Kara was walking down the corridor, desperately hoping that she could continue to avoid Lee. She had managed it all afternoon, but now she was off her maintenance shift and he was off his shift in CIC. They would run into each other sooner or later, she just prayed that it was later. She continued down the hallway, expecting to hear his maddening greeting at anytime. The corridor was a heavily traveled one. She could have taken a lesser used hallway to avoid him, but why the hell should she? She had told him what was going on. It was his problem now, he was the emotionally stunted one and if he thought……..
She was so involved in her internal rant that she didn't notice the body that fell in step beside her until a hand grabbed her arm and threw her into the nearest open room.
"What the…..?" She said harshly before her eyes adjusted to the only light in the small room: a low wattage orange caution light that was in the corner. She heard the hatch shut and when her pupils dilated she looked into the blue eyes that she had been trying to avoid. They were smoky and intense and staring right back at her. His face was inches from hers, his body pressed her into the wall.
He lowered his eyes to her mouth. "Hey, Starbuck." He whispered fervently.
"Captain." She replied softly. It was amazing how frightened those words came out when the only emotions that were flooding her body at his close proximity were passion and anticipation. She bit her lip to keep from moaning.
"Don't bite your lip like that, Kara. You don't know what that does to me." He closed his eyes and the fingers of his right hand clenched in their place on her hip. She bit her lip harder. "I'm not the only one with a look that drives someone crazy."
"No?" She asked, surprised that she could hear her own whisper above the sound of her thumping heart.
He nodded. "And if I give you a look like I think you belong to me…… it's because I think you do." He brought his hand up to her ribcage. "And if I fight with you, it's because fighting with you is better than the best sex I've ever had in my life. I can't imagine what it'll be like when I finally have sex with you."
"When?" She breathed out almost inaudibly. "You make it sound like it's a forgone conclusion." She failed miserably as she tried to add a teasing air to her last statement.
His right hand stayed where it was on her side, his left hand came up to trace the shell of her ear. "Isn't it?" He whispered hotly into her ear. "How long are we gonna do this?" He asked expectantly.
"Fight with each other?" She laughed skeptically. "We'll be fighting with each other until we're both in our graves."
"That's not what I meant and you know it." He said leaning into her more, even though she hadn't thought that was possible.
"Oh." She said bringing up her hand to grip his shoulder. "You mean how long are we gonna pretend that we're not together?"
He blinked at her, surprised that she said the exact words that had been running through his head. "Yeah."
"We're not together." She said digging her fingers painfully into his flesh.
He winced and then took her hand from its death grip and held it in his own. "Only in the literal sense." He brushed his lips over her fingers.
She breathed deep. "Literal sense is the only one that matters." She sighed sadly. "Life's too short to live in the figurative."
"You think this isn't real?" He said intertwining their fingers.
"No." She corrected. "This is real. We just haven't acted on it yet."
He raised her hand and pinned it up against the wall. "Well, we'll have to do something about that, won't we?"
"I see." She stuttered in a breath of anticipation. "Have you worked out the logistics?"
He blinked at her, confused. "No. I guess I just thought that we should feel our way through it."
She chuckled low in her chest. "Leave it to you that the first time you try to act on instinct is the one time you shouldn't." She saw his questioning look and continued. "Spontaneity is a wonderful thing unless you're packed on a ship with 2500 other people that are all dying to know your business. Everyone else knowing every detail won't make this any more real than if we keep it to ourselves."
"People already think that we're sleeping together, Kara."
"They think it. They don't know it for sure. There's a difference."
"I do kinda like the idea of not having to share this with anyone, of having this just be ours for a while." He leaned in and she felt his breath tease her eyelashes.
"It's true that you and I sleep in the same room, but there are also eight other people in there with us. It's true that we can find a way to be together, but there has to be a cover. It's not like I can get up from the table, grab you and say 'Nobody come into the laundry closet for a while, I'll be busy doing the CAG'." She grinned slyly.
He lowered his head sheepishly. "Yeah, I guess I was more focused on doing it and less focused on how to get it done."
"We can't ignore duty." She said firmly.
"Of course not." He affirmed.
"Or protocol."
"You're worried about breaking protocol?" He laughed.
"When have I ever been worried about breaking protocol?" She said sarcastically. "But you suddenly start doing it and people are gonna know something's up."
"That is true. So we have to keep up appearances, act the way we did before. And we can't use our positions of authority to make this happen."
"No," She breathed out softly. "Because that would be wrong." She bit her lip at him again.
Lee closed his eyes, the desperation and desire etched on his face. "Bite your lip like that again and I'll say 'frak what's wrong' and intimidate, manipulate and cajole until I make it so that you and I are alone in a room with a bed for several hours." He uttered feverishly.
"Mmmm, that's tempting, but like we just said…….that would be an abuse of power, and that would be wrong." She bit her lip again, but his eyes were still closed so she wasn't doing it just to torture him.
"So what do we need to do?" He asked softly as he opened his eyes and twirled the soft ends of the tendrils of hair that had come loose from her ponytail.
