Title: Chasm and Flood, Part 2?
Author: abelard
Rating: K, soon to be M
Spoilers: Mentions of stuff through S2, pure spec on my part
Summary: Lee loses Kara, and finds her again. Speculation on why the Cylons keep telling Starbuck she has a "special destiny." LeeKara, of course.
Feedback: Please!
Archive: Yes, just let me know.
Disclaimers: Not mine, etc.
Part 2
He broke up with Dee without saying a word. It was the very fact that he couldn't speak to her, and not just to her, but to anyone, in the days and weeks after Starbuck's death unless the conversation were clearly related to his duties as an officer, that ended things.
He felt only gratitude when Dee came to his office one day and simply, silently, returned the presents he'd given to her during the months they'd dated. He would have protested that she should feel free to keep them. He would have, if he'd been able to speak in language that wasn't giving or acknowledging orders.
He didn't allow himself to feel much in that first month after they launched Starbuck into space inside a silk shroud and a coffin – the wall he put up was a mile thick, and held through almost everything – but when emotion did punch its way through, it was mostly regret. Had he really spent the last few months of Kara's life in a relationship with somebody else? It seemed impossible. He'd been laughing and snuggling with some other woman, and all that time, his minutes with Kara were running down, their number getting smaller. He frittered them all away on someone who was just, they both knew, keeping him company. And Kara's last words had been for him. She used her dying breath to tell him that she loved him. He'd known, but the knowledge was buried deep down. He'd thought it would take years and too much forgiveness than either he or Starbuck possessed to surface it. Then, suddenly, Starbuck was bleeding her life out and there it was. He hadn't said it back. He knew that her saying it was signal enough about the pain she was in, the brink she was on, and he was running a split second after her last proclamation. But if he'd known then that he'd be too late getting to her, if he'd just have spoken into the headset before her final landing...
I love you too, Kara.
It would have been the last thing she heard.
The first month passed, and Lee knew they were all worried about him, but he wasn't worried. He was numb and stoic, but he didn't especially think that was a cause for concern. He was still going, he hadn't closed down, he carried out his responsibilities with the precision and leadership necessary. He was every bit the pilot, CAG, and Major he'd ever been.
He just wasn't a man anymore.
He knew there was a difference between functioning and living. But he felt zero compunction to make the others feel better by trying to get from wherever he was to "normal." Frak them. What did it matter whether he was the same as before? He was doing what they required, giving them what they needed from him, wasn't he? He wasn't worried about himself, why should they worry about him?
Then he started seeing things. He started seeing her.
Glimpses, at first, in the corridors. As if she was walking twenty paces ahead of him, rounding the corner just when he caught sight of the back of her head, her ponytail swaying, her flight suit disappearing as Lee's steps unconsciously sped up. Of course, whenever he turned those corners, she wasn't there.
Then, she was. He saw her sitting at the back of the briefing room, for only an instant. He saw her laughing at the triad table, sitting just a little outside the circle of officers playing a heated game. Once, he saw her naked in the shower stall directly in front of where he was shaving. He dropped the razor and craned his neck to get a better view of her. But nothing. The shower wasn't even running. Lee touched his hand to the tiles and felt them to be dry.
Her voice started coming to him...it began in his dreams but filled up the first moments of wakefulness...Lee, Lee, Lee. She said his name with such...love. She spoke to him as if she loved him.
Of course she loves you, idiot, Lee chastised himself. Didn't she tell you so? He wanted to say it back, except he could never find her, never really see her for more than a fraction of a second at a time...
He understood that he was going crazy when he did finally see her, hear her, for a significant amount of time. It was in his office, on a rare night when he had no shifts in a Viper or in CIC. He decided to give in a little to his need to spend some time with her, with things that reminded him of her. He lit a cigar and nursed a bottle of the Chief's swill and dwelled on memories without apology.
"Lee," she said and sat beside him.
"Kara," he breathed. She was in her tanks, fatigues, and combat boots: her usual off-duty attire. Her hair was loose and hung almost to her shoulders. She was smiling.
"You're..." he said.
"Dead?" she finished for him. Her smile got even wider. That look on her face always meant trouble. How Lee had longed to be in that kind of trouble again. "That doesn't mean I'm not real," Kara said. She laid her hand on top of his. It was warm. Lee remembered clutching her hand all night, the night she had died. And now, the skin of her palm, her fingers...she was so warm. "Don't I feel real?" she asked in that voice, that voice which, at that particular pitch, could make him hard even without physical contact.
"Yes," he ground out. "But it's not...it doesn't make any..."
"Sense?" She always could finish his sentences if she cared to, they knew each other's minds like they had telepathy. "What good is sense? What about your senses, what do they tell you?" She moved closer, until her side pressed up against his. He felt his cock swell and lengthen.
"That you're here, with me," Lee said. He felt himself surrender to her, to the feel and heat of her. He gave himself up to the madness of the dream. He reached up and held her face, drew her in close and kissed her long, deep, and hard. She kissed him back, breathed heavily against him when their lips parted. Her breath smelled so sweet, he listened for the sound of her exhalations and put his palm on her heart. He felt it beating. He had to have her.
"Kara, I..." He wanted to apologize for his roughness, his urgency, even as he pressed her down into the cot, began working up the hems of her shirts.
"Shhh, I want it, so much. I want you," she said, and nothing had ever felt so right.
When they were both naked, Lee slid inside her and was immediately enclosed in her hot wetness. "Gods..." he said before he began to stroke in and out of her, sensuous and strong and loving. "Gods, Kara, I love you."
"Me, too," she said. He dared a look at her face – she was real, she was right there, he was making love to her and nothing could ever be so good – he saw her face and his heart melted. She was grinning with pleasure. With glee. She was as happy as he was. For once in their lives, they were in the same place.
For once in our lives...
Lee didn't dwell on his thoughts. Kara was speaking, compelling him to listen to her, always. "How many times were we together like this?" she asked.
Lee was so close, speeding up his thrusts, he was going to come so hard, and so was she, he felt her shivering on the inside...
"Twice," he managed to answer, as he began frakking her in earnest, so hard, Gods, he was so hard...Both times before had been in anger and frustration and hadn't felt like this, so full and lush...
"It wasn't enough," said Kara.
They came apart together. Lee felt himself surge in her and fill her up, and smiled and cried a little as she rained kisses all over his face, his chest. He stayed inside her long enough to feel the last of her breathtaking spasms around his cock, then he withdrew and gathered her body close. He fell asleep in her arms.
When he woke, he was alone. Where did she...?
But he knew where she'd gone, and when.
He'd made love to a ghost.
Lee began to worry about himself.