Lee knew he was losing his mind. He could hear the explosions, the ships buzzing past him, and yet he could also hear the water running downstream. He could feel the cold air and the hot flight suit against his skin at the same time. He was blinded by the sun and couldn't help but see the millions of stars around him.
His comms were still working. He could hear every scream of triumph and failure loud and clear. The ones that hurt the most were in Kara's voice.
The memory of the piece of Raider connecting with the Blackbird played over and over in his mind. He was distracted. He should have seen it coming. He should have flipped left or banked right. A little voice in the back of his head whispered each of those things. Then it would scream.
You've killed her.
Kara was dead because he wasn't a good enough pilot.
He heard Dee repeating his call sign over the comms. She probably thought they had gotten knocked out in the blast. After all, he wasn't responding to tell her his location or even that he was still breathing. He imagined the whole CIC would be in a frenzy because of what happened to him. Then his rational side kicked in. The CIC wouldn't even react. They were professional soldiers. Death was a common part of their life. Not to mention the fact that none of them really understood the part he played in this Fleet. Cain didn't appreciate his expertise, and his father couldn't see him as more than the son who could fly. It was almost as if he were replaceable.
"Apollo, Galactica, do you read?"
Lee wondered if he had any reason at all to answer her. Did he have anything to live for?
Four months ago, the answer would have been an emphatic yes. Three months ago, he would have said he had something to fight for. Three hours ago, the answer would have been no. He had someone to keep alive but nothing to live for. Ten minutes ago, he realized he had killed his last reason to fight.
His father had given her a death sentence without blinking. Lee had made sure it was carried out without even trying.
Lee's hand tightened around the small hole in his flight suit before letting go. Dee's voice bounced in his head as he watched the oxygen slowly filter out into the atmosphere. His mind raced with what he could say. He only had a few seconds.
"Apollo, Galactica, are you reading this? Are you out there?"
Dee was a good officer. She would relay the message. "I love you, Kara," Lee whispered, watching the Vipers rip out the heart of the Cylons. "I'm so sorry."
Petty Officer Anastasia Dualla felt stupid hovering around the hatchway to the senior officers' quarters. On any other day she wouldn't hesitate to drop in without even knocking. Then again, today wasn't like most.
The Cylons showed up to try to kill them on most days. She was stuck manning the comms in the CIC because the rest of the crew was fairly new on most days. The pilots tended to be laughing and joking around the table in the room on most days.
Most importantly, though, Apollo was not freshly cleared from sickbay on most days.
Sighing Dee gently knocked on the hatch and stepped into the quiet room. The man lying on the bunk barely even turned his head. "Did my father send you?"
"Excuse me?" Dee said, taking a few more hesitant steps.
"Did my father send you down here to tell me I'm being permanently reassigned to Galactica?" Lee asked in the same monotone voice.
"No, sir," Dee blurted. "I mean, I'm sure you are going to be assigned back to Galactica. We need you as the CAG. Birch almost killed most of the pilots at least ten thousand times in the few days you were gone." Her voice cut off as she realized she was rambling. This was not how she expected this to go. Then again, she had imagined this little dialogue being a lot less one-sided.
"Why are you here then?"
Dee walked the last few feet to stand by his bunk. "I thought you might need someone to talk to, sir."
"Now what would make you think that?"
"You almost died."
Lee let out a sigh and shut his eyes. "I almost die every day, Dee."
Dee took that as an opening and sat on the edge of his bunk. "We both know I heard you correctly in those last few seconds." She waited for him to acknowledge it, but when he didn't, she just moved on. "Comms officers are trained to listen, Lee. It's our job to hear what others cannot. I can't tell you how many rounds of final words I've had to listen to, all while keeping a clear enough head to do my job. I get a lot of I should have done this or I wish I had said that. I don't get a lot of confessions or apologies. The ones that I have heard were never like yours. The way you said it tore my heart out."
"Just forget it, would you?" Lee growled.
"Those were some heavy words. They're not the kind of thing you can forget easily."
The room filled with silence, and Dee began to realize how awkward this was. She had had a small thing with Lee for the past few months, but this was bringing them into uncharted territory. She wasn't sure if she knew him enough to keep pressing this issue.
Lee chose that little moment of self-doubt as the time to open his eyes, turn his head, and stare at her. Things quickly shifted in her mind from awkward to tense and uncomfortable. "You can't tell her, Dee."
Dee nodded her head. "I figured as much, and since she's obviously not going to know about it, that's why I'm here. You can talk to me. Tell me why you felt the need for that closure before you let yourself go."
