We used to wait. (Chapter 18/?)
title: We used to wait. (Chapter 18/?)
author:
apodixis
spoilers: Through all seasons, though this takes place in an AU starting at the very end of season 2.
pairings: kara/lee, kara/sam
overall fic rating: R/NC-17
word count: 5,048
notes: See http://apodixis.livejournal.com/685.html for more information.
summary: If God isn't leading the fleet to Earth, can they ever find it?
I posted two chapters at once, so don't miss 17 + 18.
It was four days before Lee left the Admiral’s quarters. Helo had gone the extra mile, making sure some of Apollo’s belongings were brought to the Captain. Adama, for his part, scheduled private meals so neither of them had to dine with the rest of the crew, though Lee never ate much of it anyway. Lee was in his father’s bathroom, spacious compared to any of the other private baths, and he set out his razor blade and soap. As he looked at himself in the mirror, Lee knew it was time to return to some kind of routine to at least take his mind off of everything else. This had been a morning ritual for him since his late teenage years and he couldn’t recall the last time he had gone this long without shaving away the rapidly growing stubble. He reached down for the soap and drew the brush to his cheek to begin lathering it on, when he looked in the mirror above the sink.
Lee wasn’t alone, but he wasn’t startled by it either. Kara stood behind him, watching from over his shoulder with a coy smile on her lips. He could see the single tank top she wore, thick straps over her shoulders.
“You should leave it,” she teased and moved around him to press her hip into the sink in front of him, just slightly off to the side. Her hand raised and rubbed over the scratchy feel of his jaw.
He blinked, but when his eyes reopened she was gone and he was alone in that bathroom, hand still raised. As he rubbed the foam on he wondered how long he’d see her like this, in his dreams and in his waking moments, like she’d never gone. Lee hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, knowing they’d worry about his mental state when he confessed to seeing her during his conscious hours now. He didn’t want to sit down with a therapist or someone far less qualified and talk about her with a stranger, someone that never knew her and would never understand Kara Thrace. Mostly, he didn’t want them to drive her away from him. Maybe seeing her like this would mean he would never move on, no matter how many years were put between him and her death, but Lee knew he would never want to. There’d never be anyone else for him. If they made it to Earth, and Lee sincerely doubted they ever would, he knew he’d retire somewhere on his own rather than seek companionship and company in anyone else. The dream he had of Earth involved him and Kara, no one else could fill that void.
The razor slid along his cheek repeatedly until his skin was freshly shaved. Lee rinsed off the excess soap with warm water from his cupped hands and dried himself on one of the towels in his father’s bathroom. He pulled his uniform off of where it hung on a hanger on the towel rack and began to dress himself. When he was done, he looked into the mirror, desperately hoping to see her behind him again. His picture in front of him resembled the man he had always been, but he barely recognized himself, like there was a detachment from his body and his soul. Yes, that was Lee Adama in body. In everything else, though, he wasn’t there at all.
For the first time since that day he arrived for the decommissioning, the hallways of Galactica felt foreign to him. He knew every hall and passageway by heart, including all the shortcuts to get from wherever he was down to the hangar deck in case of an emergency condition one. Regardless, there was something off about the color, about even the very scent of the ship. He kept his head down as he walked, avoiding interaction and contact with everyone he crossed paths with. Lee stepped into the pilots’ briefing room a few minutes before the daily scheduled meeting and all present eyes turned to him. From the front of the room, Helo’s face read of shock.
“Sir,” Karl said as Apollo approached.
“You don’t have to fill in anymore, I can take over.” Lee said his words with a forced kind of confidence, though his eyes were everywhere else but on the taller man.
Helo was at a loss for words. “Apollo…your father appointed me CAG.”
That was enough to force Lee to look directly up to Karl. True, he had been hiding away and avoiding his duties, something that his father most likely wouldn’t have allowed from anyone else. When Kara had been injured and off duty previously, Lee had taken over the position. Hell, the job had been his a long time ago. He only expected Kara’s duties to be turned over to him and the fact that they hadn’t been hit him incredibly hard.
“I’m sure if you want the position, he’ll be happy to give it you,” Karl offered.
Lee knew better than to think that his father had intended this as temporary. It had been a strategic action to keep his son away from the responsibilities of CAG. Anger burned through him and he wondered if his father had the nerve to pull his wings too, as a precaution. “No, go ahead. Sorry for interrupting.” He gave a nod before heading back out, not once looking over to the sea of faces of his fellow pilots. He couldn’t face them just yet.
When Lee found his father, Bill was back in his quarters alongside Roslin. They were both quiet, but he knew they were relieved to have him be a functioning member of society again so soon, or at least dressed the part for it. In previous experiences, Lee would have waited for the President to dismiss herself or he would have returned at a later time to see his father, but now he couldn’t wait.
“Why is Karl frakking Agathon CAG?” From the way he said it, anyone else may have assumed he and Karl didn’t get on. It was quite the opposite in fact, the two of them having grown even closer thanks to Kara’s intervention.
Adama watched his son from where he was seated. “He’s the next highest ranking officer.”
“Which is why I’m asking why you didn’t give it to me!”
“You have a lot to deal--”
“What I need is to have my old job back, to be useful around here.”
Roslin cleared her throat and drew the attention of the father and son. “Actually, Lee, I asked your father to put you on something else as a favor to me. I don’t know if you heard, but Baltar’s lawyer was recently killed. I’ve found another, but I need someone I trust to be in charge of his security.”
Lee laughed outright as he began to pace across the room. “You want me to do anything that’s going to help Gaius Baltar?” His eyes leveled with her as he stopped. “I’ll throw him out the airlock myself.”
