BSG Fic : Crash (8/9)
Title : Crash
Author : Helen C.
Rating : R
Summary : Galactica, Apollo, I've been hit. Repeat, I've been hit. (Set in S2, somewhere between Final Cut and Flight of the Phoenix).
Disclaimer : The characters and the universe were created and are owned by Ronald D. Moore and Universal Television Studios to name but a few. No money is being made. No copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
AN. Many thanks to elzed , siljamus and joey51 for beta'ing this, and to the countless people on LiveJournal who held my hand while I whined and whined and whined about this fic.
AN2. Pure, unadulterated H/C. (If you don't like it, lie to me. And if you feel the need to offer con. crit., thanks, but not on this one, please...)
Chapter 8
Kara/Leoben was smirking at him, enjoying his attempts at pulling free from the bonds that were holding him in place.
"Looks like we can have some fun now."
The bonds were going to loosen up eventually, he just had to keep at it for a little longer. So far, he hadn't been hurt-just taunted and mocked, and he could deal with that.
Kara/Leoben selected a knife from the table on the far wall of the room-white, the table was white, everything was white from the ceiling to the floor, even Kara/Leoben was bathed in white light.
You're dreaming. It's okay. It's just a dream.
She walked to him and he shivered involuntarily, fear quickening his heartbeat and his breathing.
It's just a dream, it's just a dream, it's just a dream, he chanted inwardly as he kept trying to break free.
It's just a dream-
Then, the bonds got loose-
-it's just a dream-
-Leoben/Kara approached him-
-it's just a dream-
-Lee closed his hands around his/her throat-
-it's just a dream-
"Lee!"
-and squeezed, his fingers digging satisfyingly into the flesh of her neck-
-it's just a dream-
"Damn, Lee-"
It's just a dream.
"Wake up."
It's just a dream.
"Lee."
It's just a dream.
"Frak."
The sharp, stinging pain on his cheek took him by surprise and his fingers closed tighter against Kara/Leoben's throat.
It's just a dream.
She/He groaned.
It's just a dream.
The white vanished when he blinked, replaced by dark gray surroundings, bathed in a harsh light.
It's just a dream.
Kara/Leoben was flushed, her/his eyes were wide with panic, her/his mouth opening and closing quickly.
It's just a dream.
"Let go," she/he rasped.
It's just a dream.
"Lee."
She/He was struggling, trying to get his hands to loosen their grip on her/his neck.
"Lee."
It's just a dream.
"Frak, Lee!"
Not Kara/Leoben, he realized with a start.
"Let go."
Just Kara.
"Lee."
He let go of her as if he had been burned and stared at his own hands, the fingers still curled like they were holding something, while Kara moved away from him.
She came to a stop three steps from the bed with one hand on her neck and the other held out in front of her, as if to remind him that she wasn't a threat.
"Sorry," he said just as she snapped, "Frak, give a woman some warning would you?" She was rubbing at her neck and Lee noticed with alarm that she was panting and that her skin was turning red.
"Damn it, Cottle said you were doing better," Kara griped. Then, she looked at him and frowned. "Are you all right?"
He noticed that he was mirroring her movements, rubbing the skin of his wrists.
As if on cue, a nurse entered the cubicle, looking around. "Is everything okay?" she asked.
Lee looked down, unable to speak. He heard Kara say, "Fine. I just startled him."
The nurse hovered for a while. "Are you sure?"
"Sure," Kara said.
As the nurse still wasn't leaving, Lee raised his head to see both women looking at him. "It's fine," he said. It's just that I tried to strangle Kara, but that's nothing new between us, really. He felt a surge of hysterical laughter bubbling under the surface and looked down before either woman could spot it.
It's not funny, it's not funny, it's not funny.
His reassurances were enough for the nurse, who left on a reminder to call her if he needed anything.
Kara waited until they were alone before sitting down, then studied Lee with curiosity, making him feel exposed and vulnerable. "Who did you think I was?" she asked in a neutral tone, as if they were talking about their last patrol together and not about how he had just tried to kill her.
