Chapter 3
As Kara Thrace eased herself quietly through the hatch into pilot's quarters, she closed her eyes and tried to get them to adjust to the dimmed lights. It was past curfew, and most of her friends were asleep inside.
Once her eyes had accustomed themselves to the lowered lighting, she walked carefully down the narrow aisle to her own bottom bunk. It wasn't as easy as it had once been. She had retained her own bunk, but the aisle was now the location of several other sleeping units, portable bunks for the new arrivals. It turned an eight-foot aisle into two two-and-a-half foot passages, and managed to increase the sleeping capacity of the room by over a third. She was just glad she wasn't in one of the units. They were the same size as her own bunk, but open on both sides and offering no privacy to either top or bottom occupant. At least in her bunk she could hang up a towel and pretend for a moment that twenty other bodies weren't within calling distance.
She finally reached her bunk and sat down on its edge. It took her only a moment to remove her boots and pull back the covers. She didn't bother with changing out of her uniform. There really wasn't a point.
She heard a rustling above her, and the slight muttering of a familiar voice. She held her breath and waited, but the dreaded sound came again. She tried her best to wait it out, but at this rate his nightmare would have half the room awake, and she knew he wouldn't appreciate that. Tossing back her covers, she stood up and reached to the bunk that was atop hers. She kept her distance, not wanting to get smacked if he didn't wake immediately, but reached out to grasp his shoulder nonetheless.
"Lee," she said in a whisper. "Come on, wake up, Lee."
He struggled a minute, then awoke with a jerk and a gasp, but thankfully without swinging fists. She didn't back up, but rather stepped closer now that he was relatively alert. "You okay?"
He took a gulping breath, and then another, before nodding and easing back onto his pillow. "Thanks," he said in a whisper as quiet as hers.
Kara nodded and got back into her bunk. She and Lee had an unspoken agreement that nightmares were to be ended at the first opportunity. They never talked about the things that haunted their sleep, but at the very least they did their best to keep it from the rest of their teammates. Most of the others had similar agreements with those around them. It was bad enough to manage your own nightmares without taking on those of your friends as well. They all needed their sleep.
She still listened closely to the bunk above her. Some nights he couldn't get back to sleep, and usually she slipped out of bed to walk with him until the ghosts had passed. Other nights he did the same for her. It was always easier to shake the night demons when you were with a friend. Tonight though, he shifted a bit and became quiet. He was going back to sleep. A few moments later, she let out a grateful breath that she hadn't been aware she was holding, and rolled over to do the same.
Morning came early in the pilot's quarters. Softly buzzing alarms and not so softly talking officers made sleeping in an impossibility. Kara was actually glad. She would get enough sleep when she was dead. That seemed to happen soon enough for most of them.
Morbid thoughts. She didn't remember her dreams, but she doubted they had been good. This passing thought sparked a memory, and she sat up to rub her face and peek at the bunk above her. Lee was just beginning to stir, so he must have managed to keep himself asleep through the night. That was a good thing. He was a pain in the ass when he was tired.
She stood up and grabbed her boots from beneath the bed with one hand. "Morning," she told him simply, trying to stifle a yawn.
He did the same, and replied with a muffled, "Good morning."
"Good remains to be seen," she reminded him.
He grinned at the familiar exchange. There wasn't much good about the destruction of her world, but she had to admit that it was nice to be around Lee again. She missed her fallen friends desperately, but at the very least her closest friend was alive and well, and had taken the bunk above hers. She thought it was pretty sweet, really, but she'd never tell him that. Instead, she had harassed him about not being able to stay away from her and he had responded by hitting her in the face with one of the shirts he had been in the process of putting away.
It was an easy camaraderie though, and one she enjoyed. It reminded her of a time before the world had ended, when she'd just been a troubled kid with a foggy past. For some reason, that was easier than being a flashy pilot with a penchant for cigars and cards. Being around Lee was comfortable.
