BSG Fic - Reparation, 7/?
Title: Reparation
Author: becisvolatile
Part: 7/?
Rating: NC-17
Pairings/Characters: Lee/Kara, Bill, Roslin, Helo, Sharon, Cottle, Anders, Dee, Leoben, Racetrack, Seelix, Tigh.
Word Count: 5400+
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, gratuitous sex.
Spoilers: Up to and including S3
Summary: His eyes dropped from his face to the angry red crater in his shoulder. His lips tugged. Maybe she’d known all along that he deserved a bullet.
Authors Note: For a while I considered calling this chapter "The one where Lee loses his shit", but in the end I kept with the numerical thing. Angylinni once again gets her beta groove on.
Previous Chapters:
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Lee hit the mat hard and made no move to get up. Hot Dog’s feet passed by his field of vision, dancing for a moment before they slowed.
“Frak, Sir? Are you okay?”
Gods, he couldn’t even stay down. He had to get back up because… well, he couldn’t think of a reason but he was sure there was one. He planted his hands against the mat and pushed away.
“Fine.” He was fine. Except for not eating. Not sleeping and, apparently, having the crap beaten out of him by a kid.
And there was that whole thing about having torn his soul out of his own chest with a few short words.
He couldn’t forget that. Gods, he was pathetic. He was lower than low. He’d… He’d failed her - again.
He shrugged off the young pilot’s aid and shook his head, “I’m done. Thanks.”
He stood and crossed the room, tugging off a sweat soaked t-shirt as he passed a row of weight benches and caught sight of himself in the mirror beyond. It was all he could do not to put his fist through the frakking face staring back at him. His eyes dropped from his face to the angry red crater in his shoulder. His lips tugged. Maybe she’d known all along that he deserved a bullet. Maybe even then she’d known he’d fail her when it mattered the most.
Gods, it wasn’t even the sex. It was his lack of faith. She’d known he was angry, unstable, out of his mind and she’d still let him drag her flight suit down and claim her body. No matter how much he’d claimed that it wasn’t her body, she’d still shared it.
Truthfully, for him the sex hadn’t been that bad. Even at her worst and least compliant, Kara was better than anyone he’d ever been with. He felt a pang low in his belly. Too bad she couldn’t say the same of him.
He had to do something. A show of faith. A demonstration of…
Of love?
His stomach rolled and he caught a pale flash in the mirror over his shoulder. She’d been avoiding him. He knew that much. She hadn’t noticed him in the room just yet, because he was almost certain that if she’d seen him she would have turned around and left. But Kara didn’t seem terribly aware of anything. She’d had a big night and Lee was about to dismiss her state as hung-over. But little things started to stand out. She wasn’t wearing shoes. The running shorts she wore hung low on her hips, they weren’t hers and her t-shirt hugged just a little too tightly over braless breasts. Her eyes darted around the gym. She was looking for someone.
Lee fought the impulse to turn around and go to her, instead watching as she continued to scan the gym. Had last night caught up with her? Had one of those men she’d been with revisited her? Lee’s pulse kicked up.
Surely she wasn’t looking for him. He turned, trying to tamp down the hope expanding his chest, his fingers gripping tightly at the sweat soaked shirt in his hand. Her eyes crossed him once, unseeing, and then returned.
At the very least, Kara knew his body. Of that he had no doubt.
Without actually speaking he asked, “Are you okay?”
She stumbled over her own feet to get away from him.
*****
Barefoot in Dogsville. Yeah, that could only be a good thing. Kara side stepped some broken glass and lifted her own hands to wrap them around her shoulders. What was she even doing here?
She’d left the bunkroom with the vague notion of finding someone. But her list of “someones” had grown short and she’d narrowed her search down to just Helo. Did she even know what she was after? Of course she did. But they’d have to threaten her with bodily harm before she confessed that she was searching the corridors of Galactica for a freaking hug.
It was freezing down there, in the guts of the ship, a sensation that was amplified only by her bare feet against the galvanized steel. Maybe it was time to just turn back to her rack.
The rack meters away from where Sam was frakking another woman, despite professing that he wanted their marriage to work.
She could go back to the Agathon’s, but she wasn’t sure she could face another night on their sofa. Even if she was willing to put on a brave face in front of Hera wearing scant and odd fitting clothes with filthy and scraped feet. Besides, it was only late afternoon; she had a while to figure out what she was going to do.
The Ready Room was out; she’d crashed there a couple times when the bunkroom had been too rowdy. Lee was never far away.
Kara misjudged a small sprinkling of glass and caught a fine shard in her big toe. With a curse she dropped down to drag it out. No sooner had she pocketed the glass than someone was jumping on her back.
Someone small.
“Kara!”
She stood and let Kacey wrap her legs about her waist.
Kacey’s mother, Julia Brynn, came jogging up with an apologetic smile. While the other woman didn’t mind Kara so much, things were a little different now. Rumors were rife and no one knew where Kara’s loyalties lie. Kara almost felt sorry for Julia as she set her daughter down.
“You went!” Kacey accused almost instantly and Kara graced Julia with an impressed smile.
“I came back. And you’re speaking so well!”
“Yeah,” Julia said pulling Kacey against her hip. “The marines are teaching her some of the finest words there are.”
Kara winced, “You want me to have a word with them?”
Julia shrugged, “You don’t stay innocent down here, Kara. Colorful words are the least of my worries.”
Kacey didn’t seem impressed that the focus had moved away from her and instead turned her attention to Kara’s bloodied foot, sucking in a dramatic breath. Julia dropped her eyes and frowned, “Do you… you seem like you’ve had a tough day.”
Kara couldn’t argue, “I’m just… lost. I was looking for someone down here. But he’s not here.”
“Is that him?”
Kara spun quickly and caught Lee standing a few rows away. He’d pulled his sweaty shirt back on and Kara could tell from where she stood that between the wet shirt and the cold air, he had to be freezing like she was. He stepped to the side a little, but after realizing he’d been spotted he just stood still.
“No it isn’t, but I have to go.”
Kacey almost instantly started to cry. Her bottom lip jutted and her eyes welled. Gods that kid cried every time Kara left and it had been so long since her last visit. “I’ll come back tomorrow,” she quickly amended, shuffling training runs and a CAP in her mind. She’d find the time.
But for a child, tomorrow was just too far away. Kacey threw herself at Kara’s legs, wrapping her small arms around her thigh.
“Shi- uhm, sorry. Okay, Kacey you have to let go.” Gods, she felt like an ass, but a quick glance towards Lee confirmed that he’d decided to approach and she just wasn’t up to that. Not there and not on the cusp of Sam’s… was she even allowed to call it a betrayal?
