[bsg fic] Effortless, K/L, R, 1/1
Title: Effortless
Pairing: Kara/Lee
Rating: R
Words: 3,253
Spoilers: through S3 finale
Summary: I have no faith left, Kara, except in you.
Disclaimer: These characters are just as fictional as Kara and Lee. If only they were mine.
Birthday fic for my dear wisteria_! Many bionic hugs to you, hon. It's a little slapdash, but I hope it's at least partly what you wanted!
Thanks to bop_radar for the insta-beta and encouragement! And to rabid1st, because I rediscovered her wonderful Lee vid "Effortlessly" when I was searching for a title. :0)
wisteria_ had wanted a sequel to "Remember Me As a Time of Day": this is not quite that, but it overlaps with her story to some extent. Don't squint too hard at the science! *g*
Effortless
It shouldn't be so hard to say the right things to you
It shouldn't be so hard just to be effortlessly
- Effortlessly, by Sister Hazel
They fly for what seems like hours.
* * *
A shudder, a flickering of space beyond his canopy, as if they were flying through a ripple… In the distance, a blue planet appears.
They make a pass over the ocean, far from any land masses. “Kara, if we go into the gravity well we might not be able to get back out again,” he says.
“Have faith, Lee,” she replies, fixing him with an unsmiling look.
Faith, I have no faith left, Kara, except in you. But aloud he says, “Okay, well, at least let’s crash-land somewhere where I can find fresh water and maybe food before I perish in the wilderness by myself.”
“Not by yourself, Lee,” she says again, but points her craft towards a peninsula somewhere between the equator and one of the poles. Temperate, he thinks to himself, and crosses his fingers briefly before following her down.
They land in a field, not far from a strip of beach and pale blue water. Lee winces as their afterburners scorch the tall grass, but Kara etches a pretty little half-turn as she lands, and he reverses to complete the circle with his own landing path. So at least it’s symmetrical disfigurement, and he twists his mouth in a wry grin at his own whimsy.
Across the way he sees her crack the canopy open. Two seconds, and she hasn’t keeled over from oxygen dep or anything. Once more he has to choose to believe her. He offered her his trust, once, and then failed her at the last minute. Is this atonement?
He breaks the seal. Out of habit, he pulls the atmo tester from the pocket on his thigh. Green.
“Come on, Lee! What are you waiting for?” She’s already jumped down from her plane and is standing beside his Viper, staring up at him.
Nothing much to lose, so he releases his helmet. Warm, salt-tinged air rushes into his space. And laughter - he hears her laugh, that gorgeous throaty sound. He swallows.
“Gods, whaddya want, an invitation?” Already she’s peeled off the top of her suit and is turning away from him, headed towards the water. He clambers down, wondering vaguely how they’ll get back in with no ladders.
The breeze picks up and she spins in it, laughing. He’s suddenly shaky. It must show on his face, because she stops and walks up to him.
“Lee -”
“You were dead! I saw your ship implode! I sent you out there and you killed yourself and I had to go on without you!” She steps closer and he clenches his hands into fists, because he’s not sure if he wants to hit her or hold her.
Now she reaches out and touches his face, and he recognizes the coolness on his cheeks as tears, drying in the wind.
“Kara, I don’t care. I don’t care any more if you’re a Cylon. I’ve got nothing left. I’m not worth much as a hostage or a spy, so you can lie to me or kill me, if you are. Just don’t take her away from me again, I can’t go through that again.”
She still doesn’t say anything, but she shakes her head no. She closes the gap between them, putting her arms around him, and whispers, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
He’s shaking, shaking. He closes his eyes against her, but when she kisses the corner of his mouth he loses it - grabs her biceps and holds her at arms’ length, raking her with his gaze as if he could glean any more information with his merely-human eyes. He scrubs his face with one hand.
“Gods, Kara. I might be no better than Helo, and I’ve judged him all this time,” he whispers.
“If you were fooled - then Zak was fooled, and the old man was fooled… I can’t prove anything, Lee.”
His chest hurts.
“I’ve put my life on the line more times than Sharon has,” she says, and he hears an echo in his head, would you leave Dee? Would you choose me? “If I needed all that strength, then what was the point?" Why is Kara begging? Is that a sign?
