Thank you again for following this story! And so sorry for the delay – I know I'm terrible!
Title: Chasm and Flood, Part 10?
Author: abelard
Rating: 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 10
"Just come over here," she says. She holds up the edge of the blanket, and he climbs in, pressing the length of his warm, firm body against her.
She's wearing next to nothing, and it takes him beyond all preconceived fantasies of Kara pliant and welcoming in his arms. Their times before – the times with the real Kara, not that ghost his imagination conjured – were so frantic and sad. The thin material of her short cotton shift leaves all her limbs bare, and he's wearing only boxers, the one concession to modern dress he allowed himself before coming to this little backwards world. His skin presses against hers everywhere, and he gathers her in his arms, holds her body as tightly against his as he can, willing her to melt into his embrace and to never escape.
Apollo and his nymph...the hopeless quest for permanence and possession. He'll never be able to hold onto Kara and he knows it. It's just like her, just exactly like how she and he have always been, that he would chase her down after death, find her, and still not be able to hold on.
His dark thoughts are interrupted by Kara's soft laughter. Against his chest, her laugh feels like a fluttering in his heart. "I can't breathe," she whispers against his chest.
He forces himself to relax his hold and she draws back an inch farther than he would like her to. She stares at his face, and he knows she feels something for him. "What do you want?" he asks. He's been hard ever since climbing into the bed with her, his thick, swollen shaft pressing against her hips, she can't fail to know what he wants. But what she wants is something he's vowed to get better at since he first saw her alive. He'll never make the mistake of second-guessing Kara Thrace again.
She blinks, twice, in the moonlight. He strokes her face, runs his hand through her hair, and wonders at the softness of it. "If it's true, that...that you love me," she says. "Then show me."
"Show you?" Lee repeats, like a dimwitted beggar in the presence of a goddess. Uncertainty flashes across Kara's face and Lee mentally punches himself for letting her think he is hesitant. This is exactly the mistake he's always made with her – well, one of the three thousand or so. He's always paused, double-checked, sought out verification, given her time to think (time to push away, time to doubt his desire for her). When maybe – clearly – this is what she really wants, to see his certainty, to know without question where he stands, what he feels, how much he wants.
"I'll show you, Kara," says Lee, locking his hand firmly in the moonlit gold of her hair, his other hand already creeping under the hem of her meager garment, running steadily up the inside of her thigh, "but I warn you, this has been a long time coming, and once we start, I won't have any restraint."
But they've already started, Lee's hand is so close to the heat between her thighs – there – and she's so wet under his fingers, and Kara reaches down and feels his cock through his shorts, squeezes, and he groans before he can stop himself but it's all right, the way she grins, she likes it. Lee withdraws his hand from Kara's heat and uses it to brace himself against the mattress, pushing himself hard into her palm.
"I don't want restraint," she says. "I want you to show me everything."
Lee goes still at her words. He thinks he understands what she means: she wants to know all that he feels for her in his heart. But when it comes to Kara, Lee has always had a dozen different hearts, each one locked away inside the next, like a series of nesting wooden dolls. Treasure boxes within treasure boxes. And to open them all at once, Lee's always felt, would be disaster.
"I...I can't," Lee manages to say, despite the fact that Kara fondling him and pressing against him all over threatens to drive language from his mind.
Kara removes her wonderful, soft, warm hand from his thickness and Lee moans again at the loss. "Why not?" she demands.
Lee frowns. As much as he wants to take Kara's hand and put it back on him, where it belongs, he knows she deserves an answer. He takes a breath, lets it out, says the truth. "If I showed you everything – everything – that I feel for you, it would terrify you," he says.
She frowns, matching his expression. "How do you know?
He leans closer and gazes into her face, the face of his desire and despair. He locks his eyes on hers so that she can see how much he means this. "Because it scares the shit out of me," he answers.
She closes her eyes and kisses him. Kissing Kara is like nothing else. It's like eating sunlight. It's a forgetting of himself, not just who he is, but what he is. Lost in the fusion of his mouth and tongue with Kara's, Lee lets go of what it is to be separate, alone, individual, a being unto himself. Kissing Kara, he is a part of something far greater than himself, and he never wants his independence back.
But he knows they can fuse closer still.
"I need to be inside you," he whispers harshly against her ear, and he is already fingering her drenched opening as he says it.
"Gods, yes," Kara moans and it is all the permission he's going to seek, and all that he needs. Lee drives in with a strong thrust and though Kara cries out with the newness of being filled, he can't pause and wait for her to adjust. His thrusts are full force, he can't help but hammer her hard, and she's wrapping her four limbs around him and clutching him even more tightly to her, and finally, finally, Kara is coming around him and he is coming inside her and it's all, all, all right.
He kisses her as he withdraws, not wanting the fusion to end. He gathers her into his arms and she rests her head on his chest. Her breath warms his skin when she says, "I don't want you to go. I want you to stay with me, here."
Lee tries to keep the images from forming in his mind, but they come anyway: his father, leading a landing party of armed Marines, storming into this very cottage; Kara locked up in a transparent cage like Sharon's, subject to all the decisions and authority of everyone around her and having no autonomy of her own; Lee frantic on the other side of the impenetrable glass, desperate to be with her again and knowing he never can, that, like Helo and Sharon and their baby, he and Kara will never be alone together again.
