FIC: i've been missing you, part 3
Title: i've been missing you, part 3
Author: abelard
Rating: M
Spoilers: through end of season 2
Pairing: apollo/starbuck
Disclaimers: not mine
Summary: an au fic, on earth, 2006.
A/N: Thanks to everyone who commented on "The Million Things" part 1 - sorry I haven't had time to get back to you. I just feel like that fic is so "young" it's not even worth talking about yet. But this one is heating up :).
"What do you mean, 'a pick-up game,' Sam?" Kara hissed into her cell phone, trying against her nature to be quiet, so that the few people in the bar, including Lee, couldn't hear her. "In your condition?"
"It's just a ballgame, Kara, it won't kill -" Sam started.
"Don't go there with me, Anders," Kara interrupted. "I can't believe that after what Doctor Cottle told you, you're going to go outside, in this weather for Christ's sake, and play football with your buddies in the middle of a storm! Sam, you're in no shape -"
"They're my teammates, not just my friends," said Sam.
"Your former teammates," Kara reminded him. "That Superbowl win was a long time ago, and you're not that guy, Sam -"
"You know what? I think I'm gonna crash at Mike's place. I don't need this constant -"
"What?" Kara dared him to say it.
"Nagging."
He'd said it. He'd actually -
"Now I'm gonna take a cab out to Mike's, and by the time I get to Jersey, the storm will be over, and me and the guys will play for a couple of hours, and I'll sleep on his couch. You just - cool off, or whatever you need to do, and I'll see you tomorrow." Before Kara could respond, Sam hung up.
Kara looked at her silent phone for a second as if it were an enemy alien. "Damn you," she muttered at the phone, and at Sam.
"Trouble?" Lee's voice broke into Kara's thoughts before they could get too much darker. Oh, but Lee was another kind of trouble, always had been, for her - and didn't she have enough of that already?
When Kara didn't answer, Lee cleared his throat and said, "Listen, I'm going to get myself a room here. This is as good a place as any to spend the night, and....Well, I was, um, wondering if you wanted to come up for a drink or something? So we could talk a little more? Only if you want to." Lee was actually blushing as he made the suggestion. Kara couldn't believe how cute that was. Imagine - the mighty Apollo blushing over her, of all the women in the universe.
What was she thinking a second ago about having too much trouble already? And now Lee Adama was inviting her to his hotel room. Apparently, the fates thought there was no such thing as too much trouble for Kara Thrace.
"Sure, I'll go up with you for a little while," Kara said, hoping she wasn't making a serious error in judgement. Not more serious than usual, in any case. "It's not like anyone's waiting for me at home."
"Oh," said Lee. They walked to the front desk together and stood in silence as the clerk ran Lee's credit card and gave him a room key. When they entered the elevator and the doors closed, Lee said, "Are you and your - are you having problems at home?"
Kara breathed deeply and then let it out. "Yes and no," she answered finally. The elevator doors opened and Lee used the key card to let them into his room. It was as sleek and modern as the bar and lobby downstairs, all sharp edges and black and steel and glass. It suited Kara's mood. It was only fitting she'd have to talk about her marriage in a big, windowed coffin.
Kara sat down on the couch facing the floor-to-ceiling view of skyscrapers. She gingerly slid her feet out of the stilettos she'd been wearing for too many hours while Lee took a bottle of scotch out of the minibar and poured them both doubles. He set their drinks down and then sat in the armchair next to the couch and just looked at her, waiting for her to explain.
"It's like this," Kara said. "He's really talented. Or at least he was." She took a long sip of scotch. "But he's not the star quarterback anymore, and he doesn't realize -"
"Wait a second," Lee said. "Star quarterback? Are you married to - to Samuel Anders, of the Jets?"
Kara nodded. "The very same," she said morosely. "I used to think it was destiny. You know - I was an ex-fighter jet pilot, and he was an ex-Jet. Get it?" Kara shook her head at herself. "So juvenile. Anyway, he wasn't a football player when I met him, so I never saw him in his 'natural environment' so to speak."
