Chapter 12
Kara needed a shower. Well, more than the shower, she needed to wash her hair. It hadn't been a possibility in the Life Station, and the day before she'd been too tired from no more than walking to Lee's room — their room — to worry with it. So she'd gone straight to bed, and Lee had watched over her for hours before joining her. In all, it had been a strange night.
Everything had been strange for the last four days. The first day had begun under a Viper and she had little memory of the rest of it. The second wasn't much better. The third she could definitely remember through a haze of pain. She'd gone off the pain medication that day, and she'd regretted it mightily by the end of the day. And yesterday had swung from wonderful to mortifying to amazing. She was still reeling.
One minute she was just glad to be alive, and the next she was feeling lousy because it hurt to move. For a few minutes she was annoyed that Lee was back at work part of the time, and the next she was aggravated that he was showing up to check on her. Part of the time she was angry at the whole situation, and at other times she was enjoying the extra attention and visits from friends. She didn't know how to feel about any of it, but the roller coaster was making her dizzy. She wanted to just settle in and stop feeling for a while — mentally and physically.
But first she needed to get a shower. She had eased herself carefully out of bed so that she wouldn't wake Lee. She didn't know how late he'd finally stayed up, but it must have been well after she'd drifted off. He never slept in, and this morning he was out cold. So Kara quietly searched in her locker for a clean pair of underwear and tank top. She debated on putting on another pair of sweats, but decided against it. Lee was still in bed, and warm, so she'd just cuddle up with him after she got clean.
Despite the chill of the water, she had to admit that it felt good to have more than a washcloth taking away days of accumulated yuck. She doused her hair, washed it thoroughly despite the discomfort of raising her arms over her head, and then after rinsing she washed it again. She did the same thing to her body, taking a quick inventory of herself as she did so. She would have loved to have had a full length mirror, but she didn't think there even was one aboard the Galactica. She had to settle for what she could see on her own.
Her legs were a mess. Everything above the knee was very bruised, black and blue with yellowing around the edges of the brighter colors. Her stomach wasn't all that discolored, but her chest was another matter entirely. Breasts and ribs were blue and green in alternating patterns depending on where flesh got between bone and the Viper. Her upper chest had taken the worst of it, and both collar bones were still tender to the touch. That was the area that looked the worse, and appeared to be healing the slowest. It seemed odd to her, as she had felt that most of the pressure had been on her ribs, but apparently pressure points were more of a problem than the actual amount of pressure. She had similar tender areas on her back the back of her hipbones had met the deck, and her shoulder blades as well, although she couldn't see if they looked as bad.
In all, it was fairly minor compared to what could have happened, and now that the pain had receded to a dull ache she was better able to take it in stride. She didn't allow herself to really think about it. When she thought about it she got shaky because she knew just how much worse it could have been.
But that didn't mean it was pretty. And as childish, and female, and utterly stupid as it seemed, right now Kara wanted to be pretty. It just seemed the ultimate irony to finally realize that she'd fallen in love — and that it was mutual — and she couldn't stand to look at herself, much less have Lee look at her. She wasn't vain, but there was a line, and right now she was way on the other side of it.
At the very least she was clean. She took an extra couple of minutes to add a little lotion to her elbows and knees from her precious supply left over from her last birthday before Caprica had been destroyed. It didn't have much scent left, but she still treasured it because it was one of the last things she'd received from Iilya Adama. Every time Kara saw the little bottle with flowers on it, she thought of the mother she had always wished was hers. As Kara didn't remember a thing about her own mother, she didn't think it did any harm.
She dried her hair with a towel, then combed it straight back from her face so it was out of the way. One last look in the mirror had her frowning. She looked beyond awful, but she couldn't do a damned thing about it. Oh well; he hadn't fallen in love with her looks, she imagined.
She put on her clean underwear and a single tank top, then made her way quietly back to the bed. Lee was still lying there, unmoving and quiet, so she eased herself under the covers and snuggled back against his warm body with a sigh. At the very least she felt human once more. The shifting of Lee's body didn't really surprise her, as she hadn't been exactly warm when she'd moved up against him. There was nothing like having an icicle in your bed to wake you up.
"Cold," he muttered, grabbing her about the waist and pulling her into the length of his body. She wouldn't stay cold for long.
"Clean," she told him over her shoulder. "It was worth it."
He nuzzled his face into her neck, sniffing dramatically. "Mmm," he told her with a mumble. "Nice."
