Lee had been deliberately keeping himself from making eye contact with her since the second she asked him to stay behind after the pilot briefing. She wished she could blame the lack of eye contact on the humiliation he must be feeling about having a woman he trained to fly become his CAG who held her own briefings. It would have been a whole lot easier than admitting Lee knew exactly what his father had said to her after the joint Pegasus-Galactica meeting a few hours earlier.
"This is a fraked-up thing that I've been asked to do." Kara sighed. "But we kill people for a living."
"I kill people for a living," Lee corrected. "You're new to the game."
"I'm good at the game," she said after a few seconds at thought. "They say shoot, Lee, we shoot. It's the way things go."
Lee stared at her a moment before shaking his head. She wished his disappointment wasn't quite so obvious. "So you're going to do this?"
"Yeah, I'm going to do it." She hated that she couldn't hide the tremble in her voice.
"Kara."
The last thing she wanted right now was to be talked out of this, and she knew that was exactly what Lee would do if she gave him the chance. "I could use some backup." Suddenly that sounded like an awfully big thing to ask of him. Lee had a life of his own, after all. He had things that tied him to it. "I'll understand if you can't," she quickly added, looking down at the ground.
"Kara." Lee waited until she looked up at him before walking forward to take her hand. "You know better than that."
She couldn't hide her smile even if she tried. "Yeah, I guess so."
Lee rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. He had known her skin would be this soft, but it still took his breath away. It had been so long since she let him touch her. "People have to have this, Kara. Trust. Your word and my word. We don't have this? Then we really are no different than the Cylons."
Kara had to bite back the tears. Fraking Lee with his always fraking being there no matter how bad she fraked up. "Thank you." It was short, but it was all she could say without bursting out in tears. He went to move away, and Kara knew it was too much. She couldn't let him go.
It surprised Lee when Kara pulled him into a hug, but he relaxed immediately. She always needed physical comfort to reinforce the things he said to her. Lee smiled down at her once her grip had loosened a little. "That's something else that it seems like we have to have."
"What?" Kara asked.
Lee waited a moment to take in the way she was beaming before winking. "Apollo and Starbuck. They can't tear us apart if they tried."
Kara laughed and pushed him away. "You need to get ready for the mission, Adama. You're taking my bird out, and I want her back in one piece."
"Your bird? I distinctly remember a whole crew building her."
"A whole crew didn't fly her so she's mine."
Lee shook his head. "You're so damn protective of your things."
Kara watched him walk out of the room before letting out her breath. He had no idea the lengths she had gone to put him in that Blackbird. True he was one of the few people who could fly it, but it also meant he was out of the most dangerous part of the battle. He just had to go take out the resurrection ship's FTL drive and then fly back to Pegasus. He would waiting for her, safe and sound, so they could go do the hard part.
She stepped out into the corridor and caught Lee's eyes just as he was turning the corner. He gave her a small nod and then he was gone.
Lee tried to get his breath back. It was always so hard being close to Kara and knowing that it was never going to be enough. He was never going to be close enough to her.
He wasn't sure how he made it down to the bunkroom in one piece. He probably would never know. The only thing he kept hearing was Kara's voice urging him to get ready. She was right. He had a mission to complete. He couldn't let his constant thoughts of her distract him.
Lee opened his locker and grabbed a bag off the bottom. He still hadn't gotten around to unpacking most of his stuff. Actually, he hadn't let go of the hope that his father would call him and Kara back to his side. Pushing that lovely wish to the side, Lee dug around in the bag until he found what he was looking for. This lighter had worked for him on that mission to get the tylium. He wanted it with him today.
As Lee set the bag down again, his eyes caught on an edge of paper sticking out of the clothes. He knew exactly what it was, but he let his mind forget for a moment. He wanted to look at it.
The picture of him and Kara had been taken by some of the Fleet press on Colonial Day. They looked happy. She was laughing, and Lee knew it was because of him. He couldn't recall if he had ever told how much he loved her laugh.
There were a lot of things he wanted to say to her like that. He couldn't, though. It was neither the time nor the place. It would never be the time or the place.
It had been three long months of trying to shake this feeling. During the day, he mostly succeeded. At night, when he was alone in his bunk, it didn't work out so well. Lee knew he wasn't strong enough to take much more of this. One day he was going to break and just take her by force.
The desire he had for Kara frightened him.
She had fraked up his life rather well. The sad part was if Lee had to do it over again, he wouldn't change one thing. He knew that having those few moments of happiness with Kara would carry him through the worst times in this Fleet. He had that to hang on to for the rest of his life.
He could live without Kara as long as he had the memories.
If she gave him the smallest opening, though, he would take it. Because above everything else, the one thing he wanted was a chance to create more memories with Kara. He wanted to be a part of her life in and out of the sky.
If only he wasn't scared to tell her that.
Lee slammed the locker, shutting the picture in tight. He would die if Kara found out he was carrying a picture of them around wherever he was stationed. She would probably freak out and rip it into a million pieces. He definitely did not want that. It wasn't like the Fleet had an endless supply of working cameras and film. They weren't going to waste what little they had on two pilots.
He shrugged out of his dress uniform and slid into his flight suit, glad that for once to be without the taunts of the Pegasus crew in the background. They couldn't get enough of teasing the Commander's son. Granted it had lightened up in the past day or so, but he wasn't supposed to know why. Then again, it was hard to ignore the sound of Kara threatening to kick the crap out anyone who alluded to the fact that Lee was the son of the Adama.
Lee zipped up his flight suit and sighed. He knew she was depending on him to do this. Hell, the whole Fleet was depending on him to do this. Last time that kind of stress and expectation was on his shoulders, it had all been different. Kara had been by his side on the tylium mission. Even if she couldn't follow him down that conveyor chute, she was still with him. Knowing she had his back when he got the job done meant all the world.
Kara wasn't going to be by his side this time. As the acting CAG of Pegasus, she was going to be leading the rest of the Vipers. Lee still couldn't believe Cain had promoted Kara. She had only been flying five months. Granted, if she knew enough to take over the flight instructor position, then theoretically she could be the CAG. It was only a small jump from teaching people how to fly to pointing out that they really didn't know how to fly.
Lee picked his clothes off the floor and tossed them on his bunk. He didn't have time to be thinking about this. The Blackbird was calling his name, and Kara would be pissed if he wasn't down in that hangar in the next five minutes. She was already taking on dictator tendencies with this new CAG position.
Taking a moment, Lee tried to focus in on the job at hand. He had to succeed at taking out that FTL drive for one reason and one reason only. He needed to get back on Pegasus. Because of some stupid decision his father had made, Kara needed him to watch her back. More than that she wanted him to watch her back.
Lee knew she needed him to come back in one piece because otherwise a dangerous command was going to turn into a suicide mission. He was not going to let Kara die. That was a promise he had made her in a different lifetime, but it still rang true.