Okay -- I completely screwed up with this chapter…. But now, I have completely fixed it.
Uberscribbler and Miss Martha – you were so right – I completely missed Lee's reaction. I thought I didn't need a debriefing scene, but now that it was pointed out to me, everything is just falling into place more neatly.
AS ALWAYS!!! THANK YOU SO SO SO SO MUCH for following this story, reading chapters here and there, or just glancing at it as you surf to other authors/stories…
Please, also – keep your eyes peeled for the epilogue! I promise not to take more than a week to get it out….
YOU ALL ROCK SO MUCH!
Maevenly…..
Another Way Chapter 21
Blood Rites
Adama had learned long ago that even conference rooms could spontaneously sprout ears. A Commander's personal quarters tended to be a little more sound proof. What was going to be shared by the five people called to report to his office for a 'debriefing' was something he didn't want to hear being played as background noise when he next visited the waste-treatment ship.
Sitting behind his desk he could see Helo and Sharon – the Cylon's hands were bound but she wasn't hobbled – sharing the small couch. On the ottoman, Cally found a place to park herself. The remaining chair, adjacent to his desk, had been saved for Lee. His son had yet to arrive and was the only other person he was expecting. His debriefing with Starbuck was looming on the horizon as much as it was still up in the air. Given Cottle's dubious prognosis, it might not happen at all. But if – when – it did, it was going to be the one conference he didn't want to pan out to his CAG or XO. Nope. Starbuck's story was going to be his to hear. He owed her that much.
For himself, there was no denying that he was still reeling from the news that Starbuck – she was always Starbuck to him – was alive, for the moment, and in Life Station. The former combat pilot and protective father in him wanted to commandeer a Viper and make it his life's mission to annihilate every Cylon in the known – and unknown – universe. His moral imperative collided with his baser morals. As it was, as he looked at Sharon and her slightly rounded belly where the first-ever hybrid child grew, if it weren't for that particular Cylon, Starbuck would never've made it off that BaseStar. It was a dilemma that had no real answer, because no matter which path he chose to follow, each was plagued with shadows and fog.
It was an odd kind of quiet. Not anxious or nervous, just odd. Helo was toying with Sharon's hands, obviously glad to see her, but neither was saying anything to each other. As for Cally, her eyes were focused on the wall but he doubted whether or not she was actually seeing the bookshelves and side tables that fell within her line of sight.
The sound of the hatch opening had all eyes flicking towards the door. Peering at his doorway, he saw Lee returning the salute his MP's respectfully offered. Only when the door was pulled shut and the sound of the lock tumblers falling into place faded away did Lee take his seat. Scratch that – Captain Adama settled into the small chair, dwarfing the barely padded chair with his size.
There was a certain hardness to his son that he couldn't pin point. Maybe it was just the adrenaline wearing off or the side effects from his concussion, but the stiff, by the book CAG that ran his flight deck 'by the numbers' was the person seated just off to his right, not his sensitive son who balanced his personal world against a pair of universal justice scales. If Lee needed to be Captain Adama, the so be it. Who was he, of anyone in the room, to judge anyone on how to handle this situation? Lords knew that he failed Starbuck and everyone in the room more than once.
"Okay, people – talk to me. Tell me what happened out there." Taking off his glasses and resting on the desk top, Adama waved at Sharon. "Tell us what happened to Starbuck." Turning to the other three, he added, "And then, I want to hear about what happened on that moon."
……….……….
The chair was small to begin with, but by the time Sharon ended her story – complete with subtle omissions that no one called her on, such as how she became privy to the extensive damage done to Kara's body – the chair was hard, uncomfortable and way too small for someone of his size. Hearing about the control chair that Kara had been forced into time and again, listening to the way she had been treated – somewhere between a lab-rat and zoo exhibit – made him clench his fists so hard that small, half-moon cuts marked his palms. The way Helo unconsciously threaded his arm through Sharon's, offering physical comfort and mental support as she recounted the way Starbuck gave her Zak's ring made him want to leave the room. The frakking unfairness of it all swamped his mind. Here she was, fighting for her life, by herself down in Life Station, and what was he doing? He was sitting in a room, taking in information that he would have gotten from Sharon anyway – with or without Helo's help. It was frakking obvious that in a nest-full of Cylons looking to destroy her, Starbuck would've made friends with the one Cylon embedded in a nest-full of humans looking to destroy 'her'.
Anger and frustration were wrecking havoc with his attention span. Even as he sat there, aware that his fidgeting wasn't going un-noticed, his mind was turning over the pieces of the Castor puzzle that came together during his vigil. But there was still a huge piece missing – the lynch pin, so to speak – that one detail that would put everything and everything into place. He couldn't figure it out. He would – he'd be damned if he didn't – sooner, than later. He just needed to think about it, look at it another way…
"Apollo? Apollo!"
Turning to the Commander, Lee slipped back into Captain mode. "Sorry – just processing what Sharon was saying about the feedback and how that was the reason why when we boarded," he pointed to himself and Helo, "all the Cylons – humanoid models and Centurions – were dead, dying or incapacitated."
Not one of his best recoveries, but using it as a spring board to recount his experiences on the moon and inside the BaseStar, he let the words flow out of his mouth. He didn't care how long he talked, just so long as they covered all the 'ground' they needed so that he could get back to his notes. The answer he needed was there, he was sure of it.
Repeating himself for a third time that he never saw who was standing behind him and that Kara shot the Cylon model in the face hence obliterating 'his' identity, not the successful ruse she used to get a clean shot at Castor, did his voice mirror is inner irritation.
Helo's smooth timbre flowed around him as the slightly older man corroborated his story and added his own details. Surprisingly, it was Cally who had the most insightful things to say. Her view of what happened at the Mining Camp, the triage she performed, and the events on the Raptor as they brought Starbuck in was what recessed his hackles to a certain degree.
