[bsg] artemis rising, part two
Part 1 here.
Artemis Rising, part 2.
The morning light hurts his eyes, and he rolls over to find the bed is empty beside him. He grimaces, then raises himself on his elbows and looks around the room.
Three meters away, Kara’s toweling her hair dry, and he looks at her - shorts and a tank, nothing he hasn’t seen her in a hundred times before, but one long make-out session later, he knows what she tastes like and she’s mesmerizing.
She turns and sees him awake and staring. Her face flushes.
“Hi,” she says, looking self-conscious and all Lee can do is stare at her mouth. Sober, and he wants her more. Frak.
“Kara,” he starts, and she turns slightly and brushes her hair back with her fingers.
“Breakfast?” she offers quickly. “I’ll pay.”
He moves experimentally and then groans. “A big breakfast. You owe me.”
“Whatever. Get up.”
He pulls a pillow over his face. It doesn’t shut out her voice.
“Gods, Lee, you are such a lightweight. Hurry up and shower, flyboy. You look like shit.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
There’s a suspiciously long pause, and then the pillow is ripped away from his face. “Shower. Now. I’m hungry.”
He gets up slowly. “I don’t know why I invited you,” he says, with all the seriousness he can muster while she’s standing there, skin glowing pink with yesterday’s sunburn.
She rolls her eyes. “I’ll just be outside.”
*
Breakfast is awkward.
So is swimming at the beach, and so is lunch - fish and chips on a little patio, facing out to sea. It’s well into the afternoon before things feel a little less stilted, and that’s only because Lee falls asleep and Kara takes great delight in pouring sand in piles all over his back.
It’s comforting to know that even while she won’t meet his eyes, she can still act like a three year old.
By the time dinner is over, Lee has a headache, and he wants one of his best friends talking to him again. He’d also like to kiss her some more, but from what he’s put together, Kara seems to think it was a mistake ranking up there with the time she got caught inside the Dean’s office with a bottle of spray paint.
It hurts. Quite a bit, if he is being honest - he likes her, and he definitely likes kissing her and he doesn’t really see any logical reason why both things can’t coexist together for an indefinite amount of time. And from what he can remember about the somewhat fuzzy events of the night before, Kara didn’t seem to be too averse to the idea either.
He has no idea what is going on in her head, but this is Kara and that’s a given ninety percent of the time.
By the time the sun has set, Lee’s sick of it and drags her out, ostensibly for a walk along the beach but really to get some time where she can’t plead any other distraction to get out of talking to him. It seems like she knows what he’s up to, though, and ten minutes later he’s gritting his teeth because she just won’t shut up. It’s like she’s trying to fill anything that could become a dangerous silence with words, and they’re at least half a click away from civilization when he finally gets a word in.
“Kara,” he starts, and she flinches.
“Hey, the water is beautiful,” she says hastily, and he just knows what’s coming next. “It’s not cold at all.”
Before he has a chance to say anything else, she shucks her shirt off and flings it carelessly away from her. Her fingers are on the tie of her shorts when she raises her head.
“Kara,” he says helplessly.
“Aren’t you coming in?” she says, and there’s too much skin around that godsdamned frakking bikini and the moonlight only emphasizes the curves that make her up. Lee swallows. Two days ago, he thinks, his body wouldn’t be reacting like it is but now -
He clears his throat and looks out to sea. “It’s dangerous.”
She snorts. “I promise we won’t go in over our heads,” she says dismissively. “Live on the edge a little, Adama.” Something hits his shoulder, and he pulls her shorts down and drops them like they burned him.
She’s already walking backwards into the surf. “Coming?”
He hesitates, but then the first wave hits her body and the way the water moves over her skin makes the decision for him. “If we drown, I’m blaming you,” he grouches, and she laughs.
“Hurry up, Lee.”
“The ocean is going nowhere.”
“Whatever.”
He strips quickly, keeps his back to her, and when he wades into the water she’s staring out at the horizon, at the moon.
“See? Wasn’t this a good idea?”
He's not quite willing to concede on that point, especially when a wave knocks him off balance and into Kara. His fingers find bare skin, and by the time he's worked out what part of her he's grabbed - her waist, thank the gods - he's been touching her a while and Kara's frozen. And he knows that if today has taught him anything, it’s that Kara thinks that any kind of close contact is a mistake, but he wants her and maybe it’s worth one more try.
He can barely make out anything - her back is now to the moon, and so he can’t see the expression on her face as he slides his hands up her arms to her shoulders to her neck to her cheeks so he can hold her still. She doesn’t protest, and for a moment they stand there, water washing around them, and he feels almost paralyzed with indecision.
Then Kara shifts, and he feels her hands land on his shoulders and she’s not pushing him away.
“Lee?” she says, almost an exhale, and it’s enough of an opening and so he dips his head the last fraction of an inch and kisses her. It’s instant, Kara’s reaction - she opens her mouth against his and he tastes salt this time, and it’s last night all over again only better because there is bare skin beneath his fingers and neither of them are drunk.
A wave nearly washes both of them off balance, and Kara tightens her arms around him, one leg curling around his hip, and Lee reflects briefly that this is the best vacation ever before the feel of her becomes all he can think.
*
They take way too long to get back to their room - he keeps stopping to kiss her, and she can’t keep her hands to herself, and a few times he just stops himself from laying her down in the sand and making love to her right there on the beach. Only the promise of a more comfortable setting keeps him going, and by the time they get to their door, he can’t make the key turn in the lock, he’s so distracted. When the door is finally open, he doesn’t give her time to react, and just stops short of tackling her back onto the bed. She laughs breathlessly, shifting her legs apart, her hands coming to rest on his shoulders.
“We are covered in sand,” she tells him, her fingers running down his spine.
“There’s another bed over there,” he tells her, and pulls her up off the bed enough that he can strip her shirt from her body.
His shirt lands on top of hers, followed by the black swimsuit that has taunted him all day, and he’s fumbling with his shorts when he looks up to see her looking at him, and something about the intensity on her face makes him want to ask how long she’s felt like this about him - how long she’s watched him and wanted this.
Then she sits up and reaches for him, and the next minutes dissolve into long hot kisses, her hands sliding down his skin, the friction with the sand almost-but-not-quite-painful; his senses on overload as she writhes underneath him. Before he knows what is happening, she’s hooked her leg over his hip and has rolled him beneath her, pinning him with her weight before leaning in to kiss him.
It doesn’t take long before she’s shifting more deliberately, and before they cross that line he suddenly has to know that she’s as okay with this as he is, so he lifts one hand from her back and cups her chin, forcing her to look at him. Her cheeks and lips are red, hair disheveled and her pupils so dilated that pride flashes through him, that he can make her look like that.
“Are you sure?” he says quietly and she nods fast, and he can see desperation and lust and something softer in her eyes, and he pulls her down and kisses her hard before letting her sit up. Kara braces herself, hands on his shoulders and sinks down and takes him into her.
He’s imagined this a few times; he’s male, and she’s Starbuck and he’s pretty sure there isn’t a guy in the Academy who hasn’t had the odd dream about her. He’s also heard the stories of her prowess in bed, but this - this is nothing like any of it.
She’s almost tentative, slow - her hands gentle, careful, and she’s watching his face and body for reactions with an intensity that surprises him for the three seconds he thinks about it before her fingers drive away every shred of coherent thought. In no time at all, he’s close, so close and she’s nowhere near in comparison, and he clenches his jaw and pushes her over, pulls out of her and pins her hands next to her head.
“Not yet,” he grits out and she shivers, her legs shifting, wrapping around his hips, trying to pull him back to her. He’s just stronger.
“No?” Her voice is breathless.
“No,” he tells her, and presses a series of hot, wet kisses to her mouth, her jaw, and down her throat, until she’s squirming beneath him.
Her neck tastes like salt - the ocean, sweat, traces of sunblock that the water didn’t wash away. After a moment, he lets go of her hands, she wraps her arms around him, her fingers digging into his back. He hovers off her, leans his weight on one arm and slides his other hand down her body, a slow drag across her breasts and stomach that has her head rocking back hard into the pillows, her back arching, her hips pushing up off the bed.
