Disclaimer: The Characters are not mine; I'm just tweaking them for a minute.
Warnings: Spoilers sort of, for the second half of season two – some are confirmed, some aren't, but there is some important stuff in the stories that came from spoiler speculation.
Rating – M, not so much for the first chapter, but the chapters to come. Mature situations. There will be smut, and lots of it, but not yet.
A/N – First attempt at fan fic, and I start writing a behemoth. I hope you like it; please offer me any constructive criticism you can find – my proofreader hubby won't read it, due to the spoilers.
Catalyst
Chapter One
Catalyst: One that precipitates a process or event, especially without being involved in or changed by the consequences
"I saw you on that broadcast. With the towel…?" The woman runs a finger, nail partially covered by chipped tomato red enamel, suggestively around the rim of her glass. She looks like she is comfortable in places such as this, with the stench of old ambrosia and desperation so thick he imagines the Geminon hardwood of the bar to be permeated to it's smallest knot with the smell.
He has seen his fair share of dive bars over the years. And more than a few women who used the watering holes to find a quick, soulless frak. The woman beside him was now leaning into him, walking two fingers up his arm.
"I'm sure every girl in the fleet wants to get in your flight suit." As her fingers reach his shoulder she flattens her hand and runs it up the side of his neck, eventually cupping the side of his face. "I'm sure it takes one hell of a talented woman to satisfy the mighty Apollo."
He looks into her eyes, amused by the challenge he sees in them. A few more drinks and she might be softened enough around the edges to be considered attractive. He knows he will hate himself in the morning, but at the moment he just needs to feel something. He needs to remind himself that he is alive, and a whole person. The past weeks he has felt like some sort of specter, floating through the motions of his responsibilities, barely registering his own needs, let alone doing anything about them. He eats when the hunger pains got distracting, he sleeps when his body cannot physically be awake any longer. Many nights, instead of sleeping, he creeps down to the rec and pounds the heavy bag until his knuckles crack and bleed. Still, he feels little. This woman, whose name he isn't sure if he heard and is positive he won't remember, could be a way to pass some time. He gulps the last of his drink, suppressing a shiver as the stale alcohol hits his palate with a sting. He catches the bartender's eye and raises two fingers, waving them between him and his "date."
The part of him that is the Man-He-Wants-To-Be is screaming out to him to stop now, before he takes the next step, before he ends up in one more woman's bed, plotting his exit before he even rolls off of her. Warning him of the self-loathing that will wash over him, the revulsion that he once again gave into this side of himself.
He drinks, again swallowing the entire glass in a single chug. Once, twice more he has the bartender refill both glasses. His companion puts her hand on his thigh, and rolls her shoulders forward slightly, giving him a clear view down the front of her blouse. He lets his eyes linger, even though his mind is far away.
"Your quarters far from here?" His voice is uncharacteristically gruff.
She smiles, a wicked, hard smile. "Not far at all, flyboy." She takes his hand and leads him out the door of the makeshift lounge.
He awakens on a cot in a small room off of the hangar bay, head pounding. He vaguely remembers stumbling away from the woman's quarters and the drunken insults she hurled at him from the open doorway. He finds the head and scrubs his face and hands, trying to get rid of the layer of skin that touched her. Glancing up at himself in the mirror, he's shocked. His cheeks are sunken slightly and covered with a rough scrabble of beard, there are deep, dark circles under his eyes. He knows this is killing him, and he doesn't care.
He arrives back at Galactica a few hours later, dreading the paperwork that he's let pile up on his desk.
"Welcome back, sir." The cheerful mechanic greets him as she hands him a clipboard. "The retrofits on the raptors are on schedule, but we're having trouble finding catalyzers for the vipers. The chief needs you to fill out a req form ASAP."
"Thank you. Dismissed." He pretends to leaf through the pages on the clipboard to hasten the mechanics exit.
"You okay, sir?" She asks quietly.
"I said dismissed." He looks at her coldly and raises an eyebrow. She scurries off to the maintenance bay, biting her lip to keep from bursting into tears. He pushes away the feeling of remorse that washes over him. Turning abruptly on his heel, he strides off towards crew quarters.
Two Weeks LaterHe's in the CAG office, finishing the last of the flight rotations for the next week. He doesn't notice when she walks in until a shadow falls across the surface of his desk.
"Can I help you, Captain?" Even the clip of his words shocks him.
"Um, clearly, no. Sorry to disturb you, Major." She looks at him, eyes wide, shakes her head and leaves.
He knows he should call out to her, to beg her to stay, but he doesn't. She's right about him and she has every right to look at him the way she does. He deserves it. He waits for her to make enough distance down the corridor, grabs his bag from under his desk and heads for the hangar bay.