The name flew out of his mouth without conscious thought. "Leoben."
Kara startled, then grimaced, seemingly at a loss for words.
If it had been anyone but her, if he hadn't just tried his best to strangle her because apparently, in some dark recess of his brain, Kara was a Cylon (a little heavy on the symbolism, don't you think?), he wouldn’t have added anything. But it was Kara and she deserved that much. "It…" He trailed off, took a breath before going on, "I had a nightmare on the planet. And just now. I was in a cell and Leoben was there and he morphed into you."
Which is screwed up, even for us, he thought, and decided that she didn't need to know about Leoben/Kara handing him a gun, and his using it. Or trying to.
Kara grimaced. "Okay, that's creepy," she agreed with a tilt of her head. "I can see why you'd be…"
"Creeped?" he offered, when she seemed at a loss for words.
She stuck out her tongue at him and he let out a broken chuckle, feeling strangely better. It was an alarming testament to his life that five minutes with this cocky, foul-mouthed, ill-tempered, annoying woman could make him feel better, could almost make him forget that his hands had been squeezing the air out of her not two minutes ago.
Almost.
"How do you feel?" she asked.
"Better." Which wasn't saying much, considering how crappy the last few days had been.
"Good." She looked up at the ceiling, then at the medical equipment surrounding him. "You've been pretty out of it. The old man was starting to get worried."
What could he say to that? Sorry? "Were you worried?" he asked, mentally begging her to take the opening.
She did, of course. She wouldn't have been Kara if she hadn't. "Me? Please! I've been too busy picking up the slack while you enjoyed your beauty sleep." She looked him in the face and shot him a triumphant smile. "We'll have you on your feet and boring the crap out of the lot of us with your briefings in no time."
"Thanks," he said, settling more comfortably into his bed. "I guess."
"Face it, Apollo. You're the most boring CAG in the history of CAGs."
He was falling asleep again but he still managed to say, "I thought I was the worst CAG in the history of CAGs, period."
"Not the worst," she said, and she wasn't whispering. "Not by a long shot."
*
The next time Lee woke up, his father was sitting next to his bed, studying a report with a faint frown on his face.
Lee wondered if the fact that he was growing annoyed at finding out that someone had set up camp next to him while he was out was a sign that he was getting better. "Hey," he called, keeping his voice low. From the dim light, it was probably the night shift.
His father looked up from his report and gave him a quick smile as he took off his glasses. "How do you feel?"
"Alive." He frowned. He still felt pretty banged up, and while Cottle had talked to him earlier in the day, it couldn't hurt to check. "How am I?" he asked, wondering if his father knew more than he did. Cottle had kept things pretty vague, promising he would give more details when Lee felt better-which Lee had translated to, as soon as he didn't fall asleep every five minutes.
"Alive," his father shot back. "In one piece." He set the report to the side, scooting his chair closer to the bed. He looked like he hadn't slept at all in the last few days, Lee noticed. "Do you remember anything?"
Lee snorted. "Lots of things." Flashes, disconnected memories, sensations, feelings. None of it made any sense and when he felt stronger, he'd try to figure it all out, put the memories back into some sort of order, try to figure out exactly what had gone down while he was on the planet. Maybe it would make him feel a little less freaked out. "Nothing useful, though."
His father nodded. "We'll need to talk about what happened at some point, but no one expects any miracles. Cottle says it's a wonder you were even standing when the SAR team found you. Between the shock, the head injury, the lack of food and the infection… well, it's not surprising that your memories aren't clear."
"Yeah." It didn't mean that it was easy to live with these blind spots in his memories.
His father sighed deeply and rubbed his eyes. Not for the first time since the start of the war, Lee was struck at how old his father looked. Had they been estranged for so long that Lee hadn't seen the changes taking place, or was it that he still expected to see the man he remembered from his childhood-strong and immortal?
"You look like hell," Lee offered, drawing a mirthless chuckle out of him.
"So do you." His father absently put his glasses back on. "We found a Cylon corpse," he said.
"Now, you wouldn't shoot your only way off the planet, would you?"
"Leoben," he added needlessly.