She smiled tightly. “As would I… but he’s entitled to a trial as a citizen of the Twelve Colonies. As President, I have to make sure he sees a fair trial, even if I don’t agree with it.”
“No.”
“Lee, it has to be someone we trust,” his father started.
“Make someone else be the frakking babysitter.” His anger stirred with his grief and Lee left the room without settling what his father and Laura had started.
-
Lee walked the halls to bring himself back to some kind of calm. He had no destination in mind, but his body let the familiar guide him, returning him back to the bunk room that had been his home for the last few years. The door was ajar and he stepped in and around the other pilots in various states of undress. He mumbled a few hellos that were returned with more enthusiasm than he showed, and moved to the back of the room to a locker that didn’t belong to him. He stayed there for nearly half a minute, hand poised at the door handle but unable to take the final step in opening it. Lee’s eyes shut to steady his breathing that had gone erratic, finally taking the plunge and gripping his fingers around the small knob.
The door gave way and Lee faced down the number of possessions that belonged to Kara, or had, at least. In the event of a crew members death, usual routine was for their possessions to be sold or distributed in some manner, now that toiletries, clothes, and other trinkets were few and far between. They couldn’t allow sentimentality to crowd a couple storage lockers with boxes of goods belonging to those who would never use them again when there were others who needed them far more than someone’s ghost. Many didn’t agree with the practice, and usually a few items always ended up missing before the belongings were released to the rest of the ship, but no one ever said anything when those small tokens reappeared on others’ shelves. They all had a few items that reminded them of the people they lost.
Lee turned to the full room, his voice loud and booming to cut through the the friendly chatter. “No one touches her things, understand?” It was the first real thing longer than a single word he’d said to any of them since her death. “If anything disappears, a single thing-” He cut himself off before he finished the statement, not liking the way his tone was going. They understood the message, and just as he had been her friend, they had been hers at well. Even those that hadn’t always gotten along with Kara wouldn’t dare risk pushing Apollo that far.
“Got it, Apollo,” Hot Dog said, speaking for the group. They were wise enough to not let their focus linger on him, instead turning back to their own clothing and racks to finish getting dressed or undressed, depending on which way they were going.
He reached his arm into the back of the upper shelf, finding that familiar cigar box in the exact spot he’d placed it after they had argued. With his hands full of the unknown, Lee sat down on the bed that belonged to Kara. He placed the box towards the foot of the bed and looked around him at the way the sheets and blanket were wrinkled and barely made, left that way after they’d made love and she laid in his arms afterward. Tucked between the bed and the wall, he could even see a sweatshirt of hers, and though he wanted nothing more than to pull it out and draw it to his face to breathe in her scent, he left it where it lay. Kara had placed it there and so long as her bed remained not perfectly made with corners crisp, he could live under the illusion that she was coming back. Maybe she was at the gym or down in the mess hall getting something to eat. Maybe in a half an hour she would come back and pull that sweatshirt on, curl up in bed and stare across the gap of the room at him in his own bed like they’d grown accustomed to.
Lee put his attention back on the items he’d taken from her locker, things of hers he’d never even seen before. As well as he knew her in some respects, Kara still had an entire world she was only starting to let him in to see. Lee took the box and set it on his thighs, the lid lifted and left hanging open away from him. The pictures were on top, he recalled stacking them and tucking them back into the space provided for them in his haste to clean up. The photos were set aside, though he took a moment to look at the picture on the top of the pile, the one of her and Zak that had led to his untimely outburst and their subsequent argument. A few days ago, he had looked at this picture and run his finger over his brother’s face, drawing comfort from being marginally nearer to Zak’s memory. This time when he looked at it, he didn’t just see the brother he lost, but Kara as well. Now they were both only ever going to be memories to him and nothing more. Silently, Lee prayed to whatever Gods were listening that Zak and Kara were together finally. He hoped they were at peace and weren’t alone.
He sifted through the rest of the items in the box, taking the time to appreciate every item, no matter how small and insignificant. He recognized a few hair elastics, a small stash of the last in the world she had acquired somewhere along the way as her hair grew long. Beyond them was a small medal usually given out in honor and recognition of time served to one branch of the military or another. Lee knew it couldn’t have been Kara’s, and he soon found a folded piece of paper addressed with her mother’s name. With a father like Bill Adama, he had seen the inner offices of a number of retired military members, similar medals and papers framed together and displayed for all the guests who entered. This had been her mother’s then, presumably taken after her death. A music chip was found next, her father’s name printed across the plastic. He slipped it into his pocket for later, determined to enjoy it when alone.
As he went through each item, Lee was happy Kara had left the majority of her belongings from Pegasus on that freighter with all the ship’s possessions before she barreled back towards New Caprica. Had she not, he knew there would be nothing left for him to look at and remind himself that she had in fact lived. That she had not simply been a ghost in the night, a figment of his wild imagination.
The last item of note in the box was another photograph, this one well worn. He removed it from the corner where it had been tucked away between other items, taking a look at the side exposed to him. It was a photo of himself, years younger, and he couldn’t even recall the time or the place in which it had been taken. Beside him was Kara, though part of her was cut off as the paper folded back, capturing a third or so of her body with it. From this angle, the angle he knew it was intentionally folded to show, it was just a photo of the two of them, albeit with some distance between them. When he curled his finger to the back to pry up the missing piece of the picture, Zak came into view along with Kara’s arms that were curled around him in the posed embrace. More tears came to his eyes, but this time not at the sight of his brother or the now deceased Kara. This time it was because he knew she had folded it that way, a long time ago he guessed by the sharp crease in the picture, so that when viewing it, she only saw herself beside him.
