Daughters and Sons
"Can we talk?"
If there are three words that should just be taken out of the language, those are them. "Can we talk?" Nothing good ever comes after that. When I heard them from Lee, and looked up to see his expression so serious that I could barely swallow, I knew I was in trouble.
"Sure," I told him, when I was anything but. Oh Lords, I thought. This is it. Lee had been quiet lately, although no less sweet. He was either going to demand that our relationship move forward – whichever way that was – or tell me that he'd found someone else. I didn't know which option bothered me more. I want Lee to be happy; don't get me wrong. I want him to have what he needs. But it's easy to get used to having his kind of quiet strength behind you, and if he finds someone else then that strength won't be mine anymore. On the other hand, I'm just not ready for more. I want him near me, and I need him in ways that I really don't understand, but… I don't really know what to do about it. I do know that I won't be pushed. If this talk goes in a direction I can't deal with, I'm heading for the door. I'm not losing my best friend because he isn't happy with a good thing.
I follow him into his office, doing my best to ignore the wolf whistles that accompany the action. It doesn't matter if he has reports in his hand, I'm in full uniform, and the door is wide open; the gossip never ends. The only good thing about it is that it keeps everyone else off my case. You see, it isn't just Lee that I don't want to get physically involved with; it's men in general. It's not personal. In fact, in Lee's case it's in spite of who he is, not because of it. At the very least getting classified as the "CAG's Girl" has kept the disgusting propositions down to a minimum. Why it is that men think women join the military only to attract a man is completely beyond me.
So I follow Lee into his office and take the chair opposite his desk. I don't even realize that I'm keeping a physical barrier between us. It's an unconscious action to keep myself safe, and one that really isn't necessary with Lee. My head knows that. My body has been cornered too many times. And as I sit there, watching him take time to close the office door and dog the hatch, I realize that this talk is going to be more than I can handle. It just is. So, I do what I do best and go on the offensive.
"Lee, I know what this is about," I begin. And when I look up I see that he hasn't gone around the desk to his customary chair, but instead is sitting on the edge of his desk and looking down at me. He's close; too close.
"You do?" he asks, and there's a frown on his face, confusion as well.
"Yeah, I know, and this is a discussion I'm not ready to have."
He sighs at that. "I'm not either," he admits. "But it's past time. I have to ask, Kara. This has been… eating at me." He looks so lost for a moment that I just want to give him whatever it is that he thinks he needs. "You're the only one who might know the answer."
"The answer is no," I say with my eyes squeezed shut. I can't look at him while I hurt him.
"I understand."
His answer is so quiet, and so… forlorn. "I'm sorry, Lee," I tell him quickly. "But… there are things in my past…"
"I know I've been an idiot," he says harshly. It takes me off guard, because Lee so rarely loses control, and I know that when he does it usually goes badly. "I wasted two years, Kara, but I'm really trying. I really am."
I'm getting confused, and it must show. Two years? Hell, we haven't been at war that long, much less more. It doesn't make sense. "What?"
"I know I don't have the right," he says, and his voice is calmer, his eyes open. "But I'm his son, and I care about him. If you won't help, I don't know where to turn."
And with those words, I'm floating clueless in an ocean of feeling. What in hell is he talking about? What does it have to do with me? What help does he need? There are so many questions in my mind that I don't even know where to start. I finally go with the most obvious. "Okay, what the hell are you talking about?"
His head snaps up at that. "You said you knew," he accuses.
Well, I did. "Humor me," I suggest. "Because what you're saying isn't fitting in the blanks."
"My dad," he says, shaking his head. "I'm worried about him. He's working too hard and sleeping too little. He's… like a wire that's stretched too tight, and it's just a matter of time until he snaps." Lee takes a deep breath before continuing; I can see how hard this is for him, both admitting he cares and asking me for help. His dad is a sore subject with the two of us, and one that he avoids; we both do, if it comes to that. "And now… there are rumors. He's having dinner with a woman, and spending time with her. I don't know her, and when I try to bring it up with him he just changes the subject. I don't know what she wants, and as awful as it sounds I'm afraid she's just using him. I mean, he's the head of the fleet, and some women get off on that kind of power."