"Oh," Lee said. Kara hadn't told him that-of course, he hadn't stayed conscious long enough for her to give him a full report. "He was down there," he said, as if confirming the fact to himself. He was almost relieved to hear it. That part hadn't been a hallucination, at least.
"You remember," his father said, and it wasn't a question.
"I might be your only chance to make it off this planet alive. If you follow me, I'll take you back to the Galactica."
Lee was gritting his teeth, his head hurting in reaction. "He wanted to make a deal with me," he said, his voice tight.
His father's face seemed set in stone and Lee fixed his gaze on the man's clenched hands. It was better than trying to decipher his father's expression. Lee didn't feel up to the challenge of trying to analyze his body language while he was drugged and still reeling from too vivid nightmares and too little sleep.
Frak, even under the best circumstances, he could never guess what his father was thinking.
"Is that when you shot him?" his father asked in a clinical tone.
He nodded and saw his father's hands relax. He wondered if he was aware he was doing it.
"It's good, that you remember," his father said.
"Yeah." He pulled the covers closer to him, not caring that they were rough against his skin. He wished he could remember more clearly.
No, I don't. I wish I could forget the whole thing ever happened.
I wish it had never happened.
"Will I be able to fly again?" he asked.
His father didn't seem surprised by the non sequitur. "Yes. When you're ready."
Lee looked at him then, wondering if it was obvious that he was torn between the need to fly and the fear of what might happen-fear that he might be shot down, fear that he might crash again and die this time.
He had always known that it could happen-even when his future consisted of test pilot school instead of combat flying-but having lived through it changed his perspective. He wondered if Kara had felt the same way, after her own accident. They had never talked about it, but when did they ever talk about things that truly mattered?
"There's no hurry," his father added, and that was such a load of crap that he looked embarrassed at having said it.
"Thanks," Lee said, appreciating that his father was willing to cut him that much slack. "But it would still be better for all of us if I didn't take my sweet time getting there, wouldn't it?" He knew exactly what their duty roster looked like, knew how many pilots and how many Vipers they were short.
"Yes." His father got to his feet, looking like he wanted to hit something. Lee understood the feeling; he often allowed himself a few rounds against a punching bag after drawing inventories of what little resources were available for their defense.
In that spirit, it was probably a good thing that the need to fly seemed larger than the fear.
Hopefully, it would always remain so.
*
Lee was bored, staring at the ceiling and wondering how long it would take for him to wish he was back on the planet, fighting for his life, instead of lying here and counting down the seconds until he was released, when Kara barged in, carrying a bottle of moonshine and a stogie.
Lee didn't try to speculate about where she had gotten the latter; it seemed like Kara had a never-ending supply of them. They kept appearing, as if summoned by magic, whenever the situation called for it. Just like his father's reserve of ambrosia seemed to be bottomless-and Lee dearly hoped it was. No matter how long it took for them to reach Earth, it would be too long; they'd need the alcohol.
With both her hands taken, Kara caught one of the legs of the chair with her foot and dragged it close to the bed. Then she flopped down on it and put a feet up on the bed as Lee glared at her, shifting to the side to accommodate her.
"I hope at least one of these is for me," he said.
The corners of her eyes were crinkling with lines of laughter when she replied, "Well, actually, I was going to enjoy both of these to rub it in that you're stuck here, on sickbay food."
He growled at her, "If the next words out of your mouth are, 'Your pain is my entertainment, I'll…'" He trailed off, unable to think of a sufficiently convincing threat. Not much phased Kara, damn it.
She snorted inelegantly. "You'll what? Stammer at me? Glare?" She took on her most challenging expression. "You'll kick my ass?"
"I'll order you to take care of all the paperwork," Lee replied, then winced at how lame that sounded.
Kara threw him a pitying look. "Oh, come on, Lee. You can do better than that. You know I would just mess everything up and you'd have to redo it anyway."
A cheerful thought, considering she was in charge of the CAG duties while he was out of commission. "You'll do the inventory," he offered. "In fact, you'll do all the inventories for the next year."
