"Kara? Are you in here?"
It was Lee, standing in the hatchway, a black blob against the too-bright lights of the hallway. It figured it would be Lee; everyone else knew better than to bother me when I very clearly didn't want to be bothered. Lee's pretty smart, but sometimes he can be a real slow learner.
I thought about ignoring him until he went away, but he must have known I was there because he came in anyway, shutting the hatch behind him. Since ignoring wasn't working, I decided to try anger. "What do you want?"
"I wanted to see how you were doing. Boomer mentioned that something was up..." Note to self: kill Sharon. But it might be best to save that for later when the room stopped spinning quite so much because Sharon's a lot stronger than she looks and I'm not particularly fond of getting my ass kicked.
"I'm doing just great, thanks for asking. Bye."
"Are you drunk?" Lee asked incredulously. He switched on the lights (ow, bright) and came to stand by my rack, taking in the bottle of ambrosia (three-quarters of the way empty; when had that happened?) and the fact that I probably looked like crap. "Where did you get that?" he demanded.
"I won it off Baltar. Some of the other ships are better stocked than we are, and he has a lot of fans." And then, while I was distracted with the effort of forming sentences, Lee grabbed the bottle out of my hand. "Hey, give it back!"
"You've had enough," Lee said, all morally superior like he never drank or smoked or did anything wrong, which I, at least, knew wasn't true. He's no angel, he's just a lot more subtle about his vices than me.
"I have the day off. If I want to spend it drinking, that's my problem."
"And it's my problem to make sure my best pilot doesn't drink a whole bottle of ambrosia and fall out an airlock." I stored the flattery away for future use, but it didn't stop me being pissed off.
"You can't fall out of an airlock." I grabbed for the bottle, but he pulled it away and I couldn't convince my body that it was worth the effort of getting up to reach it.
"That's besides the point," Lee said with a grin (reveling in my misery, as usual), but then he turned serious all of a sudden. "What's wrong, Kara? I know you wouldn't get this drunk for no reason, especially when you know this is probably one of the last bottles of ambrosia in existence." He tried to smile, like maybe that would get me to open up. Lee might know me too damn well not realize that something was wrong, but he should have known I wasn't nearly drunk enough to spill my guts to him.
"I was afraid that if I didn't finish it Tigh might steal what was left out of my locker. I'll bet he's getting pretty desperate for a drink." I smirked at Lee, and he rewarded me with one of those oh-for-gods'-sakes-Kara looks he was so good at.
"Well, that makes perfect sense," he said, heavily sarcastic. "Now tell me what's really going on or I'll drop it." He held the bottle up, high enough that if he let go it would shatter and spill its precious contents all over the floor instead of into my mouth where it belonged.
"Nothing's going on. Give it back, Lee." Verbal sparring with Lee is all well and good, but I wanted to get my drink back and be left alone already.
"Once more, with feeling," he tossed back. Was that bastard actually enjoying this? Oh, he would pay, once I was feeling better and had taken care of Sharon.
"Nothing's going on. Now give me the fracking bottle back."
Lee lowered his outstretched arm, but he didn't come any closer, and moving still seemed to not be an option. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, looking guilty, and I almost felt bad except that he deserved it. "I'm just trying to help, but I can't if you won't tell me what's wrong."
"What's wrong is that you won't give me my ambrosia back." That's all I'd meant to say, but my mouth seemed to have disconnected from my brain and continued speaking of its own accord. "What's wrong is that billions of people on the Colonies and three-quarters of our pilots and half the deck crew all died in the space of a day. What's wrong is that we had to blow up a ship full of civilians, and people just keep dying. Don't you ever want to get so drunk you forget all that?"
Lee was looking at me, all thoughtful, and I couldn't believe I'd said all that. He glanced at the bottle, then back at me. "There's not enough ambrosia in the fleet for that." He gave a small, rueful laugh. "I doubt there was enough in all the Colonies."
"It can't hurt to try." I obviously hadn't managed to forget, but at least right now the most pressing issue, getting my drink back, had nothing to do with the survival of the human race.
He seemed to be considering, and knowing Lee I thought he might consider for so long it would be time for me to go back to work and I wouldn't be able to drink anymore, but then he stepped forward, handed me the bottle and sat down next to me. "Does it help?" he asked.
He sounded a little sad, and I realized that this must be as hard for him as it was for me, harder even because he was Lee and he was incapable of not dwelling on things. He was my friend, more or less, and I didn't want him to be unhappy. Sometimes sacrifices needed to be made in the name of friendship. I turned and offered him the bottle.
"Care to try?"