(no subject)
Title: thy delicious notes
Author: spamdilemma
Author's Contact Info: spamdilemma@livejournal.com
Rating: pg
Genre: series of vignettes
Pairings: Zak/Kara, minor Lee/Kara
Summary: "Caroline writes to Kara the following week, and the week after."
Title taken from Allen Upward's poem "The Stupid Kite"
Caroline Adama knows something is wrong when she sees her son's face. Zak looks nervous, which is expected, but his nervousness is tinged with something unlike him. Consternation doesn't suit Zak.
"And this is Kara, my fiancée." He indicates the girl glaring daggers beside him. Pretty, Caroline thinks, in a murderous sort of way.
"It's nice to meet you, Kara," Caroline says with an easy smile. Years of having been a military wife have taught her, if nothing else, how to handle tense situations with a certain grace. "Why don't you two have a seat while I gather some drinks. Water, tea, coffee?"
"I'd go for some coffee, mom," Zak replies, collapsing onto the sofa. He looks warily at Kara, who chooses to sit as far away from him as the sofa allows.
"Could I have water, missus, um..." Kara trails off, her discomfort increasing.
"Adama," Caroline says. She offers a small smile. "It's still Adama."
Holding the arrangement of glasses on a bright platter, Caroline stops abruptly at the door separating the kitchen from the front room, hearing their raised voices.
"I can't believe you, Zak," Kara says heatedly. "You could've said something."
"If I'd told, you wouldn't have come," Zak says honestly.
"You're lucky I don't beat the frak out of you right now, but I don't want to damage your mother's first impression of me even further. Damn it, Zak, I just got out of frakking sims with frakking first years and gods..." Her voice wavers, only just. "How could you do this?"
Caroline closes her eyes and presses the back of her head against the wooden door. She hates walking in on them, but it will only worsen if she waits. Knowing her son, and his tendency to calmly allow things to escalate, she feels it necessary to nip this argument in the bud.
She pushes through the door. "I only have decaf, Zak, as I didn't know you were coming in this weekend till yesterday." She sets the platter on the coffee table, cutting through the tension with practiced motion, grace. "You do enjoy springing things at the last moment. I imagine we see eye to eye here, Kara," Caroline adds, passing her her drink.
Kara takes the glass with a word of thanks.
Zak runs a hand through his hair, rumpling it thoroughly, and Caroline stands there for a moment wondering how her baby boy could think himself ready for marriage.
---
A week afterwards Caroline invites Kara to lunch. Zak has told her repeatedly that Kara hates that sort of thing, hates being pushed. But Caroline reasons that it never hurts to ask, and so she handwrites a note on pale green paper with ivy print creeping up the sides. A little bland, she considers, but - better to be bland than stuffy.
She writes "Kara Thrace" on the outside in fluid script.
She receives a response exactly four days later. "Mrs. Adama," it reads, in hasty print. "I'll come."
"Zak tells me you're an artist," Caroline says over the rim of her cup.
"Oh," Kara says, gulps down her drink. "I wouldn't necessarily call what I make 'art.' Mostly I buy a couple tubes of paint and make a royal mess in the middle of my apartment. But I like it - especially after a long day being tortured by budding pilots."
Caroline smiles. "I'm sure. I've been tortured enough by my two pilots for sons, I cannot imagine an entire room full of them."
"Oh, I wouldn't short yourself there, Mrs. Adama," Kara laughs. "Adama boys are a class all their own."
"They are, Kara," Caroline agrees. "But please, call me Caroline."
"Caroline," Kara says, testing the word out. She bites her lip. "About the other day, I just wanted you to know - I didn't want you to think that I'm like that normally. Well, maybe I am, but the thing is, what I feel for Zak is, um..."
"You don't have to explain," Caroline says gently. "I can tell you love each other."
"You can?" Kara asks, hesitant, unsure, and Caroline can't help herself. She takes Kara's hands in hers over the table between them.
"I can," she says.
Caroline writes to Kara the following week, and the week after, always on the same pale green paper (Caroline's not one to jinx what seems to work the first time). The third week Kara leaves her telephone number in the post script, adding, "I wouldn't want you to waste your nice stationery writing to me."
She sends her last letter to Kara with her own telephone number attached. She uses her best note paper, thick, cream-colored dyed saffron at the edges. Bill brought it back from some distant planet for her one year. In smooth strokes, she writes, "Where to next?"
---
It's not until their sixth lunch that Kara drops something remotely personal about herself.
"My dad loved this song," Kara says, closing her eyes. It's an old Caprican folk song blaring over two rusty speakers in an outdoor café. As the tune winds down, sweetly, finally, Kara's still humming. "He was a musician, my dad. Traveled all over."
Caroline smiles, but says nothing, lets Kara speak.
"I wanted to go with him. I wanted to jump into the postcards he sent and magically reappear wherever he was. I -" She stops, looks down at the table, licks her lips. "Sorry, got carried away there." Kara laughs, but it's shallow and so unlike her usual unbound cackle.
"Don't be sorry," Caroline says. "Zak felt the same way, after the divorce, probably even before. He wished every night to be up in the stars with his father, resenting me for keeping him grounded... among other things."
"It's not your fault, Mrs. Adama. Caroline," Kara tries. "Soldiers don't exactly like little kids in battlestars. Puts a cramp in their style."
"I know," Caroline says, still serious. She traces the brim of her cup. "I know and yet the guilt still gets to me. I'm so glad he's finally getting to live out his dream."
She looks up at Kara, who doesn't meet her eyes.
They never say so aloud, but the lunches become a thing both women come to count on. Caroline isn't sure just what Kara gets out of them, but she never questions, is too grateful to. She knows more about Zak than she ever did, and Kara - well, a little bit of Kara unfolds every time, and it's a surprise and a sharp ache and a joy.
"Zak thinks we're conspiring against him," Kara says one day, sliding into her chair. She giggles, and her giggling is contagious.
Caroline, choking with laughter, wipes her eyes with the edge of her napkin. "Who's to say we aren't?" she asks.