She paused, considering, before nodding. "I'll allow it, since you're still impaired."
"I am not-" he started.
She talked all over him, ignoring him. "And I can't let you drink that yet, Cottle would have my head." Lee didn't feel up to drinking anyway, but he'd die before admitting it. "That stogie is yours, though. For when you get sprung from here."
"Wanna help me stage an escape?" he asked, only half-joking.
She laughed at him. "Working fast, aren't you?"
He was tired and his head was starting to hurt, otherwise he probably wouldn't have replied, "Depends on what I'm doing."
She looked him up and down with an assessing look that would have made a less confident man squirm. As it was, Lee had to resist the urge to look away. It took a lot of his self-control to hold her gaze as she stared at him, a dangerous look on her face.
"Getting ahead of yourself, Lee," she said with a raised eyebrow and the look on her face was the one she always gave him when trying to dare him to do something stupid.
In this case, his best defense was probably silence, so he went with it.
Her gaze softened when he brought up a hand to rub his eyes. He had bruises on his wrists, just like her neck wore marks of what had happened. He wondered how she had explained them.
"I should let you get some sleep," she said, and while he heard the concern in her tone, she still managed to make it sound slightly teasing.
He shrugged, reached out for the stogie that she reluctantly put in his hand. "Protect it with your life," she said.
"I will," he swore. She got to her feet, bottle of moonshine still in hand.
"And for frak's sake," she added as she walked out, "Get back on your feet. This CAG stuff is boring as hell!"
"You're the one who wouldn't help me make a run for it," he pointed out, and she gave him a dismissive gesture before she disappeared behind the curtains. "I would have helped you," he called after her.
She poked her head in. "You left me here, told me to listen to the doc and to be patient, you asshole," she replied. "You reap what you sow."
He thought about giving her a pleading look, or maybe offering her a bribe (he would exchange the stogie against getting out of here) but his head was starting to hurt a little and he still had some dignity left.
Instead, when she left on a last teasing, "Well, that moonshine won't drink itself," he called her a heartless jerk, hoping she heard the gratitude behind the words.
Chapter 9
Author : Helen C.
Rating : R
Summary : Galactica, Apollo, I've been hit. Repeat, I've been hit. (Set in S2, somewhere between Final Cut and Flight of the Phoenix).
Disclaimer : The characters and the universe were created and are owned by Ronald D. Moore and Universal Television Studios to name but a few. No money is being made. No copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
AN. Many thanks to elzed , siljamus and joey51 for beta'ing this, and to the countless people on LiveJournal who held my hand while I whined and whined and whined about this fic.
AN2. Pure, unadulterated H/C. (If you don't like it, lie to me. And if you feel the need to offer con. crit., thanks, but not on this one, please...)
Chapter 8
Kara/Leoben was smirking at him, enjoying his attempts at pulling free from the bonds that were holding him in place.
"Looks like we can have some fun now."
The bonds were going to loosen up eventually, he just had to keep at it for a little longer. So far, he hadn't been hurt-just taunted and mocked, and he could deal with that.
Kara/Leoben selected a knife from the table on the far wall of the room-white, the table was white, everything was white from the ceiling to the floor, even Kara/Leoben was bathed in white light.
You're dreaming. It's okay. It's just a dream.
She walked to him and he shivered involuntarily, fear quickening his heartbeat and his breathing.
It's just a dream, it's just a dream, it's just a dream, he chanted inwardly as he kept trying to break free.
It's just a dream-
Then, the bonds got loose-
-it's just a dream-
-Leoben/Kara approached him-
-it's just a dream-
-Lee closed his hands around his/her throat-
-it's just a dream-
"Lee!"
-and squeezed, his fingers digging satisfyingly into the flesh of her neck-
-it's just a dream-
"Damn, Lee-"
It's just a dream.
"Wake up."
It's just a dream.
"Lee."
It's just a dream.
"Frak."
The sharp, stinging pain on his cheek took him by surprise and his fingers closed tighter against Kara/Leoben's throat.
It's just a dream.
She/He groaned.
It's just a dream.