When he made that comment to her days before while they laid tangled in one anothers arms, he had genuinely felt a sadness at not being the brother she loved first. He knew she loved him, it was hard to make Kara Thrace say or do anything she didn’t truly mean. That didn’t stop the feeling of inadequacy, however, and he unfortunately let it out to her. He didn’t want to start a fight, didn’t want to accuse her of what she took his words as. Instead, he wanted the reassurance only she could give him that he wasn’t second best and wouldn’t be for the rest of his life. A substitute. Looking down at the picture she had folded to capture the two of them together with Zak folded away, Lee knew he was an absolute fool for ever doubting her and an idiot for letting his fear get the best of him. She had loved him, completely and truly, and now he knew she had never, not once, viewed him as anything less than exactly what she wanted. For the first time since her death, Lee took comfort in knowing that for awhile, they really had been perfect.
The room cleared out around him, with the other pilots either climbing into their racks to get some shut eye, heading out for shift, or to find relaxation elsewhere on Galactica. Someone else entered, but Lee was too absorbed in his thoughts to give them any mind. As the shadow loomed over him, he finally raised his eyes to find Sam there, sullen and quiet.
“Hey, Lee.” Sam used his name instead of his call sign, something he didn’t regularly do, at least not to his face. This wasn’t the time for being pilots though, this was the time for the two of them to share in their mutual loss. He pulled a chair out from the table and set it closer to Lee, sitting down and crossing his legs, one ankle over his knee.
“Hey, Sam.” Lee busied himself with replacing all of Kara’s sentimental belongings back into the box, finally shutting the top and placing it beside him, further into the safety of her bunk. The two living men that had claimed Starbuck’s heart at some point had spent the time avoiding each other after the events of the algae planet. It was simply too uncomfortable for them to even pretend to be friends, even with Sam insisting he was at peace with Kara’s decision.
They shared the comfortable silence, neither needing to say anything to express what they both felt. Sam opened his mouth to speak a few times, but swallowed his words back down each time.
“Do you think you could help me do something?” Lee’s head tipped back just enough from his downward cast to look him in the eye.
“What do you need?” Anders asked with raised brows.
“Back up.”
-
Lee’s eyes locked with Leoben’s through the wire fencing around the glass enclosure that housed both of the cylons currently held captive aboard Galactica. He motioned to the nearest marine guard and the young man stepped up, obviously nervous.
“Open the cell,” Lee said.
“Sir, I’m not supposed to allow anyone-”
“Do you know who I am?” He had hated pulling the last name card on anyone, rather than relying on his own merits, but for this, he would allow it.
“Captain Adama, sir.”
“That’s right, I’m the Admiral’s son and your superior. I’m giving you an order, open the door.”
The tone Lee used startled Sam, having never been around to hear Apollo in such a state. He’d heard that CAG voice he used when trying to corral a rowdy group of pilots, or even him yelling at an incompetent deck hand for not fixing the required part on his Mark VII. This one, however, hardly even belonged to him.
The marine suffered a moral dilemma, obviously having not been trained for the type of situation and lacking the on the job experience needed to adequately make the call. Lee’s patience wore thin and his hand reached for the keys hooked to the marine’s belt, removing them and taking matters into his own hands. He was rough with the lock of the door and once it was opened, he tossed the keys back to the boy. Lee pulled the door open and stepped inside, Sam following behind him and closing the door to lock the two members of the Colonial Fleet inside with the cylons.
“Watch her,” Lee ordered and Sam kept his eyes on D’Anna, though she seemed content to stay out of whatever was coming to Leoben. After being stuck in a room with him for that long, she had grown sick of her brother’s constant companionship.
Lee’s focus was on Leoben, just as it had been when he entered the room. The two of them hadn’t been face to face since Lee had nearly beaten the cylon’s skull in on the temple floor. Before that, Leoben had been the one to exude his dominance over Lee, last seeing one another as the cylon looked down at the beaten and bloody human who had resisted giving away the information on Kara Thrace he so desperately wanted.
“What did you say to her?”
“Who?” Leoben played innocent, or perhaps just dumb.
The pilot was having none of it, however, and in an instant Lee lunged at him in a fashion quite similar to the algae planet. He drove Leoben up into the wall this time, his forearm pressed perpendicular to the cylon’s throat, nearly crushing his windpipe. Leoben struggled to breathe, but kept his eyes locked on his attacker’s.
“You killed her,” Lee accused.
Something Lee would have sworn was actual emotional pain crossed the cylon’s eyes and he knew that Leoben hadn’t yet heard the news of Kara’s death.
“You tortured me for weeks to try to find her. You told me you loved her, and what do you do? You send her out to die. ” Lee eased up on the pressure before relenting fully, though he quickly shoved the cylon back into the glass with all the force he could manage. The glass hadn’t cracked but it sounded like it. Leoben drew his hand to the back of his head, his fingers covered in a bit of his own blood. “That isn’t love! That isn’t anything!” Lee yelled at him from only a few paces off.
Leoben’s eyes avoided his, that action alone shocking Lee and Sam. When he looked back up to Apollo, his eyes returned to that well controlled state that seemed inhuman.
“She’s gone to be with God. You’ll see her again, Lee Adama. This is her destiny.”
Lee spun back around at him, drawing his gun and pressing the barrel of it against the center of the cylon’s forehead. “When a person dies, they don’t come back! There isn’t another body waiting for them, that’s what you don’t understand.”
“Apollo-” Sam said from behind him. “I know what you lost, but we didn’t come here to kill him.” He was nervous, especially as he saw the marines outside the brig bustling around.
