Out of Turn

By Crystal Wimmer

Rated R for Sexual Situations/Language

Possible spoilers for episode 4 of the new series - in concept, but not in story. I took the rumor that was given regarding what might happen in the episode between Lee and Kara, and placed it into my Out of Hand continuity - the story is mine, only the "oops" belongs to the series.

This chapter may seem to have some gaps, because due to the restrictions of ff.net, I'm being conservative regarding what I leave in. Please see my site, the bsg03fanfic site, or e-mail me for the full version if you require it and are of age. Thanks!

Chapter 1

Kara Thrace stepped out of the tiny shower stall with hair that was still slightly soapy but would have to do. Two minutes of water wasn't all she wanted to get her shower managed, but she preferred the two minutes of warm water in Lee's stall to five minutes of cold water in general quarters.

She rubbed her hair dry with a towel, then wrapped the cloth around her body until she could get her hair combed out and grab the underclothes she would sleep in. She wasn't any more thrilled about her current sleeping arrangements than she was about her shower, but she was trying to be amenable about the situation. After all, Lee wasn't any more excited about it than she was.

Lee Adama was their Commander of Air Group, and her direct superior along the chain of command, but he was a hell of a lot more than that. Not only did he keep duty assignments equal, efficiency ratings accurate, and spacecraft conditions monitored, but he was also the best person she'd ever known for keeping warm in the cold nights of space.

Unfortunately, he was also honest to a fault, and the schedules he set up had them on opposite shifts as much as similar ones. Nights spent together, whether sleeping or otherwise, were rare. This was one of the rare nights where schedules had coincided and theoretically they would be sharing a bed. At the moment, he was still in his office, still shuffling papers, and that damned bed of his was still cold. It wasn't that she was complaining – exactly - but she was both tired and grumpy from lack of sleep, food, and… attention. She wasn't above admitting that she had certain needs, and at the moment Lee was one of them.

She sat for a moment on the edge of his bed – nearly twice the size of the bunk she had in squadron quarters – and then decided that she might as well find out just how long he was going to be. Tossing the towel she'd used over a rack in his bathroom to dry, she opened the quiet door that led to the office which divided his living quarters from the main Galactica corridor.

As she stepped up behind the diligently working man, her irritation faded slightly. He hated this as much as she did. Bent over his desk, Lee was intent on his task, crunching numbers and evaluating possibilities with an analytical mind that she frankly envied. Kara could sight down a Cylon cruiser at nearly a two mile range, and she rarely missed, but visual and spatial conceptualization was a long ways from the mathematical skill that Lee demonstrated. He had a gift for even distribution, mental division, and general patterning that was incredible. She couldn't hope to do his job.

He was also a diplomat to the core, which had kept her ass out of the fire on more than one occasion. Still, enough was enough, and she knew he couldn't go on this way indefinitely. In the six months since the decimation of the Colonies, he had spent far more time working than not, and even with her carrying out some of his duties as a deputy CAG, he still bore the brunt of the work.

Not that she didn't do a fair share. She flew patrols, listened to pilot gripes, evened out as many disagreements as possible without his direct intervention, and sat in on more meetings than she cared to count. For that matter, just to have this one night with him – a few hours to share a bed, and with any luck at all his body – she had pulled a sixteen hour shift on the deck, grabbed four hours sleep, and then worked another twelve hours in CIC which was her least favorite place to be. Still, it now gave her twelve uninterrupted hours that overlapped nicely with Lee's eight hours, and she had every intention to make the best possible use of them.

"You coming to bed?" she asked as she slipped up behind him, sliding one hand down the front of his regulation shirts and using the other to fiddle with his ear. He moved away with an almost involuntary motion, but she caught the grin.

"I'm almost done," he told her with a kiss to her arm, which was currently over his shoulder. "Just a couple more things. Why don't you go lie down and get comfortable?"

"Because if I do, I'm likely to fall asleep, and that's not what I had in mind for tonight."

He did grin at that, leaning back to meet her lips in an upside-down kiss that was all the more arousing for being so chaste. "Sounds good to me," he murmured. "Let me get this finished, and I'll be right in."

"You said that an hour ago," she reminded him. When she saw the irritation flicker in his eyes, she rushed to justify her words. "I know it's important," she assured him. "And I know I can't help you with it. But you can't get anything finished if you're too tired to see straight. Come to bed," she asked again. "Please."

It wasn't like her to beg, and a couple of months ago she wouldn't have considered it, but she and Lee had developed something… special over recent months. He was honest with her, and she did her best not to hold anything back from him. It was a difficult prospect, as she was more than used to hiding her emotions behind sarcasm and snappy remarks, but with Lee it worked. For each honest admission she allowed, he provided more of the same. She had come to know him very well, and the more she learned the more she appreciated the man he was.