He’s tired. He’s empty, and Kara fills every space she’s in. He lets go. Again.
* * *
He thinks he has no energy left, but at the touch of her mouth the hunger leaps up inside him. He cups her face in his hands and tries to find the secret of that mouth, why it maddens him, where the spell lies. When she breaks free from his grasp he’s too dazed to pull her back, but she never breaks eye contact as she unzips her flight suit the last few inches and steps out of it. In the sunlight she disrobes for him, not a vestal virgin but his own nymph or a siren.
“Meet me halfway, Lee,” she says, huskily. “I’ve come back from the dead…”
He touches her fingertips but then pulls her hard, brings her abruptly against his chest. He’s still mostly in his flight suit and he sort of likes the thought of her softness up against all the hardware, the buckles and the zippers and the snaps. While his tongue seeks out the taste of her bottom lip, the contrast of teeth, his hands are busy plundering. One hand dips between her legs and finds her ready for him, hot, sweet. She groans and he raises his hands back to her hips, steers her back, back into the shade of the Viper.
Kara stumbles and he catches her elbows, lowers her to the grass. Before he joins her he removes the rest of his clothing; by the time he drops to one knee she’s impatient, and grabs at his shoulders with such haste she rakes a trail across his skin. He hisses and she draws her hand back but it’s too late, she’s drawn blood and now the rage and grief and lust are at full boil within him, he advances on her, so fast she has to scrabble to retain her balance. He nips at her bottom lip and rakes her chin with his teeth. She laughs, a challenge, and he leans into her till she’s flat on her back. With one hand he hitches her leg up to his hip, pausing as he rises over her.
“Is this what you want, Kara? Is it?”
“Frak you, Lee Adama,” and she says it like a kiss.
* * *
“I don’t know why I trust you, but I do,” he says, after they have rolled apart and are staring at the underside of the Viper. He keeps one hand tangled in her hair.
“Can’t help it, you’re just wired that way. Maybe you’re the Cylon,” she needles him, turning on to her side and watching him with a fond look on her face.
“Yeah, well, then there’d be many copies and you couldn’t keep up with me, Starbuck,” he counters, laughing at the ridiculousness of the notion.
“More like you’d finally be able to keep up with me,” she retorts, indicating her body with a wave.
* * *
In the middle of the night it starts to rain, a light drizzle coming in on a warm breeze. Lee stretches up and pulls their makeshift tarp further down. Beside him, in their silvery survival cocoon, Kara stirs but does not wake. He pulls her closer and listens to her breathing, till the rain slows and the moon emerges, etching her profile in light.
* * *
Morning. He wakes to find Kara staring at him. “Gods, finally! I thought you’d never wake up,” she says, and immediately she levers herself up and out of the sleeping bag. She is neck-deep in the surf before he manages to get the sleep out of his eyes.
Her war whoops preclude further sleep, so he rouses and ambles to the water’s edge, rubbing his arms against the chill. He watches Kara cavort and dive through the waves.
“Why’d you wait for me to wake up?”
“What?” Kara splashes a little closer in.
“Why didn’t you just get up and go for a swim?”
Kara hears him and shakes her head, smacking a wave so that he has to jump out of the way to avoid the spray. “Buddy rule, Lee, don’t you know that one?” she yells over the water. “Come on in, you coward!”
He eyes her, assessing her smirk and the distance between them; then he takes a running start and dives cleanly into the waves, coming up beside her. She shrieks a little when he surfaces, and louder when he grabs her and dunks her. She comes up spluttering.
“Teach you to keep your mouth open when you’re underwater,” he taunts. “Ah-ah,” he warns, as she starts to splash him again. He ducks under briefly and grabs her foot, holding onto it as he comes up. “No roughhousing in the pool!” She struggles and twists, but he has a vise-grip on her now, and he works her way up her leg, reeling her in without regard for all the saltwater she throws in his face.
When he pulls her in that last inch, she’s still laughing. “What did you call me?” he asks, admiring all the colors that the sea brings to her changeable eyes.