"Thanks," she returned with a light kick back into his shin. It hurt her more than it did him, because she had to bend her leg to do it.
"Hey," he told her with a laugh. "That was a compliment."
"Which is why you're not doubled over," she told him in return. "I've got pretty good aim when I try."
His soft laugh washed over her as she snuggled herself back into his lap. She felt his hand along her arm, trailing around the neck of the tank, and wandering down the length of the material. "What are you doing?" she asked. There was no accusation in her voice; just curiosity.
"Playing around," he admitted as he slipped his fingers beneath the hem of the tank top and began lifting it slightly.
"Hey!"
"I won't do anything," he muttered, and she could hear the smile in his voice. She felt the hem of the shirt rising, and for a minute she thought about stopping him. He wouldn't do anything she didn't allow; she knew him better than that.
"God, Kara," he whispered.
It took her a moment to register the change in his voice. He'd gone from playful to deadly serious, and for the briefest of moments she didn't have a clue why. Then she felt his hand at her shoulder blade, and wished desperately that she'd bothered to turn off the lights. The truth was, she hadn't had the lights off since before they'd pulled her out from under the Viper — the dark made her edgy — but the light had its disadvantages as well, and she'd recently seen them for herself.
"Is it all this bad?" he asked softly. His finger trailed across her upper back, where he'd lifted her shirt to check.
"Mostly," she admitted. "It doesn't hurt that much though," she lied.
He moved back slightly, using a gentle hand on one leg to coax her onto her back. Then he gently moved the waistband of her underwear down and the tank top up, his gaze not locked on any the places that she might want him checking, but rather focused on the black, blue, and green marks that colored her ribs and lower abdomen. At least he'd had the courtesy not to raise the shirt above her breasts. She didn't think she could have handled that particular look in his eye when she was truly exposed.
He didn't say a word. She couldn't have if her life had depended on it, and at the moment she almost felt that it did. What did you say to someone who was holding your heart in his hands?
So carefully she barely felt it, he placed a gentle kiss in the middle of her stomach, between the bruised areas above and the bruised areas below, and then just as gently laid his head there.
"Lee?"
"Yeah?"
"You okay?" she asked.
He laughed very softly. "You can ask? Kara, I knew what happened; I was there when they pulled you out, and in the Life Station afterwards, but I don't think I realized"
"I'm okay," she reminded him, threading her fingers through his short hair, absently enjoying the texture. "Just a little colorful."
"A little?"
"Maybe a lot," she admitted, but she was smiling when she did it. "But that doesn't mean you can treat me like a china doll. I bend very well; I don't break."
"But you could," he told her softly. "I guess I just never realized that you could." She watched as he finally lifted his head and met her eyes. "What would I do if you weren't here?"
She almost fired off a sarcastic retort — something like she would have come up with even as recently as a week ago — but the look on his face stopped her. He was serious. "I'm here," she said with a pointed grin. "I'm not going anywhere."
His smile was as sad as it was gentle. "That's a promise you can't make," he told her carefully. "But you're here now, and I don't plan to waste that."
"So don't," she advised. "Get up here and get me back to sleep."
He gave a chuckle. "Bossy," he complained.
"Your point?"
"Don't have one," he admitted as he slid up her body and quickly rearranged her clothes to where they had been before. "You'd tell me if I hurt you, wouldn't you?"
"Oh, yeah," she assured him. "I'm really okay. Yeah, it hurts. Sometimes I hurt more than others. Right now I'm fine, so let's get some rest."
"You slept all last night," he said in mock complaint.
"You didn't," she reminded him. "So quit complaining."
"How do you know?" he grumbled as he wrapped his arms around her and tugged her in close. She rested her head in her favorite place at his shoulder, and eased one leg up over his.
"I know," she insisted, not elaborating. "When do you have to be up, anyway."
"Around eleven," he told her. "I'm on mid-watch."
"Sounds good," she decided. "You can keep me warm until then."
Kara was bored. Not bored out of her mind, but nevertheless she was sick of sitting and doing nothing. She glanced at her watch again to see that Lee still had another hour before his watch was over. He wasn't on patrol, so he should be back by twenty-four hundred. Technically, she should be sleeping.
She wasn't tired. She was bored.
With a sigh she tossed the book she'd been trying to read onto Lee's desk, then shifted herself trying to get comfortable. Sitting up wasn't getting it done. After a few more minutes of being miserable, she moved over to the bed to stack both her and Lee's pillows and lay down. It took the pressure off aching muscles, but it didn't occupy her mind.