"Right," said Lee, remembering. "Wasn't he injured two or three seasons ago?"
"Yeah. So I thought he was starting over, too, like me. We were both going to begin anew, that sort of thing. He fell for me hard, and like I told you earlier, being with him made me feel so alive, and I really hadn't felt that way in years and years. When he proposed, just a few weeks after we met, I wasn't expecting it but I thought, Okay. This is meant to be. Here's a good man, he loves me, we're compatible, we're in the same place in our lives, what more could I ask for?" Kara paused as she looked at Lee's face, the face that always sprang into her memory the moment she asked herself, What more could I ask for? She knew she had no right to ask for that face, that body. She went on, "I said yes. I decided to just trust the moment. You know me."
Lee gave a small smile. "Starbuck always lives for the moment."
"Yeah. So, we got married. We found a place in the Village, and I kept working at my gallery, and he was trying to figure out what kind of work he wanted to do, and life was great. Except -" Kara took another swallow from her glass. Lee casually switched her glass with his, which was still full. Kara felt the corner of her mouth turn up at the sly move. Was he trying to get her drunk so she'd tell him everything? Sadly, although his bluer-than-blue eyes made her want to throw her heart at his feet, she could never really tell him everything.
"Except what?" asked Lee.
Kara paused as she tried to squeeze the last ten months of her life into a few small words. "Sam wasn't ready to move on from his glory days," she said. "He spent all his time re-living his time with the team, watching old games, talking to his teammates, playing with them every chance he got. We talked about him finding a new career, or at least doing charity work, but after months of talking, I realized that's all it was going to be with him. Just a bunch of talk. I guess I didn't realize how hard it would be for him to leave behind all that excitement for a boring, domestic life with me."
"That's bullshit," said Lee.
"Huh?" Kara didn't understand.
"Life with you, my God - 'boring' is the last thing that could ever be. Unless this guy is a total moron, which it sounds like he may be."
"Thanks," Kara said, grateful that he sprang to her defense so quickly. "But - okay, even if I wasn't 'boring,' I wasn't the same as tens of thousands of fans, hundreds of girl groupies. I wasn't what Sam was used to."
"Kara," Lee said gently, laying his hand on her forearm, just as he'd done at the bar, "did he cheat on you?"
Kara shrugged and looked steadfastly out at the skyscrapers. "I don't know. Maybe. That thought occurred to me more than once, but that was less important than other things - just our constant fighting, the fact that he wasn't who I thought he was when I married him. He didn't even want to be the man I thought he was going to become." Kara looked at Lee and said, "I got ready to ask for a separation. I thought we owed it to ourselves to call it a mistake if that's what it was. But then...."
Lee frowned. "What stopped you?"
"Sam got a flu that wouldn't go away. And then, he got feverish, got the chills. And they didn't go away. He ignored his symptoms for months. He told me it had happened before, but when I noticed the swelling in his neck, and around his arms - I knew it wasn't related to his football injuries. I asked him to go get checked out. He didn't want to go to the doctor, but I made him see Cottle, I told him Cottle wasn't like other docs...."
"Cottle? From the service?" Lee laughed. "The chain-smoking old coot?"
"Yeah - turns out he's a New Yorker, born and bred, so he moved back here when he retired from the Navy. Anyway, Cottle took some tests, and...." Kara blinked. God damn it, she hated it when she cried. She felt Lee's hand squeeze her arm a bit harder. "It's cancer, Lee. It's Hodgkin's. It's so advanced - it's been progressing for years. If they'd only caught it earlier - but Sam never told any of the team's doctors about his recurring "flu," no one ever tested him before...." Even now, Kara couldn't believe it, could hardly make herself say it. "He's dying. And I couldn't leave. There was no way -"
"Of course not." Lee's hand slid away from her arm. "Of course you couldn't."
