The first time Kara went running with Lee, it was a mistake. The second time, it was a coincidence. The third time, he was waiting for her outside the bunkroom door.
They ran the corridors of Galactica together because they both happened to be running at the same time. It was as simple as that. They had each made that clear on multiple occasions.
In actuality, they knew the reason why they did this had nothing to do with being in the same place at the same time. That had become apparent as soon as they started seeking each other out in the mornings.
As their feet were steadily pounding along the metal grating of the corridors, Kara had to fight the urge to admit that he was the only person she could really talk to. Sure, her fellow pilots and the crew, especially Zak, had embraced her lovably brash self with open arms. That's where it ended. No one could really see past the hotshot pyramid player façade she had learned to put up years before.
For her whole life, she had only let one person in, and even then, it had taken a year. Somehow she knew that if Lee ever got his head out of his ass and said frak you to the stupid regulations, it wouldn't even take half that time. He just seemed to know all the things she should never have to say. To him, she was like an open book.
Kara had come to realize that flying created a kind of closeness between pilots. When you were up in the air, your mind was at one with both the stars and the ship at your side. Lately that ship had held her CAG, and Kara could feel the connection they made in the sky. They flew well together.
The thing that bothered her was the fact this weird companionship had worked its way on board the ship. Kara had always been a rather confrontational person. People had even gone as far as to compare her to a porcupine, quills and all. Somehow she didn't have those defenses when it came to Lee. He had broken her down in the sky, and now he was breaking her down on the ground. Yet she was supposed to keep her distance.
She was so totally and completely fraked.
"Are you fading out on me, Starbuck?" Lee taunted as he began to jog backwards in front of her.
"I can outrun you any day of the week, flyboy," she insisted, picking up her pace. It was odd. Lee hadn't asked her to stop calling him that for days now.
Lee slowed down until Kara caught up with him. He wished he could figure out why a woman he had only know for a week and a half seemed to know more about him than anyone else on this whole ship, including his father and brother. Most people on the ship defined him by the way he flew his missions. Whenever he wasn't in the cockpit, they only saw him as the Commander's son.
It was the same for Zak, only different.
Zak had somehow found a way to prove he had a right to be working alongside the crew of Galactica. Maybe it was because, unlike Lee, he was not following in his father's footsteps. He had chosen his own path even if it was more like the path had chosen him. Everyone assumed Lee had gotten appointed to the CAG position because his father was biased in some way.
That misguided belief kept most of the people on Galactica from interacting with him on any level. They were afraid if they made one wrong move, Lee would go running to tell Daddy on them. No one had taken the time to realize that was the last thing Lee would ever do for multiple reasons. Still, they avoided him like the plague just in case.
Kara was really the only one with the balls not to care about who his father was.
He wished he could thank her, but that would probably be inappropriate. They had enough of that already. He didn't need to add more.
Lee had always been a guy who did things by the book. Contrary to popular belief, that had nothing to do with his father. It was his choice. He liked it when things made sense. Order was the only constant in his life.
And yet he found himself seeking chaos in the form of the blonde spitfire jogging by his side. Every second he spent with her was in direction violation of the rules he had sworn to live by the day he entered War College. A CAG was supposed to be available to his pilots. He was supposed to be social, to play triad, to joke with them within reason. A CAG was not supposed to take a recruit on private training runs. He was not supposed to count down the minutes until their next run. He was not supposed to lay in bed at night imagining how life would be different if the Cylons hadn't attacked and he had randomly met the C-Bucks best player in some Caprican bar. He was not supposed to wake up with tightness in his pants and the image of Kara's naked body on his mind.
The sad thing was he couldn't distance himself from her even if he tried.
Kara cut the corner in front of him, forcing him to switch over to the other side. They split to pass the massive horde of people going through shift change, and she could feel her steps faltering. She hadn't run this hard since before the attacks. Without Lee by her side, setting the pace, it was getting to be a little too much.
Kara was doing her best to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other when Lee came out of nowhere to bump her side. Any hope of balance went out the window as she slammed into the wall. She turned in time to see him wiggle his eyebrows before taking off in an all-out sprint. A second wind hit her as she ran after him.
It took her five corridors to push past him. This was no different than pyramid in a lot of ways. On the pyramid court, she had always thrived on being the underdog. The fact that Lee was the more practiced runner wasn't really a secret. She did have one thing he did not.
She could dodge with the best of them.
Now that she had passed him, Lee decided it was time to stop playing around. He turned up the heat in his run but found every time he reached out to pull her back, she was just out of reach. Every time his fingers would graze her back or arm, he was rewarded with an adorable giggle. It didn't take him long to realize the chase was half the fun.