"Persistent, aren't you?" he mumbled as he slid his chair back and pulled her down to his lap. He kissed her then – hard and long and wet, with one hand holding her firmly about the waist and the other threaded through her hair for the best possible positioning. For just those few moments, she forgot that she was tired, and that there was a bed in the next room, and that she was aggravated at the demands placed on him and herself by unfair circumstances. For just those few moments, it was Lee and her, and pure sensation that started at her lips and pulled at places in her body that she couldn't define. Lords, but the man could kiss when he put his mind to it. He didn't break the kiss off entirely, but moved from the deep exploration into a more playful, pecking kiss that was easier to breathe through.

"Mmm," she told him when he'd finally lifted his lips from hers and rested his forehead against her chest to catch his breath. "Persistence pays off."

"Yeah, but now it's going to take me twice as long to get this finished," he said ruefully. "Please, just another ten minutes. Go get comfortable, and I'll be right in to catch a shower and then… we'll see what we can think up from there."

She smiled at him, wide and knowing and with more fire than she'd felt in a long time. "Ten minutes," she agreed. "Then I'm coming after you."

He stuck his tongue out at her, which only earned him a gentle bite and another heart-stopping kiss. "Go," he grumbled between nibbling pecks. "Otherwise I'm not going to be able to sit, much less work."

"That was the idea," she told him with a wink. Then she stood up, giving a distinctive wiggle of her bottom in his lap as she did so and watching his eyes close in a combination of desire and self-denial. It was his own fault, she decided. And besides, she'd take care of that problem if he'd just finish the frakking reports and come to bed.

She kept one eye on him as she backed through the bedroom door, leaving it open this time so that he couldn't forget about her. Once inside, she decided to forgo the initially planned seduction – Lee had a thing about unwrapping presents – and stripped off the underwear she'd hastily donned before entering his office. Then she climbed into his bed and stretched out, enjoying the luxury of a large bed – cold sheets or not – and the extravagance of a real pillow. It was one of the few privileges that the CAG insisted on, and she knew it was more for her benefit than his.

She spent a lot of time in this bed, although not frequently enough with him sharing it. Rarely having coinciding shifts also meant that they frequently worked opposite one another, and Lee had told her months back that it was stupid for a comfortable bed to go to waste – especially when she was pulling nights and needed some quiet and dark during the day if she wanted to get any rest. So she'd become accustomed to slipping into his bed, grabbing some shuteye, and even borrowing his shower. It had a mini-tank that held only five-minutes of water, and she was careful to leave half of it for him, but it did have a heater which was something that squadron showers didn't boast. If at times she felt she was taking advantage of Lee, he reminded her that as Deputy CAG she was not only entitled, but should have an office of her own. Outside a wartime situation, she would have had one. It only made sense that under the circumstances they shared.

Kara yawned, stretched out again, and tried to peek out the open doorway at Lee. He wasn't in her line of sight, so she gave up with a sigh and put her head back down on the pillow. Lords, she was tired. As keyed up as she was, and as anxious as her body was for his, she was still damned tired. After an internal debate, she decided that it wouldn't hurt for her to close her eyes a moment, just while she waited on him. After all, he'd told her to rest, and she wasn't above following reasonable instructions.

Moments later, she was sound asleep.

Lee Adama had passed tired more than an hour before, and was easing into the zone of unacceptable grogginess. He shoved another stack of papers to the side and stopped to rub his eyes for a moment. Lords, he was tired, and what made the situation worse was that he knew only a few feet away there was a warm bed and a warmer body waiting for his presence. Still, that didn't get the roster's lined up, or the supplies catalogued, or the efficiency reports completed.

None of those jobs was enough to quite distract him from the fatigue that had become a part of him in recent weeks. Kara hadn't been kidding when she'd remarked about his lack of sleep. Two or three hours a night was usually what he managed, with perhaps another hour or two sprinkled in as a nap with his head on his desk. He had reached the point where he was losing weight, feeling lousy, and getting downright obnoxious to those around him.

But the work had to get done, and Kara already did more than her fair share. And yes, there was a part of him that wanted to protect her from doing more because she was a woman, and he had been raised that women were to be cared for and treasured – in Kara's case, whether she wanted it or not. But even at that, there was too much work and not enough people to manage it – and that would be in a peacetime situation. This was definitely not peacetime. In fact, Cylons had been detected at the perimeter of their search patrols more than once, and three more hyper-light jumps had not rid them of the enemy, but had used valuable fuel and destroyed more than one civilian vessel. Jumps were hard on the craft under good conditions; with minimal maintenance and insufficient time to prepare, the ships hadn't had a chance.

So Lee was faced with organizing more patrols with less spacecraft, longer ranged patrols with less available fuel, and a bunch of pilots that hadn't signed up for this kind of hassle. Hell, most of the enlisted were simply in Colonial Service to get some cubits for college; they hadn't planned to be cogs in a war machine, much less one that was rapidly losing ground. Now he was working them double and triple shifts to keep spacecraft in the air that even his officers didn't want to fly. It was less than ideal, and that was the understatement of the lifetime.