Kara looked over. His eyes were downcast. What was his frown about? "What is it?" she asked.
Lee looked up, then away from her. "Nothing, I -" He shook his head, as if at himself rather than at anything she said. "I thought...you were going to say something else. Never mind. Kara, of course you have to stay with him, help him through this...."
"If I can. His chances aren't good." Kara remembered her conversation with Sam from just thirty minutes before and still couldn't believe what Sam had said. "It doesn't help that he doesn't do anything the doctors tell him. He goes out to Jersey in a thunderstorm to play football in the rain and mud, and hangs up on me because I try to tell him to take it easy. He'll catch cold for sure, and his immunity will be shot to crap...." She caught Lee's face and felt badly about going on and on about the details of her situation. "Sorry, I know this is boring -"
"You keep using that word," Lee said. "Kara, I haven't seen you in three years. Nothing you could say would bore me. You could read the back of a cereal box - I could listen to you all night."
Wow. Kara had nothing to say to that. How she'd forgotten the pleasure of being listened to by this man. Once, she'd lived for the attention he paid her. It was when she realized that's what she was living for - when she was engaged to his brother - that she knew she had to change things.
"Thanks, Lee," she said, hoping he heard in her voice the deep gratitude she felt. "So...." She didn't know what else to say. She'd told him about her life now, caught between duty and the desire to be free. Doesn't this seem familiar, she thought bitterly. Then kicked herself for comparing Zak and Anders - they were nothing alike.
"So you really care for him," Lee said. It wasn't a question.
Something in the way he said that made Kara look, really look, at Lee's expression. She had to ask - she didn't want to pry into his personal feelings, but she couldn't let the question suddenly burning in her mind go unasked. "Lee?" she started, wondering if she was being an idiot by even making the suggestion.
He looked at her expectantly.
"Are you..." Just do it, Starbuck, she told herself. "Are you jealous?" She breathed in hard and fast at the end of the question, not wanting to hear the answer unless -
"Yes," Lee said immediately, not flinching one bit.
Author: abelard
Rating: M
Spoilers: through end of season 2
Pairing: apollo/starbuck
Disclaimers: not mine
Summary: an au fic, on earth, 2006.
A/N: Thanks to everyone who commented on "The Million Things" part 1 - sorry I haven't had time to get back to you. I just feel like that fic is so "young" it's not even worth talking about yet. But this one is heating up :).
"What do you mean, 'a pick-up game,' Sam?" Kara hissed into her cell phone, trying against her nature to be quiet, so that the few people in the bar, including Lee, couldn't hear her. "In your condition?"
"It's just a ballgame, Kara, it won't kill -" Sam started.
"Don't go there with me, Anders," Kara interrupted. "I can't believe that after what Doctor Cottle told you, you're going to go outside, in this weather for Christ's sake, and play football with your buddies in the middle of a storm! Sam, you're in no shape -"
"They're my teammates, not just my friends," said Sam.
"Your former teammates," Kara reminded him. "That Superbowl win was a long time ago, and you're not that guy, Sam -"
"You know what? I think I'm gonna crash at Mike's place. I don't need this constant -"
"What?" Kara dared him to say it.
"Nagging."
He'd said it. He'd actually -
"Now I'm gonna take a cab out to Mike's, and by the time I get to Jersey, the storm will be over, and me and the guys will play for a couple of hours, and I'll sleep on his couch. You just - cool off, or whatever you need to do, and I'll see you tomorrow." Before Kara could respond, Sam hung up.
Kara looked at her silent phone for a second as if it were an enemy alien. "Damn you," she muttered at the phone, and at Sam.
"Trouble?" Lee's voice broke into Kara's thoughts before they could get too much darker. Oh, but Lee was another kind of trouble, always had been, for her - and didn't she have enough of that already?