Gods, he thinks, it’s the hottest thing he’s ever seen, and he’s barely started touching her.
“Lee,” she says, “Oh, Lee,” and her fingernails are now biting into his shoulders, and Lee decides that he’s going to make her say that many more times before the night is over.
*
He’s drifting in and out of consciousness when he feels her come awake underneath his arm. It’s some gods-awful hour in the morning - the last time he remembered looking at the clock, it was after three, and he stays completely still as she pulls herself carefully out of bed. She goes to the bathroom, and he hears the unmistakable sound of her brushing her teeth, then the sound of her bare feet on the floor as she makes her way back to the bed. He almost doesn’t breathe as she slides in next to him, edging slowly until her back touches his chest.
In what he hopes she will think is a sleep-soaked gesture, he hooks an arm around her waist and pulls her to him so she fits against him. She sighs, and a moment later, rests her fingers against his. Within minutes, her breathing has evened out, and her body is soft, relaxed under his arm.
He grins into the darkness.
*
This time, when he wakes up, Kara’s still asleep beside him. At some point during the last hours, she’d shifted so she’s curled up facing him, with one hand resting on the pillow between them. One of his arms is still wrapped around her, and he’d be content to lie like this for the rest of the day, but his other arm is starting to twinge with pain from the position it’s in.
He extracts it as carefully as possible, and stretches, feeling muscles he hasn’t used in a while ache pleasantly, and the movement wakes Kara, because her head tosses a bit against the pillow before her eyes open. He watches as she blinks in the sunlight, getting her bearings, and knows the exact moment all of last night comes back to her because her cheeks flush.
“Hey,” she says, and she looks a little nervous.
“Hey.” He props himself on one elbow and runs a hand down her side, over the faint tan lines starting to appear, and she rolls onto her back. Kara’s all smooth skin and toned muscle, and Lee looks down the length of her - for too long, it would seem, because Kara laughs. He feels his face go a bit red and says the first thing he can think of.
“Hungry?”
“Yes,” she says instantly, but the look she sends him hits him straight in the groin, and it’s suddenly very convenient that they didn’t put on any clothes again after last night’s efforts.
*
She slips out while he’s showering, because when he emerges there’s a newspaper and a magazine on the tiny table, and she’s putting fresh beer in the fridge. He wanders over and looks at what she’s picked up - a Caprican Daily as well as a copy of the political monthly Prospect.
He’s reaching for it when Kara turns around from the kitchenette.
“Hey, hands off,” she says, coming back to the table and taking it off him. She sinks into a seat and lays it out in front of her.
“You’re reading it?”
Her look implies how stupid a question that was, and he back-pedals.
“I mean - since when did you start reading this?”
Kara looks a bit self-conscious. “A while ago. Why?”
“Nothing,” he says, but he is honestly surprised. Not that he expected Kara to pick up the latest Colonial Style, but … Prospect?
“What?” she says, still looking edgy, and he shrugs, and reaches for the paper instead. She slaps his hand away.
“Hey!”
“Go buy your own, if you’re going to be insulting!”
“I didn’t say anything!”
She shoots him a look. “You don’t think I’m smart enough to read these.” Her tone is light, but it’s not quite a question, and he picks his response very carefully.
“Of course you’re smart enough,” he says dismissively, and Kara’s face relaxes. “I just didn’t think you were into politics.”
She snorts. “What, you thought I could listen to your boring lectures for the last year and not pick up on it?”
“Hey, now who’s being insulting - ”
“Whatever, Apollo. You could talk anyone to sleep. That’s just a fact.”
He rolls his eyes, inwardly very pleased that she’s been listening so closely to his painstakingly composed rants about the Colonial political systems.
“Kara.”
“Yes, Lee?”
“Can I please read the paper?”
“Are you making me a coffee?”
He takes that as qualified permission, and once he’s made them both coffee, he settles down with his and flicks open to the crossword, stealing glances at her when he thinks he can get away with it. She looks different to any time he’s ever seen her, engrossed in her reading, chin resting in her palm. Different, but good.
“Did you know,” she says suddenly, “That out of the twelve colonies, there are only seven that consider themselves fundamentally religious?”
“Yeah,” he says idly, trying to work out which fish of the Aegean Sea was meant by clue 4 down. “What brought that up?”
“The Leonians want a referendum over some of the wording in their constitution. They want to separate the gods and the state.”
“Yeah, I’d heard something about that.” He glances up. “Religion is nothing but trouble anyway.”
Kara’s face tightens - a warning sign Lee has seen too many times not to know what it meant. In bars, it tended to mean he was ten seconds away from watching her start a brawl.
“Well, in terms of politics,” he amends hastily, but Kara doesn’t seem too placated by that.
“Why do you say that?’ she says, far too politely, and Lee knows he’s put his foot in it.
“Just look at the mess the Colonies are in,” he says, putting his pen down. “Half of that is caused by religious differences.”
“That’s a total exaggeration. Humans were always going to fight, Lee. If it wasn’t religion, it’d be over something else.”
“So you’re saying that it’s fine that we have religion so we don’t fight about other things?”
“No. But I think it’s necessary for humanity to have something greater than themselves to believe in. Otherwise we’d be, I don’t know, dangerously arrogant. Look what happened with the Cylons.”
He can’t quite believe he’s having this discussion with Kara Thrace.
“The Cylons are a mistake that is long gone, and I still say more fighting has happened over religion than any kind of peace.”
“What about all the aid organizations that exist as part of religious organization?”
“Tell that to the people who died at Thessalonica last year.”
Kara eyes narrow at the mention of the massacre that left 1,000 civilians dead the previous summer. “That was masking a political coup and you know it, Lee.” She pauses. “You don’t believe in the gods at all, do you?”
“You do?” He can’t quite keep the surprise from his voice. Kara meets his gaze without flinching.
“Yes.”
“Did you get that from your parents?”
The minute the question is out of his mouth, he regrets it, but Kara doesn’t flinch.
“No,” she says, and then half-laughs. “Gods, no. My father was a musician. He believed in free love just like my mother believed in the Fleet.”
“Why do you believe?” he asks quietly, honestly curious and Kara hesitates. Lee wonders if he’s pushed this newfound intimacy a little too far.
When she answers, her voice has dropped so much he almost has to lean forward to hear her. “There was a Temple at the end of my street, where we lived for a while.” She shrugged. “It was a … place to go, sometimes? And I guess it’s easy to believe in something when you have nothing.”
He’s silent.
Kara shrugs after a moment, and picks up her coffee again. “Good coffee,” she offers, and he takes it for the truce it is. “Let me know when you need help on the crossword.”
“Frak off.”
*
They don’t make it outside for much of the rest of the day, which Lee is totally okay with, even if they sleep half the afternoon to make up for the night before. The first time they leave their unit for an extended amount of time is to eat dinner, which she insists they have at the little Athenian restaurant halfway up the block. She even wears a skirt, for the first time in his memory - a simple navy blue thing that swishes around her legs in a way that makes him just want to rip it off her.
The meal is torture too - watching her eat, now that he knows what that mouth can do, and he wouldn’t have been at all surprised if that had been Kara’s master plan. By the end of the main course, it’s gotten so bad that when Kara orders ice-cream for dessert, he goes to the bar and gets another beer, and when he comes back, he moves his chair around the table so he’s sitting closer to her, just so he won’t have to watch her eat.
Of course, there are other advantages to that, especially with the long tablecloths on the tables. Just as she puts the first spoonful of ice cream in her mouth, he places his hand on her knee. She starts, and he feels her leg twitch as he slides his hand up under her skirt - not too high and not too fast, running his fingers lightly over what he knows is very, very sensitive skin. He’s got about four inches before it gets really improper, and soon Kara’s worrying her lip between her teeth.
“Okay,” she says finally, and one of her hands finds his under the table and tries to lift it of her leg. “You’ve made your point.”
“What do you mean?” he says, pushing up another inch.
