Chapter 10. Please note, this chapter contains graphic elements of sex. I figured those who like pilots could use a little of this kind of therapy given current circumstances on the show. I admit, also, that Lee gets a more prolonged voice in this particular chapter; that's unusual for me, as I tend to channel Kara a little more clearly. Still, it will balance out with coming events, and if Lee gets the quanitity, Kara gets the quality. Enjoy.

Leda

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Lee was fairly sure he remembered the Sims complex at Sparta; he'd certainly spent enough time there, and not even six years and the clear moonlit night could make the squat, cream-painted brick building they pulled up in front of look like the sprawling technological terrace he recalled so clearly. Kara wrenched at the handbrake and turned off the motor, though, so he shot her a questioning glance, the light in the building's entryway just enough to see her answers by.

"My place" she said, shortly, her cheeks darkening a little. "Parking in front of the sim suite... well, let's just say it wouldn't be a good idea."

It took effort not to frown, to make his tone lighter: "are we about to bend some regs?" He had a reputation of doing the right thing - well, he did now - but that wasn't the reason for his hesitation. Spending the night in the base guardhouse for being caught in sims after hours was not really the entertainment he'd had in mind for the night.

Kara laughed softly. "Nah, I have the run of the place," she told him, jerked a chin over her shoulder and led him towards the sidewalk. "C'mon, it's not far. No rules being broken tonight, captain," she grinned at him. "It's just that if the marine night patrol sees me parked out front, they usually come in to watch. And if they do that, my boss'll know I'm here, the night before a long flight, and I'll get one of those friendly little chats about pushing too hard, again."

"He gives you a hard time?" Lee shelved the 'long flight' comment for further thought while they walked: he knew his limits with lack of sleep and flight time, but he didn't want to screw with Kara's; she seemed unconcerned. But then again, maybe all she had in mind was sims.

"Deak? Hells, no. He's fine. He's tough when he has to be, but mostly it's me giving him a hard time, not the other way around." They turned a corner off the main concourse and she led him up a gravelled walkway to a building that was definitely familiar. "How long has it been since you were in a sim, Lee?"

He thought about that. The console sims on most battlestars didn't even come close to the training facilities on some of the new capital ships, and if he recalled correctly, none of those even approached the realism or response time of the Academy's. But then again, sims weren't Vipers, either. No Viper jockey would ever exchange the one for the other. "Six years, give or take, seeing I wouldn't want to compare the little VR set on Orion with the one here."

"Long enough," she remarked, cryptically, unlocked the door and pressed her thumb into a biometric lock. "It'll be pretty different to how you remember it, I think. We've made some changes in the last two years."

Two minutes later, Kara led him into a darkened suite and ran a hand wholesale across a bank of switches: the flood of illumination was blinding, for a moment, and then he felt her hand on his elbow. "Sorry. I should have warned you. Blink fast for a moment, it'll help."

Lee obediently worked his eyelids, shuffling away the resultant moisture. "Frak. These places used to be as dim as the underclassmen's locker-rooms. What gives?"

"A whole new virtual system," she was smiling at him, he realised as the light faded to acceptable levels. And when she smiled like that, he couldn't help but smile back. "Now we have 'em lit like classrooms, so that the rest of a squad can watch and learn while the sim is running. Funny thing about 'em when they're dark, though - most of the kids wind up falling asleep or -" Lee bit the inside of his cheek at the sight of that grin. It was purely wicked, the kind from the elevator in his hotel, the kind she wore when her hand had been ... frak. He bit a little harder. Later for that, Lee.

"You were a nugget once, too," he reminded her, his own grin tilting suggestively. "Didn't it have a certain effect on you, too?"

Kara winked, but didn't answer immediately, instead leading him over to a mock-cockpit, it's windows opaqued and silver, and slid it back. "Strap yourself in, and lets see, shall we?"

Lee watched her trip switches on the center panel between the two 'Vipers' and then lift herself into the other console. He followed suit, sliding the helmet off the control stick and settling it into place over his head before he slid the canopy shut. The moment he did, he felt the familiar trace of cool air across his cheek: just like the real thing. Then the canopy flickered momentarily and he was surrounded by the grey fist of a launch tube, realistic to the last detail, from the uniformed figure of an LSO at the launch window to the glowing displays of his console. He blinked. "Frak me."