"And it couldn't be because he's sweet, and thoughtful, and damned nice."
"I didn't say that," Lee tells me on a sigh. "Kara, I'm not questioning him. I'm questioning her, but I am concerned that he's so unwilling to talk about it. We've been talking lately. Okay, not a lot," he admits, "but some. And when I bring her up he just… shuts down."
"Gee, who does that sound like?" I ask, and get the pleasure of watching him blush. He's the original clam, and he knows it. Getting anything out of him, from information to a hug, is like pulling teeth. But I'm smiling, because I'm so damned relieved that I'd read the situation wrong. Yes, his relationship with his father is a concern; it's fragile and always in need of tending. But I'd sure as hell rather deal with their relationship than ours.
"Kara, I mean it," he says softly, and he really is serious. "You know him better than I do. I'm not proud of that, but it's the truth. He talks to you."
I nod, because Lee is right. The Old Man and I get along pretty well. He once told me that we shared a soul, and while that sounds pretty stupid on the surface, it's as close to the truth as I can explain. For us, flight is something more than what we do; it's who we are, and why we are, and what we need. Because that's pretty rare, it's a bond between the two of us, and even though Lee is a pilot, he doesn't live and breathe flight. He's good at it, he enjoys it, but he doesn't need it. The Old Man and I do.
Strangely enough, that's what got us together in the first place. It was my interest in flight that attracted his attention, and my ability that caused him to act. Hell, that's a long story, too. But it was the first time that anyone had believed in me for something, and for that I'll always be grateful. More than grateful; I'm in his debt for life. What's that old saying about when you save a life you're responsible for it? Well, I guess that makes him responsible for me, and on a lot of levels.
I never had the "ideal childhood" that every kid is entitled to. I try not to feel sorry for myself, because in retrospect it wasn't all that bad; it just wasn't good. My mother died about two weeks after I was born from an infection that the pregnancy had caused. It was one of those things that just didn't happen, not in a world of modern medicine and miracle cures. But it did, and it left my dad with a baby and more anger and self-pity than he knew what to do with. In his defense, he did his best. He never beat me, and he made sure I had a roof over my head and food to eat. I've come to realize that he gave me more than many children ever get, and I try not to resent what I didn't have.
My dad worked with freighters, and most often military contracts. When I was of age, I joined him on the flight line with small repairs and menial jobs. It wasn't much, but the income always helped and I swore I wanted to be out of that house as soon as I could. Somewhere along the way, we got moved to the docking facility on Sagitaria while the Penticle was in dock. Commander Adama was a Colonel back then, and he was impressed with a sixteen-year-old kid being able to piece together an assembly without having a manual in front of her. Nobody had ever been impressed with me before. Later I figured out that he was missing his own kids, but at the time I was somewhere between suspicious and flattered. The Penticle was an old ship, and in for long-term repairs. While in dock, the Old Man made it a point to come down to the deck and say hello, quiz me on stuff, and make sure that I knew what the hell I was doing. When we tested out the Penticle in her first space run, he asked if I wanted to come along. I'd never been in the air, so I took him up on the offer.
He must have seen something in my eyes then, or my actions, or something. Lords, I still remember that day, and watching the ground fall away and the stars come so close I could almost touch them. The flight went fairly well, but we didn't have all the bugs out. So we all went back to work to get her ready for a year or so in space. Colonel Adama was always around, supervising everyone who worked on his ship. That's how he thought of her – as his ship; not the Colonial Fleets, not the Military's and not a piece of Service property. She was his. So he stuck close to be sure we didn't do anything wrong, and one day he asked me if I'd ever thought about flying. I laughed so hard that my stomach hurt. Sure, I'd been impressed with my first taste of it, but that was a far cry from having the grades or the backing to get into flight school. I told him as much, and he suggested the military. Frankly, that was only slightly less likely. The Academy was selective; I wasn't on their A-list. He badgered me into admitting that if I had the chance, sure I'd go. Who the hell wouldn't?
