Kara decided that somewhere, sometime, in some other life, she must have been a whole lot better person than she was this time around. That was the only explanation she could come up with for the genuine forgiveness that William Adama had granted her for no more reason than that Zak had loved her. Hell, just having Zak love her had seemed like more than she had ever deserved, and to have had the opportunity to be a part of the Adama family had always seemed too good to be true.
What was that old saying? If something looked too good to be true, it probably was. That was one of the first rules she'd learned when she'd started playing cards; the foundation of bluffing. If something looked like a sure thing, it was anything but. Marrying Zak had been a sure thing; and now he was dead. So somewhere in the plans of Commander William Adama, there must be a flaw, because this deal was far too good to be genuine. She hadn't done anything to deserve such a chance.
The only reason she was even able to believe the reality of the situation was that just as soon as the alcohol had left her system, the memory of Zak's Viper exploding had returned to her mind. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the remains that were pulled from the wreckage. Every time she was someplace quiet, she heard the explosions full force. She might not have lost her career, but she was quite sure that she was going to lose her mind. She hoped vaguely that it would happen quickly.
The eldest Adama had been true to his word. He had taken her back to his house, sent her upstairs for a bath, and when she'd come out there had been a slightly tight pair of jeans and a very large sweat shirt. From the writing on the arm, she knew that it was one of Zak's, and she wondered if his father had chosen it deliberately. After a moment's thought, she decided he had. William Adama never did anything without a reason.
She had to lie down on the bed to get the jeans zipped, but once she had they loosened up nicely. The beauty of old denim was that it stretched well. And if she had been worried about the snug fit, Zak's old Academy sweatshirt fell half-way to her knees, so she was more than decently covered when she walked down the stairs.
"You look better," William commented as he placed a cup of coffee on the table before her along with a glass of something fizzy. "Drink the analgesic first," he told her. "It'll help knock down the headache."
"That obvious?" she asked as she picked up the glass and looked at its sparkling contents.
"Actually, yes," he admitted. "And I have a friend who tells me that's the best thing for it."
She downed the contents of the glass, making a face at the sour taste. "I'd rather have the coffee," she muttered. "But thanks for thinking of it. It's been so long since I really drank anything that I forgot how bad the morning after is."
"Try to remember this time," he suggested blandly. He set a plate of toast before her, thankfully unbuttered. Her glance at him netted a smile and wink.
"I'll expect you to eat something more substantial for lunch, but at the moment I really don't want to clean up a mess," he joked. Then, with a more serious expression, "You've lost weight."
She shrugged. She wasn't one to stand on a scale often, so she hadn't noticed. She ran enough that she kept her weight within military specifications with little difficulty, so she'd never been one to really pay attention. She had friends that had fought with the regs, and she had always thought it was pretty silly. After all, a few pounds was nothing that a good run couldn't solve. She should know; she did it every day. Or she used to; she hadn't run a step since the morning of Zak's solo flight.
Closing her eyes against the memory, and finding it only clearer without the house to distract her, she instead forced herself to look around. The house hadn't changed much in the year since Iilya had moved out. The two-story wooden home was still cozy in its feel, still casual in its furniture, and still more of a home than she'd ever really seen before, even without the mom and kids to go with it. "It's quiet here," she observed softly.
"Too quiet," he admitted. "I'm going to have to put it up for sale, but I just don't have the heart to get rid of it. Iilya doesn't want it; she prefers an apartment where she doesn't need to care for the yard or keep a lot of rooms clean. I suppose I can't blame her. But to me, this was home. It was where the boys grew up, and where she was always waiting…" His voice trailed off sadly, and he gave a self-depreciating smile. "I sound like a pitiful old man, don't I?"
"No," she said softly. "Just maybe a little lonely."
He shook his head. "When I'm on the ship, I can forget. After all, I was never really here much. But when I'm on leave, I realize just how much I've let slip away."
"Why didn't you fight the divorce?" she asked, and immediately wished she hadn't. It was none of her business.