Julia nodded and stooped to drag Kacey away, murmuring that Kara would be back soon, that she’d just have to let go and their friend would be back before she knew it.
Kacey didn’t seem convinced, but caved under the will of her mother. Kara shot them a forced smile as she was already slipping further down the rows. She knew Dogsville better than Lee and disappeared from sight in a matter of moments.
*****
He had to believe that he’d been there for her welfare. Not because he wanted… more. More time, more power, more information to bind her with. But somehow he knew that if Kara was searching for someone other than him he damned well wanted to know why and while Kara hadn’t stayed long with the young girl and her mother, she’d demonstrated a sort of familiarity with them that Lee hadn’t seen her show outside of Fleet ranks. More than that, she’d been genuinely distressed when the child had started crying.
Lee searched his mind for a link. The kid she’d bought back from New Caprica? Yeah, he’d heard something about that. But nothing beyond Kara finding the girl and picking her up during the exodus.
But there was more to what he had seen and it had propelled him towards the mother and child in Kara’s wake. He’d asked where she had gone, but had been politely and firmly denied. Then he’d changed tack and asked how they knew Kara. The mother - Julia - had hesitated before saying she wasn’t sure how Kacey had come to be in her care, all she knew was that her baby had come back and had constantly called for Kara and Leoben.
That had stopped Lee in his tracks. Leoben’s ties to Kara… he knew they were more intimate that your average toaster and human, had seen that with his own eyes. But he had only assumed that maybe a Conoy model or two had crossed her path briefly on New Caprica. What if he’d been wrong? What if Kara had been through more during the occupation than she’d let on?
He’d seen no official recounts. Hell, half the paperwork would never be done. There was too much to do with the daily running of the ship and not enough time or personnel to adequately chronicle the New Caprica days.
*****
Lee frowned as he approached the holding cells. He was out of line. If Kara hadn’t told anyone of those days, it was for a reason. But if he really wanted to help her, he had to start somewhere. He’d dressed and gathered himself, running through in his head what it was exactly that he hoped to find out before presenting himself to the Marine with a request to interview the prisoner.
“I got no orders for an interview right now, no one sees the Conoy’s.”
“It’s not the Conoy’s I want. It’s the Five,” Lee replied.
The Marine shrugged, “Your party, sir. He ain’t saying crap.”
Lee nodded as the Marine walked him to the furthest holding cell; they’d finally gotten to separating them. On the way they passed one Leoben model, lounging across his bed with his hands held over his eyes in a forced display of ease. Lee shook it off. If Kara couldn’t get answers out of him, Lee stood no chance.
“I’ll need your sidearm, Sir,” the Marine explained as they paused in front of Doral’s cell.
“I’ll risk it.”
“You might, but I can’t. We got rules.”
Lee turned to the beefier man and narrowed his eyes at his name patch, “Lakes. You got a sister in the squad, right? Raptor pilot?”
Lakes shifted, “Yeah.”
“Want to keep it that way?”
He sucked in a breath and shook his head as he opened the hatch, “Your funeral.”
Lee stepped over the threshold and approached the older man sitting on the edge of his bed. Lee had always seen the Five as the least physically threatening of the Cylons. Odd, since he knew they all posed a massive threat. Maybe it was the way his ears stuck out?
He shifted his eyes from Doral’s ears to his eyes and dropped his hand to his hip. It didn’t matter, Doral had answers and Lee had a plan to get them from him.
“We have five minutes,” Lee began.
No response.
“I’m going to ask you some things and you’re going to respond.”
But he didn’t.
“In five minutes I will either kill you, or leave this cell.”
“Do they not teach negotiation to officers anymore?” the Cylon finally spoke, “Because I’d not be heartbroken if you left.”
“Two minutes ago a Cylon fleet jumped into range, Resurrection Ship in tow. Does the first option seem so bad now?”
“I heard nothing.”
“No klaxons sound in here, not even shift changes. There’s no need to give prisoners that sort of information.” Lee unholstered his gun and watched as the Doral’s eyes eagerly followed his hands. “But our window of opportunity is fading. Fast.”
The Doral narrowed his eyes, “How do I know I can trust you?”
“I’d advise you not to trust me. I have every intention of killing you. The question is whether I do it before or after we’ve jumped out of range.”
And really, the Doral must’ve seen the truth in it, what did he have to lose? “Ask your questions.”
“On New Caprica you took a prisoner. Kara Thrace. I’m assuming you know of her?”
“She’s hard to miss and I confess that our brother, Leoben, does have some sort of… fascination with the young woman.”
“What happened to her?”
“She returned to this ship after the attack.”
Lee lifted one brow, they called it an attack? He tapped the gun against the Doral’s forehead once, “On New Caprica?”
“She was taken prisoner and kept in an unorthodox manner.”
“Unorthodox?”
“Steak dinners and thousand count sheets. Leoben was intent on wooing her.”
Lee balked. She hadn’t been mistreated? His heart lifted.
“You… took good care of her?”
“You humans do so lack the capacity to see the subtleties in life. There are infinite ways to torture a person. We wore her down. Again and again. She didn’t take to captivity. She tore through the Leobens. Strangulation, stabbings, broken necks, pushed him down the stairs. I think she even shoved a shard of glass through his eye at one stage. He’d go back. He’d resurrect and return to her. Never violent and never vengeful.”
“He wanted her to see that he was reasonable,” Lee concluded.
“I suppose. But how he expected her to see reason is beyond me. She was hardly a reasonable person herself. But Conoy was obsessed. Of course even his patience was tested.”
“What happened?”
“There was a plan. To… give her a reason to play nice.”
Something dawned in Lee’s eyes. “Kacey.”
“A child. Blonde. Approximately the right age to have been conceived and incubated after Kara’s return to Caprica. Leoben claimed the child was theirs.”
“Kara wouldn’t buy it.”
“You’re right of course. But Kara did care for the child, came to love her and it wasn’t long… with only the child to keep her company, we believe she may have come to terms with her own maternity.”
“But Kara wasn’t the mother, was she?”
“Of course not. Leoben forced the issue many times after we came into possession of Thrace’s ova, but none of the treatments took. He was simply never meant to father a child by that woman.”
For that, Lee was frakking grateful. But, Gods, Kara had returned from New Caprica with a child. A daughter that she’d fought to keep safe during the occupation. How much of Kara’s soul had been eroded in admitting to herself that she was the mother of a Cylon? And then what? Not a mother. Not a Cylon-child. Certainly not Kara’s daughter. Kara had been praised by Sam as a hero, standing on deck returning a lost child to her mother. But now that picture took on a much more sinister edge. Kara hadn’t saved a little girl - she’d given up her own baby.
