Kara turned the wrench one more time with a tired hand, finally getting the nut secure on the bolt. Her arm was killing her. Shifting to her side to grab the next bolt and it's accompanying washer and nut, her back protested as well.
She hadn't really noticed it until the morning she had awoken with Lee, but the collision she'd initiated to get his Viper on board the Galactica had busted up more than the ships. She had bruises that had bruises where her harness had kept her in her seat, and her upper back was still hurting a lot more than she wanted to admit. The only break the doctor had found had been a hairline fracture – and an incomplete one at that – in her collarbone. Initially she hadn't even felt it through the adrenaline and constant activity that followed, but within a couple of days it had begun to hurt badly enough that she'd braved the Galactica's sickbay.
She'd had a long wait. While the medical personnel were at least treating injuries that weren't life threatening now – something that hadn't been an option in the first day or two after their jump – there was still a wait to be seen. After four hours in the bay, she had finally been seen by a tech, X-rayed, and sent for bone fusion. That particular injury was a little sore, but no longer painful. The same could not be said for the bruises, strains, and sprains that she'd acquired in the crash. Painkillers were at a premium, so she was managing without them, but she truly wished that she could regain the general numbness that she'd felt immediately following the injury.
She had to wonder if Lee was feeling the after-effects, too. He had seemed fine on the night they'd spent together – and in the morning – but she hadn't been hurting all that much then either, at least not more than she would have attributed to a night spent on a hard floor and non-stop work during the previous three days. Sleep deprivation, it seemed, could serve as quite an anesthetic, but not one she cared to use again. Then again, she might not have a choice.
The night after the one she'd spent with Lee had been a restless one. She had tossed and turned a hell of a lot more than she had slept. After reporting for her next twelve-hour shift, she had tried to sleep once more, and had finally walked down to the pilots' ready room to curl up on the couch where the movement, activity, and voices had lulled he into at least a light sleep. It hadn't been much, but it had been better than nothing. She had spent the next night there as well, and then the next. So far, no one had complained. She hoped they would continue to ignore her. Her own squadron quarters felt like a tomb, and she simply couldn't stand it there.
This morning she had awoken long before her shift had begun and had been disgusted with her failed attempts to stay asleep more than a few minutes at a time, so she had decided to make a quick run through the belongings of those she had known. It had felt almost like stealing from the dead, but in her heart she knew better. The Commander had announced that he was bringing in every pilot that he could get his hands on to be trained to replace those they had lost. Retired, civilian, and even a couple of kids who'd had flying fathers who had taught them a little something back home – all were going to be brought to the Galactica and given a crash course in combat flight. By the end of the week, every bed in quarters would be filled, and it had bothered her that strangers would be riffling through the possessions of her friends.
So she had scrounged up a box, and she had gone from bed to bed, then locker to locker, tucking away anything that had meaning. The items would simply be trash to those who were coming in, but the few trinkets were all she had left of some very good people.
She'd found about a dozen pictures among the belongings. Some were group shots and some individual, some of families and some of trips. Each picture had involved someone that she knew, or someone that they had cared about. Those pictures she had kept. She had also kept most of a new box of cigars that had been in Ripper's locker, the Academy ring that Copper had been too worried about losing to ever wear, and the earrings that Digger had been given by Jolly for her last birthday. Kara didn't even have pierced ears, but both Digger and Jolly had been damned good people, and she wanted to remember them.
It had taken her only a couple of hours, but she had finally removed everything that seemed… personal. She didn't care about the cubits or uniforms, but many of the little touches that had made this a home to her fellow pilots – knick knacks from vacations, a hologram of Caprica, more than one beloved book – these were the things she had stored for herself. The box was now tucked into the bottom of her locker, and if anyone had a problem with her choice they'd have to go through her to take it. She considered it her right as the single surviving member of her squadron. Besides, it was all that she had left.
