Chapter 15
She was going to go insane.
There was no way around it. She was going flat, frakking, insane.
Kara stepped out of the chilly shower and grabbed a towel. Bending had become easier in the last couple of days, but it still wasn't fun. She did it anyway, drying off legs that were still bruised at the upper thigh, a chest that remained black and blue with a profusion of yellow and green thrown in, and arms that were covered in tiny bumps from the cold.
It had been a full week since the accident, and medical clearance or not she was going running. She'd waited until this morning, when Lee was finally back on the day watch and out of her way, to dig through her locker for a pair of sweat pants. She pulled them on once she had herself dry, added a larger tank top than she usually wore to cover the bruising that had crept to her shoulders as it healed, and then carefully bent down to pull on socks and running shoes.
Just getting dressed had hurt, but if she didn't get out of this room she was going to go nuts. She was a runner to the marrow of her bones, and needed the adrenaline rush from her daily run the same way she needed it from flying. Without her morning fix, her body was starting to give her unmistakable signs of withdrawal. She was keeping a constant headache, she couldn't concentrate on anything, and inactivity in general had her climbing the walls. This wasn't a matter of simple conditioning or health any longer; her sanity was in question.
She did take the time to stretch before leaving the room, using the bed and walls as props, and making sure that every muscle was as limber as she was going to manage it. Still, the one thing she had discovered in the last week was that shying away from pain only made it last longer. She bent past the limits of comfort, stretched beyond what really felt good, and within a few minutes she was as ready as she was going to be.
She was already braced for the arguments that she knew would come from just about everyone if she was willing to slow down and listen to them. Her accident was common knowledge on the ship, because so many had been involved in the cleanup that had followed. People she had never met were asking her how she was at mealtimes, and those that knew her were being so sweet and accommodating that she wanted to hit someone. She wasn't an invalid, and she was tired of being treated as one. Her check-up that morning had shown nothing more than some healing bruises. There was absolutely no reason beyond simple soreness that she couldn't do this. She hadn't asked Salik of course, because she hadn't wanted to take a chance that he might say no. And she still didn't feel much like eating, but she thought that might be as much her inactivity as the injuries. She wasn't burning fuel, so she didn't need it.
Realizing that she hadn't run in a week, and that a lot had happened to her body in that week, she started out at a light jog. Thankfully, the jolting wasn't too terribly bad as she ran along the even corridors of the Galactica. She got more than a few curious glances, but she tried to attribute that to the later hour she was running at. She hadn't tried it earlier because she'd been fairly sure Lee wouldn't allow it. He was almost overprotective enough lately to be smothering, but she loved him for it. She loved him period, even after the stunt he'd pulled the day before in the dining hall.
The stairs weren't fun. Bouncing up was painful, but jogging back down on the other side of the ship was enough to make her lose her breath and wonder if running had been such a good idea. By the time she made it around to go back up, she was feeling better. She took the second circuit of the ship a little faster than the first, and her bouncing eased up as she stretched out her legs from a jog to a true run. The second trip down the stairs still hurt, but not as bad as the first. By her fourth circuit, she actually felt pretty good. Her breathing was deep, but it wasn't hurting her. She was sweating like crazy, but she was used to that. And for the first time in a week she didn't feel like she was about to come apart at the seams.
She completed six circuits of the Galactica's hallways - roughly three miles, give or take the extra distance of dodging a few people along the way - and then slowed to a walk. She was feeling really good by the time she made it back to Lee's room for a shower. She supposed she should be thinking of it as "their" room by now, as she'd finally moved the last of her things from pilots' quarters the day before, but it was still his office so the habit was hard to break.
Once in the room she headed straight for the shower. It was the first one she had felt like she'd really needed since she'd been hurt the week before. She scrubbed her hair and body, actually enjoying the cool water. She was incredibly proud of herself and ready for a good day as she stepped out of the shower and grabbed Lee's towel because it was drier than hers. She dried herself off quickly, combed her hair out of her eyes, and then wrapped the towel around her out of habit.
A moment later she was more than grateful for that habit as she came face to face with her very furious CAG.
"Good morning," she said brightly, only partly to try to get the angry expression off his face. The rest was that she just felt good. Adrenaline was good for knocking out aches and pains, and at the moment she felt like she'd taken a decent painkiller. "Aren't you supposed to be at work."
Lee stood there, hands on his hips, and his face nearly as red as hers was after a three mile run. "What in hell do you think you're doing?" he asked. His tone was madder than his expression, if that was even possible.
"I think I'm getting dressed," she told him casually. "It's what I usually do after a shower."
"You know what I mean," he told her with a glare.