Lee ignored Anders, his focus still on the cylon and the weight of the gun in his hand. “I’m not going to kill him.” A sense of calm settled over Lee and the manner in which he spoke. Though it may have seemed like he was backing down, it was merely the calm before the storm. He drew his hand and the gun away from Leoben, quickly bringing the metal back to the side of the cylon’s head as hard as he could. While Leoben stumbled, Lee re-holstered his gun. His left hand gripped at the man’s shirt, his free hand formed into a fist that collided with the other man’s cheek.
It was a repeat of their entire brawl in the temple, except this time there was no Kara to protect and this time Leoben didn’t even put up a fight. The cylon fell to the floor, letting his body become dead weight as Lee straddled his chest. His hand gripped into his shirt again, pulling him up for each impact of his fist, then releasing and allowing his head to smack back into the ground. A rage blew threw him and all he saw was red, his world punctuated by the staccato beat of his fist.
Sam froze, unsure of what to do. With a glance back to D’Anna who, though horrified at the beating her sibling, showed no intention to interfere, he moved towards Apollo in an attempt to stop him before it was too late. “Lee-Lee, you’ve got to stop!” Sam yelled, putting his arms around Lee to try to tug him off Leoben’s bloodied body. Lee resisted, struggled against him, taking any last shots while he stood could.
Just beyond them, the door of the brig opened, the Admiral at the forefront with a few marine guards behind them. “That’s enough!” His voice boomed throughout the small metal and glass room.
It was enough to draw Lee out of his trance, releasing Leoben and tumbling back with Sam to the ground. His uniform and hands were covered in the synthetic blood that belonged to the cylon and now with his eyes no longer clouded by his anger, he was able to see just how far he’d taken it. Blue eyes moved up to meet his father’s own and all he saw there was disappointment.
“Take Captain Adama and Ensign Anders to the brig,” he ordered the marines behind him. They didn’t hesitate to follow the orders directly from the Admiral, pulling up each of the men and cuffing their arms behind them. Neither Lee nor Sam fought the marines, in fact they hadn’t said a single word since Adama turned up.
Lee couldn’t look at his father as the marines marched the two grief stricken men out and towards the series of jail cells that they would temporarily call their home.
“For Gods’ sake someone get Cottle down here,” was the last thing Lee heard his father say.
-
Sam and Lee shared a cell while Baltar occupied the other one available. With their backs to the wall, both men sat beside one another, knees bent and feet flat on the floor. They had been uncuffed once secure in their cells, though it wasn’t much of a concession given that they were still confined to the bars that held them.
“What the frak happened back there, Apollo?”
“I don’t know,” he shook his head. He’d calmed considerably, returning completely to himself, on the walk over. “…But it was worth it.” The expression Lee wore reminded Sam so much of one he’d often seen on Kara when she knew she did something wrong, but couldn’t find it in herself to actually be guilty over it.
Sam sighed and leaned forward to rest his head against his knees. “How long do you think they’ll keep us here?”
“Knowing my father…” The one regret Lee felt about his actions was that his father had found out. They had repaired their relationship so much and Lee had seen a side of his father over the last few days that he never knew existed. The two of them were closer than they ever had been and Lee knew he had set them back a great deal with his manic episode involving one of their prisoners. “…The rest of our lives.”
Lee swallowed as he stared out of the bars, then glanced over to where the former President sat in his own cell, silently writing on the small pad of paper given to him. “I’m sorry I got you involved,” Lee said to Sam, his attention turning back.
“I’m not.” The words were confident. Even if he spent the rest of his life in that cell, Sam didn’t regret agreeing to help Apollo get whatever kind of relief or comfort he got from pounding his fists into the cylon.
“Listen… if there’s anything of Kara’s that you want, you were her husband,” the word made Lee pause, recalling the last night before Kara had married the man beside him. “You can have it.” The thought of handing over Kara’s possessions to Sam made him feel sick, but he was thankful for the help he had provided him without question. They also had been married once upon a time, and together for far longer than she and Lee had. He was deserving of it.
Sam sighed and picked his head up off his knee, letting it rest back into the cool metal bulkhead behind them. “I might come get a few pictures. The ones of us,” he quickly clarified. “She hasn’t been mine for a long time, Lee. I’m not even sure if she ever was.” That was the realization that had forced him to give Kara the ultimatum to make her choice, once and for all. “I loved her, I always will, but even I could tell that her time with you was the happiest she’d ever been.”
Lee listened to Sam’s brutal honesty and it made his chest swell at knowing others had seen evidence of her happiness. So he hadn’t imagined it all, then. A bittersweet smile pulled over his mouth the more he thought about it.
Sam’s left hand rose and he patted the ink exposed on his arm. “I’ll always have her with me. She’d want you to have the rest.”
Whether Anders was just being charitable or honest, Lee didn’t know. Either way, he was grateful for it. “Thanks.”
“We were lucky to have her, weren’t we?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, we were.”
Both of their heads lifted up as the door from the hallway opened up. The Admiral stepped in, flanked once again by a different pair of marines behind him. His hand raised and both of them stayed a few steps back as he approached the bars that held his son and his daughter’s ex-husband.
“You should both be ashamed of yourselves. You’re members of the Colonial Fleet, start acting like it. I know you both have gone through something, but you aren’t the only ones grieving right now.”
Lee could see the pain his father’s eyes once again. Just as he had lost Kara, so had his father. That was something he often overlooked.
“Sam, you’re on deck duty for the next week. Lee, you’ll be on security for Baltar’s lawyer. You’re both grounded until I feel I can trust you again.” Though he didn’t say it, Lee knew he was being ordered. This was the Admiral now, not William Adama.
“You’re taking away the only thing I have left of her,” Lee pleaded in a moment of weakness.