“Bastard,” Kara smiles, and then she grows serious. She bends her knee to shorten the distance between them. “I figured you wouldn’t appreciate waking up alone on a strange planet,” she says in his ear. And he’s always been able to lift Kara, but in the water she’s weightless, insubstantial, and it takes no effort at all to draw her up and steal amends from her lips, where they were never needed anyway.
She settles and curves against him, wrapping her leg over his hip and her arms around his neck so that the tide rocks her in and out against him. He could get used to this, her body wet and cold and soft and sliding and her mouth a beacon of warmth. The water provides rhythmic lapping counterpoint to the sound of their lips meeting and parting, parting and meeting.
The wind shifts, bringing the waves up higher over them. Suddenly she breaks away and pushes off from him, adding a skirl of water for good measure. “Frak, I’m hungry! What kind of food you got, Adama?” she says, floating on her back.
In reply he plunges underneath and swims a few lengths, just because he can. He aims for her but by the time he emerges she’s moved offshore again. “I don’t know, you’re the one who brought me to this resort. Typical Starbuck planning,” he answers.
They’ve drifted a couple hundred meters from where they landed. Kara turns and sights her target, and before she opens her mouth he already knows she has a head start. “Race you to the headland. First one there gets all the MRE’s for breakfast!”
It’s a dead heat, after all, but he has to put his back into it, and he wonders why he’s surprised.
* * *
The sun has risen just slightly in the sky, but it feels like lunchtime already - though that could be because they’ve made love again, after devouring half their rations. (Lee hasn’t come this many times in a twelve-hour span since he was, oh, eighteen.) He stretches luxuriously, enjoying the unfamiliar sensation of air and light on… regions so long hidden away.
“I hate to end our little vacation, studmuffin, but it’s really high time we got back.” Kara props herself up on her elbows. It’s a good look for her, cleavage-wise. He reaches out and draws a line down her throat, her chest. She slaps his hand away.
“Lee. Focus.”
He turns his gaze away, follows a bird in the sky as it wheels and dives. “What if we never went back? I’m sure there’s food here, and water. Bet the weather’s nice year-round. We weren’t that far off the equator.”
“That’s nice, Lee. Glad you paid attention in Recon 101. We gotta get back before the wormhole closes.”
“The what?”
“Wormhole. Big magical space thingy that allowed us to get here in less than three lifetimes. Or didn’t you notice all the streaks of light on the way in?”
He’s been very good at blocking out all the questions surrounding their arrival, ever since he kissed her, but now doubt and duty rush back in with bells on. He takes a deep breath.
“Fine. Who’s to say there’s even a Fleet to go back to? Last time I checked, all the ships were experiencing power fluctuations, and there was a shitload of Cylons on our collective asses.”
Kara eyes him skeptically. “You always talked this way? The Fleet will be there. Trust me.”
“How the hell do you know that? You’ve been in deep freeze or something for six weeks.”
She gives him an annoyed look. “You’re not going to believe anything I tell you, so I’m not going to try. Listen: The way it works is we’ll get back right when we left - no time lapse or anything. And the Cylons are having the exact same problems with their ships that you are, so they’re not in a position to attack.”
Lee frowns. He visualizes them flying back through the nebula, lining up with Galactica’s flight pods. And then he recalls the Six that came back with Athena, when they were fleeing the supernova. Recalls how fragile she looked, still in the same clothes weeks later, when he and Romo entered her cell.
“Lee?”
“I think you should stay here, Kara.”
“What? Are you out of your frakking mind? How the hell are you going to get back without me? And more importantly, why?”
“It’s a nice planet.” He holds up his hands as she hurls a fistful of grass and dirt at him, then lets out an “oof!” as she throws herself bodily on top of him and pins him down. “The only way you’re going to leave here without me is if I kick your ass into orbit.”
“Kara.” With some effort he twists until he has her wrists in his grasp, instead of the other way around, and leverages them both up to a sitting position. “Remember how they treated that Six, the one that came with Sharon and Hera from the basestar. I don’t want to see you spend a year locked up.”
She attempts to free her wrists, but only succeeds in bringing a warm flush to her cheeks. “You think I’m scared of brig time? What have you been smoking while I was gone?”
