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A whole mess of fics! Wooo!
All of these were written for bsg_epics's Truth or Dare Inspiration Day!
Title: Checking In
Date posted: 01-10-12
Fandom: BSG
Disclaimer: These characters definitely don't belong to me, but instead RDM.
Spoilers: Up to and including the finale.
Notes: Written when sira01 prompted 'Caprica/Gaius - Kara'
They never see their own angels again, but once, when they're having a celebration for their first successful harvest, they see Kara Thrace.
She's standing at the tree-line, observing- the motley array of instruments they've culled together to make music, the bonfire that's roaring in the middle of the square, the long table that holds the fruits of their labors, the couples dancing and the enamored asking their crushes to join them. Caprica and Gaius are sitting off to the side, holding their baby daughter, who is clapping along merrily to the spoons and gourds and the lone fiddle that's being played.
"Do you see..." Caprica asks, and Gaius nods. Kara looks beautiful, wistful and proud and happy at once, and in a blink of an eye, she was gone.
Title: Under pressure
Date posted: 01-10-12
Fandom: BSG
Disclaimer: These characters definitely don't belong to me, but instead RDM.
Spoilers: Up to the end of season three.
Notes: Written when astreamofstars prompted 'Baltar, whiteboard.'
Laura's beloved whiteboard is his least favorite feature of his office. It is a torment to see how many people depend on him, how large the number is to manage, how small it is for a population. He's done the calculations, he knows how high the stakes are.
Gaeta looks like he wants to protest his request to take it down, but he keeps quiet.
Title: Observations
Date posted: 01-10-12
Fandom: BSG
Disclaimer: These characters definitely don't belong to me, but instead RDM.
Spoilers: Up to the end of season four.
Notes: Written when deborah_judge requested 'D'Anna/Dee on Earth!'
The humans all look stunned, but only one looks as devastated as D'Anna feels herself. She's beautiful in her heartbreak- the tragic way she kneels in the surf, the quiver of her jaw, the way her hands tremble. That is humanity, D'Anna finds herself thinking, the inability to overcome decimation.
She wishes that the woman would stay on Earth with her. She's sure they would have much to talk about.
Title: and we fly just like birds of a feather
Date posted: 01-10-12
Fandom: BSG
Disclaimer: These characters definitely don't belong to me, but instead RDM.
Spoilers: Up to and including the finale.
Notes: Written when lostinapapercup requested 'Caprica & Sonja on Earth post-canon!' because clearly she loves me. Title from Sister Sledge's "We Are Family."
Sonja knows that her settlement has the highest number of Sixes of any of them- she knows this because she helped divide her siblings up amongst the human population, scattered across this large, solitary planet- but sometimes the group of them seems so small she nearly wants to cry.
It's hard to see any of her sisters with regularity. Shelly's taken up medicine and helps Doc Cottle go on rounds, Jane trades between their settlement and one up in the mountains, and Claire seems to be the only one who can make the most finicky crops grow. Lida spends most of her days surveying the territory with the team, and Caprica's daughter is young, and the Baltar homestead is a distance from the village.
But Sonja is determined. When Jane comes back, she gives Sonja a report on the other village, and she sits close to her sister and holds her hand so she can see the town in the cradle of the mountain peaks. Shelly regales her with stories about her medical adventures when they have lunch every sixth day. She stops by Claire's garden when she leaves the tent that serves as her office and asks which plants are growing best, and Lida's lyrical reports always brighten her days. However, despite how much she loves all of her sisters, the one she enjoys visiting with the most is Caprica.
Caprica has the most insight to humans. Sonja can discuss the settlement and its development with her sister and gain enlightenment as they sip their tea. It's easier to ask her questions than to look weak in front of the humans, and more fun to come out here, where there's a nice fire in the hearth and a baby niece who exclaims "So!" when she sees her. They sit together and discuss the behavior of the humans that surround them, and it's so different than training for their mission, or the anthropological discussions they had after New Caprica. On Earth, they discuss humans as their equals.