The sound of the hatch opening startled her, but she was pleased. "You're early," she told him with a smile. Lords, she hated the way she sounded — like she'd been waiting for him. So what if she had; she didn't like sounding that way.
Lee shrugged one shoulder. "I brought a lot of it with me," he admitted reluctantly. "A few performance reports and one or two efficiency evaluations. I can do it here as easily as there. It is my office, after all."
"So why don't you work out of here?" she asked him. She had wondered before, but had never bothered to ask. While Lee used the desk as his base, most of his work seemed to get done in either the pilots ready room or on the hangar bays. Sometimes he even worked in CIC, although he hated it there. He wasn't much for being tied to a desk.
"You're distracting," he told her as he bent over and kissed her softly on the lips. "How you feeling?"
"Same old thing," she said casually. "Anything there I can help with?"
He turned a sarcastic glance her way. "You want to do paperwork?" he asked her.
"I'm bored," she told him firmly. "And before you ask, yes, I'm that bored. What do you have?"
He was smiling when he handed her a couple of folders. "I should get Salik to clear you for light duty," he suggested. "Then you could do all my paperwork."
"Not damn likely," she told him as she took the folders and flipped the first one open, holding pages in place with her fingers because she wasn't going to sit up. It was an efficiency rating scale on one of the cadets she'd been working with, and should have been her job in the first place. Lee knew it, she was sure. "They hung you with my work, too?" she asked.
"Yes and no," he said with another shrug. "Evans liked days, so I left him there for now. He's been managing rosters and such, so I just have to look them over. That leaves me with the equipment checks and paperwork. Until you're back, yours is in the stack too. Evans does what he can of it during the day, but I was going to have to check with you on those anyway."
She took the opportunity to glare at him. "No wonder you showed up early," she muttered, but any offence was faked. She didn't mind carrying her load, especially when it gave her something to do. "Well, at least grab me a pen."
He grinned at her as he sat down in the desk chair and reached around to his desk. After fishing around for a few moments he grumbled, "Can't find one."
She rolled her eyes at him. No surprise — he rarely worked there. "My locker," she instructed. "Top shelf, on the left, in the little basket."
"Precise," he said. "So why are your uniforms thrown in there?"
"They're too big to lose," she admitted.
He stood up and walked over to her locker, following her instructions. Maybe it wasn't quite as easy as she'd made it sound, but she knew the basket was in there. Pens were becoming a precious commodity, and she kept close tabs on hers. She watched as he shifted a few things, then bent over and appeared to pick something up. He was very still after that, looking at whatever he'd found on the floor. Too still. It worried her.
"Lee? Whaccha got?"
"Just this," he told her, showing her the back of the folded picture she kept tucked into her locker. She didn't see what the big deal was, though. He'd seen it before. They'd talked about it before.
"What's up?" she asked. She wasn't as worried, though. Not now.
"Just"
He had walked back over to her and had sat on the edge of the bed. She was lying on it, flat on her back except for both of their pillows behind her, looking up at his concerned expression. For some reason, it made her nervous. She laid the folders down at her side so she could talk to him.
"Just what?"
He shook his head. "It's stupid. Don't worry about it."
If there was ever a way to worry her, it was to tell her not to worry. Such a statement would indicate that whatever the problem was would upset her. And he knew her well enough that if he thought this — whatever it was — would upset her, he likely had a good reason.
"You've already started it," she told him as she rolled to her side, slid her legs past him and off the bed, and used her arms to get into a sitting position. Damn, but moving around still hurt. "Now finish it."
He was silent for a long moment. She waited. Sometimes a person could learn more from waiting than from asking, or so he had once told her. She'd always preferred the more direct approach of physical violence. But she was in no shape to hit him, so she waited. At some time during the long silence, he reached over and took her hand in his, lightly tracing the veins and creases on the skin, almost absently stroking her wrist and palm. She had no clue what was on his mind.
"Do you believe in dreams?" he asked her finally.
"No," she answered quickly. "I can't. More often than not I have nightmares, so if I believed they had any importance at all, then I'd probably go insane."
He smiled at that, but it looked weak to her. "Promise not to go ballistic?" he finally asked her.
She would have probably been more concerned if he hadn't looked so uncertain. Chalking it all up to the mysteries of male insecurity, she nodded. She wouldn't go off now, in any case. Depending on what he said — or didn't say — she could always belt him later.