It’s still a painful memory, even though she’s sitting here before him. He draws her arms behind her back and steals a kiss before replying. “It’s… Kara, people are pretty emotional right now. I’m not entirely sure they wouldn’t airlock you without bothering to check whether or not you’re human.”
“Okay, first they’re going to lock me up, now they’re going to airlock me? You’re not making any sense here. I think you’ve gone insane because this is the longest you’ve been out of a uniform in three years.”
“Yeah, about that - ” He drops his hands to her waist and lifts her just enough so that he can roll them both onto the grass again. “Okay. You win. We’ll go back.” He brushes the hair back from her face, trying to memorize her features, this moment.
She breathes beneath him, and lifts her hand to trace his brow. “It’s going to be okay. It’ll be different.”
“Yeah. Right.”
In an instant she has his face framed between her hands, giving him a little shake for emphasis. “I said it’s different now.”
“What about Sam?”
“Sam’s not an issue any more. Anyway, I could say the same about Dee.”
“Dee’s gone. Left me.”
“Stupid girl.”
“Hey, if I recall, you made the same choice once.”
“I came back, didn’t I?”
“And how.”
He kisses her, while his namesake star climbs higher and the shadows draw back under the trees.
* * *
Kara tosses the last of her gear up into her cockpit and dusts her palms off, as he comes around the wing. “All set,” she says, and puts her hands on her hips.
He looks at her, then around at their surroundings. “Come on,” he says.
“Where?”
“Form up on me. We’re going on a quick walk.”
“Oh, Lee! Like we’re strolling through the Delphi Agora? You are such a sap!” But she takes his hand and falls in step.
Their boots make perfect impressions in the firm-packed sand at the furthest edge of the waves. Little creatures that Lee has no name for skitter across their path, darting in and out of the water. Kara slips her hand around his waist.
“When we get back - ” he says, and stops to look at her. “Let me land first.”
“Well, sure, Lee, that was the idea, they’re not likely to wave in a ghost - ”
“Yeah. But in case they bring in the Marines, I want to have enough time to wave them off.”
“Better not to give them too much advance notice, dontcha think?”
“Right. Combat landings it is, then.” He drops a kiss on her forehead and is about to start walking again when she pulls his face back to meet hers.
“Hey. Um. I’m, ah, fresh out of dogtags and jewelry" - she touches her bare throat, where no chains now lie - "but you know what this means to me, right?” With one hand she gestures around at the scene of their idyll. He waits. Kara touches his right shoulder. She slides her hand beneath the neckline of his flight suit and with her thumb seeks out the small, circular scar that they both know is there.
“I know.”
* * *
As she predicts, they emerge at the edge of the fray, all exactly as he left it moments (days?) ago. The rest of the Vipers are scattered between the Fleet and the basestars, and they dodge them expertly.
“Galactica, Apollo. Coming in for a landing. Two birds, I’m bringing in a friendly,” he hails. He doesn’t wait for the reply.
The Marines are there, as they lower his Viper into the hangar, and he hardly makes it out of his ship before the knuckledraggers bring her beautiful, unmarked Viper on deck. As Kara slides the canopy back, he hears the clatter of rifles being trained on her.
She walks slowly down the ladder. Lee breaks through a circle of deckhands standing agog and starts walking towards her. He feels light and lighter with every step he takes. “Sir! Major Adama, step back, sir!”
He ignores the command and keeps moving. He meets her eyes and finds no fear there, only alertness and - dare he think it - amusement, glimmering. One of the Marines steps in front of him and he checks, grabs the handcuffs from the man’s belt and tosses them to Starbuck. “Catch!”
She puts up her hands reflexively, as the Marine grabs Lee’s left wrist. He spins, holds out his other hand to Kara as she snaps the manacle onto him and then the other on her own wrist. The armed guards coalesce on them, surrounding them, but it doesn’t matter. He’s made his point, made his choice. Out of the corner of his eye he sees the Chief and Colonel Tigh coming to intercept them.
He turns to Kara and smiles. “Welcome home, captain.”
