BSG Fic: Picking at Scabs (PG-13)
Obscenely late--I suck! (and made that much later becuase frakkin' LJ is messing with my formatting--grrrr)
Title: Picking at Scabs
Author:
wickedgillie
Rating PG-13 (for language) Lee/Kara with implied Kara/Sam, plus a cameo by Helo
Spoilers: Through S2.5
Word count: 1800+
Author's note: written for the beyond-patient
da_angel729 based on her second prompt: "Would like fic to be from Lee's POV, though not a requirement. Would also like story to include Helo, if possible." This was not the story I thought I would write. It seems to have taken on a life of its own. The entire fic takes place as a FitB mid-Scar.
All props go to: my fabulous beta babes,
latteaddict and
devilgrrl who both came through for me in my hour of need.
All characters property of RDM, all mistakes are my own. (and given that this has taken me over an hour to post, I am willing to give some of the mistakes to LJ, aka please god, let this work this time)
He suspected he was in trouble when she spat some of the worlds' last ambrosia at him like a grade schooler in the cafeteria, trying to get out of picture day. When she kissed him, he knew nothing good would come of it. Boots came off, hands went wandering over parts often seen but never touched. Then he kissed her a little too much like he meant it. Stupidly tried to get her to slow down, or at least find a spot more comfortable than the frakking duty locker table. Instead of getting what he had wanted from her for longer than he realized (and worrying about the consequences later like a normal guy), he stuck the inevitable foot in his mouth. Let her know that he knew a bit too much about how her heart worked, and of course the words dripped venom and ice as only Lee Adama could. He had his mother's acid tongue, after all.
Kara chose to one up him and added another option to their ongoing fight or frak duet--she fled. Hit him, kissed him in the most confusing and toe-curling way possible, and ran. Starbuck never ran from anything. Did she? He didn't think she did and it threw him. Hells, it probably threw her. Was he supposed to follow? Simply let her cool off and hope she came back? He scrubbed his hands through his hair, debating his options. Wait much longer and he'd lose her in the crowd of the 02:00 shift change heading for the officers head and this lately-undogged hatch. With an eye roll he was sure Kara would appreciate had she been there, he threw on a pair of sweats, grabbed his boots that he'd left in the corridor, and jogged toward her most likely destination.
She wouldn't return to the rec room; things were a bit too charged there for either of their comfort. The weight room seemed too obvious if someone wanted to find her; Lee still wasn’t entirely convinced that she wanted to be found. Before he knew it, he was leaning against the hatch of the pilot's ready room, watching Kara nearly polish off another bottle of the Fleet’s finest. Grainy film footage of BB stupidly trying to take on Scar on bingo fuel lit the room with its silent, endless loop. Always making the same rookie mistake. Always dying again. The set of her shoulders was enough to tell Lee that Kara felt like she had put a gun to the kid’s head and pulled the trigger herself, and was deep in self-flagellation mode. Despite all the things they never said, he knew this one thing about her. She was nothing if not a glutton for punishment, picking at the scabs of bad moments until they bled by the bucketful, until she either came through the other side, or drowned. He knew a thing or two about wanting to give into the pull of stagnant water and never come up again.
"You should put your boots back on, Lee. I can smell your feet from here," she said, voice slurring slightly. Although her back was still toward him, he was fairly certain the smile didn't reach her eyes.
"What just happened back there, Kara?"
Kara still wouldn't turn around; she just sloshed the few remaining inches of ambrosia in the bottle until it swirled into a mini-hurricane. She stared at it, enthralled for a minute, her face half-shadowed in the greenish flickering light. It was like she had totally forgotten he was there.
"Kara?"
"What do you think just happened back there, dumbass? You want me to draw you a diagram?"
He knew he was risking her running again, or worse, her lobbing that bottle of ambrosia at his head, but he pulled up a chair next to her. Hoping that her silence equaled permission, Lee took the bottle from her hand, and swirled it briefly himself before taking a swig, exhaling sharply as it burned down his throat.
"It's not what you think, Lee," she said quietly, snatching back her bottle and claiming the last swig. "You deserve more than a drunken frak."
"This from the woman who just propositioned me?" Lee winced inwardly, doubting the wisdom of his words almost as soon as they were out of his mouth.
"Yeah, I never said I was brilliant with the logic." She smiled bitterly and fumbled for another bottle sitting by her feet. The alcohol had dulled her limbs, she and ended up kicking it rather ungracefully across the room before sprawling flat-out when she tried to retrieve it. At first Lee thought she had finally passed out; then he realized her shoulders were shaking. Hoping she was drunk enough to allow it, he got on the floor with her and gathered her up. She shook against him while he removed the nearly-free elastic band and smoothed her hair. He was surprised by how long she let him hold her before she finally put the inevitable distance between them again.