She walked down the narrowed aisle to her locker - thankfully hers alone since they had installed more along another wall of the quarters - and reached inside it for her bag even as she dumped her boots in. She carried the webbed bag of toiletries towards the showers, and paused as she approached the line.
While adding bunks and lockers had been a possibility, adding additional shower stalls and toilets had not been. The result was a daily wait to take care of business, one way or another. Thankfully, everyone was pretty considerate of their teammates, and showers were quick and efficient. Kara spent only ten minutes in the line, then slipped into a stall to strip, shower quickly, and wash her hair. That done, she wrapped the towel she'd grabbed on her way in around her and left the shower stall with a resounding, "Next."
Someone took her place as she moved to the sinks, dropping her uniform in the laundry bin as she did so. There were more sinks than showers, and it was considerably easier to share, so she slipped in next to a friend to brush her teeth.
"Late night, Starbuck?"
She shook her head, but didn't speak as she had a mouth full of toothpaste.
Rand grinned as he rinsed cream from his razor, preparing to take another swipe at his face. "You weren't around when Captain Apollo came in," he told her. "I just wondered if you'd gotten into trouble again."
She spit out her toothpaste before turning a mild glare on him. "What does his arrival have to do with me being in trouble?"
"Nothing," he admitted. "You two just usually hang together."
She rinsed her mouth out quickly, then wiped her face with the tail of her towel. "You trying to say something?" she said, facing him squarely.
"I didn't say a thing," Rand told her, looking legitimately confused. It was that ignorance that saved his butt as far as she was concerned. She considered him a friend, and a special one as he'd been a part of her original squadron before the war, but she wasn't taking insinuations from anyone. She'd taken enough ribbing from the rest over being friends with the new CAG, and she was getting royally sick of it.
She supposed it was her own damn fault. She had kept a careful distance from everyone since joining the Colonial Service. She'd been "just one of the guys" for so long that she thought nothing of it. Each man she knew was treated with the respect they earned and nothing more. Occasionally she made a friend or two, but even that had been limited. Her mouth tended to put her on the offensive more often than not, and most guys didn't bother to stick around for the abuse.
Everyone had seemed to pick up that Lee was different. She respected him, as was obviously apparent in her not questioning every order he gave, and she did treat him a little differently. She'd grown up with him, so it was impossible not to act just a little more comfortably around him. Unfortunately, her teammates were a perceptive lot, and they noticed that while she gave him as much verbal sparring as any other man, there was an underlying affection that was pretty hard to miss. She didn't just respect Lee. She liked him.
Her liking him might not have been such an issue if he hadn't been the Commander's son. Despite his higher rank, simply being an Adama made placed him under suspicion and ridicule from his pilots until he'd earned his place. It wasn't anything against him, but rather a respect for the previous CAG combined with his natural reserve. Lee was a serious one, and he didn't make friends as readily as some people. Kara figured that he needed to keep what friends he already had.
But in the Service, any weakness was exploited. Somehow they had figured out that Lee was hers. Maybe it was because she didn't mouth off against him the way she had previous authority figures. Maybe it was that she ran with him in the mornings, and ate with him when the opportunity presented itself. Maybe it was just that she used his first name, something that was pretty rare among a group that lived by call signs. Maybe they were right and she was just getting soft. Whatever it was, she found herself squelching rumors on a daily basis and it was getting on her nerves.
"He's a friend," she said tiredly. "You're a friend. Sharon's a friend. Evan and Castor are friends, too."
"All I said," Rand reiterated, "was that you weren't with him last night. You came in late. I'm not sure where the rest of this crap is coming from."
Kara looked at him for a moment before reaching in her net bag for a comb. "Sorry," she muttered. "I've just had it with some of the ribbing."
She combed her hair back off her face, for what it was worth. It would dry and fall back in her eyes within the hour, but maybe she could get through her run without it being in her way. She left Rand to his sink, grateful that she didn't have to shave daily, and walked back to her locker. She selected a clean undershirt and underwear and dressed quickly. She wasn't bashful in the locker room, but she wasn't an exhibitionist either. She tugged on her shorts and clean socks, then put on her running shoes.