~ end ~
A/N: Alanna wanted pilots that start out angsty and end up mushy! Hopefully this suffices! ;0) *more hugs*
Pairing: Kara/Lee
Rating: R
Words: 3,253
Spoilers: through S3 finale
Summary: I have no faith left, Kara, except in you.
Disclaimer: These characters are just as fictional as Kara and Lee. If only they were mine.
Birthday fic for my dear wisteria_! Many bionic hugs to you, hon. It's a little slapdash, but I hope it's at least partly what you wanted!
Thanks to bop_radar for the insta-beta and encouragement! And to rabid1st, because I rediscovered her wonderful Lee vid "Effortlessly" when I was searching for a title. :0)
wisteria_ had wanted a sequel to "Remember Me As a Time of Day": this is not quite that, but it overlaps with her story to some extent. Don't squint too hard at the science! *g*
Effortless
It shouldn't be so hard to say the right things to you
It shouldn't be so hard just to be effortlessly
- Effortlessly, by Sister Hazel
They fly for what seems like hours.
* * *
A shudder, a flickering of space beyond his canopy, as if they were flying through a ripple… In the distance, a blue planet appears.
They make a pass over the ocean, far from any land masses. “Kara, if we go into the gravity well we might not be able to get back out again,” he says.
“Have faith, Lee,” she replies, fixing him with an unsmiling look.
Faith, I have no faith left, Kara, except in you. But aloud he says, “Okay, well, at least let’s crash-land somewhere where I can find fresh water and maybe food before I perish in the wilderness by myself.”
“Not by yourself, Lee,” she says again, but points her craft towards a peninsula somewhere between the equator and one of the poles. Temperate, he thinks to himself, and crosses his fingers briefly before following her down.
They land in a field, not far from a strip of beach and pale blue water. Lee winces as their afterburners scorch the tall grass, but Kara etches a pretty little half-turn as she lands, and he reverses to complete the circle with his own landing path. So at least it’s symmetrical disfigurement, and he twists his mouth in a wry grin at his own whimsy.
Across the way he sees her crack the canopy open. Two seconds, and she hasn’t keeled over from oxygen dep or anything. Once more he has to choose to believe her. He offered her his trust, once, and then failed her at the last minute. Is this atonement?
He breaks the seal. Out of habit, he pulls the atmo tester from the pocket on his thigh. Green.
“Come on, Lee! What are you waiting for?” She’s already jumped down from her plane and is standing beside his Viper, staring up at him.
Nothing much to lose, so he releases his helmet. Warm, salt-tinged air rushes into his space. And laughter - he hears her laugh, that gorgeous throaty sound. He swallows.
“Gods, whaddya want, an invitation?” Already she’s peeled off the top of her suit and is turning away from him, headed towards the water. He clambers down, wondering vaguely how they’ll get back in with no ladders.
The breeze picks up and she spins in it, laughing. He’s suddenly shaky. It must show on his face, because she stops and walks up to him.
“Lee -”
“You were dead! I saw your ship implode! I sent you out there and you killed yourself and I had to go on without you!” She steps closer and he clenches his hands into fists, because he’s not sure if he wants to hit her or hold her.
Now she reaches out and touches his face, and he recognizes the coolness on his cheeks as tears, drying in the wind.
“Kara, I don’t care. I don’t care any more if you’re a Cylon. I’ve got nothing left. I’m not worth much as a hostage or a spy, so you can lie to me or kill me, if you are. Just don’t take her away from me again, I can’t go through that again.”
She still doesn’t say anything, but she shakes her head no. She closes the gap between them, putting her arms around him, and whispers, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
He’s shaking, shaking. He closes his eyes against her, but when she kisses the corner of his mouth he loses it - grabs her biceps and holds her at arms’ length, raking her with his gaze as if he could glean any more information with his merely-human eyes. He scrubs his face with one hand.
“Gods, Kara. I might be no better than Helo, and I’ve judged him all this time,” he whispers.
“If you were fooled - then Zak was fooled, and the old man was fooled… I can’t prove anything, Lee.”
His chest hurts.
“I’ve put my life on the line more times than Sharon has,” she says, and he hears an echo in his head, would you leave Dee? Would you choose me? “If I needed all that strength, then what was the point?" Why is Kara begging? Is that a sign?