One day, out of the blue, Caprica says, "I'm glad you're here, Sonja."
The baby is standing in her lap, patting her face sweetly, and the sun is streaming in through the small window. There is a whole world out there to discover and manage, and her sisters around her. "Me, too."
Title: Patchwork
Date posted: 01-10-12
Fandom: BSG
Disclaimer: These characters definitely don't belong to me, but instead RDM.
Spoilers: Up to and including the finale.
Notes: Written when wishflsinfl requested "Caprica/Ellen - common ground." Title from the quote, "A mother's heart is a patchwork of love."
The only time Saul has ever mentioned Caprica was when they were abandoning Galactica. He was poring over the shuttle schedules, and the names of the personnel on board, his mutters growing darker and darker the later the shuttles got. "What is it, Saul?" Ellen had asked.
"Caprica's not on these lists," he growled, angrily flipping another page over.
"No one's going to be left behind," she told him soothingly, putting a hand on his shoulder. "You probably just missed her name."
"There." He stabbed the list angrily, where Caprica's name had the misfortune of being on the second to last shuttle off. "She would've had higher priority if she had been a prisoner still."
"Well, she's not," Ellen reminded him. This is the most he's ever spoken to her about Caprica. He had never once gone to visit her since Liam had died, and every time they had talked about the baby, her name had been conspicuously absent. Ellen had visited Caprica in sickbay, and she hoped that they were building a rapport, but she couldn't be sure.
The shuttle list didn't matter, because then they were going on a mission to rescue little Hera, and Caprica crossed the line with eyes like agony and Ellen's heart ached with worry. The next time she saw Caprica, the pain in her eyes has been replaced with purpose, and Gaius Baltar hovered at her elbow.
Once on earth, she only saw Caprica from a distance- pushing her hair out of her face as she helps build a fence, furrowing her brow as she discusses something with another Six, smiling as she walks with Baltar, their hands linked- until one day Ellen went down to the riverbanks to do some laundry and saw Caprica there.
"Good morning, Caprica," Ellen said, continuing down to the water, and Caprica looked up, her curls like a crown in the sun.
"You always know it's me," she said instead of a greeting. "How?"
Ellen shrugged. "You're all unique."
And they were, with their mannerisms and expressions, the slight variations in tone, just as Ellen had intended. All of her children were special.
Caprica went back to her washing, but her presence didn't antagonize her as it might have once, and the next week, Caprica was there. They talked about the weather, and goings on in town, but never about the men they loved, and this careful truce went on for months. The weather grew warmer, and so did the conversation until finally Caprica looked Ellen in the eye and said, "I know what happened wasn't your fault."
She meant Liam, of course. Liam was always between them. Ellen nodded. For a moment it looked like Caprica was going to turn tail and leave, but instead she set her jaw and said, "Gaius and I are having a baby."
For a moment, Ellen felt the emerald haze of jealousy cloud her vision, as it had so often on the Colonies when children had been mentioned. It abated when she remembered that this was her child, the one standing in front of her that had her hair and her smile. "Congratulations, sweetheart," Ellen said warmly, and she meant every word.
Written for 13th_tribe's Ficlet Day when the topic was 'projection.'
Title: Love is reaching, reaching love
Date posted: 01-19-12
Fandom: BSG
Disclaimer: These characters definitely don't belong to me, but instead RDM.
Word Count: 688
Characters: Leoben, Natalie
Spoilers: Up to 'Sine qua non.'
Notes: Title from John Lennon's 'Love.'
As he walks down the hall to their bedroom, he imagines the street in front of Natalie's house on Gemenon. He had never been there, but she had shown him- her pale green bungalow with the white trim, the porch just sagging and plants suspended over the rails, modest and close to the ground and hers. Up the stairs to the shaded entry way, where the decor is sparse but sweet, past the sky blue kitchen and the cotton candy pink bathroom. Her bed is unmade, the lavender sheets rumpled, and he thinks, She'll never make this bed.