"I had a dumb dream," he finally told her. "It was quite a while ago, and what was in it wasn't important. But it got me thinking. And I want to ask you something, but I'm not sure if I want to know the answer." He looked at her sheepishly, then down at the picture that he was still holding. "But I have to ask it," he finally admitted. "So I guess I need to know."
"Ask what?" She really didn't understand what all the trouble was. Answering questions was something she was usually pretty good at.
"About Zak."
Ahh. It made sense now. But she wasn't as reluctant to talk about him as she had once been. She'd made a certain peace with his memory, and she'd honestly thought Lee had too. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe Lee was still not sure of his place with her. "What about Zak?" she prompted.
"You loved him," he said. It wasn't a question.
"We've already established that," she reminded him. "We both loved him."
He shook his head, still not looking at her. It was getting on her nerves. "You know what I mean."
"Yeah, I do. But I'm not sure where this conversation is going."
"Me neither," he admitted, and finally she saw a shadow of a real smile. "Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut."
"Probably," she agreed. "But you've opened it now, so let's finish it."
"The two of you were together for what, four years?"
"Five," she corrected. "Sometimes it seems like longer though, because the friendship and the rest got kind of tangled up." She looked at Lee pointedly. "Sound familiar?"
"I don't know," he told her, giving a quick glance but still not really meeting her eyes. "I guess that's what I'm asking."
"This conversation isn't making any sense," she decided. "If you have a point, I wish you'd make it. You said you had a question?"
"You and Zak were together five years," he said. She just stared. She'd just told him that. She wasn't repeating herself. "How long of that were you"
She waited for him to continue. He didn't. In exasperation, she prompted, "Lovers?"
He nodded, and his eyes were steadily fixed on the photo he was still holding. He had long since released her hand, which she now noted was clenched into a fist, along with its twin. With a deep breath, she did her best to relax. Tensing her muscles hurt. He wanted honesty. She'd give it to him. "If you go back to the first time, about a year," she explained. "But after the first we were pretty wary of each other. Neither of us knew what to do with it. That first time just sort of happened. We didn't expect it. So we stayed clear for about six months before we figured things out."
"So, six months?" he asked. Finally, he faced her. "I guess I thought it was longer. You two were always together."
She glared at him. "Lee, we're always together, and we've never had sex. Besides, what does it matter?"
"It doesn't," he admitted. Then with a sigh, he began to explain. "When we were all growing up, the three of us, we were like a team. Half the time it was you and I, and then Zak. Sometimes it was Zak and I, and you were on the outside. I was always part of the equation somehow. But when the two of you paired off, it put me on the outside. I didn't think about it much then because I was busy with school, and then the academy, and then teaching. But after you announced the engagement I really started thinking of you as I don't know Zak's. Instead of being sort of between us, you were with him. Does that make any sense?"
"Some," she admitted. "But the weird part is that Zak always thought he was on the outside."
"What?"
"It bugged him," she explained. "You and I were the same age, and we liked the same things; had a lot in common. He always felt like he was on the outside, or at least that's what he told me. I thought it was dumb then; I guess I still do. Mostly I think he was a little jealous of you. He just about idolized you, probably because you're so much like your dad, and I know he practically worshiped him. Half of the reason it took us so long to figure things out is because he wasn't sure where I stood with you." She gave a laugh, but even to her own ears it sounded forced. "Ironic, really. He figured I was yours, and you figure I'm his. I wonder when someone's going to figure out that I belong to myself."
"You know I don't mean it that way," he said, looking up and reaching out to take her hand back. "I know it's stupid. I understand that. Rationally, this conversation shouldn't even be taking place."
"We can agree on that," she muttered, but she didn't withdraw her hand. She sensed there was something important going on beneath the surface of the conversation, and while she didn't really understand it yet, neither was she ready to dismiss it.
Over many years, one of the things that Kara had learned about Lee was that he usually had a reason for what he did, even if she didn't always know what the heck that reason was. It was one of the things she liked best about him. She wasn't one for comparing most things, but when she'd been with Zak, very often he hadn't had much of an agenda beyond making her laugh. At that point in her life it had been what she needed. Yet while Lee had the same capability, albeit in a drier form, he also had the maturity to know when jokes weren't appropriate. She didn't think this conversation had been started just to see where it would go. He didn't take risks like that.
"I don't know why I even brought it up," he told her with a sigh. "Hell, it's all been over for five years."
"Yes, it has been," she agreed.
"Why doesn't it feel that way?"
