fic: BSG: once in awhile, when it's good, it'll feel like it should
Title: once in awhile, when it's good, it'll feel like it should
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Pairing: Kara/Lee
Rating: PG-13 for language and some suggestive winking ;)
Disclaimers: AU, baby! Spoilers through Daybreak II, just to be safe. This isn't for profit, just for fun. All characters & situations belong to RDM, David Eick, Sci-Fi, NBC Universal and their various subsidiaries. Title from a song by John Mayer, which I also had nothing to do with.
A/N: 4/7 of Adama Brothers 'verse. Full index of chapters:
01. anything other than stay is go. Lee/Kara, AU, R.
02. we'll be dreaming ways to keep the good alive, Lee/Kara, AU, PG-13.
03. I am your brother (your best friend forever), the Brothers Adama (Zak and Sam), AU, PG-13.
04. once in awhile, when it's good, it'll feel like it should. Lee/Kara, AU, PG-13.
05. make up your mind to have no regrets. Lee/Kara, AU, R.
06. so this is Christmas. Lee/Kara, Zak/Dee, Adama/Roslin, Sam/OC, AU, PG-13.
07. this is easy as lovers go. Lee/Kara, PG-13.
And Prequel Comment!Fic here. First date, Lee/Kara, PG-13.
Cross-posted to bsg2003fics and sasa_hq Thanks to leiascully for looking this over!
Lee is still buried in a pile of paperwork when the plane touches down, and Kara has to punch him on the arm to get his attention. It hurts, and he tells her so, which makes her laugh harder than she did at the beginning of the flight when he pulled out his reading glasses and settled in to do some work while she drew caricatures of the flight attendants on one of his legal pads. "Nerd alert," she had teased. "How did I not know that you wore glasses?"
"Because I don't usually have a chance to do work when you're around?" he had suggested, looking facetiously at her over his glasses.
"You don't have to do any right now," she had said, with a sly glance in the general direction of the bathrooms.
"Let me finish this complaint," Lee had told her, and Kara had just sighed and muttered something about being cock-blocked by the law before going back to her drawings.
Several hours and no sex later, she is grinning at him and holding back a laugh as she watches him rub his arm. "Hey, Mister-I-Only-Fly-First-Class: Grab your gear, it's time to get off the plane."
Lee fights the childish urge to stick his tongue out at her and shoves his paperwork back in his carry-on instead. "Are you still pissed about the fact that you're not a member of the Mile-High Club yet?"
"Who told you I wasn't already?" Kara asks, all but clapping her hands in impish delight at his instantaneously jealous reaction. "That person is a liar. Or misinformed."
"I guess we had lives before we met each other," Lee grumbles, and they trundle off the plane and head to the baggage claim.
"So this is home, huh," Kara says, surveying the tiny airport. "Happening place."
Lee shrugs and pulls out his phone. "In a manner of speaking. We grew up in Chicago, you know. They just moved out here a few years ago, when we finally talked them into retiring. I'm still getting used to this."
"What's the plan here? They picking us up or what?" She scans the terminal like she's checking for bad guys, a habit she swears she picked up from too many childhood evenings spent watching old action flicks with her father, and Lee presses his lips together to keep from laughing.
"This isn't Die Hard, Kara," he teases, but they both jump when his phone rings. "Dammit."
"Duty calls?"
Lee makes an apologetic face as he tucks the phone against his cheek and walks away to take the call. By the time he comes back, Kara has found the only place in the airport that sells food and has worked her way through most of a bear claw, her traditional breakfast fare. He raises an eyebrow at it.
"Breakfast of champions, Lee," she says, picking some flyaway frosting off her jacket and popping it into her mouth. "Even when it's lunch." She grins mischievously at him. "I'm just the kind of girl you want to take home to mom, right?"
The sappy reply that he might have made is cut off by another phone call. "For fuck's sake," he swears, staring at the display. "They're gonna want me to come back early, I can feel it."
"So don't take it," Kara instructs, polishing off the rest of the pastry. "It's your fucking vacation. Won't there be people to sue when you get back to New York?"
"Not if they fire me," Lee says dubiously, but he lets the call go to voicemail. "At which point I'll probably be homeless, you know."