It's a ridiculous thought. Her bed was back on the Colonies as she left it that day, sheets molding in the muggy Gemenon summer, the lush foliage unchecked and covering her window, or else obliterated by a bomb. Natalie was never going to touch this bed again, except in their projections, and when Natalie led them, the bed was made with crisp sheets, pillows plumped and arranged, a quilt folded at the foot. "What was it really like?" he's asked a dozen times, nudging her with his shoulders. As dedicated to order and progress as she was in her activism, Natalie was terrible at keeping their room neat. The bed was always left as it was when she arose, her towels in lumps on chairs or the floor. She took better care with her clothes, but only because she wouldn't walk around in wrinkled pants.
Here, though, the light in streaming through the leaves, and he steps over abandoned shoes to reach her desk, stacked high with paper. Her calendar was months behind, and his heart throbs anxiously in his chest at the sight, the imperfections she can no longer right.
He turns to the bed and walks around to his side, easing onto it. Natalie's pillow still has her scent, and he hugs it to his chest reverently.
Natalie is dead, he tells himself. She cannot come back. He's waiting for her, even though he knows it's impossible. He feels as though he's suspended in air, in time: every step in the hall could be her, every Six in the distance might be her approaching. Every glint against honeyed hair, every tall, slim shadow. Come back, he thinks, aware how futile it is.
He hasn't cried. He won't. It's too vast, this loss, too bottomless and wide for tears to help. The magnitude of what they have sacrificed beats against his skull. He never dreamed they’d lose her.
She had shown him her bungalow after the seventh time they had made love. The first time was a surprise and the second a mistake and the third, fourth and fifth times had been too passionate to think of anything but what they were doing. The sixth time Leoben had taken her out of the baseship and into his apartment on Tauron- she had asked, he had consented. He had shown her the rickety stairs and the cracked enamel sink in his room, the cloudy glass of his window and the metal frame of his narrow bed. She had proclaimed it tragic as she covered them with his thin plaid blanket and curled up against his chest. Nothing had seemed tragic then.
The seventh time, the first night she stayed with him, she showed him where she had lived. There was floral wallpaper and fence and Natalie's sweet sigh as she pulled him down into bed with her. She was different here- softer, less burdened. Her forehead was smooth and her smiles more frequent and she would kiss him as the light outside changed her skin from noon gold to midnight ivory. What little time they spent here was within their control, unlike the rebellion or the tentative alliance with the humans.
He needs to go back out there, to see that her work isn’t undone in her absence, but right now, while his heart aches with a longing he can’t comprehend, he inhales deeply, surrounded by her.
And, appearing for the first time:
Title: Chicken Soup for the Pilots' soul.
Date posted: 01-20-12
Fandom: BSG
Disclaimer: These characters definitely don't belong to me, but instead RDM.
Word Count: 520
Spoilers: None!
Notes: Written for rayruz, who plaintively tweeted “I REALLY WANT LEE TAKING CARE OF SICK!KARA RIGHT FRAKKING NOW,” and I thought, hey, I can do that!
"I heard you scared everyone out," Lee said as he walked into the officers' quarters.
"Yeah, well, viral plague will do that," Kara replied from her bunk. Her voice was both hoarse and congested. "Sure you want to come this close? The whole area is quarantined."
"It's good that you're handling this so nobly. No dramatics here." As he approached, he noticed Kara's pallor, and the fleet of wadded up tissues that surrounded her. She had kicked all the blankets off, and her Galactica-issued sweatshirt was balled up by her pillow. "Been fighting with your sheets again?"
"It happens," Kara started, and then coughed. "Have to do something to keep entertained, since Cottle grounded me."
"Totally unreasonably," Lee said dryly. Reports on how Starbuck had disrupted the briefing with her coughing and nose-blowing were all over Galactica.
