Chapter 5

Lee took a deep breath, and then another. And another. He just wanted to make it as far as the unit before he tore Kara's head off. If he could just make it that far, then at least the fallout would be minimized. If he could just make it that far, he might be able to calm himself enough that he didn't do her bodily harm. But he didn't think he was going to make it.

Keeping his eyes averted from hers, he gestured her before him as they walked towards the unit. He ignored the pain in his leg, ignored the embarrassment that was about to make him crazy, and focused on putting one foot in front of the other until they could get behind closed doors.

Against all odds, they made it to the unit uncontested. He had half been expecting the miners to follow them out, or even the security guards for that matter. Luckily, they were still alone. In a moment he would be able to lock the door, and then he would be able to breathe a little bit. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure they weren't being followed, and let out the smallest breath of relief.

Kara stepped in before him and he followed swiftly while taking slow, measured breaths. He could do this. He could keep himself calm for a few moments longer. If he could take on Cylon Raiders, he could certainly have an intelligent conversation with one of his best friends, best pilots, and his favorite running buddy. If he could keep this in perspective, he might be able to salvage something of the relationship, if not the mission.

"What in hell were you thinking?" he screamed before she could even turn around.

"I"

"Of all the stupid, thoughtless, irritating, dangerous, completely unnecessary things to do! What if every one of them had turned on you? What if he hadn't gone down, or if someone else had reached for your gun? How the hell did you expect us to get out of there then?

"But"

"Don't you even say a word," he yelled, way beyond even trying to keep himself calm. He'd had it. He was finished with her heroics and suicidal tendencies. He had had enough. "You didn't stop to think about the mission, or what damage you could be doing to our credibility. You didn't think about the information I might have been able to get tonight, or how much damage this will do to, to" he took another deep breath and tried to bring himself together. It didn't work. "Just don't even say a word," he repeated, at least bringing his voice down to a dull roar. "I do not want to hear it."

She stood there looking at him. He had to give her credit for nerve, that was for damned sure. She didn't turn away, and she didn't back down. That was half of her problem, of course. She didn't know when to back down. She didn't know when to let things go. She didn't know when to let a man handle his own problems. She was always into his business, never caring about what consequences her actions might have.

She could have gotten herself killed, and him along with her. That was what was making him the most insane at the moment. He could have lost her in that room, and he would have had to watch it from the frakking floor knowing — knowing — it was his fault.

"I could almost see you going for your blaster," he muttered under his breath. "But why did you have to hit him?"

"I didn't think about it," she admitted. Her confession didn't alleviate his anger one bit.

"No shit!"

"Lee, I"

"No," he said, turning his back on her and pacing the three feet to the door and turning to pace back again. He almost welcomed the pain in his leg as a distraction. Almost, but not quite. He didn't even have room to walk of his temper, and he knew very well that going outside their locked door was not an option. "I don't want an explanation, and I don't want an apology. I just want you to frakking think for once in your life instead of diving in head first and drowning everyone around you."

"I was supposed to let him kill you?" she asked, her voice rising slightly. His adrenaline surged. She was ready to fight. That was good; he was ready to let her have it.

"You were supposed to use that brain of yours," he corrected bitterly. "I never asked you to come running to my rescue. I can take care of myself."

"You were on the ground," she argued, hands going to her hips. "You couldn't have reached your blaster even if you wanted to. Do you think he would have left you alone just because you fell?"

"We won't know now, will we?" he growled. "Damn it, Kara! Some things you just don't do, and attacking a miner with your bare fists is one of them. Don't you have any sense at all?"

"I had enough to get us out of there," she muttered.

"You were lucky," he told her. "You've always been frakking lucky. You were lucky when my dad found you and gave you a place to live. You were lucky when you slipped into an opening at the academy. You were lucky when you went up against the Cylons, and you were lucky when you got me back to the Galactica. You're whole life has been based on luck, and one day it's going to run out. You'd better be damn glad it wasn't tonight. One of these days you're going to lose that luck and then what the hell are you going to do?"

She just stood there. Her hands were clenched tightly at her sides, but she wasn't fighting him. Some of the anger had drained from her face and she was looking both pale and a lot unsure of him. It made him even angrier. Did she think he'd hurt her or something?

A part of his mind realized that he was lashing out because he was embarrassed, and angry, and damn tired of being in pain. Another part really didn't care. He wanted her to realize how serious this was. She couldn't get by on luck forever. One day, that luck was going to turn, and she was going to get herself killed. She had skill, yes. He couldn't deny that she was intelligent and well trained, and she was damned good at using the luck that she'd been born with. But when it ran out no amount of skill would save her.

When he didn't say any more she sat down on their mats and pulled her knees up to her chest, resting her chin there. She didn't argue, didn't look at him, and didn't get ready for bed. Fine. Let her sulk. He didn't give a damn. Maybe she'd finally think about what she'd done. Maybe something he had said would make a dent in her thick skull and stay with her.

Lee jerked off his uniform, wincing as he put too much weight on his right leg and sent a stab of pain through it. Frak. It wasn't ever going to get better. He was tired of the constant ache, and even more tired of the occasional true pain. He was just sick and tired of all of it.

