Chapter 7
Kara brought the viper to a rather shuddering halt on the deck. It wasn't her greatest landing, but what could they expect when she was so tired she could hardly see straight and her hands wouldn't stop shaking. She didn't even have the energy to climb out of the cockpit, but sat there in a kind of daze, just staring at the busy deck in front of her. The Cylons had found them again about a month ago. The defeats they had inflicted on their enemy at the tyllium asteroid and Kobol seemed to have speared them into an even more aggressive attempt to finally wipe out what was left of the human race. It didn't seem to matter where they jumped to, anything from a raider recon patrol to a full base star seemed to turn up within a day or two, sometimes less than hours. The crew of Galactica were finding this unpredictability almost as hard to deal with as when they had been turning up every 33 minutes. At least then it was possible to plan and get some rest, even for a short period; now they had to spend the whole time on alert. The last few weeks had passed in a haze of stims and sleep deprivation. Each time she went out on CAP Kara didn't know whether it would just be routine or whether her luck would finally run out and she would be blown out of the sky, and it was playing havoc with her nerves. They were down to 25 ships now and still not enough pilots to fly them. The CAG had instigated larger and longer patrols to try and keep the fleet protected, but sometimes it felt like throwing water droplets at a huge oil fire, but they kept on because there was no one else and there seemed no other option if the human race was going to survive.
"Sir! Sir! Are you OK?" She finally registered that her helmet was off and the deck hands needed her to get out of the plane.
"Yeah, I'm fine." She wasn't really. She knew she had to report to sick bay and she wasn't entirely confident she could bluff her way through the exam. Since this latest attempt by the Cylons to eradicate what was left of the human race had begun, Lee had introduced a requirement for all pilots who did 10 or more shifts for 2 weeks running to be checked out by sick bay before they were allowed to fly again. Kara had managed to avoid it so far by doing 9 shifts in the second week, but this time she had been caught out by a pair of Cylon raiders, which meant that she had pulled a double shift and crossed over the magic 10. She thought about just ignoring the ruling, but then that would get her a visit from the CAG, something she was avoiding at all costs at the moment: even a trip to sickbay was better than facing Lee. They had hardly exchanged two words outside the pilot's briefing room since that night in his office. Lee seemed to be avoiding her just as much as she was avoiding him; from embarrassment or disgust she couldn't tell. He just seemed to look right through her whenever she saw him. Everyone knew that something was very wrong between them, but they had largely ignored it in the frantic activity of the last few weeks. Even their closest friends were choosing to ignore the fact that the CAG and his senior pilot couldn't actually stand to be in the same room together for more than a few minutes. The other reason why their friends may have been backing off is that neither of their tempers was exactly predictable at the moment. Kara would have had the obligatory trip to the brig the other evening if Helo hadn't managed to stop her from trying to take down about three of the deck crew in one go. Even the commander seemed to have picked up on it. Kara hadn't seen him very much since the Cylon attacks had begun again, but every time she did he seemed to give her a long searching look that she thought held a hint of sadness and exasperation.
If truth be known she desperately wanted to make it right with Lee, but she just didn't know how, and frankly, after the events of that night in his office, she thought he should really be the one to make the first move. Yet she missed him so much; missed their joking, the flying rivalry and just his presence along side her on her morning run. Deep down she also knew that they could really have something together if they could only stop frakking up their relationship at every turn. That one time together, however wrong and almost brutal it may have been, had shown her the type of feelings he could generate in her and that was something she wanted to experience again.
She heaved a sigh, sniffed back the tears that threatened to fall and started on the trek to sickbay.
−
"Ah, Lieutenant Thrace, I was wondering how long you'd be able to avoid the Captain's latest dictate." Major Cottle took a long, satisfying drag on his cigarette and stubbed it out in the ever present and overflowing ashtray in his treatment area. Where he kept getting them from the Lords only knew; the man obviously had a huge secret stash somewhere.
"Can we just get this over with? I'd really like to sleep before I have to get back in a plane!"
"Well that rather depends on what we find, doesn't it! Chart says you've clocked up 94 flying hours this week. That's way more than any one else, even those doing more than 10 shifts."
"Yeah, well they're not trying to teach idiots too young to wipe their own asses how to fly a viper without a simulator…sir," she added belatedly.
"OK, OK, calm down Starbuck!" He shined a light in her eyes, "blood shot as hell but otherwise OK," then moved on to test her reflexes and a couple of reaction time tests with which he seemed satisfied. "Give me you arm. I need to take some blood and I also want you to pee in this cup. After that why don't you try and get some shut eye on one of the spare beds while the tests are done."
"Sure, though how the Lords you expect me to even squeeze out a drop when I've been sweating in a viper for the last eight hours I haven't a clue."