---
The next time Zak comes home it's without Kara; he's almost waist deep in the refrigerator before he notices Caroline standing directly behind him.
"I'm thinking of throwing Kara a bridal shower," she says, waits for Zak's reaction.
"Well, that's fine," Zak says, straightens and shuts the door, a slow grin building. "If you're willing to throw a party for just you two. Honestly? Kara has about three girlfriends, one of whom she's on the outs with half the time."
Caroline thrums her fingers on the counter thoughtfully. "I suppose I could do away with that tradition. I'd need your help forming a list either way, dear."
"You don't know what you're getting yourself into, mom," Zak groans, rubs the back of his head. "But I'll get you a list by the end of the week. It'll take some work sorting out people who won't fist fight in the middle of your living room."
"You do that," Caroline says, reaches over and kisses him on both cheeks. "There's dobash cake on the table," she adds.
"You are the awesomest mom that ever awesomed," Zak declares. "Kara's on some diet, can you believe it?"
"She's getting married, Zak. She's thinking about it."
"But she's Kara. Kara doesn't go on diets, Kara punishes herself in other ways, as well as other people." He strides over to the dining area. "I mean, it's not like she needs to, she's knockout material already."
"Leave her be," Caroline sighs. "You'd be wise to."
"You knew about this, didn't you?" Zak accuses through a mouthful of cake.
"Why do you think I stopped by the bakery after work?"
She and Kara eat lunch fast - it's a lighter meal nowadays. The walk out is more meandering, they find themselves in front a particular store window. It so happens.
"I don't think so," Kara says, looks at Caroline with wide eyes. "There's a lot of pink in there. The kind you wear."
"There are other colors too," Caroline points out. "You'd look so lovely in blue."
"If a guy tried that line," Kara mutters, "he'd be close and personal with the floor by now." But Caroline is persistent, and a few more searching looks pin Kara down. She swings the door open so hard the little bell on top almost comes undone.
Caroline scans the racks quickly, spots the dress and knows. "This one," she says softly.
Kara presses her lips together, doubtful. "Where would I ever wear something like that to?"
"You don't always need a reason," Caroline says.
Kara walks straight out the shop, the bell tinkling twice behind her. Caroline finds her in the parking lot still and presses a bag into her hand. "You can't be buying me things," Kara says to the ground.
"I can," Caroline says, "I have." Turns away before Kara has a chance to say anything else. Caroline half expects a deep blue dress left in the middle of the road when she drives out, and when it isn't, she can only thank the Lords of Kobol.
---
Caroline's woken by a call at nearly three in the morning. She assumes it's Bill, having forgotten the time difference again, or Zak or Lee drunk dialing her ("Who calls their mother intoxicated?" she demands of them once). She is startled then, to hear Kara on the other end of the line, in tears, no less.
"Kara?" she asks, all at once awake. "What is it, dear?"
"I'm so sorry, Caroline," she says thickly. "I know it's some stupid hour, but I didn't know what, who -" she pauses. "Zak and I had a fight and gods, it sounds so girly out loud..."
"Where are you, Kara?" Caroline cuts into Kara's muffled speech.
"I'm parked at the Athenian restaurant we ate at last week."
"Stay there," Caroline says, shrugging on her coat. "I'm coming to get you."
When Caroline puts Kara to bed, it's both utterly like and unlike tucking in her boys way back when. It's nice to have a child back under her roof, she decides. It's nice to have this child.
"Whose room is this?" Kara asks, studying the walls with sleepy eyes.
"Lee's," Caroline says simply, not underscoring her reasons against choosing Zak's.
"I thought so." Kara laughs softly. "Lee always was anal-retentive. Though this is nothing compared to his freak show of a room back at the academy. Gods, Lee..."
"He's like his father that way," Caroline says quietly, tucking a stray tuft of hair behind Kara's ear before turning out the light. Only afterwards, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of hot tea, does Caroline ponder Kara's words.
How strange, she thinks. That she didn't know about Kara and Lee already meeting.
"I only have old people food, I'm afraid," Caroline says to Kara when she enters the room. "After my boys went on their merry ways, I had less reason to raid the grocery store every week. Help yourself to cereal and fruit, dear. Bowls and silverware are in the cabinet just there."
Kara smiles sheepishly, chews on her lip. "Thanks, Caroline... Mrs. Adama. But, uh, I'll clear out of your way. I've caused enough trouble for you."
"Nonsense." Caroline waves her hand. "I won't have you leaving until you eat something at this table and keep me company."
"Mrs. Adama -" Kara starts.
"It's Caroline. And sit." She points to the chair opposite her with a defiant finger.
Kara opens her mouth to argue, but grins instead. "Okay."
They eat silently, spoons scraping bottoms, until Caroline stands to collect the dishes and Kara catches her arm.
"You probably don't want to eat lunch with me anymore," she blurts out. "I mean, what with me and Zak being very nearly broken up. But, well, it was a good time, wasn't it?"
"A very good time," Caroline says, gathering their finished breakfasts. "I was thinking of that restaurant on Hindley for Saturday."
Kara's eyes have a hard edge to them when she looks up. "Don't do it because you feel sorry for me."
"Don't do it because you have pity for me, middle-aged divorcée that I am," Caroline counters.
"So even if Zak and I -"
"Even if," Caroline says, picking up a laden tray. "Although that doesn't mean I haven't hopes for you two reconciling."
"Uh," Kara coughs. "You weren't there when we were busy being screaming idiots."
"I wasn't," Caroline says, "but Zak was, and he seemed rather repentent this morning when he dropped by. He left you something here, a letter." She pushes a half-crushed envelope into Kara's hands.
"He knew I was here?" Kara says wonderingly, glances at Caroline.
"It's an Adama thing," Caroline explains. "They have some sort of built-in radar, which a woman of their liking can never escape."
Kara regards, scans the letter with trepidation. "He says he's sorry, he's a moron," Kara reads aloud. "In those words."
"Zak never claimed to be a poet," Caroline sighs.
"That's all right," Kara says, jumping up and stretching. "I've never been one to sit through flowery words anyway."