"Absolutely unreasonably. I could fly just fine. I'm the best pilot--" The rest of her dispute was lost in a coughing fit, and despite himself Lee found himself trying to casually cover his nose and mouth.
"Oh, real brave, Apollo," Kara said, elegantly spitting into another tissue that she tossed to the side. "Why're you here?"
"Thought you might like some company. And maybe some tea."
Kara arched an eyebrow. "You brought me tea."
"I thought it make you feel better. Who doesn't like tea?"
"Anyone under the age of fifty?"
Bristling, Lee replied, "I like tea when I'm sick. I'm sorry I disturbed your rest--"
"-- No," Kara cut in, "I've never had tea with a cold. Maybe it'll be a revelation. Hand it over." She sat up and reached for it, looking a little unsteady by no less determined.
"It's just hot water in the mug," he warned her as he handed it to her, "I got the teabag from my dad."
She gave him a look. "Am I dying?"
"What?"
"You went to your dad to ask for little bag of herbs for me. Am I dying?"
"Shut up and drop it in. Leave the little string--"
"Out of the mug. I got this, Apollo." She leaned back against the bulkhead and cradled the mug in her hands. "It feels good to hold it. It's hot."
"Do you have a fever?"
She shrugged. "Probably."
Lee wanted to ask if she's taking anything, but thought better of it. Sickbay was pretty tight on medicine, and Starbuck's as healthy as they come. If she wasn’t admitted, she couldn't be too sick.
"It's just a cold," Kara told him, as though she could see his thoughts. "Don't worry about me."
"I worry."
Kara took a sip of her tea rather than answer. "Mm. It feels good to swallow." She pauses for a few seconds, and starts to cover just as Lee starts to laugh. "Shut up, I meant the tea."
"Sure you did."
"I did," Kara says, laughing and coughing at the same time. "Some company you are, talking dirty."
"I came here to make you feel better," Lee told her with a smile. "Mission accomplished."
All of these were written for bsg_epics's Truth or Dare Inspiration Day!
Title: Checking In
Date posted: 01-10-12
Fandom: BSG
Disclaimer: These characters definitely don't belong to me, but instead RDM.
Spoilers: Up to and including the finale.
Notes: Written when sira01 prompted 'Caprica/Gaius - Kara'
They never see their own angels again, but once, when they're having a celebration for their first successful harvest, they see Kara Thrace.
She's standing at the tree-line, observing- the motley array of instruments they've culled together to make music, the bonfire that's roaring in the middle of the square, the long table that holds the fruits of their labors, the couples dancing and the enamored asking their crushes to join them. Caprica and Gaius are sitting off to the side, holding their baby daughter, who is clapping along merrily to the spoons and gourds and the lone fiddle that's being played.
"Do you see..." Caprica asks, and Gaius nods. Kara looks beautiful, wistful and proud and happy at once, and in a blink of an eye, she was gone.
Title: Under pressure
Date posted: 01-10-12
Fandom: BSG
Disclaimer: These characters definitely don't belong to me, but instead RDM.
Spoilers: Up to the end of season three.
Notes: Written when astreamofstars prompted 'Baltar, whiteboard.'
Laura's beloved whiteboard is his least favorite feature of his office. It is a torment to see how many people depend on him, how large the number is to manage, how small it is for a population. He's done the calculations, he knows how high the stakes are.
Gaeta looks like he wants to protest his request to take it down, but he keeps quiet.
Title: Observations
Date posted: 01-10-12
Fandom: BSG
Disclaimer: These characters definitely don't belong to me, but instead RDM.
Spoilers: Up to the end of season four.
Notes: Written when deborah_judge requested 'D'Anna/Dee on Earth!'
The humans all look stunned, but only one looks as devastated as D'Anna feels herself. She's beautiful in her heartbreak- the tragic way she kneels in the surf, the quiver of her jaw, the way her hands tremble. That is humanity, D'Anna finds herself thinking, the inability to overcome decimation.