A glance down at Kara showed that she was still in mid-sulk. At least she wasn't crying, or some other damn fool female thing. It didn't surprise him. All the yelling in the world wouldn't get through to her. He didn't know why he even bothered, because it never had. She and Zak had certainly had their fair share of yelling matches, and she had never changed that he saw. She was as dense as his father could be at times, so convinced that she was right that she didn't consider any other options. It was like talking to a wall, or yelling at one.

Lee lowered himself to the mat, losing his battle with his leg and falling the last few inches. Great. Just what he needed. He had over-worked the damaged muscle today, between hiking down into the mine and then putting too much weight there too many times. It didn't surprise him that it had given out. It just infuriated him that it had done it then.

The hell of it was, Kara hadd had a point, even if he'd be damned before he'd admit it to her. He couldn't have reached his blaster. He had gone down on his right side, and the gun had been under him. If Cops had wanted to kill him, that would have been the time, and Lee couldn't have done much about it. He didn't have any more business being on this planet than Kara did. She was an invitation to disaster, and he wasn't able to protect himself, much less protect her. The thought made him vaguely ill.

So she had done the protecting. He had been honest when he told her that the blaster would have been better. Or at the very least, it would have been less humiliating than having her punch him out. Lee couldn't get up off the ground without help, and she was knocking out grown miners. The entire situation just pissed him off. And the miners would see it as an insult as well. She knew that. She had to know that.

He was tired of her coming to his rescue. The first time hadn't bothered him very much. Even with her joke that he'd broken his ship, he had been able to chalk up the rescue to her nerve and his bad luck. The second time had been worse. She'd put herself in danger, along with the whole fleet, because he hadn't been fast enough to make the ship before a Cylon shot him. At the time he'd been too grateful that they were both alive to argue the matter, but even then it had bothered him. Tonight had been the last straw.

There was no way she could still have any respect for him at all. That bothered him nearly as much as the damage done to the mission. How could she even stand to be in the same room a man that not only didn't win the fight, but wasn't able to stand up to have it? It was old fashioned, but men were supposed to protect their women. He had done his best to try to claim Kara as his, and he thought she was even going along with it, but he hadn't been able to protect her. He hadn't been able to even protect himself.

He glanced sideways to see that Kara was still sitting there with her head on her knees. He probably should say something to her. He probably should at least let her know that the anger wasn't entirely about her. But he didn't want to say anything, and a part of him didn't think he should have to. She'd had this coming for a very long time, both the screaming and the guilt, and he would just let her wallow in it. Maybe this would help her remember it. Maybe she would actually feel bad enough that it would have an impact on her future behavior. He could only hope.

She had always been like this. She was either right or she shut him out. Well, maybe not always. She had certainly been adamant enough when he'd been blaming his father for Zak's death, but then she had known the truth on a level he had not. For the most part, she was either right or she dropped out of the discussion. Or she ended it with a carefully aimed punch. She had always been a fighter. At the moment, he almost wished she'd take a swing at him so he'd have a reason to hit her. He could never raise a hand against a woman first, but self-defense was another matter, and one good punch would feel damned good right about then.

He remembered a few arguments they'd had during their time at the academy. She had once given him the silent treatment for three days just because he'd jumped on her for missing an exam. She had taken the stupid thing later — and aced it — but he hadn't been able to get over the irresponsibility of sleeping through the test in the first place. He had bawled her out, she had yelled that it was none of his business, and then she had just shut down. After three days of having a silent roommate, he'd finally apologized. Not for what he said, but for having yelled at her. Unfortunately he had taught her something involuntarily. Silence was more effective as a weapon against him than fists. She had remembered the lesson well. She had eventually let him off the hook, and things had gone back to normal after that, but to this day it galled him that she could dish it out, but she couldn't take it. And it bothered him even more that she could make him feel so damned guilty when he had a right to be angry.

She had a temper, too. He had seen it at full tilt a few times when Zak had pissed her off, or even before than when she'd been furious with the kids that never seemed to let her forget that she was essentially an orphan. He had almost understood it then — the kids had made him angry, too — but he hadn't understood her constant desire to pound the sense out of anyone that made her mad. She hadn't hit Zak of course, at least not that he knew about, but she had screamed loud enough on more than one occasion that he knew far more about their relationship than a brother had the right to.

Oddly, it hadn't ever seemed to bother Zak. He had just let her yell, and then got her laughing over one thing or another until it was all forgiven. Lee hadn't known how he had managed it. He would have yelled back at the very least, and he wasn't a terribly confrontational person. It was one of the reasons that when he went off, he did so mightily and usually to the point of regretting it. He'd had his moments over the years, mostly when Kara had pushed him too far or pushed some button he hadn't known he had. Oddly, one of the main reasons he'd learned to reign in his temper was to keep from pissing her off. There was a lot of irony in that.

Tonight, the well-learned lessons of the past had gone into the trash. He had yelled, she had shut down, and at some point he was going to have to take the first steps to make it right again. As angry as he was, it had as much to do with his own incapacitation as her interference. He would tell her that eventually, but not tonight.