Kara decided that innocence was her best option. She was in far too good a mood at the moment to want to fight, and that was saying something. "Nope," she answered simply, and almost winced. She'd never been good at doing innocent.
"Kara, stop acting stupid. You know you shouldn't be running."
"Oh," she said in mock surprise. "You should have asked what I'd been doing, instead of what I am doing. There's a difference." A good mood was one thing, but he was testing it. "Because what I am doing is dressing, so you'd better turn around."
"Kara, you are not getting out of this discussion!"
"I'm cold," she told him with a glare and the beginnings of annoyance. He wasn't her keeper. "Turn your back or don't, but I'm getting dressed."
He didn't turn. Instead, he stood there at a full glare. She decided she didn't care, turned her back on him, and dropped the towel. She had her underpants on and was doing her best to untangle an undershirt when she felt his hand on her shoulder. She jumped at least two feet. One unspoken understanding they'd always had was privacy to change clothes. She had really expected him to watch, much less touch.
Ignoring that warm hand on her shoulder wasn't an easy thing as she did her best to get the two shirts straightened out. She set her jaw and ignored the heat that came from Lee and had always fascinated her. By the time she had it nearly done, his other hand had reached out to still her fumbling hands.
He stood behind her, close enough that she could feel his flight suit and the heat of his body besides. She felt the lightest kiss on her bare shoulder, and then his arms slipped around her in a gentle hug. If she'd known that simply stripping would calm his temper this quickly, then she might have tried it years before.
"I worry," he said softly, directly next to her ear. His breath there was doing something funny to her stomach that she wasn't sure she liked. "I'm allowed."
"I'm a big girl," she reminded him. "I can take care of myself." His lips were at her neck again, not kissing but just there. It was making her nervous.
"I had three different people come to me in CIC to tell me how much better you must be feeling," he told her in that same quiet, breathy voice. Goose bumps popped up on her arms, but it wasn't from the cold. She was most definitely not cold. "Then Lieutenant Gaeta mentioned that you were running without me. I thought it must be a mistake, but sure enough, half of CIC had seen you on their way in."
"Lee, I'm fine," she told him again. "I'd tell you if I wasn't."
"Would you?" he asked at a whisper. Kara decided that it should be illegal for anyone to use a voice that soft, that close, that wonderful.
"Lee, I need to put my shirt on," she told him in a shaky voice. She was feeling very naked at the moment, and only part of it had to do with her shirt. Times like this she felt stripped before him of far more than clothing, and she wished she could decide whether it bothered her or not.
"Probably," he agreed, and then he was nibbling gently on her neck and she stopped thinking altogether. By the time he turned her around and joined his lips with hers, being cold or angry or anything else was completely not an issue. As his arms tightened around her body, his hands caressing her bare sides, all she could do was hold on tight and resent the front zippers to flight suits. To get past his, she'd have to loosen her arms, and she didn't think she was capable of that, but it seemed entirely unfair that she couldn't return the favor.
She lost track of how long he kissed her, just enjoying the feeling of him wrapped around her mostly nude body. Her legs went rubbery, her heart took off a lot faster than it had during her run, and she began to wonder if anything could ever feel better than this. Then she got her answer. His hands slipped around to the front, ending the hug but introducing her to an entirely different level of pleasure. When he broke off the kiss a few moments later and wrapped his arms back around her tightly, it took her quite some time to get her breathing regulated.
He didn't loosen his hold, nor did his breathing slow back to normal by the time that hers had. "Are you okay?" she finally asked, rather pleased by the turn of events.
"Not really," he admitted. "No."
She waited for him to elaborate, but he neither released his hold on her nor spoke. He just held her, his face tucked into her neck, and said nothing. She kept expecting him to end the embrace, or at least to explain what he was thinking. Hell, she would have even settled for his bawling her out for running in the first place, but even that didn't happen. It wasn't that she wasn't comfortable, but rather that she was. Physically, she was almost too comfortable.
"Lee?" she prompted several moments later.
"Hmm?"
"You awake?" she asked with an attempt at levity. There was something very intense about the moment they were sharing, and had nothing to do with where his hands had been. That she could handle, but this silence was unsettling.
"Just enjoying," he finally admitted. "I came in here ready to hell, I don't even know. But I wasn't expecting this."
"You think I was?" she asked wryly.
"I don't think anyone could expect this," he admitted, but his voice was less strained than it had been.
"Lee, close your eyes," she requested.
"Why?"
"Just do it," she said in exasperation. "Now."
"They're closed," he told her.
Taking him at his word, she ducked down out of his hold and retrieved the shirts that had been dropped and forgotten quite some time ago. She slipped the first one on, not caring if it was backwards or inside out, and then tugged the darker one over it. "Okay," she told him. "You can open them now."
