title: glorious is your portion
author: m
pairing: dualla/apollo ust
rating: pg13
summary: The gods can be cruel but they have their moments of generosity too.
author's note: written for the secondary characters (BSG) ficathon My request was for meeshyickle for checking this thing over for me and reading it and generally holding my hand. the research and the source for the prayers on Hestia comes from here. whether or not she's actually a part of the Lords of Kobol pantheon isn't clear but I'm going with the greek history on the subject.
"glorious is your portion"
It was painful to watch at first, brought up memories best left forgotten, words which should have gone unsaid ringing in her ears. All the half-finished fights, strained silences...come back in a rush and she couldn't push them away. It all looked so familiar. It didn't matter how they started or what lay beneath...the fights between fathers and sons aren't so different than the ones between fathers and daughters.
She'd fought with her dad about a lot of things but beneath it was always the same cause. She enlisted and he hated it. They had the same argument over and over again, hurling bitter words back and forth at each other. Each visit home disintegrating into the same thing. He sniped, she snapped and Mom left the room in tears. After a while, she hated him for it. He didn't have to agree with her choice but he didn't have to. He just had to understand and if he couldn't do that then he could pretend to understand and if he couldn't do that, not even for her, then...then she didn't have to care either. Toward the end she went home for Mom when she didn't want to go home at all. Strained visits were a Dualla family staple. Mom chattered, Dad brooded and she soldiered on. Dee's good at that.
Good little soldier...She plays the role as though ordained for it and it's her father's voice she hears when the thought whispers through her mind. She may blame herself for not fixing things when she had the chance but her father's ghost looms large. Everything may have ended, he may be dead, but she...she can't quite forget the things they said. She's had a lot of time to think about it and she understands, she can't let go and she's not sure she can ever forgive...but she can understand. As much as he scorned the military, he was scared to see her in it. She can think back, see him in their living room, hear the words spilling out, see the look on his face, and beneath it all the sharp edge of fear. It's the very definition of irony, her enlistment saved her life, and it rests uneasily in her gut.
Being on Galactica and watching Apollo with the Commander she gets that reminder every day. She doesn't see the arguments but she sees the fall out, feels the familiar tension and she knows even if she got the second chance this would be what she'd face.
The gods can be cruel and the fates heartless...sometimes they give someone else what you want the most just so you can see how you'd fail to use it.
"I have a confession to make." Lee leans toward her and she smiles, wondering if he has any idea how he looks. Radiating mischief, the great Apollo looks like a little boy about to embark upon something very naughty. It's that look that has hearts swooning all over the place and dear gods - swoon? She did not just use that word…She's getting melodramatic. She hates melodramatic.
Leaning in, she lets her smile turn to a wicked grin, "If you only have one, you're living a very boring life."
He lunges for her and she dances aside, feeling air brush by her from the speed of his movement. "Boring?" He scoffs, relaxing into a combat ready stance, watching her with wary eyes. "I am not boring."
Dee's grin widens just a little and she tilts her head, "Well, as much as I hate to be the one to break it to you, Sir..."
"Oh," he throws up his hands, "Come on..."
"Stuffy."
"I am not stuffy."
"Yes, you are...these days, we say the Old Man we're not talking about the Commander." She taunts, remembering everything he's been teaching her in this and throwing him off her game would be just so perfect in this. "Stuffy."
He lashes out and she's on her back, staring up at the lights. Frak, she so didn't see that one coming. He leans over her, body holding her down against the floor, and thinking about anything other than that is taking everything she's got. "I," he begins deliberately, "am not stuffy."
"Okay, you're not stuffy," she assures with a grin that's a lot cockier than she feels. "Prove it. What's this confession of yours?"
Lee looks up, making a great show of checking over his shoulder despite the fact they're alone, then leans closer still, "Pyramid? I think it's boring."
She widens her eyes, deliberately looking as shocked as possible, "No! You'll break Starbuck's heart if she hears that."
"She already knows," he mock-sighs and his breath slides over her cheek, making her shiver just a little. "Wouldn't speak to me for days when she found out then she decided to try and teach me wonder of the game. Alas, to her dismay I'm immune to the fever. I know the rules; I can play a bit but…"
"Boring?"
"Yes, boring," Apollo agrees, the spark of devilment dancing merrily in his eyes, "which is one reason I'm very grateful we're practicing in here instead of..."
