" she gestured towards the book at her side. "I'm reading an academic treatise on your religion. And it is fascinating to see religion from a detached point of view."
Caprica picked up the book and mindlessly flipped its pages as she spoke. "You have Zeus, the mighty philanderer, and Hera, the vindictive wife, along with the rest of your pantheon of supposedly holy beings worshipped by your people. But instead of using the gods as your ideals, you use heroes instead. Mortals who dare to challenge the gods themselves and triumph over adversity.
Perhaps that's why humans have such a gift for taking their fallibilities and rising above them to build a rich, teeming civilization that spread over twelve worlds and hundreds of colonies.
Meanwhile, we Cylons worship a single god who is supposed to be perfect in every way. We didn't create a society. We built a machine geared for war. We don't have families, or friends, or homes. We have networks, production facilities and resurrection hubs. There's no culture or beauty in what we've created."
Caprica smiled sadly as she voiced her newfound thoughts. Her existence truly had been bleak before she met the humans.
She looked at where Lee was looking pensively at a bulkhead.
"But do you really want to sit here?" she said, regaining the commander's attention. "When you have a Cylon that is singularly obsessed with your wife aboard your ship?"
It was early in the morning according to the ship's clocks when Lee left Caprica and got back to sickbay.
North, the corpsman on the night shift, was dozing in a chair when he heard the Commander's footsteps approaching.
The corpsman stood, but Lee barely acknowledged him as he walked to the distant corner of the room. North followed silently behind in case Lee had any questions.
And he did. Lee paused in front of the drawn curtain and softly asked, "Did she wake up while I was gone?"
North shook his head.
"She did start getting restless, so the Doctor gave her something to help her sleep before he went off shift."
The two men stood in silence.
"Would you like anything, Commander?" North asked hesitantly. "I'm allowed to dispense small doses of sleeping pills when necessary."
Lee shook his head and let out a long breath. "No, thank you."
North nodded. "Sir."
"Corpsman."
North walked back to his chair, leaving Lee alone in front of the curtain hiding Kara away from the rest of sickbay. Lee waited until the corpsman was back in his chair before slipping inside to where Kara lay sleeping.
She looked so peaceful. If it wasn't for the IV silently dripping into her, it was almost as if he'd walked in on her sleeping in their bed, too tired to wait up for him. He would undress as quietly as he could before slipping in next to her and reveling in the fact that she would automatically turn and snuggle up against him.
But they weren't in their quarters now.
They were in sickbay and she was asleep only with medical assistance.
And they'd lost a child neither of them had been aware of.
Lee sat down in the chair he'd used earlier. He took Kara's hand in his own and rubbed his thumb along the backs of her fingers, feeling the details of her ring.
Why did this sort of thing always happen to them?
Why was it that the universe always had to step in and interfere with their happiness?
With those thoughts and the memory of his recent conversation with Caprica running through his head, Lee finally broke down and let his tears fall.
Hope you liked it.
And thank you to all those who reviewed last time. They were just awesome.
