Firewalls
As ever, I'm facsinated with connecting the Lee/Dee centric narrative dots of BSG season 2.
Somehow, Lee Adama ended up instructing self-defense classes (instrumental to landing him within loads of UST with Dee and explicitly indicative of the brewing attraction), upon the return from Kobol - an activity not quite inherent to his duties, or even leisure, as CAG.
Incidentally, Galactica being boarded by Centurions before Lee's and Roslin's 'prison break' adds up to the long list of Lee's traumatic experiences, shared with Dee specifically. So, to the best of my extimations, built-up freindship through Lee's incarceration and escape, understatd attraction (pushing on growing infatuation), common ground of understanding and compassion concerning recent traumas, might have very well factored into Captain Adama's pursuit of alternate excercise options.
Set some time after 'Home, Part II', but before the 'Flight of the Phoenix', season 2. Mentions of the events, taking place in the 'Valley of Darkness' and earlier.
A/N: My knowledge and experience of the fire-arm practice routine is a lot less scarce, than Billy's, so whatever incongruities there might be, are mea culpa.
Disclaimer: None of the characters, plot points, inherent to the show, belong to me.
Firewalls
The fire range was empty, but for the two of them. Even if spotting Dee, engrossed in shooting practice as if she personally had it in for the target, initially scored a raised brow from him, he opted to keep surprise to himself. Of course, it wasn't all that common for enlisted personnel to indulge into combat related activities outside the basic, but those were times of war, after all. The first, busted, mission on Kobol, that cost them Crashdown, and the still unnervingly vivid memory of the engagement with chrome-jobs right on-board Galactica proved no one was in the least immune to getting amidst active combat zone, commissioned officer or not. Hades, wasn't his own self determined to work further on honing the hand-to-hand skills, ever since the one too many close brushes with Centurion type toasters, the recent events supplied?
The bullets spattered a blunt staccato, audible even through the head-piece he had on. Giving in at a certain point, he stole a curious glance at the target, she was hitting. Not bad, he mused. Not bad at all, if limping on the side of sloppy a tad. Given proper training, she could actually become a fairly decent shot, someday. Not that it went into jangling communications job description, but still.
"No need to strain the arm".
She was obviously startled, as he approached from behind, a faint assertive frown about him. Sure enough, the standard issue side-arm a notable bit too heavy for her hand, she'd tense every arm and shoulder muscle available to uphold its weight, eventually bringing the weapon to waver. Just like he suspected. A remarkably small hand it was too, clutching the gun, not that he was taking any specific notice, certainly.
He was subjected to a quizzical, let alone, rather self-conscious look, all the while stepping up in close alignment with her diminutive form, lifting her right elbow up in position, his other hand headed for her hip to nudge it half a stance back.
"There, you've got to shift the bulk of your body weight first."
She obliged silently, the taut flesh flexing beneath his touch. If he were keeping stock, he'd probably have to admit it didn't feel at all that awkward, given the way it must have looked. But he wasn't, right? So no problem therein.
"Now, loosen the elbow, like that."
His fingers dived into the middle of her arm with an added score of deliberate pressure, to make the elbow bend ever so slightly. That earned him another puzzled upwards gaze. Brows creased in concentration, the lower lip worried lightly, he could tell she was not just set to follow his instructions, but to make head to tail with wherever they were coming from, as well. He couldn't help wondering whether that was how she generally came about orders too. At the very least, the ones not dealing with breaking rogue Presidents and mutinous officers out of detention. If anything, that asked for a grin. The most sheepish one he could conjure, that is.
"It'll be easier if you rest the weight of the gun on the elbow. Like this". - his grasp on her arm was gentler that time, cradling. - "See? Your wrist is a lot more stable that way. Now you can shoot."
She did just that, focusing on the target, the whole body tensing again just a notch more, than necessary, from what his lingering proximity could tell, but no sooner than shooting him the smallest of grateful smiles, first. He had to tilt his had to catch it, allowing himself to get distracted by a brief moment of entertaining the idea how come someone that petite could actually manage to get enlisted into the military.
Then she fired and the issue was bound to get dropped from his ruminations. They were at war, on the run for their lives. And her size had nothing to do with how much craved the reassurance of the voice was, infallibly calling the pilots, himself including, home, making certain they didn't lose touch and direction. Making believe with amazing certainty they were all welcome back alive and safe. Less still had her size to do with the skill and guts it took to locate an array of scrambled calls, to contact Zarek, in order to secure his and Laura Roslin's reckless escape off Galactica the other time. Not that he minded the size either. Not at all.
His hand kept hovering just over her hip-bone, for no other purpose than to prevent her from shifting the fulcrum, definitely. Another one never broke contact with her right arm, tugging lightly to readjust her aim in a ghost of a motion that he hoped was not too obvious.
"Just pretend you're going for a head-shot at a large, mean, nasty chrome-job…"
He knew his attempt at boosting motivation failed even before the quip made it all the way into a coherent utterance. She all but convulsed against him, immediately, bending at midsection in what for all intents and purposes appeared a wave of instant nausea. So much so he had to catch her by the waist, securing a firm clasp, all the while removing the weapon from her rapidly slackening grip. To place the gun on the weaponry table and click safety back on, get rid of their respective head-pieces and protective glasses was a matter of seconds before he managed to rotate her shivering form one-eighty, enclosing into embrace against his chest.
Woefully no stranger to flashbacks himself, he knew the wave of exhausting vertigo had to be let to wash over. Resisting or trying to ride it out through movement would make matters worse, he, of all people, could judge from experience. The blinding vista of Olympic Carrier exploding in his wakeful nightmares had been recently replaced by the sight of his father being gunned down, blood splattering a thick scarlet veil over his eyes. So he settled for just holding her, waiting for the shudders, raking her tiny frame, to subside and the ragged breathing to even out.