Did she mourn? Did that explain the way she’d been after returning? Gods, if only he’d asked. If only he’d sought her out to see that she’d survived in mind as well as body. But he’d barely pulled through himself. He’d lost his ship and disobeyed orders, all for the best he supposed. He too was half a hero, but less of a man than he’d ever been, returning to the ship overweight and with Dee. Too caught in his own mind and losses to consider hers.
Frak, she must have hated him! Because at that moment, Lee was sure that if he’d gone to her, if he’d not been afraid of how she’d cut him down on sight - and rightfully so, his godsdamned breasts had been bigger than Dee’s - he was sure she’d have told him everything. Pressed him beside her in his rack, or crouched underneath his Viper next to him and whispered things that she didn’t share with anyone but her best friend.
But he’d been no friend and no man, and apparently, if his selling her short as a Cylon was any indication, that much hadn’t changed. He holstered his gun and turned to leave. He could make it right, or at least start. Give Kara some token to demonstrate that he was there for her, that he understood how grievously she had been wronged. By everyone.
“We had a deal,” the Cylon stuttered.
“And I said I couldn’t be trusted. We’ve had no DRADIS contacts since your Fleet delivered you.”
*****
Saul Tigh dropped down besides Kara Thrace and passed her his hip flask. He’d found her sitting alone in the Memorial corridor, staring at her own picture.
She rolled her eyes, but took the flask and drank briefly before handing it back to him. He stood and took a small shot glass out of a side pocket to rest it on top of a box a few feet away. This was where he’d left Ellen’s picture. He filled the glass with the flask and flourished the glass a little before leaving it down in front of her.
“You finished yet?” he asked out of the side of his mouth.
“Finished?” Kara asked.
“Frakkin’ around.”
“Literally or figuratively?”
“I could care less about who’s been in your panties, Thrace. Gods know I’ve only got so many years left in me and that’s a list I don’t have the time for.”
Kara sneered at him.
She could sneer all she wanted to, Saul thought as he knocked back another shot and let the liquor burn its way clear to his gut. At least, he reasoned, alcohol still affected him as a Cylon. Always had, he supposed. Talking to Thrace had never been a hobby of his. Well, that was a lie. But antagonism and talking were two different things. She’d been back for a while now and he’d made a deliberate bid to avoid her. But with her status as Cylon unconfirmed he couldn’t help but wonder if that put her on the same level as him. Which, really, was a terrifying thing, because Thrace had hit a new low.
“I’m asking,” he clarified, “if you’re going to pull that pretty head of yours out of your own sphincter long enough to find Earth, because fact is, this Fleet don’t tolerate useless Cylons.”
“Prove that I’m a Cylon,” she said, shrugging.
“Prove that you aren’t.” And for the briefest second Saul wished that she could, wished that Kara could just reach into her back pocket and pull out some magical proof that she was human. And while she was at it… did she have something that might prove that he was too?
He sat back down beside her and let his eye drift up to the picture on the wall, “You going to leave that up?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“I can’t seem to find a good enough reason to take it down.”
“You might not want to let others hear you say that.”
Kara slid her eyes to him, shrugged and stood, “Honestly, I could care less.”
She swaggered off, stopping briefly to pick up his offering to Ellen and knock it back in one mouthful, throwing his wife’s image a mock salute and continuing on her way.
*****
Coffee. That was what she missed the most. And sex with Lee. And Lee’s room. Maybe even Lee, but mostly the sex. But at that precise moment it was the loss of coffee she was feeling most acutely. And aspirin.
Though, she supposed, without coffee she wasn’t really alert enough to feel the full force of the throbbing in her right temple. Dee picked up her mug of water and took a sip before focusing once more on the daily routine of the CIC.
The Admiral finished with a map and swept it aside, “Captain Gaeta? I need you to call Thrace in. Put it over the wire.”
“Wait,” this from Tigh, “she ain’t up to it. I saw her. She’s in no shape.” He dropped his voice, but Dee had exceptional hearing, “She’s likely to drop us into the center of the sun for shits and giggles. The Cylons did a number on her. Give her a day or two.”
Dee wanted to throw her mug at the back of the XO’s head. Was everybody out to frakking protect Kara Thrace? A few weeks ago, people had been clapping her on the back in halls and leaving gifts of chocolate under her pillow. The last chocolate in the whole Fleet. Now Kara was a Cylon killer again and her tarnished armor was back in fashion.
The Admiral paused briefly, and then spoke, “I wish we had that sort of time. Gaeta, your orders stand.”
Dee’s stomach turned as Felix made the call. She struggled to think of something to do outside of the CIC, some duty she could find that needed doing. She didn’t want to see Thrace. Not if the rumors were true that Thrace’s mellow demeanor had vanished and the bitch was back in full-force. Dee’s anxiety kicked up a notch; she never had been called out for the incident in the head. Maybe Kara didn’t remember it?
Maybe Lee had reasoned with her? Begged her not to name Dee as an attacker. She smiled a little. She liked that idea. Maybe it hadn’t all been for nothing. Felix had asked her why she’d finally left.
She guessed she’d finally felt safe enough to walk and let Lee come to some sort of realization about what he was missing. But she hadn’t planned on Kara’s miraculous return. If she’d known… if she’d seen that coming (and who the frak could see something like that coming?) she’d never have left.
Dee sat her mug down as a patch came through to her; at least she had something to take her mind off Thrace. “This - this is Lakes down in the holding cells,” his voice held and edge of urgency and panic, “I need to speak to the Admiral.”
“What’s your business?”
There was a pause on the other line, “I should really speak to the Admiral.”
Dee rolled her eyes and turned in her chair to catch the Admiral’s attention, “Sir? I have Corporal Lakes down in the holding cells on the line for you.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“He won’t say.”
The Admiral straightened; Dee supposed she’d be a little concerned too. They were holding the Cylons down there after all, “I’ll take it.”
Dee switched the call to the handset nearest him and turned her eyes - if not her ears - back to her own work station. The handsets were loud enough for her to hear the other end of the conversation anyway.
“Adama here.”
“Sir, you should…” Dee strained to catch the Marine on the other end. “Captain Adama is here.”
She turned briefly in her seat and gave up all pretense of not listening in. The Admiral’s face flashed with concern.
“What’s happened?” he asked.
“He’s… forced his way into a cell. I let him in to the Five’s cell and he came out… upset. He drew his sidearm and asked to be permitted to one of the Conoys. Sir, I don’t think he’s reasonable right now. I need back up.”
A look passed between the Admiral and Tigh. Tigh nodded once and was already heading for the door, calling for a small group of marines on his way.
“I’m coming,” the Admiral said before placing the handset back in its cradle.
