Title: Normal
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Pairing: Lee/Kara, kind of
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None
Summary: This is her favorite time of day.
This is her favorite time of day, Kara thinks lazily, her eyes just barely cracked open in the dim, red light of the bunkroom. The room is still on night-time lighting; reveille hasn’t sounded yet, but Lee’s alarm went off ten minutes ago. He keeps it on low, just a soft beep-beep-beep that she thinks is barely enough to wake any tired pilot, but it’s enough for Lee, and lately it’s enough for her, too. She tells herself it’s because she’s not sleeping well. That she’s on edge. Ready to be called into action at any moment. That deep sleep isn’t a luxury she has anymore.
But that theory will hold no weight when she sleeps through the blare of reveille about ten minutes from now.
No, the truth is, she wakes up for this.
Lee is standing in front of his locker, toweling off from his shower. He’s turned just right so she can’t see the goods, but she lets half-lidded eyes trace over the shape of his shoulder, the way it tapers to his waist. And then he’s pulling on boxer briefs, and turning just slightly until she can see his profile perfectly. Something about the light in that corner of the room makes him nothing but silhouette. A pillar of dark in a dim, red room. It reminds her of dressing in the light of dawn after a long, sweaty Caprican summer night. It reminds her of a time before artificial light was the best they could do.
She watches him pull on his dress blues - tanks first, then pants. Watches the way he threads his belt through the loops, the way he doesn’t bother to look down as he does it. He could suit up into dress blues in pitch dark and not have a buckle or button out of place, she’s sure of it.
He shrugs into the jacket, and her eyes feel heavier, her limbs are sinking deeper into the mattress, like her body knows this break in sleep is almost over. She watches as he flips buttons closed, gives the jacket a tug, straightens his pips.
Her eyes drop shut as he presses his locker door shut, quietly, so as not to wake anyone.
She doesn’t know why she wakes up for this every day, why she likes to watch him dress.
Maybe, she thinks, it’s because it’s just so damned… normal.
Even at the end of the world, a guy’s gotta get up in the morning and put his pants on one leg at a time, y’know?
Maybe it’s just because it’s Lee.
She doesn’t have much time to think about it before she’s sound asleep again.