She had been half an hour late getting to the bay, and she had taken hell from the Crewman she'd relieved. She had already been on edge when the Crewman had started in on her for not watching the clock, and he had effectively pushed her over that edge. She might not be a Captain, but she still outranked an E-3. Her temper had flared, her eyes had blazed, and her actions… well, she couldn't be responsible for them. She had sent him running with a few choice words and a flying screwdriver. She didn't think he'd be yelling at her again in the near future.
Then she had gone to work. The Viper she'd been assigned wasn't her own. They were repairing in reverse order, from the least damaged to the most, in order to get as many planes flight ready as soon as possible. The Viper that had brought both her and Lee back – and that she had claimed as her own - would be among the last to be worked on. But this one needed work now, and she was doing her best. They'd run out of new parts, so each repair now involved disassembling something else that couldn't be repaired before using the parts they gained to fix something that could. She hoped that as they made their way down the list of ships, her own Viper didn't become so many spare parts. It had been a good ship. She hated to see it scavenged to save others.
"Starbuck!"
She'd been dreading that voice since she had watched the screwdriver leave her hand an hour before, bounce twice off the metal flight deck, and sail satisfyingly into a wall. She had known that the Crewman wouldn't take her words or actions lying down. She wished that she had it in her to care.
"If you put me in the brig, this ship won't get fixed," she told her CAG without moving from her place beneath the Viper. "Is it really worth it?"
"Out," he told her. She stayed put. The next thing she knew a large hand had clamped onto her upper arms and she was being dragged from beneath the ship. Given the still-tender condition of her collarbone, it had hurt like hell.
"Let go!" she yelled, sending an upwards kick towards the man that seemed to be pulling her apart just as soon as her legs cleared the Viper. Unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately, as she really wasn't in a condition for a real fight – he grabbed the leg and redirected it downwards so that the only thing she kicked was air. He used that leg to turn her, pin her to the deck on her side, and keep her there with his knee on hers and his weight pinning her arms.
"Damn-it, Starbuck, hold still before I have to hurt you!"
"Not frakking likely," she muttered as she struggled fruitlessly beneath his weight. She'd been beneath him before, but not like this. And that thought was what ground her to a halt. Unbidden, images of him rising above her, his body surrounding her, seemed to slip through the haze of red that she'd been looking through. Abruptly, she stopped fighting.
He didn't let up, but instead continued to hold her firmly. "Are you finished?" he asked her in a very soft voice. Not soft and friendly, but soft and deadly. She had pushed him farther than she'd thought.
"For the moment," she admitted. She wouldn't make promises about the future.
"At least I don't have to ask if you really threw tools at a repairman," he muttered as he eased his knee's pressure to her leg. "You're definitely fighting first and talking later."
"I'm not talking at all, so if you're going to bust me, get it done."
There was a long pause before Lee gave a tired sigh. A good deal of the anger drained from his expression while she watched. "I don't have the time or patience for this, Kara. If we don't work together, we can't get anything done.
"We can't get it done anyway," she said in frustration. "We don't have the parts, the men, or the time."
"Time, we've got," he said, finally moving off her so that she could roll onto her back and look up at him. Surprisingly, he seemed a lot more tired than angry, now. She knew the feeling. "But you're right about the rest. Still, throwing things at your help isn't going to do anything but piss them off."
"Maybe he pissed me off first," she grumbled.
"I'm sure he did," Lee allowed. "But then you're supposed to do what he did: come to me. I can assign you someone else, or let you work alone if you need to, but we are not going to hospitalize the few remaining qualified people that we have. Got it?"
She didn't speak, but she nodded. It was all she could manage.
"For the record," he added, "What did he do to set you off?"
"I was late showing up to work. He started screaming. I would have worked through breaks to make up the time, but he just started yelling. I didn't want to hear it."
Lee shook his head, but he smiled. It wasn't a true smile, but it was close. "Kara, did it once occur to you that maybe he had a point?"
"Nope."
"Keep your hands off the help," he told her with a glare. "And your tools, too."
"Yes, Sir," she replied, the two syllables enunciated clearly.
