fic: signal fire (kara/lee) chapter 03
Title: Signal Fire
Rating: PG/PG-13 For some strong language and adult themes.
Spoilers: All Seasons, All Episodes.
Status: Complete (Prologue+11 Chapters+ Epilogue)
Summary: Kara and Lee get one last chance to be together. Begins the moment after Daybreak II, on the hill where Kara didn’t say goodbye.
Special thanks to my sister, placeofthunder, who I've decided is better than any beta.
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended. I own nothing.
Previously: Prologue, Chapter One, Chapter Two
Chapter Three
The words felt familiar, flowed out of her with conviction, “I know where it is.”
……………………………
Kara watched helplessly as his expression shifted into something she didn’t want to see. His fierce frown was intimidating, but not unexpected. Her heart felt like a hot coal thudding in her chest as she waited for inevitable.
“Kara.”
One word told the story. Fear and concern. Disbelief. Shock and regret. Disappointment. His voice layered her name several times over with the emotions shifting through his eyes.
She struggled to meet those eyes but found she suddenly couldn’t. Her head bowed beneath the weight of it. She was guilty of nothing, so why did it feel as if she was?
“Admiral, please…” she spoke to the surface of his desk.
“Kara, what has happened to you?” He threw his glasses down with a careless flick of his hand. The clink sounded loud in the silence.
“How many people do I have to lose?” He spoke as if to himself.
She forced herself to look at him. “But you haven’t lost me, Admiral. I know what I’m saying sounds crazy, I know it’s hard to believe…”
Her hands came up before her, as if she could grasp the concept for him from the air.
“I wish there were a way to prove myself to you; to convince you that I’m not delusional or psychotic, but I don’t even know where to begin...”
His eyes narrowed slightly, “If that’s true, Kara, then why are you here telling me this?”
She took a step forward, straightening her shoulders as best she could, hiding behind Starbuck and her swagger.
“Because, I’m not asking you to believe in my sanity or what’s left of it. I’m asking you to honor what we have. You’ve told me before that I’m like a daughter to you…” she steeled herself, moving in for the kill, leaning over the edge of his desk. He watched her, solemn and silent.
“If that is still true, I need you to do this one thing-I need you to believe in me. Trust me on this one, Boss,” eyes glistening, she smiled through the enormity of it; shook her head a little.
Please, let this time be different. Easier.
“I can get us there.”
If anything, he looked less convinced than before.
“Why now, Starbuck? You say you know the way to Earth-why now? Why not say something before this?” his gravelly voice scraped along her raw nerves, igniting desperation. What if she couldn’t convince him that the answer was right here?
“I didn’t know before now,” she took a deep breath but it didn’t help. The words sounded silly even to herself. “But I’ve known the way all along. It had to just…click into place.”
“When?” he bit the word out.
“Before six weeks ago, if that’s what you’re getting at, sir. This isn’t the result of some recent breakdown.” She straightened now, paced away from the desk, hands on hips. “I have the jump coordinates to our new home locked away in my memory. You could say I’ve had them there since I was a child.”
“I could say it, but I wouldn’t,” his words lashed at her. He rose to stand then, hands on the desk before him, “What are these coordinates then, Starbuck. Let’s have them. I’ll give them to Lt. Geata right away. We can get his assessment on the likelihood of finding a habitable planet there.”
Kara felt her face grow hot, her jaw clenched,” It doesn’t work like that, sir.”
“Then how does it work, Kara?”
It felt like she had already lost the battle, and she hadn’t even had the chance to draw her weapon.
“When I need to know…I-I’ll just know,” she blinked rapidly as sudden tears of desperation threatened to spill over.
“You’ll just know.”
“Yes.” Spoken through gritted teeth.
His expression crumpled, “You need help, Kara.”
It stung like hell, though she’d expected no less.
“Admiral. Please. You’ve trusted in the prophecies before, in Laura Roslin’s claims of-“
“This. Is not. The same. Thing.” Almost a growl.