“Lee - ” She shifts restlessly in her seat, thighs trembling a little, and Lee smirks.
“Eat your ice cream,” he says, taking his hand away, and if looks could kill, he’d be dead. It’s so worth it, though, because Kara grabs her wallet, chucks enough on the table to cover the meal and at a thirty percent tip, and drags him out.
It’s a waste of good ice cream, but he can’t bring himself to care.
*
One thing he does notice very quickly over the next two days is that for a girl who can strip off his clothes in under a minute, Kara is really, really bad at anything resembling couple-like behavior. Lee hasn’t had too many girlfriends in his life - two, in fact - but he’s had enough to know that reaching for her hand on the way to lunch shouldn’t be anything strange. Kara reacts like a startled horse, shying away, before she shakes her head and, wincing, lets her hand swing next to his again.
He laces his fingers through hers as if there was nothing unusual in her reaction.
It takes three more times before she reaches for him first.
*
“I wonder if results are up,” he says idly. Kara doesn’t even look over from where she’s reading the paper, lying on her stomach on a towel in the shade next to the pool.
“McCarthy said they wouldn’t be until at least the twentieth.”
“Yeah, I know,” he says, but now he’s remembering the mess he made of his physics paper, and maybe the results are up early -
“Look, Lee,” Kara says, interrupting his interior monologue. “Just relax. It’s only been a week.”
“I’m trying,” he says. “I’m just worried about physics - “
She snorts. “Because getting a distinction instead of high honors is really going to screw you over.”
“Not all of us are happy with credits, Kara,” he counters, stung by her dismissive tone. “Aren’t you at least a bit worried?”
“I know I passed, and that’s all that matters.”
“Maybe to you.”
“Hey, I studied hard this semester,” Kara retorts. “But it’s not like you can change your results now and you know you did okay, so just … let it go.”
“Easy for you to say,” he says snidely, and Kara does turn her head this time. He’s not being fair and he knows it - Kara started the year about eightieth out of the 130 cadets left at the Academy, and now she’s in the top thirty and still moving up.
“Hey, I studied my ass off,” she tells him sharply. “And I know I’ll get where I need to go based on how well I can fly, nothing else.”
“Well, not all of us can break all the rules in the sims and get away with it.”
It’s a low blow, as he knows that’s the easiest things to say to make her mad. It’s true that Kara didn’t exactly fly by the book in her first semester, but now she does and still blows everyone out of the sky. Including him.
Kara opens her mouth, closes it again, and turns the page of her newspaper. “Go check your results,” she tells him, and there’s enough of an edge in her voice that he knows that he’s not going to get any more conversation out of her unless he does, and then possibly not even then.
So he goes, and after he’s paid to use a computer to connect to the Caprican mainframe and the Academy screen has flashed up Results not available, he spends twenty minutes walking along the beach to get rid of his frustration, because none of this is Kara’s fault - she’s probably the only person in the Academy who doesn’t put pressure on him, academically or otherwise, who doesn’t continually expect him to live up to his father's reputation or his callsign.
When he finally returns to the pool, Kara’s finished her paper and has stolen his book on Leonian astronomy. He silently offers her the ice cream he’d bought as a peace offering.
She takes it. “How did you go?”
“They’re not up.”
Kara nods and says nothing more, and he doesn’t ask for his book back.
*
Things don’t go completely back to normal until it starts raining late in the afternoon, a real monsoonal downpour and Kara drags him out to play some weird form of pyramid that seems to involve him getting tackled into the wet grass as much as possible.
By the time she’s rammed her elbow into his gut a few times and left a few bruises on his arms, she’s laughing like the morning’s conversation hadn’t happened and he’s absolutely drenched, mud and grass all over him. The rain-soaked grass soon proves it has its own dangers, because he's running with the ball when Kara grabs his shoulder, and he loses his balance and falls flat on his back, and Kara falls flat on top of him.
The impact drives all the air from his lungs, and he thinks he might be winded but he isn’t prepared to move enough to find out.
Kara shifts. "Ow," she says, dropping her head onto his shoulder.
"Excuse me?"
She laughs, pushing herself up on one elbow. "You aren't exactly a pillow, Apollo. Too much hard ... muscle."
Her leer is so pointed that he can't help it, he just throws his head back and laughs as much as he can with Kara still sprawled mostly on top of him. Kara grins back at him and runs a hand through her hair, crinkling her nose at the muddy water that rains down as a result.
“Gross,” he says, once he can breathe again, and she flicks even more at him, then pulls herself to her feet and grabs the ball.
“Still game?”
“You’re insatiable,” he tells her, pushing himself up slowly.
“You should know,” she retorts slyly and he rolls his eyes.
“Give me the ball, Thrace. I’ll show you how it’s done.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
*
He tries to go running on the seventh morning, and Kara wakes up just as he’s pulling on the first of his socks. Before he’s aware of what’s happening, two arms have wrapped around his stomach and she’s pressed herself into his back. He thinks it’s pathetic that she’s not even trying and he’s half turned on.
“Where are you going?”
“Running,” he says. “I would have thought that was obvious.”
Kara huffs, and her exhale against his neck makes him shiver. “Now?”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s six in the morning and it’s practically dark outside, and it’s probably still raining and you are not going to lose your fitness in a week, Lee.”
“It isn’t raining. And you know that in even a week - ”
“An athlete can lose twenty per cent of their cardio, yes, Lee, I listened to Cameron, too.”
“Then - “
“We’ll go this afternoon,” she interrupts. “There’s a nice track up to the lookout that I’ll whip your ass on.”
“Unlikely.”
“Put the shoes down.”
“Kara…”
“Lee…” she mimics.
He picks up his other sock. Kara sighs and pulls herself away from his back, and he hears her flop back into the bedding.
"I'll see you in an hour," he says, reaching for his shoes. "I won't be that long."
“Before you go," she says, and he can tell just from her voice that her smile is wicked, "I can think of plenty of other ways that you can get a good workout right now.”
"Kara!"
"Lee," she says, and her voice is breathy, and he knows she's just putting it on but the last time she sounded like that, they were -
He turns to look at her, and she's lying back against the pillows, and of course, she’s still naked. Very naked.
"I frakking hate you," he says, dropping his shoes on the floor. She lifts one eyebrow.
It's a pretty good workout, all things considered.
*
She stays true to her word, and that afternoon they do go running - and she does kick his ass, but mostly so he can look at hers the whole time.
*
Day eight dawns fine - the rain has made everything green, and the sky is clear and blue right to the horizon. Kara’s sitting next to him on a park table, legs mostly bare and golden brown from a week in the sun. He feels almost absurdly happy - the weather is beautiful, he’s tired from another fantastic night of sex with Kara and he’s got twenty-four more hours before he needs to think about the Academy.
“I didn’t plan this,” he says, and her fingers go loose in his. When he turns to glance at her, she’s staring out to sea.
“I sort of figured that," she replies, lightly enough that a week ago he might have been fooled. Not anymore. He’s becoming quite well acquainted with Kara Thrace’s self-loathing streak, and while he now has some idea where it comes from, he has no clue as to how to unravel it.
He tightens his hand around hers. “I had thought about it, though,” he says cheerfully.
“Really?” Kara says, after a moment, and the doubt in her voice settles it for him.
It wasn’t quite a lie - he had thought about it occasionally, mostly drunk while someone else was kissing Kara in a dark corner of a pub or club - but this thing between them bubbled up out of nowhere for him. A welcome surprise, certainly, but he’s pretty sure that’s not the most tactful thing to say to a woman who seems to have wanted you for longer than that. He lets go of her hand and wraps his arm around her shoulders, pulls her close enough to press a kiss into her hair.
When he next sneaks a look at her face, she’s smiling.
***
They spend the last of the day on the beach, right up until the sun sets. Then they get hamburgers and chips and go up to the lookout overlooking the tiny bay, and sit on the edge, swinging their feet.
It’s dark by the time they’ve finished eating, and Lee crumples the wrappers in a ball.