---
At work Caroline receives a telegram, and for a solid minute she's shaking so bad she thinks she's going to be sick. When she was married it's what the other wives warned her about, about a deceitful little white slip full of heartache. Sitting back at her desk as if nothing has happened, Caroline notices that the telegram's not really white but soft gray. She picks it up.
"Caroline," it reads, "I'm probably the last person still communicating via telegram, but you would above all others know how stubborn I can be..."
Besides the closing "... of course, I hope you are well, and keep well" - it's all shop talk, impersonal. She can feel herself bristle, from emotion, anger, then just as quickly she stills and draws out a black pen.
Caroline handwrites her reply on stark white paper. It gets jammed in the mail slot, and for a moment before she pushes it through it looks like a flag or a tongue, she can't decide which.
Something of it must remain on her face, because hours later Kara asks if something's wrong. Caroline considers lying, but simply can't. Something about Kara demands the truth, deserves it. Who is she to deny her that much, she asks herself?
Picking at something green (lunches have been for some time a long line of salads), she tries to put to words - the incident? Her feelings? What places that have never really healed within her because she's too scared to harden her heart against him? Caroline doesn't actually know what she says, she just keeps talking because once she's started the hurt can't help but pour out.
She tells herself that she should stop, that Kara's bewildered expression is reason enough, but then the tears come and she doesn't think.
"I don't regret my decision to leave him," she manages. "At the time I thought, it's what was best for my boys; even, what's best for me. But that doesn't make it easier, simpler -"
Kara still looks vaguely disturbed, but determined. She reaches for Caroline's clasped hands. "You're meant for more than a simple life."
---
Caroline hears from Lee for the first time in ages. The line is static-ridden, and she can barely make out his voice, soft as an undercurrent. "When are you coming home?" she eventually asks.
"I was thinking after my exams. But then, Zak will be starting his, so maybe I should just wait until the end of summer session, you know?"
"Have you talked to Zak?" Caroline asks, not letting her voice betray her.
"Not in a long while," Lee admits. "Every time I call his dorm extension, he's never in. His roommate's a charming guy, though." He waits a moment. "So, a girl?"
"Yes," Caroline says, wrestles with how much she should tell. "She's rather lovely."
"Wait, you've met her?" Lee guffaws, and his laughter is the clearest thing she's heard so far. "What, is he going to marry her or something?"
"Well..."
"You have got to be joking."
Caroline Adama knows something is wrong when she sees her son's face. He looks hardened, more like his father, but his eyes are gentle as always, and Caroline gives a silent prayer for that.
"I got to leave early," Lee says, smiles in a tight sort of way that worries her. "Sorry I didn't call or anything beforehand."
"You're home," is all Caroline says before pulling him in and holding him close.
"Yeah," he draws out, "yeah, I am."
Caroline puts out a snack on the coffee table first thing, iced drinks next. "This is old people food," Lee complains, chewing with distaste. "Good thing I've lived off mess grub for the past couple months, otherwise I'd probably head right out again."
Caroline shoots him a sharp look, and this time Lee breaks into a genuine grin.
She hovers in the doorway while Lee unpacks. "I didn't have a chance to change your sheets," Caroline says. "I had someone stay here."
"So I noticed," Lee remarks, straightening his coverlet until it's one smooth plane. "Anyone I know?"
"I suppose you do." Caroline hesitates. "Zak's fiancée. You were at the academy the same time as her."
"I do. We were," Lee says vaguely, haltingly. "I got ahold of Zak yesterday and we... caught up."
"Well, good," Caroline says, feeling anything but. "Why don't I run to the market while you finish up? That way you won't have to suffer through any more of my food."
"Sure, mom. Thanks," Lee grunts, opens his bag with a fervor Caroline would rather not place.
She's halfway down the hall when she stops dead in her tracks, backpedals. Caroline doesn't know what she wants Lee to say, but she needs something - the strangeness just hanging in the air keeps pulling and pulling and she can't stand it. Whatever 'it' is.
"Lee," Caroline tries to say, but the plea sticks in her throat. His face is buried in his pillow, and for a long, almost ridiculous moment she thinks he's crying. He's not though, he's just breathing. But this only makes her want to cry. Somehow her legs propel her to move, away, but it's not enough.
When she comes back from shopping, Lee doesn't come down; she won't admit to herself how relieved she is to eat alone.
---
Her number's long been memorised by heart; Caroline dials it. "Technically it's supposed to be a surprise, but I wanted to give you fair warning. I'm throwing a shower this weekend, for you."
"So the party Zak let slip is actually my party," Kara says bluntly.
"Yes," Caroline says, stares straight ahead and waits for it.
But it never comes. "I already knew," Kara says, and Caroline can tell she's smiling widely. "Between you and Zak..."
Caroline winces, a bit. "Zak and I were never meant for stealth missions."
"Not prolonged ones, anyway," Kara snickers, then says more quietly. "I'm not - I can't wear it."
Caroline doesn't miss a beat. "I never asked you to."
"No, but why else -"
"I wanted you to have it," Caroline says firmly. "Whether you let it hang in your closet for the rest of your days is up to you."
"Seriously."
"I won't say that wouldn't be a tragedy."
"Yeah, well, I like my life to have a common theme."
Loud, is what Caroline thinks, at meeting Kara's friends; but surprisingly docile. She has everyone sign in a pretty, embossed guestbook, and they do so with flourish and dirty words.
Kara nods politely at Caroline's efforts before making a beeline for the bar. Still, Caroline can't help but notice as Kara stops on the landing, freshly showered and simply dressed in jeans and a tank, how she smiles at the spread below her.
Lee turns up towards the end. He hesitantly drifts at the hem of the crowd, now in various shades of drunkenness. Caroline touches his elbow, and he nearly jumps.
"Mom," he pronounces. Then more conversationally, "Colorful group you've got here."
"Indeed," Caroline says, amused. "By far, the most colorful is the woman of the night." She points to the middle of the floor, where Kara stands braying to a circle of friends, cigar in hand. She notes where Lee's eyes already stray, that she needn't have pointed.