"Drink this and think of Caprica," he said, handing her a bottle of water. She was the last person he should have made that lame joke to, but she chose to ignore it and took the bottle from him with a sigh of resignation.
Her sample provided, Kara lay down on one of the sick bay beds and dozed. She must have fallen asleep at some point because the next thing she knew Cottle was shaking her awake. Instead of just giving her the OK he led her into his private office. He didn't even have the perpetual cigarette hanging out of his mouth and looked very grim.
"Oh shit, this must be bad" she thought. She knew that she hadn't drunk or smoked anything that she shouldn't have; she seriously doubted whether there was any shit worth the name left on the Galactica and she would never take the risk when she was flying. She looked hesitantly at Cottle. He wasted no time in coming to the point.
"Lieutenant, did you know you were pregnant?"
"What? You've got to be frakking kidding me! This is a wind up, right? Its some kind of sick joke you've cooked up with Lee to get me out a plane for a while?" Oh Gods, Lee…
"No I'm afraid not, Kara," the doctor regarded her solemnly.
"Come on doc, there's been some mistake with the test," she said, the desperation showing in her voice.
"I'm sorry, Lieutenant but there is no mistake. You're definitely pregnant and frankly I would have expected you to have been more careful. If you needed contraception you should have come to me. You of all people shouldn't be getting pregnant after the radiation exposure you received on Caprica."
Oh Lords, she had frakked up royally this time.
"I can't be pregnant, doc, I just can't be. Oh what a frakking mess!" She put her head in her hands as she tried to take in what he was telling her. "What am I going to do?" She looked up at him, her eyes pooling with unshed tears.
"Nothing, at least for the time being. You're grounded. I want you to rest for at least the next few days and then I might OK you for shuttles and raptors, but no vipers until after the baby is born. The G-forces involved are just too dangerous in pregnancy."
After the baby was born! She was going to have a baby, Lee's baby. Her mind wasn't really working at all, but this fact seemed to leap out at her, along with the fact that the baby might be damaged by the radiation. She looked at Cottle helplessly.
"What if the baby isn't….isn't right, from the radiation, I mean. When will you be able to tell?"
"You're only about 6 weeks at the moment. Give it another couple of weeks and we'll be able to do some tests to see if there is any DNA damage." She nodded.
Major Cottle wasn't a very demonstrative man; you couldn't be in his job, but he genuinely liked Kara Thrace and he didn't like to see her so obviously devastated by the news he had just given her. He took her hand and went on quietly.
"You know that the president has ratified a law preventing any terminations unless considered medically necessary? Well I think that in these circumstances it would qualify as a medical necessity." Kara took a deep breath. He was offering her a way out. Half her mind screamed out to take it. It was the easy way out of her situation, but then she had never been one to take the easy way out. The last thing she wanted to do right now was have a baby, but in her heart she wasn't sure that she could just take up Cottle's offer without thinking it through thoroughly.
She also needed to talk to Lee desperately, but was unsure how he would react to the fact that their frantic sex in his office meant that he might become a father. That was going to be a great conversation: "Hey Lee, you know that quick, hard frak you gave me? Well guess what, we're going to get some long, slow payback for the rest of out lives!"
"Thanks for the offer, doc, but let's cross that bridge when we come to it. I need to think about it some more. If you tell me in a couple of weeks that the baby is …is too damaged to survive well then things might be very different. Right now I can't really take in all you're telling me." He nodded as she went on.
"I suppose you'll have to report this?"
"Yes, to the CAG immediately and the Commander by the end of the week."
That was all she needed. Right now all she wanted to do was crawl in her rack and wake up in the morning to find that this whole conversation with Cottle had just been a bad dream. Instead she was going to have to face Lee: the last thing she wanted was for him to read this piece of information in a report!
"Can you give me till the morning before the report goes to Captain Adama? I want to tell the CAG myself."
"Of course," replied major Cottle, who had a pretty good idea why, having observed them with each other in sickbay with rather alarming frequency over the last few months. He didn't voice his suspicion to Kara: she already looked enough like a train wreck without him adding to it by implying that he knew something was going on between her and her CO.
−
Lee was finishing up the days paperwork when there was a discrete knock at his office door. "Come in," he shouted and was surprised to see Kara coming through the hatch. She closed it carefully behind her and turned to face him. She was as white as a sheet and if he didn't know better he would say that she was trembling. He wasn't surprised; she was probably remembering what had happened the last time that she had been in this room. Lee himself couldn't think of it without being completely disgusted with himself for treating her so badly. He just had no idea how to make it better between them, especially when she seemed to do her best to avoid him, so in true Adama fashion he just ignored the emotional turmoil between them and carried on stoically with his job. Something must be very wrong to bring Kara here, or maybe, he thought hopefully, she just thought that it was time to clear the air between them. He dearly hoped that it was the latter and that she would give him the entrée he needed to beg her forgiveness.