“Six months until next break,” Kara says, sounding mournful.
“Counting down already?”
She flashes a smile at him. “Nah, it’s not that bad. I could use a proper income, though.”
“What, triad not keeping you liquid anymore?”
“There’s only so many more times I can take Dozer’s money before I think he’s going to cry.”
“And you care?”
“It wouldn’t be good for morale,” Kara says loftily, and it’s such a perfect imitation of Devlin, their ethics lecturer, that Lee laughs.
“Kara Thrace. Always thinking of others.”
“You know me.”
He grins and reaches for his beer. “So, what do you want to do? What are the future grand plans of Kara Thrace?”
“Next semester?”
“No. After the Academy.”
Kara shrugs. “Fly Vipers?” She licks one of her fingers clean of salt. “I hadn’t thought much about it. Maybe teaching? Something to do with flying,” she adds, as if that should have been obvious.
“There’s big money in commercial,” he offers, and her face is almost comical.
“No way, Lee.”
“Such a jock,” he teases, and she shoves him.
“Why, what are you planning? Off to join the circus?”
“Tempting…”
“You know, I could see you in lycra.”
“… but no,” he says, shoving her back. “I’ll give the trapeze a miss, thanks very much.”
“Aren’t you basically enrolled in War College anyway? I just assumed that was where you were going.”
He shifts. “Well, yeah. But that’s only because of my Dad.”
“Bullshit. You’re the best in our year, Lee. Of course they want you.”
The compliment, especially from her, makes him feel warm inside. “Say that again?”
“Except in sims, where I clearly kick your ass.”
He laughs, and they fall silent.
“I don’t know, though,” he says, looking up at the sky. “I don’t know if the Fleet is where I really want to end up.”
“Really?” The surprise on her face is so obvious. “Because of your Dad?”
“Yeah,” he says, grateful he doesn’t have to explain any more.
“Fair enough,” she says, after a moment. “But wouldn’t you miss flying?”
He nods slowly, because he would - which he hates, because it makes him his father’s son, and sometimes he’s not sure that’s all he wants to be.
“I could never give up flying,” Kara says simply. “There’s nothing like it.” She’s looking up at the stars, and her face is open and so beautiful and he shifts so his shoulder is just touching hers.
“I know what you mean.”
After a moment, the silence seems to get to her and she reaches for another bottle of beer.
“Anyway,” she says, her tone much brighter, “I guess that’s a while away.”
“At least a year,” he says. “Hey. Hands off. You’ve had two already.”
“It’s not my fault you can’t keep up.”
*
When Lee wakes up, Kara’s so tangled around him he can barely move his head enough to check the time. It’s past eight thirty, which is bad, because their check-out time is ten, so he wakes her - a task in itself - and by the time they actually make it out of bed, it’s closer to nine.
He’s sorting through a pile of stuff on her bed, trying to work out what’s clean and what’s dirty when she wanders past and dumps an armload of things on his freshly sorted piles.
“I can’t believe the break’s over already,” she says, oblivious to his protests.
“Hey, do you mind? And yeah, I know. I guess it’s back to the real world?”
She seems to pause mid-step, and then keeps going on her way to the bathroom.
“I guess,” she says, but her voice is flat.
He’s looking around for a plastic bag for his wet towel when she re-emerges with her arms full of shampoo bottles and toothpaste.
“Well, it’s been fun,” she says, but something in her tone strikes him as ominous, as does the way she’s throwing things into her bag.
“What?”
“Should have known,” she mutters under her breath, and he’s not sure if he was meant to hear it, but now nothing is making sense.
“What the frak are you talking about?”
“Okay, Lee,” she says, straightening.
“Okay?”
“Yeah,” she says, but she’s holding a tank in a death grip and her eyes are blazing. “It’s been a good week away, but now it’s back to the real world, so… “
“And so, what? It’s over?”
She doesn’t respond, now pummeling her clothes into her duffel so hard he’s surprised the seams don’t break, and something rises within him and he’s furious. He can see the hickey he put on her neck and her hair is still wet from their shower, and she’s wearing his frakking t-shirt and this was it? “So what, I was your frak of the week?”
She flinches, and then squares her shoulders. “I’m surprised you allowed yourself to stoop so low.”
“Trust me, it was hard.”
“Yeah, it must have been for the great Apollo.” Only Kara could make his callsign sound so much like an insult.
“Then it’ll be all the nicer as a notch on your bed post.”
She exhales like he’d punched her. “You bastard,” she says, and for the first time there’s a shake in her voice, but he just doesn’t frakking care.
“I’m the bastard? I’m not the one standing here saying thanks, you know, but that’s it - ”
“You’re the one who is ending it!”
That was the last thing he expected, and now it really feels like he’s woken in the middle of a particularly crazy dream. “What the frak are you talking about?”
“You just said! Back to the real world. I get it, Lee.”
And then it clicks, and Lee sinks down on a bed and thinks of her mother and broken bones and how Kara never had anyone stick around long enough to learn how to hold their hand.
She’s still going, still not looking at him. “Yeah, it was a fun week away, we frakked, it was great - ”
“Shut up, Kara.”
“ - but now it’s back to the Academy - ”
“Shut up, Kara!”
Miraculously, she actually does.
“I’m not - ” he starts, and then scrubs a hand through his hair. “I don’t know why you thought it but I don’t want this to be over. So if that’s what you think… “
She’s still just standing there, t-shirt clenched in one hand, and Lee wonders if maybe he got it wrong after all. “Although, if you - ”
Kara seems to deflate. “No,” she interrupts, sitting down opposite him. “No. Gods. I’m sorry, it’s just - I’m crap at relationships, okay?”
He laughs. “Join the club.”
She lifts an eyebrow, and he elaborates. “The longest relationship I’ve had was two months, and that was with my brother’s baby-sitter.”
“Kinky.”
“Shut up,” he says, fighting back a smile born as much from relief as from actual amusement. “Let’s just … see how this goes, okay?”
Kara nods. “Okay.”
“No pressure.”
“Okay,” she repeats, and her lips twitch. “I’m glad we got that sorted out.”
He shakes his head and laughs, feeling somewhat like he’s just pulled out of a Washburne Gauntlet, his lungs tight from too many Gs.
“I’m sorry,” he offers after a minute, and he throws a pair of socks at her.
“What for?”
“For making you think - “
“Me too.” The pair of socks hit him in the face, and she laughs. “Where are your reflexes, Apollo?”
He leans across the gap between the beds and kisses her.
In the end, they do just check out in time, but it’s close.
*
She falls asleep against the window again on the way home, and he feels a certain amount of masculine pride at wearing her out that much. He lets her sleep, and she wakes up as they pull into the dorm car park, smoothing her rumpled hair and stretching.
“You shouldn’t have let me sleep.”
“You looked like you needed it,” he says, teasing, and she throws him a grin.
“Yeah, someone wore me out,” she tells him, lifting her arms above her head and tilting her neck from side to side. “Bastard.”
He laughs, and gets out, and stretches for a moment - it feels good after five hours cramped in a car seat, and then he realizes there’s a small group of cadets sitting in the sun on the lawn, watching with great interest as Kara gets out and pulls her duffel out from behind her seat. Lee knows it’s only a matter of time before one of them says something - Apollo and Starbuck are always high up in the Academy gossip list and this is a frakking goldmine.
Sure enough -
“Back from a romantic week away, huh?” Flipper calls and Lee sees Kara flicks a glace in his direction. He knows exactly how unsure she is that he’ll own to being with her, and by now the whole group is waiting for some kind of response.
He thinks frak it, and circles around to her side of the car.
“Something like that,” he tells the crowd over his shoulder, and hooks his fingers around the strap of Kara’s duffel bag and tugs her in close to his body, dips his head and kisses her properly, back into the door of his truck. She makes a startled yelp and he feels her smile and his classmates behind him burst into wolf whistles and cat calling. It’s showy and over the top and not him, but Kara’s laughing against his mouth, and her arms are wrapped around his neck.
It’s going to be a much better semester.
FIN.