"Because she wanted it," he told her, then he took a long drink from his own coffee cup. "And because it was the one thing I could do for her. I was never the husband she wanted, or needed. She stayed so long as the boys were here, but once Zak moved out there was no reason for her to be here. She was tired of being alone."
Kara just nodded. She didn't know what else to say.
"So, did you want to rest awhile, or would you prefer to go get your things now?"
"Whatever is easiest," she told him quickly. She felt like enough of a bother without his rearranging his day because of her preferences. But when he glared at her over the top of his glasses, she was forced to make a decision. "I don't think I can sleep, though," she admitted.
"So, let's go get your things."
And it really was as simple as that. Kara made a mental note that rank was not entirely a bad thing as she watched people jump to attention when the Commander walked into a room. Even out of uniform and off his own ship, the respect his presence commanded was startling.
He helped her with cleaning out her locker, placing uniforms and off duty clothing into a standard issue Service duffel, and he waited patiently as several of the instructors expressed their condolences or said good-bye. Word seemed to have traveled quickly that she was being reassigned, and she wondered just exactly what had transpired while she had been passed out in the brig. She wondered, but no way in hell was she going to ask.
It was with great relief that Kara finally left the Callahandra for what she hoped was the last time. The ship had simply held too many memories. Zak was around every corner to her, and it had made her nervous. That was the primary reason she hadn't reported back for duty, instead using leave by the month to avoid it.
William Adama stopped in front of her apartment without being asked or directed. She looked at him with frank shock – very few people knew that the place existed – but he had just winked. "Leave form," he had told her in response to her questioning look. She was reminded again just how much pull his rank held, and how much information he had access to. The thought was downright intimidating.
He walked her to the door, which was standing slightly open. She looked at it in confusion as they entered. Nothing appeared to be out of place, and the door showed no signs of forced entry. "I wonder why…?" she began, but he stopped her with a sideways grin.
"This might explain it," he suggested, lifting the crystal decanter that she had emptied before leaving the apartment. She blushed faintly. It certainly did. "I'd guess that if you didn't stop to think about clothes, you probably weren't worried about your door."
The faint blush turned bright red as she walked across the room and picked up the box sitting on her desk, then grabbed a couple of other things to add to it.
"Were you planning on moving?" he asked in confusion. He had taken a seat at the foot of her messy bed to watch as she packed up what she needed.
"It's… Zak's things, mostly. And my stuff from his room. Lee brought it over a while back. I hadn't gotten around to looking at it until yesterday."
She didn't miss the look of pain that crossed William's face at the mention of his sons. She wasn't sure whether it had been grief for Zak or pain from Lee's accusations. She said a silent prayer that it wasn't from the latter, as she realized suddenly that William knew she was the reason Lee was furious with him. "I'm glad he thought of it," Adama said quietly.
She shrugged off his gentle voice. "They wouldn't let me into his room," she admitted bitterly. "I wasn't a relative."
The expletive that he muttered went a long way towards soothing her anger from the old wound. "If I'd known how much influence you had, I might have had you pull some strings," she told him with a shrug. "People really jump when you come into a room, and you aren't even in uniform."
He grinned at that. "After more than thirty years, they should," he said with a wink. "And all you would have had to have done was ask. I would have made sure they let you in."
She sighed at that, taking a seat in the chair by the small desk. "I didn't even think of it," she said.
"What else do you need?" he asked, glancing around the mostly empty room. She didn't stay here often, so it held only the bare necessities. Even though she'd been living there for two months, she still hadn't bothered with decorating or filling it with the knick-knacks that everyone else seemed to acquire. It was ironic really, because she kept the room for storage. She had just never really needed to store anything.
"Most everything's in the box," she admitted. "It's the stuff I kept at Zak's, so it's pretty much enough to get by with." She didn't look at Adama as she made the admission. While she was more than certain that the man knew the extent of her relationship with his son – they were going to be married, after all – essentially admitting that they had lived together still felt odd. But she didn't see any need to lie to him about it; she had never been embarrassed by her relationship with Zak, and she sure as hell wasn't going to get timid about it now.