She thought about it for a few minutes. "Maybe it hasn't been over for you that long," she suggested. "You said that you thought of me as Zak's. When did that start? When we were engaged?"
He shrugged. "I think so."
"So, I know you still felt that way when you got to the Galactica; you made it pretty clear. That's well over two years right there. Was it a while after that before you started thinking of me without it being part of a set that included him?"
"Yeah," he admitted. "And I'm not sure when I quit. Maybe when you pulled me off that damned planet against orders. Everything seemed different after that."
"Okay, so that was about a year ago. Yes?"
He nodded.
She finally smiled at him. "Do the math, Lee. You spent four years thinking of me with him, and only one with me as an individual. Give yourself time to get used to it. Just because we think we want more, that doesn't mean we need it today."
"It isn't even about sex," he told her. "Hell, I don't know what it's about. It was just a dumb dream, and then he was just there. I don't know why I even remember it. Can we just forget this conversation happened? Please?"
"Nope. It happened, and it's a damned good thing," she said with a smile.
"That one you can explain," he told her bitterly as he ducked his head with what could have been embarrassment. She thought it was sweet.
"Fine. Answer this question: How many women have you slept with?"
She almost laughed at how wide his eyes got, and the blush that crept up his face. "There's no right way to answer that question," he finally said.
"Try the truth. Do you know?"
"Yes, I know," he muttered, sounding offended.
"So how many?"
He looked down. He looked up. He looked steadily at her chin. She was loving this. There was making him uncomfortable, and then there was torture. She had definitely entered the latter category, and it was damned fun. She might not be able to physically assault him, but she could still hit him where it hurt. "Six," he finally answered.
"Okay, fair enough. Next question: How many of those did you sleep with more than once?"
"If you didn't already know that answer, I don't think you'd be asking. I've already told you that sex has screwed up every relationship that got that far. It's one of the main reasons that I didn't let it go that far very often."
"Lee, this is important," she told him carefully. "Because with Zak and me, after that first time, we couldn't even look at each other afterwards. Truthfully, we were playing around and it got out of hand. We didn't know what to say, or what to do, and it would have been so much easier if we could have just walked out of one another's lives. If we hadn't been so tied together by everyone we knew and all that we'd always done, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have made it past that. But we had enough history and friendship between us that we had to make it through the awkwardness and force it to work. We had too much at stake if we screwed up."
"And that relates to this discussion how?" But he was looking at her, and the embarrassment was fading a little from his features. He was listening.
"Because this discussion is a perfect example of being awkward and stupid. It shouldn't have happened. I don't know what you were thinking, but there was no point to any of it."
"Thanks," he muttered.
"It's a good thing," she told him with a smile, and not a small measure of relief. "You were worried that sex would make things awkward with us, or that Zak being in the background would be more than we could manage. Lee, it all comes down to what we're willing to work out, and what's at stake if we don't. This conversation is dumb, but it's a pretty minor screw up, don't you think?"
"I don't think at all," he said with disgust as he stood and walked back towards her locker to put the picture back in its place.
She stood up and followed behind him so that when he turned around he was right up against her. She put her arms around him and rested her head on his shoulder. "Lee, think about it," she said softly. "This is as awkward as it gets, and we're still here. Neither of us walked out, and neither of us is going away. We care too much about one another to let feeling stupid get in the way."
"So you're saying that if we could get through this conversation, then we can get through sex?" Lee asked, but the amusement was pretty clear in his voice. He wasn't nervous anymore, and he wasn't backing away. He had even brought his arms up around her, although that might have been an automatic reaction to her hug. Still, she thought he might actually be getting it.
"Probably, but sex isn't going to happen," she said softly.
Lee was silent for a while, but his arms stayed around her. She stood there in the circle of his arms, and she had to wonder what he must be thinking. After a few more minutes though, the silence started to bother her. The joke wasn't nearly as much fun with Lee not knowing the punch line.
"You still with me?" she asked him.
"I'm here," he answered. He didn't elaborate.
"Don't get too worried," she told him, and she couldn't keep the smile off her face. She pushed back a little so that she could look him in the eye, and she nearly laughed at the disappointment she saw there. It was damned good for her ego. "We'll get around to making love. Sex though?" she shook her head at that. "I don't think we could do it. Too much heart involved this far in."
She watched as a combination of relief and understanding washed across his features, and finally a smile broke through. "Cute," he muttered.
"Scare you?" she asked. She liked keeping him on his toes.
"Most of the time you do," he told her wryly.
"Get used to it," she advised. "I'm not going anywhere."