FIC: Schisms, Lee/Kara, M/MA, Chapter Four
Title: Schisms, 4/?
Rating: M/MA, for smut
Spoilers: Season 1, so far. Though this goes firmly AU before the mini.
Pairings: Kara/Lee, mentions of Kara/Zak
Wordcount: 4200 this chapter
Summary: AU fic. What if Kara never served on the Galactica before the attacks? What if Lee made a mistake he couldn't fix? Maybe some things break for a reason. WIP.
Warnings: none that I can think of... maybe angst?
Author's Note: Grateful thanks to uberscribbler, stardust_20 and cliosmuse who looked this over for me and provided tons of helpful advice. However, I can never leave things alone and have kept tweaking after they checked - so if you find any errors, they are mine!
Also, I must thank ficfinishing, because if it wasn't for the great support and useful exercises there, I might never have gotten this done. Thanks go to artemis_90, exeterlinden, jule1122 and ppyajunebug who were first readers for me and kept giving me encouraging nudges in the right direction.
Back to Chapter Three
~ * ~
Chapter Four
~ * ~
Lee Adama was not having a very good day. For starters, he was down half his squadron of pilots and had to somehow put together a CAP with the remainder. In addition to that, Kara had done a complete about-face and accepted his father’s offer of a commission despite having all but thrown Lee out for even suggesting such a thing. And to top it all off, the commander had insisted that Lee accompany him to the hangar deck to greet their new flight instructor and her son. My son, Lee reminded himself again. Our son. Without going into a lengthy explanation, Lee couldn’t refuse such a reasonable request-so here he was standing next to his father in glorious discomfort while Sebastian and his mother disembarked from the raptor.
Lee stayed still and quiet while his father greeted them, wishing he was anywhere else but here. He was drawn back into the moment at hand when he heard his name. “Maybe Lee can take you,” his father was saying, and both Kara and Sebastian seemed to notice him for the first time. Kara’s face was closed and stony; Seb’s was curious, though not overly so.
Upon seeing him, Kara drew her son in closer to her body as if Lee might try to hurt him or steal him away. “Captain,” she acknowledged coolly. She was clearly not pleased to see him there.
“Hello Kara,” he replied evenly. His gaze was then drawn to Sebastian, and Lee found he couldn’t look away from this boy. He looked so much like Kara, but Lee could see pieces of himself there too. It was a humbling thought. “It’s good to meet you Sebastian,” he greeted the boy finally.
Sebastian seemed to regard him carefully for a moment, then he saluted and respectfully replied, “It’s good to meet you too, sir.”
Lee was immediately taken back to his own childhood; saluting his father obediently as a good soldier should and wondering why the great commander couldn’t just give his sons a goodbye hug like a regular dad. As much as fatherhood terrified him, he knew he did not want that kind of a relationship with his own son.
“You’re not in the fleet, kid,” he choked out. “No need to salute me.”
It was the wrong thing to say. The boy’s face fell visibly at the rebuke and Lee didn’t even have to look at Kara to know she was glaring at him.
The commander must have been sweetly oblivious to this entire interplay because the very next thing he did was to order Lee to escort them both to quarters. He was not surprised when Kara allowed him to walk three steps ahead of them.
Whatever then possessed him to address Seb directly he’d never know, but it got Kara’s back up something fierce. This in turn got his own temper firing so he stormed off, tersely reminding her to report to her commanding officer in an hour.
Not the best start, Lee reflected later, though it could have been worse.
It got worse, and quickly-as the flight instructor, her commanding officer was the CAG. And Bill Adama had apparently failed to inform Kara that the CAG was one Leland J. Adama, the same man who had fathered her child and then abandoned her. But then, Lee had to remind himself that the old man really had no idea how deep the enmity ran between them, or for what reason. He probably thought all they needed was the opportunity (engineered if necessary) to talk things out rationally between them.
Lee figured Bill Adama didn’t know Kara Thrace nearly as well as he liked to think he did.
~ * ~
Lee looked up from the roster he’d been working on as the hatch to his office was pushed open.
“Lieutenant Kara Thrace reporting for duty, sir.” Only Kara could make that sound insolent. She saluted him, holding herself as rigidly as a cadet just out of basic. Her eyes were fixed on the wall above his head.