"You can sleep on my couch," she offers, grinning again, and his heart nearly skips a beat at the thought that she might let him move in.
"Thanks, but as I recall," Lee says, dialing his voicemail and trying to sound suave and noncommittal, "we don't do much sleeping on that couch."
"You're gonna call them back, aren't you?" At his nod, Kara makes an exasperated noise and plucks the phone out of his hand. "You wanted me here," she says decisively, tucking the phone into her pocket, "and you got me, Lee. But I'll be damned if I have to sit through an entire awkward week of staring at your family while we all wait for you to get off the phone."
He stares at her for a moment, trying to evaluate how serious she is about this. He's still not sure why she's here, exactly. He knows that he loves her, and she knows that, too, but it's not like she's ever bothered to say it, and here they are and it's Christmas and he's about to introduce her to his entire family, parents, brothers, and other various relations, and he doesn't really know how she feels, and it makes him nervous and more than a little insecure, not that he can tell her that without starting a fight, right here in the midst of this small crowd of people who are all smiling and happy to be home for the holidays.
"I've got you, huh?" he asks, and for him it's a very real question, it's the question, and it feels like life won't go on anymore without an answer.
"Lee. We are not about to have The Talk in the middle of the goddamn airport, are we?" She crosses her arms over her chest, looking incredibly uncomfortable, and it occurs to him that this is definitely not the time and not the place, and that maybe his brothers have been right all those times when they said that Lee needs to learn how to listen, to really listen, and to not be so damn serious about everything all the time, to let love do its thing, as Sam put it, and to calm the fuck down, as Zak always said.
"I don't know if she cares," Lee had tried to explain, during the last of many late-night phone calls to his older brother. It had to be Sam, because if anyone was ever going to be patient with Lee, it sure as hell wasn't Zak. Zak's solution to these kind of things was to tell Lee that he was being an idiot, and then wash, rinse, repeat until they punched each other and then forgot what they were talking about in the first place. So Lee had learned, during the course of the few months he had been with Kara, to call Sam when he needed reassurance that the woman he loved might love him back.
"I think she'll say it, bro," Sam had said, voice full of that eternal optimism that still sometimes made Lee wonder if they were actually related. "You just need to listen."
"I do listen," Lee had insisted. "I listen for a fucking living. All goddamn day, to anyone who walks into the office. I even take notes."
"Right. You listen to what your clients don't say, right? So, give it a try with your girl. You might be surprised."
This turns out to be Sam's version of "Take two of these and call me in the morning," and he gently refuses to give any more advice until Lee gives this a try.
So Lee takes a deep breath, and he listens. He replays the things they've said to each other, from the first moment he met Kara to this very moment, and this time, when he hears her say, "You got me," he smiles. He doesn't know why it has taken him this long to understand, and maybe it's the weight and pressure of the holidays, but it feels like a lot longer than the few months he's known her, like they've lived a whole lifetime in a less than a year. But he thinks he finally gets it, that there's more than one way to say I love you and mean it, that to demand that she say it his way isn't really fair, that love can be deep and genuine and real without being such an uphill struggle.
"I've got you. You've got me. We're both here. This is all that matters," he says, and he finds that he likes the brevity of it. No poetry or fancy language necessary, just the two of them. Somehow, it's more satisfying than sweet nothings or I love yous ever were.
"About time," she says, shuffling from side to side. She clears her throat. "So, how are we doing this, again? We come to them? They come to us? Are they here yet?"
"I usually rent something and drive up there myself," Lee tells her, nodding at the car rental place across the airport. "It's a nice drive when the weather's good. What, you nervous?"
"I don't get nervous," she mumbles, and he decides to give her that one, because he fears that otherwise she'll give him another one of her friendly punches, and he swears he has a bruise from the last one. "Hey, bags are finally here."
"So, before we get there," Lee begins, helping her grab their luggage, and she starts to laugh.
"Oh, here we go."
"What?"
"Nothing," she says, laughing. "Look, I promise not to embarrass you. Unless they do it first. Then all bets are off."
Lee rolls his eyes. "I just thought it would be polite to tell you who was going to be there, so you're not, you know, ambushed by my relatives."