"Do you do this for all the people who come back from the dead?"
Dee shook her head. "Only the ones that scare me."
Lee gave her a small nod. That made sense to him. "I really wasn't thinking or feeling when I said it," he admitted.
Dee let out a small snort of disbelief. "That's bullshit. The words I heard were chock full of feelings and thoughts. They were the kind that you don't normally let out unless it's the end of the line."
"I wasn't going to come back."
"You did come back."
"I didn't want to," Lee whispered. He continued to stare at the top of the bunk above him, his eyes vacant of most anything. "That's why I said that. I didn't want to come back to this stupid Fleet that's been torn in half too many times to count. I'm so fraking tired."
"She made you this way, didn't she?" Dee reached out to touch his shoulder and smiled when he didn't flinch away. Maybe this conversation wasn't so off-base. "Something happened between you two that most of us peons don't know about. There's been rumors, but nothing was for certain until now, I guess."
"We didn't have to tell you. It wasn't a matter of colonial security," Lee said, shutting his eyes again.
"But something did happen?"
"Yes," Lee said shortly.
"Are you going to tell me what that was?"
Lee suddenly felt her hand on his body, and it was too much. He pulled away and growled, "I don't like to share."
The brutality of his words surprised Dee. She had known Lee from his occasional visits to Galactica before the attacks and from the work they had done together since then. He had never been like this. There was a sort of mad violence lurking underneath him, almost like he might snap at any moment.
Dee tried to push that thought aside and focus on what Lee was really saying when he insisted he didn't want to share. She smiled to herself. It wasn't that hard for her to figure out, and she definitely didn't need him to spell it out for her. "It was her fault. Lieutenant Thrace did something to you when you two were away retrieving the Arrow."
"Kara didn't do anything."
"We all frak up sometimes," Dee said. "Sometimes it's by doing something wrong or making the wrong decision. Sometimes it's just being blind to what's in front of our eyes."
Lee opened his eyes a crack to look at Dee. He suddenly remembered the way he had been using her to keep his own mind off of Kara. It had made him feel guilty at the time, especially when she broke up with Billy. He wasn't stupid. He knew that was his fault. He had never shown Dee any clear signs that he was interested in her romantically or sexually. It was a mystery why she felt the need to reach out to him like this. Mysterious but sad at the same time. Lee narrowed his eyes at her. "I can't give you what you want, Dee."
"Can any man with a death wish really say he could?" she joked.
"I don't have a death wish."
"A man who just sighs and lets death take him doesn't have a death wish?" Dee said with raised eyebrows. "I'm calling bullshit on that one, sir. No one who wants to live just rolls over and lets their fate take control. They fight until their last breath. You were not fighting, Lee. No one will admit to it, but we've all read the reports. You were brought in with a hole in your flight suit the size of a half-cubit. You could have easily plugged it with your hand for long enough to keep your suit full of oxygen until the rescue party made it to you. The only way that couldn't have happened was if you let go." Dee sighed. "So, care to explain why you gave up, Lee?"
Lee thought about lying, wondering if maybe she would go away if he did. Then he realized he didn't want her to go away. She was right. This whole talking/communicating/listening concept was helping. He really hadn't had this kind of thing since the time he spent with Kara before they went to Caprica. "I've never felt as much pain as I did when the Blackbird got shot."
Dee gave him a sympathetic smile. "The end of the world was hard on us all, Captain."
Lee shook his head. "The pain had nothing to do with the Cylons' attack."
Understanding lit up her face. "This is about her again, isn't it?"
"Everything is about her," Lee mumbled. He wished that didn't sound as incriminating as it did.
"She did a real number on you."
Lee looked away from Dee's eyes and up at the top of the bunk over his head. "I'm not going to be able to take his place, Dee. I don't need to talk to you to feel validated."
Dee gasped. She had no expected Lee to be so mean. "You have no idea what you're talking about, sir."
"I saw the way you were with Billy. You were his pillar of strength, always here, always available. He needed you? One shuttle later, he had you. He gave you a purpose." Lee let out a cold laugh. "I'm not too good at that."
"I wouldn't mind trying," Dee said softly.
There was a small thud in the corridor, but by the time Dee had straightened up out of the bunk, no one was there.
"Dee, I'm too much of a mess right now," Lee insisted, shaking his head.
"I happen to like messes, sir," Dee said, standing up.
She made it to the hatchway before Lee called out. "Thank you for this."