Not so subtly looking at his chronometer, he wasn't surprised that they'd been in the Commander's office for more than three hours. The Old Man looked tired and Sharon seemed like she was waning.
"Okay, that's enough for tonight. I want everyone to get some sleep. I will be expecting your reports within the next forty-eight hours. I want them hand delivered to Apollo or to myself – no one else. I don't need to remind everyone that what was said in this room stays in this room." Adjuring the 'debriefing', Adama stood.
Taking his cue from the Old Man, and everyone else as well, and grateful to be free of that blasted chair, he fought the reflex to stretch. Instead, he settled for rolling his shoulder joints as a means to relieve some the tension that wouldn't leave his muscles.
"Sharon!"
Helo's voice boomed and three people, Helo, Adama and himself, tried to reach for the Cylon as she stumbled dizzily to the side and crashed into the sideboard. It was Helo who caught her in time to prevent her from falling down but not before her hip collided with the piece of furniture. Jarred, pictures slid along the polished surface and a few tumbled to the deck.
"Are you okay?" Concern was etched in his face as he steadied her with both hands.
"Yeah – yeah – I'm fine – lost my balance. Just stood up too quickly, that's all." Reassuring Karl and trying not to make a big deal about it, she brushed a length of hair behind her ear as best she could with her bound hands. Proving her point and making amends, she bent at the knees and started picking up the fallen frames.
Listening to his father tell Helo to take Sharon back to Cottle, he didn't even know he was re-arranging the photographs to their original placements until both his hand and Sharon's were clutching the framed picture.
Looking up, about to tell her that he 'had it' and that she should get going to Life Station, the look on her face wasn't what he was expecting. Her grip on the edge of the frame was firm and her eyes were a mixture of shock and foreboding.
"Do you know who this man is?" Her voice was strained.
The brushed metal frame was one that he had held a number of times. He didn't have to see who Sharon was referring to in order to identify who was in the picture. "Yeah… it's a picture of my brother Zak, taken just after he entered the Academy." Her posture was resetting his hackles, and he didn't like the feeling of her knowing something that he didn't, especially when it came to his little brother. "Why – have you seen him before?"
"Yeah – I have. He was… He's the same man in that picture Boomer used to see hanging in Starbuck's locker all the time. That's where I saw him; well, not me per say, but…" Sharon explained and then let her voice trail off.
Scrutinizing her face, he wasn't alone in lacking 'quick recovery' skills. She was lying. At the very least, she wasn't telling him the whole truth. She had definitely seen him before and it was different enough context that it visibly rattled the Cylon. How the hell would she know Zak? Zak would have been another training-accident statistic by the time she was – Boomer was – at the Academy. Frak – too many frakking copies to keep up with: Boomer, Number Eight, Sharon… Where else would she have seen him?
His mind screaming in denial, he nodded his head numbly, "Yeah – that must've been it."
Making for the door, he didn't hear his father calling out to him or Sharon telling Helo to take off after him. He didn't see her point in the direction he was marching down the corridor. All he knew was that he had to get out there before he hurt someone. Preferably somewhere private and where he could be alone.
The lynch pin he had been looking for had just fallen into place.
……….……….
That night, on Colonial One…
"Thank you for your time, Madam President. Galactica will keep your office appraised of the situation as it develops." No sooner had the last word come out of his mouth was when Lieutenant Gaeta snapped an efficient, albeit barely respectful, salute.
Dismissing him wasn't necessary, he was already at the door and reaching for the handle by the time she registered just how plainly he wanted to get out of her office. Letting him see his own way out, Laura Roslin pushed her chair away from her desk and casually draped one leg over the other. Steepling her fingers, her eyes were focused inward instead of at the walls of her office or the starscape that flowed past her view-port windows.
When her secretary had told her that an officer from Galactica had arrived, carrying classified information, and that his orders were to deliver it personally, she had expected to hear about some mundane, but pertinent, report about some condition within the Fleet. The ensuing conversation contained information she never expected to hear, which explained why Uneasiness was currently fitting her for a second suit to layer underneath the one she was already wearing.
No.
Protocol had been followed; she couldn't find fault with the Commander's staff for that and Gaeta was an acceptable medium. The fact that it had been Gaeta who told her the news carried additional messages beyond the handful of words it took to relay the status of a recovered pilot. Among which was: don't call us, we'll call you.
Unfolding herself from her chair, it was a compulsive habit to double-check the latch on the door that separated her from the Press Room. Swivelling her heels against the carpeting, she went to her whiteboard. The Lords knew she lived and died by what that represented, but today, adjusting the number to increase the Fleet's current population by one, she felt that the cost paid for this one life was something that was going to have repercussions for a long time to come. Setting the marker down on the attached tray and putting her back to the new number, she was too restless and too caught up in her erratic thoughts to sit behind her desk. Wrapping her arms around her mid-drift, she carefully put one foot in front of the other as she slowly paced the breadth of her office.
She needed to think.
She couldn't – and wouldn't – apologize for making the decision to assassinate Kara Thrace. The personal opinions of Felix Gaeta and those who thought that what she did was irreprehensible mattered as much as they didn't matter. Her primary concern always had to be The Fleet – no matter who the players are or the mitigating circumstances. A niggling memory had her thinking about the conversation she had with Bill on Kobol. The way he regarded her then was indicative of how he was treating her now, specifically as it pertained to how she got Adama's 'daughter' to backtrack to Caprica for the Arrow of Apollo.