He’s tired. He’s empty, and Kara fills every space she’s in. He lets go. Again.
* * *
He thinks he has no energy left, but at the touch of her mouth the hunger leaps up inside him. He cups her face in his hands and tries to find the secret of that mouth, why it maddens him, where the spell lies. When she breaks free from his grasp he’s too dazed to pull her back, but she never breaks eye contact as she unzips her flight suit the last few inches and steps out of it. In the sunlight she disrobes for him, not a vestal virgin but his own nymph or a siren.
“Meet me halfway, Lee,” she says, huskily. “I’ve come back from the dead…”
He touches her fingertips but then pulls her hard, brings her abruptly against his chest. He’s still mostly in his flight suit and he sort of likes the thought of her softness up against all the hardware, the buckles and the zippers and the snaps. While his tongue seeks out the taste of her bottom lip, the contrast of teeth, his hands are busy plundering. One hand dips between her legs and finds her ready for him, hot, sweet. She groans and he raises his hands back to her hips, steers her back, back into the shade of the Viper.
Kara stumbles and he catches her elbows, lowers her to the grass. Before he joins her he removes the rest of his clothing; by the time he drops to one knee she’s impatient, and grabs at his shoulders with such haste she rakes a trail across his skin. He hisses and she draws her hand back but it’s too late, she’s drawn blood and now the rage and grief and lust are at full boil within him, he advances on her, so fast she has to scrabble to retain her balance. He nips at her bottom lip and rakes her chin with his teeth. She laughs, a challenge, and he leans into her till she’s flat on her back. With one hand he hitches her leg up to his hip, pausing as he rises over her.
“Is this what you want, Kara? Is it?”
“Frak you, Lee Adama,” and she says it like a kiss.
* * *
“I don’t know why I trust you, but I do,” he says, after they have rolled apart and are staring at the underside of the Viper. He keeps one hand tangled in her hair.
“Can’t help it, you’re just wired that way. Maybe you’re the Cylon,” she needles him, turning on to her side and watching him with a fond look on her face.
“Yeah, well, then there’d be many copies and you couldn’t keep up with me, Starbuck,” he counters, laughing at the ridiculousness of the notion.
“More like you’d finally be able to keep up with me,” she retorts, indicating her body with a wave.
* * *
In the middle of the night it starts to rain, a light drizzle coming in on a warm breeze. Lee stretches up and pulls their makeshift tarp further down. Beside him, in their silvery survival cocoon, Kara stirs but does not wake. He pulls her closer and listens to her breathing, till the rain slows and the moon emerges, etching her profile in light.
* * *
Morning. He wakes to find Kara staring at him. “Gods, finally! I thought you’d never wake up,” she says, and immediately she levers herself up and out of the sleeping bag. She is neck-deep in the surf before he manages to get the sleep out of his eyes.
Her war whoops preclude further sleep, so he rouses and ambles to the water’s edge, rubbing his arms against the chill. He watches Kara cavort and dive through the waves.
“Why’d you wait for me to wake up?”
“What?” Kara splashes a little closer in.
“Why didn’t you just get up and go for a swim?”
Kara hears him and shakes her head, smacking a wave so that he has to jump out of the way to avoid the spray. “Buddy rule, Lee, don’t you know that one?” she yells over the water. “Come on in, you coward!”
He eyes her, assessing her smirk and the distance between them; then he takes a running start and dives cleanly into the waves, coming up beside her. She shrieks a little when he surfaces, and louder when he grabs her and dunks her. She comes up spluttering.
“Teach you to keep your mouth open when you’re underwater,” he taunts. “Ah-ah,” he warns, as she starts to splash him again. He ducks under briefly and grabs her foot, holding onto it as he comes up. “No roughhousing in the pool!” She struggles and twists, but he has a vise-grip on her now, and he works her way up her leg, reeling her in without regard for all the saltwater she throws in his face.
When he pulls her in that last inch, she’s still laughing. “What did you call me?” he asks, admiring all the colors that the sea brings to her changeable eyes.
