BSG Fic - Reparation, 4/?
Title: Reparation
Author: becisvolatile
Part: 4/?
Rating: NC-17
Pairings/Characters: Lee/Kara, Bill, Roslin, Helo, Sharon, Cottle, Anders, Dee.
Word Count: 3076
Category: Novella
Genre: Romance, Angst, Action with Romance, PWP, Drama
Archiving: The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, Beyond Insane all others please ask
Warnings: Language, violence, sexual content, questionable consent.
Spoilers: Up to and including S3
Summary: Like sitting in the bathtub with a radio and playing chicken on a training run, Kara was pretty sure that Lee clawing her flight suit from her with such speed and desperation couldn’t be a good thing.
Author's Notes: The questionable consent warning is for the sensitive amongst you. I don’t really believe consent is lacking, but it isn’t the most friendly of fraks. Mostly, I’m just going to say you guys are going to have faith. For all my angsting, I always fix what I break. Again Angylinni deserves thanks for the beta.
Previous Chapters:
One
Two
Three
Four
Kara pulled her Viper up by Lee’s and tried once more to open a line of communication with Galactica. No joy. The Cylons were still managing to block her. She gave another lazy roll across Lee’s top and smiled gently. It wasn’t exactly a dogfight, but it was nice to be back in the cockpit. She turned to Lee to get a visual on him. He drew a gloved hand across his neck, message clear.
Cut it.
She was wasting fuel by being showy and if, dear Gods; if it did come to fighting her way through she was going to need fuel for it.
As near as Kara could tell they’d been blocked from the Galactica for about twenty eight minutes when the Raider’s fell back. It was a heady thing to see. A wall of Raiders falling back and away from her. Kara didn’t hold any delusions that they’d suddenly become terrified of her. No, there was something else to it.
Kara searched through the gap in the aircrafts to find a small contingent of Raptors waiting on the other side. A rescue party?
None of this was making sense, but as the Raptors tentatively moved through the widening gap of Raiders to get to Lee, Kara threw some muscle into her hind thrusters and slid sideways back toward the fleet.
*****
Kara hit the hangar deck at an easy jog, ready for answers. What the frak had happened out there? And what was happening with the Cylon fleet? She was at a full sprint when Helo caught her about the waist.
“It’s frakked up Kara, and I don’t have answers. We were boarded, the Old Man allowed it. Some sort of deal, we don’t know what, or why. We don’t know anything except that you have orders to wait in the ready room for the Admiral. I swear to the Gods I asked for more information but that’s all Gaeta had.”
“What has this got to do with me?” Kara thrust her helmet at Helo and shifted on her feet.
“I swear I don’t know. We just got told to pass the word that you were to go and wait, and be prepared for a long wait. They’re waiting for the President to come across before they start talks with the Cylons.”
“What type of Cylons?”
“Skinjobs.” He paused, Helo still hated the word, “Maybe five. I didn’t see. I know what everyone else knows. Now you need to move your ass, because you have something to do with this and people are getting nervous.”
Kara pulled off her gloves and tossed them into the helmet that Helo held, “And Lee?”
“They’re bringing him in now. He’s fine.”
Kara wanted to stay and make sure Lee made it back on board safely, but she was quickly becoming aware of the whispers and hissed conversations coupled with points and sneers in her direction. Whatever was happening, it didn’t bode well.
*****
Lee paused outside of the ready room. What the frak was he doing? Willfully disobeying orders. That was it. He’d been told not to interfere, but damned if he was going to be left out of this. He’d been out there with… it. That thing that had flown so much like Kara he’d felt his bones throb with warmth and home and so many things that he shouldn’t have been feeling with a Cylon sitting pretty in the Viper on his six.
Gods, he thought as he lowered the zip on his flight suit, this had gone too far and now… what? Cylons had come knocking to see her. To see one of their own.
Lee opened the hatch to the ready room and shouldered the door open. Kara sat in the front row of seats, alone in the room. He turned back and closed the door behind himself.
“Starbuck,” he began as he walked towards her, “Was reckless. But this is beyond even her. Leading Cylons into the fleet? How the frak did they find us?!”
She stayed still in her chair, lifting one foot to balance against the edge of her seat and hugging her knee to her chest. She was making a point of ignoring him.