Adama turned and stepped back towards the door. He paused just before he left, his words quiet as he spoke. “No, Lee, you took it away from yourself.”
author:
apodixis
spoilers: Through all seasons, though this takes place in an AU starting at the very end of season 2.
pairings: kara/lee, kara/sam
overall fic rating: R/NC-17
word count: 5,048
notes: See http://apodixis.livejournal.com/685.html for more information.
summary: If God isn't leading the fleet to Earth, can they ever find it?
I posted two chapters at once, so don't miss 17 + 18.
It was four days before Lee left the Admiral’s quarters. Helo had gone the extra mile, making sure some of Apollo’s belongings were brought to the Captain. Adama, for his part, scheduled private meals so neither of them had to dine with the rest of the crew, though Lee never ate much of it anyway. Lee was in his father’s bathroom, spacious compared to any of the other private baths, and he set out his razor blade and soap. As he looked at himself in the mirror, Lee knew it was time to return to some kind of routine to at least take his mind off of everything else. This had been a morning ritual for him since his late teenage years and he couldn’t recall the last time he had gone this long without shaving away the rapidly growing stubble. He reached down for the soap and drew the brush to his cheek to begin lathering it on, when he looked in the mirror above the sink.
Lee wasn’t alone, but he wasn’t startled by it either. Kara stood behind him, watching from over his shoulder with a coy smile on her lips. He could see the single tank top she wore, thick straps over her shoulders.
“You should leave it,” she teased and moved around him to press her hip into the sink in front of him, just slightly off to the side. Her hand raised and rubbed over the scratchy feel of his jaw.
He blinked, but when his eyes reopened she was gone and he was alone in that bathroom, hand still raised. As he rubbed the foam on he wondered how long he’d see her like this, in his dreams and in his waking moments, like she’d never gone. Lee hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, knowing they’d worry about his mental state when he confessed to seeing her during his conscious hours now. He didn’t want to sit down with a therapist or someone far less qualified and talk about her with a stranger, someone that never knew her and would never understand Kara Thrace. Mostly, he didn’t want them to drive her away from him. Maybe seeing her like this would mean he would never move on, no matter how many years were put between him and her death, but Lee knew he would never want to. There’d never be anyone else for him. If they made it to Earth, and Lee sincerely doubted they ever would, he knew he’d retire somewhere on his own rather than seek companionship and company in anyone else. The dream he had of Earth involved him and Kara, no one else could fill that void.
The razor slid along his cheek repeatedly until his skin was freshly shaved. Lee rinsed off the excess soap with warm water from his cupped hands and dried himself on one of the towels in his father’s bathroom. He pulled his uniform off of where it hung on a hanger on the towel rack and began to dress himself. When he was done, he looked into the mirror, desperately hoping to see her behind him again. His picture in front of him resembled the man he had always been, but he barely recognized himself, like there was a detachment from his body and his soul. Yes, that was Lee Adama in body. In everything else, though, he wasn’t there at all.
For the first time since that day he arrived for the decommissioning, the hallways of Galactica felt foreign to him. He knew every hall and passageway by heart, including all the shortcuts to get from wherever he was down to the hangar deck in case of an emergency condition one. Regardless, there was something off about the color, about even the very scent of the ship. He kept his head down as he walked, avoiding interaction and contact with everyone he crossed paths with. Lee stepped into the pilots’ briefing room a few minutes before the daily scheduled meeting and all present eyes turned to him. From the front of the room, Helo’s face read of shock.
“Sir,” Karl said as Apollo approached.
“You don’t have to fill in anymore, I can take over.” Lee said his words with a forced kind of confidence, though his eyes were everywhere else but on the taller man.
Helo was at a loss for words. “Apollo…your father appointed me CAG.”
That was enough to force Lee to look directly up to Karl. True, he had been hiding away and avoiding his duties, something that his father most likely wouldn’t have allowed from anyone else. When Kara had been injured and off duty previously, Lee had taken over the position. Hell, the job had been his a long time ago. He only expected Kara’s duties to be turned over to him and the fact that they hadn’t been hit him incredibly hard.
“I’m sure if you want the position, he’ll be happy to give it you,” Karl offered.
Lee knew better than to think that his father had intended this as temporary. It had been a strategic action to keep his son away from the responsibilities of CAG. Anger burned through him and he wondered if his father had the nerve to pull his wings too, as a precaution. “No, go ahead. Sorry for interrupting.” He gave a nod before heading back out, not once looking over to the sea of faces of his fellow pilots. He couldn’t face them just yet.
When Lee found his father, Bill was back in his quarters alongside Roslin. They were both quiet, but he knew they were relieved to have him be a functioning member of society again so soon, or at least dressed the part for it. In previous experiences, Lee would have waited for the President to dismiss herself or he would have returned at a later time to see his father, but now he couldn’t wait.
“Why is Karl frakking Agathon CAG?” From the way he said it, anyone else may have assumed he and Karl didn’t get on. It was quite the opposite in fact, the two of them having grown even closer thanks to Kara’s intervention.
Adama watched his son from where he was seated. “He’s the next highest ranking officer.”
“Which is why I’m asking why you didn’t give it to me!”
“You have a lot to deal--”
“What I need is to have my old job back, to be useful around here.”
Roslin cleared her throat and drew the attention of the father and son. “Actually, Lee, I asked your father to put you on something else as a favor to me. I don’t know if you heard, but Baltar’s lawyer was recently killed. I’ve found another, but I need someone I trust to be in charge of his security.”
Lee laughed outright as he began to pace across the room. “You want me to do anything that’s going to help Gaius Baltar?” His eyes leveled with her as he stopped. “I’ll throw him out the airlock myself.”