A sudden insight had her lifting her head and focusing on the rivets embedded in the ceiling of her cabin. She was being held accountable – by both Adamas – for choosing the most obvious solution to a probable security threat and forcing them to conform to her action plan instead of stepping back and looking at the perceived problem objectively. She was also being held accountable for underestimating the skills and talents of those involved and what they – particularly, the seemingly indestructible Starbuck – were capable of accomplishing. But that was something between her and Lieutenant – correction – Captain Thrace. Facing the whiteboard, facing what it represented on several different levels, an introspective frown rubbed against the cornerstones of her faith. It was interesting how the Gods kept putting the young female pilot in her hands as a tool, almost like a sexton of old, to map the way to Earth.
By choosing Gaeta to be the one to tell her about Kara Thrace's miraculous return to the Fleet, Adama and his son had drawn a proverbial line in the sand as to where she could and could not go. Her Presidential reach got her a direct link to the battlestar's bridge any time of the day or night, but her days of asking for Captain Apollo and being connected to the CAG's office had come to an end. Not to mention that it'd be a long time, if at all, before she'd be able to address Bill as anything other than Commander. In their eyes, she separated family and made them agree to plan, and execute, a mission to murder one of their own in the name of Fleet security. If there was ever a tightrope between duty to the masses and personal kinship, she had walked it and lost her precarious balance.
Accepting that sleep was going to have to be put off until she figured out a way to fill-in the furrow that separated her from Adama and his children, one thing was certain. Finesse and special handling were going to have to be used with careful measure if she was going to get either of the Adamas to sign off on whatever solution she devised.
Renewed purpose had her sliding back into her chair. Relocating folders and dossiers to different piles, she cleared a section of her desk and reached for the phone.
Paging her secretary, she said, "Bring me everything we have on…"
bsg……….xxx……….bsg
It had been going on for hours. For a while, it would be quiet, then, an eruption of violence, screaming, shouting, throwing things and then things would quiet down again.
Following Lee as he blazed a path through Galactica's corridors was easy. Tracking him to the small side room where the punching bag was suspended and where D'Anna Biers filmed Kara for that documentary was also fairly simple – he left a wide wake everywhere he went.
Keeping on-lookers, busy-bodies and people looking for a heavy-bag work-out away was fairly simple. All he had to do was cross his arms over his chest and look intimidating as he told crew mates to move on, get a life or frak-off – whatever was most appropriate for the moment.
Never in a million years did Helo ever think he wanted to be like Starbuck. Sure, she was a great friend, a great drinking buddy, a frak-tastic pilot, but she had issues – more than most, if anyone asked him. But hearing Lee – Apollo – Captain Adama – tear up the room on the other side of the bulkhead doors made him wish for the first time that he was Starbuck because then he would have the stones to go in there and actually help Lee deal with whatever he was going through. The Gods knew he didn't think like Lee and he didn't process emotions like Lee did. Hell, nobody got through to Apollo like Starbuck and nobody reached Kara like Lee did. That woman lived and died by what Lee thought of her and Lee's world was incomplete without her circling in his orbit.
Tapping his head against the metal doors, he wondered how much longer Lee could keep it up.
A thought, born out of loyalty to a friend currently lying on her stomach because she couldn't be laid out on her back, had him gearing up for the long haul.
It didn't matter how long it took – he would be there when Lee decided to come out. He owed it to both of them.
Five days later…
Word had spread like wildfires sweeping across parched Aerilon pampas: Starbuck was back.
The effect those three words had on the Fleet was doubly felt on Galactica. Comm traffic was ridiculous. Supply runs took almost twice as long to complete because pilots and technicians at both ends of the lines were swapping what they perceived to be the latest news and extolling outlandish rumours that grew with every retelling – supplemented with sound effects and hand gestures. For the first time since the attacks, the nearly fifty thousand survivors who were caravanning across the galaxy were all sharing a common topic that didn't have to do with day-to-day survival, cramped living conditions or what the future was going to bring. From a command point of view, it meant that the cold shoulder he'd been subjected to since word had leaked about Sharon's covert mission, issued at his behest, had begun to thaw. But that didn't explain the sense of… not renewed hope, because those weren't the right words. It was like… It was like… It was like…
Walking into the Pilot's Ready Room for the first time in almost seven weeks, the phrase he was searching for was played out in living, breathing colour.
Stepping into the room and settling his shoulders against the back wall, he watched as Kat finished up some paperwork. Standing up and collecting her things, she tucked her folder under her arm and made her way to the hatch. He looked on as she made her way to the top of the room and absently pressed two fingers to the picture of Ripper, his friend and Galactica's CAG, who had been lost during the initial Cylon attacks. That she did out of habit, without knowing anything about the man, pilot or leader that he had been; it was the second picture, tacked up along side Ripper's, that she gave her eyes too and clapped her whole hand against as she cleared the door and stepped into the hallway.
Waiting until the nugget was out of sight, he peered at what would make Kat so respectful.
It was a picture of Starbuck, taken as she was settling into her Viper. Someone had snapped it as she was mounting up, responding to an Action Stations call and giving orders as she herself prepared to launch. Her head was turned towards the camera; her eyes were focused on someone out-of-frame and there was a certain intensity to her face that carried the moment in which the photo was captured.
It was like everyone knew that the Guardian of the Protectors of the Fleet was back. She might not be on her feet and she wasn't out of danger – not by a long shot, according to Cottle – but just by her being onboard the crew had galvanized one more time.
Crossing the room, he skimmed a hand over the top of the podium as he headed towards the CAG's office. Stopping at the duty-board, he gave it a quick scan. Nostalgia at the latent sensation of being behind the control stick of a Viper competed with his current position of command. The few seconds where he mentally re-arranged the board to fit his own name into the CAP rotation gave way to the reality of his situation. He was an old man with an old man's body; his time in a Viper had passed. Puffing out his chest, a wry smile crinkled his face. This Old Man wasn't down for the count, not by a long shot. He might've been knocked down a few times and forced to acknowledge that the final rounds were approaching, but he still had a lot of fight left in him. There was nothing stopping him from doing everything within his considerable skills to keep his people from being annihilated by the Cylons. That, was his job now. Just as vital as and a lot more convoluted than a Viper pilot, it had the added bonus of coming with a red-piped uniform that looked damn good on him – better than any flight suit he wore in his youth.
