WARNING: SPOILERS! This story references spoilers leaked for episode 213!
"Lee has so much inside him that we only get glimpses of. He's having to suppress a lot….It's interesting to let that go and find out who he really is." Jamie Bamber on the character of Lee Adama.
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SECRETS Chapter Two
Lying in her rack days later, Kara couldn't recall walking through the luxurious facilities on Cloud Nine to arrive at its spacious bar. She couldn't remember sitting down with Racetrack, Hummer, and Castoff, or which of them had ordered her first drink. She couldn't remember what song was loudly playing in the background.
She remembered only the painful, hard ache within her that made breathing difficult. And a single thought.
To hell with you, Lee Adama.
A quiet inner voice whispered that she had no right to feel so angry with him. That he had done nothing wrong. That she was being completely irrational.
But then the memory of his standing so close to the woman--the Mystery Bitch, as Kara immediately, savagely dubbed her--flooded back, and her own panicked jealousy caused her to shove rationality away, and fiercely embrace the anger.
To hell with you, Lee Adama.
With the anger, she could stay in control. In charge. If she let that go, she might drown in the shadowy, far more frightening emotions stalking her. Jealousy. Loss. A sickening sense of abandonment.
So she nursed her anger as the hours passed, and Lee never came.
To hell with you, Lee Adama.
To hell with you for walking away from me.
To hell with you for blowing me off tonight.
To hell with you for turning me into someone so frakin' pathetic and needy.
To hell with you for making me care for you so Godsdamn much.
An outsider watching Kara at the bar that evening would never have guessed any of this. For Kara Thrace drank the hardest and laughed the loudest of their group for the next three hours. She told racy jokes. She related scathing stories about Col. Tigh. And she flirted shamelessly with Hummer, leaning into him suggestively, letting her hand rest on his leg when he reached over her to refill her drink.
Only Racetrack seemed to suspect that something dark was seething within Kara, and couldn't resist a dig. With her eyes on Kara, she wondered out loud what was keeping their long overdue CAG. "What do you think, Starbuck? Did he hit it off with thatblonde, maybe?"
Bitch, thought Kara. But she merely smiled coldly at Racetrack, who snickered into her drink.
But after three endless hours, Kara was exhausted from the pretense of having a glorious time. Alone at the table for a moment, she dropped her head and put a hand to her forehead, suddenly aware of a pounding headache.
And when she looked up, Lee had finally come.
He had sunk into the chair across from her, rubbed both hands through his hair wearily, then raised his eyes to meet hers. There was an expression on his face that she hadn't expected. He seemed stricken, confused, oddly beseeching. I need you, his eyes seemed to say to her.
"Kara" he said, his voice barely reaching her over the noise in the bar. He reached a hand toward her over the table. "Kara, can I…"
"I'm back. Did you miss me?" Hummer's drunken slur shattered the moment as he slid into the seat next to Kara. Lee's hand was off the table in an instant, all hint of vulnerability gone from his face. His eyes narrowed slightly as Hummer shifted his chair a little closer to Starbuck's, and offered her a cigar. "Just got it from the bartender," he crowed as he lit it for her.
The music ended, and Racetrack and Castoff breathlessly rejoined them from the dance floor.
"Captain! Where've you been?" Castoff bellowed.
Lee shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "Oh, sorry," he murmered vaguely. "I was asked for help by, um …someone."
The weak excuse dangled there for a moment.
"That's it?" snorted Castoff derisively. "Yeah, right. Well, thanks to Racetrack here, we have a little more info that you're not sharing. We happen to know that "someone" was a beautiful blonde. Now, if I had a gorgeous woman ask me for help, I think I'd take three hours helping her also, wouldn't you, Hummer?"
"You got that right," Hummer nodded. Then he leaned forward conspiratorially towards Lee, who was staring down at his own clenched hands on the table. "So, Captain, tell us. How many times did you 'help' her? Did you do it once?" He leered. "Twice? Maybe three times? And does she need either of us to 'help' her too?" Hummer smirked, and Castoff laughed and high-fived him.
"You got it all wrong, boys." Kara said suddenly. She was slouched in her seat, arms folded tightly across her chest. Any shred of empathy she had felt with Lee's first vulnerable look had vanished with the pilots' banter, and the images they had conjured up.
Now she was as cruelly mocking as only Starbuck could be.