Caroline loses track of time as she sees people out the door. Some stragglers linger at the bar, though it has been shut down some time earlier; some try to re-enter her home, but Caroline has a firm hand in revising their direction. She loses track of Lee, which is only to be expected.
Collecting a handful of silverware and plates and unceremoniously dumping them in the sink, she is about to seek out Lee for an extra hand, when she catches his voice slip into the kitchen, talking to someone in the room beyond.
"Whatever, Starbuck. You're sorely out of practice."
"Who needs practice when you've got immeasurable talent and skill?"
"We're not talking about me," Lee retorts, only to be drowned out by another's laughter. Kara's, Caroline quickly recognizes.
"Are those fighting words, oh mighty Apollo? Because let me tell you straight out that whatever tactical crap they pour down your throat at war college will never compete with pure instinct. Which, as I recall, is one of many reasons why I kicked your ass in a Viper. And on occasion, out," Kara adds thoughtfully.
"You're delusional. And drunk. Nice to see things haven't changed too much with you, Kara."
"I do what I can, Lee." She laughs delightedly again. "Now do what you can and be an enabler: where can a girl get another shot of ambrosia around here?"
"She can't," Lee sighs. "Come on, Kara. You're done for the night."
"Oh Lee, you've got your roles mixed up. You're not supposed to be my father, you're supposed to be my brother."
"In that case," Lee says tightly, "as a concerned brother, I am going to make my bratty sister hand over her liquor, lie on this couch, and shut up and go to sleep."
"You're no fun," Kara slurs. "Lucky for you I'm too wiped to hurt you properly..." There's a long pause, which extends. Caroline takes it as her cue.
"Anything for me to pick up?" she asks softly, pausing in the doorway. The light from the kitchen falls on Kara's figure, sprawled on the couch. Lee sits near her head, adjusting pillows almost fussily.
"No, mom," he says absently, "I got it." He smoothes the pillows out again, lingering where Kara's light hair feathers out over them. The intent, tender look on his face in the half-light peeking in nearly breaks Caroline's heart.
She thinks of Zak sleeping in his dorm bed and wonders how much he knows.
Lee leaves and Kara sets a date; Caroline sees these things as unrelated. She tries to.
"Obviously, we're waiting until after Zak's graduation," Kara says. "I've always liked summer best anyway, even though that's like the cliché."
"Just do what feels right," Caroline tells her.
Kara nods, takes a bite of her salad, is quiet through the rest of the meal.
---
For the first time, Kara doesn't show for lunch at all, with no word, no message sent along. Caroline sits in the diner (Kara's choice this week) until she finally asks to use the phone. Caroline has a terrible feeling when she calls Kara at home and it just rings and rings. When she tries Zak, his line is disconnected entirely.
She knows that something is wrong when she tracks down Kara in her apartment, sees her face. She's as white as the sheet of paper in her hand.
The sheet of paper in her hand. "Kara?"
"You don't know," she says, and Caroline can't tell if it's a statement or a question. Something ugly twists inside her all the same. "There's been an accident and he - Zak's dead. I'm sorry, Caroline, but in a sick way, I'm glad it's me telling you. I deserved this - this frakking form letter, but you didn't. You're the last person I would wish that on."
"You don't deserve it," Caroline says, takes the slip of paper from her. Tears it once, twice, and then pockets it later to burn.
Kara's face crumples a little, but her voice keeps. "No, you have no idea how much I do."
"I don't believe that," Caroline says, "and I never will." She brushes back the hair from Kara's eyes, holds her to her. Caroline doesn't let herself cry until later in the quiet of her car. She's all too aware that she's the only one holding Kara up, and whatever else, she can't break.
There are things Caroline cannot reconcile. Things like the sun bright on so much devastation. Things like her baby boy hugging the ground close and forever, never making it past the atmosphere. The ground opening up at her feet and her not able to fall in it.
Bill and Lee are there, and Kara too, but it's a military funeral, so Caroline can't really say they're there at all. The Commander, Apollo, and Starbuck, perhaps, but not his father, brother, wife-to-be. Caroline cries harder at this, thinking that the people Zak loved so deeply didn't show.
Bill barely registers through her grief, and it's the first time since he left that she wishes for the pain of everything before be relived. She can handle that, the loneliness and brokenness; bitter cups of tea and tears. She can't take this. She can't take Zak being dead and them weighing his body down with soft dirt.
People come and go until it's only her and him. It's nearly the end of her world, after all, it seems.
He speaks first. "I've offered Kara a place on the Galactica. I thought she might be looking to get away from the academy, for a while."
"Did she -" Caroline doesn't quite finish.
Bill answers as if she has. "She accepted. We leave on Friday."
"So soon," Caroline says, and she's unpinned; she finds herself on her feet. "Can't you postpone it for a little longer? Kara needs time."
"She's a soldier," Bill says, and Caroline wouldn't put it past him to end at that. "She'll persevere."
"She's a woman who's just lost her promised." Caroline feels herself tense all over. "Our son is dead, and surely you must have some heart left in there for his sake."
"Caroline," Bill sighs, "Kara's made her decision, and now she'll abide by it." He watches her at length. "The change'll be good."
"I need you to promise me," Caroline says, takes two steps toward him. "That you'll take care of her."
"Like a daughter."
"Yes," Caroline insists. "Know that."
"I do, I will." She's close enough for him to take her hand, so he does. "But you have to let me take her."
"It's just," Caroline tries, stops, turns to face him. "She's had so much wrong in her life. I can't help but worry."
"You were always a good mother," Bill tells her. "Know that." Turns her palm over and kisses it. Caroline stares at the worn lines marking his features until he looks up and there are his eyes, soft as before.
She collects herself, her heart. "You take care of yourself, Bill. And our girl."
---
Caroline writes to Kara on pale green paper; it seems brighter than she remembers.
It's not for weeks that Caroline gets a response. She doesn't recognize the place the letter's posted from. "Caroline," Kara writes, "I wish you wouldn't waste your nice stationery on me..."
And so adds another ache. I miss you Kara, Caroline thinks. She fetches herself a pen, her beautiful saffron-edged note paper, and puts her thoughts in writing.