Her gaze follows him back to the hatch. Somewhere out there a group of their fellow officers, led by Starbuck, are huddled around a wireless listening to the play by play of the pyramid game being played on Cloud Nine. It's another sign of their supposedly reborn civilization, at least that's what they're calling it, the reformation of the league. Really, it's a hastily assembled group of amateur players calling themselves by the old team names but like everything else in the fleet it's the best they can do and Dee can't fault them for that.
"So you see, you're saving me from at least two hours of pretending to be interested." Apollo admits, completely unrepentant about it. "See, I'll pretend to be interested so as not to let anybody down but Kara always sees through it, it gets ugly, there's hard feelings, possibly some violence...she's a fanatic about the whole Pyramid experience."
"She was going to play in the leagues." Dee reminds, moving her head to free her hair trapped beneath her head. Apollo seems in no great hurry to move so she's contended herself to staying right where she is. She's not in any rush to move either, who would be? Half the fleet has a thing for the dashing Captain Adama so she's hardly alone in her feelings. She's just the one who he apparently likes to pin down on a weekly basis.
The gods can be cruel but they have their moments of generosity too.
"So," she continues with her own mischievous look, "I'm actually the one doing you the favor." Dee knows her lips are curving up into a wicked little grin but she doesn't mind the reminder Lee is giving her. His eyes following the action with interest tells her she's got him and she thinks maybe she's got him in more ways than one.
Right now, though, there's only one way she's really interested in. She can't help taking advantage of his momentary distraction, it's too perfect. She has to do it quickly so with a move she picked up along the line, she reverses their positions and grins down at him in triumph.
Apollo grunts, connecting with the mat, and the sound brings to mind images that make her grin waver and her cheeks warm. She'd be lying if she tried pretending she doesn't think about it. She's no fool. Even ignoring who it is, spending a few hours a week with someone sparring like they do, it's impossible not to think about. Considering who it is, she knows it's just as impossible to avoid thinking about it and she knows he's thinking about it too. Dee's felt his body react to hers one too many times to sell any illusions to herself that he's not.
She doesn't wonder if...She wonders when.
"Confession?" Dee presses her hand into the mat, her arm brushing against his bare shoulder, and knows her voice is breathless from a lot more than exertion.
"Only one?" The grin on his face is as shaky as she feels.
She makes a show of rolling her eyes at his teasing before revealing, "I don't like it either." Her smile turns slightly bitter. "Much to my father's dismay, he was a little obsessed and I couldn't stand it. Drove him crazy." She doesn't let herself have a lot of good memories about her father. They exist but she just can't let herself go there often. She doesn't know if it's because of what he said...or what she did. But every now and then she lets herself remember...sometimes she even lets herself laugh at it. Sometimes.
He's seen the documentary, everyone has, and the memory of it flickers in his eyes but mercifully he doesn't acknowledge it as he speaks, "The more he pushed the more you hated it huh?"
"Yeah," Dee makes a squinty face as she nods and he grins. She likes watching him like this. Everything out there...the pressure is like nothing she's ever felt before and she thinks it's a miracle they get through a day without falling beneath the weight. She's never had a whole lot of faith in the gods but sometimes she thinks maybe, just maybe, the fact any of them are still sane is pretty good proof. She's never said it to anyone, who would she tell? Billy doesn't believe at all and there aren't a lot of deep philosophical discussions going on over the card games in the rec room.
When she thinks like this is when she misses her mom. She could have talked about this with her. Her mother had been a priestess of Hestia before marrying her father. She can remember being caught up in the romance of the story when she was little. It had all sounded so very glamorous and scandalous when her mother told her the story at night. The idea that a priestess of Hestia would willingly leave her order, forsake her vows to the goddess, all because she loved a man and wanted to marry him? It had caused such an uproar in their little town and little Anastasia Dualla had gone to sleep every night making up a fairytale starring her parents in her head and listening to her mother's lilting voice as she prayed to the goddess who had never lost her devotion.
She can still hear the prayers, her mother's soft words whispering benedictions, and she knows Mom would have understood.
The ground suddenly shifts beneath her and she's flying through the air before she realizes Apollo's turned the tables on her.
She lands flat and hard, knocking the wind out of her, and he's looking down at her and she catches a fleeting glimpse of worry in his eyes. He always does that, gods bless him, and it's so frakking cute. She asks him to spar and when he gives as good as he gets, he worries about her. She thinks it's cute. Even cuter since he still doesn't hold back. Maybe he knows if he did she wouldn't think it cute at all. Either way, he gets points for it. "Not bad."