Lee wasn't the type of man to accept defeat even if he was having a fraking good time losing. As they cut another corner and started down a new corridor, he pushed himself just a little harder and managed to get a hold of her arm. He pulled Kara to slow her down, and then for the thousandth time, she surprised him. Instead of letting herself be pulled back, she simply slipped her body around to the back of his.
He would never be able to understand how exactly it happened, but the next thing he knew her arms were grasping his neck and she was kicking herself off the ground. Lee caught her legs in his crook of his arms and tucked them into his sides before slowing them down to a walk.
"I'm too tired, Lee," Kara panted in his ear from her position plastered against his back.
"And I'm not?"
"You're a big strong man," Kara teased. "You can totally carry me back to the bunkroom with your great man strength."
"You're wearing me out, Thrace," Lee said, bouncing her up a little to get a better grip. He gave a nod in response to the strange looks they were earning from everyone around. "I could get in trouble for this. I am still your teacher after all."
"I will laugh so hard if you get thrown in the brig for inappropriate touching!" Kara exclaimed. She tightened her hold around his neck.
Lee tried not to dwell on how natural it felt to be giving this woman a piggyback ride through the corridors of the last Battlestar left in the world. "Are you really going to make me carry you all the way back to the bunkroom?"
"You made me sprint. This is your punishment."
"I could think of better ways you could punish me," Lee growled.
Kara's mouth dropped open as she gasped. "Captain! Did you just make a dirty innuendo?"
Lee chuckled and tightened his grip on her legs. "I'm only human. If you keep giving me these openings, I'm going to take them."
"You're all talk, Adama." Kara leaned her lips down to his ear and nibbled lightly. She could feel his grip on her body loosen. If her arms weren't holding him so tightly, Lee would have dropped her on her ass. She let out a laugh as his arms came back up to grip her legs. A pink blush was spreading all the way down his neck. "As you can see, I'm more a fan of the action," she teased.
Lee was struggling with the sudden need to get his body under control. "You cannot do stuff like that, Kara. It's bad enough that I'm carrying you through the halls."
"Gods. You need to loosen up, flyboy. It's the end of the world. If you can't have a little fun now, when can you?"
"I'll give you fun," Lee hissed.
Kara had no idea how he pulled it off, but with a drop of his arms and a twist of his body, he suddenly had her pulled over his shoulder. "Put me down," she yelled. Her feet kicked uselessly in the air behind them. She squirmed against his hold for a few seconds as he pulled them to a stop. Her hands were pinned between her body and his shoulder or else she would be punching the frak out of him. "Are you having fun?" she asked.
"Loads. I've been waiting to get you under control since the second you stepped into that briefing room."
"Not before?" Kara asked, turning her head to look at him.
His eyes locked with hers, and she knew they were both remembering all the previous times they had let themselves get this close to one another. "I should probably put you down," Lee stated. He held her gaze for a few seconds before his eyes naturally drifted down to her lips.
Kara's tongue darted out to lick her lips, more out of a pleasant feeling of unease than a conscious attempt to torture him. Regardless, Lee felt himself biting back a groan.
"Kara?"
They both froze at the sound of Zak's voice. Kara turned her head away from Lee to look at where his younger brother stood next to Kat. "Zak. I thought you were on shift."
"I was. The Chief has me running a few papers up to CIC for him, and I ran into Kat on the way there. She was just telling me about the patterns you pulled last night."
Kara could feel a blush come over her face. For some reason, it felt like an invasion of privacy that people were talking about the lessons she had with Lee. Then, there was the guilt. She and Zak had gone on several dates since the first one, thereby making it her responsibility to tell him about what was going on with her lessons with Lee. He shouldn't have to hear it from other people.
"Listen, I have to hit the head. I'll talk with you later, Zak." Kat had obviously picked up on the awkward tension and decided she did not want to be a part of it.
Zak gave her a small nod and waited until she was out of sight before turning back to where his brother still held Kara over his shoulder.
"Anything important?" Kara asked, nodding at the papers in his hand.
"No, just some requests to put some feelers out in the civilian Fleet for spare Viper parts. The Chief's trying to repair those two Vipers you downed now that they're back in the hangar bay. He's pretty sure there won't be any parts available right now, but it doesn't hurt to check."
"We're going to need them eventually," Kara pointed out. "Did you ever think of substitutes you could use to make the parts ourselves?"
"I don't know. The Chief seems to think-" Zak's voice cut off as the absurdity of the situation finally hit him. "Could you fraking put her down, Lee?"
"Sorry," Lee said. He loosened his grip and let Kara slid to the floor. He nervously bit down on his lip as his brother continued to stare him down. He hadn't seen Zak this pissed in a long time. "Listen. I'm going to finish up my last few laps."
"I'll catch up if I can," Kara said, wiping the sweat off her brow.