Author: spamdilemma
Author's Contact Info: spamdilemma@livejournal.com
Rating: pg
Genre: series of vignettes
Pairings: Zak/Kara, minor Lee/Kara
Summary: "Caroline writes to Kara the following week, and the week after."
Caroline Adama knows something is wrong when she sees her son's face. Zak looks nervous, which is expected, but his nervousness is tinged with something unlike him. Consternation doesn't suit Zak.
"And this is Kara, my fiancée." He indicates the girl glaring daggers beside him. Pretty, Caroline thinks, in a murderous sort of way.
"It's nice to meet you, Kara," Caroline says with an easy smile. Years of having been a military wife have taught her, if nothing else, how to handle tense situations with a certain grace. "Why don't you two have a seat while I gather some drinks. Water, tea, coffee?"
"I'd go for some coffee, mom," Zak replies, collapsing onto the sofa. He looks warily at Kara, who chooses to sit as far away from him as the sofa allows.
"Could I have water, missus, um..." Kara trails off, her discomfort increasing.
"Adama," Caroline says. She offers a small smile. "It's still Adama."
Holding the arrangement of glasses on a bright platter, Caroline stops abruptly at the door separating the kitchen from the front room, hearing their raised voices.
"I can't believe you, Zak," Kara says heatedly. "You could've said something."
"If I'd told, you wouldn't have come," Zak says honestly.
"You're lucky I don't beat the frak out of you right now, but I don't want to damage your mother's first impression of me even further. Damn it, Zak, I just got out of frakking sims with frakking first years and gods..." Her voice wavers, only just. "How could you do this?"
Caroline closes her eyes and presses the back of her head against the wooden door. She hates walking in on them, but it will only worsen if she waits. Knowing her son, and his tendency to calmly allow things to escalate, she feels it necessary to nip this argument in the bud.
She pushes through the door. "I only have decaf, Zak, as I didn't know you were coming in this weekend till yesterday." She sets the platter on the coffee table, cutting through the tension with practiced motion, grace. "You do enjoy springing things at the last moment. I imagine we see eye to eye here, Kara," Caroline adds, passing her her drink.
Kara takes the glass with a word of thanks.
Zak runs a hand through his hair, rumpling it thoroughly, and Caroline stands there for a moment wondering how her baby boy could think himself ready for marriage.
---
A week afterwards Caroline invites Kara to lunch. Zak has told her repeatedly that Kara hates that sort of thing, hates being pushed. But Caroline reasons that it never hurts to ask, and so she handwrites a note on pale green paper with ivy print creeping up the sides. A little bland, she considers, but - better to be bland than stuffy.
She writes "Kara Thrace" on the outside in fluid script.
She receives a response exactly four days later. "Mrs. Adama," it reads, in hasty print. "I'll come."
"Zak tells me you're an artist," Caroline says over the rim of her cup.
"Oh," Kara says, gulps down her drink. "I wouldn't necessarily call what I make 'art.' Mostly I buy a couple tubes of paint and make a royal mess in the middle of my apartment. But I like it - especially after a long day being tortured by budding pilots."
Caroline smiles. "I'm sure. I've been tortured enough by my two pilots for sons, I cannot imagine an entire room full of them."
"Oh, I wouldn't short yourself there, Mrs. Adama," Kara laughs. "Adama boys are a class all their own."
"They are, Kara," Caroline agrees. "But please, call me Caroline."
"Caroline," Kara says, testing the word out. She bites her lip. "About the other day, I just wanted you to know - I didn't want you to think that I'm like that normally. Well, maybe I am, but the thing is, what I feel for Zak is, um..."
"You don't have to explain," Caroline says gently. "I can tell you love each other."
"You can?" Kara asks, hesitant, unsure, and Caroline can't help herself. She takes Kara's hands in hers over the table between them.
"I can," she says.
Caroline writes to Kara the following week, and the week after, always on the same pale green paper (Caroline's not one to jinx what seems to work the first time). The third week Kara leaves her telephone number in the post script, adding, "I wouldn't want you to waste your nice stationery writing to me."
She sends her last letter to Kara with her own telephone number attached. She uses her best note paper, thick, cream-colored dyed saffron at the edges. Bill brought it back from some distant planet for her one year. In smooth strokes, she writes, "Where to next?"
---
It's not until their sixth lunch that Kara drops something remotely personal about herself.
"My dad loved this song," Kara says, closing her eyes. It's an old Caprican folk song blaring over two rusty speakers in an outdoor café. As the tune winds down, sweetly, finally, Kara's still humming. "He was a musician, my dad. Traveled all over."
Caroline smiles, but says nothing, lets Kara speak.
"I wanted to go with him. I wanted to jump into the postcards he sent and magically reappear wherever he was. I -" She stops, looks down at the table, licks her lips. "Sorry, got carried away there." Kara laughs, but it's shallow and so unlike her usual unbound cackle.
"Don't be sorry," Caroline says. "Zak felt the same way, after the divorce, probably even before. He wished every night to be up in the stars with his father, resenting me for keeping him grounded... among other things."
"It's not your fault, Mrs. Adama. Caroline," Kara tries. "Soldiers don't exactly like little kids in battlestars. Puts a cramp in their style."
"I know," Caroline says, still serious. She traces the brim of her cup. "I know and yet the guilt still gets to me. I'm so glad he's finally getting to live out his dream."
She looks up at Kara, who doesn't meet her eyes.
They never say so aloud, but the lunches become a thing both women come to count on. Caroline isn't sure just what Kara gets out of them, but she never questions, is too grateful to. She knows more about Zak than she ever did, and Kara - well, a little bit of Kara unfolds every time, and it's a surprise and a sharp ache and a joy.
"Zak thinks we're conspiring against him," Kara says one day, sliding into her chair. She giggles, and her giggling is contagious.
Caroline, choking with laughter, wipes her eyes with the edge of her napkin. "Who's to say we aren't?" she asks.
---
The next time Zak comes home it's without Kara; he's almost waist deep in the refrigerator before he notices Caroline standing directly behind him.