“Bastard,” Kara smiles, and then she grows serious. She bends her knee to shorten the distance between them. “I figured you wouldn’t appreciate waking up alone on a strange planet,” she says in his ear. And he’s always been able to lift Kara, but in the water she’s weightless, insubstantial, and it takes no effort at all to draw her up and steal amends from her lips, where they were never needed anyway.
She settles and curves against him, wrapping her leg over his hip and her arms around his neck so that the tide rocks her in and out against him. He could get used to this, her body wet and cold and soft and sliding and her mouth a beacon of warmth. The water provides rhythmic lapping counterpoint to the sound of their lips meeting and parting, parting and meeting.
The wind shifts, bringing the waves up higher over them. Suddenly she breaks away and pushes off from him, adding a skirl of water for good measure. “Frak, I’m hungry! What kind of food you got, Adama?” she says, floating on her back.
In reply he plunges underneath and swims a few lengths, just because he can. He aims for her but by the time he emerges she’s moved offshore again. “I don’t know, you’re the one who brought me to this resort. Typical Starbuck planning,” he answers.
They’ve drifted a couple hundred meters from where they landed. Kara turns and sights her target, and before she opens her mouth he already knows she has a head start. “Race you to the headland. First one there gets all the MRE’s for breakfast!”
It’s a dead heat, after all, but he has to put his back into it, and he wonders why he’s surprised.
* * *
The sun has risen just slightly in the sky, but it feels like lunchtime already - though that could be because they’ve made love again, after devouring half their rations. (Lee hasn’t come this many times in a twelve-hour span since he was, oh, eighteen.) He stretches luxuriously, enjoying the unfamiliar sensation of air and light on… regions so long hidden away.
“I hate to end our little vacation, studmuffin, but it’s really high time we got back.” Kara props herself up on her elbows. It’s a good look for her, cleavage-wise. He reaches out and draws a line down her throat, her chest. She slaps his hand away.
“Lee. Focus.”
He turns his gaze away, follows a bird in the sky as it wheels and dives. “What if we never went back? I’m sure there’s food here, and water. Bet the weather’s nice year-round. We weren’t that far off the equator.”
“That’s nice, Lee. Glad you paid attention in Recon 101. We gotta get back before the wormhole closes.”
“The what?”
“Wormhole. Big magical space thingy that allowed us to get here in less than three lifetimes. Or didn’t you notice all the streaks of light on the way in?”
He’s been very good at blocking out all the questions surrounding their arrival, ever since he kissed her, but now doubt and duty rush back in with bells on. He takes a deep breath.
“Fine. Who’s to say there’s even a Fleet to go back to? Last time I checked, all the ships were experiencing power fluctuations, and there was a shitload of Cylons on our collective asses.”
Kara eyes him skeptically. “You always talked this way? The Fleet will be there. Trust me.”
“How the hell do you know that? You’ve been in deep freeze or something for six weeks.”
She gives him an annoyed look. “You’re not going to believe anything I tell you, so I’m not going to try. Listen: The way it works is we’ll get back right when we left - no time lapse or anything. And the Cylons are having the exact same problems with their ships that you are, so they’re not in a position to attack.”
Lee frowns. He visualizes them flying back through the nebula, lining up with Galactica’s flight pods. And then he recalls the Six that came back with Athena, when they were fleeing the supernova. Recalls how fragile she looked, still in the same clothes weeks later, when he and Romo entered her cell.
“Lee?”
“I think you should stay here, Kara.”
“What? Are you out of your frakking mind? How the hell are you going to get back without me? And more importantly, why?”
“It’s a nice planet.” He holds up his hands as she hurls a fistful of grass and dirt at him, then lets out an “oof!” as she throws herself bodily on top of him and pins him down. “The only way you’re going to leave here without me is if I kick your ass into orbit.”
“Kara.” With some effort he twists until he has her wrists in his grasp, instead of the other way around, and leverages them both up to a sitting position. “Remember how they treated that Six, the one that came with Sharon and Hera from the basestar. I don’t want to see you spend a year locked up.”
She attempts to free her wrists, but only succeeds in bringing a warm flush to her cheeks. “You think I’m scared of brig time? What have you been smoking while I was gone?”