She thought for a moment. "We need to be attuned to each other, we need to be on the same page, and we need to be innocuous; subtle. Something where other people won't know that we're really saying: 'come over here and rip my clothes off.'"
"I would round up every last cigar in the fleet for you if you would say that in the middle of the pilot's briefing." He grinned at her as she laughed softly. "But I see your point. We need a signal, a code."
"I could just bite my lip." She smiled.
"You could, but I thought I'd just told you that would be torturous and cruel of you to do that to me." He thought for a second. "I could give you an exasperated look whenever I wanted you."
"If you and I had sex every time you gave me an exasperated look, we'd be frakking all the time." She moved to where her mouth was centimeters from his, but didn't touch them as she traced the clusters on his jacket.
"I'm trying really hard to think of that as a bad thing." He smirked as his fingers danced across her shoulder. "We could say that we needed to 'go over training evals'."
"That could work." She agreed excitedly, suddenly entranced by the way his jaw was clenched as he stared at her lips. "We're the only one's that ever do that."
"We would be alone in a room, no one would bother us." He took his thumb and touched her bottom lip. "We'd just have to find the right time, find each other, and then say the words."
"Excuse me, Captain; do you think we could go over training evals?" She clenched her hand in his shirt.
"That's the code." He confirmed.
"No, Lee." She whispered as she moved a leg in between his and licked her lips. "I'm not repeating it for verification purposes. I'm saying: 'Do you think we could go over training evals?'."
He gulped. "Here? Now?"
"We're alone in a room, no one's going to bother us, we've already found each other, and I just said the words."
He blinked and looked around the room questioningly. Then he looked at her and everything else in the universe stopped. "Yeah, uh-huh, works for me."
She grabbed his collar and ran her lips up his neck, over his jaw, tracing his cheekbone. He placed both of his arms against the wall on either side of her. He buried his face in her hair and whispered. "You realize this will change everything."
She found his ear and gently bit the lobe. "Gods, I hope so."
He lowered his hands to her waist then slowly lifted back up, underneath her shirt. His eager hands had just met her bare skin when………
"ACTION STATIONS, ACTION STATIONS, SET CONDITION ONE THROUGHOUT THE SHIP." Gaeta's voice rang through the P.A. A siren blared and the orange caution light that had been illuminating them was now blinking harshly.
Lee pulled back from her and looked at the flashing light. "You gotta be frakking kidding me."
She wrenched his face back to hers as her lips found his neck. "Ignore it." She mumbled insistently. "There are no Cylon raiders, it's just a drill."
"INCOMING CYLON RAIDERS, THIS IS NOT A DRILL."
She pulled back from him hastily as well. "Frakking Gaeta!"
"We gotta go." He grumbled.
"This isn't over." She warned him firmly as they disentangled themselves.
He pushed her back up against the wall and kissed her hard on the mouth. "I had no illusions that it was." He rasped out before they ran off in different directions.
Lee was exhausted, utterly and completely exhausted. Was there a stronger word than exhausted? He was sure that there was, he just couldn't think of it at the moment. Oh well, he'd have plenty of time to go over his thesaurus as he laid in his rack tonight, NOT having sex with Kara. 23 hours. 23 frakking hours since he had been in that closet with her, 23 hours since he had been anywhere close to her, 23 hours where all he had wanted was the chance to be near her again; alone, touching her. He had just spent six hours on the most boring CAP in the world, where all he could do was think of the delectable things that he could do to her. And now he got to spend the next eight hours in a room with her……..and at least six other pilots. Not alone, not touching her, not doing delectable things.
He slowly opened the hatch, fortifying himself, wondering just how in the hell he was going to deny himself, when he saw her; alone in the room. She was changing out of her dress uniform into her sweats in front of her locker.
"Hey, Starbuck." He breathed as he shut the hatch.
She looked up from where her hands were zipping up her shirt and gave him a shy look. "Apollo." She nodded in greeting and continued to look in her locker.
He walked up to his locker directly across from hers. They now stood back to back, languishing in the silence. Silence. Wait? "Where is everybody?" He asked intrigued.
"Somebody suggested a card game. Helo and Hotdog are there. Everybody else is on shift."
His heart stopped. So did his breath. When they resumed, both were hard and fast. He struggled not to yelp with joy. "That's…..that's an unusual coincidence, everybody else being on shift." He said quietly, apprehensively, as he started to shrug off his flight jacket, surprised that his shaking hands could function to unsnap the buttons.
"Yeah." She said quietly. "Funny how that happened exactly the way I scheduled it."
Oh. My. Gods. Breathe, Adama. Don't want to seem too eager. Would it seem too eager if I grabbed her and frakked her on the floor? "So you rigged the schedule?" He teased. "I thought we weren't going to misuse our authority."
"I didn't misuse my authority." She corrected. "The schedule needed to be filled. I just……chose wisely."
"And Helo and Hotdog playing cards, did you give them that suggestion?" He stuttered, trying to sound non-chalant as he stepped out of his flight suit.
"Captain," She chuckled as she turned around to lean against the locker and looked at his back. "I gave them the deck."
