BSG fic - Picking up the Pieces 6 / 12
Chapter Six
Kara stopped looking through Lee after that, and he stopped trying to provoke her into leaving. But he still kept his distance, only seeing her at meetings, only speaking to her about work.
He watched her, though. Listened to the comms when she was flying. Knew she still stayed out of the rec room, barely spoke when she was on CAP.
He didn’t do anything about it though. Until his mother’s birthday.
Pegasus had a memorial corridor for the colonies just as Galactica did. An area of wall for each colony, covered with photographs and messages.
Lee didn’t often go there. Looking at those mementos of the dead made him think about his mother and wonder how she had died, if she had lived long enough to know what was happening to her…
Painful and futile. So he didn’t go there, except on two days of the year. His mother’s birthday, and Zak’s.
He went at the end of the night shift, when the ship was quiet and there were few people about. So he was startled to find someone by the Caprica memorial wall, and even more startled to see that it was Kara, fair head bowed in prayer.
He almost turned away, meaning to wait out of sight until she left, but at that moment she turned her head and saw him.
“Lee.” She sounded awkward.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“No, I was just - I’ll go,” she said, walking towards him. “You probably want to be alone.”
Lee found himself putting a hand on her arm as she passed him, stopping her.
“Kara.” It was the first time he had called her that since she came back. She looked up at him, startled. “Were you praying for her?”
Kara nodded, still looking awkward. “She was always kind to me, Lee. I miss her.”
Lee swallowed hard. “So do I.” He suddenly remembered a dinner at his mother’s house, seeing it as clearly as if he were there. Kara telling stories about the various pranks she had played on her fellow nuggets at flight school, grinning wickedly at Zak, making his mother laugh so much she choked on her soup. She’d liked Kara a lot, considered her one of the family…
“It was you who called me on Zak’s anniversary, wasn’t it,” he said.
“Yes.” Kara was watching him warily.
And Lee knew, abruptly and finally, that he couldn’t just walk away from her. Not when she was hurting. Not when he could help. There was too much history between them for that. Whatever she’d done, whatever she did, she would always be the girl his brother had loved, the girl his mother had welcomed into their family.
He couldn’t turn his back on that.
“I’ve got a free shift tomorrow,” he said, taking a deep breath. “I thought-”
“What?” Kara bit her lip. In anyone else, he would have said it looked nervous.
“I thought maybe we could go flying. Together.” He stopped, looking at Kara. Her eyes were wide, and she wasn’t saying anything. “You know, for old times sake,” he finished awkwardly.
A smile spread hesitantly across Kara’s face. “Do you mean that?”
Lee nodded.
Kara’s smile grew, and Lee found himself smiling back. It was so long since he had seen that smile. “Just tell me when, Apollo.”
Maybe they could be friends again, he thought. He missed their friendship, and they’d always been good at being friends. It was when they tried to be anything more that they hit trouble. And he knew better than to try that again. He’d been burnt too many times - and anyway, he had Dee now.
Friends, though, that was all right. Friends was safe enough.
----
The following afternoon, Kara waited for Lee in the hangar bay.
She was half expecting him not to turn up. She still couldn’t believe he’d suggested flying together at all. After the way he’d been ignoring her for the last month, it was a surprising turnaround.
Just as surprising as the way he’d spent weeks trying to push her to frak up so he could get rid of her, and then as soon as he had an excuse to, relented and let her stay.
It made no sense - but then, when had Lee ever made sense? She’d long ago decided that she’d never understand how his brain worked, even if she lived to be a hundred.
Anyway, it didn’t matter. It seemed that for whatever mysterious reason, he’d decided to forgive her at least a little, and she was just grateful for that. At last she had one bright spot in her screwed-up life.
Which, knowing her luck, was exactly why he wouldn’t turn up.
----
Ten minutes after the time they’d agreed to meet, Kara was just bitterly deciding that she had been right when Lee appeared in the hangar bay, slightly out of breath and fastening his flightsuit.
“Sorry I’m late. I got held up in CIC.”
“No problem.” Kara shrugged casually.
Lee wasn’t fooled. He looked at her sharply. “Kara, I said I’d be here, and I am.”
“I thought you might change your mind,” she said, staring down at the deck.
“Well, I haven’t,” said Lee, after an awkward pause. “Look Kara, let’s just go, shall we? It’s not like you to waste valuable flying time.”
That made her smile, as she knew he’d meant her to. “All right, Apollo. See you outside.”