*
Feedback is lovely. :)
Artemis Rising, part 2.
The morning light hurts his eyes, and he rolls over to find the bed is empty beside him. He grimaces, then raises himself on his elbows and looks around the room.
Three meters away, Kara’s toweling her hair dry, and he looks at her - shorts and a tank, nothing he hasn’t seen her in a hundred times before, but one long make-out session later, he knows what she tastes like and she’s mesmerizing.
She turns and sees him awake and staring. Her face flushes.
“Hi,” she says, looking self-conscious and all Lee can do is stare at her mouth. Sober, and he wants her more. Frak.
“Kara,” he starts, and she turns slightly and brushes her hair back with her fingers.
“Breakfast?” she offers quickly. “I’ll pay.”
He moves experimentally and then groans. “A big breakfast. You owe me.”
“Whatever. Get up.”
He pulls a pillow over his face. It doesn’t shut out her voice.
“Gods, Lee, you are such a lightweight. Hurry up and shower, flyboy. You look like shit.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
There’s a suspiciously long pause, and then the pillow is ripped away from his face. “Shower. Now. I’m hungry.”
He gets up slowly. “I don’t know why I invited you,” he says, with all the seriousness he can muster while she’s standing there, skin glowing pink with yesterday’s sunburn.
She rolls her eyes. “I’ll just be outside.”
*
Breakfast is awkward.
So is swimming at the beach, and so is lunch - fish and chips on a little patio, facing out to sea. It’s well into the afternoon before things feel a little less stilted, and that’s only because Lee falls asleep and Kara takes great delight in pouring sand in piles all over his back.
It’s comforting to know that even while she won’t meet his eyes, she can still act like a three year old.
By the time dinner is over, Lee has a headache, and he wants one of his best friends talking to him again. He’d also like to kiss her some more, but from what he’s put together, Kara seems to think it was a mistake ranking up there with the time she got caught inside the Dean’s office with a bottle of spray paint.
It hurts. Quite a bit, if he is being honest - he likes her, and he definitely likes kissing her and he doesn’t really see any logical reason why both things can’t coexist together for an indefinite amount of time. And from what he can remember about the somewhat fuzzy events of the night before, Kara didn’t seem to be too averse to the idea either.
He has no idea what is going on in her head, but this is Kara and that’s a given ninety percent of the time.
By the time the sun has set, Lee’s sick of it and drags her out, ostensibly for a walk along the beach but really to get some time where she can’t plead any other distraction to get out of talking to him. It seems like she knows what he’s up to, though, and ten minutes later he’s gritting his teeth because she just won’t shut up. It’s like she’s trying to fill anything that could become a dangerous silence with words, and they’re at least half a click away from civilization when he finally gets a word in.
“Kara,” he starts, and she flinches.
“Hey, the water is beautiful,” she says hastily, and he just knows what’s coming next. “It’s not cold at all.”
Before he has a chance to say anything else, she shucks her shirt off and flings it carelessly away from her. Her fingers are on the tie of her shorts when she raises her head.
“Kara,” he says helplessly.
“Aren’t you coming in?” she says, and there’s too much skin around that godsdamned frakking bikini and the moonlight only emphasizes the curves that make her up. Lee swallows. Two days ago, he thinks, his body wouldn’t be reacting like it is but now -
He clears his throat and looks out to sea. “It’s dangerous.”
She snorts. “I promise we won’t go in over our heads,” she says dismissively. “Live on the edge a little, Adama.” Something hits his shoulder, and he pulls her shorts down and drops them like they burned him.
She’s already walking backwards into the surf. “Coming?”
He hesitates, but then the first wave hits her body and the way the water moves over her skin makes the decision for him. “If we drown, I’m blaming you,” he grouches, and she laughs.
“Hurry up, Lee.”
“The ocean is going nowhere.”
“Whatever.”
He strips quickly, keeps his back to her, and when he wades into the water she’s staring out at the horizon, at the moon.
“See? Wasn’t this a good idea?”
He's not quite willing to concede on that point, especially when a wave knocks him off balance and into Kara. His fingers find bare skin, and by the time he's worked out what part of her he's grabbed - her waist, thank the gods - he's been touching her a while and Kara's frozen. And he knows that if today has taught him anything, it’s that Kara thinks that any kind of close contact is a mistake, but he wants her and maybe it’s worth one more try.
He can barely make out anything - her back is now to the moon, and so he can’t see the expression on her face as he slides his hands up her arms to her shoulders to her neck to her cheeks so he can hold her still. She doesn’t protest, and for a moment they stand there, water washing around them, and he feels almost paralyzed with indecision.
Then Kara shifts, and he feels her hands land on his shoulders and she’s not pushing him away.
“Lee?” she says, almost an exhale, and it’s enough of an opening and so he dips his head the last fraction of an inch and kisses her. It’s instant, Kara’s reaction - she opens her mouth against his and he tastes salt this time, and it’s last night all over again only better because there is bare skin beneath his fingers and neither of them are drunk.
A wave nearly washes both of them off balance, and Kara tightens her arms around him, one leg curling around his hip, and Lee reflects briefly that this is the best vacation ever before the feel of her becomes all he can think.
*
They take way too long to get back to their room - he keeps stopping to kiss her, and she can’t keep her hands to herself, and a few times he just stops himself from laying her down in the sand and making love to her right there on the beach. Only the promise of a more comfortable setting keeps him going, and by the time they get to their door, he can’t make the key turn in the lock, he’s so distracted. When the door is finally open, he doesn’t give her time to react, and just stops short of tackling her back onto the bed. She laughs breathlessly, shifting her legs apart, her hands coming to rest on his shoulders.
“We are covered in sand,” she tells him, her fingers running down his spine.
“There’s another bed over there,” he tells her, and pulls her up off the bed enough that he can strip her shirt from her body.
His shirt lands on top of hers, followed by the black swimsuit that has taunted him all day, and he’s fumbling with his shorts when he looks up to see her looking at him, and something about the intensity on her face makes him want to ask how long she’s felt like this about him - how long she’s watched him and wanted this.
Then she sits up and reaches for him, and the next minutes dissolve into long hot kisses, her hands sliding down his skin, the friction with the sand almost-but-not-quite-painful; his senses on overload as she writhes underneath him. Before he knows what is happening, she’s hooked her leg over his hip and has rolled him beneath her, pinning him with her weight before leaning in to kiss him.
It doesn’t take long before she’s shifting more deliberately, and before they cross that line he suddenly has to know that she’s as okay with this as he is, so he lifts one hand from her back and cups her chin, forcing her to look at him. Her cheeks and lips are red, hair disheveled and her pupils so dilated that pride flashes through him, that he can make her look like that.
“Are you sure?” he says quietly and she nods fast, and he can see desperation and lust and something softer in her eyes, and he pulls her down and kisses her hard before letting her sit up. Kara braces herself, hands on his shoulders and sinks down and takes him into her.
He’s imagined this a few times; he’s male, and she’s Starbuck and he’s pretty sure there isn’t a guy in the Academy who hasn’t had the odd dream about her. He’s also heard the stories of her prowess in bed, but this - this is nothing like any of it.
She’s almost tentative, slow - her hands gentle, careful, and she’s watching his face and body for reactions with an intensity that surprises him for the three seconds he thinks about it before her fingers drive away every shred of coherent thought. In no time at all, he’s close, so close and she’s nowhere near in comparison, and he clenches his jaw and pushes her over, pulls out of her and pins her hands next to her head.
“Not yet,” he grits out and she shivers, her legs shifting, wrapping around his hips, trying to pull him back to her. He’s just stronger.
“No?” Her voice is breathless.
“No,” he tells her, and presses a series of hot, wet kisses to her mouth, her jaw, and down her throat, until she’s squirming beneath him.
Her neck tastes like salt - the ocean, sweat, traces of sunblock that the water didn’t wash away. After a moment, he lets go of her hands, she wraps her arms around him, her fingers digging into his back. He hovers off her, leans his weight on one arm and slides his other hand down her body, a slow drag across her breasts and stomach that has her head rocking back hard into the pillows, her back arching, her hips pushing up off the bed.