"Why do I keep killing people, Lee? Zak. Those idiot nuggets. Anders and his people. All dead, Lee. All because of me." She laughed bitterly through her tears. "I'm like some harbinger of death. Don't be surprised if you're next, Apollo."
Lee quirked an eyebrow and laughed. "I'd like to see you try, Kara.” But he knew making light wasn’t what she needed right now. “Hey.” She wouldn’t look at him. “Hey,” he insisted as he gently took her chin, “All of those things were totally out of your control. Somewhere in that frakked up skull of yours, you know that."
“Yeah?” she asked in a small voice.
“Yeah. Hey, you don’t even know if those people on Caprica actually are dead. I mean, look, they survived this long. That’s gotta mean something.”
“Yeah, Lee,” she practically spat at him. “It means I let them down. I promised him…” She cleared her throat. “…them… that I’d come back to get them off that sorry-ass planet and at this rate, the radiation will get them if the Cylons don’t get them first.” She somehow managed to pull herself to her feet and started her nervous pacing ritual. “Every night I lay awake, thinking I could have just found another ship and brought them all home. Or I come up with dozens of reasons we simply have to go back to Caprica….ones that the president can’t ignore despite her hypocritical BS about how we’re the last vestige of humanity, blah blah blah…” she trailed off, groaning her frustration. “I’m not talking about some random SAR to Picon. We know they’re there and we’re doing nothing. I failed them, Lee. Do you get that? Because of me, they’re dead.”
Lee remained planted on the floor and cracked open the forgotten bottle of ambrosia, taking a long pull. “I know a thing or two about feeling like a failure.” He sat the bottle down loudly and made sure he had her gaze. “Why haven’t you pushed me back into my plane, Kara?”
The abrupt change in topic stopped her in her tracks for a second. Her face crinkled in confusion. “What the frak are you talking about?”
“You heard me. We’re losing vipers faster than the Pegasus can replace them, we need every pilot we can get our hands on, and you’re not asking why the CAG won’t deign to get back in the frakkin’ cockpit?”
“The Old Man needs your tactical skills in CIC…” she started, but he staggered up and got in her face.
“That’s total bullshit and we both know it. Stop making excuses for me, Kara. Everyone seems to get a pass but you. I’m not out there because I’m a frakkin’ headcase. I know how easy it would be to just go Kamikaze on Scar’s ass or fly into a rock and just be done with it all.”
“Lee,” she said imploringly, “if you’re not ready, you’re not ready. I can’t put you on the flight roster if your head’s not in the game. You’d be a danger to your wingman and you know it.” She assessed him with worried eyes. He snorted with disgust. If she didn’t want his pity, he sure as hell didn’t want hers.
“Oh, come on, Kara. Even on my worst day, I have better instincts in the field than some nugget fresh from the civvies, and we both know it. Every rotation I don’t go back out there, I am just as responsible as you for those kids biting it. Probably even more so...”
He slumped to the floor again, his back resting up against one of the leather chairs. All of the fight just seemed to seep out of his bones. She unceremoniously plopped down next to him, and he put his arm around her shoulder. They sat in silence, viper cam footage streaming until the visuals became nothing more than meaningless pixels.
+ + +
Helo walked in at 05:00 and found the two of them passed out in front of the view screen, looking for all the worlds like two teenagers at the drive-in. He turned off the film player before nudging Kara gently with his toe.
“Hey, Starbuck, you’ve got a hot date with your old pal Scar in an hour. Feeling up to it?” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “You look like shit, by the way.”
Kara disengaged herself from Lee’s sleeping form and gathered up the evidence of her debauchery from the night before. “Better not risk it, Karl. My head is spinning enough to take out a nugget by mistake. Anyone else rested enough with a free shift?”
Helo walked over to the clipboard by the hatch. “Looks like Jo-Jo is free. You want I should give him the good news?”
Kara dumped the empty bottles in the recycle bin in the corner and wiped some sort of sticky sludge from the corner of her mouth. She took the clipboard from Helo and penciled in the changes, which unfortunately left her partnered with Katraine. “Nah, I’ll go let him know he’s up. I need some serious rack time.”
“And a shower,” Helo added with a snort. She punched him playfully in the arm.
“Bastard. Just for that, you can haul the CAG’s drunken ass back to his rack. He had a rough night, so don’t let him yak on you.” She tossed Lee’s boots in Helo’s general direction then headed toward the hatch.
Just as she was about to make her escape, he called after her, “Do I want to know what you did to him this time?”
She hesitated for a moment, her shoulders tensing. “No, Karl. You really don’t.”
Helo knew better than to push the issue. “Wilco, Starbuck. Better go find Jo-Jo so he has time to hit the head before game time.”
Kara gave him a rather colourful salute before walking out in the Galactica morning.