He did so, and if what she saw there wasn't disappointment, then she didn't know him as well as she thought. "Thanks," he said, but he didn't sound like he meant it.
"Now, start yelling."
He smiled at that. "What?"
"Yell," she said again. "You were yelling before, so you can yell now. Come on, scream. Go for it."
That brought a gentle chuckle. "I'm not going to yell," he finally admitted. "But I'll try to discuss."
"Hallelujah," she muttered as she took a seat on the edge of the bed. Lee followed suit and seated himself next to her, taking one of her hands in his. Again, he was silent. It was starting to grate on her nerves. "Lee, what's the matter? I know you're upset that I went running. Fine. I'm okay with that, because I feel better now that I've done it. I'm less sore, not more. Okay, I probably should have had Salik sign you a note or something, but at some point I am responsible for my own actions."
"Point taken," he conceded. "See, I don't have to yell."
"But you were yelling when you came in," she argued. "Why?"
He stood up and walked to the door, then turned and walked back again. The entire length of the room was only eight feet or so, and pacing was rather ridiculous. He knew it. "I don't know," he finally said. "I wish to hell I did."
Kara smiled as she leaned back and wound up lying on the bed from the waist up, her feet still on the floor. "I think that kiss fried your brain," she remarked.
"No shit."
"Which is something else we need to talk about," she added in a little more serious tone. "That could have very easily gotten out of hand."
"I think it was," he agreed, and his tone was a long way from serious.
"You know what I mean," she argued. "We need to do something about contraception, otherwise one of these times we're going to get in too far and wind up with some consequences. She debated the wisdom of her next words, and decided that if he couldn't handle the honesty then she needed to know it now. "It's happened before," she told him quietly. "My first time wasn't planned."
"So you said," he murmured.
"So we need to do something about this situation. Before we wind up with consequences we aren't ready for."
"I already did," he told her gently. "I've cleared it with my dad. Just ask Salik and he'll set you up."
"You talked to your dad?" she asked. Her smile was gone, along with all possibility of taking this conversation lightly. Suddenly, her concerns that Lee would be offended by a reference to Zak was rendered irrelevent.
He nodded. "He agreed, too. You're too valuable as a pilot to risk, so it's justified." He shrugged one shoulder before adding, "And convenient."
Kara would have felt just fine if she could have died right then and there. "But your father?" she asked a little desperately.
Lee shot her a disgusted look. "It was either him or Tigh. Birth control is a command directive now. Would you have preferred we made an appointment with the Colonel."
"Oh, God," she muttered.
"Exactly. And Dad didn't have a problem with it. He wants us both happy more than he wants immediate grandkids. Can't make any promises about the long term," Lee told her with a wink. "He did say something about your hair and my eyes, so he may push us in that direction sooner than we think."
William Adama was one of the men she respected above all others in the world. Somehow discussing her sex life with him was right up there with cussing him out, or flashing him. It simply wasn't done. And that thought brought her back around to Lee's response to her dressing. "That's another thing," she muttered. "Is this going to happen all the time?"
Lee looked baffled. "What?"
"Me without clothes causing your brain to shut down," she clarified with a glare. Why couldn't he keep up?
"That I can't answer," he told her as he finally stopped walking to lean against their lockers and look at her with a wicked grin. "But it's damn likely."
Her cheeks heated, and she couldn't help but feel warm inside. Having him find her attractive wasn't a bad thing. In fact, she was enjoying it. She'd never considered herself pretty — at least not in the classic sense. She had short hair, didn't bother with makeup, and she was neither incredibly tall nor incredibly slender. Her breasts weren't large, and her body wasn't particularly curvy. All of those seemed to be requisite for being considered beautiful.
Lee just smiled at her discomfort. "Do you honestly think you could just stand there, if I was the one who stripped?"
"She thought about it for a moment, then echoed his words. "Not damned likely."
"Exactly," he told her with a smile. "I look at you, and everything else goes out the window. I can't help it."
She smiled at him. "Does that include your job? You are on duty, aren't you?"
He gave her an embarrassed smile. "Yeah," he admitted. "I told Gaeta I had an errand to run. They know I hate CIC, so it wasn't a surprise. He probably figures I'm on the flight deck."
"Mm, hmm," she said as she stood up and walked towards him, placing one hand on each of his shoulders and figuratively pinning him to the lockers. "So you figured you could come and yell at me, and no one would know the difference?"
One corner of his mouth quirked. "That's pretty much it."
"Why is your first instinct to yell?"