It’s still a painful memory, even though she’s sitting here before him. He draws her arms behind her back and steals a kiss before replying. “It’s… Kara, people are pretty emotional right now. I’m not entirely sure they wouldn’t airlock you without bothering to check whether or not you’re human.”
“Okay, first they’re going to lock me up, now they’re going to airlock me? You’re not making any sense here. I think you’ve gone insane because this is the longest you’ve been out of a uniform in three years.”
“Yeah, about that - ” He drops his hands to her waist and lifts her just enough so that he can roll them both onto the grass again. “Okay. You win. We’ll go back.” He brushes the hair back from her face, trying to memorize her features, this moment.
She breathes beneath him, and lifts her hand to trace his brow. “It’s going to be okay. It’ll be different.”
“Yeah. Right.”
In an instant she has his face framed between her hands, giving him a little shake for emphasis. “I said it’s different now.”
“What about Sam?”
“Sam’s not an issue any more. Anyway, I could say the same about Dee.”
“Dee’s gone. Left me.”
“Stupid girl.”
“Hey, if I recall, you made the same choice once.”
“I came back, didn’t I?”
“And how.”
He kisses her, while his namesake star climbs higher and the shadows draw back under the trees.
* * *
Kara tosses the last of her gear up into her cockpit and dusts her palms off, as he comes around the wing. “All set,” she says, and puts her hands on her hips.
He looks at her, then around at their surroundings. “Come on,” he says.
“Where?”
“Form up on me. We’re going on a quick walk.”
“Oh, Lee! Like we’re strolling through the Delphi Agora? You are such a sap!” But she takes his hand and falls in step.
Their boots make perfect impressions in the firm-packed sand at the furthest edge of the waves. Little creatures that Lee has no name for skitter across their path, darting in and out of the water. Kara slips her hand around his waist.
“When we get back - ” he says, and stops to look at her. “Let me land first.”
“Well, sure, Lee, that was the idea, they’re not likely to wave in a ghost - ”
“Yeah. But in case they bring in the Marines, I want to have enough time to wave them off.”
“Better not to give them too much advance notice, dontcha think?”
“Right. Combat landings it is, then.” He drops a kiss on her forehead and is about to start walking again when she pulls his face back to meet hers.
“Hey. Um. I’m, ah, fresh out of dogtags and jewelry" - she touches her bare throat, where no chains now lie - "but you know what this means to me, right?” With one hand she gestures around at the scene of their idyll. He waits. Kara touches his right shoulder. She slides her hand beneath the neckline of his flight suit and with her thumb seeks out the small, circular scar that they both know is there.
“I know.”
* * *
As she predicts, they emerge at the edge of the fray, all exactly as he left it moments (days?) ago. The rest of the Vipers are scattered between the Fleet and the basestars, and they dodge them expertly.
“Galactica, Apollo. Coming in for a landing. Two birds, I’m bringing in a friendly,” he hails. He doesn’t wait for the reply.
The Marines are there, as they lower his Viper into the hangar, and he hardly makes it out of his ship before the knuckledraggers bring her beautiful, unmarked Viper on deck. As Kara slides the canopy back, he hears the clatter of rifles being trained on her.
She walks slowly down the ladder. Lee breaks through a circle of deckhands standing agog and starts walking towards her. He feels light and lighter with every step he takes. “Sir! Major Adama, step back, sir!”
He ignores the command and keeps moving. He meets her eyes and finds no fear there, only alertness and - dare he think it - amusement, glimmering. One of the Marines steps in front of him and he checks, grabs the handcuffs from the man’s belt and tosses them to Starbuck. “Catch!”
She puts up her hands reflexively, as the Marine grabs Lee’s left wrist. He spins, holds out his other hand to Kara as she snaps the manacle onto him and then the other on her own wrist. The armed guards coalesce on them, surrounding them, but it doesn’t matter. He’s made his point, made his choice. Out of the corner of his eye he sees the Chief and Colonel Tigh coming to intercept them.
He turns to Kara and smiles. “Welcome home, captain.”
~ end ~
A/N: Alanna wanted pilots that start out angsty and end up mushy! Hopefully this suffices! ;0) *more hugs*