Lee looked up from his paperwork at a sound of a knock on his hatch. "Come in." He was surprised to see that Kara was his visitor. "Hey."
"Hi." She handed him a couple forms. "Requests from two of my pilots for shift changes. They just want to swap, so I told them I'd run it by you." Lee nodded, glancing at the papers.
"Yeah, fine. I'll put it on the schedule." Kara nodded. "Why didn't they just come up themselves?"
Kara sighed. "Apparently half the deck is more afraid of your bad side than mine."
Lee leaned back in his seat. "That right?"
"Yeah. And I was wondering what the frak is going on."
"Nothing, Lieutenant. Just…a bad week."
"It's been more than a week…Can we put the rank card away and just talk? We haven't been doing that much lately. I know we're supposed to be keeping our distance, but I've missed having you around as a friend."
Lee sighed, putting down his pen and abandoning the paperwork before him. "Yeah, I know. Same here."
"Okay, we both know this avoiding each other plan obviously isn't working, so what's plan B?"
He offered a small smile. "This was plan B. Plan A's against regulation."
"Fine, then we need plan C."
"Honestly, I don't know if there is one. I'm fine when we're on deck or in the ready room and I'm the CAG and you're the Lieutenant, but when it's just us in a room, and we're just…us…I don't know how to be with you and not be with you."
Kara came around and sat down on the edge of his desk. "We could join half the rest of the crew and start sneaking around."
"No, we can't."
She nodded, looking down. "Yeah. Lords forbid Lee Adama would ever break a rule." His hand covered one of hers, and she got lost in the depths of his blue eyes when she looked up.
"You're the only person I'd ever do it for, and I'd do it in an instant if I thought it would make things any easier, but I don't."
Kara nodded. "Yeah…Is this supposed to get better at some point?"
"Gods, I hope so."
"I should get going." She started to get up, but Lee still had a hand on her arm. He stood as well, and a moment later, his mouth had captured hers in a desperate kiss. Part of her wanted to pull away while she still had some semblance of willpower left, but that part was quickly beat out by the part that wanted it too much to care. The only thing that broke them apart was the sound of Lee's office door slamming shut. They both whirled to see William Adama standing there, his face disturbingly unreadable.
"Sir," Lee choked out, having snapped back into officer mode faster than Kara.
"What was that?" Adama asked. "No, I'm fully aware of what that was, but I'm also aware that you both damn well know better. And especially in front of an open door." Kara was kicking herself; she was the one that had forgotten about the hatch.
"Sir," she also started, knowing she had to be blushing six shades of red. Lee was still holding her wrist, and gave it a squeeze to tell her to stop talking.
"You're right," he told his father. "We do know better, and we agreed it couldn't happen. On-duty, we're both…as professional as we've ever been, but…We didn't plan on this…Sir. We've been trying to put a lid on it; we just haven't been entirely successful."
"It doesn't look like you've been successful at all," Adama retorted. Lee looked away.
"We've been trying to come up with options, Sir," Kara continued. "Avoiding each other hasn't worked, and frankly, in the long run, it's not going to benefit the officers that work under us…But, I had another idea." Adama raised an eyebrow in question. "Request permission to be demoted, Sir?"
"What?"
"If I wasn't squadron leader, there'd be another link between us in the chain of command. Lee wouldn't be my direct superior."
"It's your squadron, Lieutenant," Adama snapped. "Are any of them honestly capable of replacing you as leader?" Kara didn't reply; they both knew the answer was no. "Request denied. I'm not going to start jeopardizing the fleet for your personal lives."
"With all due respect," Lee cut in, "I can't think of any options available that don't run some sort of risk of that. I agree that you can't start moving people around in the chain of command, and I understand the purpose of the fraternization regs – when we still had the Colonies. How many people on this crew do you currently think are sneaking around behind everyone's backs to maintain relationships? They're going to start making mistakes, and we have no idea who's going to wind up paying for them. And if we start busting everyone we catch, the brig's going to get full mighty fast and the deck's going to get mighty empty." Adama didn't answer.
"You can order us to stop seeing each other," Lee continued, "You can put citations in our files, you can throw us in the brig. But in the end…you and I both have already proven the lengths we'll go to for someone we care about – for Kara. There isn't a reprimand in the universe that's going to change that; it's what makes us human. It's what we're out there fighting for every day, what makes us better than the Cylons."