"Go to sleep," he says into Kara's hair, but she already has. He wipes his mind clean and allows himself only to think of how he has always wanted to fall asleep just like this, as Kara's pillow, with the strands of her hair teasing his chest. He has always wanted to know what this felt like, and it feels like a dream.
The villagers seem to like Kara just fine, although they are stymied by the kinds of machines she's building, which Lee is helping her with, and they look at Lee like they don't know what to make of him. He isn't her brother, they know, and he isn't her husband, so what is he, exactly, and why is he sharing her little hut? Is he staying? Lee hears the gossip as he walks through the narrow dirt paths towards the market, where he buys foodstuff, plus whatever raw materials he can find that might be useful for his and Kara's projects.
There's one man among the villagers that Lee despises before he fully realizes why. The man's name is Bryce, and he's tall and broad-shouldered and good-natured and well-liked by everyone, which is why Lee can't figure out why he hates the man so much. Then, when he decides to pay closer attention, he notices that Bryce hovers around Kara a bit. When the two of them talk, Bryce touches Kara on the arm a few times, runs a hand swiftly down her back, smiles warmly at her. Ah, Lee thinks. That's why I hate him.
Unbidden, a thought flashes in Lee's mind: Kara will need someone when I'm gone. Lee squeezes his eyes shut tightly at that. When he thought, not so long ago, that Kara was dead, that she was gone forever, Lee sent up spiteful reprimands to the gods: If only you'd let her live, even if I could never touch her, or speak to her, or even see her again, if only I knew that she was somewhere, safe and happy and whole, I could have accepted that. Now he knows how wrong he was. This is the gods laughing at him, punishing him for his foolishness.
Kara's a Cylon and doesn't know it, and Lee prays she never learns it. He doesn't know what interest the Cylons have in this remote world, but he desperately hopes they've only deposited Kara here as a lone agent for reconaissance; he hopes they have no designs on this place, that they'll leave these people in their ignorance and their peace, and let Kara live out this lifetime without her memories.
These are the closest things to prayers Lee says now. He knows the gods and their ways well enough not to pray for himself any longer. They'll never grant his desires, they never do. Not for good.
"What's wrong?" Kara asks, stopping her work and squinting at him. The sun is unusually bright today, and she shields her eyes with her hand. Her hair is warm and yellow in the sun, and Lee steps forward, reaching out to stroke it. This makes Kara frown. "You look sad," she says. "What's wrong?"
"Kara!" Bryce shouts from twenty paces away. "Is this how you want the tracks laid?"
"I'll check in a minute," she yells back, and turns again to Lee. "What is it? Tell me."
Just then, Lee's comm beeps. Kara is startled, and is even more surprised when Lee reaches into his tunic, withdraws the small black device. "What is that?" she asks. When it beeps again, she gasps. Her eyes are enormous when they lift to his. "What are you? Where do you come from?" she demands.
Lee is caught – nothing he's shown Kara has readied her to see this level of technology – but he has to answer before the comm beeps again. It's Helo, he's sure of it, and he answers swiftly. No one else is around, so at least he doesn't have to fear anyone seeing this conversation but Kara. Who, of course, is plenty fearsome all by herself.
"Adama."
"Major, it's me, Helo," the voice from the comm says.
Kara says, "Oh my gods. How is he..."
"Major, we're coming for you. A landing party is organizing now. The Admiral says he needs you on board, Sir. He's no longer...accepting your...request for extended leave."
"How soon?" Lee asks. As soon as he heard the first beep, he knew this would be Helo's message.
"We're taking down a single raptor in one-quarter hour, Sir." Then, in a lower voice – and Lee knows that Helo is still on his side, still on their side, by his secretive tone – "What do you want me to do, Apollo?"
Lee hears what Helo is asking. Should Helo stall, misdirect the Galactica team, so that Lee and Kara can try to run? But where would they run? The Marines will check all the known villages. All the people on the planet think the mountains are uninhabitable. That only leaves the sea, but there may be nothing on the other side of that water. He'd be happy to live forever with Kara alone on some faraway mountainside, or some secret island. But was that even a possibility?
"Sir?" Helo asks again, in the same conspiratorial voice.
"Lee, what's going on?" Kara asks, frowning.
Lee closes his eyes. There's no bringing Kara aboard the ship. There's no running away with her.
He opens his eyes and stares at her face, at the way she's breathing hard from worry and confusion. He thought he'd never see her breathing again.
Lee's gaze wanders over to Bryce, who's waiting expectantly, resting on a sledgehammer he's been using to drive in the wooden spikes for their rudimentary track. Bryce's eyes focus intently on Kara, anticipating she'll come towards him any moment.
No. No. Unacceptable.
There's no leaving Kara behind. That's not an option.
"Helo," says Lee, "run interference. Do whatever you can to give us time."
"Lee?" Kara asks, afraid.
"Copy that, Sir. Best of luck," Helo says, and the comm goes dead.