He stood there in his shorts and tanks and touched his forehead to the cool metal of his locker door as contrast to his brain that was now on fire. "So," He choked out. "Were you ever planning on putting me out of my misery?"
"Well, that depends." She smiled sultrily as he finally turned around to face her. "Were you talking about 'going over training evals', or me shooting you in the head?"
He gave her a devouring look and slowly bridged the distance between them as he placed both of his hands on the locker behind her, boxing her in. She could feel the hot air escape as he breathed against her lips. "I'm thinking either way, I'm gonna end up dead."
She whimpered low in her throat and brought her hand up to stroke his arm. "Yeah, but won't it be worth it?" She grinned.
"Kara?" He whispered as he locked eyes with her.
"Um-hmm?"
"Stop talking."
She nodded and he kissed her. Holy gods, did he kiss her. He heard her gasp and he felt like he was going to eat her alive, exploring every new crevice and facet of this woman that he thought he had known everything about. Gods, how could I have been so stupid as to believe there wasn't more to her? More aspects of her that he could discover everyday.
She couldn't breathe. 'I can't breathe.' Her lungs cried out. 'I don't care.' Her mind answered back.
She clutched her hands on his shoulders, digging her nails into his skin. The kiss was momentarily broken as he hissed at the shock of the pain. "Sorry." She whispered as she licked across his bottom lip. "I keep doing that."
"Don't apologize." He breathed as he met her tongue. He ran his hand along the waistband of her pants and then tried to unzip the zipper of her top. His hands we're shaking so much that he couldn't steady them on the pulley. That was new. He'd done this with other women so many times he had lost count. He'd gotten suavely undressing the opposite sex down to a fine art. So why did he feel like a trembling teenager this time?
"Kara……" He mumbled as he nibbled her bottom lip while he gasped for air. "Kara….." He pulled more insistently on the zipper as she ravished his mouth, dueling with his tongue. "Kara, uh…..I can't get this frakking thing to budge."
"Rip. It. Off." She hissed.
She heard the fabric of her shirt rip and she took her arms out of it as she shrugged it off. He took it in his hands, but instead of dropping it to the floor in a delirious daze, he held onto it tightly like a sort of souvenir. He leaned down to slide her pants off her legs, she stepped out of them, he rose back up to meet her and she wrapped her arms around him.
"Gods, you smell good." She whispered huskily as he moved his lips down to her neck. "You've been in a cockpit for six hours, how is it possible you smell so good?"
He pulled back to look at her with a drunk look in her eyes. "You are just…..and I am just so……and I have never in my life……"
"I know." She breathed out before she pulled him down again to meet her lips. Their mouths danced and their bodies slumped against her locker limply, too inundated with intense feeling to do anything but kiss, breathe in each other, and battle to keep their throbbing hearts in their chests.
"NO! Forget it!" A distant, muffled voice seeped through the walls. Kara thought absently that it sounded like somebody else. But that couldn't be, there was no one else in the universe but her and Lee, was there?
Then she heard a loud thump.
"What was that?" She pulled back as he rained kisses over her face.
"What was what?" He graveled.
"You didn't notice that noise?" She breathed.
"Um, Kara? I don't know if you realize what's going on here, but I wouldn't notice a damn Cylon raiding party if it came busting into the room." He moved his mouth down to her collarbone.
"Aww, come on, Hotdog! Come on back!" Another voice called out. It was distant like the first one, but it was definitely getting closer.
"Okay." She threaded her fingers into his hair and pulled back to meet his eyes. "You heard that, right?"
The hatch jerked open suddenly, revealing Helo and Hotdog. Kara and Lee pulled apart quickly as if they had been scorched. He stood in the middle of the room, hair in disarray, mouth red and swollen, breathing like he had just run five miles. She stayed plastered against her locker, breathing just as hard, her exposed skin flushed to a dark pink hue.
Lee noted that she was in just her underwear. She pointed at his hand which still gripped her shredded shirt. He threw the garment into the corner of his bunk. She reached down, picked up her pants off the floor and tossed them into her locker before the two other men noticed they were in the room.
"Hotdog, stop being such a baby." Helo hissed out.
"I'm not being a baby." Hotdog shot back and then turned to Lee. "Hey, CAG, I thought you were on CAP?"
"I just got back." Lee choked out as he sat on his bunk and sheepishly put his pillow on his lap to hide his obvious excitement.
"Hi, Starbuck." Helo nodded at her, taking notice of her exerted look. "You been out on a run?"
She took a deep breath. "Um yeah….came back here to….um, change clothes." She stuttered as she pulled her pants out of her locker and put them back on. "I thought you guys were playing cards?" She asked irritated as she grabbed another shirt and slipped it over her head.
"We were, but Hotdog doesn't want to play anymore." Helo added the last part in a mocking baby-voice.
"I don't play with cheaters." Hotdog responded.
"I wasn't cheating!" Helo snapped.
"Then how do you explain how you won every hand?"
"I'm the only one in the room that actually knows how to play. If Starbuck's not playing, I really don't have any competition."
"I'm not playing with you! I'd rather stay in here with the non-cheaters." Hotdog shouted as he climbed into his bunk and hunkered down to read a comic book.