Dee gave him a quick smile and nod. "Anytime, sir."
Kara was leaning against the corridor walls, watching the people brush past, when she saw Dee go into the senior officers' bunkroom. Wondering what business the comm officer had in there, Kara followed but hung back at the hatchway when she heard Lee's voice.
She couldn't tear herself away as every word of pain out of Lee's mouth and every word of comfort coming from Dee ripped her up inside. She had done that. She had created this hurt inside Lee by making him let her in and then pulling away. Anders had showed up on Caprica, and it wasn't fair to Lee anymore to let herself be open to him. She had to figure some things out.
Still, it broke her heart to know that she had put him through so much pain. She didn't deserve a man like Lee Adama.
Kara listened to Dee quietly comforting him, and she wished she could do that. She had always wanted to be the woman that could offer a man comfort with her words alone, but that just wasn't who she was. She offered confusion, pain, hurt, even guilt. Comfort was not something she knew how to give in anything other than a physical way.
The conversation in the bunkroom turned to Dee's failed relationship, and Kara breathed a sigh of relief. She could ignore this part and try to get her jealousy in check.
The relief lasted for two seconds until Dee said she wouldn't mind trying a relationship with Lee. Then a red haze blinded Kara. Dee had no right trying to swoop in and take Lee when Kara hadn't had a chance to get at him herself. He practically had 'waiting patiently for Starbuck to get her act together" tattooed on his ass.
Kara tried to push the anger to the side as she began to pace the a few steps up and down the corridor. Dee didn't know what Lee and Kara had been through. Most of Galactica's crew didn't. They had decided to keep that information to themselves and a select number of people. It had made sense at the time. Now, though, Kara was getting the urge to run down the corridor screaming Lee and I had the most amazing sex on and off this ship and you ladies need to keep your claws out of him.
Stopping at the open hatch, Kara saw Dee lean into the bunk even more in order to touch Lee's shoulder. She was about to go stomping into the bunkroom when a pair of hands grabbed her shoulders and pushed her back into the corridor wall. "What the frak are you doing, Zak?" she hissed.
Zak just gave her a glare and, grabbing her arm, dragged her down the corridor into the nearest empty room, which just happened to be the head. Zak leaned against a counter, crossed his arms in front of him, and stared at her a moment before finally speaking, "You were about to do something incredibly stupid, Kara."
"I don't know what you mean."
"I thought you said you weren't going to mess with my brother until you figured out the Anders situation. You were going to wait until you could talk to him face to face."
"That's what I'm going to do. As soon as we rescue Sam from Caprica, I'll be free to figure out just what the frak I'm doing."
"Busting into the bunkroom in a jealous haze isn't going to get that accomplished any faster."
"That's not what I was going to do. I was just going to tell Dee she needs to give Lee a little space." Zak shook his head in disbelief, and Kara shrugged. She hadn't thought that sounded particularly convincing, either.
"Why were you outside that bunkroom? I thought you were supposed to be helping Pegasus transition into Fisk's command?"
"I bullied a few hours pass off ship in order to come here." Kara looked down at her hands. "They told me Lee was getting out of sickbay."
"That's what I figured." Zak walked over to her side and slid an arm around her shoulder. "It's been tearing you up inside that he got shot down on a mission you planned yourself."
"I thought he could do it. I had faith in him," Kara insisted.
"He did do it. Then a freak accident caused his plane to go down. There was nothing you could have planned."
"I should have been here sooner." Kara brushed the tears out of her eyes with the back of her hand. "I should have insisted they let me come over here as soon as I found out."
"Why didn't you come to Galactica after the resurrection ship was destroyed?"
Kara shook her head. She couldn't answer that. Answering that would mean telling Zak that his father had ordered her to kill Admiral Cain. Answering that would force her to explain how pissed she had been at Lee because she was going to have to face a whole CIC of Pegasus's crew by herself. She was keeping a secret from Zak that could have amounted to his father handing his oldest son a death sentence. She was furious with Lee for abandoning her while he was floating in space, giving up on life.
Those were two things she never wanted to talk about again.
"I was the acting CAG, and…" Her voice trailed off as she found herself unable to lie. Nothing she had done in the past few days had anything to do with her being appointed CAG of Pegasus. Everything had to do with her wanting to keep her sanity and keep her promise to make things right with Anders. She just wanted to get Anders back so she could make her decision and get on with her life. The irony was it had almost worked. If Lee had died out there in space, her decision would have been made for her.