Silence reigned in the office for a long, long minute. Adama finally turned to Kara. "Are on you shift, Lieutenant?"
"No, Sir. I had early today."
He nodded. "Get some food in you, then." Kara wasn't an idiot; that was her cue to get the frak out of the office. She looked to Lee, who nodded, and so headed out the hatch. The younger of the Adama men steeled himself for whatever his father had to say that couldn't be done in Kara's presence.
"How long?" the Commander asked his son, surprising him with his quiet tone.
"The night of the Chloia feast. That was when we figured out that…" he trailed off.
"Do you love her?" It was at that point that Lee realized he was having a conversation with his father, not his commanding officer.
"Yeah, Dad. I know I'm not supposed to, but I do."
Adama slowly nodded. "How many of your subordinates have you chosen not to report for fraternization?"
Lee squared his shoulders. "I exercise my right under Article Twenty-Three…Sir."
A week later, Lee's morning began with a briefing in the ready room for the early shift pilots. Kara and Sharon were seated together, as usual, the former with a pair of sunglasses perched upon her head. Crashdown, Hyper, Blindman, Frosty, Nightsky, and Phoenix were scattered around the room. Most were discussing the Pyramid game that had been held in the mess hall the night before. Lee didn't even care that he'd lost about 20 credits; he had a patrol that morning and was therefore in a good mood. It was rare that he and one of his squad leaders would be in the air at the same time, but Kara had a training session with her students during early shift.
"Attention on deck!" Crashdown called when he noticed Lee enter the room. All the pilots got to their feet.
"As you were," Lee told them as he stood at the podium. "First off, this morning's CAP: Boomer, Crashdown, and Nightsky; you're up first with me. Everybody keep an eye out for Starbuck's nuggets, just in case any of them wind up wandering off the training course."
"Feel free to steer them back with a few warning shots," Kara wisecracked. "They all know that if I have to go get them, the shots won't be warnings." Everyone laughed.
They ran through the standard pre-flight stuff, and any ship or fleet news that needed passing along. Lee checked the time as they moved to the last item of business; so far they were right on schedule. "One final thing," he told the group as he passed out a few clipboards. "There have been some amendments made to the Military Code of Conduct, all ratified yesterday. Early shift officers and crewmen are the first to see it." He sat back in a chair and watched his pilots' faces as they all read through the documents. Phoenix was the first to put their reactions into words with a quiet,
"Whoa."
The biggest policy change was a removal of the prohibition on officer/enlisted relationships. Instead, they were now held to the same standard as enlisted/enlisted or officer/officer relationships: any appearance of partiality of unfairness required immediate cessation. Chain of command regulations had also been loosened to follow the same criterion.
"I don't believe this," Lee heard Sharon quietly murmur to Kara. He was just waiting for his best friend to get to the last addition: the XO was the one making the final decisions about relationships' appearances.
"Oh, whoa, wait!" Kara exclaimed, and Lee knew she'd found it. "Is this for real?"
"Yeah, Lieutenant, it's real."
She smirked. "May I ask then, Sir, who's got the job of monitoring the XO's appearance of impartiality?" Lee just laughed.
"You can take that one up with the Commander if you'd like. All right, you're all dismissed. Good hunting."
"Oh, boy, time to go find my nuggets," Kara sarcastically said to Sharon as they walked out onto on deck.
She laughed, replying, "Have fun," before heading towards the Raptor that Crashdown was waiting by. Out of the corner of her eye, Sharon noticed Tyrol across the deck. He offered her a small smile, the likes of which she hadn't seen in many weeks. Sharon returned it, and then climbed up into her ship.
That night, after he'd finished his mountain of paperwork for the day, Lee headed up to his father's office to pay him a visit. "May I interrupt?" Lee asked after entering.
"Any time. Have a seat." He obliged, and Adama noticed the trace of apprehension on his son's face. "What's on your mind?"
"I wanted to give you these," he said, extending his right hand, which was holding Zak's dog tags. Adama took the plates of metal, carefully studying them. "I've had them ever since…I was going to give them to Kara, but she thought giving them to you was a better idea."