"I'm thinking of throwing Kara a bridal shower," she says, waits for Zak's reaction.
"Well, that's fine," Zak says, straightens and shuts the door, a slow grin building. "If you're willing to throw a party for just you two. Honestly? Kara has about three girlfriends, one of whom she's on the outs with half the time."
Caroline thrums her fingers on the counter thoughtfully. "I suppose I could do away with that tradition. I'd need your help forming a list either way, dear."
"You don't know what you're getting yourself into, mom," Zak groans, rubs the back of his head. "But I'll get you a list by the end of the week. It'll take some work sorting out people who won't fist fight in the middle of your living room."
"You do that," Caroline says, reaches over and kisses him on both cheeks. "There's dobash cake on the table," she adds.
"You are the awesomest mom that ever awesomed," Zak declares. "Kara's on some diet, can you believe it?"
"She's getting married, Zak. She's thinking about it."
"But she's Kara. Kara doesn't go on diets, Kara punishes herself in other ways, as well as other people." He strides over to the dining area. "I mean, it's not like she needs to, she's knockout material already."
"Leave her be," Caroline sighs. "You'd be wise to."
"You knew about this, didn't you?" Zak accuses through a mouthful of cake.
"Why do you think I stopped by the bakery after work?"
She and Kara eat lunch fast - it's a lighter meal nowadays. The walk out is more meandering, they find themselves in front a particular store window. It so happens.
"I don't think so," Kara says, looks at Caroline with wide eyes. "There's a lot of pink in there. The kind you wear."
"There are other colors too," Caroline points out. "You'd look so lovely in blue."
"If a guy tried that line," Kara mutters, "he'd be close and personal with the floor by now." But Caroline is persistent, and a few more searching looks pin Kara down. She swings the door open so hard the little bell on top almost comes undone.
Caroline scans the racks quickly, spots the dress and knows. "This one," she says softly.
Kara presses her lips together, doubtful. "Where would I ever wear something like that to?"
"You don't always need a reason," Caroline says.
Kara walks straight out the shop, the bell tinkling twice behind her. Caroline finds her in the parking lot still and presses a bag into her hand. "You can't be buying me things," Kara says to the ground.
"I can," Caroline says, "I have." Turns away before Kara has a chance to say anything else. Caroline half expects a deep blue dress left in the middle of the road when she drives out, and when it isn't, she can only thank the Lords of Kobol.
---
Caroline's woken by a call at nearly three in the morning. She assumes it's Bill, having forgotten the time difference again, or Zak or Lee drunk dialing her ("Who calls their mother intoxicated?" she demands of them once). She is startled then, to hear Kara on the other end of the line, in tears, no less.
"Kara?" she asks, all at once awake. "What is it, dear?"
"I'm so sorry, Caroline," she says thickly. "I know it's some stupid hour, but I didn't know what, who -" she pauses. "Zak and I had a fight and gods, it sounds so girly out loud..."
"Where are you, Kara?" Caroline cuts into Kara's muffled speech.
"I'm parked at the Athenian restaurant we ate at last week."
"Stay there," Caroline says, shrugging on her coat. "I'm coming to get you."
When Caroline puts Kara to bed, it's both utterly like and unlike tucking in her boys way back when. It's nice to have a child back under her roof, she decides. It's nice to have this child.
"Whose room is this?" Kara asks, studying the walls with sleepy eyes.
"Lee's," Caroline says simply, not underscoring her reasons against choosing Zak's.
"I thought so." Kara laughs softly. "Lee always was anal-retentive. Though this is nothing compared to his freak show of a room back at the academy. Gods, Lee..."
"He's like his father that way," Caroline says quietly, tucking a stray tuft of hair behind Kara's ear before turning out the light. Only afterwards, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of hot tea, does Caroline ponder Kara's words.
How strange, she thinks. That she didn't know about Kara and Lee already meeting.
"I only have old people food, I'm afraid," Caroline says to Kara when she enters the room. "After my boys went on their merry ways, I had less reason to raid the grocery store every week. Help yourself to cereal and fruit, dear. Bowls and silverware are in the cabinet just there."
Kara smiles sheepishly, chews on her lip. "Thanks, Caroline... Mrs. Adama. But, uh, I'll clear out of your way. I've caused enough trouble for you."
"Nonsense." Caroline waves her hand. "I won't have you leaving until you eat something at this table and keep me company."
"Mrs. Adama -" Kara starts.
"It's Caroline. And sit." She points to the chair opposite her with a defiant finger.
Kara opens her mouth to argue, but grins instead. "Okay."
They eat silently, spoons scraping bottoms, until Caroline stands to collect the dishes and Kara catches her arm.
"You probably don't want to eat lunch with me anymore," she blurts out. "I mean, what with me and Zak being very nearly broken up. But, well, it was a good time, wasn't it?"
"A very good time," Caroline says, gathering their finished breakfasts. "I was thinking of that restaurant on Hindley for Saturday."
Kara's eyes have a hard edge to them when she looks up. "Don't do it because you feel sorry for me."
"Don't do it because you have pity for me, middle-aged divorcée that I am," Caroline counters.
"So even if Zak and I -"
"Even if," Caroline says, picking up a laden tray. "Although that doesn't mean I haven't hopes for you two reconciling."
"Uh," Kara coughs. "You weren't there when we were busy being screaming idiots."
"I wasn't," Caroline says, "but Zak was, and he seemed rather repentent this morning when he dropped by. He left you something here, a letter." She pushes a half-crushed envelope into Kara's hands.
"He knew I was here?" Kara says wonderingly, glances at Caroline.
"It's an Adama thing," Caroline explains. "They have some sort of built-in radar, which a woman of their liking can never escape."
Kara regards, scans the letter with trepidation. "He says he's sorry, he's a moron," Kara reads aloud. "In those words."
"Zak never claimed to be a poet," Caroline sighs.
"That's all right," Kara says, jumping up and stretching. "I've never been one to sit through flowery words anyway."