She smiled tightly. “As would I… but he’s entitled to a trial as a citizen of the Twelve Colonies. As President, I have to make sure he sees a fair trial, even if I don’t agree with it.”
“No.”
“Lee, it has to be someone we trust,” his father started.
“Make someone else be the frakking babysitter.” His anger stirred with his grief and Lee left the room without settling what his father and Laura had started.
-
Lee walked the halls to bring himself back to some kind of calm. He had no destination in mind, but his body let the familiar guide him, returning him back to the bunk room that had been his home for the last few years. The door was ajar and he stepped in and around the other pilots in various states of undress. He mumbled a few hellos that were returned with more enthusiasm than he showed, and moved to the back of the room to a locker that didn’t belong to him. He stayed there for nearly half a minute, hand poised at the door handle but unable to take the final step in opening it. Lee’s eyes shut to steady his breathing that had gone erratic, finally taking the plunge and gripping his fingers around the small knob.
The door gave way and Lee faced down the number of possessions that belonged to Kara, or had, at least. In the event of a crew members death, usual routine was for their possessions to be sold or distributed in some manner, now that toiletries, clothes, and other trinkets were few and far between. They couldn’t allow sentimentality to crowd a couple storage lockers with boxes of goods belonging to those who would never use them again when there were others who needed them far more than someone’s ghost. Many didn’t agree with the practice, and usually a few items always ended up missing before the belongings were released to the rest of the ship, but no one ever said anything when those small tokens reappeared on others’ shelves. They all had a few items that reminded them of the people they lost.
Lee turned to the full room, his voice loud and booming to cut through the the friendly chatter. “No one touches her things, understand?” It was the first real thing longer than a single word he’d said to any of them since her death. “If anything disappears, a single thing-” He cut himself off before he finished the statement, not liking the way his tone was going. They understood the message, and just as he had been her friend, they had been hers at well. Even those that hadn’t always gotten along with Kara wouldn’t dare risk pushing Apollo that far.
“Got it, Apollo,” Hot Dog said, speaking for the group. They were wise enough to not let their focus linger on him, instead turning back to their own clothing and racks to finish getting dressed or undressed, depending on which way they were going.
He reached his arm into the back of the upper shelf, finding that familiar cigar box in the exact spot he’d placed it after they had argued. With his hands full of the unknown, Lee sat down on the bed that belonged to Kara. He placed the box towards the foot of the bed and looked around him at the way the sheets and blanket were wrinkled and barely made, left that way after they’d made love and she laid in his arms afterward. Tucked between the bed and the wall, he could even see a sweatshirt of hers, and though he wanted nothing more than to pull it out and draw it to his face to breathe in her scent, he left it where it lay. Kara had placed it there and so long as her bed remained not perfectly made with corners crisp, he could live under the illusion that she was coming back. Maybe she was at the gym or down in the mess hall getting something to eat. Maybe in a half an hour she would come back and pull that sweatshirt on, curl up in bed and stare across the gap of the room at him in his own bed like they’d grown accustomed to.
Lee put his attention back on the items he’d taken from her locker, things of hers he’d never even seen before. As well as he knew her in some respects, Kara still had an entire world she was only starting to let him in to see. Lee took the box and set it on his thighs, the lid lifted and left hanging open away from him. The pictures were on top, he recalled stacking them and tucking them back into the space provided for them in his haste to clean up. The photos were set aside, though he took a moment to look at the picture on the top of the pile, the one of her and Zak that had led to his untimely outburst and their subsequent argument. A few days ago, he had looked at this picture and run his finger over his brother’s face, drawing comfort from being marginally nearer to Zak’s memory. This time when he looked at it, he didn’t just see the brother he lost, but Kara as well. Now they were both only ever going to be memories to him and nothing more. Silently, Lee prayed to whatever Gods were listening that Zak and Kara were together finally. He hoped they were at peace and weren’t alone.
He sifted through the rest of the items in the box, taking the time to appreciate every item, no matter how small and insignificant. He recognized a few hair elastics, a small stash of the last in the world she had acquired somewhere along the way as her hair grew long. Beyond them was a small medal usually given out in honor and recognition of time served to one branch of the military or another. Lee knew it couldn’t have been Kara’s, and he soon found a folded piece of paper addressed with her mother’s name. With a father like Bill Adama, he had seen the inner offices of a number of retired military members, similar medals and papers framed together and displayed for all the guests who entered. This had been her mother’s then, presumably taken after her death. A music chip was found next, her father’s name printed across the plastic. He slipped it into his pocket for later, determined to enjoy it when alone.
As he went through each item, Lee was happy Kara had left the majority of her belongings from Pegasus on that freighter with all the ship’s possessions before she barreled back towards New Caprica. Had she not, he knew there would be nothing left for him to look at and remind himself that she had in fact lived. That she had not simply been a ghost in the night, a figment of his wild imagination.
The last item of note in the box was another photograph, this one well worn. He removed it from the corner where it had been tucked away between other items, taking a look at the side exposed to him. It was a photo of himself, years younger, and he couldn’t even recall the time or the place in which it had been taken. Beside him was Kara, though part of her was cut off as the paper folded back, capturing a third or so of her body with it. From this angle, the angle he knew it was intentionally folded to show, it was just a photo of the two of them, albeit with some distance between them. When he curled his finger to the back to pry up the missing piece of the picture, Zak came into view along with Kara’s arms that were curled around him in the posed embrace. More tears came to his eyes, but this time not at the sight of his brother or the now deceased Kara. This time it was because he knew she had folded it that way, a long time ago he guessed by the sharp crease in the picture, so that when viewing it, she only saw herself beside him.