Two weeks later, the letter came. I'd been offered a full scholarship to the Colonial Service Academy on Caprica. I couldn't wait to tell my dad; finally, I'd done something right! He asked me if I had to sleep with Adama to get the sponsorship. That was the last time I saw my dad. I took the ticket that had come in the letter, boarded the next flight for Caprica with eight cubits in my pocket, and I didn't look back. I suppose my dad's dead now. I don't think about it much. Hell, once I got to the Academy there wasn't much time for thinking. I got slammed into so many basic courses that I couldn't see straight; I had a lot of catching up to do, especially in math and science. That meant a double workload, weekend classes, and not having time to breathe. It was tough, but it kept me busy. The Old Man checked up on me once every couple of months, usually with a letter or call. He said he'd seen something in me that he'd been missing a long time in himself; I didn't understand that, but I took what I could get. He was straight with me, and not only didn't ask for anything but wouldn't accept anything offered. I tried to pay him back for the books and supplies that the scholarship hadn't covered and yet had miraculously appeared in my dorm room, but he wouldn't accept anything. He didn't deny that he'd sent them, but he wouldn't take payment.
The brief contacts we had in that first year was how he found out about the roommates from hell. I was shocked as hell when he offered to stick his son in a room with me. Lee started at the Academy a year after I did, having gone to War College first as a prep. Lee still jokes me about that – his starting later, and my ranking below him. We joke about a lot. It always surprised me that Lee didn't hold his dad's support against me. I was afraid at first that Lee would resent his father taking time for a pathetic kid like me, but Lee shrugged it off. He said his mom would have done the same if she'd had the chance; that's just how they were. I'd be willing to bet they took in stray animals as well, although I rarely saw more than a couple of cats around their house.
When I started dating Zak, I went from the category of apprentice – or something like that – to daughter. It was that easy. He never cared that I wasn't from a great family or that I didn't have a single thing of my own. I was family, and for some reason I have been ever since. After we lost Zak, he offered me a position on the Galactica, because he knew I had no heart for teaching any longer. I didn't trust myself, or my judgment, and he just wanted me to be happy. I don't think I'd understood before then that the sole purpose of families was to take care of one another, but I learned that lesson well. I won't forget it.
So yeah, the Old Man and I are closer in a lot of ways than he is with Lee. But Lee has things I could never dream of; a stable family background is something you can't overrate in this world, and a little brother would have been really, really cool. Lee doesn't hassle me about the few advantages I got from his dad, and I don't hassle him about the hard time he gave his father after Zak died. Well, I don't anymore. For the longest time I did – mostly out of guilt – but once we all came clean we let it lie. It didn't fix his relationship with his father, though. They'd destroyed a lot of bridges with harsh words and accusations that went both ways. Forgiveness came hard to both of them, but it did come. And gradually, over time, they started showing one another that they care for each other.
And that was what I was hearing. Lee cared about his dad – was worried about him – and being so out of touch, he had absolutely no clue how to tell him that. Lee's never been big on articulating feelings. He has them, probably deeper and truer than anyone I've ever known, but they aren't at the surface. His dad is the same way. Me, I have feelings too, but most of them are fairly guarded. People don't need to know what I'm thinking unless it involves personal injury… most often theirs. Lee knows how I feel, or he should. Hell, who knows what a man knows? But he'd come to me, and he'd asked for help, and that meant something. I knew what a step it was for him. It wasn't just jumping over a lake; it was swimming an ocean. Forget building bridges, the man was building ships!
"He would talk to you, too," I say to Lee. His face falls, and I know he doesn't believe me. "Lee, he loves you. He really does, although Lords know why." That brings a small smile. "Talk to him."
"I told you," he reminds me. "I tried that."
"So talk to the woman," I say, and that is totally out of the blue. "If he won't be straight with you, feel out the woman. See if she's legit, or if she's just after something. You're a good judge of character; you'll be able to tell."
Lee's laugh is sarcastic. "Right. 'Excuse me, are you trying to seduce my father or are you in love with him?' That would go over great."
