Lee didn't know how he had gotten roped into this, but on top of everything else, he was officially the self-defense trainer on Galactica. It was odd how many of the deck crew wanted to learn how to protect themselves now that Galactica had decided to turn on them. Lee didn't have it in his heart to tell them if the ship decided to kill them, there was nothing they could do to stop it.
Dee was surprising him. Word on the ship said Galactica had tried to electrocute her when she was on the boards early that morning. Now she was circling him like a bloodthirsty tiger.
"Don't square up," Lee said, moving in to show her. "You need to be free to rotate. Just rotate and drop a knee."
Dee mimicked what he was saying, and Lee nodded.
He went through the next series of moves until she had them all down pat. "Do you think you're ready to try this?" he asked.
Something flashed in her eyes, and Dee smirked. "I could take you down with both hands tied behind my back, sir."
Lee laughed even though he didn't find it that funny. She was flirting with him, and frankly everyone would expect him to flirt back. That's the way things went on this ship.
It would probably be helpful if he could tell the pilots why he had been so distracted lately. He was a recovering addict. He had gotten hooked on the idea of fraking his wingman, and now he was going through withdrawal. He had quit her cold turkey, and it fraking hurt. Sure, they still interacted. He was her CAG, after all. They spoke when it was necessary and flew together when it was their turn, but nothing was the same. Words were hollow. Actions had unspoken meaning. Lee had never had to keep such a tight reign on his temper before. Things were quickly becoming ridiculous.
Maybe his father had been wise to give him this extra responsibility. It did keep his mind off things better forgotten.
Lee picked up one of the stupid plastic knives. These things were nowhere near as intimidating as the real thing, and he wondered if what he was teaching these people was even sinking in. If someone attacked them, could they actually find a way to make it out alive?
He lunged at Dee and felt a surge of pride as she pushed his arm out of the way, rotated, and dropped to a knee. His back hit the mat with a satisfying smack. The maneuver was over. She had performed it successfully. Yet Lee couldn't help but whisper, "Strip the knife."
Dee did as he asked, and when she was partially distracted, he knocked her arms out. She fell down against his body, and Lee gave her his most charming smile. Hopefully this made up for the lackluster flirting he had been doing before.
"Hey," Dee said, smiling at him.
Lee could feel his whole body freeze. This wasn't right. He did his best to move out from under Dee without hurting her feelings. "Looks like you have that one down, Dee. Who's next?" Lee tried to ignore the disappointed look on her face as she got to her feet. What the frak had he been thinking?
His eyes drifted across the gym to land on a certain blonde pilot who was doing her best to lift weights without watching his self defense class, and suddenly he remembered what he had been thinking. He'd been thinking that he was so completely in love, lust, whatever the frak you wanted to call it, and Kara could barely look at him. She was too busy dreaming up ways to save the love of her life from the hell that Caprica had become.
Lee turned back to the class. Dee was showing several specialists the move he had just taught her, and she was already fraking it up. "Only rotate a slight bit. The less effort, the better," Lee reminded her. Dee gave him a nod and went back to doing it correctly.
Lee hated to admit it, but he was getting fraking sick of his life. They had been back with the Fleet for long enough that the pain of what went down on Caprica should be fading. Yet every morning he woke up with the hope that it had all been a dream. For a brief second, he thought that Kara was going to be lying next to him. Then someone would make a noise in the bunkroom, and he would remember.
He hadn't always been this weak. It seemed that Kara just had that effect on him.
"Don't you get tired?"
Lee tried to focus as he realized Dee was talking to him. "What'd you say, Dee?"
"I said, don't you get tired of doing the same move over and over again?"
Lee relaxed as he realized Dee hadn't been reading his mind. "Yeah, I really do, but it's for the good of the Fleet."
"Our wonderful self-sacrificing CAG," Dee teased. She turned her attention back to the two specialists sparring.
Lee didn't turn away. Dee was a really pretty woman, and everyone knew her relationship with Billy Keikeya had never been on solid ground. She kept throwing Lee hints that she was interested. Why shouldn't he respond?
A loud curse from the other end of the gym answered his question. Kara Thrace had a habit of popping up at all the wrong times. She was the reason he ended every day with a fraking headache. Lee watched Dee step forward to correct one of the moves being practiced. Maybe he would give her a chance. At the very least she could be a distraction from how desperately he wants Kara.
Kara had no clue how she had gotten roped into this. Something told her Zak or Helo were probably to blame. They were the only ones besides Lee who knew about the many hours she spent fixing up ships in order to earn her lessons in flying when she was younger. Either way, the Chief had gotten wind of it and recruited her for his little pet project.
Building a fraking ship from scrap parts? Galen Tyrol had finally lost it.
Kara growled as she worked with the tubing in her hand. The timing was off. These stupid parts they had to work with weren't even going to get a chance to fly if she couldn't get the timing right. Not to mention she was in a horrible mood, and she had no idea why.
"The comms sound fine. Need a hand up there, Starbuck?"
Okay, maybe she did have a tiny idea why. "No, I'm fine, Dee. I'll tell the Chief the comms are done. You should go rest considering this is your off shift." Kara tried to focus on the task in front of her and not on the Petty Officer who had just scooted out from below the half-constructed shift. Gods. Why the frak did Dee have to be so pretty and dainty and feminine and everything Kara wasn't?
"I'd still like to help," Dee insisted.
And why did she always have to be so fraking nice? Why couldn't Dee be a huge fraking bitch and then Kara would have good reason to hate her?