She cleared her throat. "Can I speak to you on a private matter, sir?" Definitely something very wrong. She wouldn't look him in the eye, but was focusing on a spot on the wall behind his desk. His hopes of a rapprochement faded as quickly as they had come.
"Of course, Lieutenant," he followed her lead on maintaining formality "go ahead."
"Major Cottle has grounded me, sir."
Lee took a moment to assimilate this information. He may have found her a difficult member of his team but he could never fault her commitment to her job. The squadron would miss her, even for the shortest period.
"Really Lieutenant? I can't say that I'm surprised. You always did do more than your fair share of shifts and if you don't mind me saying so, you look like hell. How long does he think you'll be out of the cockpit?"
"Doc recons a couple of days before I can go back to shuttles or raptors." He frowned, obviously trying to understand why she couldn't go back to vipers.
"What about vipers?"
Kara finally shifted her gaze to Lee. What he saw there made his heart constrict. Her eyes were swimming with tears and there was a look of utter desolation in her eyes. She took a deep breath, gulped and then still holding his gaze said,
"I'm pregnant, Lee."
There was a silence in the tiny office as the Captain stared at his Lieutenant.
"Oh"
"Oh! Oh! Is that all you can say?" Kara's uncertainty had turned rapidly to anger. "I'm pregnant with your child, a child that shows we broke every fraternization rule in the book, a child that may be damaged from cylon radiation because its mother should never have even thought about having unprotected sex after going to Caprica, and all you can say is Oh!"
"Wait a minute, how was I supposed to know that its mine, if it is." The moment he said it he knew that the words had come out all wrong. Her hand came out of nowhere. Usually Kara punched but this time a resounding slap stung across Lee's cheek making his eyes smart and leaving a reddening mark. He knew he deserved it for such a crass remark.
"You bastard. I thought you couldn't make me feel any cheaper than you did that night, but I see I was wrong. For your information, Captain," she almost spat his title "I've only slept with two men on this ship. Baltar, as you know, once and once only several months ago and you in this very room 6 weeks ago. Doc says that I'm 6 weeks pregnant; you do the math. If that's not good enough for you, I'm sure a simple DNA test will settle the matter."
She swung at him again. He was more ready the second time and grabbed her hand before it could connect with his face. A sob escaped her and the fragile control she had been maintaining gave way. Lee didn't think twice and pulled her into his arms.
"I'm sorry Kara, I'm so sorry," he whispered as she sobbed into his shoulder, great body-wracking sobs that tore at his heart and finally opened the flood gates on his pent up emotions. "I didn't mean it; I never meant any of it. I know you don't sleep around any more, but I was so frakking jealous and hurt, thinking of you with that upstart little twerp, that I wouldn't listen to your apologies. I'm such an emotionally-stunted frakwit that I just ended up hurting us both more and not knowing how to make it right. Tell me there's still a chance I can make it right, please, please tell me Kara." She raised her head from his shoulder.
"Is it possible to make this right? Not us, I mean this whole situation. Both of our careers are screwed: I'm pregnant and grounded and you're going to get charged for getting a subordinate into that condition. It doesn't get much worse than this, Lee. Oh, unless we consider that I may have condemned our child to some horrible disease or disfigurement by going on that frak-forsaken mission to Caprica."
"Right now I don't care much about my career, what there's left of it. What I care about is whether there is a chance that you'll ever forgive me for what I've said and done to you over the past months. I've been mad Kara; I don't know why, may be its some inner demon that says your still Zac's girl and I should just get over my feelings for you. All I know is that I didn't want to need you the way that I do, so I've fought against it. I should have known better; we always did face every adversity so much better if we did it together. Before it was just a test at the academy or a particularly difficult mission, now it seems to be a whole god-damned life-changing event every day."
He had finally said that he needed her, had feelings for her. Kara didn't know whether it was a conscious confession or not. Even at this moment, when her whole world was in such turmoil it made her feel better. She looked at him for a long moment, holding the gaze of the bright blue eyes looking beseechingly at her. She found those eyes so impossible to resist.
"All those things you said, they really hurt me Lee," she said quietly. He nodded sadly, acknowledging the hurt he had caused her as she went on, "but they didn't really change how I feel about you."
"Which is how?" His hopes began to rise that they could overcome the frakked up mess they had made of their relationship.
"I'm really not too sure yet. All I do know is that I want to be with you. I miss you so much when we're not talking. You make me…better." He sighed in relief, but he had to get everything cleared up between them or they would never get through this together. He raised the subject that had been haunting his waking hours and disturbing his sleep since that fateful night.