----
It was weird, flying with Lee again. Glancing to her right and seeing him hovering a wing tip away. It was almost as if the past eighteen months had never happened, as if she was still a lieutenant, and he was her CAG and her wingman and her best friend, and the Pegasus was just a ship that had been destroyed along with the twelve colonies.
“So, Starbuck,” he said over the comms, breaking in on her melancholy thoughts. “I’ve got a challenge for you.”
“A challenge?” she said, startled. “What kind of challenge?”
“An important one,” he said, in a tone that made her throat constrict. She’d never thought she’d hear that familiar teasing note again. “I want you to prove to me you haven’t lost your touch.”
She stiffened in her seat, insulted. “Lost my touch?”
“I’ve watched you on CAP, Starbuck. Plodding round the circuit like a mule on a tether…”
“Apollo!” She was surprised into laughter. “Well, if I’m a mule, what does that make you, CIC boy? A snail?”
He ignored her, talking over her. “No finesse, no flashy moves…do you even know how to do a Picon barrel roll any more?”
“Frak you, Lee,” she said, and performed one perfectly.
“Come on, Starbuck,” he said when she had finished. “Any nugget can do one of those. You’ll have to do better than that. Double it.”
She doubled it. She knew what he was trying to do - he wasn’t exactly being subtle about it - but she didn’t care. This was the happiest she’d felt since Sam left her.
“Come on, Apollo,” she said when she finished. “Stop being so lazy. Triple roll.”
He did a triple roll, and challenged her to a quadruple, and back again.
Kara barely hung onto her stomach contents through six rolls and whooped in triumph when Lee flipped out before he reached seven.
“Show some commitment, Apollo!”
“Frak commitment. I am not flying around for the next two hours with vomit in my helmet.”
“Chicken.” Kara grinned. “What next?”
“Aerilon spins.”
Aerilon spins were followed by Virgon spirals and Geminon loops and eventually what seemed like every manoeuvre they’d ever learnt, in and out of flight school, from the basic to the fiendishly complicated, from the mildly risky to the downright dangerous.
“Don’t tell me you’ve run out of manoeuvres,” she teased, when they finally paused.
“Time for something different,” he said, laughing. “You’ve proved you’ve still got style, but what about speed?”
“Speed?” Kara grinned in anticipation. “You mean a race?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. Round the Rising Star, out to the Geminon Traveller, past Galactica and back to Pegasus.”
“You’re on. What are the stakes?”
“Stakes?”
“Come on, Lee. Flying races are like triad - no fun without stakes.”
“Fine. If I win you can give me that Caprican cigar Showboat tells me you have stashed away.”
“That traitor. Very well, I accept.”
“And you?”
Kara held her breath for a moment, wondering whether to risk it. She wasn’t sure yet if they were on firm enough ground.
What the hell. She’d always been one for taking risks.
“If I win, I want you to come running with me every morning.” Silence. She bit her lip, kept her voice light. “You look like you could use the exercise.”
Another moment of silence.
“Frak you, Starbuck.” Kara exhaled in relief, relaxing her tight grip on the controls. “I accept. But just for that, I’m going to leave you choking in my dust.”
“Not technically possible in space, Apollo.”
“Like you’ve ever given a shit about what’s technically possible. Are we starting this race or not?”
“Gods, you’re touchy. Feeling a little nervous, are we?”
“Starbuck-”
“Okay, okay. Counting down from ten. Ten, nine, eight…”
----
Kara put everything she had into that race. It was so long since she had done something like this, since she had flown with no purpose, no reason, for nothing but the thrill of it and pure competitiveness.
Besides, this was Lee she was racing with. They’d always had an unspoken agreement when racing against each other not to hold back or pull any punches. To put their absolute best into it, even if it was only a friendly race.
So she hurtled round the Rising Star as fast as she could go, pulling into the turn at the very last second, her muscles screaming with the effort.
Lee was only a fraction of a second behind her. He’d obviously still been putting in some time in a viper recently, even though it was no longer part of his official duties.
They reached the Geminon Traveller side by side, and Lee pulled a slightly tighter turn, taking the lead.
Kara swore under her breath. Don’t think you’re going to beat me that easily, Adama.
They raced on. Galactica loomed ahead of them, a dark mass against the stars. They’d need to circle around it to head back to Pegasus.
Kara set her teeth. She was going to get the lead back on this turn if it killed her.
As they reached Galactica’s stern, she held her angle as long as possible. The side of the ship rose up in front of her, so close she could almost touch it…
“Kara, turn!” Lee’s voice rang furiously in her ears. “Turn! You’re going to hit it.”