Gods, he thinks, it’s the hottest thing he’s ever seen, and he’s barely started touching her.
“Lee,” she says, “Oh, Lee,” and her fingernails are now biting into his shoulders, and Lee decides that he’s going to make her say that many more times before the night is over.
*
He’s drifting in and out of consciousness when he feels her come awake underneath his arm. It’s some gods-awful hour in the morning - the last time he remembered looking at the clock, it was after three, and he stays completely still as she pulls herself carefully out of bed. She goes to the bathroom, and he hears the unmistakable sound of her brushing her teeth, then the sound of her bare feet on the floor as she makes her way back to the bed. He almost doesn’t breathe as she slides in next to him, edging slowly until her back touches his chest.
In what he hopes she will think is a sleep-soaked gesture, he hooks an arm around her waist and pulls her to him so she fits against him. She sighs, and a moment later, rests her fingers against his. Within minutes, her breathing has evened out, and her body is soft, relaxed under his arm.
He grins into the darkness.
*
This time, when he wakes up, Kara’s still asleep beside him. At some point during the last hours, she’d shifted so she’s curled up facing him, with one hand resting on the pillow between them. One of his arms is still wrapped around her, and he’d be content to lie like this for the rest of the day, but his other arm is starting to twinge with pain from the position it’s in.
He extracts it as carefully as possible, and stretches, feeling muscles he hasn’t used in a while ache pleasantly, and the movement wakes Kara, because her head tosses a bit against the pillow before her eyes open. He watches as she blinks in the sunlight, getting her bearings, and knows the exact moment all of last night comes back to her because her cheeks flush.
“Hey,” she says, and she looks a little nervous.
“Hey.” He props himself on one elbow and runs a hand down her side, over the faint tan lines starting to appear, and she rolls onto her back. Kara’s all smooth skin and toned muscle, and Lee looks down the length of her - for too long, it would seem, because Kara laughs. He feels his face go a bit red and says the first thing he can think of.
“Hungry?”
“Yes,” she says instantly, but the look she sends him hits him straight in the groin, and it’s suddenly very convenient that they didn’t put on any clothes again after last night’s efforts.
*
She slips out while he’s showering, because when he emerges there’s a newspaper and a magazine on the tiny table, and she’s putting fresh beer in the fridge. He wanders over and looks at what she’s picked up - a Caprican Daily as well as a copy of the political monthly Prospect.
He’s reaching for it when Kara turns around from the kitchenette.
“Hey, hands off,” she says, coming back to the table and taking it off him. She sinks into a seat and lays it out in front of her.
“You’re reading it?”
Her look implies how stupid a question that was, and he back-pedals.
“I mean - since when did you start reading this?”
Kara looks a bit self-conscious. “A while ago. Why?”
“Nothing,” he says, but he is honestly surprised. Not that he expected Kara to pick up the latest Colonial Style, but … Prospect?
“What?” she says, still looking edgy, and he shrugs, and reaches for the paper instead. She slaps his hand away.
“Hey!”
“Go buy your own, if you’re going to be insulting!”
“I didn’t say anything!”
She shoots him a look. “You don’t think I’m smart enough to read these.” Her tone is light, but it’s not quite a question, and he picks his response very carefully.
“Of course you’re smart enough,” he says dismissively, and Kara’s face relaxes. “I just didn’t think you were into politics.”
She snorts. “What, you thought I could listen to your boring lectures for the last year and not pick up on it?”
“Hey, now who’s being insulting - ”
“Whatever, Apollo. You could talk anyone to sleep. That’s just a fact.”
He rolls his eyes, inwardly very pleased that she’s been listening so closely to his painstakingly composed rants about the Colonial political systems.
“Kara.”
“Yes, Lee?”
“Can I please read the paper?”
“Are you making me a coffee?”
He takes that as qualified permission, and once he’s made them both coffee, he settles down with his and flicks open to the crossword, stealing glances at her when he thinks he can get away with it. She looks different to any time he’s ever seen her, engrossed in her reading, chin resting in her palm. Different, but good.
“Did you know,” she says suddenly, “That out of the twelve colonies, there are only seven that consider themselves fundamentally religious?”
“Yeah,” he says idly, trying to work out which fish of the Aegean Sea was meant by clue 4 down. “What brought that up?”
“The Leonians want a referendum over some of the wording in their constitution. They want to separate the gods and the state.”
“Yeah, I’d heard something about that.” He glances up. “Religion is nothing but trouble anyway.”
Kara’s face tightens - a warning sign Lee has seen too many times not to know what it meant. In bars, it tended to mean he was ten seconds away from watching her start a brawl.
“Well, in terms of politics,” he amends hastily, but Kara doesn’t seem too placated by that.
“Why do you say that?’ she says, far too politely, and Lee knows he’s put his foot in it.
“Just look at the mess the Colonies are in,” he says, putting his pen down. “Half of that is caused by religious differences.”
“That’s a total exaggeration. Humans were always going to fight, Lee. If it wasn’t religion, it’d be over something else.”
“So you’re saying that it’s fine that we have religion so we don’t fight about other things?”
“No. But I think it’s necessary for humanity to have something greater than themselves to believe in. Otherwise we’d be, I don’t know, dangerously arrogant. Look what happened with the Cylons.”
He can’t quite believe he’s having this discussion with Kara Thrace.
“The Cylons are a mistake that is long gone, and I still say more fighting has happened over religion than any kind of peace.”
“What about all the aid organizations that exist as part of religious organization?”
“Tell that to the people who died at Thessalonica last year.”
Kara eyes narrow at the mention of the massacre that left 1,000 civilians dead the previous summer. “That was masking a political coup and you know it, Lee.” She pauses. “You don’t believe in the gods at all, do you?”
“You do?” He can’t quite keep the surprise from his voice. Kara meets his gaze without flinching.
“Yes.”
“Did you get that from your parents?”
The minute the question is out of his mouth, he regrets it, but Kara doesn’t flinch.
“No,” she says, and then half-laughs. “Gods, no. My father was a musician. He believed in free love just like my mother believed in the Fleet.”
“Why do you believe?” he asks quietly, honestly curious and Kara hesitates. Lee wonders if he’s pushed this newfound intimacy a little too far.
When she answers, her voice has dropped so much he almost has to lean forward to hear her. “There was a Temple at the end of my street, where we lived for a while.” She shrugged. “It was a … place to go, sometimes? And I guess it’s easy to believe in something when you have nothing.”
He’s silent.
Kara shrugs after a moment, and picks up her coffee again. “Good coffee,” she offers, and he takes it for the truce it is. “Let me know when you need help on the crossword.”
“Frak off.”
*
They don’t make it outside for much of the rest of the day, which Lee is totally okay with, even if they sleep half the afternoon to make up for the night before. The first time they leave their unit for an extended amount of time is to eat dinner, which she insists they have at the little Athenian restaurant halfway up the block. She even wears a skirt, for the first time in his memory - a simple navy blue thing that swishes around her legs in a way that makes him just want to rip it off her.
The meal is torture too - watching her eat, now that he knows what that mouth can do, and he wouldn’t have been at all surprised if that had been Kara’s master plan. By the end of the main course, it’s gotten so bad that when Kara orders ice-cream for dessert, he goes to the bar and gets another beer, and when he comes back, he moves his chair around the table so he’s sitting closer to her, just so he won’t have to watch her eat.
Of course, there are other advantages to that, especially with the long tablecloths on the tables. Just as she puts the first spoonful of ice cream in her mouth, he places his hand on her knee. She starts, and he feels her leg twitch as he slides his hand up under her skirt - not too high and not too fast, running his fingers lightly over what he knows is very, very sensitive skin. He’s got about four inches before it gets really improper, and soon Kara’s worrying her lip between her teeth.
“Okay,” she says finally, and one of her hands finds his under the table and tries to lift it of her leg. “You’ve made your point.”
“What do you mean?” he says, pushing up another inch.