Dee stood and made to follow the Admiral, but he held up a hand, “Here, Dualla, you work here.” It galled her how easily he’d reverted to using her maiden name. He turned and addressed Gaeta, “When Starbuck gets here, send her to me.”
She watched him walk from the room at a brisk pace, sure that when he was out of sight he’d start running.
*****
Bill knew it looked bad when he was running through the halls of Galactica. Bad things made the CO run, so he tried to avoid running at all costs. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that his son was about to do something stupid. Lee hadn’t been right since Kara’s death. He’d been distanced, not at all the man he’d tried to raise. His son hadn’t dealt well with the death of his best friend, and Bill hadn’t seen Lee react so stoically, keep his grief so guarded, since Zak’s death.
But Kara had come back and Bill couldn’t help wondering if Lee’s grief was finally catching up with him. Had he had something to do with Tigh’s quiet remarks to watch out for Kara? Had Kara’s widely reported behavior since the Leoben’s demise upset his son?
So often he’d turned a blind eye to their antics and dealings. They fought like pilot and CAG, like friends betrayed. But they also fought like lovers and that wasn’t something Bill thought he could bear. Not because of Zak. But to see his children be together and then tear each other apart? He could live to see the end of the colonies, but he would not tolerate just watching Lee and Kara demonstrate time and again just how deeply incapable they were of carrying on an adult relationship.
Maybe he was partly to blame for that, at least for Lee.
It was self-preservation, he supposed, that turned his eye from his son’s pain at the news Kara had married. It was self-preservation that reminded him Kara required intimacy and physical attentions as much as any other pilot, no matter how much he wished it wasn’t so. But Bill wasn’t sure that even his own considerable powers of self-preservation were up against whatever Lee had just started. By the time he got there, several marines had packed around the entrance to the holding cage. Tigh stood off to the side winding up a short exchange with the marine who’d been on duty.
He turned back to Bill and spoke, “I hate to say it, but Lee’s gone off the deep end. Fired a round over the Marine’s head to get him to open up. Got in there, fired at the locks and sent them into shutdown. He’d just finished securing the lock-up when we got here.”
“What’s he doing?”
Saul shrugged, “See for yourself.” He waved a hand at one caged viewing panel. “So far all he’s done is walk around and stare at the Cylon. Can’t get his attention. Lee knows we’re out here, he can see us but he’s focused on the Cylon frakker. They say it’ll be at least five minutes until we can get the locks to give up.”
“Lee could be dead by then!” Bill moved forward and placed a hand against the window as he willed Lee to turn around and look at him.
From behind him Saul whistled gently underneath his breath. “The way Lee’s been discharging his sidearm in the last few minutes? I’d be more worried about the Conoy.”
Bill had never felt so impotent or ineffective as he did in the moments that followed.
Lee stood just a few feet from the bed, shifting his weight from side to side as he regarded the Cylon. He seemed to be waiting for the other man to acknowledge his presence. But Conoy merely sat on the bed, one foot braced against the edge with his knee tucked underneath his chin, his eyes focused on Lee’s knees.
By the door some marines dropped a heavy cutter, forcing Lee to realize his time was running short. “We’ve never met.” Lee stated straight out, and finally the blonde Cylon lifted his eyes to regard Lee with a mixture of curiosity and just the faintest hostility.
“I know who you are.”
“You know why I’m here?” Lee asked, pacing over the course of a few feet just to keep moving.
“We have something in common.”
“You have to be held accountable for what you did to her.” Lee was sweating heavily, the gun slipped in his hand and he paused briefly to readjust his grip. Bill continued to watch as his son unraveled.
“And what did I do to her?”
“New Caprica,” Lee spat.
Bill frowned and searched his mind. Kara and New Caprica. She’d been held in isolation, he knew that. Kara had gone so far as to name Leoben Conoy as her chief captor, but to hear her tell it, she’d been treated well and subjected to nothing more than a “bit of mindfrakkery”. At the time, Bill had known not to take her word on it, but Kara wasn’t forthcoming with anything more and the Fleet needed to be protected. What had Lee found out? Suddenly, Bill almost wished he could be in there to hold the Cylon down while Lee forced the truth from its lips.
“How do you know that was me?” Leoben dropped his other foot to the ground and shifted further to the edge of the bed, as if he were preparing to stand.
“It was all of you. All along. Driving her insane. Gods, you tried to make her have your children! You tortured her on New Caprica. You wore her down and you broke her.”
“I broke her?!” Leoben rose, momentarily losing his composure before bringing his voice back to a measured tone. “She loved me, you know. She told me she loved me and then she put a knife through my heart.”
Lee stopped, as if considering it.
“You’re wondering if I really mean it. I do. And literally. She kissed me, she held me and she stabbed me. And don’t think I alone drove her to that. When I… when I took her. She was so sure that they’d all be saved in a matter of days. She never said it; the soldier in her had to know that it wasn’t sound warfare to simply react. You had to leave, regroup, plan. She knew that. It didn’t stop her from expecting a full-scale rescue.”
Bill straightened his spine as his son did the same.
“We did go back.”
Leoben shrugged, “Maybe too late for Kara, though. Lee, isn’t it? You’re Lee. She mentioned you, maybe not deliberately, but she couldn’t keep me out all the time. I touched her once. Too early - I know that now. Just a hand to the nape of the neck as she sat on the sofa. You know what she said? Before she broke my wrist, I mean. She said ‘Lee is gonna frak you up.’ Lee. Not her husband. Not Adama. Not even Galactica. She thought you would come for her. She thought that whatever else had happened, when it came down to the wire, it would be you. Not a great army. Not the man she’d married. You.” He punctuated the words by pointing one long finger in Lee’s direction, “In the end, that’s what really defeated her.”
Bill flicked his eyes to the marines working at the door, not long now. Lee seemed to be processing what Conoy had said, but it was all too much and his son finally took a different tack. “Did you touch her?”
“Many times.”
“And after the nebula?”
Leoben’s smile was knowing and at the same time secretive. What had happened then, he wasn’t telling.
“You’re going to die for this, you frakkin’ toaster. You’re going to die so that she can see-” Lee’s voice broke off.
“You think killing me is going to undo what’s passed between you both? You think you can still save her?”
A few clunks rang out as the marines forced the locking mechanisms on the door and began to shoulder it open, but Lee had already lifted his sidearm and pressed it into Leoben’s ever-gaping mouth. “I think that if you ever knew Kara, you’d know that she is perfectly capable of saving herself.”
Bill’s shoulders fell as Lee fired and finally confessed his feelings for Kara in a mist of blood, grey matter and shattered bone. Beside him there was a small and wordless cry. Kara stood just a few feet from his shoulder, having watched the entire scene unfold.