Not bothering to knock, he turned the handle and swung the door open. There were several things he wanted to go over with his CAG and there was a very important matter he wanted to talk to his son about. For the past four days, ever since materializing after Helo signed Apollo out as being 'sick', Lee had been avoiding him. He had tried summoning his son to his office, only to have Captain Adama deliver his reports crisply and efficiently. He had tried to catch him at Kara's bedside, only to hear that the only times Lee stopped by Life Station was during the deepest hours of third shift. He even made a trip to the hanger bay, thinking that Apollo was trying to sidestep him by working on every Viper in the Air Group. Instead, he found the Chief looking over his parent's copy of the Book of Cassandra and making notes on the back side of a – now un-necessary – purchase order pad.
Stepping over the threshold, he expected to find Lee sitting behind his desk, cornered and peering up at him over a pile of paperwork. The fact that Laura Roslin was currently taking up carpet space in Lee's office made him want to leave the room. He didn't. He kept his pace and let the door swing shut. Momentum secured the latch. To her credit, the welcoming expression on her face didn't waver. She was obviously expecting someone else as well.
Keeping his expression as neutral as possible, his mind played out different reasons for her being on Galactica and waiting on his son. Connecting the dots, he had to stamp down his irritation. She wanted to make an ally out of Lee and then, together, approach him with an idea she knew he would veto if she came to him on her own. If she thought she stood a snowball's chance on Scorpia at getting him to agree to whatever she had concocted, then she would've been waiting for him in one of the empty conference rooms. Apparently she missed the memo on just how much Lee disliked spending any amount of time on the planet Scorpia.
"Madame President, I was looking for my CAG." His statement had the edge of a question to it. Suppressed anger made him formal and possessive. The word 'convoluted' resurfaced in his mind.
"What an interesting coincidence," Roslin turned on her heels and gave him an appraising look, "looks like we are waiting on the same person."
Stifling his primary instinct to leave the verbal jousting contest he had instigated was difficult. Politics were for politians, not Battlestar Commanders. But if he played by his rules, he wouldn't get anywhere. If he played by her rules, he might get what he needed to reset their mutual positions into what the Fleet needed them to be, but that wasn't a guarantee. Taking a page from his son's strategy book, he blended it with a bit of his daughter's talent of keeping those around her reactive. Opting to nod officiously, he made sure his next question was one that would need careful consideration before answering. "Would you like to have him paged, Madame President?"
"No, I don't think I'll do that, Commander." Her gentle shake of her head and the half-smile she used to disarm political opponents made his posture more rigid. She must have picked up on his subtle shift because she slipped her glasses off her nose and put them in her pocket. Changing tactics and crossing her arms underneath her chest, she looked up at him and made deliberate eye contact. "You see, I was going to ask Captain Adama his opinion on an up-coming event and how to best approach you with it."
"I'm sure that if you filed your request through the proper channels, it would get to me." Her specialty of mixing truth with a false sense of vulnerability wasn't going to work with him today. Not cutting her any quarter and still keeping the same mix of deliberateness and unpredictability, he played his next move. He inclined his head respectfully, as she was still the President of the Colonies, and turned to take his leave.
"Commander Adama, if you have a moment." Falling back on another tactic he knew she used on a regular basis, her tone made a statement out of what would be a question from anyone else. "Since you and I are both here, perhaps we can expedite the process."
Sliding his hands into a neutral position, he couldn't stop her from speaking. Nor could he disagree that curtailing the remnants of 'red tape' that still existed between Galactica and Colonial One was a good idea. "I'm listening."
Outlining her proposal, he stood still and didn't interrupt her. Looking at it from all sides, the offer was politically savvy as much as it was a sincerely thoughtful gesture. In another time, in another place, under different circumstances, he would have been deeply honoured to have such an event take place on his ship, regardless of the self-serving undercurrent.
"We'll make it happen. But on one condition." He stamped down the smug grin that begged to be set free as her eyes widened at his unexpected stipulation. She possessed intermediate skills in the political arena, but she wouldn't last more than a couple of hands in a Triad tournament with Apollo, Starbuck or Husker as opponents. "You don't attend."
"Excuse me?"
"If we're going to do this, then we're going to do this without you using it as a means to bolster your flagging Fleet popularity or an attempt to 'buy' the good graces of me and my crew." He spoke levelly, daring her to contradict him. Apparently, she was counting on her silence to be an effective tool in making him explain himself. Hadn't she learned by now that there were precious few to whom he had to justify his actions?
The silence stretched for two long moments. It was proving interesting to see who would capitulate first.
She did.
"Fine. Done. I won't attend."
"There's one more thing."
He wasn't done yet.
Things weren't fine – yet.
"You are the President of the Colonies. I and my crew and my family will follow your orders, within the parameters of the laws that we live by and the agreements we have developed with the Quorum of Twelve. However, I am going to make you a promise – here and now – with only the Gods and ourselves as witnesses." Dropping the stance that had gotten him this far, he needed her to understand that he was not going to be trifled with when it came to his family. "Twice you have pitted Lee against me, you have manipulated Kara into desertion under the banner of 'the greater good' and now you have forced my hand when it came to the lives of my children." It was perfectly clear that he was referring to Lee and Kara. "The next time you interfere in a family affair, the next time you consider manipulating any one of us, I promise you that you will be the recipient of the one ramification I believe you haven't considered."
Her hands were still crossed in front her chest, but she side-stepped to Lee's desk and leaned a hip against the edge. Her expectant gaze was the equivalent of asking the question she voiced anyway. "You'll stage a military coup?"