Upon realizing that Hotdog wasn't going anywhere, Kara shot Lee a disappointed and disgusted look. Lee rubbed his hands all over his face and shook his head.
"Fine, I still want to play. I'll just find some non-whiners to start up a game." Helo shot back before looking at Lee. "Captain, you wanna play?"
Lee realized that he could not walk anywhere without attracting some obvious attention. "Um, no." He stuttered pushing the pillow further into his lap. "I'm really not feeling too well."
"Yeah." Helo added. "You do look a little flushed." Lee heard Kara snort in amusement as Helo continued. "I'm going back to the rec room." Helo said opening the hatch before turning back to Kara. "Starbuck, were you gonna come?"
She chuckled ruefully at the underlying meaning to his question. "Well, I thought I was going to. But I guess not." She hissed out before slamming her locker shut and walking out the hatch.
Helo took in the not-so-subtle innuendo of her remark, their disheveled and breathy behavior and appearance, and the CAG's obvious discomfort. His eyes got wide as he began to put it all together.
"Um, sorry for the interruption, Apollo." Helo chuckled slightly and raised his eyebrows. "Really, really, really sorry."
Lee angrily pointed to the hatch. "Get the hell outta here." He hissed.
Helo shrugged and walked out, pulling the hatch shut behind him. Lee leaned backward from his place on the edge of the bed and didn't even wince at the loud thunk his head made when it hit the wall.
Lee didn't know when Kara had come back into the bunkroom later that night. In deference to his aching body's desperation, he had closed the curtain on his rack as tight as he could, pulled the blanket up over his head and clutched her shirt tightly under his pillow.
Sometime during the night, during the respite of the other pilots snoring; he heard her breathing intermingled with frustrated sighs. He knew the feeling, and he knew that neither one of them had slept.
When he and several of the other pilots woke up early the next morning to go on their shifts, he tried with all his might not to stare at her still-curtained bunk. When he gotback to the room later that afternoon, her curtain was wide open and her rack was empty. He shucked his uniform and padded into the shower room.
Kara stood underneath the spray and let the hot water fall over her body. It wasn't relaxing; it wasn't warm and soothing, because she had turned the heat on to its highest level. It was scorching and scalding and damn near painful. She had done that on purpose, so that she wouldn't linger in the shower for very long. She knew that if she did, if she let her hands slowly drift over her body and tangle in her hair, that she would start to imagine that they were his hands. So she made the heat damn near unbearable, so that she would get clean and then get gone. It was a trick that she had learned that she thought was better than cold water, because after you got out of the shower, you had the raw, heated flush on your skin reminding you that you didn't want to get burned.
Except, she did want to get burned……….. by him, his heat. Okay, maybe the hot water wasn't the best idea after all.
She turned off the water and took a deep breath as she wrapped a towel around herself. She opened the stall door and her knees went weak and her whole body hummed at the sight of him.
He was leaning against the door opposite her stall. "Hey, Starbuck." He breathed out and winked at her while grinningan anticipatory grin.
She smiled back at him, steady in her place in the stall doorway. "Hello, Lee." She answered teasingly. "Whatcha doin'?"
He pointed to the shower behind her. "Waiting for you to get done in there, I need a shower."
"And you need this stall, because there aren't about ten other vacant stalls in the room?"
He smiled shyly and lowered his head. "You caught on to my clever ruse."
"You're remarkably transparent." She winked before stepping toward him. "Sooo…..you wanna 'go over training evals'?"
"Desperately." He sighed and closed his eyes as he moved to where he was directly in front of her.
"Well…….unless that towel of yours has secret compartments; you don't have the evals on you." She breathed as her index finger traced the top of the towel on his waist.
"That's okay." He smirked lasciviously, taking her finger and intertwining it with his. "I don't need papers in front of me to get the job done." He nodded behind her. "Why don't you go back in there?"
"Now, why would I do that?" She teased. "I'm already clean."
"Hmmm." He whispered seductively. "I can make you dirty again."
She turned around to walk back in and looked back at him. "With an offer like that, how can I refuse?"
He followed her in the stall, closing it and then turned her back around to face him. She dropped her towel to the floor and he reached out to place his hand on her chest.
"Your heart is racing." He said hotly.
She leaned up to brush her lips lightly over his. "Your hands are trembling." She whispered back. "So I guess we're even."
He sucked on her earlobe. "Guess so." He roamed his hands all over her, eliciting criminally sexy whimpers from her throat. He then started to chuckle softly.
"What?" She asked slightly embarrassed. He could feel the smile on her lips as they moved across his cheek. They still weren't pressed together, almost as if they were afraid to give themselves over to what they were sure was going to burn them to a cinder.
He pulled back to look into her fiery eyes, making sure their mouths were centimeters apart, he smiled. "The tough as nails Starbuck is the softest thing I've ever felt."
She melted under his gaze. Everything in her body liquefied at the worship he bestowed upon her. "You getting all poetic on me, Apollo?"
"I am the god of poetry."