"Maybe later," he heard her reply, laughing, her voice taking on the characteristic buzz of comms traffic as it reached his ears. "Ready for launch, Apollo?"

"That's a rog, Starbuck," he fell into patrol language by habit, but wondered if the illusion would hold up to this part of the Viper experience. Launch was inexplicable, if you hadn't been through one. And VR couldn't match the sheer expenditure of force, the sudden hike in adrenaline. "Apollo set and good to go."

"Copy that," she replied. "Launch, this is Viper two-oh-three and Viper two-one-one, requesting launch clearance."

Lee assumed she was addressing a computer, and was proved right when the familiar, slightly androgynous tones of the sims programme in use on most Colonial ships responded. So did his body, then, tensing and settling automatically, as though for a real launch. Lee grimaced self-mockingly; no matter what he thought of the military in general, he still loved flying. His body still loved flying. But this wasn't really flying, was it? A moment later, he had to reconsider: whatever they'd done to this sim suite, the 'launch' shoved him back in his seat, pressed his body into the cushions, and he let his ship ride the thrust for a moment longer than usual in surprise before kicking in his engines. "Gods above, Starbuck, what the frak was that?"

She laughed again. "That, captain, was an adaptation of the minor grav field generators used in Raptors and rescue vehicles. Introducing a realistic launch sim means the nuggets are less frightened, less disoriented, after a real launch, if they've been trained on one of these."

Lee experimented, threw his ship into a short spiral, felt the 'weight' of thrust kick in again, like launch. "It's pretty frakking realistic," he agreed. "I'm loathe to admit it, but now I feel uncomfortable that I'm not in a flight suit."

"Well, let's keep you distracted, shall we? I'm booting up a graduate level sim, randomised, and a slowly escalating number of Cylon ships. That should get us warmed up."

"Sounds like fun." He marvelled for a moment at how the sim ship seemed the tiniest bit faster to react than the average Viper, banked his craft in a wide loop around the companion ship he could see out his starboard window. "This is pretty damn good for a sim, you know."

"Yeah," she agreed. "But it should be. The whole point is to forget that it's not real."

He heard her sigh, looked out his window again and was stunned to realise he could actually see her, helmet and BDU's, through whichever elaborate system of cameras that the console employed. "But? I'm sensing a 'but' in there."

"You're a hotshot pilot, I hear," she retorted. "It's not just like the real thing, is it? Tell me why."

"Yes sir, lieutenant-instructor, sir," he grinned, rolled his eyes as he saw her wrinkle her nose at him. It seemed obvious: the sim handled exactly like a mark-seven Viper, though with that slight improvement in response. "It's faster, the response time."

"Actually," Starbuck replied, "testing shows - heads up, Apollo. We have Toasters inbound."

Lee's scanners picked them up too, and he felt his playfulness dissipate, the hard edge of flight training taking over. "Roger that, Starbuck. I'm on your wing."

"Acknowledged." That was all that was said; settling into place just off her port wing, Apollo mirrored her ship's maneuvers, assessing her as much as he did the Cylon ships now coming into visual, appreciating the way she angled her flanks to present the smallest target both to their sensors and their guns. He recognised the attack pattern by the way she cut thrusters early, found himself riding his own just enough to cover her without giving the game away, and then the Cylons, their flat, half-moon profiles and sweeping scanner eyes familiar despite his never having seen a real one, were on them.

The first pair rocketed past, and Apollo knew without craning his head around that they'd bank and follow, arming missiles; both Vipers feinted into what seemed like an evasive move, but wasn't. Starbuck's bird came around hard, Lee's sticking close, and they both locked on their assailants quickly, all too easily. The canopy screens bloomed with the double blaze of destruction.

"Nice," Kara said. "But it only gets harder from here."