He slid into the row behind her seat and sidestepped until he stood directly behind her, smacking his fist down against the back of her chair as he yelled, “I’m talking to you!”
She tilted her head, her neck long and pale, drawing his gaze as she looked up at him. “You’re not talking, Sir. You’re accusing.”
“What do you expect? What do you want from me?”
It seemed enough to force a strong response form her, “Nothing!” she cried with frustration as she jumped from her chair, “I saw the frakkin’ look on your face when you realized it was me next to you in that Viper. When you realized I was back from the dead and I knew, I knew, that no matter how hard I smiled, no matter how gentle I was with it, you wouldn’t accept that. And I was right! So I’m asking for nothing from you, Lee. Because I know you are so frakked by all of this that you have nothing to give me!”
Lee’s jaw flexed as his eyes followed her small and frantic movements around the front of the room.
“I have wanted, so badly, to talk to you. But I didn’t because frak knows I’ve done enough to you in the past. So this little voice keeps saying, ‘Leave him be for now, Kara. Just let it go.’ So I ignore being turned out of my own rack. I ignore that it took a threat to your command to discipline the people that nearly beat me to death. Gods, I even tried to ignore that your wife was a part of that because, Gods know, you don’t need to be torn apart anymore than you already are. And if you would just make up your mind and hate me… quit with the frakkin heroics. Like carrying me from the hangar deck… like this. I mean, what the frak is this? You hate me; you don’t want face-time with me. You are so sure I’m a Cylon agent. Yet you follow me here? I want it to stop.”
“You don’t,” he sounded disgusted as he said it, but he knew it was the truth. She didn’t want that from him.
“Okay, Lee, you got me. I want my best friend to have mourned me. I want him to be happy that I’m alive. I wanted to see you back me up on this because if there is anyone in this fleet that I thought would be able to tell if I’m a Cylon or not, I would’ve put money on it being you.” Gods, it killed him that her voice almost cracked.
Lee closed his eyes and moved from the row he stood in, coming to a stop just in front of Kara, “Do you even know if you’re a Cylon or not?” he asked softly.
She shook her head and raked her hand roughly through her hair, “No. But I had this stupid idea that you somehow would.”
Lee stomach kicked as he looked at her. That was Kara’s face−Kara’s body. Her dimensions, her voice, her hair, her… almost everything. But he couldn’t ignore the way that the little things were off. Her hips didn’t tilt to the left, as they had ever since her broken leg, when she’d started favoring one side. She didn’t rub her hands together for warmth when she thought no one was looking. She wasn’t marked for another man.
He was going to be sick. It wasn’t Kara and no matter how much he wanted her to be, she wasn’t going to ever be close enough. It was New Caprica all over again. He had Kara. He had her right there, but if - even for a second - he let himself think that it was real, she’d be gone. He wouldn’t let himself fall for it again.
“You’re a pretty imitation.” He hardened his face and fought to keep an edge into his voice, “but I’d say the Cylons dropped the ball with you. Starbuck was perfect. You’re too perfect.”
“Wow, That wasn’t a complaint I was expecting, Lee. I was really hoping that if you were trying to wound me, you’d do better.” She sounded damn near bitter. “There was a time when a mere look from you could gut me. Maybe you’re just out of practice. I don’t imagine Dee makes for the same sort of target practice that I did.”
“My marriage is none-”
“None of my concern. Well ahead of you there. And how did your old lady take my return? Better yet, how did she take my death?” There was something edgy and dangerous in Kara’s voice, something too close to the truth, “Cradled you to her bosom? Time to move on Lee. I bet she even found a decent picture of me for you to put up, you know, because she cares.”
“Don’t you dare-”
“Dare what?” She shrugged sharply, “What? I’m a Cylon, Lee. Do try and keep up. I’ll dare whatever I frakkin’ well please. Hell, there’s a Resurrection Ship out there, no doubt. Maybe it’s time you got me off the ship once and for all.”
“You think I wouldn’t?” Lee ground out, wondering just when, exactly, they had managed to get so close up into each other’s faces.
“I think, if you really did think I was a Cylon, that I wouldn’t have made it off the hangar deck that first day. I think you know something I don’t. I think you know exactly who and what I am.”