Adama nodded. "Thank you," he said, voice thick.
"I also wanted…to thank you. For what you did."
"It wouldn't have happened if there weren't others that felt the same way you did. It was in the interest of what's left of humanity. And those that protect her."
"Still. Thank you."
"All your female pilots should have appointments at the Life Station within the next week to begin injection cycles; you are to take them off active status if they don't attend. Same rules apply for the deck hands."
"Yes, Sir."
"I'm uncertain what the ship reaction is going to be, but I'm sure I don't have to tell you that we can't afford to have any of them out of commission right now."
"I doubt there will be many complaints," Lee assured him. "I think our survival comes before settling down or having children right now. Someday, maybe, but not now."
"No, not now…" Adama smiled at his son. "Though I wouldn't mind getting some grandchildren one day." Lee laughed. He knew that, even more so than the regulation changes, that comment was his father's way of saying that he approved of Lee and Kara. And Adama had no idea how much that meant to his son.
By 2300 hours, when Kara finally got off of mid shift, she was exhausted. She'd spent early shift training her students – one of them had finally gotten his wings – and then had a CAP on the second shift of the day. She had a two minute hot shower ration waiting for her back in the bunks, and she was planning on taking full advantage of all one hundred and twenty seconds.
"Welcome back, Lieutenant," she heard a voice say as she stood up in her Viper, and looked to see that Lee was waiting at the bottom of the ladder down from the cockpit.
"Thank you, Sir," she replied. "To what do I owe a visit from the CAG?"
"Actually, it's a visit from a friend. As of about thirty seconds ago, we're both officially off duty. There were some leftovers from dinner; I figured you hadn't eaten all day and might want something."
Kara considered it as she climbed down. "Yeah, I think I'm hungry enough that ship food is actually starting to approach appetizing. I'm debating whether hunger or exhaustion is going to win out, though."
Lee smiled. "Yeah, I figured that part, too. I've got two plates waiting in my office. You can eat and then crash there."
"I was planning on grabbing a shower."
"I do have a bathroom, you know."
"I've gotta get out of this flight suit. And I know you don't have any of my clothes in your room."
"Okay, you've got me there."
Kara laughed. "How about I do my post-flight, go shower, change, and then I'll come over and we can eat?" She couldn't stop the yawn that escaped her mouth at the end of that. Lee looked amused.
"Only if you promise not to fall asleep and stand me up," he said.
"I'll do my very best. I'll see you in about thirty, okay?"
"I'm going to hold you to that."
By the time Kara got out of the shower, she was ranking her mood as an eight on a scale of one to ten. It was probably one of the few times since the attack that she'd gotten above a five.
Opening her locker, she put away her towel, soap, and shampoo. A quick glance around the bunk room told her that everyone else was either asleep or on duty, so she dug through her belongings to find the idols that were hidden at the bottom of her locker.
"Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer," she whispered. "Thank you for the happiness I've been given…and allow me to keep to the path before me. So say I."
Just about the time that Lee was starting to wonder whether or not Kara really had fallen asleep back at her rack, there was a knock on his hatch. "Sorry," she told him as he let her in. "I…had some things I needed to take care of." He shook his head.
"Don't worry about it. The food's still warm…sort of."
"I don't think I'm up to dinner, after all," Kara admitted. "But if your offer to crash here still stands…"
Lee smiled. "You know it does."
"Okay. Then I think sleep sounds good."
"Go ahead. I'll be there in a minute." He watched as she disappeared into his bedroom. Lee put the covered dishes from the mess hall aside and looked over a few last reports before switching off his light and heading in to get some sleep himself.
A smile crossed his face as he left the office and saw that Kara was already asleep, curled up in his bed. He hadn't seen her look that peaceful since…he couldn't even remember the last time she seemed that at ease. He took off the standard off-duty shirts he'd been wearing and climbed into bed beside her with just a pair of PT sweatpants on. Kara rolled over, cuddling up against him. Her arms went around his waist, her head resting on his shoulder.
"G'night," she whispered.
"Night, Kara," he replied, dropping a kiss on the top of her head as he held her close, savoring her warmth. "Sweet dreams."
Thanks for all the reviews; they always make my day. I'll post the epilogue tommorrow probably. I'm playing around with ideas for a sequel; should I do it?