Finding Purpose (4/?)
Title: Finding Purpose (4/?)
Author: Nytel
Rating: R (eventually)
Spoilers: Up to 213 (Epiphanies)
Pairing: Kara/Lee
Genre: Angst/Romance
Summary: When your whole life gets flipped upside down, you need to find a reason to go on.
Word Count: 4,241
Beta:
gimp_homegurl
Disclaimer: I am merely borrowing them. No copyright infringement is intended.
A/N: This fic is AU after Epiphanies.
Chapter 4
A sudden loud beeping noise emanating from above Lee’s head woke him up the next morning. He reached up groggily and without opening his eyes, turned off the alarm. Still half asleep, he rolled over onto his stomach and pulled the flimsy pillow over his head. He did not want to get up.
He lay there for quite a while and although he wanted to go back to sleep, he didn’t give in to the temptation. There were quite a few people who would kick his ass if he missed his early morning briefing - his father the first and foremost. Then there was also the fact that neglecting his duties in some way would only falsify the façade he had constructed.
Lee finally removed the pillow and sat up, half-heartedly stretching his arms above his head and trying not to hit the bunk above him. The movement pulled at his stiff muscles, creating a sensation somewhere between pleasure and pain. He ignored it, knowing that it was just another sign telling him he needed to exercise.
He slid the curtain open on his bunk, nearly wincing as he heard the scrape of the metal rings on the rod. The first thing he saw was the empty bunk across from him. Immediately his thoughts jumped to Kara. He stared at her bunk as scenes from the previous night began to flit through his head.
In a way he still couldn’t believe that it had happened, although it was clear and very real in his head. It was just that he hadn’t been expecting anything like that to happen, but in hindsight maybe he should have been.
As he sat there for a little while longer he realized that he felt different, not substantially, but the feeling was there nonetheless. It didn’t take a genius to pinpoint why.
Through everything that had been going on in the last few weeks, Lee had been most afraid that he would push Kara away. Well, he had pushed her away, but he was scared that the damage would be irreversible. Now he knew that it wasn’t.
He couldn’t help but also dwell on what she had said right before he left. It wasn’t his fault. Lee knew that, but that didn’t make the guilt go away. If he thought about it logically, he knew she was right. But when he just thought about it period, the guilt automatically surfaced.
Even if the situation were switched around, with Kara in his place, and him in hers, he knew that she would be feeling that guilt too. It was just something that happened, and something that he’d have to deal with. Knowing that Kara didn’t blame him though made that task less daunting.
Lee braced both hands on the mattress and pushed himself up slowly. He really needed to get a move on if he was going to meet Tigh in time for the briefing. He opened his locker and grabbed a fresh set of tanks, pulling them over his head. Then he pulled his blue uniform pants on, followed quickly by the jacket. As he was buttoning it closed, his mind began to drift back to his previous thoughts.
He had told Kara that he’d drop in to see her today, he even wanted to drop in to see her, but he had doubts. He wasn’t sure if having his reservations being driven by embarrassment was any better than having them driven by guilt, but that was the truth of it.
He was glad that it had been Kara present, instead of someone else, but the thought didn’t do much to ease the humiliation. He had promised to go see her though, and he would. He needed to do everything he could to make up for what he’d done wrong, and what he hadn’t done at all.
Lee closed his locker door and stepped around Duck, heading for the hatch. He’d go to his office, grab the paperwork he needed and then go meet Tigh. After that he’d drop by sickbay to see Kara.
***
Kara hadn’t gotten much sleep, so when Cottle stepped through the curtain to check on her during his morning rounds, she fixed him with an icy glare. He just ignored it, apparently immune to them after being on the receiving end for too long.
She sat back against the tilted bed and waited impatiently while he checked some numbers on her chart. Morning rounds had to honestly be the part she hated most about being stuck in sickbay, but nightly rounds came in as a close second. There was absolutely nothing that she enjoyed about Cottle coming in and poking around at her knee, or whatever other injury she was in there with. Her lack of sleep didn’t help with that either.