“How can you know that?” her jaw felt too tight, as if it would snap off the hinge.
“I know this…” he came around his desk to stand in front of her. His eyes were hard now, and she knew all hope of her winning his cooperation was now truly lost.
“…I do not want to lose you, Kara,” he inhaled deeply, audibly, “but wherever these…these sudden instincts of yours lead-if they do in fact lead anywhere at all- I will not blindly follow you to the hard deck to save you like my son.”
She barely blinked, but the tears spilled over.
“Not when I have the entire fleet to think of. I can’t afford that kind of personal weakness.”
“Is it that you can’t afford it, Admiral? “ she bit out, voice trembling,” Or is it that you’ve already spent it on someone else?”
“Pull yourself together, Starbuck, “ he admonished though there was fresh hurt in his eyes. For her or for himself? “Get help. Or I will see to it that you do.”
She felt her face crumple, tried to fight it. How much more? It looped endlessly through her mind, threaded itself through every thought.
She dropped her eyes and backed away. Where was the hatch? Where was the frakking hatch?
Her eyes fell on it and she walked towards it briskly, throwing it open with impressive force and pulling it shut in the same way. She didn’t see the broken expression on his face as he watched her go.
____________________________________________
“How do we measure loss?”
The prosecution lawyer’s voice carried clearly all the way to the back of the room where Kara sat with the rest of the trial’s audience. Looking around, she could see that most were familiar faces. There were a few pilots, the usual press, ship’s officers, the president and her people. There was also a scattering of civilians throughout the crowd. If the looks most of the people were throwing Baltar’s way were any indication, they all had at least one thing in common: a supreme aversion to Gaius Baltar.
Kara leaned an elbow on her armrest, absently brushing her fingers against each other. She stared down at the proceedings below, expressionless.
“We measure it in our own faces…because it has marked each of us.”
The Admiral sat facing the crowd with the rest of the tribunal- it flicked on the raw just to look at him after last night. She was half-surprised he hadn’t sent guards after her as she left his quarters. Wasn’t this the part where he threw her in the brig?
Every now and again, she could feel his eyes on her; she stubbornly refused to allow a crack in her facade. They could all think her crazy, him included. Frak it. She’d be damned if she was going to lay begging on the floor again, screaming they were going the wrong way; proving their point for them.
It was growing increasingly clear to her that in the end she might have to just risk a bullet to the head and storm the CIC with nothing but her sidearm if she wanted to take this fleet to the new Earth. As if it were even a question. How could she condemn the human race to wander endlessly when she knew the way? How selfish would that be?
Truth was, Kara was feeling a little selfish. What if she just decided it had all been a crazy nightmare? That she didn’t know the way? She was just like everyone else. It was no problem of hers where they all eventually landed. She would just prove herself flight ready, get reinstated, and go out time after time and do her job. Kill some toasters. Come into the hangar bay, make way to the head to wash off the battle. Spend some time in the rec room. Grab some rack time. Get up and do it all over again.
At the start of all this, the routine might have seemed like a sentence, a curse. Now it almost sounded like a welcome relief.
She bowed her head and smiled a little to herself, a self-depreciating tilt to her lips. Who was she kidding? When had she ever been able to just give in and give up.
She looked up at the scene laid out before her again, still lost in thought. She’d lost track of the prosecution’s speech ages ago.
So if she were going to do this-storm the CIC, or whatever the frak she came up with…The question was when. When did she just end it, one way or the other? And what was she waiting for?
A movement down below in the corner of the room caught her eye and she turned in time to see Lee entering from the east side. He scanned the crowd as if he were looking for someone. Judging by his expression, he didn’t see whoever it was. Must be Dee. Kara had noticed her absence. Probably holding down the fort in CIC.
She watched him find a seat to her left, never sparing a glance in her direction. Kara barely flinched- a flicker of emotion-before turning her attention back to the blonde prosecutor just as she wrapped up her speech.
