Title: "Reentry Trajectory"
Pairing: K/L
Rating: R for boobies?
Spoilers: 3.09, "Unfinished Business"
Ideally, I would take another three weeks to tinker with this, spin it out and pile on some more layers. But really, this was just supposed to be a fill-in-the-gaps fic and a sort-of answer to the question, "how did they get out of the ring?" (Though I still like the
answer we came up with before the ep aired.) So I'm tossing it out before it gets jossed. Who knows, maybe I'll play with it more later.
For
trinnifer, because she surprises me with wallpaper, and for
wisteria_, because she is having a woeful day. (and because she is always up for beta reading and fic enabling!)
ETA:
marenfic wrote lovely Dee POV which illuminates another angle of this frakked-up polygon:
Kinesic And another, equally lovely perspective on K/L/D (spoilers thru Eye of Jupiter):
Anatomy of a Triangle, by
daphnaea Reentry Trajectory
It’s like they have all the time in the world, though really they’re both hyper-aware of how many minutes there are till she has CAP and he has to brief the XO. She’s surprised, yet again, by how slow and tender they are with each other. He traces a line between her breasts and stops at the marks of his teeth just below her ribcage.
“I shower between shift changes,” she smiles. “No one’s going to see.”
He frowns. Apparently he hasn’t caught up to the gossip. “He’s in the enlisted quarters?”
“He’s not even on Galactica.” She raises herself on a forearm and kisses him to distraction till he rolls her over and begins working his way down her stomach. “Oh, no - oh, don’t you - ” she laughs and gasps and the world dissolves once more.
* * * * *
Lee brings two glasses and a jar of Chief’s finest to the rec room. She’s glad their shorthand still works - overlapping schedules, a meeting penciled in.
“That all you got?”
“That’s all there is. Tyrol left his still down on New Cap. So I hope you haven’t had much dinner, because we can make the hooch last a whole lot longer if you’ve got an empty stomach.”
“If you think that’s going to get me drunk, Lee, you haven’t been around me much lately.”
Shit. She’s been really good at steering clear of iffy subjects in the last couple of days.
Lee doesn’t say anything. She shifts and snaps her fingers in front of him, as if she hadn’t said anything. “Where are you?”
He picks up his glass and swirls it so that the liquid just skirts the rim. Spins it a couple more times, till Kara thinks she might scream. Finally he tosses the drink back. Then he drops his hand and twists his wedding ring off. He puts it on the table next to the empty glass. Only then does he meet her eyes.
“There’s the game, Kara. You in or you out?”
She’s beginning to understand what he is to her. Lee is there, like her faith. Sometimes she rails at the gods, sometimes she’s grateful for their presence, but no matter how dark her world gets, she knows where to find them. She’s been moving blindly for a while now. She puts her hand out to the sun.
* * * * *
She gets to the ready room early, telling herself it’s only because she wants to sit in the back. She can’t sit still, though, amusing herself by pulling out all the markers and seeing how many she can keep up in the air at one time.
“They’re the last markers in the world, you know.”
Pens scatter everywhere, and she curses under her breath. She flashes him a dirty look and notes with satisfaction the bruises blooming on his cheekbone. “Nice face. Was that my handiwork or Helo’s?”
He snorts. “You never got close en - “ He trails off. “- enough.” He looks at her again and there’s a world of uncertainty on his face. She chews on her lip and pushes up off the floor, holding out the markers in one hand. After a moment he takes them from her. He doesn’t start writing, and she doesn’t take her eyes off his.
“That’s one hell of a shiner,” he says in an undertone.
“It doesn’t hurt,” she tells him. “You should see the other guy.”
“You …” His jaw twitches. “You fight dirty.”
“No ref. No rules.” She shoves her hand into her pocket. “I still have your tags.”
“I know.” Footsteps sound in the corridor, and they both look up. He grabs his briefing book off the podium and turns to the whiteboard. She steps to the rear of the room.
* * * * *
“Starbuck. Hey, Starbuck!”
She has no idea how long they would’ve stood there if Helo hadn’t called her name. Her blood is cooling, anyway, and she’s suddenly, staggeringly tired. When she opens her eyes she realizes just about everyone’s cleared out. She straightens up with difficulty. “Lee.”
He looks around dazedly. Shakes his head. “I have to go,” he mumbles. His gloves still rest on her shoulders.
“I know. It’s okay,” she tells him, just as Cottle reaches them. She lets the doc step between them, but Lee keeps his arm in touch with her hip, and she’s reluctant to move away.
Helo doesn’t know that, though. He catches her arm and swings her away, when all she wants to do is keep her eyes on Lee. “Are you frakking nuts? That fight should’ve been called ages ago,” he complains, of no one in particular since Tigh is nowhere to be seen.
Kara turns her head away from his poking and prodding to see Cottle release Lee into the custody of his wife. As Lee ducks under the ropes he looks back, one swift speaking glance. Kara holds his gaze and doesn’t care who sees. She does notice Dee never entered the ring, though she walks away with Lee.
Sharon joins Helo in fussing over her. The Agathons cluck over the gore on her face and seem to take delight in pressing on every sore spot on her body. They walk on either side of her, and she’s three steps out of the room when she remembers her tags and ducks back to grab them. Except they’re not the only ones in the ammo box. She closes her fist over the hexagons and pockets both sets.
* * * * *
As she walks out of the bunkroom she feels something nameless swelling in her chest, growing wings, struggling to break out.
She hears shouts and realizes who’s in the ring.
Now, Kara, the nameless thing tells her.
Ever afterwards the moments leading up to the fight will be a blur. There’s an endless buzzing in her ears. She dimly recalls Hotdog and how he never stood a chance. She’s not quite sure why she’s so angry, but anger has always been a friend to her.
The crowd roars and she pops up out of her corner, propelled as if from a slingshot. He’s got the advantage on her, clearly, but she’s still hopped up on adrenaline from fighting Hotdog and the sense of a battle joined. They circle each other warily.
“Afraid to hit me? Or maybe you can’t.” He slams her for that, lands a blow so hard she can’t breathe, but she pulls her face into a smile and dances away to buy some time. Oh yes. Come on, Lee. The blood tastes sweet in her mouth. She senses the crowd’s bewilderment and paradoxically it eggs her on, makes her want to give them more of a show.
She leans in too close and he unleashes a combination that dazes her momentarily. She flashes back to the moonlight on New Caprica. His smile. And the pain, the next morning. She drops her guard and welcomes the blow.
He doesn’t pull this punch. She reels, playing out the count for a respite. She’s tireder than she realizes - wore herself out in the last fight, though she never noticed in the moment. Need to finish this.
She brings him down once; twice. Compounds her misery as she watches him writhing on the floor. You did this, Kara. Hurt him anyway.
He rises from the canvas and redoubles the attack. Resilient, though he looked like he’d been dealt a mortal wound. She huddles against the ropes while he drives punishing fists into her kidneys. The blows fall like hammers pounding the truth into her. Lee. Lee. Lee. It's always been him.
* * * * *
They touch gloves.
~ end, 1/1 ~