She met Lee by their bunks, where he was stretching in preparation for the run. "You ready?" he asked. He was usually ready before her due to her penchant for taking an early shower, but he never complained. She liked that about him, too.
She shrugged one shoulder. "Ready and willing. Let's see if you can keep up, today."
With no more than that, she opened the hatch and eased into a gentle jog to warm up. A very confused Lee fell into step beside her, and the morning began.
Breakfast in the Officer's Mess wasn't a treat. Lee tried not to grimace as he pushed reconstituted protein around on his plate, remembering fondly the eggs and bacon that he used to enjoy. Kara wasn't doing much better with her plate, but at least her expression was clear.
She might have started the morning off as a grump - not an uncommon thing - but she had cheered considerably as they had run through the Galactica's passageways. He had to admit that it was quite a workout as they climbed steps and dodged people. It reminded him of when they had run at the academy, up early so as not to get caught out of bed before they had permission. She had always liked to run in the mornings. It struck him as odd, because she wasn't really a "morning" person. He had learned early that she needed one of three things to be civil: coffee, a shower, or a run.
He was normally fairly alert right off the bat. He got that from his mother, he supposed. Kara had always seemed to resent an early morning smile, so he had learned to keep some reserve around her. At least until after she ran.
But for the moment she just looked lost. She wasn't eating, but neither was she rearranging her less than palatable meal. She was simply staring across the room, eyes unfocused, a blob of protein hanging off the edge of her fork.
"You there?" he finally asked her.
"Hmm?"
"You awake in there?" he asked again.
"Sure. Why?"
He finally grinned. "Your breakfast is getting away," he remarked, even as the blob finally lost its battle with gravity and landed on her plate with a slight plop.
"Just thinking," she admitted sheepishly.
"About?"
"This ceremony," she said. "I'm wondering if I can talk the Commander into leaving me on patrol so I don't have to show up."
Lee shook his head. "Not likely. They're awarding clusters, and if anyone is likely to get one for fancy flying, it's you."
"So that would mean dress uniforms," she reasoned.
He took another bite of the flavorless food and nodded. "Full dress. Semi- formal for the civilians."
She took a deep breath, let it out, and pushed her plate away. He couldn't blame her. On the last couple of planets, they had managed to set up a hydroponics ship and a farming ship, but it would be a long time before anything more than the synthetic nutritional supplements was common. That was one of the draws of the awards ceremony. There was supposed to be a banquet with real food. It would be worth showing up for just that.
Kara had told him during their run that his father was going through with the formalities. While he understood a good deal of the reasoning, up to a point, he felt there had to be more to it that his father wasn't telling. Still, his father wasn't a man to change his mind once he'd made a decision, so that meant that a ceremony, banquet, and dance were all imminent.
"My uniform doesn't fit," Kara told him with a grimace.
He glanced at her and nodded. It was nothing he didn't suspect. "You've lost weight," he reasoned. "It's because you don't eat."
"You don't either," she complained as she finally put down her fork. It didn't really matter; she wasn't eating anyway.
"It's disgusting," he agreed. "But it's just for a while longer. The hydro-ships are doing pretty well, and there should be fresh vegetables and fruits pretty soon. You can't grow a garden overnight."
"Nutritionally complete synthetic protein," she grumbled. "What kind of an idiot thought this stuff up?"
"Be grateful," he reminded her. Some of the ships didn't even have that at first. We lost more than a few people to starvation before we got to the Nebulous region. Life-sustaining planets aren't common."
"You always did love to lecture," she told him, shoving her plate away. "You should have stayed at the academy."
Lee pushed his own food away before looking up at her. Any appetite he'd had was gone now. "I couldn't," he said simply. "I saw him around every corner."
Kara's gaze flashed to his and he could see the apology in her eyes before she said a word. "God, I'm sorry, Lee," she said quickly. "I swear I don't think."