"All right, all right, who or what am I in for?"
"My brothers, obviously," Lee says, grabbing the last bag with one hand and numbering off relatives on the other. "And their wives. They'll all love you. In fact, if I don't wake up tied to a tree in nothing but my boxers at some point during this little holiday, I'm going to think that all of you have failed."
Kara's eyes are gleaming with mischief as they walk away from the baggage claim. "I would tell you that it's less fun when you give me ideas, but that would just be a lie, Lee."
"Sam's kids, my parents," Lee continues, pretending to ignore her but feeling awfully happy and warm and full of love about the whole situation. He's pretty sure he's grinning like an idiot again, but he thinks that's just something he's going to have to get used to. "And then there's the extended family, which is really just Uncle Saul and Aunt Ellen and the seven cousins. We're not technically related, but he's Dad's oldest friend, so we all kinda grew up together."
"Seven kids? Fuck me," Kara breathes. "And I thought your parents were crazy with three. Shit. Just how many rugrats are gonna be running around up here? Because I don't really fucking know if I can, you kno--."
"Refrain from using time-honored American phrases like 'Fuck me sideways with a broom?'"
"Everybody has a skill, remember. Mine's swearing. Well," she pauses, smirking, "maybe I have a few other skills. You got an opinion on that?"
Lee groans. "Yes, but don't remind me. We're staying in very small, very not private cabin for the next week."
"We'll work something out," Kara assures him, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. "You don't really expect me to go all week without a little more action and a little less conversation, do you?"
"We'll work something out," Lee repeats, determined and a little distracted. He really regrets working on the plane.
"Seriously, though, seven kids?" Kara is saying, and Lee shakes himself out of a detailed fantasy about the car ride up to the cabin and tries to pay attention.
"Relax, they're grown, and they may not even all make it. Simon's been working in Haiti-- he's a doctor, works for Doctors Without Borders. Sharon works for the CIA and we don't ask too many questions about where she's been or what she's doing, but sometimes her husband shows up, and they have two rugrats, as you put it, so, sorry about that."
"I'll survive," Kara drawls.
"Who else? Natalie and D'Anna are in LA, so they're usually around for Christmas-- oh, look, if D'Anna has any eggnog, just avoid the mistletoe, okay? Don't let Sam and Zak tell you differently."
"No mistletoe. Check."
"Those are the normal cousins. Then there's Daniel and Leo and John, and Leo is... I don't really know how to describe him, exactly. They don't hear from him very often. He just... he got really into philosophy in college and never looked back. Last I heard he was in Amsterdam with Daniel, though, so I guess he's doing all right. John... John's just an asshole, and none of us can really stand him. Mostly when he shows up I just try to keep my mouth shut and not commit an intentional tort."
Kara stops walking. "Did you just make a law joke?"
"I'm allowed one every six months," he says sarcastically, and sticks his tongue out at her.
"I've got better things you could do with that," she whispers into his ear, and Lee nearly whimpers. Kara grins and backs away. "Go get us a ride, will you?"
"Yeah," Lee manages to say, "sure. Um. Any, you know, requests?"
"Something fast with reclining seats and tinted windows," Kara suggests. She flops into a nearby seat and tugs a sketch pad out of her carry-on. "I'll be here, doing a one-line drawing of you naked. I think I'll give it to your mother as a Christmas present. Think she'll like it?"
"Should have rented a hotel," Lee mutters, and Kara just laughs and pulls out a pencil.
He watches her sketch for a second before turning to go. He loves the way she works, the way she shakes her head and stretches a little before putting her pencil to the paper. And she loves me, he thinks, letting the thrill of it wash over him and wash away what feels like several lifetimes of worry and doubt, all gone now, replaced by love and an almost palpable peace. It feels good, and it feels right, and suddenly he can't wait for her to meet his family, so that everyone else will know that Lee Adama loves Kara Thrace, forever, for always, the end.
"Get me a car or you're not getting any," Kara says, interrupting his thoughts. She's still drawing, but there's a smile on her face. "That's an order."
"Yes ma'am," he answers, and he tosses her a salute before he strolls away with hands in his pockets, whistling as he goes. Merry Christmas, Lee Adama, he thinks.
