It was only when Lee yelled at her about using her call sign as a mask that Kara realized the only time she said what she truly felt was when her flight helmet was firmly in place and the stars were at her back.
The argument that changed everything between them started for stupid reasons. Lee hadn't been taking their transfer to the Pegasus very well, and Kara was tired of hearing him bitching and complaining. She told him just that while they were on their way to their joint maintenance shift.
Kara never realized how much the crew of Galactica had adjusted to her relationship with Lee until they were both thrust onto this new ship. They screamed at each other all the way down the corridor, and people actually looked at them in fear. The Pegasus crew didn't know that most of the Apollo/Starbuck fights were all bark and no bite. If you weren't seeing them argue in the gym, there was a ninety-five percent chance they wouldn't come to blows.
Their fight bridged all the usual topics, Zak, her personal choices, Lee's unwavering sense of duty and responsibility, the Old Man, their flying abilities, and even moved on to some not so usual topics, such as the way Kara kept forgetting to salute him and how Lee always seemed to break up the triad games whenever she was winning. People stared at them the whole time, and unlike Galactica, not one person smirked at the sight of another Apollo/Starbuck show.
Then, Lee went and called her on her shit. He had to slam reality back into her until it hurt. Because it was only when Lee yelled at her about using her call sign as a mask that Kara realized the only time she said what she truly felt was when her flight helmet was firmly in place and the stars were at her back.
"So what?" she screamed. "So I'm not all willing to talk about each and every feeling I have like you seem to want to do? Does that make me a lesser person?"
"You know that's not what I meant," Lee insisted.
Kara skidded to a stop and turned to glare at him. "What did you mean?"
"We're always fraking fighting every second we're not in the air. A nugget asked me the other day how you and I could be wingmen if we hated each other. It took me way too long to convince him that you and I didn't act like idiots when we were in the sky together. That got me thinking why that was."
Kara stared at him a moment. "And?"
"And I told you my theory."
She rolled her eyes. "Typical. You always have to blame it on me, don't you, Captain?"
Lee bit his tongue to keep from snapping at her again and started stalking down the corridor. Kara caught up to him after a few steps. "Do you have any idea where you're even going?" she asked.
"We have a maintenance shift," he reminded her.
"I know that. I just want to be sure you know the way to the hangar bay because this doesn't look familiar."
Lee paused. She was right. This corridor didn't look like the ones on the way to the hangar. He had never realized that the Mercury class battlestar was so different from the Galactica class.
"You are such a fraking moron," Kara hissed, storming ahead of him.
Lee grabbed her arm and pulled her back. "We can't just go stalking around the ship."
"Why not?"
"Because the people already hate us here. We're outsiders."
"So that means we can't ask how to get to where we have to go?" Kara rolled her eyes for the hundredth time. "You are pathetic, Adama."
Lee tightened his grip on her arm and held her in place. "And you're really pissing me off, Thrace. I'm sick and tired of you taking these unnecessary jabs at me."
"I'm fraking tired, too," Kara screamed, attracting the attention of a few passersby. "I'm fraking tired of being the only one who can deal with your shit. I'm tired of being the one you always come to so you can fraking complain about how sad it is to be stranded with people you never intended to serve with. You need to grow up, Lee. Be a man for once."
That was the final straw in Lee's mind. Seeing an open hatch behind them, he shoved Kara hard into the wall and then twisted her body through the hatchway. She groaned that that had hurt even as he was slamming the hatch shut. There was a small clunk and then silence.
"Get out of my way," Kara hissed, trying to move past him.
Lee slammed her back into the wall. "Not until I get some answers as to why you're such a raging bitch to me all the fraking time."
"It takes one to know one," Kara shot back. She pushed past him to try to the handle to the hatch and found it was locked. "It's locked," she hissed, turning to glare at him. "You know you really suck."
Lee was about to tell her she sounded like a two year old when his eyes caught on an open doorway behind her. He thought this was a service locker. Service lockers didn't have more than one door. Ignoring the string of expletives still falling from Kara's mouth, he stepped into the other room. "Frak me," he groaned.
Kara peeked over his shoulder to see what was so distressing. "Oh we are so frakked."
They had just locked themselves into Admiral Cain's office and personal quarters, and the only way out was through the main hatch. The one with the Marine guard.
"We must have been in the housekeeping entrance to Cain's quarters," Lee whispered, stating the obvious.
Kara glared at him. "It doesn't matter. I'm getting out of here."
