William Adama looked at the clock when he heard Kara coming down the stairs and stood up to fill a cup with coffee. It was just past midday, and he was happy that once she'd finally gone to sleep she had stayed that way. He had looked in on her a couple of times – much as he had the boys when they had been younger – just to be sure she was okay. Each time she had been sleeping soundly, curled into a ball and huddled under the covers. He had to wonder if that was how she normally slept, or whether it was a reaction to all she had been through.
"Good morning," she said with a yawn as she entered the kitchen. She was dressed in the same beige pajamas that she had been wearing in the brig, rubbing her eyes, and looking for all the world like a ten year old. Her hair was sticking out in every direction from sleep, and her footsteps were shuffling but quiet in socked feet.
He grinned over at her. "Good morning," he replied. "What do you hear?"
She looked blank for a moment, and then smiled. "Nothing but the rain," she replied with a wink.
"Then grab your gun and bring in the cat," he told her.
If her face had looked blank before, it was nothing to the confusion she was showing now. Between looking so young and so lost, he had to laugh. "An old saying," he explained. "I'm not even sure where I heard it. If it's raining, there's nothing you can do but bring the cat in, right? And you'd never leave your gun out in the rain."
"I'd rather shoot it with the gun," she replied in a wry tone. "Conceited little beasts, every damned one. I had a roommate in college who had one; it bit me every time I got close. Obnoxious animal."
"Obnoxious, sometimes," he agreed. "But they're good companions. Unless they're wet – then they're mad as hell. So you bring them in when the rain starts. It saves on bites and scratches."
"I'd still rather shoot it," she said with a shrug, joining him at the table and taking the cup of coffee he offered. She glanced up at the clock. "I don't remember ever sleeping so long," she admitted. "Not since…"
When she trailed off, her expression more than sad, he knew she was still hurting. "You needed it," he told her. "And enjoy it while you can. The first few days on duty will run you ragged. Our CAG has a tendency to be rather nasty to the new pilots. You can take it, but he'll keep you hopping until he decides you're fit."
"Great," she mumbled. "If he gets out of line, can I hit him?"
Adama laughed at that. "Only if you want to spend a couple more nights in the brig."
"Oh well, it was a thought."
"Normally he sticks new pilots on regular eight hour patrols, then adds a four hour maintenance shift to it. If you survive eight or nine days of that, he'll cut you back to six and two. If you start whining, he comes to me. Ripper is a firm believer that we need to keep a combat ready crew, and he would rather weed out a weak pilot early in the game than find out later the hard way."
"You sound like you agree," she commented.
He thought about it. "Prepare for the worst, then hope for the best," he told her. "I remember the war. I lost my father to it, and I spent almost four years fighting in it. I watched a lot of people die because they were too busy complaining to be effective. I suppose it changed my perspective on the service. Now I just see too many kids coming into the Service as either an obligation to be served or a simple job that they have to do. You can't be a warrior eight hours a day and then be a civilian the rest, not if you want to be good at either. A warrior is just that – day and night – rain or shine." He said the last with a wink, wondering if she would get the reference. He shouldn't have worried. Her smile told him that she definitely understood the joke.
"So, everything's manual on the Galactica?" she asked.
He nodded. "Networking is what got us into trouble with the Cylons in the first place. Technology is a good thing, but too much is just the opposite. When a system goes down, you have to be able to work around it, otherwise you're a target. A few weeks ago I was picking up some things at the commissary and the power went out. We were politely escorted from the building. Everything ground to a halt. That's an inconvenience when you're shopping, but for the military it's purely irresponsible. We can't be dependent on technology of any kind."
"The Galactica sounds fine to me," she said. "I'd rather fly myself than let a computer do it anyway. Computers can't feel the plane, can't adjust the right way. I guess it sounds silly, but I don't trust them."
"That's why you're so good," he told her. "You've developed the instinct. The rooks coming in now… hell, you've seen how they fly."
"By instruments rather than feel," she agreed. "It was frustrating when I was trying to get them to think instead of react."
"Well, you'll be with a lot of rooks on the Galactica," he told her. "Because of our limited technology, they tend to send me the kids. If they can manage the Galactica, then any other Battlestar is a snap. It's also a great way to find the weak links and get them out before they wedge in and weaken the Service."
"So mostly rooks," she said with a grimace. "Great."
