The day before the XO's wedding arrived and, against all odds, Karl Agathon didn't seem nervous at all. The guy was all smiles and jokes – like his usual self.
"And don't you dare miss my bachelor party tonight," Helo warned Lee in the CIC. "Guys and booze only."
"Isn't the best man supposed to be the one who plans the bachelor's party?" Lee asked curiously.
"Yeah, but the 'best man' is your wife in this case and, as chauvinistic as this may sound, no women will be allowed in this party," he said.
Lee shook his head. "And how did Kara react to this 'guys-only' thing?"
"She said I could stick the party up my… well… backside 'cause she wasn't interested in seeing me act like mentally defected person because I'm drunk, so I guess she was a little pissed off. Plus, she warned me that if you get hurt during this party, tomorrow we'll have my funeral instead of my wedding…"
Apollo smiled. "That's my girl."
"I borrowed her office for the party, though," Helo announced, waving the access keys in front of Lee's face.
"'Borrowed' as in really borrowed or 'borrowed' as in stole?" Lee inquired skeptically. There was just no way Kara had let him use her office to get drunk after being left out of the party.
Agathon laughed nervously. "Do I have to answer that?" he asked as a smoother way of saying 'yes, I stole Kara's spare keys'.
"Just, don't tell me anything so I won't have to lie to her," Lee agreed. "So, who did you invite?"
"Only a few people: you, the Chief, Hoshi and Anders…"
"Anders?!" he asked in shock. Helo had invited Anders of all people? Come on…
Helo raised an eyebrow. "Why not? The two of us had a little booze-drinking competition back in Founder's Day – he won and ended up knocked out under a table. The guy is always good for a laugh."
"He's your best-friend's ex!" Lee pointed out. That meant his wife's ex. He didn't want to hang out with his former rival, for frak's sake. Much less now that the guy was revealed to someone without any principle that cheated in the night before his wedding.
"So? The Chief is Sharon's ex and I don't have anything against him," Helo replied.
"No, the Chief is Boomer's ex," Apollo corrected him.
"That doesn't change the fact that, for all purposes, he's seen her naked," Karl said. Okay, that bugged him a little, but it didn't make Tyrol less of a friend to him…
Lee huffed. There was no way around it… "You know what? I give up. But I find it too annoying, I'll just drink and try to forget that pyramid boy is there…"
"That's the spirit," Helo said, giving him a thumbs up. "Now, can I borrow your couch for the night? Seems like Talbot's intern, Decker, convinced Sharon the other day that the groom seeing the bride before the wedding is really bad luck and she kicked me out for the night."
"Believe me, she has good reasons to believe that," Lee told him, remembering what Kara had told him about Sam cheating. Of course, he and Kara had been together for the hours before their wedding and nothing had gone wrong… "About the couch, ask Kara."
"Do I really have to?" he inquired, head down. She was probably still mad at him because he had excluded her of his bachelor party.
"Yep," Lee said, patting his back. "I'm not putting my ass on the line for you."
---
After a lot of begging and negotiation, Kara agreed to let him crash in hers and Lee's cabin for the night. Nevertheless, it had came with a cost – she had tricked him into giving four nugget classes about raptor piloting… Actually, 'tricked' was not the word. She had threatened to cause him extensive bodily harm if he didn't agree with her…
And sooner than they expected 'nighttime' (according to the fleet's internal clocks) arrived. By the time Lee got to his wife's office, it couldn't be called an office anymore: her desk had been put against a wall, being replaced by a round table in the middle of the room, making it look like a shady gambling room. Surrounding that table, were Helo, the Chief, Hoshi and Anders – all of them playing triad.
"Hey," Lee greeted everyone. "Sorry about the lateness."
"No problem," Helo said, putting a cigar in his mouth and lightening it. The smoke made the room even shadier. "We started the first hand without you."
"I was just telling Helo that you guys have a nice hangar deck in here, Apollo," the Chief commented. "All high tech…"
Lee laughed. "You could always transfer here. Imagine all that technology at your mercy…" No chief of deck would ever be like 'The Chief', as good as they might be.
"Nah, this is nothing like the Old Lady," he said, referring Galactica.