Lee watched her walk across the office like she had been in this room a million times before and pull on the hatch. It didn't budge. She turned around to look angrily at him. "What did you do?"
"I didn't touch that hatch," he said, holding his hands up in the air. "I swear to the gods."
"It's not unlocking." Something suddenly popped into Kara's mind, a few, short sentences on the bottom of the summons to Cain's office she had gotten a few hours earlier. It said to use the open housekeeping entrance because the main hatch had malfunctioned. It was going to be stuck until the next shift change. "Frak me, Lee. You just locked us into Cain's office and we're not going to be able to get out before she finds us." Lee started to laugh immediately, and Kara wondered if maybe he had finally lost it. "What's so funny?"
"It's such a Starbuck move to accidentally get us locked in here. I'm surprised I was the one to do it."
"You are such an asshole," she growled. "How about we talk about that since you seem to want to air out all our issues? Why do you feel the need to constantly mock me? Does it give you some sick kind of pleasure?"
"The same sick pleasure you have when you're pointing out all my flaws all the time."
"I don't do that," Kara insisted.
"You've done it at least ten times in this argument alone."
"You were counting? How anal-retentive of you!"
"Eleven," Lee said, rolling his eyes. "And at least my anal-retentiveness is more useful than your damn stubbornness."
"My stubbornness has saved your ass more times than you can count."
"Only when we're in the air. When we're on the ground, all your stubbornness is good for is a black eye and sore jaw."
Kara didn't hesitate to swing at him. If that was all her stubbornness was good for, then she had a good reason to hit him right now. She was feeling particularly stubborn at the moment. Lee dodged her blows with ease and maneuvered her away from Cain's office where their fighting could really make a mess of things. They were in enough trouble as it was. She managed to land a punch to his right cheek as he finally pushed her into the bedroom.
The dynamic between them changed, and Kara was no longer swinging. This time she was all out pounding on him as the fight shifted to something more physical. Lee managed to shove her into a wall a few times to slow her down, but she still found the energy to launch herself at him. They ended up in a pile on the floor. Lee quickly moved to hold her body down. "Would you stop? I didn't want to fight."
"You sure acted like it when we were walking through those corridors," Kara spit back.
"Arguing is different than fighting," he pointed out. "It hurts a lot less."
"But I thought my stubbornness annoyed the shit out of you."
"It does." Kara watched the corners of Lee's mouth turn up in a smile. "But I never said I didn't like the fact that it annoyed the shit out of me."
Kara couldn't say what exactly came over her, but the next thing she knew, she was grabbing Lee's head and pulling his lips close enough that she could taste him. She managed to register the look of shock on his face before she was kissing him with a heat she hadn't even realized was brewing inside her. It took Lee a second to respond, but when he did, it was rather obvious where his thoughts were. Kara felt his weight push down on her body, and she couldn't help but moan. This fights definitely turned him on as much as they did her.
It took her by surprise when she realized that Lee was trying to tell her something between kisses. She had no clue why he always had to try to be rational about things. "Just shut up," she growled, flipping their bodies so that she was on top. Her fingers worked the buttons on his flight suit. She was almost done when his hands came out to still hers.
"Kara."
"I told you to shut up," she hissed, leaning in to kiss him again. Kissing would keep him from over thinking.
Lee stopped her. "I wanted to make something clear."
Kara sighed. There was something painfully right about Lee trying to make her slow down and talk to him. "What?"
"All those things I tease you about, they're the reasons why I love you."
His words made her smile just like they had when they were on the Astral Queen. "Lee Adama loves me," she whispered. It surprised her when it didn't come out as a tease like it did the first time. She tried it out again and realized that she wasn't even focused on him. She just wanted to hear how it sounded again.
Scratch that. She needed to hear how it sounded.
"I do, Kara," he whispered. "Even if you're a stubborn ass most of the time."
His little add-on at the end made her smile. This had felt strangely like a cheesy movie for a minute there.
Kara's smile shifted to a look of mischief, and Lee knew he had either done something horribly wrong or something completely and utterly right. She leaned in to start kissing his jaw line. "Here's what I'm thinking."
Lee furrowed his brow and tried to concentrate less on the sensations she was stirring within him and more on the memory of that wicked smile he had just seen. "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking you and I are stuck in this place for at least a few hours until someone figures out we're missing. We need to find a way to pass the time." Kara scooted her kisses closer to his mouth.