She wishes that the woman would stay on Earth with her. She's sure they would have much to talk about.
Title: and we fly just like birds of a feather
Date posted: 01-10-12
Fandom: BSG
Disclaimer: These characters definitely don't belong to me, but instead RDM.
Spoilers: Up to and including the finale.
Notes: Written when lostinapapercup requested 'Caprica & Sonja on Earth post-canon!' because clearly she loves me. Title from Sister Sledge's "We Are Family."
Sonja knows that her settlement has the highest number of Sixes of any of them- she knows this because she helped divide her siblings up amongst the human population, scattered across this large, solitary planet- but sometimes the group of them seems so small she nearly wants to cry.
It's hard to see any of her sisters with regularity. Shelly's taken up medicine and helps Doc Cottle go on rounds, Jane trades between their settlement and one up in the mountains, and Claire seems to be the only one who can make the most finicky crops grow. Lida spends most of her days surveying the territory with the team, and Caprica's daughter is young, and the Baltar homestead is a distance from the village.
But Sonja is determined. When Jane comes back, she gives Sonja a report on the other village, and she sits close to her sister and holds her hand so she can see the town in the cradle of the mountain peaks. Shelly regales her with stories about her medical adventures when they have lunch every sixth day. She stops by Claire's garden when she leaves the tent that serves as her office and asks which plants are growing best, and Lida's lyrical reports always brighten her days. However, despite how much she loves all of her sisters, the one she enjoys visiting with the most is Caprica.
Caprica has the most insight to humans. Sonja can discuss the settlement and its development with her sister and gain enlightenment as they sip their tea. It's easier to ask her questions than to look weak in front of the humans, and more fun to come out here, where there's a nice fire in the hearth and a baby niece who exclaims "So!" when she sees her. They sit together and discuss the behavior of the humans that surround them, and it's so different than training for their mission, or the anthropological discussions they had after New Caprica. On Earth, they discuss humans as their equals.
One day, out of the blue, Caprica says, "I'm glad you're here, Sonja."
The baby is standing in her lap, patting her face sweetly, and the sun is streaming in through the small window. There is a whole world out there to discover and manage, and her sisters around her. "Me, too."
Title: Patchwork
Date posted: 01-10-12
Fandom: BSG
Disclaimer: These characters definitely don't belong to me, but instead RDM.
Spoilers: Up to and including the finale.
Notes: Written when wishflsinfl requested "Caprica/Ellen - common ground." Title from the quote, "A mother's heart is a patchwork of love."
The only time Saul has ever mentioned Caprica was when they were abandoning Galactica. He was poring over the shuttle schedules, and the names of the personnel on board, his mutters growing darker and darker the later the shuttles got. "What is it, Saul?" Ellen had asked.
"Caprica's not on these lists," he growled, angrily flipping another page over.
"No one's going to be left behind," she told him soothingly, putting a hand on his shoulder. "You probably just missed her name."
"There." He stabbed the list angrily, where Caprica's name had the misfortune of being on the second to last shuttle off. "She would've had higher priority if she had been a prisoner still."
"Well, she's not," Ellen reminded him. This is the most he's ever spoken to her about Caprica. He had never once gone to visit her since Liam had died, and every time they had talked about the baby, her name had been conspicuously absent. Ellen had visited Caprica in sickbay, and she hoped that they were building a rapport, but she couldn't be sure.
The shuttle list didn't matter, because then they were going on a mission to rescue little Hera, and Caprica crossed the line with eyes like agony and Ellen's heart ached with worry. The next time she saw Caprica, the pain in her eyes has been replaced with purpose, and Gaius Baltar hovered at her elbow.
Once on earth, she only saw Caprica from a distance- pushing her hair out of her face as she helps build a fence, furrowing her brow as she discusses something with another Six, smiling as she walks with Baltar, their hands linked- until one day Ellen went down to the riverbanks to do some laundry and saw Caprica there.