When he made that comment to her days before while they laid tangled in one anothers arms, he had genuinely felt a sadness at not being the brother she loved first. He knew she loved him, it was hard to make Kara Thrace say or do anything she didn’t truly mean. That didn’t stop the feeling of inadequacy, however, and he unfortunately let it out to her. He didn’t want to start a fight, didn’t want to accuse her of what she took his words as. Instead, he wanted the reassurance only she could give him that he wasn’t second best and wouldn’t be for the rest of his life. A substitute. Looking down at the picture she had folded to capture the two of them together with Zak folded away, Lee knew he was an absolute fool for ever doubting her and an idiot for letting his fear get the best of him. She had loved him, completely and truly, and now he knew she had never, not once, viewed him as anything less than exactly what she wanted. For the first time since her death, Lee took comfort in knowing that for awhile, they really had been perfect.
The room cleared out around him, with the other pilots either climbing into their racks to get some shut eye, heading out for shift, or to find relaxation elsewhere on Galactica. Someone else entered, but Lee was too absorbed in his thoughts to give them any mind. As the shadow loomed over him, he finally raised his eyes to find Sam there, sullen and quiet.
“Hey, Lee.” Sam used his name instead of his call sign, something he didn’t regularly do, at least not to his face. This wasn’t the time for being pilots though, this was the time for the two of them to share in their mutual loss. He pulled a chair out from the table and set it closer to Lee, sitting down and crossing his legs, one ankle over his knee.
“Hey, Sam.” Lee busied himself with replacing all of Kara’s sentimental belongings back into the box, finally shutting the top and placing it beside him, further into the safety of her bunk. The two living men that had claimed Starbuck’s heart at some point had spent the time avoiding each other after the events of the algae planet. It was simply too uncomfortable for them to even pretend to be friends, even with Sam insisting he was at peace with Kara’s decision.
They shared the comfortable silence, neither needing to say anything to express what they both felt. Sam opened his mouth to speak a few times, but swallowed his words back down each time.
“Do you think you could help me do something?” Lee’s head tipped back just enough from his downward cast to look him in the eye.
“What do you need?” Anders asked with raised brows.
“Back up.”
-
Lee’s eyes locked with Leoben’s through the wire fencing around the glass enclosure that housed both of the cylons currently held captive aboard Galactica. He motioned to the nearest marine guard and the young man stepped up, obviously nervous.
“Open the cell,” Lee said.
“Sir, I’m not supposed to allow anyone-”
“Do you know who I am?” He had hated pulling the last name card on anyone, rather than relying on his own merits, but for this, he would allow it.
“Captain Adama, sir.”
“That’s right, I’m the Admiral’s son and your superior. I’m giving you an order, open the door.”
The tone Lee used startled Sam, having never been around to hear Apollo in such a state. He’d heard that CAG voice he used when trying to corral a rowdy group of pilots, or even him yelling at an incompetent deck hand for not fixing the required part on his Mark VII. This one, however, hardly even belonged to him.
The marine suffered a moral dilemma, obviously having not been trained for the type of situation and lacking the on the job experience needed to adequately make the call. Lee’s patience wore thin and his hand reached for the keys hooked to the marine’s belt, removing them and taking matters into his own hands. He was rough with the lock of the door and once it was opened, he tossed the keys back to the boy. Lee pulled the door open and stepped inside, Sam following behind him and closing the door to lock the two members of the Colonial Fleet inside with the cylons.
“Watch her,” Lee ordered and Sam kept his eyes on D’Anna, though she seemed content to stay out of whatever was coming to Leoben. After being stuck in a room with him for that long, she had grown sick of her brother’s constant companionship.
Lee’s focus was on Leoben, just as it had been when he entered the room. The two of them hadn’t been face to face since Lee had nearly beaten the cylon’s skull in on the temple floor. Before that, Leoben had been the one to exude his dominance over Lee, last seeing one another as the cylon looked down at the beaten and bloody human who had resisted giving away the information on Kara Thrace he so desperately wanted.
“What did you say to her?”
“Who?” Leoben played innocent, or perhaps just dumb.
The pilot was having none of it, however, and in an instant Lee lunged at him in a fashion quite similar to the algae planet. He drove Leoben up into the wall this time, his forearm pressed perpendicular to the cylon’s throat, nearly crushing his windpipe. Leoben struggled to breathe, but kept his eyes locked on his attacker’s.
“You killed her,” Lee accused.
Something Lee would have sworn was actual emotional pain crossed the cylon’s eyes and he knew that Leoben hadn’t yet heard the news of Kara’s death.
“You tortured me for weeks to try to find her. You told me you loved her, and what do you do? You send her out to die. ” Lee eased up on the pressure before relenting fully, though he quickly shoved the cylon back into the glass with all the force he could manage. The glass hadn’t cracked but it sounded like it. Leoben drew his hand to the back of his head, his fingers covered in a bit of his own blood. “That isn’t love! That isn’t anything!” Lee yelled at him from only a few paces off.
Leoben’s eyes avoided his, that action alone shocking Lee and Sam. When he looked back up to Apollo, his eyes returned to that well controlled state that seemed inhuman.
“She’s gone to be with God. You’ll see her again, Lee Adama. This is her destiny.”
Lee spun back around at him, drawing his gun and pressing the barrel of it against the center of the cylon’s forehead. “When a person dies, they don’t come back! There isn’t another body waiting for them, that’s what you don’t understand.”
“Apollo-” Sam said from behind him. “I know what you lost, but we didn’t come here to kill him.” He was nervous, especially as he saw the marines outside the brig bustling around.