Lee reached forward then, and moved the strap of her tank top down her arm, his eyebrows furrowing as he looked. "You look worse than I do," he muttered.
"It looks worse than it feels," she told him.
"Did you clear medical?" he asked, referring to the standard procedure of getting checked following any injury that occurred in the line of duty.
"Did you?" she fired back.
He didn't speak, but he did glare. His silence was louder than most of the screaming lectures she'd endured in the past. "Yes, I did," she said. "I went up yesterday after things quieted down."
"Must have been bad if you did," he reasoned, standing up and reaching down a hand to help her do the same. She didn't bother arguing, but she did reach out with her opposite arm. She was still smarting from his tugging on her arm a few minutes before.
"Are you fit to work?" he asked.
"I'm here, right?"
Kara?"
She sighed. "Lee, I'm fine. Bumped and bruised, but they took care of the break."
"Break?"
"Along here," she said, pointing to the red mark left from the bone fusion procedure. "Probably from the restraints in the Viper. It wasn't clean through," she explained. "The tech said I probably would have healed with no trouble on my own if I hadn't minded waiting." Kara scoffed. "Believe it or not, I'm not big on pain."
"Why didn't you tell me you were hurting?" he asked her in confusion. "I mean, I wouldn't have… or we… I mean…" He cleared his throat, looking almost shy, but didn't continue.
Kara had to laugh at him. He might be really good at having sex, but he couldn't talk about it to save his life. She couldn't fault him there. Some things just didn't have adequate words to describe. "It wasn't really bugging me then," she told him, letting him off the hook. "If it had been, I would have said something."
Reluctantly, if his expression was any indication, he let the subject drop. "Are you… I mean, aside from that, are you okay?"
"Like I said, bumps and bruises," she told him again.
He nodded, seeming satisfied with her answer. "Actually, I needed to talk to you anyway," he explained. "The Commander has everyone logging in when they hit the mess hall. It's part of the rationing. Anyway, if someone misses three meals straight, their direct superior gets a report. In your case, that's me."
"Your point?"
"You aren't eating," he told her flatly. "But you know that."
"I'm not hungry," she said with a shrug that reminded her again that she wasn't at one hundred percent. And that was the truth. The few bites she'd tried to eat since this whole thing had started had nearly made a return visit in the hours afterwards. She knew it was just nerves, and that she would get past it in time. She didn't see what his complaint was, anyway. If she wasn't eating, it left more food for everyone else.
"You have to eat," he told her. "Otherwise you're no good to anyone, on the deck or in the air."
"I'll eat when I'm hungry," she told him, getting annoyed. Damn-it, she was sick of having her every move analyzed. Maybe it wasn't the most responsible thing to show up a little late to duty – not that it changed what she would have gotten done, but she supposed it was a little rude to the previous shift – and maybe she should be forcing down a little more food, but she didn't need someone critiquing everything she did or didn't do.
"You'll eat now," he corrected. "Otherwise I'll bump the report up to the next in the chain of command. That would be Colonel Tigh."
Kara glared at him. "That's not fair," she muttered.
"No, it's not," he agreed. "I shouldn't have to worry about my pilots eating. There aren't a lot of people left alive, Kara. Those of us who are need to take care of ourselves. I have enough to deal with between the pilots we don't have, the ones coming in that need training, and the ships that are in pieces all over the deck. Be in the ready room in ten minutes. You're not the only one on a hunger strike. I have three more people to get and then you're all sitting down and eating. Got it?"
She rolled her eyes. "I've got work to do," she argued.
"And you'll do it – after you eat."
With no more than that, Lee spun on his heel and took off to find his next hapless victim. Kara supposed she should feel lucky. After all, she deserved more than a verbal reprimand for assaulting a crew member. But it still bothered her that they were being watched so closely that they couldn't even miss a meal or two before the brass started getting involved. She could take care of herself, and she didn't need anyone else telling her what to do.