"So the scrolls say, but still…" She whispered as she leisurely unwrapped the towel from around his waist. "That's a side of you I've never seen before."
"Never felt the desire to reveal it before." He traced her lower lip with his finger. "Besides, I knew a certain woman that would have teased me mercilessly if I ever had."
"Yeah?" She questioned as she bit his finger and he nodded in response. "Well, she won't do that now. Although, I gotta tell ya……. the flattery really isn't all that necessary. You've already got me naked in a shower stall."
She grinned and he finally pulled her to him. He heard a gasp and then a loud, brazen moan echo through the tiled room. His ego swelled with pride. "While I love the response…….tone it down a bit," He mumbled between mind-blowing kisses. "You keep that up and people will hear you through the walls."
"What are you talking about?" She whimpered absently when she pulled back for a breath. "I thought that was you."
He started in licking a path from her ear to her collarbone as his hands danced up her spine. "Nah, too girly for me, that was definitely you."
"Oh, Adam!" The voice loudly moaned.
They pulled back from each other as if they'd been electrocuted. "Okay, that definitely wasn't me." She whispered harshly.
Lee looked over the edge of the stall. "There are other people in here! Three stalls over."
She put her hands on her hips and looked at him in irritation. "You didn't check the stalls first?"
"Kara!" He snapped back at her. "Twice we've tried to do this, and twice we've failed. I saw that you were in here and everything else just sorta faded away."
"Oh, Adam!" The voice again cried out.
"Who the hell is Adam?" He whispered to her. Then realization hit. "Wait a minute. That's Greyshirt!"
"Greyshirt's getting laid?" Kara questioned in total amazement. "Who's the girl?" She rose to the tips of her toes and looked over. "That's Ensign Watson, from communications."
"I thought she was seeing Ensign Cooper?"
"She is," Kara chuckled. "But apparently she can frak whoever she wants, whenever she wants; which is frankly an attribute I'm beginning to admire."
"Oh yeah, that's good, oh yeah!" The male voice moaned out.
Lee looked at her, his eyes smoldering. "They seem, um, they seem a bit distracted. I doubt they'd even realize we were here."
Her eyebrows raised in surprise at his bold suggestion. "That's not exactly being covert."
"Covertness is directly proportionate to desperation. I think the secret agent stuff flew out the window about 2 minutes ago for me," He shrugged. "As long as we're quiet……."
She looked him up and down and then licked her lips as she crooked her finger in a 'come-hither' gesture. This time, when he pulled her against him, she wrapped her arms and legs around him and clung to him with every ounce of strength she had. They heard the moans again. "Ignore them." She ordered in a breathy gasp.
"Ignore who?" He mumbled against her skin.
"Oh Stacy." "Oh, Adam" "Oh, gods YES!" They kept getting louder and louder and louder…..
"Okay, you know what?" She reluctantly pulled away from him again. "I can't do this, it's too--."
"Pressurizing?" He finished for her as he reached down to pick up her towel. But before he gave it to her, he pulled it back. "You know what? Frak that. We're doing this….screw the distractions. Let's get this over with."
She rolled her eyes sarcastically. "Oh, that makes me feel special."
"Kara, for frak's sake! It's not always gonna be like this. But I'm beginning to think this is some kind of cosmic joke and we're never gonna get to the punch line unless we do this thing already." He walked up to her and placed his hands on her hips. "Come on, let's just bite the bullet."
"Well as lovely as that sounds," She sneered pulling away and grabbing her towel from his hands. "I can't. I have a shift in fifteen minutes."
"Why the hell didn't you mention that before?"
"Cause I thought you'd be coming at me with something a little better than 'bite the bullet'. I guess the poeticism is fleeting." She wrapped the towel around her and moved to the exit.
He gently grasped her wrist and looked at her in taut desperation. "When do you get off?"
She sighed and smiled sympathetically. "Oh, Captain. I think you and I both know the way things are going it could still be quite a while before I'll be 'getting off'."
He watched as she walked out and shut the stall behind her. He moved under the nozzle and turned the water on as cold as he could.
"Oh gods, oh baby, oh yeah."
Lee pounded on the stall wall as hard as he could. "Will the two of you shut the hell up before I throw you both in hack?"
It was some time later before he saw her again, and then in what he was sure was a situation that had the gods laughing hysterically from their place in the heavens, he was in a room with her, his father and Colonel Tigh.
He walked into the room and saw her sitting at the table. She looked at him sympathetically and he took the only chair that was left at the table, right next to her. He noticed that they were both working hard at not looking directly at each other. And though they were by no means pressed together, he could still sense every flutter, every movement, and every slight permutation coming off of her. He was more attuned to the various aspects of her body than his own. It was killing him. Could he grab her and throw her on the table and have his way with her right there? Would that be improper? Would his father and Tigh even look up from their reports? He spent the next few seconds going over the pros and cons of such a bold move……..
Pros- he'd be having sex with her.
Cons- there weren't any; he'd be having SEX WITH HER.
………when his father spoke up to ask Kara how the training evaluations were going.
Lee swore she almost choked.