And it did; harder and harder, till Lee was sweating into the helmet and they cut the chatter back to a minimum. He found it harder still to keep on her wing, couldn't quite accept the supreme confidence of his wingman's maneuvers. She twisted and turned, more than once cut her engines back almost to a stall in order to turn her bird on the proverbial coin. She was, quite literally, the best sim partner he'd ever had; in keeping up with her, he had to stretch his own wings much further and faster than he had in a very long time. And in the end, when the 'fuel' light blinking on his console told him it was game over, he turned the bird automatically for home.

"I think we both know how to land by now," she said, and then the sim abruptly cut out. The windows blanked, the console darkened, and Lee sat there a moment in disoriented darkness before he shook himself and slid the canopy back. He tugged the helmet off and turned to watch as Kara swung both legs over the side of her cockpit and landed lightly on the floor. "Not bad, Apollo," she grinned at him, leaned against the side of the V.R. console and scrubbed a hand back through her hair, turning the damp tendrils spiky. "Not bad at all. I don't think I've broken a sweat like this in the sims since basic flight. Want to run a head-to-head?"

Lee let himself stare: exertion had darkened the gilt hair, and her face was flushed with warmth and adrenaline. He'd first seen her dressed with a touch of casual allure, and compared to that moment, most men might find her current appearance offputting. But Lee knew what she was feeling, didn't he? The blood was pounding in his veins just like hers, with the same exhilaration. Suddenly it felt like he knew her very well, as though the few hours they'd spent together were outside time, stretching into decades, compressing into a series of heated instants. The first time they'd parted, he'd told Kara Thrace she was a match for him in many ways, and if he'd doubted his own words at all in their months apart, he didn't doubt them now. Nor could he doubt the fact that she had, actually, 'killed' more raiders than he had in the sim.

Shaking his head, he hauled himself out of the cockpit. "Maybe next time," he said, shrugged out of his uniform shirt and swiped his sweaty face with it, "because if it's anything like playing pool with you, we'll be here all night."

Kara's face turned up in a slow, sexy grin, her cheeks pinking slightly. "And I'd probably kick your ass, sir." Her lifted eyebrow challenged him. "Still, you'd be a challenge, I think. That was fun."

Her words weren't outright praise - he rather thought she didn't do that often - but her eyes were practically glowing with appreciation, and Lee felt a surge of something he couldn't quite define: resentment and pricked ego and appreciation and pride and that honest-to-gods awe of her. He felt it bubble through the adrenaline and become abruptly physical. He took a step closer. "I'm glad you enjoyed it, Starbuck."

Her grin widened, her eyes wicked above the curve of her cheek. "I always like coming out on top, sir."

"Is that so?" Lee remembered feeling light-headed, almost dreamy, the last time he'd been in this position with her, riding the buzz of their competitive friction, but this time he wasn't. This time, the sensations were sharp, goading him on faster. He took another step, only a few inches intervening, and let his voice drop huskily. "I seem to remember you also enjoying the opposite, Lieutenant."

Before dinner, if he'd come on this strong, she'd probably have set him on his ass on a kerb, but now, after the sim, with her pulse running high and her blood running hot, and that same inexplicable connection that had brought them together in Fortunas all those months ago, he could tell she was wrapped in the same fervor as he. He set a hand next to her shoulder, on the side of the sim console, tilted his head towards her. Her smile vanished. "I had a worthy opponent," she agreed, and reached up to kiss him.

His body responded with abrupt lack of subtlety, and Lee had one hand in her hair and the other circling her hips before he could think about it. If last time he'd touched her had been remarkable for its dreamy, erotic qualities, then this time was all about need. Her mouth opened under his, her fingers strayed under the edges of his tanks, her hips pressing close to his groin with unashamed urgency. Oh gods, he thought, backing her up hard against the cold metal of the console, this was going to be much, much better than then.

Then she had both hands on his chest, pushing him back a step, and he felt his knees almost buckle with the impact of that distance. "Kara?"

She was breathing heavily, skin flushed and her lips invitingly swollen. "We need to get out of here," she almost panted, drew in a long breath, glanced up at him and grinned; his expression must have been indicative of the way he felt, like a toddler unreasonably deprived of a lollypop. "Unless, of course, the idea of being interrupted by the base patrol interests you."

Lee opened his mouth, closed it. Opened it again when the image of taking her bent over the console with three jealous soldiers watching had faded - a little - from mind. "Let's go."