When Kara didn't answer, Lee cleared his throat and said, "Listen, I'm going to get myself a room here. This is as good a place as any to spend the night, and....Well, I was, um, wondering if you wanted to come up for a drink or something? So we could talk a little more? Only if you want to." Lee was actually blushing as he made the suggestion. Kara couldn't believe how cute that was. Imagine - the mighty Apollo blushing over her, of all the women in the universe.
What was she thinking a second ago about having too much trouble already? And now Lee Adama was inviting her to his hotel room. Apparently, the fates thought there was no such thing as too much trouble for Kara Thrace.
"Sure, I'll go up with you for a little while," Kara said, hoping she wasn't making a serious error in judgement. Not more serious than usual, in any case. "It's not like anyone's waiting for me at home."
"Oh," said Lee. They walked to the front desk together and stood in silence as the clerk ran Lee's credit card and gave him a room key. When they entered the elevator and the doors closed, Lee said, "Are you and your - are you having problems at home?"
Kara breathed deeply and then let it out. "Yes and no," she answered finally. The elevator doors opened and Lee used the key card to let them into his room. It was as sleek and modern as the bar and lobby downstairs, all sharp edges and black and steel and glass. It suited Kara's mood. It was only fitting she'd have to talk about her marriage in a big, windowed coffin.
Kara sat down on the couch facing the floor-to-ceiling view of skyscrapers. She gingerly slid her feet out of the stilettos she'd been wearing for too many hours while Lee took a bottle of scotch out of the minibar and poured them both doubles. He set their drinks down and then sat in the armchair next to the couch and just looked at her, waiting for her to explain.
"It's like this," Kara said. "He's really talented. Or at least he was." She took a long sip of scotch. "But he's not the star quarterback anymore, and he doesn't realize -"
"Wait a second," Lee said. "Star quarterback? Are you married to - to Samuel Anders, of the Jets?"
Kara nodded. "The very same," she said morosely. "I used to think it was destiny. You know - I was an ex-fighter jet pilot, and he was an ex-Jet. Get it?" Kara shook her head at herself. "So juvenile. Anyway, he wasn't a football player when I met him, so I never saw him in his 'natural environment' so to speak."
"Right," said Lee, remembering. "Wasn't he injured two or three seasons ago?"
"Yeah. So I thought he was starting over, too, like me. We were both going to begin anew, that sort of thing. He fell for me hard, and like I told you earlier, being with him made me feel so alive, and I really hadn't felt that way in years and years. When he proposed, just a few weeks after we met, I wasn't expecting it but I thought, Okay. This is meant to be. Here's a good man, he loves me, we're compatible, we're in the same place in our lives, what more could I ask for?" Kara paused as she looked at Lee's face, the face that always sprang into her memory the moment she asked herself, What more could I ask for? She knew she had no right to ask for that face, that body. She went on, "I said yes. I decided to just trust the moment. You know me."
Lee gave a small smile. "Starbuck always lives for the moment."
"Yeah. So, we got married. We found a place in the Village, and I kept working at my gallery, and he was trying to figure out what kind of work he wanted to do, and life was great. Except -" Kara took another swallow from her glass. Lee casually switched her glass with his, which was still full. Kara felt the corner of her mouth turn up at the sly move. Was he trying to get her drunk so she'd tell him everything? Sadly, although his bluer-than-blue eyes made her want to throw her heart at his feet, she could never really tell him everything.
"Except what?" asked Lee.
Kara paused as she tried to squeeze the last ten months of her life into a few small words. "Sam wasn't ready to move on from his glory days," she said. "He spent all his time re-living his time with the team, watching old games, talking to his teammates, playing with them every chance he got. We talked about him finding a new career, or at least doing charity work, but after months of talking, I realized that's all it was going to be with him. Just a bunch of talk. I guess I didn't realize how hard it would be for him to leave behind all that excitement for a boring, domestic life with me."
"That's bullshit," said Lee.
"Huh?" Kara didn't understand.
"Life with you, my God - 'boring' is the last thing that could ever be. Unless this guy is a total moron, which it sounds like he may be."
