Fic: Complicated
Title: Complicated
Pairing: Kara/Lee
Rating: R
Words: 1,950
Summary: Written for the_applecart. Zak lives. Two and a half years later, Lee and Kara’s lives are more complicated than ever.
Complicated
Lee looks up at a knock on his office door and his eyes go wide. Standing in the doorway is Kara Thrace, pale and terrified.
“Lee,” she chokes out, her breathing sharp and ragged. “It’s--”
He grabs his keys off his desk. “You’ve got to get to the hospital, Kara.”
She nods haltingly and he wraps an arm around her waist, half carrying her as they head to his car in the base parking lot. As worried as he is, Lee can’t help thinking how familiar her hair smells.
After they first met they’d been so good for so long. They pretended that they hadn’t gotten drunk together that night, that they hadn’t kissed. The charade went on so long Lee could almost believe it. A few months later, and a week after Zak failed out of flight school, Lee stood beside them at their wedding and looked out into the crowd, smiling at Gianne like she was the only woman he’d ever wanted. And when she got pregnant, he made her his wife.
He and Kara maintained every time anyone asked that they’d both been deployed to his father’s ship by chance. No one ever asked if they’d requested to be posted together. They didn’t even ask each other.
Kara’s crying out intermittently in pain and Lee’s halfway to panicking when they finally, finally reach Caprica General. He parks in the ambulance bay and hurtles out the door almost before the keys are out of the ignition, flinging open the back door and supporting her weight as they stagger into the emergency room.
“Help!” he shouts, looking for a doctor.
A gruff old man waves him calmly over. “We got her from here, son.”
“NO!” It’s the first coherent word Kara’s said since they got in the car, and she tightens her grip on him as if Lee’s about to leave her.
“I’m staying with her,” he tells the doctor firmly.
The man rolls his eyes and tilts his head. “This way, then. Ishay will get you a wheelchair.”
Lee nods, easing Kara down into it when it comes. She doesn’t let go of his hand.
The nurse takes them down the hall and hands Kara a cloth gown. “Do you need help to change?” she asks.
“Lee’ll do it,” Kara grunts, and the nurse leaves, promising to be back in a moment with the doctor for an examination.
For a long moment after the door closes, there’s silence except for Kara’s sharp breathing, and then she stands and tugs off her shirt. Lee stares. Her body is completely changed: her breasts swollen, her stomach round and distended.
“What the frak are you looking at?” she snaps as she kicks off her pants.
Lee unfolds the gown, lets her slide her arms through the holes. “It’s good to see you,” he says softly.
She looks up at him for one moment, a dozen emotions flashing across her face almost too quickly to read. Guilt, sadness, anger. Fear. Hope. Then her mouth flies open with a groan and she clutches at his shoulders.
“Everything alright?” Ishay asks sharply, opening the door.
“Another contraction,” Lee says anxiously, wrapping his arms around Kara and easing her back toward the bed.
“Then let’s take a look,” the doctor says, breezing past him and getting down to it.
Seven centimeters dilated, the doctor reports, and almost time to push. Lee sits with Kara, letting her crush his hands and reminding her to breathe until she’s glaring at him in fury. In between contractions she avoids his eyes, but he’s greedy for the chance to just look at her, to hold her hand.
“Can I call anyone for you?” Ishay asks at one point, and Lee watches Kara freeze before passing over her cell phone with Zak’s number. The way she stares at the wall answers every question he hasn’t wanted to ask.
Their first time had the inevitability of an thunderstorm. On Galactica they were each other’s only friend, only confidant; they spent hours and hours each day alone together in the darkness of space flying CAP, and hours each night drinking and laughing and clinging to denial as if it could save them.
They were sparring alone one night when it happened. There was nothing deliberate, nothing scandalous: Kara kicked Lee’s legs out from under him and he grabbed her as he went down. He landed half on top of her, his lips inches from hers. Neither of them could say later why in that moment they both leaned in without hesitation, their second kiss fiercer and hungrier than the one they’d been fantasizing about for nearly a year. As fast as they could pull off each other’s clothes they were touching, tasting, frakking. It was everything he’d been longing for.
Once could never be enough. For the next four months of their deployment, Lee would pull Kara into the showers once everyone was sleeping, or she’d drag him off to some new nook or cranny of Galactica she wanted to christen. He’d grin like an idiot every time he turned a corner and saw her, his heart racing. When he was alone Lee was overwhelmed with guilt and shame and regret for his wife and his daughter, but when he was with Kara he was sure he was in love for the first time in his life.
The day before they returned to postings on the base on Caprica, Kara ended it.
This has been fun and all, Lee, but my husband is meeting me at the airport and so is your wife.
Kara, he gasped.
She shook her head. Marriage is a sacrament, Lee.