"See, boys, I know Apollo better than you do. And he's far too much of the perfect gentleman to give into those kinds of urges. He's so superior to us mere mortals, you see. Keeps a tight check on all those emotions that the rest of us indulge in. Isn't that right, Captain?"
Lee had looked up sharply at the "perfect gentleman" comment. He gave a quick intake of breath, as if she had slapped him.
She picked up her cigar again, inhaled deeply, and insolently blew a ring of smoke toward him. Through the gray haze she saw his eyes register surprise and hurt at her biting tone. Then they narrowed. He grew still and cold, staring at her. His best friend.
She didn't care. She was cresting on her anger now, riding the wave. And somewhere in the back in her mind she was remembering another bitter exchange between them. Lee's voice echoed in her memory…A pilot who can't keep her pants on.
"No quick fraks for our CAG. Gods forbid!" She laughed. "Wouldn't be proper. And Apollo always does the right thing."
She affected a mock note of concern, now. "Makes it tough for you, I bet? Getting a little repressed, huh? Probably been a while? Afraid of losing your touch?" She blew another ring of smoke toward him, her eyes icy. "I'd hate to see the great CAG having to resort to a date with his right hand."
The two male pilots by now were laughing loudly, enjoying the familiar—but always welcome—diversion of Starbuck razzing a fellow pilot. Neither seemed aware of Lee's cold tension, or the edgy anger underlying Kara's mocking insults.
"Tell me, Apollo." Kara continued inexorably, crudely. "Do you avoid frakin' anyone because that stick up your ass keeps you from it? Or do you keep your pants on to cover up certain, shall we say, inadequacies? Which is it?"
Racetrack ,who had been glancing at both of them, now leapt in. "Lay off the CAG, will you, Starbuck? Gods, you get bitchy when you drink. Hummer, pour the Captain some ambrosia."
Hummer obeyed, still chuckling, and the conversation among the other three turned to the pleasures to be found on Cloud Nine. Kara and Lee, meanwhile, stayed locked in a cold stare-down, as the conversation ebbed and flowed about them. Hummer murmured something about enjoying seeing the civilian women on Cloud Nine, which earned a snort from Racetrack. Castoff toasted the superiority of the bar's drinks to the "watered down piss" on the Galactica.
Then Racetrack said, "Well, I like Cloud Nine because you get to see actual families. And little kids. Like the one you were with earlier, Apollo." Lee's eyes registered surprise, as he shot a glance at Racetrack. His face tightened.
"There's no families on Galactica, you know?" Racetrack mused. "And seeing kids, seeing families…It just feels more normal, somehow. Feels kind of like home. "
While the others murmured appreciatively, Castoff cocked an eyebrow mischievously at Kara. "What about you, Starbuck? Do you go all soft and squishy over children, too?
Kara had a sudden, sickening memory. Simon, the Cylon doctor, probing mercilessly into her wounds.
Did someone break your fingers, Kara?
Children of abusive parents often fear passing along that abuse to their own children…
Potential mothers are a lot more valuable right now than viper pilots…
A cold wave of fear and shame washed over her. She licked her lips, and attempted a flippant remark. "Me? I hate kids. And I sure as hell hope I never have any."
The words didn't sound flippant at all. They were cold, hard. She glanced at Lee.
But Lee had clearly had enough, and had abruptly stood up. "It's late," he said, sounding businesslike. "I'm heading back to Galactica. And since all three of you are on duty in—he checked his watch--six and a half hours, I'd suggest that you follow me pretty soon." His eyes flickered past Kara dismissively. Then he was gone.
To hell with you, Lee Adama.
But the words rang hollow to her now. Her cruel mockery had dissipated her anger against Lee. Emptied of it, she now was simply exhausted, remorseful, and feeling the beginnings of what was going to be one massive hangover.
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The hangover was her penance the next day. As she flew an uneventful CAP, worked on her Viper, and instructed the nuggets, she let each throb and ache remind her of the uncomfortable truth.
She had been a complete bitch to her best friend.
This, despite the look he had first given her, the way he had reached out to her, asking her for something—she still had no idea what. But without bothering to find out, she had torn into him, mocked him mercilessly, drenched him with every ounce of her icy anger.
Self-reflection was not Kara's strong suit. But that day she struggled to understand the reason for her cold fury with Lee. She fumbled to only an imperfect awareness. Something about feeling alone. A fear of losing him. A fear of needing him.
But now, on this long sleepless night, with Lee having been gone for three days, it came to her.