---
At work Caroline receives a telegram, and for a solid minute she's shaking so bad she thinks she's going to be sick. When she was married it's what the other wives warned her about, about a deceitful little white slip full of heartache. Sitting back at her desk as if nothing has happened, Caroline notices that the telegram's not really white but soft gray. She picks it up.
"Caroline," it reads, "I'm probably the last person still communicating via telegram, but you would above all others know how stubborn I can be..."
Besides the closing "... of course, I hope you are well, and keep well" - it's all shop talk, impersonal. She can feel herself bristle, from emotion, anger, then just as quickly she stills and draws out a black pen.
Caroline handwrites her reply on stark white paper. It gets jammed in the mail slot, and for a moment before she pushes it through it looks like a flag or a tongue, she can't decide which.
Something of it must remain on her face, because hours later Kara asks if something's wrong. Caroline considers lying, but simply can't. Something about Kara demands the truth, deserves it. Who is she to deny her that much, she asks herself?
Picking at something green (lunches have been for some time a long line of salads), she tries to put to words - the incident? Her feelings? What places that have never really healed within her because she's too scared to harden her heart against him? Caroline doesn't actually know what she says, she just keeps talking because once she's started the hurt can't help but pour out.
She tells herself that she should stop, that Kara's bewildered expression is reason enough, but then the tears come and she doesn't think.
"I don't regret my decision to leave him," she manages. "At the time I thought, it's what was best for my boys; even, what's best for me. But that doesn't make it easier, simpler -"
Kara still looks vaguely disturbed, but determined. She reaches for Caroline's clasped hands. "You're meant for more than a simple life."
---
Caroline hears from Lee for the first time in ages. The line is static-ridden, and she can barely make out his voice, soft as an undercurrent. "When are you coming home?" she eventually asks.
"I was thinking after my exams. But then, Zak will be starting his, so maybe I should just wait until the end of summer session, you know?"
"Have you talked to Zak?" Caroline asks, not letting her voice betray her.
"Not in a long while," Lee admits. "Every time I call his dorm extension, he's never in. His roommate's a charming guy, though." He waits a moment. "So, a girl?"
"Yes," Caroline says, wrestles with how much she should tell. "She's rather lovely."
"Wait, you've met her?" Lee guffaws, and his laughter is the clearest thing she's heard so far. "What, is he going to marry her or something?"
"Well..."
"You have got to be joking."
Caroline Adama knows something is wrong when she sees her son's face. He looks hardened, more like his father, but his eyes are gentle as always, and Caroline gives a silent prayer for that.
"I got to leave early," Lee says, smiles in a tight sort of way that worries her. "Sorry I didn't call or anything beforehand."
"You're home," is all Caroline says before pulling him in and holding him close.
"Yeah," he draws out, "yeah, I am."
Caroline puts out a snack on the coffee table first thing, iced drinks next. "This is old people food," Lee complains, chewing with distaste. "Good thing I've lived off mess grub for the past couple months, otherwise I'd probably head right out again."
Caroline shoots him a sharp look, and this time Lee breaks into a genuine grin.
She hovers in the doorway while Lee unpacks. "I didn't have a chance to change your sheets," Caroline says. "I had someone stay here."
"So I noticed," Lee remarks, straightening his coverlet until it's one smooth plane. "Anyone I know?"
"I suppose you do." Caroline hesitates. "Zak's fiancée. You were at the academy the same time as her."
"I do. We were," Lee says vaguely, haltingly. "I got ahold of Zak yesterday and we... caught up."
"Well, good," Caroline says, feeling anything but. "Why don't I run to the market while you finish up? That way you won't have to suffer through any more of my food."
"Sure, mom. Thanks," Lee grunts, opens his bag with a fervor Caroline would rather not place.
She's halfway down the hall when she stops dead in her tracks, backpedals. Caroline doesn't know what she wants Lee to say, but she needs something - the strangeness just hanging in the air keeps pulling and pulling and she can't stand it. Whatever 'it' is.
"Lee," Caroline tries to say, but the plea sticks in her throat. His face is buried in his pillow, and for a long, almost ridiculous moment she thinks he's crying. He's not though, he's just breathing. But this only makes her want to cry. Somehow her legs propel her to move, away, but it's not enough.
When she comes back from shopping, Lee doesn't come down; she won't admit to herself how relieved she is to eat alone.
---
Her number's long been memorised by heart; Caroline dials it. "Technically it's supposed to be a surprise, but I wanted to give you fair warning. I'm throwing a shower this weekend, for you."
"So the party Zak let slip is actually my party," Kara says bluntly.
"Yes," Caroline says, stares straight ahead and waits for it.
But it never comes. "I already knew," Kara says, and Caroline can tell she's smiling widely. "Between you and Zak..."
Caroline winces, a bit. "Zak and I were never meant for stealth missions."
"Not prolonged ones, anyway," Kara snickers, then says more quietly. "I'm not - I can't wear it."
Caroline doesn't miss a beat. "I never asked you to."
"No, but why else -"
"I wanted you to have it," Caroline says firmly. "Whether you let it hang in your closet for the rest of your days is up to you."
"Seriously."
"I won't say that wouldn't be a tragedy."
"Yeah, well, I like my life to have a common theme."
Loud, is what Caroline thinks, at meeting Kara's friends; but surprisingly docile. She has everyone sign in a pretty, embossed guestbook, and they do so with flourish and dirty words.
Kara nods politely at Caroline's efforts before making a beeline for the bar. Still, Caroline can't help but notice as Kara stops on the landing, freshly showered and simply dressed in jeans and a tank, how she smiles at the spread below her.
Lee turns up towards the end. He hesitantly drifts at the hem of the crowd, now in various shades of drunkenness. Caroline touches his elbow, and he nearly jumps.
"Mom," he pronounces. Then more conversationally, "Colorful group you've got here."
"Indeed," Caroline says, amused. "By far, the most colorful is the woman of the night." She points to the middle of the floor, where Kara stands braying to a circle of friends, cigar in hand. She notes where Lee's eyes already stray, that she needn't have pointed.