He’s never suffocated, but he’s pretty sure it would feel like that: the breath caught in his lungs, the world swimming around him. Before he could object, or make his own demands, or kiss her one last time, Kara was gone.
Kara starts to push in earnest, and Lee counts her through it. He practiced this with Gianne before Evie was born, even though he couldn’t be there. He thinks Kara’s grip might just break his hands, but he doesn’t pull away.
Lee hasn’t been alone with her since they got back a year ago except once. Just once.
He was watching her during one of their family dinners when he saw it. Zak made a stupid joke and as Gianne laughed, Kara frowned in utter annoyance. Something else flickered across her face as she met Lee’s eyes for a moment, and with a sharp ache, he knew: she was just as lonely as he was.
Half an hour later, after he’d put Evie to bed, he found Kara doing the last of the dishes. Lee stood beside her, leaning against the counter, not even sure what he was waiting for. But finally she reached out a soapy hand and took his, and held on hard.
For a moment they were frozen, staring at their hands, and then he tugged, pulled her against him and wrapped his arms around her. For a long time they clung, just holding. Something in his heart eased.
Kara’s lips fluttered against his throat, and then she whispered, almost too softly to hear. “I love you.”
He felt a thousand things at once. Back on Galactica, they’d never said the words, never made promises. In that moment, the guilt was still there, and anger at her, and loneliness. And then he pulled back far enough to see the twist of worry and hope in her eyes and all Lee knew was that he loved Kara Thrace. So he did the only thing he could: he kissed her.
They made it as far as the bathroom. Lee closed the door behind them softly, locking it, then pressed Kara up against it, kissing her again, harder, biting her lip until she whimpered and sent a frisson of desperation through him. Zak and Gianne had gone out to get them ice cream; they had only a few minutes. Kara felt it, too - she unzipped his jeans, shoved them down his hips.
Lee made no protest, just slid her pants off in turn and lifted her up, aligning their bodies.
“Lee,” Kara gasped, and he stopped.
For a moment she just looked at him, grinning, so beautiful his heart ached in his chest. “I love you, too,” he whispered. And then he pressed inside her, watched her face contort at the sensation, and had to kiss her to stifle the sounds of his own pleasure.
They made it out of the bathroom, flushed but dressed, only moments before Zak and Gianne returned. Lee couldn’t stop smiling all night.
He thought it would happen again, that they’d get another chance to be alone, that it just might be worth the disaster of divorce if she loved him. The chance never came. For weeks she seemed to be avoiding him on base, bailing on their family dinners. And then Gianne mentioned in passing that Zak had called to tell them the good news: he and Kara were starting a family.
Between contractions, Kara pants, her body shaking from exertion. The baby’s coming fast, the doctor tells them - it won’t be long now. Lee rests his hand on the curve of her stomach, feels the baby shifting inside. Any moment now, he thinks. And wonders as he’s wondered for eight months.
“Lee,” Kara says hoarsely.
His eyes meet hers. She looks more frightened than he’s ever see her. Lee leans down, presses his lips to her temple. “I’m right here,” he whispers. When he straightens, there are tears on her cheeks.
“Hey!” Zak shouts, bursting in. “We came as quickly as we could!” Gianne’s behind him, Evie in her arms; when the doctor glares at her, she stays in the doorway, hiding the child's eyes with her hand.
Kara cries out in pain, and Zak and Gianne flinch. Lee turns away from them. Just like in flight, the world narrows down to him and Kara: this is all that matters. Out of the corner of his eye, Lee sees Zak take her other hand. He doesn’t let go.
He never heard from her after the announcement, and even when Zak would bring her to family events, her body slowly growing rounder and heavier, Kara wouldn’t meet his eyes.
There were times he thought of calling her, of cornering her on base, of demanding an answer: was it his child? Lee never brought himself to do it.
Before Lee’s ready, the doctor tells Kara to push one more time, and the room is filled with the sound of a baby crying. The doctor makes the announcement - a boy - and Zak whoops. Kara’s eyes track the baby getting weighed and wrapped. She hardly seems to breathe as the cries slow and a bundle is placed in her arms.
Lee stares down reverently into the tiny face.
“He’s perfect!” Gianne coos at his elbow. “What are you going to call him?”
Zak reaches down to brush the baby’s hair with his fingertips. “My son,” his whispers to himself.
Kara looks up at Gianne, then at Lee. “Joseph,” she tells him, and nods just enough to answer his question, too.
Lee nods back, and reaches down to touch his son’s cheek. His hand brushes his brother’s; his wife is leaning on him with Evie in her arms; Kara’s smiling up at him tearfully - and he loves all of them so hard his heart hurts. Lee shakes his head, completely without words.
“Welcome to the family,” Kara whispers to Joseph, and he blinks at the sound of her voice.