Lee wasn’t sure how it had happened - no that was a lie. He was completely sure, because those frakkin’ lips were so close and she smelled like sweat and Kara and all he wanted to do was remind himself how good she tasted. His brain had malfunctioned at the contrasting emotions and he’d struck−a closed fist to the side of her jaw.
The temperature in the room dropped. Then Kara launched herself at him and suddenly it was too hot to breathe.
It was almost as vital as it was brutal. He wanted to tear her frakkin’ face off. Because only Kara could have that face. He wanted proof. He wanted to pull her apart and find the parts of her that weren’t human. The parts of her that were less than Starbuck had been.
But that was Lee’s problem. Because even if she was less than Kara, she was enough. Even her ghost was better than the void. That void that sucked at something deep in his chest and made him ache in ways he’d never imagined possible. Which is why he was no longer swinging, but tearing her flight suit down her body, more than just half out of his mind.
*****
Like sitting in the bathtub with a radio and playing chicken on a training run, Kara was pretty sure that Lee clawing her flight suit from her with such speed and desperation couldn’t be a good thing. But, she figured, good things were fleeting. Bad things left scars and testaments and as bad things went, the direction they were heading in was going to be spectacularly frakked-up.
For a moment she felt guilty. Lee had no idea what he was doing. He’d hate her. He’d hate himself.
He deserved it.
And there it was, a moment of sickly hope that this would be the thing that turned Lee’s head. The thing that made him realize she was still Kara.
More than anything, it would be the thing that proved to Kara that she was still Kara. The end of a rebirth.
She went high on her toes to kiss him, but felt his palm, warm and rough, clamp across her mouth as he turned her face away and latched onto her neck with his none too gentle mouth. He finished tearing her suit from her shoulders and left her to pull her own arms free. His hands dropped to her hips and tugged at the suit, lowering it just until it cleared her thighs. Kara nearly lost her balance with the movement and let her hands strike out against his chest for balance. They slid up and over his shoulders, inside the unfastened suit, trying to push it back over his shoulders. He came up and gripped her wrists, his eyes never touching hers as he drew her hands out of his suit.
“Turn around,” It was a command, not a request as he roughly turned her to face away from him and shoved her toward the first row of seats, one hand running the length of her spine through her tanks as he bent her over the chair and guided her hands to the back, intending for her to grasp it.
“Lee,” she said, not sure what was happening, but feeling increasingly out of control, “Lee, slow down - I…” The words hit harder than she could have imagined. Hadn’t he said that to her once before? Hadn’t he said that just as she’d tried to use his body?
His intent became clear. Lee was using her body. If she was a Cylon, it wasn’t going to make a bit of difference, after all. She was just a bunch of circuits. Any thrill she got was hardly going to be more than static electricity, right?
She gripped the seat tighter as she felt Lee yank her panties down. Dear Gods, was she just going to take this?
She hardened her face and turned her neck to peer at Lee, noting just how close to tears he was, “Tell me, Lee,” her voice snapped through his haze, “Would you like me to talk? Moan? Or would this work better for you if I just shut down my software?”
He dropped his hands to her hips, his fingers biting into her flesh.
“I could make it like New Caprica, I could bite back my cries - just like I did that night - I could breathe your name over and over again. I could even tell you I loved you. Just say the word.”
Lee gave a strangled cry and she had little to no warning before she felt him hard against her, then sliding into her body. Her neck rolled back and she felt her body arch. She’d been readier for it than she knew; she rocked back against him… all taunts forgotten as he smoothed one thumb gently over the curve of her hip in a motion that was almost tender.
He began with the short and tentative strokes of a man almost reluctant to be where he was, but he grew surer of himself, of his rights to her body and increased in pace and force.
She tried to smother a hoarse cry, but failed and let her head drop forward as she resigned herself to being helpless in his arms again. Gods, she hated it. Hated that even now, this was all it took to make her forget everything. Her destiny, her body, her mind. Her name.
But his name, oh, his name was right where it belonged. On the tip of her tongue.
*****
He’d gone insane. He’d gone insane and the quicker he took himself to the brig the better. Because he needed to be locked up before he did any more frakkin’ harm.