“Lee - ” She shifts restlessly in her seat, thighs trembling a little, and Lee smirks.
“Eat your ice cream,” he says, taking his hand away, and if looks could kill, he’d be dead. It’s so worth it, though, because Kara grabs her wallet, chucks enough on the table to cover the meal and at a thirty percent tip, and drags him out.
It’s a waste of good ice cream, but he can’t bring himself to care.
*
One thing he does notice very quickly over the next two days is that for a girl who can strip off his clothes in under a minute, Kara is really, really bad at anything resembling couple-like behavior. Lee hasn’t had too many girlfriends in his life - two, in fact - but he’s had enough to know that reaching for her hand on the way to lunch shouldn’t be anything strange. Kara reacts like a startled horse, shying away, before she shakes her head and, wincing, lets her hand swing next to his again.
He laces his fingers through hers as if there was nothing unusual in her reaction.
It takes three more times before she reaches for him first.
*
“I wonder if results are up,” he says idly. Kara doesn’t even look over from where she’s reading the paper, lying on her stomach on a towel in the shade next to the pool.
“McCarthy said they wouldn’t be until at least the twentieth.”
“Yeah, I know,” he says, but now he’s remembering the mess he made of his physics paper, and maybe the results are up early -
“Look, Lee,” Kara says, interrupting his interior monologue. “Just relax. It’s only been a week.”
“I’m trying,” he says. “I’m just worried about physics - “
She snorts. “Because getting a distinction instead of high honors is really going to screw you over.”
“Not all of us are happy with credits, Kara,” he counters, stung by her dismissive tone. “Aren’t you at least a bit worried?”
“I know I passed, and that’s all that matters.”
“Maybe to you.”
“Hey, I studied hard this semester,” Kara retorts. “But it’s not like you can change your results now and you know you did okay, so just … let it go.”
“Easy for you to say,” he says snidely, and Kara does turn her head this time. He’s not being fair and he knows it - Kara started the year about eightieth out of the 130 cadets left at the Academy, and now she’s in the top thirty and still moving up.
“Hey, I studied my ass off,” she tells him sharply. “And I know I’ll get where I need to go based on how well I can fly, nothing else.”
“Well, not all of us can break all the rules in the sims and get away with it.”
It’s a low blow, as he knows that’s the easiest things to say to make her mad. It’s true that Kara didn’t exactly fly by the book in her first semester, but now she does and still blows everyone out of the sky. Including him.
Kara opens her mouth, closes it again, and turns the page of her newspaper. “Go check your results,” she tells him, and there’s enough of an edge in her voice that he knows that he’s not going to get any more conversation out of her unless he does, and then possibly not even then.
So he goes, and after he’s paid to use a computer to connect to the Caprican mainframe and the Academy screen has flashed up Results not available, he spends twenty minutes walking along the beach to get rid of his frustration, because none of this is Kara’s fault - she’s probably the only person in the Academy who doesn’t put pressure on him, academically or otherwise, who doesn’t continually expect him to live up to his father's reputation or his callsign.
When he finally returns to the pool, Kara’s finished her paper and has stolen his book on Leonian astronomy. He silently offers her the ice cream he’d bought as a peace offering.
She takes it. “How did you go?”
“They’re not up.”
Kara nods and says nothing more, and he doesn’t ask for his book back.
*
Things don’t go completely back to normal until it starts raining late in the afternoon, a real monsoonal downpour and Kara drags him out to play some weird form of pyramid that seems to involve him getting tackled into the wet grass as much as possible.
By the time she’s rammed her elbow into his gut a few times and left a few bruises on his arms, she’s laughing like the morning’s conversation hadn’t happened and he’s absolutely drenched, mud and grass all over him. The rain-soaked grass soon proves it has its own dangers, because he's running with the ball when Kara grabs his shoulder, and he loses his balance and falls flat on his back, and Kara falls flat on top of him.
The impact drives all the air from his lungs, and he thinks he might be winded but he isn’t prepared to move enough to find out.
Kara shifts. "Ow," she says, dropping her head onto his shoulder.
"Excuse me?"
She laughs, pushing herself up on one elbow. "You aren't exactly a pillow, Apollo. Too much hard ... muscle."
Her leer is so pointed that he can't help it, he just throws his head back and laughs as much as he can with Kara still sprawled mostly on top of him. Kara grins back at him and runs a hand through her hair, crinkling her nose at the muddy water that rains down as a result.
“Gross,” he says, once he can breathe again, and she flicks even more at him, then pulls herself to her feet and grabs the ball.
“Still game?”
“You’re insatiable,” he tells her, pushing himself up slowly.
“You should know,” she retorts slyly and he rolls his eyes.
“Give me the ball, Thrace. I’ll show you how it’s done.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
*
He tries to go running on the seventh morning, and Kara wakes up just as he’s pulling on the first of his socks. Before he’s aware of what’s happening, two arms have wrapped around his stomach and she’s pressed herself into his back. He thinks it’s pathetic that she’s not even trying and he’s half turned on.
“Where are you going?”
“Running,” he says. “I would have thought that was obvious.”
Kara huffs, and her exhale against his neck makes him shiver. “Now?”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s six in the morning and it’s practically dark outside, and it’s probably still raining and you are not going to lose your fitness in a week, Lee.”
“It isn’t raining. And you know that in even a week - ”
“An athlete can lose twenty per cent of their cardio, yes, Lee, I listened to Cameron, too.”
“Then - “
“We’ll go this afternoon,” she interrupts. “There’s a nice track up to the lookout that I’ll whip your ass on.”
“Unlikely.”
“Put the shoes down.”
“Kara…”
“Lee…” she mimics.
He picks up his other sock. Kara sighs and pulls herself away from his back, and he hears her flop back into the bedding.
"I'll see you in an hour," he says, reaching for his shoes. "I won't be that long."
“Before you go," she says, and he can tell just from her voice that her smile is wicked, "I can think of plenty of other ways that you can get a good workout right now.”
"Kara!"
"Lee," she says, and her voice is breathy, and he knows she's just putting it on but the last time she sounded like that, they were -
He turns to look at her, and she's lying back against the pillows, and of course, she’s still naked. Very naked.
"I frakking hate you," he says, dropping his shoes on the floor. She lifts one eyebrow.
It's a pretty good workout, all things considered.
*
She stays true to her word, and that afternoon they do go running - and she does kick his ass, but mostly so he can look at hers the whole time.
*
Day eight dawns fine - the rain has made everything green, and the sky is clear and blue right to the horizon. Kara’s sitting next to him on a park table, legs mostly bare and golden brown from a week in the sun. He feels almost absurdly happy - the weather is beautiful, he’s tired from another fantastic night of sex with Kara and he’s got twenty-four more hours before he needs to think about the Academy.
“I didn’t plan this,” he says, and her fingers go loose in his. When he turns to glance at her, she’s staring out to sea.
“I sort of figured that," she replies, lightly enough that a week ago he might have been fooled. Not anymore. He’s becoming quite well acquainted with Kara Thrace’s self-loathing streak, and while he now has some idea where it comes from, he has no clue as to how to unravel it.
He tightens his hand around hers. “I had thought about it, though,” he says cheerfully.
“Really?” Kara says, after a moment, and the doubt in her voice settles it for him.
It wasn’t quite a lie - he had thought about it occasionally, mostly drunk while someone else was kissing Kara in a dark corner of a pub or club - but this thing between them bubbled up out of nowhere for him. A welcome surprise, certainly, but he’s pretty sure that’s not the most tactful thing to say to a woman who seems to have wanted you for longer than that. He lets go of her hand and wraps his arm around her shoulders, pulls her close enough to press a kiss into her hair.
When he next sneaks a look at her face, she’s smiling.
***
They spend the last of the day on the beach, right up until the sun sets. Then they get hamburgers and chips and go up to the lookout overlooking the tiny bay, and sit on the edge, swinging their feet.
It’s dark by the time they’ve finished eating, and Lee crumples the wrappers in a ball.
“Six months until next break,” Kara says, sounding mournful.