”For that, he must pay the ultimate price.”
Several heads around Kara nodded in agreement. Well, this was all pretty unnecessary if popular public opinion accounted for anything. But since Gaius Baltar had been quite alive when she’d returned from the dead last time, she had to assume this eventually fell in Gaius’ favor.
She didn’t really see how.
Romo Lampkin stood and began busily spinning some rhetoric.
Okay, so she supposed it was possible after all.
“This man is no better than a cylon, and what do we do with them?”
A man in the last row, directly behind her, shifted forward, ”Throw them out the airlock!”
Kara couldn’t stop the smirk that pulled at the very corner of her lips. She had to give the man marks for style if not substance.
She got that feeling someone was watching her again, but this time it was not in the direction of the Admiral. She threw a glance to her left and caught Lee looking in her direction with an expression that was difficult to read. The smile, such as it was, slid from her face and she turned to face forward.
That’s why she was startled to feel someone slipping into the empty seat next to her a moment later.
“There you are, Captain,” he spoke just above a whisper, respecting the proceedings.
She stretched out her jaw a bit, suddenly uncomfortable though she wasn’t sure why.
“Here I am, Major,” she matched him in tone and inflection. She tilted her head away from him and rubbed the smooth skin of her temple, elbow still firmly planted on the armrest.
He was watching her and not the trial. She ignored it for a few moments, then gave up and turned to him, her face clear save for a hint of defensiveness.
“What is it, Lee?”
He shook his head a little, eyes holding hers, “You tell me, Kara.” His voice was soft, even for a whisper. He knew.
She scowled, “Your dad told you, didn’t he?
She watched him hesitate.
“Yes.”
Her mouth tightened and she turned away from him, staring at the trial with unseeing eyes, “Look at it this way, Lee. Now you don’t have to wonder if I’m going crazy. I’ve answered the question for you.”
The woman on Kara’s other side threw her a dirty look. Kara threw a far dirtier one back. What? She’d whispered as quietly as she frakking could.
Lee leaned forward, arms on knees, head bowed.
“Kara, I just want to help.”
“If I really believed that-“
“Believe it.” His quiet tone allowed for no argument.
“Lee…“ Kara wanted to tell him. Everything. She really did. But the wounds from last night were still fresh. The hurt still raw. If Lee turned his back on her, too…
It might break her. She couldn’t be sure she was strong enough to do this again without anyone believing in her. She wanted to believe she would be, but what if she wasn’t?
She fell silent, unsure.
With a little shake of his head, he finally looked up to focus on Lampkin’s opening arguments. As he did, she happened to glance down at his hands, clasped casually between his knees. His ring finger was bare.
______________________________________________
Kara sat in the same spot the next morning, watching the lawyers and the members of the tribunal shuffle papers, clear throats, and wait for the trial to resume. Fascinating stuff.
She slumped back in her seat, head to the side, drumming her fingers on her armrest. She wasn’t sure what was worse, staying in her rack room and worrying, or watching this circus to get her mind off of it all. How many days until they reached the Nebula? Four, five?
“Come here often?” Lee slid into the row and sat down beside her. She hadn’t seen him since late yesterday, when he’d excused himself to help security escort Baltar from the room. “Double duty,” he’d explained. “Couldn’t be helped.”
She was surprised at the light tone of his voice but gratefully rolled with it.
“Not often enough to warrant the VIP section,” she joked, nodding at where Roslin and her aids sat along the bottom rows.
He settled in with the rustle of his uniform and a sigh, ”Just as well. I couldn’t laugh at smart-ass remarks like that one if we were front and center.”
She smiled a bit without turning to him, tapping her temple with the side of her finger, “Good point.”
They sat in silence for a moment, until he broke it, “I could use a good laugh right about now-have anything for me?”
So he was going to avoid talking about the heavy stuff. Kara felt the knot in the pit of her stomach unwinding just a little. She shifted in her seat to face him. He looked exhausted.