It was a short walk, but it took too long; he had to grit his teeth not to pull her into every shadow along the concourse, had taken two steps towards the black shade of a huge old tree before recovering his control. It didn't help that he couldn't quite remember where they were going. Even though they'd parked at her place before they headed to the Sim Suite, he hadn't exactly been noting landmarks.

Plus, she was distracting; every time she looked up at him, they slowed a little, eyes catching and holding, and every time they quickened their pace, he had to remind himself not to reach for her. This was a military base, and though it was quite late, it wasn't deserted. PDA rules didn't stop at sundown, and while he couldn't help but notice the contrast between the first time they'd walked 'home' together and this brisk march, he also couldn't help but feel the similarities. The only rule he was breaking this time was his personal mandate: don't get involved. A stupid rule, he decided, even more pointless than social conventions and the guidebook of casual sex. Right now, the only 'rule' he was willing to acknowledge was that the street was not the place to act on what he wanted. Everything else could go straight to Hades.

And when she led him up a flight of stairs to her apartment, her door yawned open to receive them and then slammed shut with a kind of inanimate relief, quivering in its frame. He knew how that felt, his body trembling with adrenaline. He grabbed her shoulder before she could move any further down the narrow hall, pulled her back into his body, kissing her throat as his hands slid, almost of their own volition, up under the edges of her tanks.

"Lee," she breathed, when one strayed up high enough to trace the curve of a breast, "oh, Gods..."

He would have wanted a bed. He would have wanted to slide her out of her clothes, map every fraction of her again with eyes and lips and touch, but those things would have to wait, because he couldn't: he slid his hands free, undid her belt and BDU's with two vehement tugs. Kara followed suit with his, their brass clinking together heavily as she struggled with his fly while toeing off her boots. And perhaps he imagined it, but with all his senses running hot, he thought he could smell her as he tugged the military issues down, helped her step out of them: warm, musky salt. She was so close, leaning on his shoulders as she kicked her pants away, and he couldn't resist. He leaned in, hooking a leg aside with his arm, and sought her out with his tongue.

Kara made a wordless noise of desperation, her short fingernails digging into the skin of his arms, and he understood. There'd be time for that later. It was his choice to leave, this time, and he wasn't going anywhere, not until he had to. One more taste, his lips skimming slick, hot flesh, and then he reached up to grab her hips and bring her down to him on the floor.

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Kara had to admit she'd been on edge since dinner, waiting for this moment; the sim had only sharpened the appetite. And truth to tell, four months of anticipation and barely-acknowledged hope weren't helping either, so when the door slammed shut behind him and she was hauled roughly into his body, her first feelings were essentially relief. Then the anticipation that had danced along her nerve-endings all night centered down suddenly, shockingly intensively, making her lose her breath. Skinning each other out of sweaty uniforms was simple, but when Lee bent to slide off his boots and her skivvies and ended up with his mouth between her legs, she couldn't wait another second.

Neither could he; they tumbled to the floor together, the rough hallway carpet and the pile of BDU's and belts and boots irrelevant as he slid into her. Kara fought to breathe as the sensation nearly broke her: only once before had it ever been so frakking profound to feel that moment of linkage, and that had been Lee, too. But as endless as the instant seemed, it splintered, skittered away the moment he began to move. Belly flexing against belly, his hands clawing into the carpet next to her shoulders, his dog tags swaying over her and brushing against her cheek. Gods, oh gods oh gods, she was so lost in it, pushing her hips up off the carpet into his, goading him on.

Lee groaned, paused and stared down at her, the dull illumination of a light on somewhere down the hall throwing his face into sharp relief: his epression wouldn't stay in a smile, it kept breaking up into flashes of emotion and need. He bent to kiss her, and while their bodies pressed tight, she hooked a leg through his and rolled them, pressed him back into the carpet, broke the conjunction of mouths to concentrate on the other kind. The change seemed to press him a little deeper, and she gasped, looked down to see him staring at her torso.