"It's okay," he told her softly, reaching over to pat the hand she had offered in apology. "In a way, it's kind of nice. I don't ever want to forget that I had a brother. You're about the only other person who knew him, so it helps in a dumb way. That doesn't mean I want to remember every time I look around, though."
She nodded, then took a deep breath. He could tell she was debating whether or not to speak, so he didn't really know if he wanted to hear it. "There aren't many people on board who knew him. Your father and I don't really bring it up because it upsets him. Sometimes it feels like." She thought for a moment then continued. "It feels like I dreamed him or something. Like he was never real."
Lee knew the feeling. Immediately following the funeral, the mention of Zak's name had been enough to send him into a rage. Any friends that stuck around learned quickly to avoid the subject. In recent months, as rage had been replaced by simple sadness and regret, he just didn't have anyone to talk to about it. He had spent twenty years being a big brother, and now he often felt that it was all in his head. No one he was around now really knew, or cared. Kara did. It was a link they shared that was all the stronger for being in the background. They didn't make an issue of it very often, but Zak's memory affected them both.
"He was real," Lee told her softly. "No one could imagine that big a pain in the butt." At her grin, he continued. "It's getting easier to remember him. It's probably just that I'm getting used to being without him, and knowing that he would probably be gone now anyway, just like Mom is. There was a lot of good stuff, though. That's what I try to remember."
"He was worth remembering," she agreed.
They sat there a moment, each in their own thoughts, but comfortable in their silence. Lee finally reached over and pushed Kara's plate back towards her. "You do need to eat," he told her seriously. "You can't fly if you're passing out from hunger."
She glared at the plate, but obligingly picked up her fork and took a couple of bites. "This really is bad," she complained.
Lee took another bite of his and thought that bad was an understatement. But they needed the food to keep up their strength, and this was what was available. "Eat it anyway," he told her after he had cleaned his plate. "It looks like we're going to have to go to a dance, and the uniforms might as well fit."
As Kara Thrace eased herself quietly through the hatch into pilot's quarters, she closed her eyes and tried to get them to adjust to the dimmed lights. It was past curfew, and most of her friends were asleep inside.
Once her eyes had accustomed themselves to the lowered lighting, she walked carefully down the narrow aisle to her own bottom bunk. It wasn't as easy as it had once been. She had retained her own bunk, but the aisle was now the location of several other sleeping units, portable bunks for the new arrivals. It turned an eight-foot aisle into two two-and-a-half foot passages, and managed to increase the sleeping capacity of the room by over a third. She was just glad she wasn't in one of the units. They were the same size as her own bunk, but open on both sides and offering no privacy to either top or bottom occupant. At least in her bunk she could hang up a towel and pretend for a moment that twenty other bodies weren't within calling distance.
She finally reached her bunk and sat down on its edge. It took her only a moment to remove her boots and pull back the covers. She didn't bother with changing out of her uniform. There really wasn't a point.
She heard a rustling above her, and the slight muttering of a familiar voice. She held her breath and waited, but the dreaded sound came again. She tried her best to wait it out, but at this rate his nightmare would have half the room awake, and she knew he wouldn't appreciate that. Tossing back her covers, she stood up and reached to the bunk that was atop hers. She kept her distance, not wanting to get smacked if he didn't wake immediately, but reached out to grasp his shoulder nonetheless.
"Lee," she said in a whisper. "Come on, wake up, Lee."
He struggled a minute, then awoke with a jerk and a gasp, but thankfully without swinging fists. She didn't back up, but rather stepped closer now that he was relatively alert. "You okay?"
He took a gulping breath, and then another, before nodding and easing back onto his pillow. "Thanks," he said in a whisper as quiet as hers.
Kara nodded and got back into her bunk. She and Lee had an unspoken agreement that nightmares were to be ended at the first opportunity. They never talked about the things that haunted their sleep, but at the very least they did their best to keep it from the rest of their teammates. Most of the others had similar agreements with those around them. It was bad enough to manage your own nightmares without taking on those of your friends as well. They all needed their sleep.