"You can handle it," he told her. "You're used to instructing. This will just take you to a different level. They come in knowing the basics, and you can help guide them from there. It's more subtle than teaching at the academy, but you'll be instructing whether you intend it or not. We don't have a lot of experienced flyers right now; it'll be good to have someone who comes in qualified for more than the basics."
"You really want them following my example?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
"You can stay on your best behavior," he replied with a grin. "I know you're capable of it."
She shrugged. "So when do we report?"
"I go back day after tomorrow. You can fly in with me, unless you'll need more time to get things together."
She shook her head. "I'll take your supervision over a prison cell any day."
He looked up and met her eyes. He should have known; she wasn't stupid. Her release had been contingent upon his keeping her under close watch to assure that she didn't try any other stupid stunts, but he had hoped she hadn't realized that. "Caught that, did you?"
She nodded. "Unfortunately, I know the system. But I've never had anyone take the chance of sticking me on probation. I guess most of my commanders didn't trust me that far. I wanted to thank you for that."
He shook his head. "Like I said, I need some experienced crew."
"Expecting a war?" she asked.
"Always," he admitted with a sigh. "I've never forgotten what it felt like to lose every ship around me to those damned Raiders. The Cylons were… inhuman. I can't believe that a truce with them will last indefinitely. I pray that we never go to war with them again, but if we do I plan to be ready, and I plan to have my crew ready."
"Better safe than sorry?"
He nodded, and decided that the discussion had gotten far too serious for his last days of leave. "So, what would you like to do during your last days of freedom?" he asked, changing the subject.
She smiled at that. "I'd like to go running," she said. "If you need to supervise, we can find a track or something."
He shook his head. "I trust you, Kara. If you want to run, do it. I know you'll come back."
Her expression was oddly grateful for a moment, and he knew he'd been right with his guess. He'd thought that she'd had few people believe in her – and she had said as much about her commanding officers – but the look on her face confirmed it. While a part of him understood it, having dealt with a few rogue officers along the line, another part was angered. She might be a bit unorthodox, but nowhere in her record had he found any destructive intent. She didn't fight without provocation, and most of her offenses had more to do with her mouth than her fists. She was honest to the core, and she didn't much care about who ranked above her or how they took her version of the truth. Insubordination was the most prominent pattern in her disciplinary history, and he didn't really think he would have a problem with her. She had never been disrespectful to him off duty; he saw no reason for her to be insubordinate on duty. She hadn't shown a dislike of all officers, only those who didn't really deserve the respect of their rank. A judge might not recognize the names and reputations of those she had mouthed off to, but he'd been in the service enough years to know most prominent names, and some of them he'd had run-ins with himself. He was just high enough in rank that he could get away with the honesty.
"There's a path down through the woods," he told her. "If you go down beside the house, you come to the lake edge. The full perimeter of the lake is a mile and a half. The walk down and back makes a good warm up and cool down."
"That sounds like experience," she said, setting her empty coffee cup down on the table.
He shrugged and gave her a slightly embarrassed smile. "I haven't always been an old man," he told her. "And I still have to fitness test annually, just like the rest of you."
She cocked her head sideways, observing him, and he could tell she had something on her mind that she was reluctant about.
"What?" he asked.
"You're welcome to come along," she told him. "I haven't been running since… well, in a couple of months. I'm going to be pretty slow. You'd probably make a good pacer for me."
"You don't look like you've lost much muscle," he said. "I'm sure I'd still slow you down."
She shook her head. "It would be nice to have some company," she admitted. "I've been… alone a lot. That was how I wanted it, but…"
It was as close as she would probably come to admitting that she was lonely. He knew the feeling. Having her around for a couple of days had gone a long way towards relieving the depressed exhaustion that had hit him when he'd realized that what was supposed to have been a happy occasion was instead going to be a week of sitting alone. He knew what it felt like to just want companionship of another human being. And truthfully, he hadn't been keeping up with his fitness on this leave. A run would probably do him good, even if she did lap him a couple of times.
"I'll meet you down here in fifteen minutes," he offered. "I think I have some running shoes upstairs somewhere. How about you? I didn't see you pack any, though."
"They were already in the box," she said softly. "I kept a pair at Zak's."
He didn't know what to say to that. Anything seemed to just make it more obvious that he had put his foot in his mouth. She knew he was sorry. He knew that she was as well. And he didn't like the inadvertent tension that the incautious remark had caused.
"Fifteen minutes," she finally said.
"I'll be here," he told her.