He could stop. He could stop, apologize, leave. Pretend that she was nothing to him. He’d probably die of a heart attack in the attempt, but he could try.
Lee’s mind swam with illicit fantasies of the replica underneath his fingertips. A life where this not-quite-Kara said all the words he’d wanted to hear from the real woman. Where she did what he wanted. Where she was his. He could have that. Hell, wasn’t that what he was doing at that very second?
Her shoulders rolled and he knew she had to be close, her breathing grew faster and he shut his eyes against the hard light of the room.
Then she spoke. He barely caught it. Barely.
“Lee.”
It was his name on her lips and his illusions shattered. Too real. Way too frakkin’ real. He was playing a sick game and it had to stop. With a hiss he withdrew from the safety of her body. Cold air rose up to meet him and he knew it was too late to walk away. He took himself in hand, handling his cock with an efficiency that most men mastered in the academy, and bought himself to a speedy climax, not noticing the hot and thick traces that he left across Kara’s behind and thighs.
He stumbled back, her body swimming into focus. What he saw made him sick with self-hatred. Her shapely behind and hips bruised where he had gripped her. Her skin marred with his leavings. Her frame, seeming so much smaller than he remembered, was wracked with silent sobs. But somehow he knew she wouldn’t turn to look at him.
It was done. And Lee really was learning that there really were no take backs in life. He adjusted himself, fastening the lower half of his flight suit before shrugging out of the top half and removing his outer tank.
If he really wanted to end it with this thing… he wasn’t going to get a better chance. It went against everything that he was, but he schooled his face into a perfect show of disgust and threw the tank at her back.
“Clean yourself up,” he said before turning to leave.
*****
“Lee,” She almost let him leave before speaking. She stood, just as he’d left her, gripping his tank so tightly that her nails were bruising her palm through the fabric, “That was for New Caprica. But I think, now, that I was right. There’s nothing here. Never was. Remember that when you realize what a mistake you just made.”
If Kara had ever doubted her own humanity, that time had just passed. She was as human as she had ever been. No software could emulate the bitter mix of bone deep hurt and burning shame that she was up against.
She’d wanted Lee to prove that she was human, but standing alone in the ready room she suddenly wished that she was anything but.
Author: becisvolatile
Part: 4/?
Rating: NC-17
Pairings/Characters: Lee/Kara, Bill, Roslin, Helo, Sharon, Cottle, Anders, Dee.
Word Count: 3076
Category: Novella
Genre: Romance, Angst, Action with Romance, PWP, Drama
Archiving: The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, Beyond Insane all others please ask
Warnings: Language, violence, sexual content, questionable consent.
Spoilers: Up to and including S3
Summary: Like sitting in the bathtub with a radio and playing chicken on a training run, Kara was pretty sure that Lee clawing her flight suit from her with such speed and desperation couldn’t be a good thing.
Author's Notes: The questionable consent warning is for the sensitive amongst you. I don’t really believe consent is lacking, but it isn’t the most friendly of fraks. Mostly, I’m just going to say you guys are going to have faith. For all my angsting, I always fix what I break. Again Angylinni deserves thanks for the beta.
Previous Chapters:
One
Two
Three
Four
Kara pulled her Viper up by Lee’s and tried once more to open a line of communication with Galactica. No joy. The Cylons were still managing to block her. She gave another lazy roll across Lee’s top and smiled gently. It wasn’t exactly a dogfight, but it was nice to be back in the cockpit. She turned to Lee to get a visual on him. He drew a gloved hand across his neck, message clear.
Cut it.
She was wasting fuel by being showy and if, dear Gods; if it did come to fighting her way through she was going to need fuel for it.
As near as Kara could tell they’d been blocked from the Galactica for about twenty eight minutes when the Raider’s fell back. It was a heady thing to see. A wall of Raiders falling back and away from her. Kara didn’t hold any delusions that they’d suddenly become terrified of her. No, there was something else to it.
Kara searched through the gap in the aircrafts to find a small contingent of Raptors waiting on the other side. A rescue party?
None of this was making sense, but as the Raptors tentatively moved through the widening gap of Raiders to get to Lee, Kara threw some muscle into her hind thrusters and slid sideways back toward the fleet.