Caroline loses track of time as she sees people out the door. Some stragglers linger at the bar, though it has been shut down some time earlier; some try to re-enter her home, but Caroline has a firm hand in revising their direction. She loses track of Lee, which is only to be expected.
Collecting a handful of silverware and plates and unceremoniously dumping them in the sink, she is about to seek out Lee for an extra hand, when she catches his voice slip into the kitchen, talking to someone in the room beyond.
"Whatever, Starbuck. You're sorely out of practice."
"Who needs practice when you've got immeasurable talent and skill?"
"We're not talking about me," Lee retorts, only to be drowned out by another's laughter. Kara's, Caroline quickly recognizes.
"Are those fighting words, oh mighty Apollo? Because let me tell you straight out that whatever tactical crap they pour down your throat at war college will never compete with pure instinct. Which, as I recall, is one of many reasons why I kicked your ass in a Viper. And on occasion, out," Kara adds thoughtfully.
"You're delusional. And drunk. Nice to see things haven't changed too much with you, Kara."
"I do what I can, Lee." She laughs delightedly again. "Now do what you can and be an enabler: where can a girl get another shot of ambrosia around here?"
"She can't," Lee sighs. "Come on, Kara. You're done for the night."
"Oh Lee, you've got your roles mixed up. You're not supposed to be my father, you're supposed to be my brother."
"In that case," Lee says tightly, "as a concerned brother, I am going to make my bratty sister hand over her liquor, lie on this couch, and shut up and go to sleep."
"You're no fun," Kara slurs. "Lucky for you I'm too wiped to hurt you properly..." There's a long pause, which extends. Caroline takes it as her cue.
"Anything for me to pick up?" she asks softly, pausing in the doorway. The light from the kitchen falls on Kara's figure, sprawled on the couch. Lee sits near her head, adjusting pillows almost fussily.
"No, mom," he says absently, "I got it." He smoothes the pillows out again, lingering where Kara's light hair feathers out over them. The intent, tender look on his face in the half-light peeking in nearly breaks Caroline's heart.
She thinks of Zak sleeping in his dorm bed and wonders how much he knows.
Lee leaves and Kara sets a date; Caroline sees these things as unrelated. She tries to.
"Obviously, we're waiting until after Zak's graduation," Kara says. "I've always liked summer best anyway, even though that's like the cliché."
"Just do what feels right," Caroline tells her.
Kara nods, takes a bite of her salad, is quiet through the rest of the meal.
---
For the first time, Kara doesn't show for lunch at all, with no word, no message sent along. Caroline sits in the diner (Kara's choice this week) until she finally asks to use the phone. Caroline has a terrible feeling when she calls Kara at home and it just rings and rings. When she tries Zak, his line is disconnected entirely.
She knows that something is wrong when she tracks down Kara in her apartment, sees her face. She's as white as the sheet of paper in her hand.
The sheet of paper in her hand. "Kara?"
"You don't know," she says, and Caroline can't tell if it's a statement or a question. Something ugly twists inside her all the same. "There's been an accident and he - Zak's dead. I'm sorry, Caroline, but in a sick way, I'm glad it's me telling you. I deserved this - this frakking form letter, but you didn't. You're the last person I would wish that on."
"You don't deserve it," Caroline says, takes the slip of paper from her. Tears it once, twice, and then pockets it later to burn.
Kara's face crumples a little, but her voice keeps. "No, you have no idea how much I do."
"I don't believe that," Caroline says, "and I never will." She brushes back the hair from Kara's eyes, holds her to her. Caroline doesn't let herself cry until later in the quiet of her car. She's all too aware that she's the only one holding Kara up, and whatever else, she can't break.
There are things Caroline cannot reconcile. Things like the sun bright on so much devastation. Things like her baby boy hugging the ground close and forever, never making it past the atmosphere. The ground opening up at her feet and her not able to fall in it.
Bill and Lee are there, and Kara too, but it's a military funeral, so Caroline can't really say they're there at all. The Commander, Apollo, and Starbuck, perhaps, but not his father, brother, wife-to-be. Caroline cries harder at this, thinking that the people Zak loved so deeply didn't show.
Bill barely registers through her grief, and it's the first time since he left that she wishes for the pain of everything before be relived. She can handle that, the loneliness and brokenness; bitter cups of tea and tears. She can't take this. She can't take Zak being dead and them weighing his body down with soft dirt.
People come and go until it's only her and him. It's nearly the end of her world, after all, it seems.
He speaks first. "I've offered Kara a place on the Galactica. I thought she might be looking to get away from the academy, for a while."
"Did she -" Caroline doesn't quite finish.
Bill answers as if she has. "She accepted. We leave on Friday."
"So soon," Caroline says, and she's unpinned; she finds herself on her feet. "Can't you postpone it for a little longer? Kara needs time."
"She's a soldier," Bill says, and Caroline wouldn't put it past him to end at that. "She'll persevere."
"She's a woman who's just lost her promised." Caroline feels herself tense all over. "Our son is dead, and surely you must have some heart left in there for his sake."
"Caroline," Bill sighs, "Kara's made her decision, and now she'll abide by it." He watches her at length. "The change'll be good."
"I need you to promise me," Caroline says, takes two steps toward him. "That you'll take care of her."
"Like a daughter."
"Yes," Caroline insists. "Know that."
"I do, I will." She's close enough for him to take her hand, so he does. "But you have to let me take her."
"It's just," Caroline tries, stops, turns to face him. "She's had so much wrong in her life. I can't help but worry."
"You were always a good mother," Bill tells her. "Know that." Turns her palm over and kisses it. Caroline stares at the worn lines marking his features until he looks up and there are his eyes, soft as before.
She collects herself, her heart. "You take care of yourself, Bill. And our girl."
---
Caroline writes to Kara on pale green paper; it seems brighter than she remembers.
It's not for weeks that Caroline gets a response. She doesn't recognize the place the letter's posted from. "Caroline," Kara writes, "I wish you wouldn't waste your nice stationery on me..."
And so adds another ache. I miss you Kara, Caroline thinks. She fetches herself a pen, her beautiful saffron-edged note paper, and puts her thoughts in writing.