She had regarded Lee as hers. She had taken his constant, steady companionship for granted since the Attack. He would always be there for her, she had believed. Supporting her. Watching her back. Laughing with her. Yelling at her. Kicking her butt when necessary. Encouraging her to talk. Forgiving her outbursts. Waiting until she got her shit together.
Just …there. For her.
But seeing Lee's absorption in the 'Mystery Bitch,' Kara got a childish pleasure again from the phrase—and the child--had rattled this faith.
Maybe he wasn't hers. Maybe he never had been. Maybe he just spent time with her out of necessity, because there was literally no one else left for him.
Maybe she, Kara, had no one.
She didn't understand all this yet, the day after her mean-spirited mockery at the bar. But she knew she desperately needed to see him. Not to explain anything. Hell, she couldn't explain it to herself. But to say she was sorry for the pain she had caused him. She wanted him to forgive her. She wanted them to laugh again. She needed to regain their easy, warm camaraderie.
So she waited. Knowing that Lee, being Lee, would come looking for her, driven himself to confront the problem between them.
But he didn't come. In fact, he studiously avoided being alone with her all day, never even sparing her a glance during his daily pilots' briefing.
Hours after her shift had ended, after playing countless Triad hands in the raucous rec room, carefully facing the door so she could spot him coming, she gave up on him finding her. Throwing in her hopes along with her cards, she excused herself and left for her rack.
And there, finally, she found him.
He was sitting alone at the table in the deserted, dimly lighted, officers' duty locker. She softly closed the hatch behind her, and gathered her courage.
"Lee?" He didn't turn. "Lee, I wanted to say that I'm sorry for…," she paused, "…for being such a bitch yesterday."
Still no answer. "I was… drunk," she offered feebly. Not much of an excuse, she knew, but it was the best she was going to do.
Still no answer. She took a few steps closer, and noticed a nearly empty bottle in front of him, and a glass. She had seen Lee drink before, of course. But she had never, ever seen him drunk. He didn't do that, he had told her once in response to her teasing. Because getting drunk meant losing control, and Lee always wanted—needed—to stay in control.
She tried again, "Lee, are you…?"
"Apology accepted." Lee's voice cut through the air coldly. "Now get the frak out."
Kara felt an automatic spark of anger at his tone, but took a deep breath, and shook her head. "No."
"What?"
"I'm not leaving."
Lee gave a hard laugh. "Be careful, Starbuck. 'Cause I'm drunk, now." His words were faintly slurred. "And I can use the same sorry ass excuse to say some things to you."
Kara sighed and closed her eyes. "Maybe I deserve them. So, go ahead."
He didn't respond, merely picked up his glass, drained it, then refilled it with a shaking hand.
Kara tried again. "Lee, you're scaring me, here. What happened yesterday?" She flushed a little. "Before you got to the bar, I mean? Do you want to talk about it?"
Then finally he looked straight at her, and her eyes widened a bit at his face. It looked ravaged, with grief, sadness, regret, and now, anger. "Talk?" he spit out contemptuously, and his voice rose with each sentence. "You want us to talk? Since when do you and I talk, Kara? We work together. We have a few laughs together, yeah. But we don't talk. We never talk. So cut the CRAP and get out of here."
She took an involuntary step back at his anger, drew her breath, but didn't leave the room.
A long silence, then Lee shook his head. "Fine. I'll leave," and he shoved his chair back savagely and got up. But before he could gather up his glass and bottle, Kara had grabbed his right arm. "Lee." He almost pulled away. "Lee!" she said again. "Please?"
Perhaps it was the 'please' that did it. Lee looked down, closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths.
"It's just that…" he stopped, struggling with words and what seemed like a profound sense of self-loathing, then began again. "It's... it's all too late now. It's too frakkin' late, because everything's gone—our past, our lives, the people we knew. Wiped out, like they never even existed. But there were so many things…Kara, things I didn't do. Things I should have done. There were people I let down. People I hurt." He shook his head, his voice bleak. "And there's absolutely nothing I can do about it now. They're all dead. But I just wish…" His eyes had tears in them now. "I wish I could tell them…I wish I could tell her ...that, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry…" His voice broke.
Kara was silent for a few moments, desperately trying to fill in the gaps of Lee's confession. Who was the 'her' he referred to? Not the Mystery Bitch evidently, for she had certainly been alive and well yesterday. And what had he done to create this remorse? Her mind spinning, not sure what to say next, she realized she had hesitated too long. Lee was pulling away from her.