"And you thought we could do that how?"
"A frak on the good Admiral's bed seems rather fitting in a situation like this." The tip of her tongue came out to trace his lips before slowly increasing the pressure of the kiss. "What do you say, Lee?"
"I say you're fraking insane."
"You love that about me," she reminded him with a smile.
Lee wrapped his arms tightly around her back and picked their joined bodies up off the floor. He threw her back onto the bed and was rewarded with a laugh that echoed off the walls of their superior officer's quarters. Lee shook his head. "You are going to get me into such trouble one day, Kara."
Kara stared at him from her spot on the bed as he pulled off the rest of his flight suit and both his tanks. Her tongue came out to wet her lips when he moved to lay next to her on the bed. His fingers touched the stray hairs that had come out of her ponytail before moving down to pull off her tanks.
"I like that you're a handful of trouble," Lee whispered as he kissed her collarbone. Kara smiled and wrapped her arms around his back. "I like that I always seem to have the most fun when you're goading me into doing something stupid."
"Like fraking?"
"You don't goad me to do that often enough," he pointed out. His hands felt their way down to her belt buckle, and he made quick work of it.
"I'll try to remedy that," Kara said. She pulled back from him to slid the pants past her hips.
A loud bang from the office made them both freeze before she could move back into his arms. A bellowing voice, which they could only assume was one of the ship's techs, announced that they would probably be done within the next fifteen minutes. Lee's eyes went wide, and he moved to grab his clothes.
"Oh no you don't!" Kara shouted, shoving him back down on the bed. "We are not getting dressed."
"They're going to be opening that hatch, Kara," Lee hissed.
Kara stood up off the bed and quickly pulled off both her bra and panties. She was pleased to see an immediate reaction from Lee. "Then we are going to have to make quick work of this, Captain. Up."
Lee was too enthralled to protest. He had Kara, naked and willing, standing right in front of him with that damn impatient look on her face. That kind of thing could thrown any man for a loop. Her hands clutched the waist of his boxers, and he lifted his butt slightly to help her get them off. The cold air felt amazing on his already too hot skin.
Kara flung the last piece of clothing away and moved onto the bed. She straddled his waist and gave him that famous Starbuck smile before lowering herself down onto him.
The reaction was instantaneous. Lee tightened his hands around her back and moved his hips upward, pushing himself a few inches deeper. He looked up at her and saw her eyes were closed. She was biting down on her bottom lip to keep herself quiet. He leaned in to trail light kisses across her breasts as she continued to ride his body. The springs of the bed creaked under their movements.
She forgot about staying silent as he took her nipple into his mouth and sucked gently. Her fingers dug into his back. Her pace quickened. He could feel her already nearing the edge. Her eyelids fluttered open, and her eyes met his. She gave him a small smile before tightening her walls around him.
Lee had to fight to stay in control as she started whispering things in his ear that he had only ever heard in his dreams. His forehead rested against her naked chest as he thrust himself inside of her. His eyes fell to where their bodies were joined. He could see himself moving in and out of her, and it was all he could to keep it together.
Kara felt his eyes drift away from her, and when she saw what he was staring at, a moan fell from her lips. "Gods," she whispered, arching her back to shift to a different angle. Lee turned his attention back to her, and they began to kiss as they lost the rhythm and just surrendered to the feelings.
The beginnings of a scream fell from her lips as he exploded inside her, touching just the right spot. He bit down on her bottom lip to silence her until he felt her heart finally stop pounding so fast. She pulled back and reached her hand up to her mouth. It came back with a few drops of blood on it. "Ow," she hissed.
Lee laughed and leaned in to kiss it better. "I'm sorry. I couldn't have you screaming."
Kara's eyes shifted to the still locked door, and she suddenly remembered what they had just done. "I guess we just got our welcome aboard present from the Admiral."
Lee laughed and pushed her away from him, finally breaking the connection. "Get dressed. We have about two minutes to come up with a good reason why we're locked in our commanding officer's personal quarters."
Kara was about to get up and start gathering their clothes when she felt Lee's hand grip her wrist. Before she could register what was happening, he pulled her back onto the bed and returned that same heated kiss she had given him which started this whole thing. When he was satisfied, he slid off the bed and reached for his boxers. "And try to get that freshly frak look off your face, Lieutenant."
Kara picked up a boot and flung it at him. "I hate you."
Lee looked over his shoulder and smiled at her. "Yeah. That's another thing I love about you."