The thought of that was what finally set her over the edge. She leaned in against Zak as the tears and the sobs took hold of her body. Zak turned her body so he could grip her tightly against him. He had been waiting for her to break. Helo had told him that Kara kept turning to alcohol, and Zak knew that was exactly what she did not need. She needed to be honest with herself, and she could only do that when sober.
Kara felt Zak supporting her, and something inside her snapped. She had had multiple boyfriends throughout her adolescence that she had gone to after her mother got particularly drunk. They had always asked her what was wrong as they held her in their arms. She never told them. She didn't go to them to feel emotional comfort. She wanted the physical kind.
Zak's hands tightened around her back, and she suddenly craved that old feeling. Tilting her head up, she looked at him through her tears for a moment before leaning in to crush her lips against his. He responded for barely a second before pushing her away from him. She stumbled back a few feet.
The reality of what she had done hit her like a brick.
"You're an idiot," Zak said with a laugh.
Kara stared at him for a moment before smirking. "A complete, fraking idiot would have been more precise."
"I'll remember that for next time." Zak sighed and, grabbing her hand, pulled her back to his side. "Now do you want to tell me what that was about?"
"It always helped in the past."
"Frak or feel?"
"That's an ugly way to put it, but yeah, if I frak, I don't have to feel." Kara let out a deep breath. "I've been using that method since I was a kid. It's never failed me."
"Fraking me won't help you, Kara."
"Feeling isn't looking that good, either." Kara walked over to the other side of the small arms locker and sat down on the floor. She drew her knees in to rest her chin on. "You're not going to let me out of this conversation until I open up."
"Nope," Zak said, leaning against the wall. "So you better start talking now."
Kara bit her lip. "I think I'm going insane, Zak." Zak immediately started laughing, earning himself a glare. "I'm serious. This stupid game plan of mine was supposed to be easy. I would put everything on hold until I went back to Caprica. I didn't know that stupid Arrow of Apollo would really work or that we'd find the Pegasus."
"It's taking longer than you expected?" Zak guessed.
"Damn right it is," Kara growled. "I thought I'd have to go through this agony and guilt thing for a few months, and then the Old Man would grant me my mission back to Caprica."
"Forgive me for interrupting, Kara, but it sounds like you already made your decision."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, all you keep talking about is when you've rescued Anders, then whatever you feel for Lee can happen. It sounds like you're waiting to break things off with your fiancé."
Kara let out a laugh. "I wish it was that easy. I'm waiting until I can be with Anders again. Being able to look him in the face without fearing the Cylons are going to shoot me from behind is what I need. I'll know then how what I have with Lee measures up to what Anders has been to me."
"Gods, you really haven't made any headway on this thing, have you?"
Kara shook her head. "I've tried, but it's too hard. I was okay for the first few months."
"Then what happened?"
Kara leaned her forehead down onto her knees. "I can't forget how much I love Lee anymore. I know that I should just shove it to the side and wait for whatever it is to die. It should be so fraking easy. I've spent all my life pushing love away because it was easy. Something's different with your brother."
"He's not letting you push him away?"
Kara chuckled. "Oh, no, he's letting me push."
"Then what is it?"
"I keep thinking about what would have happened if I didn't let him go to Caprica with me. He wouldn't know about Anders."
"You would have told him."
"I don't know what I would have done," Kara admitted. She let out a growl of frustration. "Every fraking morning, I feel like throwing up. It's the first thing I think of. Being with him was everything I ever wanted and I'm just throwing it away." The image of Dee consoling Lee on his bunk popped into her head. "Lee is not going to wait around for me forever."
"Well, isn't it better to have ended this before the ties were set? You can't miss something that you never had."
"That's the problem. I can imagine what that would have been. That's enough to make me ache inside." Kara sighed. "Then I think about Anders and how life would have been if he had gone on that stupid vacation with me. He would have been alive beside me in the Fleet. I don't know if I would have even enlisted."
"What ifs don't do anything. You can't change what happened."
"All I have are the possibilities."
Zak pushed up off the wall and crouched down beside her. "You need to get your head out of the clouds. I suggest you go down to the gym and kick your own ass until reality sets in. You might have to make a decision before the Fleet sends a rescue mission to Caprica, Kara. My advice is don't be a chicken shit and let an opportunity at happiness slip through your fingers just because you're scared."
Kara's jaw dropped open. She was too shocked at the sudden harshness of Zak's words to do anything but watch him walk out of the equipment locker. How had he gone from comforting her to slapping her upside the head with his words?
He was right about one thing. She had to let reality set in.