"No. We've been there and done that. The only thing that accomplished was civil strife. Our people don't deserve to be victimized any more than they already have." He didn't rise to the levity her ridiculous connotation carried. "What I'm promising you, Madame President, is that you'll be left to govern the people without the support of me and my military. Don't get me wrong. We'll do our jobs and we will protect the Fleet to our last breath. But consider how effective your Presidency will be without us to back you up on daily 'affairs of state' and long-range planning of what you deem 'in the best interests of the Fleet'. Not to mention how quickly our 'blind eyes' will start 'seeing' again." Completely secure in what he was saying, he added, "I'm sure my son would be interested in chairing that committee and taking a closer look at how your office works as my daughter slips in and integrates herself with your support staff as only she can do."
He had her, and she knew it. He could tell by the way she stopped to think about what to say next. A coup she could fight. She knew that her title of President was superfluous on a lot of the ships in the Fleet and she didn't have the means to get done what all the behind-closed-doors meetings, quietly placed phone calls and private conversations – that radiated out from Galactica and its network of specialists, pilots and technicians – accomplished on a daily basis. It was Adama's men and women, not hers, who cajoled, coerced, facilitated and finagled the tenuous level of co-operation that tethered each ship to the next. Taking Galactica's connections out of the complicated equation that enabled her administration to function would render her and her office inert. Truth be told, it would be easier to fight a coup or a rebellion than try to govern a traumatized, fragmented populace devoid of Adama's stamp of approval.
"What I did, I did for the safety and security of the Fleet." She stated her rationale one more time with the purpose of tying together her decision to his acceptance of the situation they both had to face. "Of which, you agreed with me was what we had to do."
"I did." Taking responsibility for his actions with those two words he wasn't about to cut himself, or her, any slack. "And now I have to answer for it. I have to look my daughter – one of my officers and a fellow pilot – in the eye and tell her that I ordered her death. Not to mention that one of these days, because she is the daughter of my heart, she'll hold you accountable as well. When that day comes, you're going to need a better answer than 'safety and security of the Fleet'. Kara Thrace keeps a score card and no one holds a better grudge than Lee Adama." He kept his gaze steadily on Roslin. "But do it again, if you try to manipulate me, Lee or Kara again, you'll find out just how empty those words sound when you're saying them by yourself and there's no one standing behind you justifying your decisions, Madame President."
"I understand."
He could tell that on a lot of levels, she did. He just wasn't sure if her comprehension was as complete as the conviction she used. But that wasn't his problem anymore – that was hers.
"Good. I'm glad we understand each other." Switching the topic back to her proposal, he made a suggestion. "Let's go back to my office and see how we can put this into motion."
Opening the door for her, he waited for her to walk into the Ready Room before pulling the hatch shut behind him. Letting her precede him, the large frame of Karl Agathon darkened the doorway that led to the access corridor. Returning Helo's salute with one of his own, the reason for him being in this part of the ship had Adama looking up and asking the ECO a question. "Do you know where we can find Apollo?"
It wasn't lost on either him or Roslin that Helo kept his face and tone carefully schooled. "Captain Adama is off until tomorrow. There's something he needed to do and he asked me to switch shifts with him."
xxx……….bsg……….xxx
Five days wasn't enough – not nearly enough. But, what he had five days to understand – to grossly misuse the word – Kara had processed and reacted too in a matter of minutes.
Having watched the replay of the battle-tapes so many times over the past seven weeks, every word she said over the ship-to-ship wireless that day had a place in his memory and the full effect of what she was really saying played like surround-sound in his ears.
Making his way down the corridor, three sentences echoed in his head time and again. He could see the moment in which she had snapped out her decree: the Cylon Fleet had just short-jumped nuclear-bearing Raiders into point-blank firing positions in front of every ship in the Colonial Fleet and their own defences had been decimated to only a handful of ships, the Raptors he and Karl had been assigned to that also fell under Starbuck's command. He didn't need the playback to hear the calm fury and solemn conviction in her voice.
"Galactica Actual – Black Leader; do what you can and leave the BaseStar and Heavy Raider to us. I'm invoking Blood Rights. They're asses belong to us."
He had no idea how she did it but then again, he didn't need too. If he wanted too, he could probably trace the sequence of events that enabled this to happen and that Sharon's name would fill in a lot of the blanks. But right now, none of that mattered. Two things were vitally important. This wasn't and couldn't be about him – it was going to be all about her and what she needed to do inside a medium-sized storeroom tucked away in an all-but-forgotten cranny somewhere in the vicinity of Galactica's stern.
Stepping through the hatch and taking care to shut it as quietly as possible, he instinctively respected the fact that the overhead lights were off. The haze that initially stung his eyes was drifting down from the ceiling; plumes of blue-grey smoke tumbled and curled with the air-currents flowing from the ventilation system. Control panels, designed to monitor environmental levels including heat, smoke and carbon dioxide, had been pulled open and he could see where wires had been cut to disable the alarms.
Keeping his footsteps silent, as well as the contents of the box he carried, he made his way to the middle of the room. A fire was already burning. Standing out starkly against the glow, a leanly muscled arm picked up a lit Prayer Candle. With a flick of a wrist, molten wax was strewn across the length of the pyre. Bold shades of orange and gold made the surrounding darkness more complete as the wax flared into flames.
Coming up behind her, the renewed blaze highlighted the damage done to someone who was more to him than a best friend and a wing-mate. For the first time, he actually saw what had been done to her. Snake-like, red welts were layered over a lattice of puffed-up cuts of various lengths. Where the skin wasn't cut, bruising in as many shades as there were levels of healing, marbled the skin in between the lash marks. The infection that Cottle promised would happen had started to take hold. He could see it in the swelling of the skin around the stitches that bound the deeper cuts and the way he didn't have to put his hand to her skin to know the kind of heat that would be radiating off of her back. Coming around her and pausing at her shoulder, it wasn't her nakedness that made him want to avert his eyes. It was the puncture wounds, which trailed down a set of arms that were currently hugging her knees to her chest. Legs crossed at the ankles concealed her nether regions but didn't hide the ligature marks that ringed her ankles and wrists. Her pale blond hair took on the same colours as her fire.
