When the board shattered against the bulkhead, Lee truly wished that he could have joined it. He felt as though he was being pulled in a thousand directions, and it would have been easier to manage if he had been in a thousand pieces.
He was caught somewhere between guilt and fury, and he wasn't entirely sure which way he was going to go. He still wasn't sure what the frak had happened between the routine order he'd given and the tragedy had resulted, but he knew he didn't appreciate being kicked off the deck before they had resolved the situation.
As though there could be any resolution; a man was dead. He had given a single order, and a man was dead.
"Lee?"
Kara's voice rang out behind him, but he kept walking. He was going to lose it, and he really didn't want anyone around when it happened. Not even her. "Go away," he said simply, walking slightly faster as he did so.
"Lee, talk to me," she called, stepping her pace up to a run. He settled for one glance back over his shoulder to see that she was gaining on him, but he'd be damned if he'd run down the corridor to escape her. It wasn't as though she didn't know where he was going. He'd been confined to quarters. He was going to his quarters.
"Not now, Kara," he said carefully. His voice was starting to shake as badly as his hands. It looked like fury was going to win over the guilt, and while Kara could hold her own in a fight – truthfully probably could beat the shit out of him if she put any effort into it – he really didn't want to be responsible for hurting her.
"Yes, now," she argued, coming up along side him. "Lee, slow down. Tell me what happened."
"You heard what happened," he told her as he reached the door to squadron quarters and entered quickly. Kara was right on his heels.
"I heard Tyrol screaming. I want to know what happened."
Passing quickly past the bunks along either side of the walkway, he headed for his office at the back of the room. The door was half-open, as it most often was. He stepped through, then reached behind him to pull the hatch closed behind him. Kara was through the doorway before he could block her way but he closed the hatch anyway. "You don't want to be here," he told her simply.
"Quit telling me what to do! Lee, what the frak is going on?"
"I don't know what the frak is going on!" he screamed back. His hands were clenched into fists and he knew that he was about to come apart. It wasn't as though she hadn't seen it happen before, but he hated losing control in front of witnesses. Hell, he hated to lose control at all.
"Tell me what you know," she pleaded. Her hands were at his arms, her green gaze caught his own, and she looked so damned understanding that he finally went over the edge.
"I killed somebody!" he screamed, pulling himself back away from her to put some distance between them. "Is that what you want to know? Is that what you needed to hear. I screwed up, and a kid died. Happy?"
"Lee, you didn't kill anyone," she said, taking a step towards him. He didn't let her get close.
Lee turned to his desk and grabbed the first thing he could reach – a cup of pencils and pens – and slung it into the wall. Writing implements flew in all directions as the ceramic shattered with a satisfying ring on the metal wall. Next went the neat pile of rosters that he had stacked on the left hand side of his desk. He wasn't competent to tell people what to do, much less where to be and when to be there. He grabbed the stack and tossed them after the pens and pencils, but the flutter of paper was far less satisfying than the resounding crash of ceramic. He looked for something else solid to throw, but as he reached for the wooden box that held the work he had yet to go through, Kara's hand descended on his arm.
He could have pulled away. He could have slung her into the wall the way he was feeling. He could have, but he didn't. "Get out, Kara," he told her simply. Then he jerked his arm away from her, grabbed the metal chair before the desk, and swung it up and over the desk and into the wall beyond. It clanked and clattered as it fell to the floor, but Kara didn't back down. Some absent part of his mind registered relief that he hadn't hit her with the chair, but it wasn't a conscious thought.
"Lee, stop!" she yelled, putting herself between him and the desk, between him and any other projectiles.
"I can't do this!" he shouted. "I don't want this office, I don't want this job, and I don't want you in here!"
"Fine!" she yelled back. "Just as soon as you aren't acting like a maniac, I'll leave."
"Get out!" Lee bellowed, taking a menacing step towards her. He should have known that she was made of stronger stuff than that, because instead of stepping back she came towards him.
"If you think it'll make you feel better, go ahead and hit me," she told him, clenching her hands into fists. "Or try. I don't promise not to hit back."
His arm was halfway back and his intent murderous when sanity crashed down on him. He stared into green eyes that were wide, and angry, and not a damned bit scared. She knew he couldn't hit her. She knew him. She knew him, and she was still there. She wouldn't go anywhere until she was frakking ready to do it.
Dropping his hands, he headed towards the hatch at the back of the room. Unlike his open office, his bedroom was kept closed. He actually had his hand on the door before he stopped and placed his head against the closed door. "It's my fault," he told her. His voice was shaking, but he thought he sounded rational enough. "I killed him."
"No, you didn't," she responded, and her voice was as calm as his had been, only without the shaking.