Lee sighed, knowing the torture had only just begun for both of them. “At ease, Lieutenant.” He cast about for something to say. “Dad didn’t tell you I was his CAG, did he?”
She dropped the salute, but still wouldn’t look him in the eye. “No, sir.” Her tone was icy and her expression unreadable, though Lee was sure she was not at all happy to have been put in this situation.
Kara continued to stand in stiff silence, looking anywhere but at him for a full thirty seconds more before Lee gave in and addressed the subject at hand. “Frak, Kara, how long are we going to pretend to have nothing to say to each other?”
Finally, she looked at him. “You might have something to say, Lee, but I can’t think of a thing I want to say to you.”
He resisted the urge to shake her. “Don’t you think maybe we should discuss our common interest?”
“Common interest?” she mocked. “Is that what we’re going to call him? Well, your ‘common interest’ and I have been doing perfectly well for the last five and a half years without your input. What makes you think you could have anything relevant to say now?”
He had to fight hard not grind his teeth. He might have known she wouldn’t make this easy. “Does he know that I’m his father?”
She actually laughed at that. “You’re not his father.”
Lee blinked in surprise. “What?”
“Sure he’s got your DNA,” she explained. “Too frakking much of it sometimes, but you’re not his father. You chose not to be.”
“I do have some rights here, Kara,” he challenged.
“You think so? You walked away, Lee. The way I see it you didn’t want any of those rights.”
He resisted the urge to correct her; figuratively speaking he had walked away first, even though she’d been the one to actually leave.
Lee closed his eyes, took two calming breaths and played his trump card. “What about my Dad? You don’t think he’d like to know he has a grandson?”
“I think he’d like it very much,” she replied coolly. “You know what, Lee? As soon as you’re ready to tell your old man, you go right ahead.”
He hadn’t actually realised he was bluffing until she called it. Or maybe she was bluffing his bluff. Either way, he knew she had him. The thought of admitting what he’d done, of his father looking at him with the same revulsion as Kara did, was too much. He let his head sag into his hands, his fight gone. Ashamed as it made him to admit even to himself, he knew that he wasn’t going to come clean. He was going to let things stay as they were.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so,” Kara spat. “Let’s just keep things professional here; you’re the CAG and I’m here to train your pilots. My son has nothing to do with you.”
His jaw tightened at the accusation in her tone. This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? “Fine,” he agreed through clenched teeth. “Here’s your first batch of nuggets.” He handed her the clipboard. “Report to the briefing room at 0900 tomorrow for your first class. Dismissed.”
She saluted lazily this time; staring him down, eyebrow cocked insolently in the knowledge that she’d won this round.
~ * ~
Despite their agreement, Lee knew it was not going to be that easy. He sat in his office afterwards trying to figure out just how this was going to work.
Sebastian would be living aboard ship with Kara. To say Lee’s feelings about this were mixed would be an understatement of gargantuan proportions. For starters, although he hadn’t even admitted it to himself, he was frankly terrified his father was going to find out what he’d done-to Zak and to Kara. Secondly, he knew next to nothing about children so it was probably a good thing Kara would not likely be letting him near her son anytime soon.
Thirdly, he was curious. Insatiably curious. The short time he’d had to get a look at the boy on the hangar deck just wasn’t enough. Lee wanted to know how much his son was like him. Was it just the eyes and a few other physical features? Did he have Kara’s rebellious streak? Had he missed having a dad around? Lee feared so-he had at the same age. And he at least had had birthday cards and guilt-gifts and infrequent visits to let him know that he was thought of at least some of the time. Sebastian had nothing but whatever explanations Kara had made up for him.
For all he’d complained about his own father’s lack of parenting skills, he was a thousand times worse. He honestly didn’t know which way was up at this point. He felt sick at the idea of his son living so close while he pretended there was nothing between them but the alternative might even be worse - turn the poor kid’s world upside down now and then turn out to be an utter failure at fatherhood and disappoint him even more.
He’d hoped they could come to some sort of arrangement, thought he could get to know the boy gradually and maybe earn Kara’s forgiveness-but he’d offered the olive branch, and she’d stomped on it.