She laughed fearlessly, and twisted her viper at the last possible moment, just skimming Galactica’s stern. She held the turn fiercely, riding out the force of it, and headed towards Pegasus several vipers-lengths ahead.
“Have a little faith, Lee.”
“You are frakking insane, you know that?”
She laughed again, and couldn’t stop chuckling until she docked back at Pegasus. Lee pushed his viper to the limit and made up a lot of ground, but she still nipped into the launch tubes a few seconds ahead of him.
She pulled off her helmet and handed it to a deckhand, who blinked in surprise at her broad grin. She climbed out and hurried over to perch on Lee’s ladder. He was just unfastening his metal collar.
“Looks like I won.”
“Only because I have some sense of self-preservation.”
“I knew what I was doing.”
He looked at her sceptically. “You always say that.”
“Because it’s true. So, you ready for our run tomorrow? 0700?”
“That early?” Lee pretended to groan. “I’ll be there.”
----
She probably shouldn’t be doing this, Kara thought, as she waited outside Lee’s quarters the next morning. Shouldn’t be spending time with Lee again. She should stay well away from him, just as she’d done for the last year, just as Dee had said. Nothing had changed; he was still as dangerous to her now as he had always been.
But…but…
She’d missed him so much, and she was so lonely here on Pegasus, without Sam, without Karl, without the Old Man. She needed a friend, and Lee had always been a good friend. There was no danger of anything more. She knew better than that; they both did. And Lee was getting married in a few weeks anyway.
Kara unconsciously gritted her teeth at the thought.
At that moment the hatch opened and Lee emerged from his quarters. He blinked at her expression. “Something wrong?”
Kara hastily donned a pleasant smile. “Not at all. Ready to go?”
Lee nodded.
“Good. Last one to the mess hall gets the coffee.”
Lee groaned. “Not another race. What is it with you, Kara?”
“You say that like you don’t enjoy it.” She grinned. “How about I let you win this time?”
“Frak you.” Lee set off down the corridor without warning.
Kara smiled happily and followed him.
All that mattered was that she had this back, and that the dragging grey weight she had carried around since Sam left her seemed to be finally lifting. She didn’t care about anything else.
Kara stopped looking through Lee after that, and he stopped trying to provoke her into leaving. But he still kept his distance, only seeing her at meetings, only speaking to her about work.
He watched her, though. Listened to the comms when she was flying. Knew she still stayed out of the rec room, barely spoke when she was on CAP.
He didn’t do anything about it though. Until his mother’s birthday.
Pegasus had a memorial corridor for the colonies just as Galactica did. An area of wall for each colony, covered with photographs and messages.
Lee didn’t often go there. Looking at those mementos of the dead made him think about his mother and wonder how she had died, if she had lived long enough to know what was happening to her…
Painful and futile. So he didn’t go there, except on two days of the year. His mother’s birthday, and Zak’s.
He went at the end of the night shift, when the ship was quiet and there were few people about. So he was startled to find someone by the Caprica memorial wall, and even more startled to see that it was Kara, fair head bowed in prayer.
He almost turned away, meaning to wait out of sight until she left, but at that moment she turned her head and saw him.
“Lee.” She sounded awkward.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“No, I was just - I’ll go,” she said, walking towards him. “You probably want to be alone.”
Lee found himself putting a hand on her arm as she passed him, stopping her.
“Kara.” It was the first time he had called her that since she came back. She looked up at him, startled. “Were you praying for her?”
Kara nodded, still looking awkward. “She was always kind to me, Lee. I miss her.”
Lee swallowed hard. “So do I.” He suddenly remembered a dinner at his mother’s house, seeing it as clearly as if he were there. Kara telling stories about the various pranks she had played on her fellow nuggets at flight school, grinning wickedly at Zak, making his mother laugh so much she choked on her soup. She’d liked Kara a lot, considered her one of the family…
“It was you who called me on Zak’s anniversary, wasn’t it,” he said.
“Yes.” Kara was watching him warily.
And Lee knew, abruptly and finally, that he couldn’t just walk away from her. Not when she was hurting. Not when he could help. There was too much history between them for that. Whatever she’d done, whatever she did, she would always be the girl his brother had loved, the girl his mother had welcomed into their family.
He couldn’t turn his back on that.
“I’ve got a free shift tomorrow,” he said, taking a deep breath. “I thought-”
“What?” Kara bit her lip. In anyone else, he would have said it looked nervous.