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Pairing: Kara/Lee
Rating: PG-13 for language and some suggestive winking ;)
Disclaimers: AU, baby! Spoilers through Daybreak II, just to be safe. This isn't for profit, just for fun. All characters & situations belong to RDM, David Eick, Sci-Fi, NBC Universal and their various subsidiaries. Title from a song by John Mayer, which I also had nothing to do with.
A/N: 4/7 of Adama Brothers 'verse. Full index of chapters:
01. anything other than stay is go. Lee/Kara, AU, R.
02. we'll be dreaming ways to keep the good alive, Lee/Kara, AU, PG-13.
03. I am your brother (your best friend forever), the Brothers Adama (Zak and Sam), AU, PG-13.
04. once in awhile, when it's good, it'll feel like it should. Lee/Kara, AU, PG-13.
05. make up your mind to have no regrets. Lee/Kara, AU, R.
06. so this is Christmas. Lee/Kara, Zak/Dee, Adama/Roslin, Sam/OC, AU, PG-13.
07. this is easy as lovers go. Lee/Kara, PG-13.
And Prequel Comment!Fic here. First date, Lee/Kara, PG-13.
Cross-posted to bsg2003fics and sasa_hq Thanks to leiascully for looking this over!
Lee is still buried in a pile of paperwork when the plane touches down, and Kara has to punch him on the arm to get his attention. It hurts, and he tells her so, which makes her laugh harder than she did at the beginning of the flight when he pulled out his reading glasses and settled in to do some work while she drew caricatures of the flight attendants on one of his legal pads. "Nerd alert," she had teased. "How did I not know that you wore glasses?"
"Because I don't usually have a chance to do work when you're around?" he had suggested, looking facetiously at her over his glasses.
"You don't have to do any right now," she had said, with a sly glance in the general direction of the bathrooms.
"Let me finish this complaint," Lee had told her, and Kara had just sighed and muttered something about being cock-blocked by the law before going back to her drawings.
Several hours and no sex later, she is grinning at him and holding back a laugh as she watches him rub his arm. "Hey, Mister-I-Only-Fly-First-Class: Grab your gear, it's time to get off the plane."
Lee fights the childish urge to stick his tongue out at her and shoves his paperwork back in his carry-on instead. "Are you still pissed about the fact that you're not a member of the Mile-High Club yet?"
"Who told you I wasn't already?" Kara asks, all but clapping her hands in impish delight at his instantaneously jealous reaction. "That person is a liar. Or misinformed."
"I guess we had lives before we met each other," Lee grumbles, and they trundle off the plane and head to the baggage claim.
"So this is home, huh," Kara says, surveying the tiny airport. "Happening place."
Lee shrugs and pulls out his phone. "In a manner of speaking. We grew up in Chicago, you know. They just moved out here a few years ago, when we finally talked them into retiring. I'm still getting used to this."
"What's the plan here? They picking us up or what?" She scans the terminal like she's checking for bad guys, a habit she swears she picked up from too many childhood evenings spent watching old action flicks with her father, and Lee presses his lips together to keep from laughing.
"This isn't Die Hard, Kara," he teases, but they both jump when his phone rings. "Dammit."
"Duty calls?"
Lee makes an apologetic face as he tucks the phone against his cheek and walks away to take the call. By the time he comes back, Kara has found the only place in the airport that sells food and has worked her way through most of a bear claw, her traditional breakfast fare. He raises an eyebrow at it.
"Breakfast of champions, Lee," she says, picking some flyaway frosting off her jacket and popping it into her mouth. "Even when it's lunch." She grins mischievously at him. "I'm just the kind of girl you want to take home to mom, right?"
The sappy reply that he might have made is cut off by another phone call. "For fuck's sake," he swears, staring at the display. "They're gonna want me to come back early, I can feel it."
"So don't take it," Kara instructs, polishing off the rest of the pastry. "It's your fucking vacation. Won't there be people to sue when you get back to New York?"
"Not if they fire me," Lee says dubiously, but he lets the call go to voicemail. "At which point I'll probably be homeless, you know."