It was time he faced facts: she was never going to forgive him. And perhaps she shouldn’t-after all, their previous association had been nothing but a series of bad decisions, awful timing and tragic consequences.
~ * ~
Six Years Earlier:
Trust Kara to pick a sleazy dive like this to drown her sorrows. Zak had died two months ago today and Lee had gone to Kara’s apartment to make sure she was okay. Only she hadn’t been there. Not that it had been difficult to track her down - he’d just checked all the bars in close proximity to her flat, working his way outwards in concentric circles. She was in the third one.
He picked his way past the pool tables and the plastic pot plants to find her belly up to the bar and nursing a glass of ambrosia. It clearly wasn’t her first of the evening. She must have sensed his approach because she turned. “Leee,” she hummed, drawing it out drunkenly. “Where have you been?”
Kara could hold her drink like no one else he’d ever met so for her to be this intoxicated meant that she’d likely been at it for most of the afternoon as well as the evening. He felt a pang of guilt - he had been avoiding her lately. She was Zak’s girl; he had to keep reminding himself of that. He couldn’t let her get too close.
Unfortunately that was much easier said than done. His feelings were getting more and more difficult to hide, especially since the evening of Zak’s wake. She’d turned to him for comfort and he hadn’t been able to refuse her. And even though he was perfectly well aware he was acting as a stand in for his brother, he had allowed her to use him.
Kara threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. “I knew you’d come find me,” she whispered.
It was true what they said. One bite of the apple was never enough.
“Don’t I always?” he replied and wondered that he didn’t sound as bitter about it as he felt.
“You do, Lee,” she agreed. “I can always rely on you.”
Her smile broke his heart. “C’mon Kara,” he said. “Let’s get you home.”
She shook her head. “Don’t be like that, Lee,” she protested. “Have a drink with me.” She tossed back the rest of her glass and turned as if to order another.
Lee shook his head at the barkeep and took Kara by the shoulder. “You’ve had enough already, Kara. Come home with me now.”
She was unsteady on her feet so he hooked her arm around his neck and held her by the waist, trying not to let her proximity affect him. He might just as well have tried to make his heart stop beating.
Kara dozed in the car so when Lee pulled up outside her building, he had to shake her awake. “Kara? You’re home.”
“No, I’m all right here,” she murmured.
“You can’t stay in the car, Kara. Come on.”
She was still not responding so he walked around to her door and opened it. Getting one arm behind her shoulders, he pulled her upright. “Put your feet down Kara, come on,” he encouraged.
Finally she seemed to perk up enough to hold at least some of her own weight and he helped her into the flat, got her into bed and started pulling off her boots. Kara undid her trousers and he helped her out of those too.
Lee pulled the blanket over her and stood up to leave but she had hold of his hand. “Stay, Lee. Please.”
“Of course I will,” he promised. “I’ll make up a bed on your couch.”
“No,” she shook her head and tugged on the arm she still held. “Stay here with me.”
Gods, she was wanton and delectable and… drunk. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Kara,” he protested.
“I’m afraid to be alone, Lee,” she admitted. “Please,” she whispered.
It was the please that persuaded him. Somehow she knew he couldn’t say no to her. Lee sighed and toed off his boots, but kept his pants on. He climbed into the bed and pulled her close.
~ * ~
Lee wasn’t sure how much later it was when he awoke. He still had his arms around Kara but she had drawn closer in the night, burying her head in his shoulder and throwing one leg over his.
Her proximity was making him feel things that were not at all appropriate. Her body was moulded to his which was not helping in the least-he needed to control his physical response before she woke up and caught him out.
He began to run a viper maintenance checklist in his head but it was too late, she was already stirring. Gods, she stretched out like a cat and he could barely stop himself from rubbing against her in the same way. Carefully he tried to pull away.
“Lee,” she murmured sleepily. “Don’t go.” Her arms around him tightened as her hand began to wander.
Lee caught her hand before it could undo the button on his trousers. “No Kara, I can’t. We can’t.”
“Lee, I want you,” Kara whispered. She propped herself up on one elbow and locked gazes with him. “I need you,” she continued, bending her head to kiss him. “Please.” Despite his resolve not to let this happen between them again, Lee felt his resistance fall away.