Lee ignored Anders, his focus still on the cylon and the weight of the gun in his hand. “I’m not going to kill him.” A sense of calm settled over Lee and the manner in which he spoke. Though it may have seemed like he was backing down, it was merely the calm before the storm. He drew his hand and the gun away from Leoben, quickly bringing the metal back to the side of the cylon’s head as hard as he could. While Leoben stumbled, Lee re-holstered his gun. His left hand gripped at the man’s shirt, his free hand formed into a fist that collided with the other man’s cheek.
It was a repeat of their entire brawl in the temple, except this time there was no Kara to protect and this time Leoben didn’t even put up a fight. The cylon fell to the floor, letting his body become dead weight as Lee straddled his chest. His hand gripped into his shirt again, pulling him up for each impact of his fist, then releasing and allowing his head to smack back into the ground. A rage blew threw him and all he saw was red, his world punctuated by the staccato beat of his fist.
Sam froze, unsure of what to do. With a glance back to D’Anna who, though horrified at the beating her sibling, showed no intention to interfere, he moved towards Apollo in an attempt to stop him before it was too late. “Lee-Lee, you’ve got to stop!” Sam yelled, putting his arms around Lee to try to tug him off Leoben’s bloodied body. Lee resisted, struggled against him, taking any last shots while he stood could.
Just beyond them, the door of the brig opened, the Admiral at the forefront with a few marine guards behind them. “That’s enough!” His voice boomed throughout the small metal and glass room.
It was enough to draw Lee out of his trance, releasing Leoben and tumbling back with Sam to the ground. His uniform and hands were covered in the synthetic blood that belonged to the cylon and now with his eyes no longer clouded by his anger, he was able to see just how far he’d taken it. Blue eyes moved up to meet his father’s own and all he saw there was disappointment.
“Take Captain Adama and Ensign Anders to the brig,” he ordered the marines behind him. They didn’t hesitate to follow the orders directly from the Admiral, pulling up each of the men and cuffing their arms behind them. Neither Lee nor Sam fought the marines, in fact they hadn’t said a single word since Adama turned up.
Lee couldn’t look at his father as the marines marched the two grief stricken men out and towards the series of jail cells that they would temporarily call their home.
“For Gods’ sake someone get Cottle down here,” was the last thing Lee heard his father say.
-
Sam and Lee shared a cell while Baltar occupied the other one available. With their backs to the wall, both men sat beside one another, knees bent and feet flat on the floor. They had been uncuffed once secure in their cells, though it wasn’t much of a concession given that they were still confined to the bars that held them.
“What the frak happened back there, Apollo?”
“I don’t know,” he shook his head. He’d calmed considerably, returning completely to himself, on the walk over. “…But it was worth it.” The expression Lee wore reminded Sam so much of one he’d often seen on Kara when she knew she did something wrong, but couldn’t find it in herself to actually be guilty over it.
Sam sighed and leaned forward to rest his head against his knees. “How long do you think they’ll keep us here?”
“Knowing my father…” The one regret Lee felt about his actions was that his father had found out. They had repaired their relationship so much and Lee had seen a side of his father over the last few days that he never knew existed. The two of them were closer than they ever had been and Lee knew he had set them back a great deal with his manic episode involving one of their prisoners. “…The rest of our lives.”
Lee swallowed as he stared out of the bars, then glanced over to where the former President sat in his own cell, silently writing on the small pad of paper given to him. “I’m sorry I got you involved,” Lee said to Sam, his attention turning back.
“I’m not.” The words were confident. Even if he spent the rest of his life in that cell, Sam didn’t regret agreeing to help Apollo get whatever kind of relief or comfort he got from pounding his fists into the cylon.
“Listen… if there’s anything of Kara’s that you want, you were her husband,” the word made Lee pause, recalling the last night before Kara had married the man beside him. “You can have it.” The thought of handing over Kara’s possessions to Sam made him feel sick, but he was thankful for the help he had provided him without question. They also had been married once upon a time, and together for far longer than she and Lee had. He was deserving of it.
Sam sighed and picked his head up off his knee, letting it rest back into the cool metal bulkhead behind them. “I might come get a few pictures. The ones of us,” he quickly clarified. “She hasn’t been mine for a long time, Lee. I’m not even sure if she ever was.” That was the realization that had forced him to give Kara the ultimatum to make her choice, once and for all. “I loved her, I always will, but even I could tell that her time with you was the happiest she’d ever been.”
Lee listened to Sam’s brutal honesty and it made his chest swell at knowing others had seen evidence of her happiness. So he hadn’t imagined it all, then. A bittersweet smile pulled over his mouth the more he thought about it.
Sam’s left hand rose and he patted the ink exposed on his arm. “I’ll always have her with me. She’d want you to have the rest.”
Whether Anders was just being charitable or honest, Lee didn’t know. Either way, he was grateful for it. “Thanks.”
“We were lucky to have her, weren’t we?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, we were.”
Both of their heads lifted up as the door from the hallway opened up. The Admiral stepped in, flanked once again by a different pair of marines behind him. His hand raised and both of them stayed a few steps back as he approached the bars that held his son and his daughter’s ex-husband.
“You should both be ashamed of yourselves. You’re members of the Colonial Fleet, start acting like it. I know you both have gone through something, but you aren’t the only ones grieving right now.”
Lee could see the pain his father’s eyes once again. Just as he had lost Kara, so had his father. That was something he often overlooked.
“Sam, you’re on deck duty for the next week. Lee, you’ll be on security for Baltar’s lawyer. You’re both grounded until I feel I can trust you again.” Though he didn’t say it, Lee knew he was being ordered. This was the Admiral now, not William Adama.
“You’re taking away the only thing I have left of her,” Lee pleaded in a moment of weakness.
Adama turned and stepped back towards the door. He paused just before he left, his words quiet as he spoke. “No, Lee, you took it away from yourself.”