Pairing: Kara/Lee
Rating: R
Words: 1,950
Summary: Written for the_applecart. Zak lives. Two and a half years later, Lee and Kara’s lives are more complicated than ever.
Complicated
Lee looks up at a knock on his office door and his eyes go wide. Standing in the doorway is Kara Thrace, pale and terrified.
“Lee,” she chokes out, her breathing sharp and ragged. “It’s--”
He grabs his keys off his desk. “You’ve got to get to the hospital, Kara.”
She nods haltingly and he wraps an arm around her waist, half carrying her as they head to his car in the base parking lot. As worried as he is, Lee can’t help thinking how familiar her hair smells.
After they first met they’d been so good for so long. They pretended that they hadn’t gotten drunk together that night, that they hadn’t kissed. The charade went on so long Lee could almost believe it. A few months later, and a week after Zak failed out of flight school, Lee stood beside them at their wedding and looked out into the crowd, smiling at Gianne like she was the only woman he’d ever wanted. And when she got pregnant, he made her his wife.
He and Kara maintained every time anyone asked that they’d both been deployed to his father’s ship by chance. No one ever asked if they’d requested to be posted together. They didn’t even ask each other.
Kara’s crying out intermittently in pain and Lee’s halfway to panicking when they finally, finally reach Caprica General. He parks in the ambulance bay and hurtles out the door almost before the keys are out of the ignition, flinging open the back door and supporting her weight as they stagger into the emergency room.
“Help!” he shouts, looking for a doctor.
A gruff old man waves him calmly over. “We got her from here, son.”
“NO!” It’s the first coherent word Kara’s said since they got in the car, and she tightens her grip on him as if Lee’s about to leave her.
“I’m staying with her,” he tells the doctor firmly.
The man rolls his eyes and tilts his head. “This way, then. Ishay will get you a wheelchair.”
Lee nods, easing Kara down into it when it comes. She doesn’t let go of his hand.
The nurse takes them down the hall and hands Kara a cloth gown. “Do you need help to change?” she asks.
“Lee’ll do it,” Kara grunts, and the nurse leaves, promising to be back in a moment with the doctor for an examination.
For a long moment after the door closes, there’s silence except for Kara’s sharp breathing, and then she stands and tugs off her shirt. Lee stares. Her body is completely changed: her breasts swollen, her stomach round and distended.
“What the frak are you looking at?” she snaps as she kicks off her pants.
Lee unfolds the gown, lets her slide her arms through the holes. “It’s good to see you,” he says softly.
She looks up at him for one moment, a dozen emotions flashing across her face almost too quickly to read. Guilt, sadness, anger. Fear. Hope. Then her mouth flies open with a groan and she clutches at his shoulders.
“Everything alright?” Ishay asks sharply, opening the door.
“Another contraction,” Lee says anxiously, wrapping his arms around Kara and easing her back toward the bed.
“Then let’s take a look,” the doctor says, breezing past him and getting down to it.
Seven centimeters dilated, the doctor reports, and almost time to push. Lee sits with Kara, letting her crush his hands and reminding her to breathe until she’s glaring at him in fury. In between contractions she avoids his eyes, but he’s greedy for the chance to just look at her, to hold her hand.
“Can I call anyone for you?” Ishay asks at one point, and Lee watches Kara freeze before passing over her cell phone with Zak’s number. The way she stares at the wall answers every question he hasn’t wanted to ask.
Their first time had the inevitability of an thunderstorm. On Galactica they were each other’s only friend, only confidant; they spent hours and hours each day alone together in the darkness of space flying CAP, and hours each night drinking and laughing and clinging to denial as if it could save them.
They were sparring alone one night when it happened. There was nothing deliberate, nothing scandalous: Kara kicked Lee’s legs out from under him and he grabbed her as he went down. He landed half on top of her, his lips inches from hers. Neither of them could say later why in that moment they both leaned in without hesitation, their second kiss fiercer and hungrier than the one they’d been fantasizing about for nearly a year. As fast as they could pull off each other’s clothes they were touching, tasting, frakking. It was everything he’d been longing for.
Once could never be enough. For the next four months of their deployment, Lee would pull Kara into the showers once everyone was sleeping, or she’d drag him off to some new nook or cranny of Galactica she wanted to christen. He’d grin like an idiot every time he turned a corner and saw her, his heart racing. When he was alone Lee was overwhelmed with guilt and shame and regret for his wife and his daughter, but when he was with Kara he was sure he was in love for the first time in his life.
The day before they returned to postings on the base on Caprica, Kara ended it.
This has been fun and all, Lee, but my husband is meeting me at the airport and so is your wife.
Kara, he gasped.
She shook her head. Marriage is a sacrament, Lee.