“I thought maybe we could go flying. Together.” He stopped, looking at Kara. Her eyes were wide, and she wasn’t saying anything. “You know, for old times sake,” he finished awkwardly.
A smile spread hesitantly across Kara’s face. “Do you mean that?”
Lee nodded.
Kara’s smile grew, and Lee found himself smiling back. It was so long since he had seen that smile. “Just tell me when, Apollo.”
Maybe they could be friends again, he thought. He missed their friendship, and they’d always been good at being friends. It was when they tried to be anything more that they hit trouble. And he knew better than to try that again. He’d been burnt too many times - and anyway, he had Dee now.
Friends, though, that was all right. Friends was safe enough.
----
The following afternoon, Kara waited for Lee in the hangar bay.
She was half expecting him not to turn up. She still couldn’t believe he’d suggested flying together at all. After the way he’d been ignoring her for the last month, it was a surprising turnaround.
Just as surprising as the way he’d spent weeks trying to push her to frak up so he could get rid of her, and then as soon as he had an excuse to, relented and let her stay.
It made no sense - but then, when had Lee ever made sense? She’d long ago decided that she’d never understand how his brain worked, even if she lived to be a hundred.
Anyway, it didn’t matter. It seemed that for whatever mysterious reason, he’d decided to forgive her at least a little, and she was just grateful for that. At last she had one bright spot in her screwed-up life.
Which, knowing her luck, was exactly why he wouldn’t turn up.
----
Ten minutes after the time they’d agreed to meet, Kara was just bitterly deciding that she had been right when Lee appeared in the hangar bay, slightly out of breath and fastening his flightsuit.
“Sorry I’m late. I got held up in CIC.”
“No problem.” Kara shrugged casually.
Lee wasn’t fooled. He looked at her sharply. “Kara, I said I’d be here, and I am.”
“I thought you might change your mind,” she said, staring down at the deck.
“Well, I haven’t,” said Lee, after an awkward pause. “Look Kara, let’s just go, shall we? It’s not like you to waste valuable flying time.”
That made her smile, as she knew he’d meant her to. “All right, Apollo. See you outside.”
----
It was weird, flying with Lee again. Glancing to her right and seeing him hovering a wing tip away. It was almost as if the past eighteen months had never happened, as if she was still a lieutenant, and he was her CAG and her wingman and her best friend, and the Pegasus was just a ship that had been destroyed along with the twelve colonies.
“So, Starbuck,” he said over the comms, breaking in on her melancholy thoughts. “I’ve got a challenge for you.”
“A challenge?” she said, startled. “What kind of challenge?”
“An important one,” he said, in a tone that made her throat constrict. She’d never thought she’d hear that familiar teasing note again. “I want you to prove to me you haven’t lost your touch.”
She stiffened in her seat, insulted. “Lost my touch?”
“I’ve watched you on CAP, Starbuck. Plodding round the circuit like a mule on a tether…”
“Apollo!” She was surprised into laughter. “Well, if I’m a mule, what does that make you, CIC boy? A snail?”
He ignored her, talking over her. “No finesse, no flashy moves…do you even know how to do a Picon barrel roll any more?”
“Frak you, Lee,” she said, and performed one perfectly.
“Come on, Starbuck,” he said when she had finished. “Any nugget can do one of those. You’ll have to do better than that. Double it.”
She doubled it. She knew what he was trying to do - he wasn’t exactly being subtle about it - but she didn’t care. This was the happiest she’d felt since Sam left her.
“Come on, Apollo,” she said when she finished. “Stop being so lazy. Triple roll.”
He did a triple roll, and challenged her to a quadruple, and back again.
Kara barely hung onto her stomach contents through six rolls and whooped in triumph when Lee flipped out before he reached seven.
“Show some commitment, Apollo!”
“Frak commitment. I am not flying around for the next two hours with vomit in my helmet.”
“Chicken.” Kara grinned. “What next?”
“Aerilon spins.”
Aerilon spins were followed by Virgon spirals and Geminon loops and eventually what seemed like every manoeuvre they’d ever learnt, in and out of flight school, from the basic to the fiendishly complicated, from the mildly risky to the downright dangerous.
“Don’t tell me you’ve run out of manoeuvres,” she teased, when they finally paused.
“Time for something different,” he said, laughing. “You’ve proved you’ve still got style, but what about speed?”