"Good morning, Caprica," Ellen said, continuing down to the water, and Caprica looked up, her curls like a crown in the sun.
"You always know it's me," she said instead of a greeting. "How?"
Ellen shrugged. "You're all unique."
And they were, with their mannerisms and expressions, the slight variations in tone, just as Ellen had intended. All of her children were special.
Caprica went back to her washing, but her presence didn't antagonize her as it might have once, and the next week, Caprica was there. They talked about the weather, and goings on in town, but never about the men they loved, and this careful truce went on for months. The weather grew warmer, and so did the conversation until finally Caprica looked Ellen in the eye and said, "I know what happened wasn't your fault."
She meant Liam, of course. Liam was always between them. Ellen nodded. For a moment it looked like Caprica was going to turn tail and leave, but instead she set her jaw and said, "Gaius and I are having a baby."
For a moment, Ellen felt the emerald haze of jealousy cloud her vision, as it had so often on the Colonies when children had been mentioned. It abated when she remembered that this was her child, the one standing in front of her that had her hair and her smile. "Congratulations, sweetheart," Ellen said warmly, and she meant every word.
Written for 13th_tribe's Ficlet Day when the topic was 'projection.'
Title: Love is reaching, reaching love
Date posted: 01-19-12
Fandom: BSG
Disclaimer: These characters definitely don't belong to me, but instead RDM.
Word Count: 688
Characters: Leoben, Natalie
Spoilers: Up to 'Sine qua non.'
Notes: Title from John Lennon's 'Love.'
As he walks down the hall to their bedroom, he imagines the street in front of Natalie's house on Gemenon. He had never been there, but she had shown him- her pale green bungalow with the white trim, the porch just sagging and plants suspended over the rails, modest and close to the ground and hers. Up the stairs to the shaded entry way, where the decor is sparse but sweet, past the sky blue kitchen and the cotton candy pink bathroom. Her bed is unmade, the lavender sheets rumpled, and he thinks, She'll never make this bed.
It's a ridiculous thought. Her bed was back on the Colonies as she left it that day, sheets molding in the muggy Gemenon summer, the lush foliage unchecked and covering her window, or else obliterated by a bomb. Natalie was never going to touch this bed again, except in their projections, and when Natalie led them, the bed was made with crisp sheets, pillows plumped and arranged, a quilt folded at the foot. "What was it really like?" he's asked a dozen times, nudging her with his shoulders. As dedicated to order and progress as she was in her activism, Natalie was terrible at keeping their room neat. The bed was always left as it was when she arose, her towels in lumps on chairs or the floor. She took better care with her clothes, but only because she wouldn't walk around in wrinkled pants.
Here, though, the light in streaming through the leaves, and he steps over abandoned shoes to reach her desk, stacked high with paper. Her calendar was months behind, and his heart throbs anxiously in his chest at the sight, the imperfections she can no longer right.
He turns to the bed and walks around to his side, easing onto it. Natalie's pillow still has her scent, and he hugs it to his chest reverently.
Natalie is dead, he tells himself. She cannot come back. He's waiting for her, even though he knows it's impossible. He feels as though he's suspended in air, in time: every step in the hall could be her, every Six in the distance might be her approaching. Every glint against honeyed hair, every tall, slim shadow. Come back, he thinks, aware how futile it is.
He hasn't cried. He won't. It's too vast, this loss, too bottomless and wide for tears to help. The magnitude of what they have sacrificed beats against his skull. He never dreamed they’d lose her.
She had shown him her bungalow after the seventh time they had made love. The first time was a surprise and the second a mistake and the third, fourth and fifth times had been too passionate to think of anything but what they were doing. The sixth time Leoben had taken her out of the baseship and into his apartment on Tauron- she had asked, he had consented. He had shown her the rickety stairs and the cracked enamel sink in his room, the cloudy glass of his window and the metal frame of his narrow bed. She had proclaimed it tragic as she covered them with his thin plaid blanket and curled up against his chest. Nothing had seemed tragic then.