And he was, dressed in standard issue military sweatpants and tank tops. She was dressed in the same. They walked down to the lake together, picking their way around the mostly overgrown path that was beside and behind his house. This had been one of the major reasons he and Iilya had chosen to build here so many years ago; the lake was also good for fishing and swimming, and as a younger man he had looked at that kind of thing. He hadn't realized how little time he would spend here. Neither had Iilya.
Once down at the lake, Kara started a slow jog. It was a fairly easy pace to maintain. He matched her stride, careful though it was, and was grateful that the lake path hadn't deteriorated as much as his access trail. By the end of the first lap, he was breathing heavily, although not completely exhausted. Nevertheless, he waved her on and slowed down to a walk. At his age, the Service allowed him to qualify by walking rather than running, but he had never taken the option. He had started running in the weeks before testing to get himself back up to standard. It wasn't that he let himself get out of shape; he couldn't afford that any more than he could let his crew or ship become unfit. But he did choose lower impact exercises to do so, because running had a tendency to bother his knees and ankles after a time.
Kara was showing no such difficulty. Once he had dropped out, she lengthened her stride to what he had thought she was capable of, and she took off. He had to smile. She wouldn't have done it if he'd stayed with her, and she probably needed both the physical and emotional release that running would allow. If she was like most runners he knew – like he had been ten years before – she was probably more than a little addicted to the adrenaline that a good run could create. This would do more for her outlook than a year of counseling or a bottle of drugs. Depression was often improved by physical exertion, as it gave a person control over something once again, even if it was just her own body.
As he had expected, she lapped him twice by the time he'd walked around the second time. She slowed to walk next to him for the last quarter of their track, her breathing heavy and her ability to talk gone. "Feel better?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
She smiled as she nodded; the first true smile he'd seen that actually touched her eyes, putting a glint there that reassured him as nothing else could. Her face was beet red, her breathing nearly a gasp, but she looked better than she had in a long time. After about a minute, she was able to speak. "I'd forgotten," she got out, taking in another deep breath quickly. "How much… it takes… you know?"
"Yeah," he agreed. "That's why I stopped."
She gave a feeble laugh, most likely due to lack of air rather than lack of agreement. "Zak and I… used to…sorry."
"No, go ahead," he encouraged. "Unless it bothers you, of course. I love hearing about my son."
She gave him a weak smile. "Sometimes I almost… forget," she said, but the breaks were more for thought now than for breath. "Then I hear his name, and… the past tense…"
"It hurts," he told her. "But the two of you had something good. It's okay to remember that."
She nodded, but she didn't look at him. "Zak and I used to run five miles every morning," she finally said. "He got so damned mad when I'd beat him. He wouldn't say anything, but I could tell, you know? The way he got all quiet; I swear it was the only time he ever got quiet. Anyway, I stopped winning. I never really thought it was a race anyway. It was Zak that made it into a competition."
"Blame Lee for that," Adama said softly. "Zak always wanted to be just like him. It was ridiculous, because their personalities and talents were so different, but Zak never saw it that way."
"He always said that Lee was a hard act to follow," Kara admitted.
"They were both… such good men. Hell, I talk about both of them in the past tense."
"That's my fault," she said quietly as the completed the last lap and started up the trail to the house. "I should have told him the truth… but…"
"No," William said firmly. "Lee is… not ready to accept Zak's death. I know he feels responsible. Half the reason Zak wanted to fly was because Lee did it so well, and Lee knows it. He's feeling more guilt than any of us. I think he needs the anger right now, and I'd rather take that than have it directed at you. He'll forgive in time. He'll accept it in time."
"You sound so sure."
He shrugged. "I used to know him pretty well. Or maybe I didn't; I don't know. But I believe he'll come around when he's ready."
"And in the meantime?" she asked.
"He'll need friends," William said. "I saw you with him after the funeral. You're a good friend."
"I'm not," she said as she stopped on the porch to face the eldest Adama. "I killed his brother, and then lied about it."
"You loved his brother," Adama corrected. "And killing, by definition, is intentional. You didn't kill Zak. He died in an accident; that's all there is to it."
Kara looked at him for a moment, and then stepped forward and put her arms around his neck. Without thought, William hugged her back. For a long moment they stood that way, her clinging to him like a child, and him holding her to give the comfort and acceptance of a parent. "Thank you," she said softly, and he had a feeling that her wet face when she pulled back away was from more than sweat.
"You're welcome," he told her gently.