The white vanished when he blinked, replaced by dark gray surroundings, bathed in a harsh light.
It's just a dream.
Kara/Leoben was flushed, her/his eyes were wide with panic, her/his mouth opening and closing quickly.
It's just a dream.
"Let go," she/he rasped.
It's just a dream.
"Lee."
She/He was struggling, trying to get his hands to loosen their grip on her/his neck.
"Lee."
It's just a dream.
"Frak, Lee!"
Not Kara/Leoben, he realized with a start.
"Let go."
Just Kara.
"Lee."
He let go of her as if he had been burned and stared at his own hands, the fingers still curled like they were holding something, while Kara moved away from him.
She came to a stop three steps from the bed with one hand on her neck and the other held out in front of her, as if to remind him that she wasn't a threat.
"Sorry," he said just as she snapped, "Frak, give a woman some warning would you?" She was rubbing at her neck and Lee noticed with alarm that she was panting and that her skin was turning red.
"Damn it, Cottle said you were doing better," Kara griped. Then, she looked at him and frowned. "Are you all right?"
He noticed that he was mirroring her movements, rubbing the skin of his wrists.
As if on cue, a nurse entered the cubicle, looking around. "Is everything okay?" she asked.
Lee looked down, unable to speak. He heard Kara say, "Fine. I just startled him."
The nurse hovered for a while. "Are you sure?"
"Sure," Kara said.
As the nurse still wasn't leaving, Lee raised his head to see both women looking at him. "It's fine," he said. It's just that I tried to strangle Kara, but that's nothing new between us, really. He felt a surge of hysterical laughter bubbling under the surface and looked down before either woman could spot it.
It's not funny, it's not funny, it's not funny.
His reassurances were enough for the nurse, who left on a reminder to call her if he needed anything.
Kara waited until they were alone before sitting down, then studied Lee with curiosity, making him feel exposed and vulnerable. "Who did you think I was?" she asked in a neutral tone, as if they were talking about their last patrol together and not about how he had just tried to kill her.
The name flew out of his mouth without conscious thought. "Leoben."
Kara startled, then grimaced, seemingly at a loss for words.
If it had been anyone but her, if he hadn't just tried his best to strangle her because apparently, in some dark recess of his brain, Kara was a Cylon (a little heavy on the symbolism, don't you think?), he wouldn’t have added anything. But it was Kara and she deserved that much. "It…" He trailed off, took a breath before going on, "I had a nightmare on the planet. And just now. I was in a cell and Leoben was there and he morphed into you."
Which is screwed up, even for us, he thought, and decided that she didn't need to know about Leoben/Kara handing him a gun, and his using it. Or trying to.
Kara grimaced. "Okay, that's creepy," she agreed with a tilt of her head. "I can see why you'd be…"
"Creeped?" he offered, when she seemed at a loss for words.
She stuck out her tongue at him and he let out a broken chuckle, feeling strangely better. It was an alarming testament to his life that five minutes with this cocky, foul-mouthed, ill-tempered, annoying woman could make him feel better, could almost make him forget that his hands had been squeezing the air out of her not two minutes ago.
Almost.
"How do you feel?" she asked.
"Better." Which wasn't saying much, considering how crappy the last few days had been.
"Good." She looked up at the ceiling, then at the medical equipment surrounding him. "You've been pretty out of it. The old man was starting to get worried."
What could he say to that? Sorry? "Were you worried?" he asked, mentally begging her to take the opening.
She did, of course. She wouldn't have been Kara if she hadn't. "Me? Please! I've been too busy picking up the slack while you enjoyed your beauty sleep." She looked him in the face and shot him a triumphant smile. "We'll have you on your feet and boring the crap out of the lot of us with your briefings in no time."
"Thanks," he said, settling more comfortably into his bed. "I guess."
"Face it, Apollo. You're the most boring CAG in the history of CAGs."
He was falling asleep again but he still managed to say, "I thought I was the worst CAG in the history of CAGs, period."
"Not the worst," she said, and she wasn't whispering. "Not by a long shot."
*
The next time Lee woke up, his father was sitting next to his bed, studying a report with a faint frown on his face.