Long tapered fingers were quick and efficient when they brushed up against a scab on the backside of her shoulder and pulled it free. Flicking the flakes of dried blood into the fire, the same hand rose again and dragged a finger-nail across the exposed cut. Only when the blood began to flow over her hand did he find the strength to crouch down on his heels and still her fingers. Hovering near her shoulder, captivated by the elaborate simplicity of what she had done, it took him a second to realize that her focus had shifted and that she was looking at him. Keeping her eyes with his, Lee felt the power of the sanctity of what was taking place around him.
Growing up, forced to attend Temple until he was old enough to do other things, the priests and priestesses had, on occasion, touched on the Ritual of Blood Rights during the course of their teachings. In the simplest terms, the ritual pertained to the price a person paid to the Gods for the Gods seeing that person through a time of trial and tribulation. The more the Gods interceded on behalf of the person, the higher the price that person paid. Here and there, he had caught vague allusions that some of the older priests and priestesses assigned to the more sacred areas of the Temple had actually performed the Ritual during the First Cylon War. But for the most part, the teachings revolved around stories of old and legends of those whose debts to the Gods were their mortal lives because that's what they bartered their survival against. That was the romanticised version. In actuality, the Ritual of Blood Rights was so much deeper than that. Among so many other things, Blood Rights also involved retribution sought in the name of the Gods and the ritualistic fire was a stepping stone to healing from such an event because the Gods only helped those who helped themselves. What the priests and the priestesses had left out of their lessons with their stories of old and remembered participation, Kara Thrace was personifying in all its terrible splendour.
Two fingers on her right hand were coated with her own blood – her thumb she used to wipe away the thick tear drops that overflowed from his eyes. Mingling his tears with her blood, she cast the offering into the fire. His head turned in the direction of the sizzling and snapping sounds the sudden moisture created when the drops speckled the items that made up her pyre.
Dress greys, bandages, sets of officer's 'blues', boots, tanks, Triad cards – anything and everything she considered tainted by Castor fuelled her meagre, but potent, Alter of Ares. Forming an Eternal Triangle around the pyre were three idols: Artemis, Aphrodite and Athena. Each idol was flanked by a pair of Prayer Candles. The melted wax was significant on a lot of levels, the least of which was that it was the only accepted accelerant for the pyre.
Sinking to the floor and setting his box down, it was okay with him that Kara had resumed the ritual. He needed a moment to mentally collect himself as he reached into the box and started to pull out sheaves of papers. While the flames jumped and flared as wax was added, he scattered the papers over her pyre. The papers were his notes, interview transcripts and rescue/battle plans that had given him some semblance of 'helping her' while she had been held captive. He didn't have to believe in the Gods order to be here with her, she believed enough for the both of them. Just as the flames licked at the edges of the papers, she pulled apart a line of stitches on the back of her other shoulder. Shaking the trails of blood that beaded down and around her hand into the fire, she consecrated his offerings to Ares, Artemis, Athena and Aphrodite for getting her through her ordeal on the BaseStar.
One by one, idol by idol, the melted wax that pooled near the wicks of the Prayer Candles was strewn in to the fire. Each candle, representing the six reasons for mortal life, as well as paying homage to the Gods and Goddesses, made a pass over the Alter.
The emotions rising and falling in his chest made him want to hide his face in shame. Ever since he entered the room, Kara had looked at him only once and he had yet to see her break from whatever mental place she had retreated too in order to give the Gods their due. That is, until he realized that there was one item she hadn't offered to the Gods. Unable to make out what it was, one thing was certain. Whatever she had, it was something that elicited a tremble from her hand and a momentary wobble in her chin.
Stretching out his left hand in a silent request for her to give him what was in her hand, he could see why she was so affected. It was the photograph of Zak, Kara and himself; the same picture that he hung in the roof of her bunk and the same picture he saw every night before he went to sleep. Her hesitancy to toss it into the fire mirrored the pain he felt in his chest. The choices she had to make in order to come back to him, his father and the Fleet he couldn't begin to wrap his head around. The decision whether or not to burn a photograph was one thing he could help her decide.
"You came back." He didn't know why he spoke, but his words came from the barest part of his soul.
"Almost Lee – almost." Her face still tilted at the growing pile of embers and ash, her eyes flicked up at him. Her answer was just as honest and came from an equally naked part of her heart. The fact that she didn't have to add that there were still significant pieces of her missing wasn't lost on him.
Gripping the picture tightly with his finger and thumb, he met her gaze and held it as tenderly as he knew how. "How were the Elysian Fields?"
"I don't know." Tones of red, gold and orange from the fire created an ethereal corona around her but her answer was quick and sincere. "I never got that far."
"What happened?" She died – several times. He knew it. He felt it. He had cradled her in his arms when her heart stopped beating and her chest stopped rising and falling. If Kara Thrace, one person he admired and respected for being the warrior that she was, hadn't been welcomed into the Elysian Fields, what chance did he have, given all the mistakes he had done in his life?
"I wanted to, Lee. That's where I was supposed to go. But there was a condition."
Her answer snapped him away from his insecure thoughts and filled his mind, and face, with confusion.
"I couldn't take you with me."