She had finally lain down, next to but not touching him. He couldn't blame her for that, even if it did make the room seem awfully cold. She had even left on her uniform and boots, probably because she was too mad to worry about undressing. It really didn't make any difference. If she wanted to sleep in her clothes, it really wasn't his business. He didn't really care if she was comfortable anyway. At least, that's what he told himself.

It took Lee a long time to get to get to sleep. His mind raced around in circles, going from bitterness to embarrassment to guilt, and then starting all over again. Part of it was simply feeling sorry for himself, even if he didn't want to recognize or admit it. He was sick of being in pain, tired of having his activities limited and irritated with his life in general. That ticked him off, but then the guilt came because he knew he should be grateful to be alive, whatever the state of that life. So many of his friends and comrades were dead, it just seemed so pitiful to be whining about an injury that was slowing him down but by no means stopping him.

That embarrassed him. Not only had he humiliated himself by falling down on a fight — never mind that falling was probably the only thing that had kept him from getting pounded — but now he was also upset that he had taken his wrath out on Kara. She really had saved his butt. He knew that. He should have been thanking her for putting herself on the line again for him, but instead he was railing her out for acting on instinct. She'd always had the most incredible instincts of anyone he knew, and she had always used them to his benefit. All he had done was yell at her about it. He hadn't thanked her. He hadn't been grateful. He had been horrible.

To make matters worse, he had said a hell of a lot of things that he really didn't mean. Yes, she might have been lucky that his father was the one to pull her out of a bad situation as a child, but it was her tenacity and innate sweetness that had earned her a place in the Adama home. His father had kept her because they had all fallen in love with the spunky girl who had lived a life so horrible that she didn't even remember most of it. That hadn't been luck at all; it had been pure Kara.

There had been a little luck in her acceptance to the academy, but more of it had been her own grades and test scores. She'd had the qualifications to go, just as he had, and she hadn't even been the one to apply for a scholarship available only to orphans. His father had put in that paperwork; she had only accepted the slot. He couldn't really blame her for that. Anyone would have taken the opening, and once there she had done better than most. She had kept the place because of her skill, dedication, and again that natural instinct that he envied.

It was the same for her rescue of him during the initial Cylon attack. She had saved his life because she cared about him. He thought she might have tried to do it for someone else, but he knew in his heart that for him it had been pure desperation. She couldn't let his father lose another son. As corny as that sounded, it was the most unselfish thing he'd ever seen, and he admired her for it greatly. God, he hoped she knew that.

And the planetary rescue she had accomplished had been nothing short of a miracle. She had violated laws, implicated people who would have done anything for her, and then risked both her and Sharon's lives coming back to a Cylon occupied planet to drag him a mile through the freezing cold. How could he not love a woman who would do that for him? She was loyal beyond belief, and for some reason she cared about him, even when he bawled her out for not thinking about it first. It wasn't as though she did things intending to get into trouble.

Tonight had just been more of the same. She had just been watching his back, as he had really expected her to do. He would have been hurt, or worse, if Cops had gotten a hold of him and he knew it. As much as he hated it, the leg injury had made him a liability to the mission because he couldn't hold his own with the miners. All she had done was step in and save his ass. Again. And he had yelled at her.

Lee looked to his side, and saw nothing but Kara's back. She was curled into a ball, as though guarding herself. Guilt hit him hard when he realized that she probably was. He had said some horrible things to her, and hadn't even let her explain herself or her motives beyond the obvious. He hadn't discussed with her ways they might salvage the mission, or make arrangements for someone else to take over. Instead of working with what they had, he had blown up and probably hurt her terribly. Because as hard as she tried to hide it, she cared about what he thought of her. That made her more than vulnerable to his attacks. He knew just where to hit her to do the most damage, and at the moment he hated himself for it.

He would have to talk to her. He would have to explain himself in the morning. He wouldn't wake her up for it; there was no reason. He only hoped that their friendship was strong enough to help her forgive him for screaming first and thinking later. Again. He really thought it would be. After all, she had lost her temper as a matter of course for as long as he'd known her. She would probably do her own fair share of screaming before it was all said and done, but he deserved it.

That was if she was even speaking to him. With Kara, it could go either way. But at the moment, she was as far away from him as if she were on another planet. She was closed off, and rightfully so. He was supposed to be her friend, or possibly more, and yet he had treated her like a cadet that didn't know any better than to deliberately clobber a walking mountain. He did know that she knew better. He had just been too tied up with temper to notice.

So in the morning he would apologize. With any luck at all, they would kiss and make up, figuratively if not literally. Truthfully, he would prefer the literal as well. He missed having her curled up in his arms, and it wasn't something he planned to give up without a fight. They had just been moving towards something good, maybe better than good, and he had attacked her for no real reason.

She wasn't going to make this easy. He was sure of that. But he also knew that despite his accusations she was a reasonable woman, and given enough time she would likely let him back into her good graces. Until then, he would put up with whatever penance that she required. After all, she was worth it. She wasn't just the best pilot he knew, and one of the most loyal friends he'd ever had, but she was also a decent person. And she was a hell of a kisser.

With that thought foremost in his mind, Lee Adama finally let himself fall asleep.