"Here," Kara said, shoving the tubing out. "This tubing needs to be split and then reattached inside the cockpit." Dee nodded and went to work.
Kara took a deep breath before hopping off the wing of the ship. The Chief had come to her for help, but he had little convincing to do. Kara wanted to work on this project for one reason and one reason only. Being down in the hangar bay kept her far, far away from the gym and the CAG's self-defense classes. She had seen one of them, and that was enough.
"How's it going, Starbuck?"
She didn't jump or freeze up in panic at the sound of his voice. That meant she was making progress. "Okay, Apollo. She might be done by the time I'm eighty."
Lee smirked and leaned against the wing. "A comms officer working on cockpit mechanics? You guys are really desperate."
"Hey!" Dee said, feigning insult. She slapped Lee's chest before turning back to her work.
Kara rolled her eyes as the pair started up a casual conversation laced with mild flirting. She did not need to witness this again. Turning, she decided that maybe it was time to take a break from the Blackbird to work on a ship that might actually be capable of flight. She took a quick tally of the ships that were in need of maintenance and let herself drift towards the one she wanted to work on.
She was about to roll herself under Apollo's Viper to take a look at the leaking hydraulic line she knew was there somewhere when he called out for her again. "Where'd you go, Kara?"
She flinched at his use of her first name. She could remember when it had been such a battle to get him to call her Kara. Now that she wanted him to stop, he wouldn't. Kara sounded way too intimate for a CAG and his wingman. It was too intimate for a man that wouldn't touch her with a ten foot pole. She knew that decision had been on both their parts since returning to the Fleet, but it still hurt when she saw him move to touch her and then pull back.
Kara sat up and motioned Apollo over before sliding under the ship. She wished she knew what the hell she was doing. She had pushed Lee away, and he had let her. She was pretty sure he had done it because he thought she loved Anders, which of course she did. The only problem was she still hadn't sorted out what exactly she felt for Lee himself. Some mornings she woke up and knew it was love. By the evening, she was sure it was hate. It was a vicious cycle she could not get out of.
"Are you going to come out from under that Viper so I can talk to you, Kara?"
There he went with the Karas again. "No. I have work to do, Lee."
"You're not on shift."
"There's still work to do," she insisted.
Kara felt him crouch down on the ground to look at her. "Let me help." When he moved to get under the plane beside her, she kicked him hard. It was the only thing she could think of to do. "Ow," he hissed.
"I don't need your help, Lee. Why don't you go give Dee a hand with the Blackbird? I'm pretty sure she can't finish the job I gave her on her own."
"Then why'd you give it to her?" Lee asked.
The answer came out before she could stop herself. "Her voice was grating on my nerves." Kara winced. "Sorry."
"Why are you apologizing?"
Kara raised an eyebrow at Lee. She had just insulted his girlfriend, and he didn't think she owed him an apology? That was bizarre.
Lee sat down on the ground and slowly inched his way under the plane. When Kara didn't move to hit him, he relaxed. He twisted his head to look at her. She was incredibly focused on the underbelly of his Viper. He didn't think he had ever seen her concentrate so hard. The memory flashed through his mind before he could stop it. There she was, hanging above him, slowly riding his body into oblivion, concentrating as hard as she could to hold on until he broke first. Yeah, he had definitely seen her concentrate this hard before.
"I want to be friends, Kara."
"We are friends," Kara grumbled. She refused to look at him. Looking at him always made her do stupid things. She didn't want to do stupid things anymore.
"No, we're not," Lee insisted. "But I want to be." He sighed. "We've been avoiding each other, Kara."
"Yeah, we have."
"We shouldn't be."
Kara slammed down her wrench and glared at him. "Well, what do you suggest, Lee?"
"We were friends once before…"
"Caprica," Kara finished.
Lee shook his head. "I was going to say Colonial Day."
"Okay, I'll accept that," Kara agreed.
"Things are really messed up between us right now, but we're still flying together."
Kara shut her eyes and tried to hold back her tears. It seemed like all she did lately was cry. Lee's comment about their flying was supposed to make her open up to him. He wanted her to scream yes, she wanted to be friends again, but it wasn't that easy. It wasn't easy to push whatever they had into a small box inside of herself, never to be opened again. She couldn't do that when the heat between them flared up every time they were in the sky. It seemed they both forgot what had happened on Caprica for the few hours they flew CAP. They laughed and joked, not to mention the shameless flirting. It was like the second they launched, they regressed back to the way they were a month earlier.
Then they landed and it was back to pain and guilty glances and struggling with tears and keeping desires in check.
"We'll always be flying together," Kara whispered, knowing that was true. No matter what she did, no matter how hard she tried, the way they were in the air would never change. She didn't want it to. "You really want to be friends?"
"I want to try."
"It might drive us crazy."
"Well, then I guess we'll fit in a little more around here."
Kara smirked. The majority of the Fleet was fraking crazy. "Fine. Now get out from under my bird, Captain."
"It's my bird, Lieutenant," Lee pointed out even as he was sliding away from her. "Thanks for fixing her, by the way."
"It was the only one not being worked on already," Kara said, brushing off his gratitude.
Lee looked around the hangar bay as Kara resumed her irrational banging of parts underneath his Viper. There were at least three other ships that had maintenance request tags on them. Kara had chosen his bird, even if she wouldn't admit.
Smiling, Lee made his way over to the Blackbird. Dee really did look like she needed his help.