He shook his head and finally opened the hatch, stepping into his room. The covers on the bed were still askew from the badly timed visit from his father – Lords, was it just that morning? – and there was barely enough room to stand next to the bed. He didn't bother pulling the hatch closed behind him; there were no locks, and Kara would just open it back up. He was tired of running from her.
Lee walked to the far wall – a distance of only six feet – and turned around to lean against it. He felt as though every bit of energy was draineing from him. He didn't want to do this now. He knew Kara wouldn't wait. "I ordered him into the tube," Lee said, and again thought he was fairly rational.
She walked forward and stopped within a foot of him. "Why?" she asked simply.
"There was a panel in the tube that was loose. It hadn't been repaired, so I told Sanders to be sure it was secure before launch. He followed my orders. I didn't know the tube was hot."
"Did Sanders check with Launch Control?" she asked him softly, finally reaching out and placing her hands on his chest. The contact was reassuring.
"Apparently not," Lee said. "They launched while he was still in the tube. If the depressurization didn't kill him, the impact did."
"Is it standard procedure to report to Launch before entering a tube, hot or not?" she asked.
"You know it is," he said with a sigh.
"Is it standard procedure to visually check tubes before a launch?" she asked him, her gaze still steady and calm and locked on his. Her eyes were such a clear green that he couldn't bring himself to look away.
"Always," he said, his voice breaking slightly. He took a deep breath before continuing. "He was a rook, Kara. Maybe he forgot the safety procedures. Maybe he was just scared because the CAG gave him an order and he was scrambling to do it. I don't know why. I don't know why Launch didn't notice it. Shit, I don't know how the pilot didn't see him. I don't know what went wrong, but it did, and it's my responsibility."
"Did the tube need repair?" she asked him, her voice still solid, almost like a solid, physical thing. He held on to it and concentrated on the sensation of warm hands pressing lightly against his chest; the two sensations were keeping him from flying apart.
"Yes," he whispered. "If it tore out, it could have destroyed a Viper."
"So, the tube needed repair and you ordered it repaired."
He nodded. He couldn't get any words out past the knot at the base of his throat. He tried to take a deep breath, but his chest hurt.
"It's not your fault," she told him again. "You did your job. The mistake wasn't yours. It was an accident."
Lee felt his knees start to buckle, so he let himself slide down the wall. "I killed him," he whispered again, resting his head on his knees just as soon as his butt hit the floor. Kara leaned over him and put her arms around him.
"Did I kill Zak?" she asked him gently. Her arms were warm, and tight, and he felt like he just wanted to stay there forever.
He shook his head. Speech just wasn't a possibility.
"You told me…" She took a deep breath, and he could hear that her voice was breaking just as his had. "You told me that I had contributed to the circumstances, but the choice had been his. Was that just a load of crap?"
He shook his head again.
"Lee, it's the same thing," she whispered. She was kneeling before him, her arms around his shoulders and her face next to his. "Accidents happen. I hate it, but they happen."
"I can't do this job," he said on a gasp, trying to suck a breath in past the pain in his chest. "I can't do it."
"You are doing it," she assured him.
He shook his head, and then he couldn't even think. Every doubt, every death, every decision, and every fear suddenly seemed to settle on him and he couldn't deal with it. He couldn't accept it. He didn't want to.
His shoulders shook, his breath came out in explosive sobs, and he felt like he couldn't get enough air back in to stay alive. Kara's arms tightened around him, and she started rocking with him, back and forth, keeping him from panicking until he could breathe again. He still couldn't stop the tears, or the wrenching, painful sobs, but at least he could breathe.
Kara was talking to him, whispering something to him as she rocked with him, but the words were neither clear nor important. At some point he became aware that their faces were both wet, but whether it was his tears, hers, or some combination of the two, he was unsure. He just knew that he couldn't keep it all inside any longer, and for some reason Kara understood. She wasn't condemning, but instead she was holding on to him as though she could keep him together with no more than the strength of her arms.
They rocked, and cried, for longer than Lee could keep track of. At some point the sobs subsided into quieter crying, but the stream of tears was constant. When he was finally able to breathe without pain, he started talking. He didn't know why he needed to say it, but for some reason he wanted Kara to know.
"I'm supposed to be a warrior," he said in a voice that was somewhere between a whisper and a croak. "But I couldn't do it. I couldn't protect the Colonies, and I couldn't even keep what was left of the deck crew alive. I don't know how to do half of the shit I'm supposed to, and there's no one left to ask."
Kara sniffed, but she didn't move her face from its place beside his. "You'll learn the job, Lee. You just need time."
"There isn't any time. And I don't know that I can learn it. I can't even fly worth a damn," he admitted.
