All at Once
This is also from no_takebacks this week.
From Wednesday
Prompt: Angst. However, I continued my original comment!fic. ;)
Kara Thrace kneels in the far stall of the head puking her guts out, again. She flushes and swallows. For some reason everyone thinks she’s suffering the continued after effects of near starvation, radiation and the change over to an all algae diet. Nausea runs rampant through the pilots who made the initial algae runs, but Kara Thrace seems to be the only one still tossing her breakfast and only her breakfast. She sits back on her heals as she flushes so she doesn’t have to watch the sick swirl away.
“Starbuck! You’re being paged to sick bay. Something happened on the planet.”
Kara doesn’t focus on the voice, but Athena and Racetrack are hanging just outside the hatch. They’re whispering about her no doubt. Kara flashes them a glare before taking off down the corridor. Her stomach is still turning despite being empty. It’s a sinking, twisting pit that threatens to pull her into the wall more than once. Sam and Lee are both down on the planet. Her gut drops again. She crashes hard into the wall and shakes off the throb taking up residence in her right temple. She winces at the flash of a child’s laughter and keeps stumbling down the hallway.
Lee hasn’t spoken to her since he left to run the operations. He won’t cheat. She won’t divorce. He boards the raptor without looking back. Dee is waiting for him planet, but Kara stands half dressed in the ready room, panting and feeling the first rumblings of sickness. She pulls down her tanks, smoothes her hair, wipes the tastes of him off her lips and strolls to the head to toss her breakfast for the first time. She brushes her teeth before kissing Sam good-bye on the flight deck. She makes sure everyone sees how happy she looks, hears how proud she is of his service to the fleet. The rest of the day she hides in the CAGs office plowing through paper work as acting CAG and trying not to cry. Starbuck doesn’t cry over men trouble after all.
When Kara rounds the corner into Life Stations, it’s Sam. He’s pale. Tubes run in and out. Cottle tells her he’s been shot, the cylons found the planet, the fleet, some ages old temple of the planet. Kara only stares at her husband, relief rolling off of her in waves only to be replaced by a guilt that literally weighs on her shoulders. She should be relieved when Cottle updates Sam’s condition to stable. She’s only relieved it’s not Lee. Can’t think what she would do if it were Lee lying there. It doesn’t occur to her that she wouldn’t have been called to sick bay for someone else’s husband.
“I’m pregnant,” she whispers as she takes Sam’s hand. The test isn’t back yet but she knows. Then she lifts her head at a motion beyond Sam’s curtain. Lee’s eyes are huge, blue, the only spot of color in the place. He heard her. “It’s yours,” she continues without breaking their illicit stare. Then her face falls back to Sam, and she smiles, brushing the hair along his face. “We’ll be a family,” she tells her husband.
When Kara glances up again, Lee is gone.
*** *** ***
Lee wishes that he could kick the both of them off the ship. Sam isn’t military even if he was shot aiding in a military lead operation. Kara can’t fly so she’s not much of a pilot. But Sam’s injuries are from service to the Fleet, on Lee’s watch no less. Sam needs the kind of trauma care that is only offered by the Galatcia medical staff. And Kara is his pregnant wife. It’s not right to make her leave, no matter who the father is or how much her presence guts him.
Lee finds himself just out of sight, watching Kara hold her husband’s hand, then fall asleep with her head on his pillow. Lee stays until the jealousy and hatred boil over. How the frak did he let himself get sucked in again? His face curls up with disgust at himself. He should go home, beg Dee’s forgiveness. For real this time. Then he catches her face, peaceful like a child’s. It’s like he’s been punched in the gut. Lee spins around to leave, slamming a fist into the heavy, gray metal wall.
Someone drags Lee further into Life Stations, forcibly straightening his injured fingers, talking to him. Broken, he hears after the x-ray. Ishay sets and splits. The whole time, Lee stares at his other hand, the thin gold band on his third finger. It blurs and refocuses. The morpha is overtaking him and the pain. His eyes are drooping shut, and he rolls up on the bed, facing away. He wishes he could take off that ring. The urge is overwhelming, but his other hand is broken. He’s trapped.
Kara’s up in the middle of the night to pee. Her neck hurts, and she’s starving. One of the medics shuffles off to find her something to munch on while Kara rolls her shoulders and twists her back. She doesn’t glance back at Sam. Something’s shifting in her guilt, like she built their new house on quicksand. For a moment, Kara even thinks she’s slipping with the weakening sand. She grab hold of the nearest bed to find her balance, jumping back when she hers a groan. An all too familiar, sleepy groan.
“Oh, gods,” Kara gasps.
“Kara?” Lee mumbles. “Come back. Miss you, Kara.”
He squirms on the gurney like he’s falling back to sleep. Kara watches his face relax. The lines and creases she’s so used to seeing, causing fade until he’s soft and beautiful again. It makes her smile, on impulse. She tries to hide it fast, but the smile stays as images from a dream come drifting back to her.
She’s standing is the middle of the grassy field from the Tomb of Athena. Stars glitter overhead. She stands beams while a child runs and leaps before her. Her blonde hair billowing behind her. When she turns it’s like one of the picture from the Old Man’s desk come to life. Only she has golden green eyes that glow in the night. And she grins.
She covers her mouth as Lee flips over and gives her a slow, drugged once over. He winces, accidentally putting weight on her freshly broken hand and falls back to the bed again. Without thinking, Kara steps forward, her mouth gaping. She hears herself stuttering without making any words. She doesn’t even know what she’s trying to say. Lee’s sitting now, arms hanging over his tented knees and staring into her with bright blue eyes that are filling with tears. She wants to run. She needs to use the bathroom. Instead, she shifts her weight and shuts her mouth.
“Hey.” His voice is thick with morpha induced sleep.
Her hand reaches out to touch his face. Her thumb rubs the skin right under his eye like she’s wiping tears. “I miss you too,” she whispers. Lee’s face wrinkles with confusion, but Kara doesn’t care if he remembers or not. She moves forward another step until they’re nearly nose to nose.
Lee breathes her in, feeling her heat. This is real. He knows because in his dreams Kara smells more like lavender soap then tyllium fumes. The morpha is wearing off. His hand aches, but the boldness lingers. He tilts his head to her and loses himself in her eyes, green and endless. “Don’t go. I want to be your family. It’s my baby, our… It’s not fair. I love you, and I can’t…”
“But Sam…” she interrupts.
“No!” Tears are about to fall, and he’s not trying to stop them. He blames the drugs for that too. It’s working. It’s melting her.
“Lee.”
“Kara,” he pleads.
She steps forward again, and they’re touching. She presses against him until he moves his arm and pulls her closer. All he has to do is turn and they’ll be kissing. So he turns, lets his lips brush over hers. Nothing happens for a moment as though she’s frozen. Lee almost jerks away, but her mouth opens. They are kissing. It’s awkward and public. Neither moves away.