Lee wondered if the fact that he was growing annoyed at finding out that someone had set up camp next to him while he was out was a sign that he was getting better. "Hey," he called, keeping his voice low. From the dim light, it was probably the night shift.
His father looked up from his report and gave him a quick smile as he took off his glasses. "How do you feel?"
"Alive." He frowned. He still felt pretty banged up, and while Cottle had talked to him earlier in the day, it couldn't hurt to check. "How am I?" he asked, wondering if his father knew more than he did. Cottle had kept things pretty vague, promising he would give more details when Lee felt better-which Lee had translated to, as soon as he didn't fall asleep every five minutes.
"Alive," his father shot back. "In one piece." He set the report to the side, scooting his chair closer to the bed. He looked like he hadn't slept at all in the last few days, Lee noticed. "Do you remember anything?"
Lee snorted. "Lots of things." Flashes, disconnected memories, sensations, feelings. None of it made any sense and when he felt stronger, he'd try to figure it all out, put the memories back into some sort of order, try to figure out exactly what had gone down while he was on the planet. Maybe it would make him feel a little less freaked out. "Nothing useful, though."
His father nodded. "We'll need to talk about what happened at some point, but no one expects any miracles. Cottle says it's a wonder you were even standing when the SAR team found you. Between the shock, the head injury, the lack of food and the infection… well, it's not surprising that your memories aren't clear."
"Yeah." It didn't mean that it was easy to live with these blind spots in his memories.
His father sighed deeply and rubbed his eyes. Not for the first time since the start of the war, Lee was struck at how old his father looked. Had they been estranged for so long that Lee hadn't seen the changes taking place, or was it that he still expected to see the man he remembered from his childhood-strong and immortal?
"You look like hell," Lee offered, drawing a mirthless chuckle out of him.
"So do you." His father absently put his glasses back on. "We found a Cylon corpse," he said.
"Now, you wouldn't shoot your only way off the planet, would you?"
"Leoben," he added needlessly.
"Oh," Lee said. Kara hadn't told him that-of course, he hadn't stayed conscious long enough for her to give him a full report. "He was down there," he said, as if confirming the fact to himself. He was almost relieved to hear it. That part hadn't been a hallucination, at least.
"You remember," his father said, and it wasn't a question.
"I might be your only chance to make it off this planet alive. If you follow me, I'll take you back to the Galactica."
Lee was gritting his teeth, his head hurting in reaction. "He wanted to make a deal with me," he said, his voice tight.
His father's face seemed set in stone and Lee fixed his gaze on the man's clenched hands. It was better than trying to decipher his father's expression. Lee didn't feel up to the challenge of trying to analyze his body language while he was drugged and still reeling from too vivid nightmares and too little sleep.
Frak, even under the best circumstances, he could never guess what his father was thinking.
"Is that when you shot him?" his father asked in a clinical tone.
He nodded and saw his father's hands relax. He wondered if he was aware he was doing it.
"It's good, that you remember," his father said.
"Yeah." He pulled the covers closer to him, not caring that they were rough against his skin. He wished he could remember more clearly.
No, I don't. I wish I could forget the whole thing ever happened.
I wish it had never happened.
"Will I be able to fly again?" he asked.
His father didn't seem surprised by the non sequitur. "Yes. When you're ready."
Lee looked at him then, wondering if it was obvious that he was torn between the need to fly and the fear of what might happen-fear that he might be shot down, fear that he might crash again and die this time.
He had always known that it could happen-even when his future consisted of test pilot school instead of combat flying-but having lived through it changed his perspective. He wondered if Kara had felt the same way, after her own accident. They had never talked about it, but when did they ever talk about things that truly mattered?
"There's no hurry," his father added, and that was such a load of crap that he looked embarrassed at having said it.
"Thanks," Lee said, appreciating that his father was willing to cut him that much slack. "But it would still be better for all of us if I didn't take my sweet time getting there, wouldn't it?" He knew exactly what their duty roster looked like, knew how many pilots and how many Vipers they were short.