"And what about the things I did to you Kara. Isn't that worse than just words? All I've been able to think about since that night is you pleading with me to stop. I was so damned angry and out of control it just made me more aggressive rather than the opposite. I've never been so ashamed of anything so much in my life. And now it's even worse! Can you ever forgive that? Can you forgive the fact that this baby was conceived in that way?
"There is nothing to forgive. I don't remember pleading; just wishing our first time could be a little more romantic than a frantic grope on your desk."
"You're more forgiving than I can be of myself. My gods, I practically raped you," she grabbed his jaw and made him look at her.
"No Lee, you're not to think in that way; it was never even remotely rape. Did you really think you could get the better of me that easily? You're not that strong, Adama! I could have stopped you if I'd really wanted to, but I wanted it just as much as you did." He smiled slightly in relief and grabbed her in a tight hug.
"Oh Gods, I know I don't deserve your forgiveness, but thanks, you can't know what it means to me to hear you say that. And by the way, I feel just the same; I've been so miserable without you." He stroked her cheek with a gentle finger.
"Me too. I thought I'd lost your respect as well as your friendship. I need to know that I still have it, Lee."
"You never lost either. You know I've never really been much good at dealing with emotions; they always seem to make me say and do the wrong things so I always figured I was just better ignoring them." He kissed her gently, trying to convey all he felt without the words that were so difficult for him. He sat down on the chair at his desk and pulled her onto his lap. They just sat there in silence, arms wrapped around each other, absorbing each others presence and letting the angst and hurts of the past months ebb away. Kara felt she could stay that way forever, but they had yet to resolve how to deal with the matter at hand.
"Lee, what are we going to do?"
"I don't know. We've really frakked up this time haven't we?"
"Yup, well and truly!" He raised his head and looked at her hesitantly.
"If you want, I could appeal to my dad that yours is a special case and get him to sanction a termination."
"Major Cottle already offered me that option; I just don't think I can do it unless the radiation damage is really bad. I wasn't raised that way and all that's happened over the last months has made me appreciate even more just how precious human life is; even one we didn't plan to exist."
"Yeah, I know what you mean." He took several deep breaths. This was just too much for him to take in right now, but he needed to make sure that Kara understood that he would be there for her.
"I want you to know, that I'll support you in whatever decision you make. If…if you want to keep the baby then I'll be there 100 of the way. If not, then I'll be there for you through that too."
She lent her forehead against his. "That's what best friends are for, right?"
"I think that I'm more than a friend in this, Kara. I've…. I've wanted to be more than a friend to you for quite a while now. I just wish it was in slightly different circumstances."
"Well, if it has taken this to get us to really face up to our feelings then at least something good has already come out of it. I wouldn't just take a decision and be done with it, Lee. It's your child too."
He looked at her "Well, if it makes it any easier, I'm completely with you. I wouldn't want to just get rid of it because it wasn't convenient, but things would be different if there was medical reason."
"That's good. I'm just concerned that the Commander might make me do it, given the situation we're in and the need for trained pilots. The last thing we need right now is for me to be out of a cockpit for 9 months."
"No, he would never do something like that. I'm not saying he's gone soft or anything, but I think that he had a bit of an epiphany when he got shot and realised that perhaps family and relationships were at least as, if not more, important than work! I think we can trust him to support us, although I'm not sure what he's going to do about the fraternisation. I know that they are thinking of changing the rules but I think he was hoping for a less, er, high profile test case that didn't involve his own son!"
"I don't blame him!"
"But let's face it, in comparison with our previous records of mutiny and going AWOL this is pretty mild, and here we are still flying. Well I am anyway!" she cuffed him on the shoulder.
"That was a low blow, Lee and not even remotely funny."
"Sorry," he grinned sheepishly as he hugged her in apology.
"You do realise that my Dad's such an old fashioned old sod that he will expect me to do the decent thing and marry you." She looked at him in surprise and trepidation.
"I'm not sure that I'm ready for that just yet, Lee. I need to know that we can be more than just friends, and that we can maintain a relationship for more than two minutes without trying to kill each other, before I could even think about such a commitment. Besides, we also need to know whether there's really going to be a baby; you know, whether it's healthy. I can't really focus on anything beyond that right now." He nodded, knowing that she was right and realising how careful he was going to have to be with her to ensure that they moved from just friends to a couple.
"Well, we'll just have to deal with that when it comes."
"When shall we tell him? The docs report will be with him the day after tomorrow."
"I think I should do this alone," she started to protest "no, Kara, we're….we're getting on so much better now, perhaps better than we ever did even before Zac died, so I think we can talk about it like two sensible adults. Anyway in the first instance this is a military discipline matter and I need to deal with it as such."
"OK, I bow to your command, oh leader!"
"Well that's a first!" He kissed her quickly and hugged her again. He was sure that the enormity of their situation would hit him soon, that there would soon be extreme tests of their fragile new relationship, but right now he felt almost light-hearted that they were together again.