He let go of her hand, and felt her smile against his lips. She was squirming against him again, and it took her bare seconds to get his pants off him.
The territory of her body was familiar to him even though he’d only traversed it once before. He mapped it with his eyes and his hands and his lips, etching all the plains and valleys of her face into his memory.
She looked so serene when she came that it broke his heart a little bit. Even though he felt like he was betraying Zak every time he touched her, if this was what she needed to ease her sorrow then he would give it to her.
He was surprised when she pulled away from him immediately afterwards.
“Kara?” he asked as she pulled her clothes back on.
“I’m sorry, Lee. I shouldn’t have made you do that,” she murmured, not looking at him.
He sighed. “You didn’t make me do anything.”
She silenced him with a look. “I have to tell you something about Zak. And you’ll probably never want to speak to me again afterwards.”
He opened his mouth to assure her that nothing she could say would have that effect but something in her face stopped him.
“I killed him, Lee.” She turned sad eyes up at him. “It wasn’t your dad, it was me. He busted three of the test manoeuvres but I went easy on him.”
Lee couldn’t comprehend what she was telling him. “What are you saying, Kara?”
“I’m saying he should never have passed Basic Flight and I knew that but I let him through anyway. And it killed him. I couldn’t crush his dreams and it killed him.”
Lee felt as if he’d been hit by a freight train. “Why… why are you telling me this now?” he choked out, trying to figure out what to do with this new information.
“Zak wouldn’t want you to hate your dad,” she whispered in reply. “So hate me instead.”
~ * ~
When Lee entered the briefing room, Kara was giving her nuggets the dressing down of a lifetime. A little over the top perhaps but he wasn’t going to question her teaching methods.
Until she told them, in all seriousness, to pack their gear and get off her ship.
He waited for the nuggets to leave before he broached the subject. “Something to report, Lieutenant?” he asked.
The look she gave him in return was antagonistic if not downright insubordinate. “Not a thing, sir.” She finished gathering up her paperwork and brushed past him to the door.
He followed her into the rec room where she made a show of looking for a fresh pot of coffee and completely ignoring him though he had no doubt she knew he was there. He wanted to shake her silly. Instead he clenched his jaw and charged in, guns blazing.
“What are you doing here, Kara? You can’t wash them out on their first day.”
“I just did,” she replied, as if trainee pilots were commonplace and they could afford to pick and choose.
He felt his anger gathering in his chest. “I’ve got 40 vipers and 21 pilots, that’s it. We are sitting ducks until we finish water ops. We can’t even maintain a CAP. And gods forbid the Cylons show up.”
Finally she turned around. Insolently. “Gods forbid,” she mocked, rolling her eyes at him. “But hey, maybe I can just pass them all instead. If they don’t crash into the side of the ship at least we can use them as decoy fodder when the Cylons come back, don’t you think?”
“Don’t you bring Zak into this,” he warned.
“Why not? It’s what you’re getting at, isn’t it?” she shot back.
It was all Lee could do not to slap her. He’d not deny she had a right to be angry with him, to hold a grudge… but this was not personal. This was the safety of the fleet, and he was her commanding officer. “Lieutenant Thrace,” he emphasised the rank. “This is not a request.”
Finally he had her full attention. “Well, Captain Adama, I am the flight instructor sir. My word is scripture, sir. Those nuggets need a wake-up call, so I’m giving them one because the Cylons won’t. After they’ve stewed for a couple of hours I’ll reinstate them and those who are capable of flying without getting their asses blown off on the first run will be available to you for CAP when and if I give my say so. I will not, repeat, not pass another student who isn’t ready and if those terms are unacceptable to you, you can find yourself another flight instructor.”
“Better late than never, I suppose.” He knew he shouldn’t before the words even came out of his mouth but she’d been spitting bile at him since the moment she’d come aboard and frankly he’d reached his breaking point.
He felt the sting of her slap before he even saw her arm move. “Frak you,” she whispered.
“You already tried that,” he sneered.
The look in her eyes was murderous as she paused for a fraction of a second in disbelief. Then she turned and stalked out, jaw set and eyes suspiciously moist.
That went well, Lee, he told himself. Nicely done.
~ * ~
“Captain, a moment if you wouldn’t mind?”