*****
Kara hit the hangar deck at an easy jog, ready for answers. What the frak had happened out there? And what was happening with the Cylon fleet? She was at a full sprint when Helo caught her about the waist.
“It’s frakked up Kara, and I don’t have answers. We were boarded, the Old Man allowed it. Some sort of deal, we don’t know what, or why. We don’t know anything except that you have orders to wait in the ready room for the Admiral. I swear to the Gods I asked for more information but that’s all Gaeta had.”
“What has this got to do with me?” Kara thrust her helmet at Helo and shifted on her feet.
“I swear I don’t know. We just got told to pass the word that you were to go and wait, and be prepared for a long wait. They’re waiting for the President to come across before they start talks with the Cylons.”
“What type of Cylons?”
“Skinjobs.” He paused, Helo still hated the word, “Maybe five. I didn’t see. I know what everyone else knows. Now you need to move your ass, because you have something to do with this and people are getting nervous.”
Kara pulled off her gloves and tossed them into the helmet that Helo held, “And Lee?”
“They’re bringing him in now. He’s fine.”
Kara wanted to stay and make sure Lee made it back on board safely, but she was quickly becoming aware of the whispers and hissed conversations coupled with points and sneers in her direction. Whatever was happening, it didn’t bode well.
*****
Lee paused outside of the ready room. What the frak was he doing? Willfully disobeying orders. That was it. He’d been told not to interfere, but damned if he was going to be left out of this. He’d been out there with… it. That thing that had flown so much like Kara he’d felt his bones throb with warmth and home and so many things that he shouldn’t have been feeling with a Cylon sitting pretty in the Viper on his six.
Gods, he thought as he lowered the zip on his flight suit, this had gone too far and now… what? Cylons had come knocking to see her. To see one of their own.
Lee opened the hatch to the ready room and shouldered the door open. Kara sat in the front row of seats, alone in the room. He turned back and closed the door behind himself.
“Starbuck,” he began as he walked towards her, “Was reckless. But this is beyond even her. Leading Cylons into the fleet? How the frak did they find us?!”
She stayed still in her chair, lifting one foot to balance against the edge of her seat and hugging her knee to her chest. She was making a point of ignoring him.
He slid into the row behind her seat and sidestepped until he stood directly behind her, smacking his fist down against the back of her chair as he yelled, “I’m talking to you!”
She tilted her head, her neck long and pale, drawing his gaze as she looked up at him. “You’re not talking, Sir. You’re accusing.”
“What do you expect? What do you want from me?”
It seemed enough to force a strong response form her, “Nothing!” she cried with frustration as she jumped from her chair, “I saw the frakkin’ look on your face when you realized it was me next to you in that Viper. When you realized I was back from the dead and I knew, I knew, that no matter how hard I smiled, no matter how gentle I was with it, you wouldn’t accept that. And I was right! So I’m asking for nothing from you, Lee. Because I know you are so frakked by all of this that you have nothing to give me!”
Lee’s jaw flexed as his eyes followed her small and frantic movements around the front of the room.
“I have wanted, so badly, to talk to you. But I didn’t because frak knows I’ve done enough to you in the past. So this little voice keeps saying, ‘Leave him be for now, Kara. Just let it go.’ So I ignore being turned out of my own rack. I ignore that it took a threat to your command to discipline the people that nearly beat me to death. Gods, I even tried to ignore that your wife was a part of that because, Gods know, you don’t need to be torn apart anymore than you already are. And if you would just make up your mind and hate me… quit with the frakkin heroics. Like carrying me from the hangar deck… like this. I mean, what the frak is this? You hate me; you don’t want face-time with me. You are so sure I’m a Cylon agent. Yet you follow me here? I want it to stop.”
“You don’t,” he sounded disgusted as he said it, but he knew it was the truth. She didn’t want that from him.
“Okay, Lee, you got me. I want my best friend to have mourned me. I want him to be happy that I’m alive. I wanted to see you back me up on this because if there is anyone in this fleet that I thought would be able to tell if I’m a Cylon or not, I would’ve put money on it being you.” Gods, it killed him that her voice almost cracked.
Lee closed his eyes and moved from the row he stood in, coming to a stop just in front of Kara, “Do you even know if you’re a Cylon or not?” he asked softly.