"You can sleep on my couch," she offers, grinning again, and his heart nearly skips a beat at the thought that she might let him move in.
"Thanks, but as I recall," Lee says, dialing his voicemail and trying to sound suave and noncommittal, "we don't do much sleeping on that couch."
"You're gonna call them back, aren't you?" At his nod, Kara makes an exasperated noise and plucks the phone out of his hand. "You wanted me here," she says decisively, tucking the phone into her pocket, "and you got me, Lee. But I'll be damned if I have to sit through an entire awkward week of staring at your family while we all wait for you to get off the phone."
He stares at her for a moment, trying to evaluate how serious she is about this. He's still not sure why she's here, exactly. He knows that he loves her, and she knows that, too, but it's not like she's ever bothered to say it, and here they are and it's Christmas and he's about to introduce her to his entire family, parents, brothers, and other various relations, and he doesn't really know how she feels, and it makes him nervous and more than a little insecure, not that he can tell her that without starting a fight, right here in the midst of this small crowd of people who are all smiling and happy to be home for the holidays.
"I've got you, huh?" he asks, and for him it's a very real question, it's the question, and it feels like life won't go on anymore without an answer.
"Lee. We are not about to have The Talk in the middle of the goddamn airport, are we?" She crosses her arms over her chest, looking incredibly uncomfortable, and it occurs to him that this is definitely not the time and not the place, and that maybe his brothers have been right all those times when they said that Lee needs to learn how to listen, to really listen, and to not be so damn serious about everything all the time, to let love do its thing, as Sam put it, and to calm the fuck down, as Zak always said.
"I don't know if she cares," Lee had tried to explain, during the last of many late-night phone calls to his older brother. It had to be Sam, because if anyone was ever going to be patient with Lee, it sure as hell wasn't Zak. Zak's solution to these kind of things was to tell Lee that he was being an idiot, and then wash, rinse, repeat until they punched each other and then forgot what they were talking about in the first place. So Lee had learned, during the course of the few months he had been with Kara, to call Sam when he needed reassurance that the woman he loved might love him back.
"I think she'll say it, bro," Sam had said, voice full of that eternal optimism that still sometimes made Lee wonder if they were actually related. "You just need to listen."
"I do listen," Lee had insisted. "I listen for a fucking living. All goddamn day, to anyone who walks into the office. I even take notes."
"Right. You listen to what your clients don't say, right? So, give it a try with your girl. You might be surprised."
This turns out to be Sam's version of "Take two of these and call me in the morning," and he gently refuses to give any more advice until Lee gives this a try.
So Lee takes a deep breath, and he listens. He replays the things they've said to each other, from the first moment he met Kara to this very moment, and this time, when he hears her say, "You got me," he smiles. He doesn't know why it has taken him this long to understand, and maybe it's the weight and pressure of the holidays, but it feels like a lot longer than the few months he's known her, like they've lived a whole lifetime in a less than a year. But he thinks he finally gets it, that there's more than one way to say I love you and mean it, that to demand that she say it his way isn't really fair, that love can be deep and genuine and real without being such an uphill struggle.
"I've got you. You've got me. We're both here. This is all that matters," he says, and he finds that he likes the brevity of it. No poetry or fancy language necessary, just the two of them. Somehow, it's more satisfying than sweet nothings or I love yous ever were.
"About time," she says, shuffling from side to side. She clears her throat. "So, how are we doing this, again? We come to them? They come to us? Are they here yet?"
"I usually rent something and drive up there myself," Lee tells her, nodding at the car rental place across the airport. "It's a nice drive when the weather's good. What, you nervous?"
"I don't get nervous," she mumbles, and he decides to give her that one, because he fears that otherwise she'll give him another one of her friendly punches, and he swears he has a bruise from the last one. "Hey, bags are finally here."
"So, before we get there," Lee begins, helping her grab their luggage, and she starts to laugh.
"Oh, here we go."
"What?"
"Nothing," she says, laughing. "Look, I promise not to embarrass you. Unless they do it first. Then all bets are off."
Lee rolls his eyes. "I just thought it would be polite to tell you who was going to be there, so you're not, you know, ambushed by my relatives."
"All right, all right, who or what am I in for?"