He could feel his own heartbeat quicken substantially, from the mental image of a deadly metal monstrosity, lunging his way. The urge to kick himself factored in there too, no doubt, for to make a girl borderline hyperventilate by way of bringing her to smile was beyond the scope of pathetically lame, even by his far less than stellar standards.
Dee was quiet, trustingly inert for some time, within his hug, and indicated no intention to move away just yet, hence he didn't feel compelled to break contact either. Nor was he in any hurry to, for that matter. To argue silently the appropriateness of an option he'd had in mind for as long as she was tucked beneath his chin didn't take half the time or even half the rhetoric effort he might have anticipated, much to his bewilderment. His head bent down before he could register and hold back the move, cheek nestling to nuzzle the crown of her hair, sealing the circuit of connection.
It felt… comfortable. Queer enough, granted the circumstances, but comfortable and appeasing, none the less. Her hair smelled of something not Galactica, something decidedly not post-apocalypse. More like the rain and damp morning mist of Kobol. Or rather, like the real, unprocessed, air would, if he was at all able to point a finger at the sensation. Though merely contenting himself with a tranquil pattern of inhales was to do too, for the moment.
He nearly missed it, when she spoke, the soft whiffs against his exposed skin the only indication of the sound.
"I couldn't move. They were shooting all around, and I couldn't move".
He knew the story, of course. Was the one to debrief her, in fact, once the post-assault frenzy settled down. Centurions executed the whole bunk-roomful of people on the spot. She was only able to stay alive because initially hit with the swung open hatch and mistaken for the dead, or overlooked, right away. Still he couldn't help cringing. An excruciatingly close call it was, indeed. Heartfelt gratitude and relief for every single life, civilian or otherwise, saved through their many tribulations was, of course, not in the least foreign to him since the worlds' end, but there happened to be a measure of uninhibited elation, mingled with relief over that particular life spared the gruesome fate, that he wasn't particularly in the mood to ponder for the time being. Maybe ever.
It wasn't until a couple of moments later that it dawned on him she kept talking, voice distant and vacant, in a way, as if evoking visions from another lifetime:
"I wanted to fight back, to do something, but I just couldn't. It felt so…"
"Helpless? Yeah, I know."
To rub his hand soothingly over her shoulder didn't even require an inner debate. He remembered all too well the sticky, freezing horror, as his rounds ran out and the huge chrome-job drew closer, releasing razor-sharp claws, ready to shred him to pieces. Incidentally, the irony was worth appreciating. Whereas his paralysis all but cost him his life, the one she underwent, more likely than not, was instrumental to salvaging hers.
"Wish I were better trained, sir."
Her next words were barely above a wistful whisper by then, still muffled by the fabric of his tank-tops. The sigh she heaved, though, managed to jolt his whole body into unexpected awareness. The very idea of sweet little Dee taking up a Centurion toaster thrice her size all by herself in a valiant hand-to-hand fight was ridiculous enough to draw a clipped barking smirk on his part, however, he couldn't help assigning the definitive endearing ring, somehow, to the fact she'd actually consider the plausibility of just that. Not that he was precisely in the mindset, of course, to label anything 'sweet' or 'endearing' those months. Or anyone, for that matter.
"Guess, we might try and see to that, what do you think, Petty Officer?"
A more than just a bit dumbfounded look his impish, conspiratorial grin ensued, as well as her unvoiced question, were interrupted by the hatch-door opening with a worn out screech. Kat with a couple of other nuggets in tow showed up for mandatory range practice, their usual loud, brash, and fooling around selves. And if he was forced to put extra distance between himself and Petty Officer Second Class Anastasia Dualla a tad more abruptly than originally intended, let alone a tad too soon, he didn't bother to spare the notion a second thought. Nor was he particularly mindful of the cooling swish of air, washing over the gaping hollow, her nearness from moments ago did an astoundingly fair job of fulfilling. Still, to smack Kat, hard, for that one of her many raucous entrances lately, had hardly ever felt that undeniably appealing.
***
"A self-defense class for non-commissioned personnel?"
His father put the glasses aside, focusing the trade-mark stare on his tensed form, seated in a chair across from the Admiral's desk, incessantly bringing up the urge to shift under scrutiny. And he wasn't even squirming his way into a stealth sleep-over with a school buddy next door. Why did it always have to feel his father was reading underlying implications into the most innocent of his intentions?
"Well, yeah. The Cylon onslaught the other time left many of our enlisted reeling, insecure. Dee, um… Petty Officer Dualla, for instance, was quite heavily battered then. Most of NCOs hadn't seen an inside of a hand-to-hand since way back in basic training, dad. I figured, if they could enhance some combat skills, that would work to boost morale a notch, give the semblance of control."
The Admiral kept watching him with a non-committal pensive frown.
"And you're eager to volunteer for the job?"
Whatever grain of taunting there was, woven into his father's inflection, didn't surface right away.
Well… can't say I'm not qualified… - he hunched over a bit with what he hoped would appear as matter-of-fact a shrug as they went. The Admiral was reaching for his glasses again, indicating the conversation was drawing to a close.
"Alright. I think it's a good idea, in fact. Arrange the group rotation schedule with one of the Marine instructors, or whomever else you deem appropriate. Wouldn't want my CAG enrolled full-time into delivering individual classes."
If there was a figment of disappointment, clouding his son's countenance for a fleeting moment, Admiral Adama chose not dwell on it.