"You fly as well as I do," she argued.
"Then why can't I make it back from a battle under my own power?" he asked in disgust. "I've been in two Cylon battles, and both times I had to be rescued. I'm more of a hazard than a pilot. How can I train the kids they're sending me if I can't even do the job myself? Kara, if it was just the paperwork I could live with it, but I'm not even a competent pilot."
"You're a hell of a lot more than competent," Kara told him. "You took on a Cylon fighter with minimal armament and no electronics suite. You saved the President's life. Don't you think that counts for something?"
"Kara, I don't know what I'm doing," he said, knowing that he sounded pathetic but unable to hold in the words. Once he had spoken the first of his doubts aloud, the rest seemed to overwhelm him. "I don't have any answers for anyone. And when I try to get something done, people die."
"Lee…" Kara began, but she didn't continue. Lee couldn't blame her. She was probably tired of reassuring him. He felt absolutely useless on every level – personal, professional, and even spiritual.
"My father's barely speaking to me," Lee said on a whisper when Kara had been silent for a few minutes. "I was awful to him. He probably can't stand me."
"Your dad loves you," she told him firmly, but he didn't believe it.
Shaking his head, he argued. "He won't stay in the same room with me for ten seconds," Lee said. "He won't even let me apologize. I don't expect his forgiveness – I don't deserve it – but I want him to know that I shouldn't have treated him that way."
Kara loosened her hold on him, and he knew that now she would leave him. She loved his father – had always defended him. It was no wonder she couldn't forgive the way he had treated the older man. Lee deserved for her to leave him there. He didn't deserve her comfort, or her patience, or anything else. But then she surprised him by settling down beside him and putting an arm around his back. At her coaxing, he turned over on his side, his knees still pulled up to his chest, and rested his head on her lap. Kara threaded her fingers through his hair, soothing him without words; petting him gently, and relaxing him despite his efforts to resist the comfort that he felt he was unworthy of.
"You were hurting," she said gently. "Your dad knows that. Even after I'd told him why Zak was dead, he was never angry – not at you, and not even at me. He didn't need to be. But you needed the anger; you weren't ready to accept losing him. I asked your dad once why he didn't just tell you the truth, and he said that you needed to be mad for a while, and he wanted you mad at him instead of me. He said that if you didn't have the anger, the hole that Zak had left in you might kill you."
"I couldn't save him," Lee whispered. "I couldn't save him, or Mom, or anybody else. All the training was useless. All the drills and the preparation for battle – none of it did any good. I couldn't do anything."
"None of us could," she assured him. "None of us could have expected what happened. And we're all still trying to find our place in what's left. Lee, it's okay to be angry, or scared, or hurt. We all feel that way. But you can't take responsibility for the Cylon Empire. It's not fair to you, or to anyone else. You couldn't predict it, and you couldn't stop it. All you could do was survive it, and you've done that. Now you need to hold on and survive just a little longer. It'll get easier. It has to get easier."
"Why?" he asked in a pitiful voice. "What's the point?"
"The point?" she asked thoughtfully. "Well, to start with you're the most responsible man I know. You take this job seriously, even more than Ripper ever did. You may not know the details, but you know how to get things done."
"I haven't done a bang-up job."
"You've done fine. The schedules are fair, the work distribution is even, and you've even filled in the wholes left by the pilots we've lost. We need you here." She took a deep breath, then bent over and placed a kiss on his cheek. "I need you here," she said softly. "Some mornings, when I haven't had any sleep, the only thing that keeps me going is knowing that I'll see you during the day. When you put your arms around me, the world is right again, even if it's just for a little while. You help me forget that everything's in chaos. You care, Lee. It doesn't' sound like that big of a deal, but when you haven't had a lot of people care about you, it is important."
"You're important," he said simply.
"And knowing that you believe that makes me believe it. Lee, I couldn't make it through the day without you. I've tried – trust me – and it doesn't work. When I thought you were gone, the world really was over. But when I saw your face, I knew we'd be okay. I knew that someone I could trust was going to be running things, and I knew that there was some hope."
Lee didn't answer that. He didn't know how. Instead, he just laid there, his knees tucked tightly against his chest and his arms wrapped around them. Kara continued to stroke his hair, rub his arm, and trail fingers gently over his back. He needed to thank her. He needed to tell her how much this meant to him, how he had needed to let it all out. He needed to tell her how grateful he was for a listening ear, and calm logic, and especially her gentle touch. He needed to, but he didn't have the strength. So Lee closed his eyes, finally able to breathe without pain, and finally able to relax despite the hundreds of responsibilities that he knew he hadn't met today. And in the calm and quiet of his room, with Kara holding him, he finally let go of everything and let himself drift… and sleep.