Author: becisvolatile
Part: 7/?
Rating: NC-17
Pairings/Characters: Lee/Kara, Bill, Roslin, Helo, Sharon, Cottle, Anders, Dee, Leoben, Racetrack, Seelix, Tigh.
Word Count: 5400+
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, gratuitous sex.
Spoilers: Up to and including S3
Summary: His eyes dropped from his face to the angry red crater in his shoulder. His lips tugged. Maybe she’d known all along that he deserved a bullet.
Authors Note: For a while I considered calling this chapter "The one where Lee loses his shit", but in the end I kept with the numerical thing. Angylinni once again gets her beta groove on.
Previous Chapters:
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Lee hit the mat hard and made no move to get up. Hot Dog’s feet passed by his field of vision, dancing for a moment before they slowed.
“Frak, Sir? Are you okay?”
Gods, he couldn’t even stay down. He had to get back up because… well, he couldn’t think of a reason but he was sure there was one. He planted his hands against the mat and pushed away.
“Fine.” He was fine. Except for not eating. Not sleeping and, apparently, having the crap beaten out of him by a kid.
And there was that whole thing about having torn his soul out of his own chest with a few short words.
He couldn’t forget that. Gods, he was pathetic. He was lower than low. He’d… He’d failed her - again.
He shrugged off the young pilot’s aid and shook his head, “I’m done. Thanks.”
He stood and crossed the room, tugging off a sweat soaked t-shirt as he passed a row of weight benches and caught sight of himself in the mirror beyond. It was all he could do not to put his fist through the frakking face staring back at him. His eyes dropped from his face to the angry red crater in his shoulder. His lips tugged. Maybe she’d known all along that he deserved a bullet. Maybe even then she’d known he’d fail her when it mattered the most.
Gods, it wasn’t even the sex. It was his lack of faith. She’d known he was angry, unstable, out of his mind and she’d still let him drag her flight suit down and claim her body. No matter how much he’d claimed that it wasn’t her body, she’d still shared it.
Truthfully, for him the sex hadn’t been that bad. Even at her worst and least compliant, Kara was better than anyone he’d ever been with. He felt a pang low in his belly. Too bad she couldn’t say the same of him.
He had to do something. A show of faith. A demonstration of…
Of love?
His stomach rolled and he caught a pale flash in the mirror over his shoulder. She’d been avoiding him. He knew that much. She hadn’t noticed him in the room just yet, because he was almost certain that if she’d seen him she would have turned around and left. But Kara didn’t seem terribly aware of anything. She’d had a big night and Lee was about to dismiss her state as hung-over. But little things started to stand out. She wasn’t wearing shoes. The running shorts she wore hung low on her hips, they weren’t hers and her t-shirt hugged just a little too tightly over braless breasts. Her eyes darted around the gym. She was looking for someone.
Lee fought the impulse to turn around and go to her, instead watching as she continued to scan the gym. Had last night caught up with her? Had one of those men she’d been with revisited her? Lee’s pulse kicked up.
Surely she wasn’t looking for him. He turned, trying to tamp down the hope expanding his chest, his fingers gripping tightly at the sweat soaked shirt in his hand. Her eyes crossed him once, unseeing, and then returned.
At the very least, Kara knew his body. Of that he had no doubt.
Without actually speaking he asked, “Are you okay?”
She stumbled over her own feet to get away from him.
*****
Barefoot in Dogsville. Yeah, that could only be a good thing. Kara side stepped some broken glass and lifted her own hands to wrap them around her shoulders. What was she even doing here?
She’d left the bunkroom with the vague notion of finding someone. But her list of “someones” had grown short and she’d narrowed her search down to just Helo. Did she even know what she was after? Of course she did. But they’d have to threaten her with bodily harm before she confessed that she was searching the corridors of Galactica for a freaking hug.
It was freezing down there, in the guts of the ship, a sensation that was amplified only by her bare feet against the galvanized steel. Maybe it was time to just turn back to her rack.
The rack meters away from where Sam was frakking another woman, despite professing that he wanted their marriage to work.
She could go back to the Agathon’s, but she wasn’t sure she could face another night on their sofa. Even if she was willing to put on a brave face in front of Hera wearing scant and odd fitting clothes with filthy and scraped feet. Besides, it was only late afternoon; she had a while to figure out what she was going to do.
The Ready Room was out; she’d crashed there a couple times when the bunkroom had been too rowdy. Lee was never far away.
Kara misjudged a small sprinkling of glass and caught a fine shard in her big toe. With a curse she dropped down to drag it out. No sooner had she pocketed the glass than someone was jumping on her back.
Someone small.
“Kara!”
She stood and let Kacey wrap her legs about her waist.
Kacey’s mother, Julia Brynn, came jogging up with an apologetic smile. While the other woman didn’t mind Kara so much, things were a little different now. Rumors were rife and no one knew where Kara’s loyalties lie. Kara almost felt sorry for Julia as she set her daughter down.
“You went!” Kacey accused almost instantly and Kara graced Julia with an impressed smile.
“I came back. And you’re speaking so well!”
“Yeah,” Julia said pulling Kacey against her hip. “The marines are teaching her some of the finest words there are.”
Kara winced, “You want me to have a word with them?”
Julia shrugged, “You don’t stay innocent down here, Kara. Colorful words are the least of my worries.”
Kacey didn’t seem impressed that the focus had moved away from her and instead turned her attention to Kara’s bloodied foot, sucking in a dramatic breath. Julia dropped her eyes and frowned, “Do you… you seem like you’ve had a tough day.”
Kara couldn’t argue, “I’m just… lost. I was looking for someone down here. But he’s not here.”
“Is that him?”
Kara spun quickly and caught Lee standing a few rows away. He’d pulled his sweaty shirt back on and Kara could tell from where she stood that between the wet shirt and the cold air, he had to be freezing like she was. He stepped to the side a little, but after realizing he’d been spotted he just stood still.
“No it isn’t, but I have to go.”
Kacey almost instantly started to cry. Her bottom lip jutted and her eyes welled. Gods that kid cried every time Kara left and it had been so long since her last visit. “I’ll come back tomorrow,” she quickly amended, shuffling training runs and a CAP in her mind. She’d find the time.
But for a child, tomorrow was just too far away. Kacey threw herself at Kara’s legs, wrapping her small arms around her thigh.
“Shi- uhm, sorry. Okay, Kacey you have to let go.” Gods, she felt like an ass, but a quick glance towards Lee confirmed that he’d decided to approach and she just wasn’t up to that. Not there and not on the cusp of Sam’s… was she even allowed to call it a betrayal?