"You grow into it," Sam pointed out in a bored tone, speaking for the first time in Lee's presence. He seemed as reticent as Lee with the fact that both of them were in the same room. That could either go either go terribly wrong or wonderfully well…
Apollo coughed and decided to push a little. Casual talk would be a good start. Nobody could say he didn't try to make things less awkward. "So, how's the training, Anders?"
"Good," he replied in the same casual tone as Lee. "It is not that difficult when you have good reflexes…"
It was working, Lee concluded. Not that awkward. Maybe that bachelor party wouldn't be so bad, after all. "Reflexes are the most important in a fight situation. Use them or get killed."
"Three up! I'm the best!" Helo interrupted, showing his cards. He launched himself at the items on the table that were serving as money. "Will you join us in the next hand, Commander?"
Lee shrugged his shoulders. "Why not? Give me the cards."
"Great," he said, passing them to Lee. Then, he grabbed a bottle that had been lying on the floor by his side. "Anybody want the Chief's best brew for good luck?"
"You mean strongest…" Tyrol said. "That could put anyone dancing in no time."
"Perfect," Helo said, serving the cups. "What' a bachelor party without dancing?"
---
They took a few rounds. And a few more. Well, and even more followed. When they opened the second bottle, Lee was already having a hard time focusing on his cards. He had to close one eye in order to be able to see what they were. About one hour earlier, Cally had sent Racetrack to get the Chief in order to make sure he got home alive. Hoshi had also left a long time ago, having an early morning in the next day. Helo, Lee and Sam were the only ones still playing triad.
"I'm gonna tell you," a little dizzy, Lee leaned back on his chair and looked at the ceiling. "I can't really get drunk."
"Yes, you can," Helo said with a laugh. He was the least sober of the three. "I've already seen you."
"No, what I mean is that I can't get wasted to the point of not being able to make love to my wife tonight," Apollo explained drunkenly. "Do you know how long you can't when a woman is pregnant? I'm making up for the lost time…"
"You've been making up for the past month and a half," Helo pointed out. "Horny asses! And you were surprised when she got pregnant…"
"I never took Kara for the mommy type," Sam mumbled. He and Lee were so intoxicated by now that he and Sam were acting like they had been friends for years. "Really, she deserves you. I'm happy for you guys. She was not the girl for me… or the other way around."
"Decker was, right? What's your deal with her, anyway?" Lee asked without thinking, as he stretched his arms. "You dated, then she caught you with other chick but you say it wasn't what she thought, now you act all passive-aggressive like Kara and I used to. That's annoying. What you guys need is to get laid, it makes miracles."
"You and 'buck were not passive, you were just frakkin' aggressive," Helo pointed out, trying to count the cards. "And who are talkin' about? The hot intern?"
"Erin. My Erin. I love her," Sam said drunkenly. "I'd never cheat. My Erin's wrong. I love her but she's wrong."
"Why did you pin for my Kara if you love your Erin so much?" Lee asked confused.
Sam shrugged his shoulders. "'Cause I liked your Kara and my Erin was 'dead', so needed to forget. She's alive but she hates me now. I hurt her…"
"Poor you," Helo mumbled, giving them back the cards. "What you need is another drink." He reached for the bottle but it seemed to be empty. "Not a drop," he said sadly, shaking the bottle. "Not a miserable little drop."
"Frak," Sam said. "Don't you have more? I need to drink!"
"No, we drank it all!" Helo said with a tinge of pride in his voice. "I'm getting' married tomorrow and we drank it all!" he got up walked in a way that seemed like the floor was shaking behind his feet. If Sam and Lee hadn't gotten up and caught him, the XO would have fallen flat on his face.
"What do we do with him?" Sam asked, supporting Helo's unconscious body.
"You think he's alive?" Lee inquired laughing. Being drunk always mixed his reactions. He should be worried, not laughing. "Finding another XO will be a pain if this one is dead."
"Better start thinking of the funeral," someone said from the doorway. They hadn't even noticed the door opening. "What the frak did you do to my office, you three miserable drunks?"
Lee looked up and saw his wife standing in there along with Decker and Sharon. He gave her a silly smile as she approached them, putting the gun she had been holding back in her belt.
"Imagine my surprise when a pilot came to my quarters, interrupting out pre-wedding get-together and told us that my office had been invaded," Kara said, glaring at the trio. "So, here we come, expecting an infiltrated cylon or something and we find you three frakkers in here."