"My brothers, obviously," Lee says, grabbing the last bag with one hand and numbering off relatives on the other. "And their wives. They'll all love you. In fact, if I don't wake up tied to a tree in nothing but my boxers at some point during this little holiday, I'm going to think that all of you have failed."
Kara's eyes are gleaming with mischief as they walk away from the baggage claim. "I would tell you that it's less fun when you give me ideas, but that would just be a lie, Lee."
"Sam's kids, my parents," Lee continues, pretending to ignore her but feeling awfully happy and warm and full of love about the whole situation. He's pretty sure he's grinning like an idiot again, but he thinks that's just something he's going to have to get used to. "And then there's the extended family, which is really just Uncle Saul and Aunt Ellen and the seven cousins. We're not technically related, but he's Dad's oldest friend, so we all kinda grew up together."
"Seven kids? Fuck me," Kara breathes. "And I thought your parents were crazy with three. Shit. Just how many rugrats are gonna be running around up here? Because I don't really fucking know if I can, you kno--."
"Refrain from using time-honored American phrases like 'Fuck me sideways with a broom?'"
"Everybody has a skill, remember. Mine's swearing. Well," she pauses, smirking, "maybe I have a few other skills. You got an opinion on that?"
Lee groans. "Yes, but don't remind me. We're staying in very small, very not private cabin for the next week."
"We'll work something out," Kara assures him, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. "You don't really expect me to go all week without a little more action and a little less conversation, do you?"
"We'll work something out," Lee repeats, determined and a little distracted. He really regrets working on the plane.
"Seriously, though, seven kids?" Kara is saying, and Lee shakes himself out of a detailed fantasy about the car ride up to the cabin and tries to pay attention.
"Relax, they're grown, and they may not even all make it. Simon's been working in Haiti-- he's a doctor, works for Doctors Without Borders. Sharon works for the CIA and we don't ask too many questions about where she's been or what she's doing, but sometimes her husband shows up, and they have two rugrats, as you put it, so, sorry about that."
"I'll survive," Kara drawls.
"Who else? Natalie and D'Anna are in LA, so they're usually around for Christmas-- oh, look, if D'Anna has any eggnog, just avoid the mistletoe, okay? Don't let Sam and Zak tell you differently."
"No mistletoe. Check."
"Those are the normal cousins. Then there's Daniel and Leo and John, and Leo is... I don't really know how to describe him, exactly. They don't hear from him very often. He just... he got really into philosophy in college and never looked back. Last I heard he was in Amsterdam with Daniel, though, so I guess he's doing all right. John... John's just an asshole, and none of us can really stand him. Mostly when he shows up I just try to keep my mouth shut and not commit an intentional tort."
Kara stops walking. "Did you just make a law joke?"
"I'm allowed one every six months," he says sarcastically, and sticks his tongue out at her.
"I've got better things you could do with that," she whispers into his ear, and Lee nearly whimpers. Kara grins and backs away. "Go get us a ride, will you?"
"Yeah," Lee manages to say, "sure. Um. Any, you know, requests?"
"Something fast with reclining seats and tinted windows," Kara suggests. She flops into a nearby seat and tugs a sketch pad out of her carry-on. "I'll be here, doing a one-line drawing of you naked. I think I'll give it to your mother as a Christmas present. Think she'll like it?"
"Should have rented a hotel," Lee mutters, and Kara just laughs and pulls out a pencil.
He watches her sketch for a second before turning to go. He loves the way she works, the way she shakes her head and stretches a little before putting her pencil to the paper. And she loves me, he thinks, letting the thrill of it wash over him and wash away what feels like several lifetimes of worry and doubt, all gone now, replaced by love and an almost palpable peace. It feels good, and it feels right, and suddenly he can't wait for her to meet his family, so that everyone else will know that Lee Adama loves Kara Thrace, forever, for always, the end.
"Get me a car or you're not getting any," Kara says, interrupting his thoughts. She's still drawing, but there's a smile on her face. "That's an order."
"Yes ma'am," he answers, and he tosses her a salute before he strolls away with hands in his pockets, whistling as he goes. Merry Christmas, Lee Adama, he thinks.