Zak stood next to her in silence as they watched Lee run off down the corridor. "I didn't know you ran with my brother."
"It's a new development." Kara found she couldn't turn to look Zak in the eye so she just stared down the corridor. "We just happen to run at the same time, and I always seem to bump into him at some point. It's nice to have someone there to force you to keep up the pace."
"You could have run with me if you asked."
Kara winced. She hadn't even known Zak was a runner. He had probably mentioned it at some point, and she hadn't been listening. "I know. Like I said, it wasn't like I planned to run into him."
Zak stared at her intently before suggesting, "Keep me company while I walk to the CIC?"
Kara gave him a small nod and they walked side-by-side down the corridor. She really did enjoy the time she spent with Zak. It was free of the stress of making sure she was being a proper fly girl, following regulations and all the other crap she had to remember 24/7. It was refreshingly different than the time she spent with Lee. That was full of constantly keeping her impulses in check and looking over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching
She couldn't help but notice not one person in the corridors was watching her and Zak.
"So, I think we need to talk about this."
"About what?" Kara asked, shifting to look over at him.
"Kara, about two seconds ago, you were giving my brother your 'come frak me' eyes. Hell, you've been looking at him like that since the day you got to Galactica. I might be slow, but I'm not completely stupid."
Kara stumbled as Zak's blunt words sunk in. That was not what she was expecting him to say.
Zak let out a sigh of frustration. "This is so messed up right now. I mean, I like you, Kara. I really do. You're an amazing woman. In the end, though, it doesn't matter how much I like you, but this isn't going to work. We both know that."
"I thought you were having fun with me?" Kara said. She was so confused. The last thing she had ever expected was for Zak to call off whatever this was. At least she hadn't expected it this early in the game.
"I am. It's been fraking great, being able to spend time with the best pyramid player in the Twelve Colonies."
"That isn't as big of a compliment now that I'm the only one left." Kara meant to be funny, but her words just came off as kind of sad.
"I don't know why you ever pushed me into working up the courage to ask you out, Kara, because your heart has never been in this. I know you thought I wouldn't notice, but I have. I really don't mind. It was nice to have someone to talk to who didn't think less of me because I was an Academy washout."
"Zak, no one thinks less of you," Kara insisted.
"You've only been around for a few weeks. I've been a washout for years now. I think I know a little better than you."
Kara chose to stay silent. It seemed everything she said just pushed her foot deeper into her mouth.
"I don't want you to feel bad about this," Zak insisted. "I just don't want you to waste your time on something that's not going anywhere. Like you always say, it's the end of the world. You shouldn't settle for anything less than what you deserve."
"I don't think I've ever said that."
Zak smiled at her. "Well, I know I left out a frak or two, but that's pretty much the motto you've been preaching since you stepped foot on Galactica."
Kara laughed. "I didn't realize I was that poetic."
"You can be if you censor yourself. You have the mouth of a fraking space pirate, Kara."
"That's what happens when you grow up on military bases."
Zak stopped in his tracks, and a genuine smile lit up his face. "You realize that's the first real piece of information about your life that you've shared with me."
Kara suddenly felt embarrassed. She had been holding a lot back from him. Maybe it was because she knew she was leading him on and she didn't want him to get even more attached. Or maybe it was because she knew she really didn't deserve a good man like Zak Adama.
She knew that having to call things off with her was hurting him even if he wouldn't admit it. They both liked the safety of what they had together. Zak felt like he had something special, something no one else including his brother could have, when he was with Kara. Kara's reasons were more straightforward. Zak was safe simply because he wasn't Lee.
Letting that safety go would be hard. Zak might not be the one for her, but she had really liked being around him. For some reason, the thought of that ending made her sad. She didn't have many friends left in this world, and Zak Adama happened to be one of them. "You're not really going anywhere, are you, Zak?" Kara whispered. She tried to ignore the flood of people walking past them.
"Frak no!" Zak laughed. He pulled her into a hug, and Kara realized that she didn't mind the contact. Usually she hated when people encroached on her personal space without asking. "I know I might not be your true love, but I'm still your friend, Kara. I enjoy talking to you even if you don't really share a lot of who you are. I like to think that someday, if I'm patient, you will."
Kara's hands came up around Zak's back. She had been right to think she didn't deserve a man like Zak Adama. "You have no idea how much I needed to hear you say that."
They stood in the middle of the corridor for a few minutes before Zak pulled away. "I really do need to get these papers to the CIC. The Chief's probably wondering what the frak happened to me."
"Tell him you got lost," Kara suggested. She waited for Zak to walk away now that he had said his piece, and when he just kept staring at her, she began to get uncomfortable. He was giving her the same fraking face that Lee had when he wanted to get serious. That look as one of the few things the two brothers shared. "What is it?' she mumbled, bracing herself for what was to come next.