She still listened closely to the bunk above her. Some nights he couldn't get back to sleep, and usually she slipped out of bed to walk with him until the ghosts had passed. Other nights he did the same for her. It was always easier to shake the night demons when you were with a friend. Tonight though, he shifted a bit and became quiet. He was going back to sleep. A few moments later, she let out a grateful breath that she hadn't been aware she was holding, and rolled over to do the same.
Morning came early in the pilot's quarters. Softly buzzing alarms and not so softly talking officers made sleeping in an impossibility. Kara was actually glad. She would get enough sleep when she was dead. That seemed to happen soon enough for most of them.
Morbid thoughts. She didn't remember her dreams, but she doubted they had been good. This passing thought sparked a memory, and she sat up to rub her face and peek at the bunk above her. Lee was just beginning to stir, so he must have managed to keep himself asleep through the night. That was a good thing. He was a pain in the ass when he was tired.
She stood up and grabbed her boots from beneath the bed with one hand. "Morning," she told him simply, trying to stifle a yawn.
He did the same, and replied with a muffled, "Good morning."
"Good remains to be seen," she reminded him.
He grinned at the familiar exchange. There wasn't much good about the destruction of her world, but she had to admit that it was nice to be around Lee again. She missed her fallen friends desperately, but at the very least her closest friend was alive and well, and had taken the bunk above hers. She thought it was pretty sweet, really, but she'd never tell him that. Instead, she had harassed him about not being able to stay away from her and he had responded by hitting her in the face with one of the shirts he had been in the process of putting away.
It was an easy camaraderie though, and one she enjoyed. It reminded her of a time before the world had ended, when she'd just been a troubled kid with a foggy past. For some reason, that was easier than being a flashy pilot with a penchant for cigars and cards. Being around Lee was comfortable.
She walked down the narrowed aisle to her locker - thankfully hers alone since they had installed more along another wall of the quarters - and reached inside it for her bag even as she dumped her boots in. She carried the webbed bag of toiletries towards the showers, and paused as she approached the line.
While adding bunks and lockers had been a possibility, adding additional shower stalls and toilets had not been. The result was a daily wait to take care of business, one way or another. Thankfully, everyone was pretty considerate of their teammates, and showers were quick and efficient. Kara spent only ten minutes in the line, then slipped into a stall to strip, shower quickly, and wash her hair. That done, she wrapped the towel she'd grabbed on her way in around her and left the shower stall with a resounding, "Next."
Someone took her place as she moved to the sinks, dropping her uniform in the laundry bin as she did so. There were more sinks than showers, and it was considerably easier to share, so she slipped in next to a friend to brush her teeth.
"Late night, Starbuck?"
She shook her head, but didn't speak as she had a mouth full of toothpaste.
Rand grinned as he rinsed cream from his razor, preparing to take another swipe at his face. "You weren't around when Captain Apollo came in," he told her. "I just wondered if you'd gotten into trouble again."
She spit out her toothpaste before turning a mild glare on him. "What does his arrival have to do with me being in trouble?"
"Nothing," he admitted. "You two just usually hang together."
She rinsed her mouth out quickly, then wiped her face with the tail of her towel. "You trying to say something?" she said, facing him squarely.
"I didn't say a thing," Rand told her, looking legitimately confused. It was that ignorance that saved his butt as far as she was concerned. She considered him a friend, and a special one as he'd been a part of her original squadron before the war, but she wasn't taking insinuations from anyone. She'd taken enough ribbing from the rest over being friends with the new CAG, and she was getting royally sick of it.
She supposed it was her own damn fault. She had kept a careful distance from everyone since joining the Colonial Service. She'd been "just one of the guys" for so long that she thought nothing of it. Each man she knew was treated with the respect they earned and nothing more. Occasionally she made a friend or two, but even that had been limited. Her mouth tended to put her on the offensive more often than not, and most guys didn't bother to stick around for the abuse.