“Counting down already?”
She flashes a smile at him. “Nah, it’s not that bad. I could use a proper income, though.”
“What, triad not keeping you liquid anymore?”
“There’s only so many more times I can take Dozer’s money before I think he’s going to cry.”
“And you care?”
“It wouldn’t be good for morale,” Kara says loftily, and it’s such a perfect imitation of Devlin, their ethics lecturer, that Lee laughs.
“Kara Thrace. Always thinking of others.”
“You know me.”
He grins and reaches for his beer. “So, what do you want to do? What are the future grand plans of Kara Thrace?”
“Next semester?”
“No. After the Academy.”
Kara shrugs. “Fly Vipers?” She licks one of her fingers clean of salt. “I hadn’t thought much about it. Maybe teaching? Something to do with flying,” she adds, as if that should have been obvious.
“There’s big money in commercial,” he offers, and her face is almost comical.
“No way, Lee.”
“Such a jock,” he teases, and she shoves him.
“Why, what are you planning? Off to join the circus?”
“Tempting…”
“You know, I could see you in lycra.”
“… but no,” he says, shoving her back. “I’ll give the trapeze a miss, thanks very much.”
“Aren’t you basically enrolled in War College anyway? I just assumed that was where you were going.”
He shifts. “Well, yeah. But that’s only because of my Dad.”
“Bullshit. You’re the best in our year, Lee. Of course they want you.”
The compliment, especially from her, makes him feel warm inside. “Say that again?”
“Except in sims, where I clearly kick your ass.”
He laughs, and they fall silent.
“I don’t know, though,” he says, looking up at the sky. “I don’t know if the Fleet is where I really want to end up.”
“Really?” The surprise on her face is so obvious. “Because of your Dad?”
“Yeah,” he says, grateful he doesn’t have to explain any more.
“Fair enough,” she says, after a moment. “But wouldn’t you miss flying?”
He nods slowly, because he would - which he hates, because it makes him his father’s son, and sometimes he’s not sure that’s all he wants to be.
“I could never give up flying,” Kara says simply. “There’s nothing like it.” She’s looking up at the stars, and her face is open and so beautiful and he shifts so his shoulder is just touching hers.
“I know what you mean.”
After a moment, the silence seems to get to her and she reaches for another bottle of beer.
“Anyway,” she says, her tone much brighter, “I guess that’s a while away.”
“At least a year,” he says. “Hey. Hands off. You’ve had two already.”
“It’s not my fault you can’t keep up.”
*
When Lee wakes up, Kara’s so tangled around him he can barely move his head enough to check the time. It’s past eight thirty, which is bad, because their check-out time is ten, so he wakes her - a task in itself - and by the time they actually make it out of bed, it’s closer to nine.
He’s sorting through a pile of stuff on her bed, trying to work out what’s clean and what’s dirty when she wanders past and dumps an armload of things on his freshly sorted piles.
“I can’t believe the break’s over already,” she says, oblivious to his protests.
“Hey, do you mind? And yeah, I know. I guess it’s back to the real world?”
She seems to pause mid-step, and then keeps going on her way to the bathroom.
“I guess,” she says, but her voice is flat.
He’s looking around for a plastic bag for his wet towel when she re-emerges with her arms full of shampoo bottles and toothpaste.
“Well, it’s been fun,” she says, but something in her tone strikes him as ominous, as does the way she’s throwing things into her bag.
“What?”
“Should have known,” she mutters under her breath, and he’s not sure if he was meant to hear it, but now nothing is making sense.
“What the frak are you talking about?”
“Okay, Lee,” she says, straightening.
“Okay?”
“Yeah,” she says, but she’s holding a tank in a death grip and her eyes are blazing. “It’s been a good week away, but now it’s back to the real world, so… “
“And so, what? It’s over?”
She doesn’t respond, now pummeling her clothes into her duffel so hard he’s surprised the seams don’t break, and something rises within him and he’s furious. He can see the hickey he put on her neck and her hair is still wet from their shower, and she’s wearing his frakking t-shirt and this was it? “So what, I was your frak of the week?”
She flinches, and then squares her shoulders. “I’m surprised you allowed yourself to stoop so low.”
“Trust me, it was hard.”
“Yeah, it must have been for the great Apollo.” Only Kara could make his callsign sound so much like an insult.
“Then it’ll be all the nicer as a notch on your bed post.”
She exhales like he’d punched her. “You bastard,” she says, and for the first time there’s a shake in her voice, but he just doesn’t frakking care.
“I’m the bastard? I’m not the one standing here saying thanks, you know, but that’s it - ”
“You’re the one who is ending it!”
That was the last thing he expected, and now it really feels like he’s woken in the middle of a particularly crazy dream. “What the frak are you talking about?”
“You just said! Back to the real world. I get it, Lee.”
And then it clicks, and Lee sinks down on a bed and thinks of her mother and broken bones and how Kara never had anyone stick around long enough to learn how to hold their hand.
She’s still going, still not looking at him. “Yeah, it was a fun week away, we frakked, it was great - ”
“Shut up, Kara.”
“ - but now it’s back to the Academy - ”
“Shut up, Kara!”
Miraculously, she actually does.
“I’m not - ” he starts, and then scrubs a hand through his hair. “I don’t know why you thought it but I don’t want this to be over. So if that’s what you think… “
She’s still just standing there, t-shirt clenched in one hand, and Lee wonders if maybe he got it wrong after all. “Although, if you - ”
Kara seems to deflate. “No,” she interrupts, sitting down opposite him. “No. Gods. I’m sorry, it’s just - I’m crap at relationships, okay?”
He laughs. “Join the club.”
She lifts an eyebrow, and he elaborates. “The longest relationship I’ve had was two months, and that was with my brother’s baby-sitter.”
“Kinky.”
“Shut up,” he says, fighting back a smile born as much from relief as from actual amusement. “Let’s just … see how this goes, okay?”
Kara nods. “Okay.”
“No pressure.”
“Okay,” she repeats, and her lips twitch. “I’m glad we got that sorted out.”
He shakes his head and laughs, feeling somewhat like he’s just pulled out of a Washburne Gauntlet, his lungs tight from too many Gs.
“I’m sorry,” he offers after a minute, and he throws a pair of socks at her.
“What for?”
“For making you think - “
“Me too.” The pair of socks hit him in the face, and she laughs. “Where are your reflexes, Apollo?”
He leans across the gap between the beds and kisses her.
In the end, they do just check out in time, but it’s close.
*
She falls asleep against the window again on the way home, and he feels a certain amount of masculine pride at wearing her out that much. He lets her sleep, and she wakes up as they pull into the dorm car park, smoothing her rumpled hair and stretching.
“You shouldn’t have let me sleep.”
“You looked like you needed it,” he says, teasing, and she throws him a grin.
“Yeah, someone wore me out,” she tells him, lifting her arms above her head and tilting her neck from side to side. “Bastard.”
He laughs, and gets out, and stretches for a moment - it feels good after five hours cramped in a car seat, and then he realizes there’s a small group of cadets sitting in the sun on the lawn, watching with great interest as Kara gets out and pulls her duffel out from behind her seat. Lee knows it’s only a matter of time before one of them says something - Apollo and Starbuck are always high up in the Academy gossip list and this is a frakking goldmine.
Sure enough -
“Back from a romantic week away, huh?” Flipper calls and Lee sees Kara flicks a glace in his direction. He knows exactly how unsure she is that he’ll own to being with her, and by now the whole group is waiting for some kind of response.
He thinks frak it, and circles around to her side of the car.
“Something like that,” he tells the crowd over his shoulder, and hooks his fingers around the strap of Kara’s duffel bag and tugs her in close to his body, dips his head and kisses her properly, back into the door of his truck. She makes a startled yelp and he feels her smile and his classmates behind him burst into wolf whistles and cat calling. It’s showy and over the top and not him, but Kara’s laughing against his mouth, and her arms are wrapped around his neck.
It’s going to be a much better semester.
FIN.
*
Feedback is lovely. :)