TITLE: See to Believe
AUTHOR: DramaLexy
DISCLAIMER: Not mine
SUMMARY: Post-KLG pt2 short; Adama gets a little insight on what really matters in his life.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm not exactly sure where I got the idea for this, lol, but I was told I should post it, so I am. Hope you like it.
"Daddy, look at me!"
William Adama looked around, trying to figure out where that voice was coming from. Everything around him was white, but his eyes finally settled on a little brown-haired boy in a jumpsuit – Zak.
"I look just like you, don't I, Daddy?"
With his brown hair and deep chocolate eyes, Zak certainly did look like his father. It was almost as though the little boy had stepped straight out of the picture that his father kept on his desk on Galactica.
Galactica! Adama knew he wasn't on his ship, but only upon thinking of it did he begin to wonder where he actually was and how he'd gotten there. He remembered being in the CIC…Lee had been there, too, and he'd been handcuffed. And then he'd gone to speak with Boomer and Racetrack…the memories were coming back now. The sound of the gun, the ice cold feeling that had enveloped him as he stared up at the ceiling of the CIC…
Zak noticed the change of expression on his father's face. "What's the matter, Daddy?" Looking down at the little boy brought new questions. Was he dead? Was this vision of his son here to guide him? Adama put a hand on his shoulder, both to prove to himself that he was real and to reassure the child.
"Nothing," he finally said. "Nothing's wrong…You've got wings and everything, hmm?" Zak looked down at the object pinned to his jumpsuit, then grinned.
"Yup. Colonel Michaels gave them to me. I'm gonna be a Viper pilot, too, someday, just like you." Adama didn't answer; 'just like you' had been a common phrase out of both of his son's mouths when they were young. He'd reveled in it at the time – what more could he want than for them to follow his legacy? – but now he knew better.
"Watch, Daddy," Zak told him before putting his arms out like wings and running in circles around him. After two laps, the little boy disappeared into the white nothingness that surrounded them.
"Zak!" Adama called, trying to follow him, but it was no use – he was gone.
"He always was full of energy," a voice said, and he turned to see a blonde little girl sitting on the ground behind him playing with a doll. He almost didn't recognize her, but then she smiled – he would have known that smile anywhere.
"Kara…" His heart tightened at the thought. Did this mean she was dead on Caprica somewhere?
Her grin, however, widened when he correctly guessed her identity. "Didn't you ever wonder what I was like when I was small?" He had to agree with that, even if the answer wasn't at all what he had expected. He'd never thought she could have been such a stereotypical little princess. Her hair was a good two feet longer than he'd ever known her to wear it, and she actually had on a baby-pink colored shirt.
"When did you outgrow acting like a girl?" Adama asked.
"When I learned that boys could hit back." Crouching beside her, he could see the black eye she was sporting and the purple finger marks on her arm.
"What happened to you, Kara?"
"Doesn't matter now…Zak was lucky. He complained about getting out from your shadow, but he didn't know how good he had it. He could screw up however he wanted, and it didn't matter. At the end of the day, he still had a family that loved him."
"I love you like a daughter. You know that."
"I do…and I know I screw up a lot."
That was perhaps the understatement of the year, especially considering recent events, but it didn't matter. "Yes, you do…but at the end of the day, I'll still love you." She smiled, getting up to wrap her arms around him, and Adama closed his eyes as he held her. Kara had already been broken when he'd met her, and he would have given anything to fix what her past had done to her, but he understood that then she wouldn't be the woman he knew.
"Dad, Dad, I got in!"
Opening his eyes, Adama realized that Kara was gone, but Lee was now before him, waving around a piece of paper. He looked to be about twelve – that was the age where his hair had started to darken.
"Got into what?" Adama asked, wondering if he'd completely lost his mind, or if something else had happened on Galactica. He only remembered the two shots that had hit him – had there been more? He thought that he'd heard Lee's voice above him in the CIC, but everything had been very hazy.
"The Junior Academy," Lee explained, giving his father the paper. "I got in!" The Colonial Academy had run a summer program for students, Adama knew that, but he didn't remember his son ever having applied or gone. "It starts in a month," Lee continued. "Will you still be home?"
Now he remembered. He'd left on a new duty tour two weeks before the program had begun. Lee had been his typical quiet-angry self in the time leading up to it, and Adama had usually let his wife deal with their eldest when he got like that. Now he wondered what kind of irreparable damage he'd done with that decision.
"I'd like to be," he told Lee, wondering if his son would actually believe him. "I really would."
"But you're leaving? How long this time? Nine weeks? Seven months?"
"Lee – "
"It's fine," he said, turning away. "Mom and Zak will go with me."
"Lee!" But he'd disappeared as well.
There was nothing but white and silence. Adama walked for a while, but his surroundings never changed – he could have been going around in circles for all he knew. "Don't be scared," he heard someone say. A little girl with long brown hair and blue eyes appeared out of the void, but he didn't recognize her.
"Who are you?"
"You don't know me yet. But you will, Grandpa."
"G-Grandpa?"
She nodded, taking his hand. "You had to see what was really important to you. Don't forget, okay?"
"Wait, I don't understand."
A smile crossed her face. "I know. But you will."
"What-what's your name? When…?"
"You'll be there to see me...It's almost time now."
"Time?"
"For you to go back. Somebody's gotta keep Mommy out of trouble; Daddy can't do it by himself." She started to fade from his vision, only this time, he was the one that was disappearing. The child blew him a kiss before darkness washed over.
Adama opened his eyes, and almost immediately closed them again against the bright lights that were shining down in his face. Squinting, he realized that he recognized the lights – the ceiling of the Life Station. He tried to talk, to move, but was quickly reminded of WHY he was in the Life Station as his injuries protested.
He must have made some sound, though, because two faces quickly came into his field of view – Kara and Lee. Relief washed over as he saw that they were both all right.
"Dad?" Lee asked.
"I'll go get the Doc," Kara told her best friend, stepping away. Lee smiled at his father.
"Hey, Dad, I bet you feel like crap – you've been out for more than a week. You're going to be okay, though. You're going to be fine." Adama now understood the little girl – his granddaughter's – message, and for a fleeting moment, he allowed himself to hope that he really had somehow gotten a glimpse of their future.
"Well, it's about time you woke up," Cottle said as he came over. "These two," Kara and Lee, "Have been driving me crazy."
"Nah, I was way more annoying as a patient," Kara shot back with a laugh. It hurt like hell, but Adama reached to take his son and 'daughter's hands. He didn't know what he would do without them, and didn't ever want to have to find out.
FIN
