In the Shadows - chapter 3

oooooooooooooooo

Two weeks later ...

It had been three weeks. Three weeks now since Lee had been shot, since I shot him, and they had yet to have a conversation. One that didn't include orders that is. Sure, they'd had to work together plenty since Kara had taken over part of Lee's job, but since Helo was usually at those meetings, nothing personal was ever said, though he did often give her an elbow, or the 'eyebrows', daring her to broach the subject with Lee. But somehow she couldn't.

It was as if Lee knew her schedule off by heart - he avoided every place she'd ever be off-duty and even took to sleeping elsewhere, her bed perhaps, so he wouldn't have to see her. Kara never considered herself the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but even she got the picture - Lee didn't want to talk to her. Didn't want to be with her at all outside of work. Helo's right though - this is never going to get resolved if we don't talk, so hard as it is, I have to do it.

She checked the schedules carefully, finding a time that Dee was on duty when Lee wasn't. Not an easy task, but after a couple of days, it was accomplished, and the plan was put into action. She'd recruited Helo to help out - he'd been more than willing - and his job was to get Lee alone in the CAG's office, ostensibly to talk about flight rotations, or whatever he could think of that needed Lee's personal attention. Anything to get him alone. Then Helo would leave and Kara would come in and put the second half of the plan into action - the 'get Lee to talk about what's wrong with us' part. Helo, you lucky bastard, she thought. You get the easy part!

Kara strolled along the corridor outside Lee's office, clipboard in hand in case she met anyone, waiting for Helo to emerge. She paced past the office several times, thankfully not encountering anyone.

Finally Helo emerged, looking optimistic. "Alright, go ahead," he whispered. Then he gave her a quick squeeze. "Good luck."

She pushed open the door and headed in.

"Something else Helo?" Lee said without looking up.

Kara sat in the chair opposite him, the desk between them. "We need to talk," she said without preamble.

Lee's head shot up, surprise evident in his eyes. "I don't think we have anything to talk about," he said flatly.

"Yes we do," she said firmly, looking him straight in the eye.

Lee stood up. "Listen, I have a lot of work to do, I really don't have time for this."

"Lee, please," she begged, also standing. "I need to talk to you."

"Maybe you should have tried a little harder when I was lying in a hospital bed," he said spitefully, eyes grey and cloudy. "I was a captive audience then."

Kara flushed, unable to voice her thoughts.

"Exactly," Lee said, stalking past her. "I don't think we have anything more to say to each other." He stood at the hatch, holding it open for her to exit.

She walked towards him and paused before him, a pleading look in her eyes. Lee felt a prickling pain in his chest, but quickly reminded himself that Kara was the one who kept hurting him. She deserved the cold treatment.

"I'll see you on the flight deck, Captain," he said coldly, shutting the hatch behind her.

Kara stood beside the door, leaning heavily against the bulkhead. The tears threatened to come but she fought them fiercely. She took deep breaths, but still they continued, stubbornly trying to work their way out of her eyes. Finally she gave up and headed back to the bunkroom, tears blinding her as they pooled and spilled down her cheeks. The clink of the hatch as Lee had closed it had been the final nail in the coffin. He hadn't just closed the door on her, he'd closed his heart to her. And the despair that settled over her was blacker than any she'd experienced ... since Zack's death.

ooooooooooooooooooooo

Three days later ...

He hadn't spoken a word to her. Not one. Not in three days. He'd given whatever orders were required through Helo, ensuring that he hadn't had to face her again. What a coward, Kara thought. I always thought 'Apollo' was so brave, but he's scared to face me. But though these thoughts gave her a small measure of comfort, it wasn't enough to pull her out of the hole she was quickly spiralling into.

She began to drink again. Heavily. She'd been trying to lay off lately, noticing that it was affecting her performance. She only drank when she was off-duty of course, but the hangovers and lateness for shifts was becoming noticeable and even Helo was reprimanding her. Of course Lee wasn't - he was avoiding her altogether, but Kara felt sure, in her more sober moments, that every infraction of the rules was being noted and marked down on her file because Lee ... Lee noticed everything.

"Starbuck," Helo said reprovingly. "You can't schedule Flipper for CAP at noon, he's already on viper alert then."

Kara shook her head to clear it. "Yeah, okay, whatever," she said, unable to get her brain out of it's fog.

"Kara," he said, grasping her shoulders and pulling her to face him. "What's going on?"

"Nothing, I'm fine," she lied, denial as always, an addict's best friend.

"Bullshit you are."

"Just leave me alone Karl, okay? If I say I'm fine, I'm fine," she said angrily, pulling away from him.

"Hey, don't you walk away. We can get through this - I know we can."

"I don't need your help. Look where it got me last time!"

"So Apollo's still ticked at you. Give him some time to get over it."

"I don't care if he gets over it! I don't need him. I don't need anyone!" she said firmly, glaring at him.

Helo held his hands up in the air in surrender. "Fine, whatever. Don't say I didn't try." He walked away, disappointment evident in the carriage of his body.

How many other relationships can I frak up? Kara asked herself. Are there even any left? She sat at her desk, well, Lee's desk really, poring over flight schedules, trying to make sense of them. It just gave her an even bigger headache. This is really stupid, she thought. Everything's stupid. Men are stupid - who needs them anyway?

She rummaged around in the desk, looking for a form she needed to fill out, and found an unopened bottle of ambrosia tucked at the back. Should I? she wondered. I'm on duty, I really shouldn't - but one drink will cure this wicked hangover ... and besides, this is the bottle I gave him for Colonial Day. If it's still here now, well then, I guess he's never planning on drinking it! And so she opened it and took a swig, the warm, brown liquid burning a trail down to the pit of her stomach.