"Then let's lock up," he suggested as he stood. She followed him, making sure the door was secure before following him back to the vehicle.
Walking into the Adama household this time posed an awkward situation, though. Where would she be staying? Normally when she spent time there she had stayed with Zak, but she didn't know if his room was appropriate under the circumstances. She knew there wasn't a guest room – Zak had told her as much when he had brought her home for the first time – so that meant she would likely wind up in one of the boys' rooms. There would be something weird about sleeping in Lee's room, although she couldn't define why. Maybe she would ask for the couch.
"You have your choice," Adama said as he walked in behind her proved once and for all that he was a mind reader. "If you'd like to stay in Zak's room… Well, we haven't cleared anything out. There didn't seem to be a point. No one is around to need it. I think Lee took a few things, but Iilya couldn't even walk in there. So if you feel the same way, I'll understand. I can put you in Lee's room if you like. He emptied it out when Iilya moved out, so I assume she's storing his things. You'll get clean sheets either way. I have a cleaning lady come in every week or so to keep the dust within reason. She keeps things freshened up."
Kara was reminded once again of the chasm that was between this man and his son because of what she had done, however inadvertently. And yet here he was, helping her. She didn't understand that kind of forgiveness. She'd been beat to a pulp for so much less, and yet he didn't even seem to be bothered by what she'd done. Was that just the way a father – a good one – thought? Was she just that lucky? She couldn't deal with the questions now, so she focused on the immediate concern. Where would she sleep? As sick as it sounded, she knew where she wanted to be. Just as she had felt a touch of comfort when she'd slipped on Zak's shirt, she wanted to be in his room.
"I…" she began, then had to clear her throat and start over. "I'd like to stay in Zak's room, if it's really okay."
"I wouldn't have offered it if I hadn't meant it," he told her seriously. "I've been known to go up there and sit sometimes… probably sounds morbid to you."
"It sounds like you miss him," she offered.
He just nodded, reached out to take the box from her, and led her up the stairs. Once he'd put the box on Zak's bed, he quietly left her there. He had been right; it was just the same. She could remember a dozen times when she had snuggled up next to Zak on this bed. They had never done more – not under his parents' roof – but it had been nice to just sleep with him. She walked around for a moment, touching the wooden dresser with his Triad trophy sitting dead center, and glanced out the window at the tree house that he and Lee had built years before. They had made love there, which she had thought was completely hysterical at the time. Zak had just laughed and told her that it was his roof, not his parents'.
She finally sat on the edge of the bed and closed her eyes. Lords, she missed him. She missed being held, and she missed how he had made her laugh even when she had felt miserable. She missed that wicked glint he'd get in his eyes when he was plotting something stupid, and she missed the way he had kissed her "just because." She even missed the arguments, and the debates, and the disagreements. They had loved one another, but that hadn't made them think identically. She had considered it to be a challenge, and a fun one at that. And he had loved to rile her up. How many times had he argued with her for hours, and then later told her that he'd agreed with her all along? He had just wanted to tick her off.
She didn't cry. Not now. There weren't any tears left, she decided. But neither was she numb. The pain had just eased down into her, leaving an ache that didn't go away, just like the constant ring of explosions in her mind.
It was those explosions, and the memories associated with them, drove her from Zak's bed later that night. She couldn't make them go away. She couldn't stand to listen to them any longer. The evening had been pleasant enough. Surprisingly, William Adama was a fine cook. He had told her a good deal about the Galactica over dinner, and afterwards they had both sat in front of the fire reading for a couple of hours. He had gone to bed first, reminding her where to find the extra blankets, and she had followed when she'd finally been too tired to focus on the small print in the murder-mystery any longer. She had been too sleepy to even care who had done it. But once she had lain down, the noise had become unbearable in her mind. Crashes and screams and the endless thundering explosions that seemed to get louder the more she tried to ignore them.