She shook her head and raked her hand roughly through her hair, “No. But I had this stupid idea that you somehow would.”
Lee stomach kicked as he looked at her. That was Kara’s face−Kara’s body. Her dimensions, her voice, her hair, her… almost everything. But he couldn’t ignore the way that the little things were off. Her hips didn’t tilt to the left, as they had ever since her broken leg, when she’d started favoring one side. She didn’t rub her hands together for warmth when she thought no one was looking. She wasn’t marked for another man.
He was going to be sick. It wasn’t Kara and no matter how much he wanted her to be, she wasn’t going to ever be close enough. It was New Caprica all over again. He had Kara. He had her right there, but if - even for a second - he let himself think that it was real, she’d be gone. He wouldn’t let himself fall for it again.
“You’re a pretty imitation.” He hardened his face and fought to keep an edge into his voice, “but I’d say the Cylons dropped the ball with you. Starbuck was perfect. You’re too perfect.”
“Wow, That wasn’t a complaint I was expecting, Lee. I was really hoping that if you were trying to wound me, you’d do better.” She sounded damn near bitter. “There was a time when a mere look from you could gut me. Maybe you’re just out of practice. I don’t imagine Dee makes for the same sort of target practice that I did.”
“My marriage is none-”
“None of my concern. Well ahead of you there. And how did your old lady take my return? Better yet, how did she take my death?” There was something edgy and dangerous in Kara’s voice, something too close to the truth, “Cradled you to her bosom? Time to move on Lee. I bet she even found a decent picture of me for you to put up, you know, because she cares.”
“Don’t you dare-”
“Dare what?” She shrugged sharply, “What? I’m a Cylon, Lee. Do try and keep up. I’ll dare whatever I frakkin’ well please. Hell, there’s a Resurrection Ship out there, no doubt. Maybe it’s time you got me off the ship once and for all.”
“You think I wouldn’t?” Lee ground out, wondering just when, exactly, they had managed to get so close up into each other’s faces.
“I think, if you really did think I was a Cylon, that I wouldn’t have made it off the hangar deck that first day. I think you know something I don’t. I think you know exactly who and what I am.”
Lee wasn’t sure how it had happened - no that was a lie. He was completely sure, because those frakkin’ lips were so close and she smelled like sweat and Kara and all he wanted to do was remind himself how good she tasted. His brain had malfunctioned at the contrasting emotions and he’d struck−a closed fist to the side of her jaw.
The temperature in the room dropped. Then Kara launched herself at him and suddenly it was too hot to breathe.
It was almost as vital as it was brutal. He wanted to tear her frakkin’ face off. Because only Kara could have that face. He wanted proof. He wanted to pull her apart and find the parts of her that weren’t human. The parts of her that were less than Starbuck had been.
But that was Lee’s problem. Because even if she was less than Kara, she was enough. Even her ghost was better than the void. That void that sucked at something deep in his chest and made him ache in ways he’d never imagined possible. Which is why he was no longer swinging, but tearing her flight suit down her body, more than just half out of his mind.
*****
Like sitting in the bathtub with a radio and playing chicken on a training run, Kara was pretty sure that Lee clawing her flight suit from her with such speed and desperation couldn’t be a good thing. But, she figured, good things were fleeting. Bad things left scars and testaments and as bad things went, the direction they were heading in was going to be spectacularly frakked-up.
For a moment she felt guilty. Lee had no idea what he was doing. He’d hate her. He’d hate himself.
He deserved it.
And there it was, a moment of sickly hope that this would be the thing that turned Lee’s head. The thing that made him realize she was still Kara.
More than anything, it would be the thing that proved to Kara that she was still Kara. The end of a rebirth.
She went high on her toes to kiss him, but felt his palm, warm and rough, clamp across her mouth as he turned her face away and latched onto her neck with his none too gentle mouth. He finished tearing her suit from her shoulders and left her to pull her own arms free. His hands dropped to her hips and tugged at the suit, lowering it just until it cleared her thighs. Kara nearly lost her balance with the movement and let her hands strike out against his chest for balance. They slid up and over his shoulders, inside the unfastened suit, trying to push it back over his shoulders. He came up and gripped her wrists, his eyes never touching hers as he drew her hands out of his suit.