Everyone had seemed to pick up that Lee was different. She respected him, as was obviously apparent in her not questioning every order he gave, and she did treat him a little differently. She'd grown up with him, so it was impossible not to act just a little more comfortably around him. Unfortunately, her teammates were a perceptive lot, and they noticed that while she gave him as much verbal sparring as any other man, there was an underlying affection that was pretty hard to miss. She didn't just respect Lee. She liked him.
Her liking him might not have been such an issue if he hadn't been the Commander's son. Despite his higher rank, simply being an Adama made placed him under suspicion and ridicule from his pilots until he'd earned his place. It wasn't anything against him, but rather a respect for the previous CAG combined with his natural reserve. Lee was a serious one, and he didn't make friends as readily as some people. Kara figured that he needed to keep what friends he already had.
But in the Service, any weakness was exploited. Somehow they had figured out that Lee was hers. Maybe it was because she didn't mouth off against him the way she had previous authority figures. Maybe it was that she ran with him in the mornings, and ate with him when the opportunity presented itself. Maybe it was just that she used his first name, something that was pretty rare among a group that lived by call signs. Maybe they were right and she was just getting soft. Whatever it was, she found herself squelching rumors on a daily basis and it was getting on her nerves.
"He's a friend," she said tiredly. "You're a friend. Sharon's a friend. Evan and Castor are friends, too."
"All I said," Rand reiterated, "was that you weren't with him last night. You came in late. I'm not sure where the rest of this crap is coming from."
Kara looked at him for a moment before reaching in her net bag for a comb. "Sorry," she muttered. "I've just had it with some of the ribbing."
She combed her hair back off her face, for what it was worth. It would dry and fall back in her eyes within the hour, but maybe she could get through her run without it being in her way. She left Rand to his sink, grateful that she didn't have to shave daily, and walked back to her locker. She selected a clean undershirt and underwear and dressed quickly. She wasn't bashful in the locker room, but she wasn't an exhibitionist either. She tugged on her shorts and clean socks, then put on her running shoes.
She met Lee by their bunks, where he was stretching in preparation for the run. "You ready?" he asked. He was usually ready before her due to her penchant for taking an early shower, but he never complained. She liked that about him, too.
She shrugged one shoulder. "Ready and willing. Let's see if you can keep up, today."
With no more than that, she opened the hatch and eased into a gentle jog to warm up. A very confused Lee fell into step beside her, and the morning began.
Breakfast in the Officer's Mess wasn't a treat. Lee tried not to grimace as he pushed reconstituted protein around on his plate, remembering fondly the eggs and bacon that he used to enjoy. Kara wasn't doing much better with her plate, but at least her expression was clear.
She might have started the morning off as a grump - not an uncommon thing - but she had cheered considerably as they had run through the Galactica's passageways. He had to admit that it was quite a workout as they climbed steps and dodged people. It reminded him of when they had run at the academy, up early so as not to get caught out of bed before they had permission. She had always liked to run in the mornings. It struck him as odd, because she wasn't really a "morning" person. He had learned early that she needed one of three things to be civil: coffee, a shower, or a run.
He was normally fairly alert right off the bat. He got that from his mother, he supposed. Kara had always seemed to resent an early morning smile, so he had learned to keep some reserve around her. At least until after she ran.
But for the moment she just looked lost. She wasn't eating, but neither was she rearranging her less than palatable meal. She was simply staring across the room, eyes unfocused, a blob of protein hanging off the edge of her fork.
"You there?" he finally asked her.
"Hmm?"
"You awake in there?" he asked again.
"Sure. Why?"
He finally grinned. "Your breakfast is getting away," he remarked, even as the blob finally lost its battle with gravity and landed on her plate with a slight plop.
"Just thinking," she admitted sheepishly.
"About?"
"This ceremony," she said. "I'm wondering if I can talk the Commander into leaving me on patrol so I don't have to show up."