"Never mind," he said, cold once more. "Like I said, we don't do this."
"No!" Kara stepped in front of him again. "Look at me, Lee. Lee!" She grabbed his shoulders, forcing him to look into her eyes. "You're right. The people we've loved--they are all dead. And there's not a damn thing that you or I can do to bring anyone back." She was talking more fiercely now. "All we can do, is whisper our 'I'm sorry's to the universe, and hope it's heard by their souls…" She drew a sharp breath, stabbed by a thought of Zak. "…or by the Gods."
Lee was staring at her intently, his face only inches away.
"But you're alive, Lee," Kara continued passionately. "We're alive. That's what you focus on. You focus on the Now. The people here on this ship, in this fleet. That may be all we have now, but it's a hell of a lot."
Lee nodded slowly, the words penetrating. She suddenly become aware of how close his mouth was. His lips were parted, and his breathing labored, as he struggled to control his emotions. She could feel his shoulders trembling under her hands. His extraordinary blue eyes, still looking lost and despairing, were fixed on hers.
Kara wanted only to comfort him, to relieve the sadness and pain so nakedly visible in his eyes. Driven only—or so she told herself—by that desire, she leaned the last few inches separating them, and touched her lips to his.
And now it was Lee's turn to pull away, startled. He gazed at Kara with a hard, questioning look for a few tense moments, their ragged breathing the only sound in the room. Then, as if surrendering to a force he no longer wanted to control, Lee let out a soft moan, pulled her tightly to him, and let his mouth descend hard upon hers.
Kara melted into his kiss. His lips were alternately soft and hard against her own, devouring hers with a hungry ardor which she matched. Then Lee pulled back a fraction, and traced his tongue over her lower lip, eliciting a loud gasp from her, before fastening his lips on her throat. Kara closed her eyes, arching her neck and exhaling a sigh as his mouth trailed down the column of her throat.
One of her hands cradled the nape of his neck, while the other found its way to his waist. She slid it under his tanktop, gently scratching her fingernails up his bare muscled back. Now it was his turn to moan against Kara's throat. His fingers reached for the collar of Kara's tank, and hooking his fingers over its edge, he pulled it slightly down to expose the swell of her breast. His thumb caressed her skin there, followed by his lips.
Kara gave a throaty whisper: "Lee...Lee." She couldn't remember desiring a man as much as she did Lee Adama at that moment. Hearing his name seemed to create the same effect in Lee. Echoing her moan, his hand released her top, only to encircle her waist, pulling her body tight against his, lifting her to her tiptoes with one muscled arm. His other hand reached for her face, caressed it. "Kara, oh, Kara," he breathed, then laced his fingers through her hair, holding her head still for a deep, probing kiss.
Kara felt as if she were drowning in sensation, and she knew from Lee's reactions that he felt the same. She sensed a fierce, almost desperate longing in him now. Kara was vaguely aware that they had taken a step toward her bunk, then another, then…
The sounds of loud voices, raucous laughter. A flurry of steps approached the hatch door. A second before it burst open, Kara and Lee broke apart with a gasp, each automatically turning to their opposite lockers, struggling to still their breathing and hide their faces. Three pilots burst into the room, laughing over a successful practical joke they had played on one of the junior officers. Slightly tipsy themselves, they seemed oblivious to Kara's and Lee's disheveled appearance and strained attitude.
While the pilots tried drunkenly to relate the story, alternately interrupting one another and dissolving into inarticulate laughter, Kara tired desperately to catch Lee's eyes. But he refused to look at her. Instead, he kept his face a neutral mask, feigning interest in the pilots' story. But his eyes had the distant, haunted look again, and as soon as the story ended, he gave a wan smile, excused himself, and left the locker without a glance at Kara.
Kara felt stunned, and hurt. She turned back again to her open locker door, struggling with what to do next, and her eyes were caught by her photograph.
Zak, Kara, and Lee. Her fingers reached out and touched the image of Zak, wrapped in the arms of a laughing Kara. Then her eyes shifted to Lee's image. He looked aloof, alone, a man used to tamping down his emotions. Her finger traced his face. She bit her lip, nodded, then slammed her locker shut. Pushing aside the still raucous pilots, she followed Lee out the hatch door.
She finally spotted him five minutes later, walking down a corridor-- ghostly and deserted now in the night shift-- far ahead of her. "Lee?" She called softly. "Lee!"