“Turn around,” It was a command, not a request as he roughly turned her to face away from him and shoved her toward the first row of seats, one hand running the length of her spine through her tanks as he bent her over the chair and guided her hands to the back, intending for her to grasp it.
“Lee,” she said, not sure what was happening, but feeling increasingly out of control, “Lee, slow down - I…” The words hit harder than she could have imagined. Hadn’t he said that to her once before? Hadn’t he said that just as she’d tried to use his body?
His intent became clear. Lee was using her body. If she was a Cylon, it wasn’t going to make a bit of difference, after all. She was just a bunch of circuits. Any thrill she got was hardly going to be more than static electricity, right?
She gripped the seat tighter as she felt Lee yank her panties down. Dear Gods, was she just going to take this?
She hardened her face and turned her neck to peer at Lee, noting just how close to tears he was, “Tell me, Lee,” her voice snapped through his haze, “Would you like me to talk? Moan? Or would this work better for you if I just shut down my software?”
He dropped his hands to her hips, his fingers biting into her flesh.
“I could make it like New Caprica, I could bite back my cries - just like I did that night - I could breathe your name over and over again. I could even tell you I loved you. Just say the word.”
Lee gave a strangled cry and she had little to no warning before she felt him hard against her, then sliding into her body. Her neck rolled back and she felt her body arch. She’d been readier for it than she knew; she rocked back against him… all taunts forgotten as he smoothed one thumb gently over the curve of her hip in a motion that was almost tender.
He began with the short and tentative strokes of a man almost reluctant to be where he was, but he grew surer of himself, of his rights to her body and increased in pace and force.
She tried to smother a hoarse cry, but failed and let her head drop forward as she resigned herself to being helpless in his arms again. Gods, she hated it. Hated that even now, this was all it took to make her forget everything. Her destiny, her body, her mind. Her name.
But his name, oh, his name was right where it belonged. On the tip of her tongue.
*****
He’d gone insane. He’d gone insane and the quicker he took himself to the brig the better. Because he needed to be locked up before he did any more frakkin’ harm.
He could stop. He could stop, apologize, leave. Pretend that she was nothing to him. He’d probably die of a heart attack in the attempt, but he could try.
Lee’s mind swam with illicit fantasies of the replica underneath his fingertips. A life where this not-quite-Kara said all the words he’d wanted to hear from the real woman. Where she did what he wanted. Where she was his. He could have that. Hell, wasn’t that what he was doing at that very second?
Her shoulders rolled and he knew she had to be close, her breathing grew faster and he shut his eyes against the hard light of the room.
Then she spoke. He barely caught it. Barely.
“Lee.”
It was his name on her lips and his illusions shattered. Too real. Way too frakkin’ real. He was playing a sick game and it had to stop. With a hiss he withdrew from the safety of her body. Cold air rose up to meet him and he knew it was too late to walk away. He took himself in hand, handling his cock with an efficiency that most men mastered in the academy, and bought himself to a speedy climax, not noticing the hot and thick traces that he left across Kara’s behind and thighs.
He stumbled back, her body swimming into focus. What he saw made him sick with self-hatred. Her shapely behind and hips bruised where he had gripped her. Her skin marred with his leavings. Her frame, seeming so much smaller than he remembered, was wracked with silent sobs. But somehow he knew she wouldn’t turn to look at him.
It was done. And Lee really was learning that there really were no take backs in life. He adjusted himself, fastening the lower half of his flight suit before shrugging out of the top half and removing his outer tank.
If he really wanted to end it with this thing… he wasn’t going to get a better chance. It went against everything that he was, but he schooled his face into a perfect show of disgust and threw the tank at her back.
“Clean yourself up,” he said before turning to leave.
*****
“Lee,” She almost let him leave before speaking. She stood, just as he’d left her, gripping his tank so tightly that her nails were bruising her palm through the fabric, “That was for New Caprica. But I think, now, that I was right. There’s nothing here. Never was. Remember that when you realize what a mistake you just made.”
If Kara had ever doubted her own humanity, that time had just passed. She was as human as she had ever been. No software could emulate the bitter mix of bone deep hurt and burning shame that she was up against.
She’d wanted Lee to prove that she was human, but standing alone in the ready room she suddenly wished that she was anything but.