Julia nodded and stooped to drag Kacey away, murmuring that Kara would be back soon, that she’d just have to let go and their friend would be back before she knew it.
Kacey didn’t seem convinced, but caved under the will of her mother. Kara shot them a forced smile as she was already slipping further down the rows. She knew Dogsville better than Lee and disappeared from sight in a matter of moments.
*****
He had to believe that he’d been there for her welfare. Not because he wanted… more. More time, more power, more information to bind her with. But somehow he knew that if Kara was searching for someone other than him he damned well wanted to know why and while Kara hadn’t stayed long with the young girl and her mother, she’d demonstrated a sort of familiarity with them that Lee hadn’t seen her show outside of Fleet ranks. More than that, she’d been genuinely distressed when the child had started crying.
Lee searched his mind for a link. The kid she’d bought back from New Caprica? Yeah, he’d heard something about that. But nothing beyond Kara finding the girl and picking her up during the exodus.
But there was more to what he had seen and it had propelled him towards the mother and child in Kara’s wake. He’d asked where she had gone, but had been politely and firmly denied. Then he’d changed tack and asked how they knew Kara. The mother - Julia - had hesitated before saying she wasn’t sure how Kacey had come to be in her care, all she knew was that her baby had come back and had constantly called for Kara and Leoben.
That had stopped Lee in his tracks. Leoben’s ties to Kara… he knew they were more intimate that your average toaster and human, had seen that with his own eyes. But he had only assumed that maybe a Conoy model or two had crossed her path briefly on New Caprica. What if he’d been wrong? What if Kara had been through more during the occupation than she’d let on?
He’d seen no official recounts. Hell, half the paperwork would never be done. There was too much to do with the daily running of the ship and not enough time or personnel to adequately chronicle the New Caprica days.
*****
Lee frowned as he approached the holding cells. He was out of line. If Kara hadn’t told anyone of those days, it was for a reason. But if he really wanted to help her, he had to start somewhere. He’d dressed and gathered himself, running through in his head what it was exactly that he hoped to find out before presenting himself to the Marine with a request to interview the prisoner.
“I got no orders for an interview right now, no one sees the Conoy’s.”
“It’s not the Conoy’s I want. It’s the Five,” Lee replied.
The Marine shrugged, “Your party, sir. He ain’t saying crap.”
Lee nodded as the Marine walked him to the furthest holding cell; they’d finally gotten to separating them. On the way they passed one Leoben model, lounging across his bed with his hands held over his eyes in a forced display of ease. Lee shook it off. If Kara couldn’t get answers out of him, Lee stood no chance.
“I’ll need your sidearm, Sir,” the Marine explained as they paused in front of Doral’s cell.
“I’ll risk it.”
“You might, but I can’t. We got rules.”
Lee turned to the beefier man and narrowed his eyes at his name patch, “Lakes. You got a sister in the squad, right? Raptor pilot?”
Lakes shifted, “Yeah.”
“Want to keep it that way?”
He sucked in a breath and shook his head as he opened the hatch, “Your funeral.”
Lee stepped over the threshold and approached the older man sitting on the edge of his bed. Lee had always seen the Five as the least physically threatening of the Cylons. Odd, since he knew they all posed a massive threat. Maybe it was the way his ears stuck out?
He shifted his eyes from Doral’s ears to his eyes and dropped his hand to his hip. It didn’t matter, Doral had answers and Lee had a plan to get them from him.
“We have five minutes,” Lee began.
No response.
“I’m going to ask you some things and you’re going to respond.”
But he didn’t.
“In five minutes I will either kill you, or leave this cell.”
“Do they not teach negotiation to officers anymore?” the Cylon finally spoke, “Because I’d not be heartbroken if you left.”
“Two minutes ago a Cylon fleet jumped into range, Resurrection Ship in tow. Does the first option seem so bad now?”
“I heard nothing.”
“No klaxons sound in here, not even shift changes. There’s no need to give prisoners that sort of information.” Lee unholstered his gun and watched as the Doral’s eyes eagerly followed his hands. “But our window of opportunity is fading. Fast.”
The Doral narrowed his eyes, “How do I know I can trust you?”
“I’d advise you not to trust me. I have every intention of killing you. The question is whether I do it before or after we’ve jumped out of range.”
And really, the Doral must’ve seen the truth in it, what did he have to lose? “Ask your questions.”
“On New Caprica you took a prisoner. Kara Thrace. I’m assuming you know of her?”
“She’s hard to miss and I confess that our brother, Leoben, does have some sort of… fascination with the young woman.”
“What happened to her?”
“She returned to this ship after the attack.”
Lee lifted one brow, they called it an attack? He tapped the gun against the Doral’s forehead once, “On New Caprica?”
“She was taken prisoner and kept in an unorthodox manner.”
“Unorthodox?”
“Steak dinners and thousand count sheets. Leoben was intent on wooing her.”
Lee balked. She hadn’t been mistreated? His heart lifted.
“You… took good care of her?”
“You humans do so lack the capacity to see the subtleties in life. There are infinite ways to torture a person. We wore her down. Again and again. She didn’t take to captivity. She tore through the Leobens. Strangulation, stabbings, broken necks, pushed him down the stairs. I think she even shoved a shard of glass through his eye at one stage. He’d go back. He’d resurrect and return to her. Never violent and never vengeful.”
“He wanted her to see that he was reasonable,” Lee concluded.
“I suppose. But how he expected her to see reason is beyond me. She was hardly a reasonable person herself. But Conoy was obsessed. Of course even his patience was tested.”
“What happened?”
“There was a plan. To… give her a reason to play nice.”
Something dawned in Lee’s eyes. “Kacey.”
“A child. Blonde. Approximately the right age to have been conceived and incubated after Kara’s return to Caprica. Leoben claimed the child was theirs.”
“Kara wouldn’t buy it.”
“You’re right of course. But Kara did care for the child, came to love her and it wasn’t long… with only the child to keep her company, we believe she may have come to terms with her own maternity.”
“But Kara wasn’t the mother, was she?”
“Of course not. Leoben forced the issue many times after we came into possession of Thrace’s ova, but none of the treatments took. He was simply never meant to father a child by that woman.”
For that, Lee was frakking grateful. But, Gods, Kara had returned from New Caprica with a child. A daughter that she’d fought to keep safe during the occupation. How much of Kara’s soul had been eroded in admitting to herself that she was the mother of a Cylon? And then what? Not a mother. Not a Cylon-child. Certainly not Kara’s daughter. Kara had been praised by Sam as a hero, standing on deck returning a lost child to her mother. But now that picture took on a much more sinister edge. Kara hadn’t saved a little girl - she’d given up her own baby.