"Be careful, would you?"
Her head jerked up as confusion washed over her. "What?"
"I've seen the way you look at my brother. It's against regulations, Kara."
Kara tried to laugh it off. "What can I say? I'm a woman. I have needs, and your brother is easy on the eyes."
Zak shook his head, and Kara realized that, just like Lee, he could see right through her. "It's more than just something physical. The way you look at my brother? He looks at you the same way. That's why you have to be careful. My dad has always held Lee up to a higher standard than me. He's not going to like the influence you have on him."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Kara demanded.
Zak simply smiled and leaned in to kiss the top of her head. "Nothing, Kara. It means absolutely nothing." He walked a few paces before turning back and smirking at her. "I mean, it is the end of the world, isn't it?"
Kara leaned up against the corridor wall as he dropped out of view. Her mind was racing from one thought to another. Her life had never been this fraked up on Caprica, and she had been a professional pyramid player then. Her every move was photographed and splayed on the front page of the tabloids. The only part of her life that wasn't public knowledge was the small flat she kept in the bad part of Delphi. That was her safe haven.
She felt herself drifting through the haze of the memories of a life she would never live again and probably would have lost herself in it if Zak's words didn't keep pushing their way to the forefront.
Zak had been right. This thing with Lee had shifted away from being just a physical desire. She had been right to think that Lee would work his way through her defenses in record time. It all went back to the reason why they ran together every day. He was the only one with the courage to see through her brave front and realize she was as lost as the rest of them.
Kara pushed her thoughts to the side and jogged a few corridors over. She timed it just right. As she leaned against the wall outside the head to stretch her legs out, Lee came running around the corner. "I didn't think you would actually catch up to me," he said as he pulled to a stop in front of her.
She shrugged and grabbed his arm, pulling him back into a run. "If I counted correctly, we still have two laps to do."
Lee stared at her a moment before shifting his focus to the run. He didn't know what she and Zak had talked about, but something was off about her now. It was almost like she was scared. "What did Zak do to you?" Lee mumbled.
"He didn't do anything," Kara said quietly as they fell into the steady pace she preferred.
A guilty look crossed Lee's face. He didn't realize he had said that loud enough for her to hear. There was no turning back now, though. "It doesn't look like nothing. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Lee. Stop trying to be my big brother."
Lee laughed at the absurdity of that phrase. He was about as far from Kara's big brother as you could get. The thought of it made him shudder. He reached out and grabbed Kara's arm.
"Frak off, Lee," she said, trying to pull away. "We have to finish our run."
"It can wait. What did he say to you?"
"Is this my concerned CAG asking?" Kara growled.
Lee knew she meant her words to wound him, but he couldn't help feeling sorry for her. It was sad that she had to use anger and sarcasm to keep people at bay. "This is your friend asking."
Kara's face shifted away from the anger into something that Lee couldn't read. "You think we're friends?"
"Aren't we?"
Kara stared at him and then, sighing, took a seat on a nearby storage carton. "I don't know why I'm acting like this. I'm not even that upset."
"What do you have to be upset about?"
"The thing I was starting with Zak kind of fizzled out. I guess I'm just mad because I know I was using him." Kara smiled at Lee and put her hand over his mouth before he could react. "Don't get mad at me because it was for a damn good reason. When I spent time with your brother, it helped keep my mind off of the fact that I'm in way over my head here."
Lee reached up to pull her hand away from his mouth. "You're not in over your head."
"I'm a fraking pyramid player, Lee. The only thing I've ever been good at is throwing a ball through a hoop. I never meant to be a pilot."
"Maybe you should have. You have the chops, Kara. I wouldn't be giving up my rack time if you didn't. You just have to start believing in yourself."
Kara thought that over for a moment and felt a strange sense of calm wash over her. She turned to Lee and gave him probably her first genuine smile in days. "I get it now."
"Get what?"
"Why your father made you the CAG. You're really good at it."
Lee shrugged and got to his feet. He had never been comfortable with compliments. They made him feel like there was an extraordinary amount of pressure on his shoulder. Coming from Kara, a compliment felt even heavier because he knew it was rare.
Sighing, Lee shoved his thoughts to the side and held his hand out for her to take. "What say we put an end to the touchy feely portion of our run and just skip to the part where I kick your ass in a foot race?"
Kara slid her hand into his, and when he went to pull her up, she yanked hard. Lee went flying into the crate she had just vacated. By the time he got back to his feet, she was already halfway down the corridor. "I'm going to kill you, Thrace!" Lee laughed before taking off after her.
Everyone in the corridor was staring at them, but he didn't really care. His mind was focused on one thing, catching his hotshot pilot and winning back a little bit of his pride.