"This from you," he said under his breath. He waited a moment, his hands coming up to play in the damp strands of hair that were nearly to her shoulders. "I was afraid you were doing too much, too fast. I almost lost you, and that scares me. I know you can take care of yourself, but part of me likes taking care of you. And before you argue, I know that's stupid. I know it. But what I know and what I feel are two different things."
"When I got you back from the planet after you got shot," she began. "I was so sure I'd lose you. If I wasn't there watching, then I didn't think you'd be there. Talk about stupid. I couldn't think about work, couldn't carry on a conversation, nothing. I just couldn't think. Even after you were better, and walking, and out of Life Station" She thought a moment before continuing. "It was like if I wasn't there, then you'd fade away. I had to be there, or you weren't." She shook her head in frustration. "That doesn't even make sense to me," she muttered. "I can't expect you to understand it."
Lee just smiled. "I do understand it," he said softly. "Most people don't get a second chance. When you lose someone, they're gone. We've both been through that, and more than once. With one another, we got lucky. I can't count the times that we've come close to losing one another, but we're both still here. I think it's hard for us to adjust to it because it's so frakking rare. It just doesn't happen, so our minds can't wrap around it."
Kara leaned forward and placed her head in the center of Lee's chest, sighing with pleasure when his arms encircled her once more. "You should be at work," she muttered. "I'd rather have you here."
"I'd rather be here," he told her. "But I do have things that need to get done if I want to be back here this evening. So from you, I need a promise."
"Promise?" she asked, but she didn't bother to lift her head.
"If you have to run, and you think you're ready, then make sure I'm with you," he asked. "If not me, then someone else. I know you think you're up to it, but if something were to happen, I'd feel better knowing you weren't alone."
"That's fair," she agreed. "Now I need one from you."
"What?"
"I need you to stop worrying," she said gently. "I love you for it, but you're going to make us both crazy. I'm out of danger, I'm doing fine, and I don't need a keeper. Can you do that?"
He removed his arms and pushed her slightly away, looking down at her as he did so. With one hand, he gently moved the shoulder of the shirt she'd put on, revealing the mottled green and yellow of healing tissue. "No," he told her quietly. "I can't stop worrying. I'm sorry. I look at this, and I think of how close I came to not" He took a deep breath and let it out slowly before continuing. "I'll so my best not to make it such an issue, though. It isn't that I don't trust you, just that you're so precious to me"
"Close enough," she admitted, hugging him tightly. "I shouldn't ask for what you can't give."
Lee pushed her gently away from him once more and tilted her head up so that he could place a soft kiss on her lips, and then he smiled. "I'm going to miss having you waiting here for me," he admitted. "You're pretty sweet to come home to."
"I've always been here," she reminded him with a wry grin. But he wasn't having any of it.
"Not like this," he tried to explain. "Not for me."
She could only shrug. "I'm here now."
That brought a full smile. "I have to go back to work," he told her reluctantly. "And you're getting cold."
Kara rubbed her arms where little bumps had indeed formed in the cool air of the room. "You could keep me warm," she suggested with a wink.
"I plan on it," he returned. "If you get a chance, go by and see Dr. Salik. Tell him to call my dad if he needs to. He promised the paperwork would be on file. I don't know what they're using — or what's left — but at least you can find out."
Kara gave him a quirk of a grin. "Anxious?" she asked. He was fun to tease, because he was so damned obvious.
"Hell, yes," he admitted, letting one hand slide down to caress the side of her breast through the shirts. "You're pretty special under there."
She had to laugh. "Right. The tomboy next door; every boy's fantasy."
He shook his head at that. "You talk tough," he admitted. "But you're all woman in there. I've seen it: every inch. And yes, I am comparing, which isn't socially correct. But you have the most gorgeous body I've ever seen, so I don't think you'll mind being compared. And you're also just about the best person I know, whether you believe it or not, so there's a lot more to look forward to than your body."
Kara just blushed. She felt stupid doing it, and she couldn't stop it. She was absurdly grateful that if this conversation was happening, it was happening with Lee. He never said anything he didn't mean, so if he said it "Get to work, you," she finally told him with a light punch to the stomach.
"Hey," he corrected in a voice that wasn't nearly as stern as the words. "We've talked about keeping your hands to yourself until I can hit back."
"Fine," she told him as she rolled her arms, but she didn't mean it. He knew that, too. But I'm glad you can still yell at me."
You like being yelled at?" he asked in confusion. "That would explain a lot about you."
She gave in an laughed. "Maybe not, but I like that you can. I don't get away with much, and that's nice."
"Remember that the next time I ream you out," he told her with a wink. "Now get some clothes on. You're going to freeze."
"Yes, Sir," she agreed with a quick salute. She could still hear Lee's laughter a moment later, with the hatch closed and him walking away. She laughed a little bit herself, too.
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