“Speed?” Kara grinned in anticipation. “You mean a race?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. Round the Rising Star, out to the Geminon Traveller, past Galactica and back to Pegasus.”
“You’re on. What are the stakes?”
“Stakes?”
“Come on, Lee. Flying races are like triad - no fun without stakes.”
“Fine. If I win you can give me that Caprican cigar Showboat tells me you have stashed away.”
“That traitor. Very well, I accept.”
“And you?”
Kara held her breath for a moment, wondering whether to risk it. She wasn’t sure yet if they were on firm enough ground.
What the hell. She’d always been one for taking risks.
“If I win, I want you to come running with me every morning.” Silence. She bit her lip, kept her voice light. “You look like you could use the exercise.”
Another moment of silence.
“Frak you, Starbuck.” Kara exhaled in relief, relaxing her tight grip on the controls. “I accept. But just for that, I’m going to leave you choking in my dust.”
“Not technically possible in space, Apollo.”
“Like you’ve ever given a shit about what’s technically possible. Are we starting this race or not?”
“Gods, you’re touchy. Feeling a little nervous, are we?”
“Starbuck-”
“Okay, okay. Counting down from ten. Ten, nine, eight…”
----
Kara put everything she had into that race. It was so long since she had done something like this, since she had flown with no purpose, no reason, for nothing but the thrill of it and pure competitiveness.
Besides, this was Lee she was racing with. They’d always had an unspoken agreement when racing against each other not to hold back or pull any punches. To put their absolute best into it, even if it was only a friendly race.
So she hurtled round the Rising Star as fast as she could go, pulling into the turn at the very last second, her muscles screaming with the effort.
Lee was only a fraction of a second behind her. He’d obviously still been putting in some time in a viper recently, even though it was no longer part of his official duties.
They reached the Geminon Traveller side by side, and Lee pulled a slightly tighter turn, taking the lead.
Kara swore under her breath. Don’t think you’re going to beat me that easily, Adama.
They raced on. Galactica loomed ahead of them, a dark mass against the stars. They’d need to circle around it to head back to Pegasus.
Kara set her teeth. She was going to get the lead back on this turn if it killed her.
As they reached Galactica’s stern, she held her angle as long as possible. The side of the ship rose up in front of her, so close she could almost touch it…
“Kara, turn!” Lee’s voice rang furiously in her ears. “Turn! You’re going to hit it.”
She laughed fearlessly, and twisted her viper at the last possible moment, just skimming Galactica’s stern. She held the turn fiercely, riding out the force of it, and headed towards Pegasus several vipers-lengths ahead.
“Have a little faith, Lee.”
“You are frakking insane, you know that?”
She laughed again, and couldn’t stop chuckling until she docked back at Pegasus. Lee pushed his viper to the limit and made up a lot of ground, but she still nipped into the launch tubes a few seconds ahead of him.
She pulled off her helmet and handed it to a deckhand, who blinked in surprise at her broad grin. She climbed out and hurried over to perch on Lee’s ladder. He was just unfastening his metal collar.
“Looks like I won.”
“Only because I have some sense of self-preservation.”
“I knew what I was doing.”
He looked at her sceptically. “You always say that.”
“Because it’s true. So, you ready for our run tomorrow? 0700?”
“That early?” Lee pretended to groan. “I’ll be there.”
----
She probably shouldn’t be doing this, Kara thought, as she waited outside Lee’s quarters the next morning. Shouldn’t be spending time with Lee again. She should stay well away from him, just as she’d done for the last year, just as Dee had said. Nothing had changed; he was still as dangerous to her now as he had always been.
But…but…
She’d missed him so much, and she was so lonely here on Pegasus, without Sam, without Karl, without the Old Man. She needed a friend, and Lee had always been a good friend. There was no danger of anything more. She knew better than that; they both did. And Lee was getting married in a few weeks anyway.
Kara unconsciously gritted her teeth at the thought.
At that moment the hatch opened and Lee emerged from his quarters. He blinked at her expression. “Something wrong?”
Kara hastily donned a pleasant smile. “Not at all. Ready to go?”
Lee nodded.
“Good. Last one to the mess hall gets the coffee.”
Lee groaned. “Not another race. What is it with you, Kara?”
“You say that like you don’t enjoy it.” She grinned. “How about I let you win this time?”
“Frak you.” Lee set off down the corridor without warning.
Kara smiled happily and followed him.
All that mattered was that she had this back, and that the dragging grey weight she had carried around since Sam left her seemed to be finally lifting. She didn’t care about anything else.