Lee paused on his way out of the morning briefing. Bill Adama waited until the room was empty before turning to his son. “How’s Kara settling in?”
Lee blinked. “Uh, she seems okay, I guess.”
An uncharacteristic smile crossed his dad’s face. “Her boy is really something, isn’t he? When he saluted us in the hangar bay, I couldn’t help but remember you at the same age.”
Lee blinked, surprised. For a moment he thought he’d been found out and a jolt of fear shot through him. He swallowed carefully and searched his father’s face for any sign the old man knew the truth. “I don’t really remember,” he murmured uncomfortably.
“You would salute me every time I shipped out,” Bill remembered. “I wanted to give you a hug but it seemed disrespectful when you were trying so hard to be a soldier about it all. And Zak, of course, followed your lead.”
Lee swallowed past the lump in his throat and Bill continued, oblivious.
“I was going to invite them to join us for dinner in my quarters tomorrow night-”
“Uh, I can’t actually, Dad,” Lee interrupted. “I have a meeting with the president at 1800.”
Bill raised an eyebrow at being cut off so abruptly and Lee realised his too-quick answer had given him away.
“As I was saying,” the commander continued, “I wanted to invite her but when I brought the subject up she seemed very reluctant. I was going to ask if you had any idea why but now I know that you do. What’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going on.” It was a perfectly futile denial and Lee knew it.
Bill Adama fixed his son with a stern look. “If the CAG and the flight instructor have a personal issue that’s likely to interfere with their duties, as commander of this ship I need to know about it.”
“There’s no issue, sir,” Lee emphasised.
“Son,” Bill sighed. “I wasn’t born yesterday. And while as your father it may be none of my business, as your commanding officer I need to know my people can put their personal differences aside.”
“We can,” Lee insisted.
“That’s not what I hear. Scuttlebutt has it the two of you had somewhat of a showdown in the rec room yesterday afternoon,” Bill pressed.
Lee took a deep breath. He couldn’t tell the truth so he settled for a half-truth. “She came to see me,” he confessed. “Six years ago. She told me she was pregnant, asked for my help and I refused her. I said it was a betrayal of Zak’s memory and all but told her to terminate it. She left and when I called her a couple of days later to apologise, she’d gone.”
Bill looked at his son for a long moment, his disappointment evident. “Do you still feel that way? That she betrayed Zak?”
Lee sighed. It was far too complicated a question to answer. On the face of it, yes, he still did believe his relationship with Kara was a betrayal of Zak. But he’d never laid the betrayal at her door, only his own. “I don’t know,” he said at last.
“People deal with their grief in different ways, son. Zak wouldn’t begrudge her that.”
He knew his father was right but it didn’t help the situation. “I tried to apologise,” he admitted. “She wasn’t interested and I don’t see what else I can do.”
“You said some hurtful things,” Bill observed. “They don’t just go away when you apologise. You’re going to have to live with that.” He fixed Lee with a stern look. “Regardless, I expect both of you to behave professionally.”
Lee looked away, feeling that he’d gotten off lightly. “Understood, sir,” he conceded.
“I believe we are both due in CIC,” Bill continued, gesturing to the door.
~ * ~
When they reached CIC, Kara’s voice was filling the comms as she took her nuggets through some basic manoeuvres. Lee couldn’t help but smile to himself - she was a good instructor.
“Holy frak, we’ve got incoming.” Her voice cut through the CIC like a knife and the smile fell instantly from Lee’s face.
“Dradis, multiple contacts,” Gaeta confirmed. “It’s the Cylons.”
“Launch the alert fighters,” Lee ordered, heart pounding in his chest. It would take them at least two minutes to get to her and she was alone out there besides three nuggets who would likely be more of a liability than anything else.
“They’re gaining,” Gaeta warned.
Kara must have realised it too because they heard her say, “Listen up nuggets. Stay together and keep your throttles firewalled until you hit that deck.”
Lee stared at the Dradis read and was sure it must be playing up. Kara’s viper was no longer headed toward Galactica; instead it was accelerating towards the raider formation.
“What’s she doing?” his father asked, horrified.
“She’s going to take on all eight and get herself killed,” Tigh muttered.
Lee’s eyes widened as he realised it was true.
~ * ~
Forward to Chapter Five
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