He's outside the makeshift schoolroom on The Dionysian. He looks in the window, his gaze lingering on the little girl with big blue eyes, holding on to the teacher's skirt as she passes out books to groups of older students. The teacher turns and catches him looking. She gets a slight smile on her face and makes her way to the doorway.
"Major Adama! So nice to see you here. I've told the students you were coming and that you were planning on telling them all about the exciting life of a Viper pilot." She grabs his elbow and begins leading him into the classroom.
"Wait. I'm not here to…" He stammers and tries to shake off her hand gently.
"Yes. You are." She looks at him in the way many of his own teachers had looked at him, and he complies.
Suddenly he's in front of a class of around twenty-five students as ragtag as the fleet itself. The teacher has them divided into groups, with students roughly the same age seated together around tables. With only about 2000 school aged children, and not many teachers, most of the civilian ships had all of their students attending school together in the same classroom, usually a corner in a dining area, an unused storage area, or, in the case of the Dionysian, a trade ship in it's life before the attack, in a conference room.
The teacher, with an enigmatic grin, pulls a pair of empty chairs to the front of the room and motions for him to sit.
"Class, this is Major Adama. He's a pilot. He's been kind enough to stop by and visit with us this afternoon. Major Adama, this is the class. Why don't you start by telling a little about your job?" As she is asking she pulls a coloring book and crayons from a bin and sets them on a low table in a corner of the room. The little girl with blue eyes tags behind her and sits at the table. She leans over the table with intense concentration and begins to color.
"Uhm. Well. I'm the CAG, which stands for Commander of the Air Group, which is just military talk for being in charge of everything related to the Air Defense." He shifts uncomfortably in his seat and hopes this won't take long. He hates speaking off the cuff.
"Okay." The teacher, sensing his discomfort sits in the chair next to him. "Could you tell us some of your responsibilities?" She smiles at him, and he relaxes a little, in spite of himself.
"Uh, yeah. I mean, um, yes." He winces. "I try to keep the air team going. We fly a continual patrol around the perimeter of the fleet, so I schedule which pilots fly each patrol. " He stops and takes a breath. An older girl in the back of the group raises her hand. "Yes?"
"Who's flying now?" She asks. "Which pilots?"
"Racetrack and Starbuck. Why?"
"Oh my gods! I love Starbuck!" the girl squeals. He laughs a little, knowing how Kara would respond if she knew she had a fan club. He feels his chest tighten, as it always does when he thinks of her, and the laugh is choked away.
"Me too," sighs a boy across from the fan. The look on his face brings the whole class to laughter, the teacher and Lee included. After a few seconds, the teacher raises her hand and the class settles down.
"Major, I think what we're trying to say is that we're glad we have such incredible people out there watching over us." She pats his hand, which he hadn't noticed was gripping the arm of his chair tightly. "Thank you for keeping us safe."
"Yeah, thanks, man. Uh, Major." A boy in the back nods at him.
"We wouldn't be here without you." A girl in the front.
"My mom says you're heroes." Another girl, younger.
"Do you get scared?" The blue-eyed girl has stopped coloring and is looking intently at him. He meets her gaze and a wave of terror-guilt-anguish-somethingelse-somethingmorepowerful washes over him. He feels something break inside him.
"Yes. Every day." He looks down quickly. The teacher's hand squeezes his, almost imperceptibly. She stands.
"I think we've kept Major Adama away from his much-earned downtime long enough, class. Maybe we can get him back in here another day." She starts to clap and the class joins her enthusiastically. He stands, nods and heads for the door. The teacher follows him to the corridor.
"What was that all about?" He snaps at her, out of range of the students. "I never agreed to… How did you know I would even … What do you know about P…."
"About Paya? Quite a bit. You'll meet me in the lounge in two hours and I'll tell you everything I know." She turns and walks back into the classroom, leaving him in the corridor alone.
One Month Earlier"Kara. I really need to talk to you." His voice is strained. He is in shock.
"Of course, Lee. What's up?" She turns from her locker to look at him. "Gods, Lee, what the frak is wrong? You look like hell."
He can't help it. He sobs. Desperately trying to regain the control he needs, he swings his fist into his own locker. The skin on his knuckles breaks and he doesn't feel the pain. "I did something horrible. Something unforgivable."
Somehow he manages to tell her the whole tale. At the beginning she is wrapping his shredded knuckles, then she is kneeling in front of him, then she is turning away pulling her breath in through her teeth.
"I never took you for a coward, Lee Adama," she hisses, disgust in her eyes. "Get out." He knows then. He deserves every ounce of contempt she can throw at him and more. He leaves. And he starts to shut down.
TBC