He didn't stop. She finally reached him, panting, and grabbed his arm.
In one swift movement, he turned, caught her hand and pulled it off him.
"Kara, I can't do this." His words came out in a gasp.
She stepped back, hurt. "Why?"
"Kara, look, I was drunk. Hell, I AM drunk. I acted inappropriately with you just now." He gave a self-derisive laugh. "To say the least." He looked down. "And I'm sorry I did."
Kara's face grew wary. Her voice came out a little coldly, "I didn't come after you looking for an apology, Lee."
Lee wouldn't look at her. His mask of control was firmly back in place. His voice, clipped. "Well, I owe you one. I don't know what came over me. I'm sorry."
Kara felt her anger rise at his infuriating need to keep such a tight rein on his emotions. "Oh, it figures you would apologize. Always doing the proper thing. Can't let yourself…"
Lee suddenly grabbed her shoulders. "Kara, I'm not who you think I am!" he almost shouted at her. Then he released her, and slumped against the wall, struggling to control himself.
"It's just…I'm dealing with a lot of emotion right now. A lot of memories." He closed his eyes. "Back there, I was only thinking of myself. Of my memories. And I shouldn't have…" He was clearly fumbling for words, now.
Kara felt as if he'd punched her. So it hadn't been her he had desired. That's what he was telling her. He had been thinking about someone else. A memory.
She was a frakkin' idiot.
"No harm done. I understand." she said coldly. She took a step back, wanting to turn and get away from him as fast as possible.
Now it was his turn to catch her arm and keep her from leaving.
"It's just...I'm so frakked up right now, Kara. I need to figure some things out…try to understand what I'm… supposed to do." He swallowed. "But, I can't tell you how much I wish..." He stopped himself, but his eyes were fastened on hers with the same stricken, beseeching look she had seen in them the previous day.
But she was too hurt to care. "Look," she said a little coldly, shrugging her arm from his grasp. "You don't need to be Mr. Nice Guy here, all worried about my feelings. I'm fine. Didn't mean a thing."
And she turned on her heel and deserted him.
She didn't see him again until late the next day, when he caught her after a pilots' briefing, and politely asked her to fill in as CAG for a day or two.
"Why? Where are you going?" The question slipped out before she could stop herself.
He didn't look at her, just kept his voice even. "Just need to take care of some things. I got the OK from the Commander. I won't be gone more than a day. Two, tops."
They were silent for a moment. Then, "Sure," she said, taking the carefully filled-in duty roster from his hand. He stood awkwardly for a minute, them murmured something about paperwork, and disappeared.
But it hadn't been one or two days. It had been three, a fact that ate at her while she lay in her rack, tossing on this long sleepless night.
Willing herself to go to sleep, she closed her eyes. And immediately her mind brought her back to their moments of passion in this room. The way he had moaned at her touch, the way he had kissed her, how he had laced his fingers through her hair, looked in her eyes, and whispered her name…
Her eyes shot open. He had said her name. She remembered it distinctly. She had been staring into his eyes, almost drowning in their intensity. And she had heard his throaty whisper, "Kara, oh, Kara." Not the action of a person imagining he was with someone else. She winced a little at the embarrassing memory of her own unfortunate tryst with Baltar.
The knowledge dawned on her that perhaps she hadn't been fooling herself. That maybe it had really been her, Kara Thrace, that Lee had hungered for that night, not some memory.
Then she frowned. Maybe he had just been lost in the moment. His emotions had been pretty keyed up, after all. And it wasn't like he had been looking for her that night. Just the opposite, he had tried to get rid of her.
And yet, something that had niggled at her suddenly snapped into place. She had idly wondered why he had chosen to have his drinking binge in this room. Why he hadn't gone off to some deserted corner of the ship, as he would have if he wanted to be ensured of solitude. He had waited here.
And now she realized…he had wanted her to find him. Something inside him had wanted her to rescue him. Rescue him from whatever dark hole he felt was threatening to swallow him.
Another image pierced her memory. The look in Lee's eyes when she had first seen him in the Cloud Nine bar. His hand reaching towards her, his voice pleading, "Kara, can I...?"
Kara finally fell into a restless sleep. A few hours later, as the other pilots stirred at the sound of the morning watch bell, she snapped immediately awake. Somehow, in her sleep, she had come to a decision.
There was something wrong. Lee should have returned by now.
And she was going to go find him.
Continued in chapter three…