But he wasn't going to get it done tonight. However hard he tried, and schemed, and pretended that he was capable… it wasn't happening tonight. Tonight he was exhausted, had only seven hours left before his next shift was to start, and he had done all that he was prepared to do. There was a woman waiting for him in his bed, and while he was too tired to do that fact the justice it deserved, he was not above trying.

He felt half-alive as he walked through the door to his sleeping quarters and pulled it closed behind him. He jammed a chair up against the hatch to ensure that no well-meaning but uninvited guests dropped by, as that had happened too many times in the past. He looked over at the bed and had to give a sleepy smile at the blond head peeking out from beneath his covers. Kara had the right idea; sleep sounded like a damned fine idea.

He stepped into and out of the shower in no more time than it took him to get wet. In all honesty, the drying took longer. He knew Kara would have left him most of the water, but he just didn't care. Numbers and challenges and manning were all swirling in his mind to a point where he couldn't think about anything anymore. Once he had the water off him – more or less – Lee decided not to bother with reaching for his clothes and simply lifted the covers and crawled in beside Kara.

The first sensation to reach him was pure warmth. It was easy to forget how chilled a man could get in space until he really felt warm again. Curling up to Kara was like snuggling with a heater. But this heater had arms and legs, and as soon as he got close she wrapped herself around him with a soft sigh and one knee wedged between his legs as she rested her head on his chest. His smile turned into a full grin as Kara essentially surrounded him, nuzzling in with her hair tickling his chin and her lips against his neck. He sighed as he just enjoyed the sensation of holding another human being for a while; being close to someone without the need to talk, or explain, or even remain conscious.

He allowed himself the relaxation for a long time, but oddly he didn't sleep. While his mind was ready to shut down, Kara's proximity had definitely placed his body in a position where it did not want to simply turn off. Her leg was pressed rather firmly against him, and he was hardening rapidly. The wet heat between her legs was an irresistible draw to a body which had been denied for days.

And yet she was sleeping so peacefully that he was loath to disturb her. He remained quiet for a while longer, his mind still unable to shut down due to the discomfort in certain parts of his anatomy, and finally he gave up and gave in to what he needed more than sleep.

"Kara?" he whispered.

"Mmm."

Not an enthusiastic response, but about what he'd expected. Words had never been the way to get anywhere with her. Instead, he went with actions. He ran his hands up and down her back, enjoying the soft texture and the way that she nuzzled closer to him. His hands trailed lower, over her firm bottom and upper legs, then back up again. Kara wiggled closer, clearly enjoying the attention whether she was awake or not.

With the encouragement of a positive reception, Lee gently tilted her chin to meet her lips with his own. He started with soft, sweet kisses. It was more of an experiment to see if she would wake than a true attempt at seduction. As he had hoped – although not quite expected – she took the kiss deeper, opening her mouth and letting him in. While she might have been sleeping, she was a long way from passive. Her body movements had become purposeful, and she was as actively involved in what they were doing as he was.

Kara's hands drifted over his body, her touch never gentle, and yet neither was it rough. His breath sucked in as her hands found him hard and ready, and the kiss they shared revealed a distinctive smile that could only be Kara at her most precocious. He gave her upper lip a gentle nip, and was rewarded by the squeeze of her hand on him and a more firm nip of her own to his lower lip. She was definitely with him now.

Regardless of fatigue, he didn't rush either of them. Gentle, thorough, and not missing an inch of her body he explored her, learned each texture anew, and reveled in the sensations as she did the same for him.

"I didn't think you'd ever finish that frakking paperwork," she muttered as she trailed her tongue up the inside of his right thigh. He sucked in a breath, but still didn't have enough air to reply.

((Author's edit... use your imagination))

Lee rubbed his cheek against hers, placing a gentle kiss at her temple, on the tip of her nose, and then on her lips. Her smile stayed in place, her eyes closed, and her expression totally replete. He had to smile back, both in his own physical relief and in the simple joy he saw in her features.

They had come to one another for sex on countless occasions in the last six months. They had lived in one another's pockets, sharing space when necessary and working late many nights to keep their race fighting towards hope. They had bolstered one another up when necessary, which had thankfully less often of late. They had defended one another in combat, and they'd held one another when a friend was lost or a goal unattainable. But never, in all the years he had known her, had he felt quite this way about her.

Leaning down, Lee placed his forehead against hers and took a deep breath. He knew that he was far too emotional because he was tired, and he knew that it was too soon and the circumstances were too confused for what he was feeling. But he was feeling it anyway, and he had to tell her.

"I love you, Kara."

Her smile widened for a moment, but her eyes didn't open. Then, the bottom dropped out of Lee's world.

"I love you Zak," she murmured, and turned herself over to go back to sleep, leaving Lee lost, confused, and very hurt.