"I've dreamed of this," he said quietly, reached up to brush fingers down the swaying length of her tag chain, pads of their tips stroking against the naked, dewy skin. He kept them going, then, following the line further and further until they stopped at the apex of her thighs, probing; his hips rocked upwards at just the same moment, and Kara couldn't help herself, grinding down against both. She felt as though the launch tube had her in it's grip, the countdown pulsing upwards in time with his hips, her vision greying out until she exploded, falling fowards, her eyes blinded by the sudden fire of the stars.

Lee's face swam into view in her spinning vision, her body still clenching around him as he thrust against her, his eyes flickering shut. "We're not done," he told her, his jaw clenched. "Not by a long shot, Kara."

They rolled again, and again, the walls of the narrow hallway thudding against shoulders, elbows and knees, the carpeting scrubbing like sandpaper at sweaty skin. They were like vipers in flight, she thought, closing her teeth on the cap of his shoulder: speed and power and grace overlaying brute, brutal force. Oh, but they could hurt each other. She was already afraid that there was blood under her fingernails. Twice he stopped, holding himself off her, his jaw rippling in the half-light as he fought not to reach climax yet; both times she snarled in frustration and clawed at him, but he only smiled.

Lee Adama, Kara thought as he bent one of her legs upwards and pinned her open with a locked arm, was not just a worthy opponent, he was her honest-to-gods equal; she might fly better, but this... They strained against each other, both trying to bring him deeper, both desperate to keep him there; Kara felt her body lock around his again and reached up to tangle in his hair, to bring his face around. "Look at me, Lee," she whispered, her throat hoarse with need, "come with me."

Their eyes snapped into conjunction, and she felt a tremor begin under her fingers, in his scalp, "Kara," he choked, his hips stuttering into violent, broken rhythm. "Kara," he said again, stronger, as she felt her body seize, her muscles gripping him in renewed climax. Then he surrendered, her name a near-shout that melted into delight, and she let go, ecstacy spawning new suns behind her eyelids.

However long the wordless, timeless moment of aftermath was, Kara felt no desire to move; not yet. Maybe not ever. He was slumped over her, an elbow supporting the most of his weight, but their joined hips - her body still clenching ever so slightly around his cock - pressing pleasantly, and she could feel his pulse pounding in his temple where it pressed against her neck. His hair was slick under her fingers, so she untangled them, stroked them gently down, heard him 'mmm' with lazy pleasure when she pressed down on the small of his back and up with her bruised hips, and had to smile. "Like that?" she enquired.

Lee propped himself a little higher, pushed back again with his own pelvis, grinding against her. "What do you think?"

She laughed, and he kissed her; slow, broken kisses as they both fought to replenish oxygen. "I think," she said eventually, "that we need a shower."

"Mmm," he agreed, nuzzled his face into her neck; she felt the tip of his tongue come out to taste her sweat. "Shower would be good." But he didn't move, and she felt no inclination to hurry him, not until the knee still hooked around his free arm announced its imminent discomfort, tensing up. He must have felt it, because he immediately slid his arm back, letting her leg relax slowly. His eyes flickered open, concern in them. "You okay?"

Kara didn't have the energy to hit him, not just yet. "Are you?"

Lee chuckled. "Marked up in a few places," he murmured, bent to kiss her again, then slowly backed away, their bodies seperating with a mutual sigh. "But nothing I can't handle."

Shifting herself up onto her elbows, Kara took stock and was inclined to agree. He had teethmarks over his collarbone, but they weren't serious and would fade almost immediately. The marks of nails in his bicep, though - he'd have those a week or so, and his knees and forearms were reddened. She reached up, ran a fingertip over the traces of the bite. "You gave as good as you got." Probably worse, she thought privately as they picked themselves up off the floor. Her hips would be bruised the approximate shape of his hands; her knees and her right shoulder were bruised from contact with hard surfaces, and she had her own friction burns. The damn things would sting in a flight suit.

Lee bundled up their clothing, leaving the boots where they lay; all of a sudden he looked a little edgy. "I left my bag in the car," he muttered, almost under his breath, and Kara realised he wanted to stay.

She reached out, tugged the tangle of sweaty garments out of his fingers, dumped them back on the floor. "You can get them in the morning."

His smile cut straight through her to the soul.

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