"Fine." She hesitated. "The instruction assessments……"
Lee had to suppress a laugh at her thoughtful rephrasing.
"……are going fine." She finished. "We hit a few roadblocks," Kara looked over at Lee as he coughed meaningfully. "But we'll get the job done."
Twenty minutes later, the meeting was breaking up and everyone was going their separate ways. Lee got up from his chair at the exact time that Kara was crossing behind it and they ran right into each other. He had to reach out for her arms to keep her from falling down.
"Sorry." He rasped out as he held onto her. "I…….I'm sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry." He said looking right at her.
"That's okay." She breathily chuckled. "I don't think you broke anything."
He smiled as she started to move away. "I'm sorry about the other thing too." He called after her.
She stopped and walked back. "What other thing?"
"Well," He hesitated. "The entire thing." He saw the look of fear spread across her face and made to correct his statement. "No, Kara. I didn't mean that. I didn't mean that I was sorry it's happening, just that I was sorry about the way it's happening."
She sighed. "That's not your fault."
"Still….." He said. "I wanted it to be special, I wish it was special. Because you deserve to have it be……"
"Special?" She finished, teasing him. He smiled shyly and she smiled sweetly back at him. "When we finally catch a break, and it actually does happen, wherever or however, I'll think its special enough." She reached up to smooth the uniform jacket over his shoulder and then started to walk away.
Again he stopped her with his voice. "I know you haven't said it. Maybe you won't ever say it, maybe you're not the kind of person that does say it, but I was wondering if you--?"
She leaned against the door frame of the now vacant-except-for-them room and gave him a very serious look. "If I look at you like I think you belong to me." She paused to bite her lip and then smiled. "It's because I think you do."
He looked at her soberly. "Again, I'm really sorry."
She nodded and then left the room.
She waited for him outside of CIC. She had thirty, maybe forty-five seconds in which to send him a clear message. They had simultaneous six hour shifts. His in CIC, hers on CAP, and then they were both free for six hours. They could go over training evals. They could go over training evals again and again and again…………
She giggled. 'What the hell is wrong with you?' She thought to herself. 'You've giggled more in the last three days than you have in your whole life. Get it together. Starbuck does NOT giggle.' Then she saw him walking towards her and she decided that giggling was better than a jubilant scream. He was focused on reading the papers in his hands. 'He is a very driven, focused, thorough individual. I bet that's an asset OUT OF a Colonial Fleet uniform as well.'
He quickly came up to where she was but still didn't notice her. She grabbed his arm and dragged him into a corner to where they were hidden away by some crates. His eyes widened in surprise and then got very smoky with anticipation as he instinctively wrapped his arms around her waist. She pinned him up against the wall, making sure that every part of the front of her body touched every part of the front of his. She moved his head up so that his eyes broke the bold perusal of her body and devoured his mouth with her own. She let her body slide against his, doing exceptionally naughty things and she heard a low growl in the back of his throat. She wanted to give him an inkling of what was to come, what was to come when they had no annoying barriers like stupid clothes between them. She wanted to show him……but yeah, she only had thirty seconds. So this would have to do. She started to pull away. He moaned desperately and tried to pull her back to him, but she broke free. Her breathing was heavy and erratic as she looked at him, just as out of breath.
"Apology accepted." She whispered in the gravelliest, sexiest voice she had. Then she walked away on shaky legs, hoping that he had gotten the message.
Apparently he hadn't.
"Frakking moron." She muttered to herself as she laid on a trolley on the flight deck and tried to move the wrench around a particularly stubborn piece of equipment embedded in the undercarriage of the Viper above her.
She had gotten off CAP and had hastily made her way into the showers. She had gone to great lengths to ensure that she had enough time to get ready for him. She had even shaved her legs. Did he have any idea what the hell that meant? Her whole body was tingling with anticipation when she got back to the bunk room. Lee would be coming in soon. The hatch had opened and she held her breath. But it was just Frosty.
"Frosty?" She had said. "I thought you were supposed to be on shift?"
"I was." Frosty replied. "I had to change."
"With who?" She asked off-handedly as she rubbed on lotion. (Another special occurance, frakking moron.)
"Captain Adama."
She nearly dropped the lotion bottle. "Apollo?"
"Yeah, I asked to switch shifts. I had something I needed to take care of."
"So, you requested the change?" She asked softly.
"Yeah."
So Lee wasn't rejecting or ignoring her, he just couldn't read a gods damn schedule, or take a damn hint.
"Frakking moron." She muttered to herself again as she turned the wrench harshly.
She had figured that since she couldn't spend her off time acting out her desires on the man she wanted the most, she'd spend it taking out her frustrations on the machine she knew the best.
"Hey, Starbuck." His voice called out to her softly.
She looked over and only saw his feet. Gods, even his feet were sexy. "Captain." She greeted him coldly.
"Hi, Captain Adama." Cally said coming up beside him.
"Hi, Cally. How are you?" He replied politely.
"I'm fine. Here are those pliers you wanted, Starbuck." She said as she reached down to hand them to Kara. She stood up again. "I thought you had switched shifts with Frosty, Captain."
"I had." He stated. "But I switched back with someone……I'm free now."