"Thanks," Kara said, grateful that he sprang to her defense so quickly. "But - okay, even if I wasn't 'boring,' I wasn't the same as tens of thousands of fans, hundreds of girl groupies. I wasn't what Sam was used to."
"Kara," Lee said gently, laying his hand on her forearm, just as he'd done at the bar, "did he cheat on you?"
Kara shrugged and looked steadfastly out at the skyscrapers. "I don't know. Maybe. That thought occurred to me more than once, but that was less important than other things - just our constant fighting, the fact that he wasn't who I thought he was when I married him. He didn't even want to be the man I thought he was going to become." Kara looked at Lee and said, "I got ready to ask for a separation. I thought we owed it to ourselves to call it a mistake if that's what it was. But then...."
Lee frowned. "What stopped you?"
"Sam got a flu that wouldn't go away. And then, he got feverish, got the chills. And they didn't go away. He ignored his symptoms for months. He told me it had happened before, but when I noticed the swelling in his neck, and around his arms - I knew it wasn't related to his football injuries. I asked him to go get checked out. He didn't want to go to the doctor, but I made him see Cottle, I told him Cottle wasn't like other docs...."
"Cottle? From the service?" Lee laughed. "The chain-smoking old coot?"
"Yeah - turns out he's a New Yorker, born and bred, so he moved back here when he retired from the Navy. Anyway, Cottle took some tests, and...." Kara blinked. God damn it, she hated it when she cried. She felt Lee's hand squeeze her arm a bit harder. "It's cancer, Lee. It's Hodgkin's. It's so advanced - it's been progressing for years. If they'd only caught it earlier - but Sam never told any of the team's doctors about his recurring "flu," no one ever tested him before...." Even now, Kara couldn't believe it, could hardly make herself say it. "He's dying. And I couldn't leave. There was no way -"
"Of course not." Lee's hand slid away from her arm. "Of course you couldn't."
Kara looked over. His eyes were downcast. What was his frown about? "What is it?" she asked.
Lee looked up, then away from her. "Nothing, I -" He shook his head, as if at himself rather than at anything she said. "I thought...you were going to say something else. Never mind. Kara, of course you have to stay with him, help him through this...."
"If I can. His chances aren't good." Kara remembered her conversation with Sam from just thirty minutes before and still couldn't believe what Sam had said. "It doesn't help that he doesn't do anything the doctors tell him. He goes out to Jersey in a thunderstorm to play football in the rain and mud, and hangs up on me because I try to tell him to take it easy. He'll catch cold for sure, and his immunity will be shot to crap...." She caught Lee's face and felt badly about going on and on about the details of her situation. "Sorry, I know this is boring -"
"You keep using that word," Lee said. "Kara, I haven't seen you in three years. Nothing you could say would bore me. You could read the back of a cereal box - I could listen to you all night."
Wow. Kara had nothing to say to that. How she'd forgotten the pleasure of being listened to by this man. Once, she'd lived for the attention he paid her. It was when she realized that's what she was living for - when she was engaged to his brother - that she knew she had to change things.
"Thanks, Lee," she said, hoping he heard in her voice the deep gratitude she felt. "So...." She didn't know what else to say. She'd told him about her life now, caught between duty and the desire to be free. Doesn't this seem familiar, she thought bitterly. Then kicked herself for comparing Zak and Anders - they were nothing alike.
"So you really care for him," Lee said. It wasn't a question.
Something in the way he said that made Kara look, really look, at Lee's expression. She had to ask - she didn't want to pry into his personal feelings, but she couldn't let the question suddenly burning in her mind go unasked. "Lee?" she started, wondering if she was being an idiot by even making the suggestion.
He looked at her expectantly.
"Are you..." Just do it, Starbuck, she told herself. "Are you jealous?" She breathed in hard and fast at the end of the question, not wanting to hear the answer unless -
"Yes," Lee said immediately, not flinching one bit.