Some time later, Kara wasn't sure how long, the hatch opened and Lee strode in. He stopped dead when he spotted the open and nearly empty bottle of ambrosia on his desk. What the hell ...? Then he spotted Kara, nearly passed out on the couch. He sighed heavily and walked over to her, slapping her face none too gently to rouse her.

"Huh, what?" she said, bleary-eyed as she sat up.

"You're drunk," he stated flatly.

"Am not. Just resting," she argued, rubbing her eyes furiously and wishing the throbbing in her head would go away.

"Yeah, and fairies came and drank an entire bottle of my ambrosia while you were sleeping. Uh huh." Lee nodded condescendingly.

"Hey, I just had a little," she slurred, standing up and wobbling on her feet. "I'll go finish those flight schedules."

"The only place you're going is the brig.

"You can't do that!"

"Yeah? Watch me," Lee said , folding his hands over his chest.

"You don't outrank me - I'm acting CAG," she said belligerently.

"But I am the CAG and I'm relieving you for being drunk on duty." Kara glared daggers at him. "Down to the brig missy. March."

"That's Captain to you, you stupid son of a ..."

"You want more charges added?" he interrupted icily. "Like insubordination, disrespect of a superior officer ..."

"How 'bout striking a superior asshole," she suggested, eyes narrowed.

"Go ahead," he offered, walking up to stand before her. His eyes were a steady slate blue as they met hers.

Kara sniffed. "You're not worth it," she said loftily, brushing past him on her way out the door.

Lee's nose wrinkled - she smelled like a distillery. He followed her though, slamming the office door behind him.

"What's your problem?" she hissed at him as they walked the corridors.

"My problem?" he asked incredulously. "My problem? Well Kara, my problem is you. You keep frakking up, and I keep having to clean it up. And I'm officially sick of it."

"Poor Lee," she murmured sarcastically. "Your life is so hard."

"You mean since I got shot," he said nastily.

They both stopped and turned to stare at one another angrily. The stare held for a full minute, then Kara's eyes dropped to the ground and she fought back the tears. She blinked rapidly several times then turned and began walking again.

Lee watched her for a few steps before continuing. Her shoulders were bowed and the spring was gone from her step. Starbuck had fallen away and only Kara remained - the broken, vulnerable woman that hid behind the mask. He felt a pang of guilt that only he was able to reduce her to this, then he quashed it and followed her.

ooooooooooooooooooooo

"You want to tell me what's going on?" Adama demanded of his son.

"What?" Lee answered, honestly not having a clue what his father was talking about. His mind was elsewhere - had been for most of the day.

"I got a report that Starbuck's in hack, and you put her there. You don't think that's important enough to tell me about?"

Lee flinched at his father's scathing tone. Right - that. "She was drinking on duty. I couldn't allow that. Especially since it wasn't the first time."

"She's been drunk on duty before?" Adama sounded surprised.

"Well, no, not drunk, but she's been drinking very heavily lately and she's missed shifts and been hungover at briefings several times. We can't let that continue."

"I agree, but just throwing her in the brig isn't going to solve the problem." Lee wrinkled his eyebrows. "Kara doesn't drink like this unless there's a problem. The last time this happened ..." Adama trailed off, lost in thought for a moment. "Was after Zack died," he added quietly, a myriad of thoughts running through his head. He'd felt the tenseness between Kara and Lee - not that that in itself was unusual; they had a habit of clashing frequently, but usually there was a fight and it all sorted itself out. This long, drawn-out silence between them was something new. He was certain it had something to do with Lee's shooting. Things had changed - many things - since then, but he had a feeling that it was the shooting itself that had put a rift in their relationship. When Kara had come unhinged after Zack's death, Adama had thought it was because of the grief of losing someone she loved, but after her confession about Zack not being ready to fly a viper, and admitting her guilt, he wondered if it had been the guilt that had done it. And that would make her behaviour now make sense - she'd shot Lee - very nearly killed him, and the guilt was probably eating her alive. Nearly killing any one of her fellow officers would be extremely painful but Lee ... one of her closest friends, not to mention another Adama. The guilt had to be overwhelming. He wondered what she'd have done if Lee had died - turned her gun on herself perhaps? He was pretty sure she couldn't have borne to face him, knowing she'd been responsible for both of his son's deaths. Nor would she have been able to live with herself. Not that she was really living, obviously.

"Maybe you should have a talk with her," he suggested, but Lee shook his head.

"I can't."

"You can't?"

"We can't ... talk. We just fight."

"Maybe you should learn then."

"No, I can't talk to her now." He was firm, but Adama could see the desperation in his eyes. Lee was hurting too.

"Fine, I'll do it. We need to figure out what's going on," Adama said resignedly.

"Try talking to Helo," Lee suggested. "They're pretty close. Maybe he'll have some idea." But the truth was, Lee knew exactly what was bothering her - guilt. She felt an inordinate amount of guilt over shooting him, and he hadn't exactly made it easier for her. Every time the subject came up between them, he'd just rubbed salt into her open wound, the wound that had opened when Zack had died, and had never really closed, though she'd fooled everyone into thinking she was fine.

Lee felt a flush of shame wash over him. He should have forgiven her - it had been an accident after all - and made sure she knew that he didn't blame her in any way. It's just ... somehow ... fighting with her, being at odds, was easier than letting her in and allowing her to get too close. That was dangerous territory. And territory he didn't want to venture into. Territory he wasn't willing to venture into. Nevermind whether you're willing or not, his subconscious told him. You're taken now - the chance for that has passed.

TBC