He looks smug and she just can't have that, she much prefers the look of bewilderment he gets when she manages to slip free and bounce back to her feet. Her body misses the feeling of his against hers but she knows she'll have that back soon enough. No way Apollo can let that slide. He is Apollo after all. Captain Apollo, the great guardian of the fleet, sometimes anarchist, man of principle, and pin up star in the most popular bootleg footage in the fleet.
Which, of course, is something she would have nothing to do with. At all.
Right.
"That was cheating." He complains in a way that is nothing but bluster and she grins broader.
"No, that was good," she dances back out of his reach, walking backwards with him stalking her. In theory, she'd asked him for these sessions to improve her hand to hand. She knows she's not alone in that. Lee and some of the others have been doing this for a lot of people but Dee knows she's getting way more out of this than just combat skills. Getting chased around a room by Lee Adama is not a bad way to spend an hour or two. Pinned to the mat is even better but chased around definitely has its advantages, like the look in his eyes for one. "Actually, it was pretty near perfect."
"Oh," he tilts his head back a little, grinning, "was it? I don't know, that move... a little sloppy there Dualla."
"Was not," she shoots back, avoiding the blow he throws at her. "Admit it; you thought it was pretty good."
He makes a show of giving it serious thought and then makes a motion with his hand, "It wasn't bad."
"It was good."
"Maybe," Apollo hedges, the grin on his face widening. "You've been practicing."
"Maybe a little." Which is the truth, between duty shifts and everything else she's got going on, she doesn't have time to practice a lot. "You're not a terrible teacher, guess something must be sticking." She swings out a punch and he blocks it, backing her up against the wall and holding her there with his forearm. See? Back to the full body contact. It's a popular thing with them. "Something wrong...sir?" Somehow, when she calls him that it doesn't sound regulation. It sounds...sexual and the look in his eyes, she's not the only one feeling like that.
"Not terrible?" He repeats and she just manages to keep the grin off her face, he's struggling too but holding it together better. "I'm not terrible?"
"Yes, sir," she assures solemnly. "Not terrible."
Lee holds her gaze for a long moment and then they both lose it. She's not sure which one of them cracked first but by the end of it they're sitting across from each other on the floor and wiping tears of laughter from their eyes. She can't remember the last time she laughed this hard and she'd forgotten how good it feels. Leaning her head back against the wall, she giggles which is not something she ever did a lot, "Okay, so maybe you're better than not terrible but...someone's got to keep you humble."
"And you're volunteering for the job?" He asks, leaning back on his elbow looking for all the world like a painting she saw once. Sometimes, his callsign really does fit and when it does, when she has a moment like this, she can hear her mother's voice in her ear and the story comes back in a rush.
"Why not?" Stretching out a leg, she smiles lazily. "I'm not falling at your feet like the rest of the women in the fleet now am I?"
"Did a pretty good job of it a minute ago."
That makes her laugh again and cede the point with a nod, "You got me there. Okay, so I fall at your feet less than they do so the job falls to me. Someone has to do it and I'm just that unlucky." She feigns a put upon expression and he grins, prodding her with one foot.
"I'm that bad huh?" He tries for a pout but it's the worst one in the history of the colonies so she rolls her eyes again. "Mom always said I was a curse from the gods."
"She did not." Dee shot back, grinning.
"Yeah she did." He admits and he's surprisingly sheepish as he does so. "Me and Zak...we were kind of a handful growing up."
Now that she can believe but she's not sure what to say to it. She doesn't talk about Before much and neither does Lee. Most of what she knows about the Adama family history she's picked up from Starbuck, the Commander, and fleet scuttlebutt. For all their sparring matches, they don't do a lot of heart to heart. Passing comments and unsaid admissions...those are more their speed and she's more comfortable with that. At least, for now, she's not sure she's ready to be let in and made privy to all the deep dark secrets of Lee Adama. He plays at being the open book but she can see the lie covering the truth. There's a lot more going on beneath the pretty face than he'll ever admit to. Just like most everyone on Galactica...nothing was ever as simple as it appeared to be and no matter how cliché that is, Dee has never seen a better example of it. She's never really thought about it before but it's always been this way, they were just content to pretend otherwise. It was easier then, back before the attacks when they could keep things separate. Leave the ghosts planetside where they belonged but now there are no planets to haunt and the ghosts have come with them. Now the ghosts lie beneath the surface of thinly-veiled lies, conversations like this take on whole new significance and it's as annoying as hell.