"Yes." His father got to his feet, looking like he wanted to hit something. Lee understood the feeling; he often allowed himself a few rounds against a punching bag after drawing inventories of what little resources were available for their defense.
In that spirit, it was probably a good thing that the need to fly seemed larger than the fear.
Hopefully, it would always remain so.
*
Lee was bored, staring at the ceiling and wondering how long it would take for him to wish he was back on the planet, fighting for his life, instead of lying here and counting down the seconds until he was released, when Kara barged in, carrying a bottle of moonshine and a stogie.
Lee didn't try to speculate about where she had gotten the latter; it seemed like Kara had a never-ending supply of them. They kept appearing, as if summoned by magic, whenever the situation called for it. Just like his father's reserve of ambrosia seemed to be bottomless-and Lee dearly hoped it was. No matter how long it took for them to reach Earth, it would be too long; they'd need the alcohol.
With both her hands taken, Kara caught one of the legs of the chair with her foot and dragged it close to the bed. Then she flopped down on it and put a feet up on the bed as Lee glared at her, shifting to the side to accommodate her.
"I hope at least one of these is for me," he said.
The corners of her eyes were crinkling with lines of laughter when she replied, "Well, actually, I was going to enjoy both of these to rub it in that you're stuck here, on sickbay food."
He growled at her, "If the next words out of your mouth are, 'Your pain is my entertainment, I'll…'" He trailed off, unable to think of a sufficiently convincing threat. Not much phased Kara, damn it.
She snorted inelegantly. "You'll what? Stammer at me? Glare?" She took on her most challenging expression. "You'll kick my ass?"
"I'll order you to take care of all the paperwork," Lee replied, then winced at how lame that sounded.
Kara threw him a pitying look. "Oh, come on, Lee. You can do better than that. You know I would just mess everything up and you'd have to redo it anyway."
A cheerful thought, considering she was in charge of the CAG duties while he was out of commission. "You'll do the inventory," he offered. "In fact, you'll do all the inventories for the next year."
She paused, considering, before nodding. "I'll allow it, since you're still impaired."
"I am not-" he started.
She talked all over him, ignoring him. "And I can't let you drink that yet, Cottle would have my head." Lee didn't feel up to drinking anyway, but he'd die before admitting it. "That stogie is yours, though. For when you get sprung from here."
"Wanna help me stage an escape?" he asked, only half-joking.
She laughed at him. "Working fast, aren't you?"
He was tired and his head was starting to hurt, otherwise he probably wouldn't have replied, "Depends on what I'm doing."
She looked him up and down with an assessing look that would have made a less confident man squirm. As it was, Lee had to resist the urge to look away. It took a lot of his self-control to hold her gaze as she stared at him, a dangerous look on her face.
"Getting ahead of yourself, Lee," she said with a raised eyebrow and the look on her face was the one she always gave him when trying to dare him to do something stupid.
In this case, his best defense was probably silence, so he went with it.
Her gaze softened when he brought up a hand to rub his eyes. He had bruises on his wrists, just like her neck wore marks of what had happened. He wondered how she had explained them.
"I should let you get some sleep," she said, and while he heard the concern in her tone, she still managed to make it sound slightly teasing.
He shrugged, reached out for the stogie that she reluctantly put in his hand. "Protect it with your life," she said.
"I will," he swore. She got to her feet, bottle of moonshine still in hand.
"And for frak's sake," she added as she walked out, "Get back on your feet. This CAG stuff is boring as hell!"
"You're the one who wouldn't help me make a run for it," he pointed out, and she gave him a dismissive gesture before she disappeared behind the curtains. "I would have helped you," he called after her.
She poked her head in. "You left me here, told me to listen to the doc and to be patient, you asshole," she replied. "You reap what you sow."
He thought about giving her a pleading look, or maybe offering her a bribe (he would exchange the stogie against getting out of here) but his head was starting to hurt a little and he still had some dignity left.
Instead, when she left on a last teasing, "Well, that moonshine won't drink itself," he called her a heartless jerk, hoping she heard the gratitude behind the words.
Chapter 9