Did she mourn? Did that explain the way she’d been after returning? Gods, if only he’d asked. If only he’d sought her out to see that she’d survived in mind as well as body. But he’d barely pulled through himself. He’d lost his ship and disobeyed orders, all for the best he supposed. He too was half a hero, but less of a man than he’d ever been, returning to the ship overweight and with Dee. Too caught in his own mind and losses to consider hers.
Frak, she must have hated him! Because at that moment, Lee was sure that if he’d gone to her, if he’d not been afraid of how she’d cut him down on sight - and rightfully so, his godsdamned breasts had been bigger than Dee’s - he was sure she’d have told him everything. Pressed him beside her in his rack, or crouched underneath his Viper next to him and whispered things that she didn’t share with anyone but her best friend.
But he’d been no friend and no man, and apparently, if his selling her short as a Cylon was any indication, that much hadn’t changed. He holstered his gun and turned to leave. He could make it right, or at least start. Give Kara some token to demonstrate that he was there for her, that he understood how grievously she had been wronged. By everyone.
“We had a deal,” the Cylon stuttered.
“And I said I couldn’t be trusted. We’ve had no DRADIS contacts since your Fleet delivered you.”
*****
Saul Tigh dropped down besides Kara Thrace and passed her his hip flask. He’d found her sitting alone in the Memorial corridor, staring at her own picture.
She rolled her eyes, but took the flask and drank briefly before handing it back to him. He stood and took a small shot glass out of a side pocket to rest it on top of a box a few feet away. This was where he’d left Ellen’s picture. He filled the glass with the flask and flourished the glass a little before leaving it down in front of her.
“You finished yet?” he asked out of the side of his mouth.
“Finished?” Kara asked.
“Frakkin’ around.”
“Literally or figuratively?”
“I could care less about who’s been in your panties, Thrace. Gods know I’ve only got so many years left in me and that’s a list I don’t have the time for.”
Kara sneered at him.
She could sneer all she wanted to, Saul thought as he knocked back another shot and let the liquor burn its way clear to his gut. At least, he reasoned, alcohol still affected him as a Cylon. Always had, he supposed. Talking to Thrace had never been a hobby of his. Well, that was a lie. But antagonism and talking were two different things. She’d been back for a while now and he’d made a deliberate bid to avoid her. But with her status as Cylon unconfirmed he couldn’t help but wonder if that put her on the same level as him. Which, really, was a terrifying thing, because Thrace had hit a new low.
“I’m asking,” he clarified, “if you’re going to pull that pretty head of yours out of your own sphincter long enough to find Earth, because fact is, this Fleet don’t tolerate useless Cylons.”
“Prove that I’m a Cylon,” she said, shrugging.
“Prove that you aren’t.” And for the briefest second Saul wished that she could, wished that Kara could just reach into her back pocket and pull out some magical proof that she was human. And while she was at it… did she have something that might prove that he was too?
He sat back down beside her and let his eye drift up to the picture on the wall, “You going to leave that up?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“I can’t seem to find a good enough reason to take it down.”
“You might not want to let others hear you say that.”
Kara slid her eyes to him, shrugged and stood, “Honestly, I could care less.”
She swaggered off, stopping briefly to pick up his offering to Ellen and knock it back in one mouthful, throwing his wife’s image a mock salute and continuing on her way.
*****
Coffee. That was what she missed the most. And sex with Lee. And Lee’s room. Maybe even Lee, but mostly the sex. But at that precise moment it was the loss of coffee she was feeling most acutely. And aspirin.
Though, she supposed, without coffee she wasn’t really alert enough to feel the full force of the throbbing in her right temple. Dee picked up her mug of water and took a sip before focusing once more on the daily routine of the CIC.
The Admiral finished with a map and swept it aside, “Captain Gaeta? I need you to call Thrace in. Put it over the wire.”
“Wait,” this from Tigh, “she ain’t up to it. I saw her. She’s in no shape.” He dropped his voice, but Dee had exceptional hearing, “She’s likely to drop us into the center of the sun for shits and giggles. The Cylons did a number on her. Give her a day or two.”
Dee wanted to throw her mug at the back of the XO’s head. Was everybody out to frakking protect Kara Thrace? A few weeks ago, people had been clapping her on the back in halls and leaving gifts of chocolate under her pillow. The last chocolate in the whole Fleet. Now Kara was a Cylon killer again and her tarnished armor was back in fashion.
The Admiral paused briefly, and then spoke, “I wish we had that sort of time. Gaeta, your orders stand.”
Dee’s stomach turned as Felix made the call. She struggled to think of something to do outside of the CIC, some duty she could find that needed doing. She didn’t want to see Thrace. Not if the rumors were true that Thrace’s mellow demeanor had vanished and the bitch was back in full-force. Dee’s anxiety kicked up a notch; she never had been called out for the incident in the head. Maybe Kara didn’t remember it?
Maybe Lee had reasoned with her? Begged her not to name Dee as an attacker. She smiled a little. She liked that idea. Maybe it hadn’t all been for nothing. Felix had asked her why she’d finally left.
She guessed she’d finally felt safe enough to walk and let Lee come to some sort of realization about what he was missing. But she hadn’t planned on Kara’s miraculous return. If she’d known… if she’d seen that coming (and who the frak could see something like that coming?) she’d never have left.
Dee sat her mug down as a patch came through to her; at least she had something to take her mind off Thrace. “This - this is Lakes down in the holding cells,” his voice held and edge of urgency and panic, “I need to speak to the Admiral.”
“What’s your business?”
There was a pause on the other line, “I should really speak to the Admiral.”
Dee rolled her eyes and turned in her chair to catch the Admiral’s attention, “Sir? I have Corporal Lakes down in the holding cells on the line for you.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“He won’t say.”
The Admiral straightened; Dee supposed she’d be a little concerned too. They were holding the Cylons down there after all, “I’ll take it.”
Dee switched the call to the handset nearest him and turned her eyes - if not her ears - back to her own work station. The handsets were loud enough for her to hear the other end of the conversation anyway.
“Adama here.”
“Sir, you should…” Dee strained to catch the Marine on the other end. “Captain Adama is here.”
She turned briefly in her seat and gave up all pretense of not listening in. The Admiral’s face flashed with concern.
“What’s happened?” he asked.
“He’s… forced his way into a cell. I let him in to the Five’s cell and he came out… upset. He drew his sidearm and asked to be permitted to one of the Conoys. Sir, I don’t think he’s reasonable right now. I need back up.”
A look passed between the Admiral and Tigh. Tigh nodded once and was already heading for the door, calling for a small group of marines on his way.
“I’m coming,” the Admiral said before placing the handset back in its cradle.