A memory he wasn't privy too played out on her face and made her eyes grow even more distant. "I couldn't do that." Keeping an arm firmly against her legs, the other hand she stretched towards the fire. Spreading her thumb and forefinger apart, like she was holding something only she could see, that eerily remorseful voice of hers carried over the pyre. "I asked to be alone for a moment, and while he was gone, I dumped the vial out on my bed and dropped it on the floor so that I couldn't change my mind. I never told him what I did because I figured it wouldn't matter anyway, seeing as how he wouldn't be allowed to remember me." A tear-bright sheen made her eyes glitter as she kept her focus solely on the way the flames consumed her offerings. "How could I keep my promise to never forget you if everything I knew was going to be taken away from me? How would I know to look for you, when your time came, if I didn't know you to begin with?"
He didn't know everything she was talking about – pieces of what she said made sense. A conversation, seven weeks old, replayed in his mind.
"I don't know how to say this to you." The honest tremble in her voice was different from the voice she used to convey the end game in front of them.
"Neither do I." It wasn't a cop out and this wasn't the time for flowery speeches. This was it and they both knew it.
"I love you, Kara."
"I love you too, Lee."
Hearing her swallow, her next words made his eyes sting. "If you see Zak before I do, let him know I won't be long, okay?"
"Done; the same goes for you, you know." Lee could not keep the thickness out of his voice.
"Not a chance, Adama. I'll wait for you, if that's the case. I think I like the idea of exploring the Elysian Fields with you for the next eternity or so. Zak can find us if that's going to be the case." Lee could hear the sincerity in Kara's promise.
"Forever never sounded so good, Kara," Lee offered his own promise. "Maybe we will even find our father while we're at it."
"All we have to do is find your mom, Lee – that's where we'll find your dad. He'll be holding her hand as he reaches out to you and pulls you close."
She had promised to never forget him and they had made a mutual pact to look for each other in the Elysian Fields when it came time for each of them to cross over. But the details she was bringing up – a vial? – forgetting him? – being forgotten by someone else? She was making sense to herself, and that was all that mattered. If she wanted to clue him in, that was entirely up to her. He wasn't about to press her for explanations right now.
"I made the right choice to come back, Lee." She might have said his name, but he felt like she was talking to someone else, someone who was only a ghost in her mind. Her eyes fell on the photo in his hand.
"Was this taken before or after, Kara?" He had rehearsed every possible way to broach it to her, but now that the moment was happening, all his carefully worded sentences seemed trite. What he thought were going to be the hardest words for him to utter paled at the way she said she gave up Eternity for him. If she could do that, then he could say the words no other human being would ever hear again.
Guilt, a thousand-fold more than he ever felt before, brought fresh tears to his eyes as he watched Kara's stoic face, the mask she needed to do what had to be done, crack, crumble and shatter into dust. Rawness, true, exposed, rawness highlighted her cheekbones and broke her voice.
"You weren't supposed to know – that was why… Oh, Gods," a sniffle and a hand pressed to her chin made him want to hold her. But he didn't. She wasn't looking for the consolation that he wanted to offer just to appease his own need to take care of her. She was trying to ask him for an explanation.
Real pain gripped his insides as he realized why his vaguely worded question – about when that picture had been taken – broke Kara's emotional threshold. He was never supposed to find out. That was the deal she had made with herself, made with the Gods and made with Zak – that he would never find out that Zak, at one point, had been a Cylon. That by protecting the Fleet, she was ultimately protecting him and his father… Bile rose in his throat and it was barely suppressed as he saw her convince herself that she had failed, that all she had endured and all that she had survived and all that she had given up had been in vain.
"Don't. Even. Go. There. Kara." Vehemently contradicting the desperation that lit her eyes, never had he physically ached for someone. Never had he ever let himself be so emotionally exposed. But he was going to be frakked if she thought – for a single second – he was going to let her believe that she had failed. "I put the pieces together, on my own, with no one but Karl as a sounding board."
How could he say that a chance encounter over some knocked over pictures was what tumbled all the pieces and all the clues into place? He couldn't tell her about the process of elimination system he used to figure out Castor's identity, how he dissected her life and peeled back the layers of privacy she wrapped her past in to come up with a the one key question that would give him the answers he so desperately sought. Who did she know, on an intimate basis, before the worlds ended, that he and the Old Man and Helo knew she would do anything and everything with in her power to protect them from? Persephone was a name 'he' called her, as an endearment, and Castor was 'his' call-sign; Castor had a brother, an immortal brother, placed in the heavens by their father, Zeus.
Absolute security that no one, not even Bill Adama, knew her secret infused his words as he nodded at the ashes accumulating around the edges of the dying fire, "And now, those pieces are in the hands of the Gods."
If he ever thought that he and Kara were bonded, that definition was redefined the moment she accepted his words. If he ever thought he was taking part in something sacred and special, those definitions were refined by the experience they were sharing.
"He never loved me, did he?"
"'He' told you, didn't 'he'?" Nodding briefly, the way she rested her forehead on her upturned knees and hid her face from him touched the darker places in his psyche.
Mother-frakker! Her Blood Rights, destroying the BaseStar with the Heavy Raider in it before it could explode on its own and killing Zak with her own hand, made his need for retribution redundant. But 'he' had no right telling her that – even if it was the truth. Part of the reason why he felt so much resentment towards Kara for her relationship with Zak wasn't just because he knew that his brother had only instigated the relationship as a way to make sure he got through Basic Flight, it was directed at Kara herself because she believed herself to be so unlovable that she fell for a façade. The irony was that love for her was what drove Cylon 'Zak' – the only way he could think about the machine that had once been his brother – to manipulate an entire war effort to capture her. It was love – not that she would ever admit to it or identify it as such – that made her bring down an entire BaseStar and kill the one man she firmly believed always loved her and had never let her down. Still, Kara deserved to know the truth, not what some Cylon with an ulterior motive decided she should know just so that he could frak with her head.