Kara nearly dropped the pliers in her hand.
"Why'd you switch?" Cally asked innocently.
"I realized I had something else I'd rather be doing."
Kara had to press her legs together to subside the pleasure she feltknowing that the thing he'd rather be doing was, in fact, her.
"So, um, Starbuck." He started shyly. "Do you think we could 'go over training evals'?"
She pulled herself out from underneath the plane and grinned up at him. "Absolutely."
They walked down the hall quickly, two bodies with one single minded determination.
"Why did you agree to take Frosty's shift when you knew I was off?" She whispered over at him.
"Because I didn't know you were off." He whispered back apologetically. "I didn't realize what the schedule said."
"You made the schedule." She pointed out as they kept walking.
"Then I guess I didn't realize what a frakking moron I am."
"Do you realize it now?"
"Yes, Ma'am." He replied embarrassed.
"Just so we're clear."
"Do you realize how evil you are?" He teased back accusingly.
She laughed. "I assume you're referring to our little hallway encounter?"
"Truly sadistic." He hissed. "You can't just do stuff like that to me and then walk away."
"I didn't want to make you late for your shift."
"I was late for my shift anyway." He said out of the corner of his mouth.
"Why?" She asked curiously.
"Because there are some things that even a strategically placed clipboard can't hide, Kara."
She giggled. "Sorry."
"You're driving me crazy." He sighed. "I find myself doing and thinking things that I never thought I was capable of."
"I know the feeling." She added sympathetically. "I noticed that you were sleeping with my shirt, the one you ripped, under your pillow. That's, um, that's……"
"Sweet?" He questioned hopefully.
"I was gonna say 'creepy'." She teased. "But we'll use you word—it's nicer." She finished as they came to stand before his office door.
He smiled at her nervously. "So," He nodded to the hatch behind her. "That's, um, that's my office." He saw her dissolve into laughter and got worried. "What's so funny?"
"Nothing," She gleamed at him as she leaned back onto his door. "It's just, you have the goofiest look on your face," Her eyes turned smoldering. "….and all I can think of is the things I can do to wipe it off."
He moved infinitesimally towards her. "Name them please." He ordered fervently.
She grasped the door handle behind her and she grinned lustfully. "How about I show you?"
"Captain Apollo?" A distant, dignified, but wholly recognizable voice called out from down the hall.
Kara's hand froze on the handle and her head dropped. "Uhhhh….." She groaned softly.
Lee turned to see President Roslin walking towards them. He closed his eyes and shook his head. "This can NOT be happening to me." He rasped out.
"It's not just happening to you." Kara hissed back at him.
"Captain Apollo?" Roslin called out again.
He turned toward her. "Yes, Madam President?" He replied as she came to stand before them.
"Oh, I'm glad I caught you." She smiled serenely before nodding to Kara. "Lt. Thrace, it's nice to see you. How are you today?"
"Wonderful, ma'am," Kara faked a smile. "I'm so wonderful I could explode."
The President's face grew puzzled. "That's…that's nice."
"Did you need something, ma'am?" Lee asked, hoping that she would say no.
"Yes, actually," Roslin replied. "I've been in meetings with the Quorum delegates from Virgon and Picon all day. And for some reason passing understanding they can't quite grasp why a ship like the Galactica needs more rations than the other ships in the fleet, even though I've explained it to them several times; speaking slowly and using small words. I was thinking that it would register more if it came from a military officer." She paused slightly. "Now, they still have some trust issues with your father and they're not huge fans of Colonel Tigh either, for that matter. And you are the most recognizable military face from our little sojourn to Kobol, so I thought that maybe you could speak to them."
"Well, I—." Lee started.
Roslin interrupted him. "I was going to ask you before, since I thought you were free, but then I discovered that you were on duty. But your father mentioned just now that your schedule has cleared for the next few hours. Did you have something else planned?"
"Nothing that I'd feel comfortable putting on a schedule." He chuckled in irony.
"Excuse me?" She asked simply.
"Actually, there was something that I've been putting off that really needs to get done…."
"Captain." Kara stopped him gently. "This is important, the President needs you."
"But, Lt. Thrace," Lee pleaded. "Major problems could pop up for certain members of this crew if this does not get done soon."
"Still," Kara continued firmly. "If you didn't go with the President, you'd be distracted, and I'd rather have you focused when we……" She hesitantly looked over at Roslin. "…..when we 'go over training evals'."
Lee breathed deeply. "You're right, of course you're right." He looked over at the President. "Ma'am, I am at your disposal."
"Thank you, Captain." Roslin smiled at Lee appreciatively.
Kara moved to walk away and then turned back. "Come get me when you're done and maybe we can find a free hour to 'go over those training evals'." She sighed and then went down the hall.
'I appreciate your confidence in me, Kara,' He thought, looking after her. 'But at this point, I really don't think it'll take any longer than five minutes.'
'Okay.' Lee thought. 'Quorum is placated, rations are secure, and President Roslin is back on Colonial One. And it only took four hours.' He definitely deserved a reward for that. Hopefully his 'reward' would be waiting for him in his office.