Lee shook his head. "Not likely. They're awarding clusters, and if anyone is likely to get one for fancy flying, it's you."
"So that would mean dress uniforms," she reasoned.
He took another bite of the flavorless food and nodded. "Full dress. Semi- formal for the civilians."
She took a deep breath, let it out, and pushed her plate away. He couldn't blame her. On the last couple of planets, they had managed to set up a hydroponics ship and a farming ship, but it would be a long time before anything more than the synthetic nutritional supplements was common. That was one of the draws of the awards ceremony. There was supposed to be a banquet with real food. It would be worth showing up for just that.
Kara had told him during their run that his father was going through with the formalities. While he understood a good deal of the reasoning, up to a point, he felt there had to be more to it that his father wasn't telling. Still, his father wasn't a man to change his mind once he'd made a decision, so that meant that a ceremony, banquet, and dance were all imminent.
"My uniform doesn't fit," Kara told him with a grimace.
He glanced at her and nodded. It was nothing he didn't suspect. "You've lost weight," he reasoned. "It's because you don't eat."
"You don't either," she complained as she finally put down her fork. It didn't really matter; she wasn't eating anyway.
"It's disgusting," he agreed. "But it's just for a while longer. The hydro-ships are doing pretty well, and there should be fresh vegetables and fruits pretty soon. You can't grow a garden overnight."
"Nutritionally complete synthetic protein," she grumbled. "What kind of an idiot thought this stuff up?"
"Be grateful," he reminded her. Some of the ships didn't even have that at first. We lost more than a few people to starvation before we got to the Nebulous region. Life-sustaining planets aren't common."
"You always did love to lecture," she told him, shoving her plate away. "You should have stayed at the academy."
Lee pushed his own food away before looking up at her. Any appetite he'd had was gone now. "I couldn't," he said simply. "I saw him around every corner."
Kara's gaze flashed to his and he could see the apology in her eyes before she said a word. "God, I'm sorry, Lee," she said quickly. "I swear I don't think."
"It's okay," he told her softly, reaching over to pat the hand she had offered in apology. "In a way, it's kind of nice. I don't ever want to forget that I had a brother. You're about the only other person who knew him, so it helps in a dumb way. That doesn't mean I want to remember every time I look around, though."
She nodded, then took a deep breath. He could tell she was debating whether or not to speak, so he didn't really know if he wanted to hear it. "There aren't many people on board who knew him. Your father and I don't really bring it up because it upsets him. Sometimes it feels like." She thought for a moment then continued. "It feels like I dreamed him or something. Like he was never real."
Lee knew the feeling. Immediately following the funeral, the mention of Zak's name had been enough to send him into a rage. Any friends that stuck around learned quickly to avoid the subject. In recent months, as rage had been replaced by simple sadness and regret, he just didn't have anyone to talk to about it. He had spent twenty years being a big brother, and now he often felt that it was all in his head. No one he was around now really knew, or cared. Kara did. It was a link they shared that was all the stronger for being in the background. They didn't make an issue of it very often, but Zak's memory affected them both.
"He was real," Lee told her softly. "No one could imagine that big a pain in the butt." At her grin, he continued. "It's getting easier to remember him. It's probably just that I'm getting used to being without him, and knowing that he would probably be gone now anyway, just like Mom is. There was a lot of good stuff, though. That's what I try to remember."
"He was worth remembering," she agreed.
They sat there a moment, each in their own thoughts, but comfortable in their silence. Lee finally reached over and pushed Kara's plate back towards her. "You do need to eat," he told her seriously. "You can't fly if you're passing out from hunger."
She glared at the plate, but obligingly picked up her fork and took a couple of bites. "This really is bad," she complained.
Lee took another bite of his and thought that bad was an understatement. But they needed the food to keep up their strength, and this was what was available. "Eat it anyway," he told her after he had cleaned his plate. "It looks like we're going to have to go to a dance, and the uniforms might as well fit."