She had thought about turning on a vid, but she didn't want to wake her host. Besides, when her mind seemed this loud, external noise was hard to focus on and just made matters worse. This wasn't the first night that she had fought for sleep, and she doubted it would be the last. She finally settled on going back downstairs and trying to manage her way through the book for a while longer.
She didn't know how long she fought with the book, but finally she decided that she was just going mad. There was no other way to describe it. She was hearing things, and it was making her insane. She couldn't stop it. Putting her hands over her ears only made it louder, and closing her eyes only added to the horrendous memories. She eventually did both, hoping that if she was indeed going to go crazy, it might happen quickly so that she wouldn't have to deal with it much longer.
That was the way William Adama found her. "Kara?"
She heard his voice only after he'd put a hand on her shoulder. "Hmm?" It was the only sound that would come out. She took a deep breath and tried to pull herself together, but she was too tired to manage it.
"Are you okay?" he asked softly, coming around the couch to sit next to her. "What the hell am I saying," he muttered. "Of course you're not." He gave her a tired look, and a long sigh. "I don't know how to make it easier for you," he said softly. "Losing someone is never easy."
His voice drove some of the muffled noise out of her mind, but not all of it. Oh, Lords, she didn't want him to see her lose her mind.
"What can I do?" he asked her gently. She could barely make out the words. She shook her head, trying to clear it. Gradually the sound faded somewhat, and she began to think well enough to realize that she was crying. Great. Even after the funeral she had confined her bawling to Zak's room with no witnesses.
She shook her head again, only then becoming aware that her hands were still covering her ears. That was probably half the reason she couldn't hear him. She was already insane, she decided. He might as well know it. It was better to tell him before he took her to his ship and she became a basket case in space.
"Kara?"
She forced her hands down from her ears, then made herself look up and meet his eyes. The sadness there was almost more than she could take. "I think I'm going crazy," she said in a whisper. To voice the thoughts would make them real, and she was afraid of them.
"Why do you think that?" he asked. His voice was so damned calm. He didn't understand.
"I can still… I hear it. It won't stop," she explained, or tried to.
"What do you hear?" he asked.
"Explosions," she told him. "Zak's plane. I remember every sound, every scream, and it just… it won't stop. I can't make it stop." Her words dissolved into a hiccuping sob and she put her head in her hands. "How do I make it stop?"
He was quiet for a long time, and she knew he must be thinking she was nuts. She was; she heard things that weren't there. "Kara, can I tell you a story?"
She took a couple more breaths, trying to stop the shaking that was starting to make her teeth chatter. She didn't try for words, but instead she nodded.
He watched her a moment, then reached over to the huge chair he'd sat in earlier and grabbed the afghan from the back of it. Wrapping it around her shoulders, the pulled it tight, almost like a hug. It helped a little.
"Better?" he asked. At her nod, he sat back and watched her for a moment more. "You're hot hearing things," he eventually said. "You're remembering things. That's different entirely."
Kara pulled her legs up beneath the afghan, keeping it tight around her, and listened. She didn't believe it, but she would take anything that kept her mind off the sounds that would not stop.
"You're too young to remember the war," he said softly. "But I grew up with it. I can remember Cylon Raiders cutting across the landscape with weapons blazing. I was just a kid – maybe eight or nine – but somehow a squad got in past the perimeter defenses. My dad swore it was because he was on leave," he added with a wink. "One of the Raiders cut out over the hills and I thought for sure he was coming right at my house. When you're a kid, you think that way. It's all about you. Anyway, my dad grabbed me and got me down into the basement. The thing never really got close, but I could hear ordinance blowing so loud that I thought for sure we were dead."
Kara was paying attention now. His voice was low and clear, and he knew how to tell a story.