He opened his door and sure enough, he found her there, angrily rummaging through the file cabinet. He leaned against the door. "Hey, Starbuck."
She turned to look at him with a blank expression on her face as he smiled and winked at her.
"You've been gone four hours." She said harshly as she turned back away from him.
"I'm back now." He came up behind her and put his hands at her sides.
"Great. So now we only have two hours."
"We can very thoroughly go over those evals in two hours." He whispered seductively as he placed a soft kiss at the curve of her neck.
"What if the President needs you again?" She asked coldly.
"You could write me an excuse." He grinned against her skin. "It could say 'Dear Madam President: Please excuse Captain Adama from participating in Fleet matters for a few hours as he will be busy engaging in long overdue, illicit sexual activity with me.'."
"No. That's not gonna happen." She stated simply.
"Well of course not." He laughed, licking a path on her skin. "That would be inappropriate."
"No. That's not what I meant." She shrugged out of his grasp. "I meant there won't be any sex."
He blinked, confused and slightly scared. "Wait, you mean now?"
She laughed bitterly, frustrated to the verge of tears. "I'm beginning to think ever."
"Kara, wait."
"Do you think I've been here in your office pining for you for the last four hours?" She hissed. "No! Since you've been in your little meeting, two of your new 'pilots', and I use the term loosely, have managed to foul up the deck and almost get themselves killed. In the last four hours there has been an avalanche of the most ridiculous, pathetic, tragically frustrating, mind-numbingly irritating, inconceivably stupid and unfixable problems falling down on me. On top of that, I'm beginning to think that the universe hates us and this thing between us is just never gonna happen. But I do know one thing: this has quite possibly been one of the worst days of my life, and that's saying something because I've had a lot of bad days. And you can't just come in here, lean against a door frame, smile at me, wink, say 'Hey, Starbuck', and expect me to just drop everything and screw you. That won't make everything better. You can't keep doing that to me! I WON'T LET YOU!" She slammed the file cabinet shut and stormed out of the room.
Lee moped over to his chair, sat down and dropped his head to the desk. "Frak!"
"Anyways, I told her if she wanted to go I would be there and she could go. But I wasn't going for her; I wasn't gonna leave if she wasn't there; if she did come but then wanted to leave and I wanted stay, I'd stay; and I told her I probably wouldn't hang out with her the whole time. I mean, why should I have to be nice to her and plan things around her schedule just because she's my date?" Hotdog finished. "Anyways, she's totally hot for me."
The other eight eyes at the table stared at him in amazement.
"Yeah, Hotdog." Joker muttered sarcastically. "Hard to believe anybody sees you as anything other than a born romantic."
"Why have we not dealt yet?" Lee asked, his fingers tapping the table in an irritated gesture.
The others jerked at the hardness in the tone of the CAG's voice.
"No reason." Kingston replied quietly, cautiously.
Lee let out a harsh breath. "Well, it just occurs to me that in the last three minutes that I've been sitting here, at the CARD TABLE, I've heard about Joker's stomach ailment, Frosty's video game and Hotdog's dating habits, but what I have yet to see are cards in my hands. So somebody get the deck and deal before I set the room on fire." Lee hissed.
"You havin' a bad day, CAG?" Hotdog asked obliviously, grabbing the cards that Frosty dealt to him.
"No." Lee grumbled. "I'm having an absolutely frakking perfect day."
"Really?" Hotdog asked naively, stupidly.
Apollo looked back at him, his eyes full of irritated incredulity. "No, Costanza. Not really."
"What seems to be the problem, sir?" Joker asked concerned.
"Well, let's see…..the representatives from Picon and Virgon are acting more like kindergartners playing keep away with valuable, necessary rations than like Quorum delegates. Four of my eight new pilots can't trap a landing to save their lives and as a result, I just spent the last few hours with Sgt. Hadrian answering her questions regarding the investigation of the deck foul-up. We have a five day backlog on Viper repairs and not enough people or supplies to repair them with……and," He paused and chuckled ruefully as he took his cards. "I just managed to wreck the best thing I had going for me in my entire pathetic existence because 'the timing wasn't right'. Well you know what? Frak that. If you want something bad enough you make it happen. Screw everything else. Life is too damn short, especially now. But it seems I'm too much of an idiot to realize that, so instead of being where I desperately want to be, I'm stuck here with you losers. And apparently a card game at the end of the day is now going to be the high point of my life. So I guess I get a little upset when it gets delayed by moronic chatter. This game is the only thing I have been looking forward to all afternoon. I just want to sit here and play cards until this crap-hole of a day is over with and I really don't think that there is anything in the universe that could move me from this chair."
As he finished his rant, he heard someone clear their throat. When he looked up at the other side of the room where the noise had come from, he saw her there.
She was leaning against the hatch-frame smiling a devious smile. "Hey, Apollo." She bit her lip. "Do you think we could 'go over training evals'?" And she winked.
He gulped. Loudly. And the cards in his hands dropped unceremoniously to the table below. He turned to the other players. "Yeah…….okay guys, I'm gonna go."
-finis