I laugh at his expression. "How about something more along the lines of, 'Are you friends, or something more?' It's a legitimate question, and you have a vested interest."
"And when she goes running back to Dad and tells him I'm meddling?"
I shake my head. Why the hell doesn't he listen? "Your dad loves you," I remind him. Again. "He'd probably be flattered that you cared enough to ask."
"I don't know," he says on a sigh, and he looks so tired for a moment that I don't know what to think. "If he was hassling me about my love life, I guess I'd be pretty pissed. Kara, I lost a lot of rights when I turned on him after Zak died. I don't know if it's my place to interfere. He'd probably be furious."
"I don't think so," I say as I stand and take a step towards him. It doesn't even occur to me that I'm doing just what I was afraid he would when that damned hatch closed. I put my hand on his cheek and look up into blue eyes that absolutely sparkle, even when he's sad, or worried, or tired. "He knows you care, Lee. You try to hide it, and you think you manage it, but he knows. He's your dad, and it is your place to care, regardless of what came before or what might come after. He won't fault you for it. Lords know I don't, and if you can get past me with those baby-blues, then blood relations don't have a chance."
His eyes close for a moment, and when they open back I see crinkling at the edges that prove the smile on his lips is from the heart. It makes me feel warm inside, just knowing that I caused it. Lee doesn't smile nearly enough, and when he does it's devastating. "How did we get along for so many years without you?" he asks. "You're like… Adama family glue."
I laugh at that, and plant a kiss on his mouth just because. He's such a clown when he stops trying to be an ass. It doesn't occur to me what I'm doing until it's done, and when it does I'm not sure what to do about it. Lee takes it out of my hands when he leans forward and kisses me back. It's not aggressive – Lee isn't aggressive – but it scares the shit out of me anyway. I back up so fast that my shoulders slam the wall behind me and I lose my footing to land in the chair I'd been using. Lee looks stunned. I feel that way. Some situations just don't have a graceful exit, and that's how life is.
"Kara," he begins.
"No!" I don't realize how harsh it sounds until his face falls completely. "No," I say again, more softly this time. "Lee, I don't want anything to change," I explain quickly. "You're my best friend, and I won't mess with that. Please don't make me lose you."
He watches me a moment, and I see the startled look fade into pure disappointment. "Fair enough," he says softly, so gently that it's almost like a touch. "But you can't lose me, Kara. One way or another we're always going to be stuck with each other."
"How do you figure that?" I ask, and wonder why my throat hurts so damned much, and it's hard to breathe.
"Because some things are just certain," he tells me. "Some friendships are meant. This one is. There have been too many things to happen just the right way for me to belief it's coincidence. We're meant to be friends, at least, and maybe more. I don't even know. But you won't lose me."
The pain in my throat isn't going away. It hurts to swallow, and my eyes are burning, and I just want to get out of there. "Talk to your dad," I tell him, and stand to get the hatch open.
The wheel is tight, and my graceful exit goes out the window. I'm still yanking on the frakking wheel when Lee steps up behind me, gives my shoulders a gentle squeeze, and reaches around to twist the wheel in the opposite direction to disengage the latch. "Inside the room it's right to open," he reminds me, one of those quirks of living on a Battlestar.
I nod quickly and push outward to get some air. I don't even worry that someone might be watching me exit, or see that he's so close behind me. All I know is that my throat is splitting apart and I have something in my eyes and if I don't get out of there I'm going to lose it. Thankfully, I don't see anyone in quarters, and I head straight for the door into the hallway. From there I walk quickly towards the flight deck, and nobody that I pass is brave enough, or stupid enough, to stop me for conversation or questions. By the time I make it to the deck and through the corridor leading to the launch bays, I'm feeling just a little calmer. This bay is deserted, so I lean against a wall and let myself slide down to the floor. With my forehead on my knees, I rest and try not to think. It takes me a while, but I'm finally successful. My throat stops hurting, my breathing is easier, and my heart slows from a gallop to a trot.
I'm not sure what kind of a mess I just got myself out of… or into… but I know that something's changed. I also know that I can't go back, and that scares me more than anything else.