"Anyway, I had the most horrible nightmares after that," he continued. "I'd wake up screaming, swearing that I could hear the Raider coming back. My mom just told me to stop being silly, but my dad… he understood. He was off for those first couple of weeks afterwards on medical leave, but that's a whole other story. Anyway, he listened, talked to me, and usually got me back to sleep. Just before he went back on duty we had a storm, a big one. You've seen the storms that just tear apart the sky? This was one of them. Thunder from here to hell and back. Even my dad couldn't get me to stop screaming that night. Finally he got desperate. He carried me outside in the middle of the storm, and sat me down in the middle of all the rain. Something must have knocked some sense into me, because I finally started listening to my dad. He was so aggravated by that point that he just kept yelling, 'what do you hear?'."
"Did you tell him?" she asked.
"Sure did. 'Nothing but the rain.' But, being a military man, my dad didn't leave it at that. He kept asking 'what do you hear,' and I kept answering 'nothing but the rain' until it was drilled into my skull."
"Did it help?"
"Actually, it did. Because he was right. I wasn't hearing anything that was going to hurt me; I was remembering something. Once I realized what was real and what was memory, I was able to… turn it off. Probably sounds stupid, but it was a lot of years ago."
"Your dad sounds… nice."
William smiled. "Nice? I don't know, there are a hell of a lot of non-comms that would argue that. Most of the time he was more warrior than father, but with me it worked. I was raised with the Service from the time I could understand what it was. As stupid as his… method was, it was what I needed. Just like when he'd drilled 'yes sir' into me, and standing at attention, and not asking questions, every time he asked me what I heard, I just told him 'nothing but the rain'. It wound up being some kind of code, I guess. Instead of 'how are you' and 'I'm fine' we had that."
She sat and thought about that, and realized that Adama had a point. The only sound was in her mind, and if she let it make her crazy it was her own damned fault. She had never been one for a lot of discipline, but she could use it when she had to. And when she thought of it, the explosions did sound a lot like thunder, and the crash of metal coming down onto the deck did sound a bit like rain. It was a lot easier to cope with than the alternative.
"So, Kara, what do you hear?"
She looked up at him and wondered at what he was offering. It was more than unconditional forgiveness of her poor decision, or even the future that he was making possible by taking her on as crew. He was offering her a part of his childhood – something that felt like family, even though she'd never really had the chance to become an Adama. It was damned close. "Nothing but the rain?" she asked.
He shook his head with a mock frown. "If you say it, you have to mean it. You have to hear it. The rain can't hurt you, Kara. Rain is just water, and we need that to live. Just like we need to remember… even the bad memories. We learn from them, and they make us stronger. So, what do you hear?"
She considered the question, closing her eyes and listening. She still heard it, but it wasn't as frightening. It was a memory, and while it was a bad one, it was no more than that. "Nothing but the rain."
"Again. What do you hear?"
"Nothing but the rain," she said, her voice a little more clear.
"What do you hear?" he asked again, just a little louder, but he was smiling.
"Nothing but the rain," she said firmly.
"What do you hear?" he shouted.
"Nothing but the rain!"
He smiled at her. "Remember that," he said simply.
"Yes, Sir," she said softly. "And… thank you."
He shook his head. "No thanks," he requested. "I haven't thought about my dad in a long time. Lords, that was a long time ago. You know, sometimes… it feels good to remember."
"Did he die in the war?" she asked him.
Adama nodded. "Most warriors did," he admitted. "But he died doing what he loved most."
"Let me guess?" she requested. "He was a pilot?"
"One of the best," William said fondly. "I was in secondary school when he died. I was angry for a while, but later I realized that you can't wish a pilot out of the sky. He must have been in a thousand battles and shot down a thousand Cylons over the years, and one day… he missed." He looked somber for a moment. "The Cylon didn't."
"I'm sorry," she offered.
"Me, too," he agreed. Then, he smiled again very wistfully. "My dad would have loved you. No one back then really gave him much in the way of competition when it came to flying. He was just… the best. I think you'd have given him a run for his money."
She finally smiled. "Thanks," she said simply. From Commander William Adama, she had received the ultimate compliment.
"You ready to try sleeping again?" he asked.
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and listened. "Nothing but the rain," she said softly, reminding herself. The rain couldn't hurt her, but it could teach her.
He nodded approvingly. "That a girl."