He’s never suffocated, but he’s pretty sure it would feel like that: the breath caught in his lungs, the world swimming around him. Before he could object, or make his own demands, or kiss her one last time, Kara was gone.
Kara starts to push in earnest, and Lee counts her through it. He practiced this with Gianne before Evie was born, even though he couldn’t be there. He thinks Kara’s grip might just break his hands, but he doesn’t pull away.
Lee hasn’t been alone with her since they got back a year ago except once. Just once.
He was watching her during one of their family dinners when he saw it. Zak made a stupid joke and as Gianne laughed, Kara frowned in utter annoyance. Something else flickered across her face as she met Lee’s eyes for a moment, and with a sharp ache, he knew: she was just as lonely as he was.
Half an hour later, after he’d put Evie to bed, he found Kara doing the last of the dishes. Lee stood beside her, leaning against the counter, not even sure what he was waiting for. But finally she reached out a soapy hand and took his, and held on hard.
For a moment they were frozen, staring at their hands, and then he tugged, pulled her against him and wrapped his arms around her. For a long time they clung, just holding. Something in his heart eased.
Kara’s lips fluttered against his throat, and then she whispered, almost too softly to hear. “I love you.”
He felt a thousand things at once. Back on Galactica, they’d never said the words, never made promises. In that moment, the guilt was still there, and anger at her, and loneliness. And then he pulled back far enough to see the twist of worry and hope in her eyes and all Lee knew was that he loved Kara Thrace. So he did the only thing he could: he kissed her.
They made it as far as the bathroom. Lee closed the door behind them softly, locking it, then pressed Kara up against it, kissing her again, harder, biting her lip until she whimpered and sent a frisson of desperation through him. Zak and Gianne had gone out to get them ice cream; they had only a few minutes. Kara felt it, too - she unzipped his jeans, shoved them down his hips.
Lee made no protest, just slid her pants off in turn and lifted her up, aligning their bodies.
“Lee,” Kara gasped, and he stopped.
For a moment she just looked at him, grinning, so beautiful his heart ached in his chest. “I love you, too,” he whispered. And then he pressed inside her, watched her face contort at the sensation, and had to kiss her to stifle the sounds of his own pleasure.
They made it out of the bathroom, flushed but dressed, only moments before Zak and Gianne returned. Lee couldn’t stop smiling all night.
He thought it would happen again, that they’d get another chance to be alone, that it just might be worth the disaster of divorce if she loved him. The chance never came. For weeks she seemed to be avoiding him on base, bailing on their family dinners. And then Gianne mentioned in passing that Zak had called to tell them the good news: he and Kara were starting a family.
Between contractions, Kara pants, her body shaking from exertion. The baby’s coming fast, the doctor tells them - it won’t be long now. Lee rests his hand on the curve of her stomach, feels the baby shifting inside. Any moment now, he thinks. And wonders as he’s wondered for eight months.
“Lee,” Kara says hoarsely.
His eyes meet hers. She looks more frightened than he’s ever see her. Lee leans down, presses his lips to her temple. “I’m right here,” he whispers. When he straightens, there are tears on her cheeks.
“Hey!” Zak shouts, bursting in. “We came as quickly as we could!” Gianne’s behind him, Evie in her arms; when the doctor glares at her, she stays in the doorway, hiding the child's eyes with her hand.
Kara cries out in pain, and Zak and Gianne flinch. Lee turns away from them. Just like in flight, the world narrows down to him and Kara: this is all that matters. Out of the corner of his eye, Lee sees Zak take her other hand. He doesn’t let go.
He never heard from her after the announcement, and even when Zak would bring her to family events, her body slowly growing rounder and heavier, Kara wouldn’t meet his eyes.
There were times he thought of calling her, of cornering her on base, of demanding an answer: was it his child? Lee never brought himself to do it.
Before Lee’s ready, the doctor tells Kara to push one more time, and the room is filled with the sound of a baby crying. The doctor makes the announcement - a boy - and Zak whoops. Kara’s eyes track the baby getting weighed and wrapped. She hardly seems to breathe as the cries slow and a bundle is placed in her arms.
Lee stares down reverently into the tiny face.
“He’s perfect!” Gianne coos at his elbow. “What are you going to call him?”
Zak reaches down to brush the baby’s hair with his fingertips. “My son,” his whispers to himself.
Kara looks up at Gianne, then at Lee. “Joseph,” she tells him, and nods just enough to answer his question, too.
Lee nods back, and reaches down to touch his son’s cheek. His hand brushes his brother’s; his wife is leaning on him with Evie in her arms; Kara’s smiling up at him tearfully - and he loves all of them so hard his heart hurts. Lee shakes his head, completely without words.
“Welcome to the family,” Kara whispers to Joseph, and he blinks at the sound of her voice.