She knows her hesitation has gone on just a second too long when she sees the wariness lingering in Lee's eyes and she thinks fast, "A handful? You? Please, be honest..."
"Okay, we were hellions." He throws up a hand in mock-exasperation, relief underscoring the simple response. "If we weren't beating the hell out of each other we were destroying the house, and if we weren't doing that, we were getting dragged home by our neighbors for fighting and destroying their houses."
"I thought so." Dee agrees archly, laughing.
They look at each other for a moment and the veil slips.
"I miss it too." He admits quietly and stands up. She doesn't ask what he means; she doesn't have to anymore than she has to answer. He knows what she would say so he doesn't wait for her response. Instead, he leans over and holds out a hand.
She lets him pull her up and they stand there for a moment in each other's space. Dee knows that look, she's imagined it on his face, and she's known it was coming but even though she did...
It's still a surprise when the wanting is so easily visible on his face.
He looks just as surprised to see it on hers and maybe that's what holds them back. Or, maybe it's the comfortable certainty that it will happen and they don't need to rush to get there. Everything around them screams of drama, angst, and post-apocalyptic desperation and Dee wants to believe that's this isn't a part of that. She does believe it. There has to be one thing in their lives which isn't fueled by the fear that everything could end at any second and grab what you can before the Cylons take it away because you don't get a second chance.
She won't let this be that and she thinks he won't either.
They don't need to believe in fairytales but it doesn't hurt to believe in this.
"Same time tomorrow?" She asks, not moving.
He nods, "Same time tomorrow, unless of course the world ends...again."
Dee makes a face. There's a word for Lee Adama but if she uses it, her mother will haunt her until the end of her days and she won't be happy about it. He gives her that wicked little boy grin again and she can easily summon up what his mother faced every day. "Your Mom was right." She teases, bouncing a step backward. "You are a curse from the gods..."
"A fact I never denied." He reminds, following her and herding her away from the hatch. He's not done yet and she's in for it.
"Good." There's nowhere to go so she devotes herself to figuring out which move he'll make next. "There's no point in trying --" She squeals when he lunges but she refuses to admit that's what it is. She does not squeal. She does not. She...Is on the floor again. This is getting to be a bad, but not unwelcome, habit.
"Oh I wasn't." Lee looks cute when he's smug. He pretty much looks cute no matter what he does, not that she'll ever tell him so, but she doesn't see smug much. "I was merely pointing out a fact."
"Merely."
"Uh huh."
"Can I get up now?"
"Why? Got somewhere important to be or is it a date?" Okay, forget smug. She likes jealous better. His eyes get dark and have a look to them that could be just a little thrilling if she let herself feel it.
"Well..." She knows he's waiting for her to try something so she bides her time. "It's not like I've up and joined a Hestian order, there's more to my life than CIC and my rack." She smiles flippantly. "Though, if I had company there, guess it wouldn't be so bad, a little cramped maybe."
He blushes and she escapes. Sometimes, it really is too easy.
She's not sure when she first wanted to come here to do this but now it just feels right. She thinks those left behind and those that have gone on would agree. If they didn't agree, she thinks in this, they might understand.
It's become ritual now, after all this time, but she still performs every action with the greatest of care. As she does every night, Dee lit the candle and looked up at the pictures. She doesn't speak right away, she never did, she learned the words should never be rote and should not be spoken until she feels it's time. When it was, unbidden, the words she learned at her mother's knee fall as a whisper from her lips, "Lady of Kobol, hear my prayer..." Hestia, in the high dwellings of all, both deathless gods and men who walk on earth, you have gained an everlasting abode and highest honor: glorious is your portion and your right, Firstborn of the Lords, Goddess of old, my deepest prayers for a safe place to dwell."
She knows he's there, watching at the corner. He's there every night that he can be. He doesn't say anything about it and neither does she. This has become something that they know not to question and something they don't need to question. It just is.
She lowers her eyes from the pictures and stares steadily into the flame, "Mistress of the hearth, Guardian of the home, I worship thee within the flame. Keep away illness from my home, Keep away anger from my home, Keep away danger from my home..." She's not sure they'll ever think of anywhere else as home but this ship. Not anymore. She isn't sure that she can and when she is willing to admit the truth...she doesn't want to.
"For my song grant grace," she closes her eyes at the last and feels him move closer as they both whisper, "So say we all."
When she looks over her shoulder, he'll be gone, and when she does...he is.
finis