The seventh time, the first night she stayed with him, she showed him where she had lived. There was floral wallpaper and fence and Natalie's sweet sigh as she pulled him down into bed with her. She was different here- softer, less burdened. Her forehead was smooth and her smiles more frequent and she would kiss him as the light outside changed her skin from noon gold to midnight ivory. What little time they spent here was within their control, unlike the rebellion or the tentative alliance with the humans.
He needs to go back out there, to see that her work isn’t undone in her absence, but right now, while his heart aches with a longing he can’t comprehend, he inhales deeply, surrounded by her.
And, appearing for the first time:
Title: Chicken Soup for the Pilots' soul.
Date posted: 01-20-12
Fandom: BSG
Disclaimer: These characters definitely don't belong to me, but instead RDM.
Word Count: 520
Spoilers: None!
Notes: Written for rayruz, who plaintively tweeted “I REALLY WANT LEE TAKING CARE OF SICK!KARA RIGHT FRAKKING NOW,” and I thought, hey, I can do that!
"I heard you scared everyone out," Lee said as he walked into the officers' quarters.
"Yeah, well, viral plague will do that," Kara replied from her bunk. Her voice was both hoarse and congested. "Sure you want to come this close? The whole area is quarantined."
"It's good that you're handling this so nobly. No dramatics here." As he approached, he noticed Kara's pallor, and the fleet of wadded up tissues that surrounded her. She had kicked all the blankets off, and her Galactica-issued sweatshirt was balled up by her pillow. "Been fighting with your sheets again?"
"It happens," Kara started, and then coughed. "Have to do something to keep entertained, since Cottle grounded me."
"Totally unreasonably," Lee said dryly. Reports on how Starbuck had disrupted the briefing with her coughing and nose-blowing were all over Galactica.
"Absolutely unreasonably. I could fly just fine. I'm the best pilot--" The rest of her dispute was lost in a coughing fit, and despite himself Lee found himself trying to casually cover his nose and mouth.
"Oh, real brave, Apollo," Kara said, elegantly spitting into another tissue that she tossed to the side. "Why're you here?"
"Thought you might like some company. And maybe some tea."
Kara arched an eyebrow. "You brought me tea."
"I thought it make you feel better. Who doesn't like tea?"
"Anyone under the age of fifty?"
Bristling, Lee replied, "I like tea when I'm sick. I'm sorry I disturbed your rest--"
"-- No," Kara cut in, "I've never had tea with a cold. Maybe it'll be a revelation. Hand it over." She sat up and reached for it, looking a little unsteady by no less determined.
"It's just hot water in the mug," he warned her as he handed it to her, "I got the teabag from my dad."
She gave him a look. "Am I dying?"
"What?"
"You went to your dad to ask for little bag of herbs for me. Am I dying?"
"Shut up and drop it in. Leave the little string--"
"Out of the mug. I got this, Apollo." She leaned back against the bulkhead and cradled the mug in her hands. "It feels good to hold it. It's hot."
"Do you have a fever?"
She shrugged. "Probably."
Lee wanted to ask if she's taking anything, but thought better of it. Sickbay was pretty tight on medicine, and Starbuck's as healthy as they come. If she wasn’t admitted, she couldn't be too sick.
"It's just a cold," Kara told him, as though she could see his thoughts. "Don't worry about me."
"I worry."
Kara took a sip of her tea rather than answer. "Mm. It feels good to swallow." She pauses for a few seconds, and starts to cover just as Lee starts to laugh. "Shut up, I meant the tea."
"Sure you did."
"I did," Kara says, laughing and coughing at the same time. "Some company you are, talking dirty."
"I came here to make you feel better," Lee told her with a smile. "Mission accomplished."