Dee stood and made to follow the Admiral, but he held up a hand, “Here, Dualla, you work here.” It galled her how easily he’d reverted to using her maiden name. He turned and addressed Gaeta, “When Starbuck gets here, send her to me.”
She watched him walk from the room at a brisk pace, sure that when he was out of sight he’d start running.
*****
Bill knew it looked bad when he was running through the halls of Galactica. Bad things made the CO run, so he tried to avoid running at all costs. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that his son was about to do something stupid. Lee hadn’t been right since Kara’s death. He’d been distanced, not at all the man he’d tried to raise. His son hadn’t dealt well with the death of his best friend, and Bill hadn’t seen Lee react so stoically, keep his grief so guarded, since Zak’s death.
But Kara had come back and Bill couldn’t help wondering if Lee’s grief was finally catching up with him. Had he had something to do with Tigh’s quiet remarks to watch out for Kara? Had Kara’s widely reported behavior since the Leoben’s demise upset his son?
So often he’d turned a blind eye to their antics and dealings. They fought like pilot and CAG, like friends betrayed. But they also fought like lovers and that wasn’t something Bill thought he could bear. Not because of Zak. But to see his children be together and then tear each other apart? He could live to see the end of the colonies, but he would not tolerate just watching Lee and Kara demonstrate time and again just how deeply incapable they were of carrying on an adult relationship.
Maybe he was partly to blame for that, at least for Lee.
It was self-preservation, he supposed, that turned his eye from his son’s pain at the news Kara had married. It was self-preservation that reminded him Kara required intimacy and physical attentions as much as any other pilot, no matter how much he wished it wasn’t so. But Bill wasn’t sure that even his own considerable powers of self-preservation were up against whatever Lee had just started. By the time he got there, several marines had packed around the entrance to the holding cage. Tigh stood off to the side winding up a short exchange with the marine who’d been on duty.
He turned back to Bill and spoke, “I hate to say it, but Lee’s gone off the deep end. Fired a round over the Marine’s head to get him to open up. Got in there, fired at the locks and sent them into shutdown. He’d just finished securing the lock-up when we got here.”
“What’s he doing?”
Saul shrugged, “See for yourself.” He waved a hand at one caged viewing panel. “So far all he’s done is walk around and stare at the Cylon. Can’t get his attention. Lee knows we’re out here, he can see us but he’s focused on the Cylon frakker. They say it’ll be at least five minutes until we can get the locks to give up.”
“Lee could be dead by then!” Bill moved forward and placed a hand against the window as he willed Lee to turn around and look at him.
From behind him Saul whistled gently underneath his breath. “The way Lee’s been discharging his sidearm in the last few minutes? I’d be more worried about the Conoy.”
Bill had never felt so impotent or ineffective as he did in the moments that followed.
Lee stood just a few feet from the bed, shifting his weight from side to side as he regarded the Cylon. He seemed to be waiting for the other man to acknowledge his presence. But Conoy merely sat on the bed, one foot braced against the edge with his knee tucked underneath his chin, his eyes focused on Lee’s knees.
By the door some marines dropped a heavy cutter, forcing Lee to realize his time was running short. “We’ve never met.” Lee stated straight out, and finally the blonde Cylon lifted his eyes to regard Lee with a mixture of curiosity and just the faintest hostility.
“I know who you are.”
“You know why I’m here?” Lee asked, pacing over the course of a few feet just to keep moving.
“We have something in common.”
“You have to be held accountable for what you did to her.” Lee was sweating heavily, the gun slipped in his hand and he paused briefly to readjust his grip. Bill continued to watch as his son unraveled.
“And what did I do to her?”
“New Caprica,” Lee spat.
Bill frowned and searched his mind. Kara and New Caprica. She’d been held in isolation, he knew that. Kara had gone so far as to name Leoben Conoy as her chief captor, but to hear her tell it, she’d been treated well and subjected to nothing more than a “bit of mindfrakkery”. At the time, Bill had known not to take her word on it, but Kara wasn’t forthcoming with anything more and the Fleet needed to be protected. What had Lee found out? Suddenly, Bill almost wished he could be in there to hold the Cylon down while Lee forced the truth from its lips.
“How do you know that was me?” Leoben dropped his other foot to the ground and shifted further to the edge of the bed, as if he were preparing to stand.
“It was all of you. All along. Driving her insane. Gods, you tried to make her have your children! You tortured her on New Caprica. You wore her down and you broke her.”
“I broke her?!” Leoben rose, momentarily losing his composure before bringing his voice back to a measured tone. “She loved me, you know. She told me she loved me and then she put a knife through my heart.”
Lee stopped, as if considering it.
“You’re wondering if I really mean it. I do. And literally. She kissed me, she held me and she stabbed me. And don’t think I alone drove her to that. When I… when I took her. She was so sure that they’d all be saved in a matter of days. She never said it; the soldier in her had to know that it wasn’t sound warfare to simply react. You had to leave, regroup, plan. She knew that. It didn’t stop her from expecting a full-scale rescue.”
Bill straightened his spine as his son did the same.
“We did go back.”
Leoben shrugged, “Maybe too late for Kara, though. Lee, isn’t it? You’re Lee. She mentioned you, maybe not deliberately, but she couldn’t keep me out all the time. I touched her once. Too early - I know that now. Just a hand to the nape of the neck as she sat on the sofa. You know what she said? Before she broke my wrist, I mean. She said ‘Lee is gonna frak you up.’ Lee. Not her husband. Not Adama. Not even Galactica. She thought you would come for her. She thought that whatever else had happened, when it came down to the wire, it would be you. Not a great army. Not the man she’d married. You.” He punctuated the words by pointing one long finger in Lee’s direction, “In the end, that’s what really defeated her.”
Bill flicked his eyes to the marines working at the door, not long now. Lee seemed to be processing what Conoy had said, but it was all too much and his son finally took a different tack. “Did you touch her?”
“Many times.”
“And after the nebula?”
Leoben’s smile was knowing and at the same time secretive. What had happened then, he wasn’t telling.
“You’re going to die for this, you frakkin’ toaster. You’re going to die so that she can see-” Lee’s voice broke off.
“You think killing me is going to undo what’s passed between you both? You think you can still save her?”
A few clunks rang out as the marines forced the locking mechanisms on the door and began to shoulder it open, but Lee had already lifted his sidearm and pressed it into Leoben’s ever-gaping mouth. “I think that if you ever knew Kara, you’d know that she is perfectly capable of saving herself.”
Bill’s shoulders fell as Lee fired and finally confessed his feelings for Kara in a mist of blood, grey matter and shattered bone. Beside him there was a small and wordless cry. Kara stood just a few feet from his shoulder, having watched the entire scene unfold.