“Yeah. You look like hell, Major.”
He arched a brow, “Not your best effort, Kara. Maybe it was in the delivery?”
She frowned, “I mean it, Lee. You look like you haven’t slept in days. How much does the Old Man think you can take on?”
“Honestly?” he leaned his head back and scrubbed the palms of his hands over his face, “He’s probably got something else already lined up.”
She placed an elbow on the back of her chair and leaned her head against her hand, looking around the room and then glancing at him every so often. He lowered his hands and folded them, but his eyes remained closed.
“If you want to sleep through this, I’ll cover for you. But that might not be the best way to go about it.”
The corner of his mouth turned up, “Oh yeah? Then what would you suggest?”
“The thinking pose…head down, hand on forehead. I use it all the time during briefings. The CAG is kind of a windbag.”
He chuckled, “And we have the first smart-ass remark of the day.”
She was enjoying this a little too much. How long had it been since they had allowed themselves to be this relaxed with each other? Before Sam. Before Dee. After Zak. Whenever they could.
She dreaded the moment it would inevitably end.
“Are you sure that’s the first? What about when I said you looked like hell?”
He huffed. “No, that was the truth.” He opened his eyes and turned to her. He seemed surprised to find her watching him, his eyes narrowed for a second. Her expression silently dared him to make something of it. He didn’t.
But when he leaned his body forward, elbows on his knees, she knew the mood had shifted.
The knot began to wind tight again.
“I feel like I haven’t been there for you lately, Kara. The past few days-Actually, make that weeks- have been…” there was a pause while he laughed softly, without humor, “…difficult.” He stared at the ground.
She got the feeling he wasn’t just talking about being over-worked.
Kara leaned forward on her elbows, too, glancing over pointedly at his empty ring finger.
She lowered her voice, “Does it have something to do with that?”
He looked up and followed her gaze. The rueful ghost of a smile he gave her before looking down again was all the answer she needed.
She ran a thumb down the back of the chair in front of her, ”I thought…you said things were the best they’ve ever been-“
“I lied.”
Her head bowed, “I’m sorry, Lee.”
He didn’t look at her. “Don’t be. Not your fault-I frakked it up all on my own.”
She glanced over at him. They both knew that was a lie.
“Do you want-” she faltered, the muscle above her left brow twitched, “Do you want to talk about it?”
He turned to stare at her, gauging her sincerity.
Kara held his gaze for as long as she could before looking away.
“You’ve been different since you climbed out of that cockpit,” his voice was quiet, careful.
She swallowed, “Different as in…crazed?” She braced herself.
He took a long time before answering; shook his head, “Different as in different.”
A flicker of hope sparked inside of her.
She saw him shrug his shoulders out of the corner of her eye, “I don’t know, Kara. It’s almost like…like you have a secret that no one else knows. Like you have an advantage over the rest of us.”
Her gaze flew to his, “You mean about what your father told you. About what I said to him.”
She was surprised when he shook his head again, “I’m not talking about that.”
She felt her eyes narrow; couldn’t believe him. It was too easy. “Why are you being so understanding? Why not just come out and say it?”
“Say what, Kara? That I think you’re crazy?” his smile was soft, fleeting, “I’ve always known that.”
She watched him, feeling vulnerable now.
He frowned and contemplated his hands; raised one to rub his chin, elbow resting on his knee, “It’s never changed how I feel about you.” The sudden, resigned tenderness in his voice pierced through her clouded emotions.
She blinked rapidly, “Lee, there’s something I need to tell you…“
The people in the seats around them grew suddenly silent, the room was being called to order.
Lee leaned back in his chair, faced her and crossed his arms. “I’m here. Whenever you’re ready.”
Kara looked at him over her shoulder, “Tonight. When you get off duty. The observation deck.”
He looked surprised. Whether at her decisiveness, or the location was unclear.
Nevertheless, he answered her, “I’ll be there.”
Chapter Four