But she was too tired to argue any more, and not willing to go to the brig or to deal with Tigh over this. Hell, Tigh would probably want her to starve to death, the bastard. Kara lay back down on the deck and shimmied back under the Viper to finish what she'd been doing. She wished that she could have found one of the roll boards to use, but there were too many repairs necessary, too many men working, and too few boards to go around.
It took her a few more than ten minutes to get the casing remounted, but she finished the job before reporting to the ready room. Lunch consisted of stale bread stuffed with various meats and vegetables. She selected one that didn't look too bad, claimed her personal corner on the couch, and ate her lunch like a good little girl. It went down as smoothly as rocks. Even the strong coffee that she drank had little flavor to her.
Lee came in just as she was finishing, and nodded approvingly. He glanced around the room, made sure that everyone who was there got checked off on his little clipboard, and then grabbed a sandwich for himself. From the first bite, he didn't look like he was enjoying the food any more than she had.
"Are we finished now?" she asked him as she displayed her mostly empty plate, complete with remaining breadcrumbs and a smear of mustard.
"You can get back to work," he allowed. "Go to dinner at seventeen-thirty," he told her firmly. "I don't want to see your name on another report, and I don't want to hear about you attacking the crew anymore. Clear?"
"As crystal," she said with a mock bow, and then she headed out of the room.
Following her shift, she did as she was told and grabbed a light dinner. Oddly, eating made her hungry, so dinner had actually been fairly welcome. She supposed that her body had needed the reminder of what was required to survive. Unfortunately, finishing work meant that it was time for another battle with sleep, and she could have done without it. Lords, she hated insomnia. She'd dealt with it in the past by simply ignoring it. She had stayed up, worked on whatever was available, and eventually she had gotten tired enough to pass out. Unfortunately, that usually took several days, and she didn't have the sixteen or eighteen hours to recoup if she tried that tactic. But rolling around in her bed got old after the first two hours, and once more she grabbed her shirt to cover her bra and slipped her feet into running shoes for the trek down to the ready room. She didn't sleep well there, but at least she slept some. It had to be enough.
Mid way to the room, she noticed the hatchway that lead towards the port flight pod. It was slightly ajar, which struck her as odd. Granted, there had been some cleanup started in that area, but the maintenance crews were using the main hatchways rather than the repair corridors. She went through the hatch and slipped into the narrow passage that lead to the pod. Once there, she left the hatch wide open to allow as much light from the passage to enter the bay as possible.
Looking around, she wasn't entirely surprised to see who was sitting there, his back against the wall and his feet crossed before him. Lee looked almost as miserable as he had on the first night they'd met here. She considered leaving him to it, but she just couldn't do it. Knowing that it was probably a bad idea, she stepped through the hatch into the compartment and walked over to kneel beside him.
"Fancy meeting you here," she told him with a grin. "Enjoying the scenery?"
He actually smiled back. "I'm hiding," he explained. "If one more person asks me to do one more thing that I have no clue how to manage, I may hurt someone."
Kara laughed at that. "Welcome to the wonderful world of CAG," she told him. "What's the saying? We've done so much with so little for so long that we are now qualified to do anything with nothing. Sound about right?"
"On the nose," he admitted. "Have a seat. It's not comfortable, but it's quiet."
She did as he said, sitting cross-legged before him and looking him over. He looked far more than miserable. He looked awful. Maybe it was the dim lighting from the repair corridor, but his eyes looked sunken and the lines around his eyes seemed deeper. He looked like he'd aged ten years in only a few days. "It gets easier with time," she assured him. "If you need help with some of the pilots, I can manage that. I know most of the ones we have left, even if it's not very well."
"Thanks," he told her, but it seemed monotone. He had the same blank expression that he'd carried in the days after Zak's death: lost and terribly alone. It wasn't just the command, she decided. It was the same depression that seemed to be settling over all of them in the wake of their escape.
"Lee?" she asked, coming to her knees before him and looking at him straight on.
He moved his eyes and focused on her, and just that quickly she was lost. She couldn't offer him much, but what she had to give was his. "It'll get better," she promised him. And then she kissed him.