"Zak did come to care about you, Kara. That is the truth. He genuinely liked being around you and was hooked on your fearlessness." In his head, he saw the numerous arguments he had with Zak about Kara, about how what Zak was doing was wrong, and how Zak would counterpoint by saying that if their father could do it, and then he could too and then go on the offence by accusing Lee of having other reasons for jumping down his throat other than the principle of right and wrong. Within the storm of dredged up memories, a moment of brotherly affection softened his voice. "Zak knew I liked having you around."
It was Kara's voice that pulled him from his reverie.
"I don't want to know a life without you in it, Lee Adama."
Accepting her gift for what it was, he turned to the dying fire and into it he threw a selection of his own memories and hard-thoughts and let them become ethereal wisps of smoke that Galactica's ventilation system would eventually push into the dark vacuum of space.
One cheek resting on one of her knees, Kara's eyes were still deeply shadowed by what had happened over the past seven weeks, but their hazel-green colour wasn't corrupted by self-loathing. He knew the difference between resignation and recognition but the expression on Kara's face was neither. It was something else altogether. "But you have to know that there are parts of me that are used up and there are other parts that are dead."
Standing and walking around the edge of the pyre, he made it a point to sit right next to her. Resting his hand on her knees, he could see a fresh hospital gown pooled beside her. Still not seeing her nakedness, she let him turn her until she was facing him and drew a comb out of his pocket. Slowly and deliberately, focusing on how the teeth of the comb slid through the white-gold of her hair, he started to speak.
"I don't believe that – not for a second – Kara Thrace. I am here to tell you – before the Gods and each other – that you will be exactly as you want to be. You are an unstoppable force of nature which cannot be caged or contained." Closing his eyes to blink his watery eyes clear, he added, "No matter what – whatever happens, has happened or will happen again – you are a true woman, Kara. Nothing and no one will ever change that."
A jangling sound from his other pocket carried over the thrum of a Battlestar. Spreading the chain to loop it over her neck, she jerked her head away. Not to be deterred, he let his eyes carry the sincerity of his words. "Whether or not you keep them is up to you, but there isn't a single person alive who deserves to wear the uniform more than you."
Seeing the brushed silver of her newly minted dog-tags rest against her skin made him want to suspend the moment, but there was one more thing he had to do. This time, though, when he tried to give her back her wings, there was nothing he could do to convince her to take them back. Silently shaking her head, the double-standard that they represent she knows first hand. She had been an instrument of destruction by both Cylons and Colonials where the only differences between the two races were ideologies. The terrible thought that Kara would never again take to the sky was something that he had to surrender to the last of the embers of her Alter. The Gods would show her the way – he would trust Them with that much.
Still focused on the spent pyre, he could hear her shifting around and reaching for her hospital gown.
Knowing her need to make herself climb to her feet doesn't stop him from watching her and making sure she found her balance. Swinging his feet in front of him, a couple of deft pulls had the lacings on his boots loosened. A couple of quick tugs later, his socks were off and his boots were back on his feet.
"Put your hand on my shoulder." Lee didn't dare look up as he reached for Kara's feet, but the fact that he felt a feel a weak grip near his neck gave him the go-ahead. A small, slightly impish smile crinkled the corner of his mouth as he surprised her by putting his socks on her feet and answered her teasing smirk with a simple – and obvious – reason. "You don't have any anymore – remember?"
Carefully threading a supportive arm around her waist earned him a swat from her hand. He got the point: she got herself there, she could get herself out. It was a slow walk to the hatch and he didn't stop her from pulling open the door and clearing the threshold even when she went pale and a cold sweat broke out all over her body, making her gown stick to her back and arms. What it cost her to do what she did – give the Gods their due – was going to be paid for by Cottle and seeing just how talented he was going to be at snatching Kara away from the deadly threat the infection posed. But he knew why she did it – because there was a chance that the infection she knew had started would take her and keep her.
Once in the corridor was when her head tipped back and her abused body gave out. Catching her, he gently lowered her to the deck. She was in no conditioned to be carried all the way to Life Station – if he tried, he would only end up doing more damage. Sprinting to the nearest call-box, he paged the Office of the Watch.
"This is Captain Adama – I have a medical emergency. I need a gurney and medics to Sub-Level Twenty-Seven-Pee. I have an officer down."
Putting the phone back in its cradle, he backtracked to Kara. Still out and shaking with chills, he slipped off his jacket and spread it over her. Looking up and down the corridor, he scolded himself at expecting to see Cottle's people suddenly materialized. Even at top speed, it would take several minutes for them to get there.
A sudden thought had him lifting his head and heading back into the storage room.
Flicking on the over head lights, it didn't take him long to find what he was looking for – the picture of him, Zak and Kara. She never told him what she wanted to do with it. Stuffing it into his pocket, he swiftly tackled the control panels Kara had dismantled. Putting the wires to rights – enough to pass at first glance – he pulled the door shut and spun the lock. Later, he and Helo would come down and clean up. He made a mental note to talk to Tyrol about what to do with the ashes.
Making his way back to Kara, he knelt down and pulled her into his lap. Her back was every bit as hot as he initially thought it would be, and the puncture wounds had sickly, yellow rings around them.
A weak hand reaching for his cheek had him looking down. It was Kara – barely lucid – but her eyes were open and she was trying to talk to him. Leaning forward he put his face closer to her lips and was surprised when she pressed a quick kiss into his stubble and whispered into his neck.
"Don't worry, Lee – I'm not going anywhere. I'm gonna be around to twirl that stick up your ass…"
Secure in her promise, he pulled her closer and murmured into her hair, "You do that, Kara. You do that…"
Battlestar Galactica………. Battlestar Galactica………. Battlestar Galactica………
: Refers to a moment in Chapter 4
: Refers to a moment in Chapter 10: Engagement, one: where Kara first declares Blood Rights, the second: Lee and Kara have a moment over the wireless.