"It was Helo's fault," Lee told her. He and Sam threw the XO's unconscious body to the sofa. "He stole the keys."
Kara shook her head. "You'd better clean this mess," she warned them.
Sam was simply ignoring her as he stared at Erin. "She beautiful isn't she?" he murmured, elbowing Lee.
Lee nodded, thinking he was talking about Kara. "Come here and kiss me, sweetheart," he told her.
"I'm most likely to punch you right now," she said.
Sharon approached Helo and poked him in his side. He grumbled and opened his eyes. "Baby," he mumbled, seeing her.
"Come on, get up. I hope you're fresh tomorrow or I swear to gods I won't marry you," she told him, helping her future husband up.
"I'll be fresh just for you," he told her. "Can we go to our quarters and…"
"No," she said immediately. Sharon turned to Kara and Erin. "And he wasn't supposed to see me for a day…"
"Don't worry, he probably won't remember a thing by the morning," Kara said, putting her arm around Lee's waist, to make sure he wouldn't fall. "Well, we'd better take these warriors out of the battlefield." Sharon was already working on taking (more like dragging) Helo to the Commander's quarters. Is she wasn't a cylon, she doubted she'd be able to carry that big oaf all the way back there… "Erin, can you take care of…" Kara nodded at Sam.
The intern sighed. "Don't worry, I've got him."
Starbuck nodded and returned her attention back to Lee. "Come on, Flyboy, to bed we go. And watch where you put your hands." She found him so harmless in that state that the order came followed by a laugh. "I doubt you still know how to use them."
"I bet I know," he replied suggestively.
His wife shook her head as they exited the office and kissed his cheek, leaving Erin and Sam alone in her office.
Decker gave her former fiancé a glare. "The man's getting married tomorrow. You should have stopped him…"
"That Agathon guy is a bad influence. He had to drink to Sharon's eyes, her lips, her hair… even her ears," Sam declared with a laugh. He was happy right now. She was willing to take care of him. She didn't hate him… "How did you end up in Sharon's get-together, anyway?"
"I gave her a few tips for the wedding. She thought it would be nice to invite me…" Decker passed her arm around him and helped him walk back to his bunkroom. "Come on, one foot in front of the other," she instructed him after closing Kara's office's hatch.
They walked silently for a few minutes, until Sam seemed to snap into so kind of daze.
"You smell so good, Erin," he mumbled unconsciously. "And you're more beautiful than you used to… I miss you."
She gulped. Her heart was beating fast. He was getting close, so close… Gods, hearing that hurt her and made her happy at the same time. So confusing… "I miss you too," she admitted in a low voice, knowing he probably wouldn't remember it in the following morning. How she missed him. Erin had been lying to herself for so long. "But it doesn't change anything." She was trying to convince herself of that.
"Yes, it does," he said, his voice full of hope, despite the drunkenness. "I love you…"
Another skipped heartbeat. She stopped for a moment, closing her eyes and breathing rhythmically so the tears would stay away… When she opened them, Decker saw she had stopped only a few feet away from the entrance of his bunkroom. "Come on. Just a few more steps…" she urged him, needing to get away as soon as she could.
Reaching for the door, she knocked and moments later, Barolay opened it. "Erin… and Sam," she said half sleepy, half surprised.
"Take him, Jean," Erin told her. "He's drunk out of his ass. I need to go."
"Erin…" Sam mumbled, close to unconsciousness.
Barolay nodded and supported the other man's weight in order to take him inside. "This has gone far enough," Jean told her. "We need to talk."
"Later," Erin said, leaving in a hurry. She practically ran to her room where one of the nurses was babysitting Nate. It only took her a few minutes to relieve Rita of her duties and be left alone with her son.
She sat by Nathan's bedside for a long time, maybe hours. Hearing Sam saying 'I love you' again had been too much for her to handle: she wanted to take him back, to be a family, but her rational side kept refusing. Why did that have to be so hard?
A/N: I was supposed to post this chapter yesterday but as my dad caught a nasty cold and is stuck in bed, my sister Anne and I are in charge of our two younger siblings, meaning the damn house is a mess. I hope you liked this chapter. Remember, 10 reviews will get you a preview of next chapter in my livejournal. Send feedback.