Once Lee had left the night before, she had been too wound up to sleep. Even thinking about sleeping was impossible when she had that many things running through her mind, and that much worry gnawing at her.
Lee and her… their friendship was on the mend, but Lee wasn’t. If anything, what had happened the night before only confirmed that something was terribly wrong, and she still had no idea what had caused it. He had told her that he didn’t want to make it back alive after he ejected from the blackbird, but she could only guess at the reasons why. And in this case, just like the Old Man, she didn’t like guessing. Mostly because her mind could come up with many reasons for the change in Lee, each one of them worse than the last.
If she knew… But that would mean asking him. Lee was closer to her than anyone had ever been, with maybe the exception of Zak, but they didn’t do the talking thing. She could think of a number of times where they had been on the verge of having a real conversation, but it always ended with one or both of them walking away, or changing the subject abruptly. Before she could even begin to think about why, Cottle was standing beside her bad knee.
He reached down, and without any preamble, began to remove the brace from her knee. The only sound that filled the area was that of the straps being undone. She could have punched him for his horrible bedside manner, but she managed to restrain herself.
“Up,” he said gruffly.
With a groan she obeyed his command, lifting her right leg off the bed. She hated this part. Cottle poked and prodded at her swollen knee while she tried not to wince in pain.
“It’s getting better,” he stated.
Kara looked at her knee, really looked at it, and all she saw was a discolored and very swollen joint. It looked the same as it had yesterday, and the day before. How the hell it was getting better, she didn’t know. Even the pain felt the same, just on the verge of excruciating, and that was with the drugs. For a second she thought he might be lying about it getting better, but she dismissed the idea. It wasn’t something that he would do. He was a cranky old bastard who could care less about keeping her hopes up.
“How much longer?” she asked suddenly, unable to look at her knee anymore.
“Till what?” Cottle questioned in return.
Before she could answer he began to extend her leg until her knee was no longer bent, before bringing it back up near her chest, bending it as far as it would go. She was pretty sure that testing the flexibility of her knee was not so important that she needed to go through the amount of pain she was experiencing.
It was bad enough when she was just sitting there, not moving at all, but when you added movement into the mix it felt like there were knives being stabbed into her knee at every point. She had to close her eyes and bite her tongue to stop her from crying out as Cottle kept on moving her leg. When she felt the burning sensation that meant tears, she suddenly realized how bad this might be. As much as she tried to burn all memories of her sickbay visits from her mind, she was pretty sure that her knee had never hurt to that extent before.
Suddenly she was scared - actually scared. What if she never flew again? No, she was not going to think about that. Cottle had told her that it would be two or three weeks of physiotherapy after she was released, and then she’d be flying again. No, his exact words had been ‘most likely flying again’ and she had contorted them to be what she wanted.
“Until I fly again,” she said quickly during a pause in the movement.
She opened her eyes to look at him, awaiting his answer.
“I told you,” he said shortly as he lowered her leg back down to the bed and motioned at her to put the brace back on. “Two or three weeks of physio and then we’ll see.”
She nodded, really wishing that he had given her a better answer.
***
When the Old Man came in to see her, less than an hour after Cottle had left, she was mostly sitting, but partially lying on the bed, staring at the entrance. He looked at her a little oddly as he entered, and she figured it was probably because of the intensity with which she was staring at the curtain.
“How are you feeling?” he asked as he walked over to the side of her bed.
“Peachy,” she lied. The look on his face told her that he didn’t believe her.
He gave her a sympathetic smile before pulling a chair over from near the partition to her left. “Anything I can do?” he asked as he sat down.
Kara shook her head as she looked over at him. “No, I’ll be fine.”
“I’m sure you will,” he said encouragingly. She felt a small smile begin to tug at the corners of her lips. He really was like a father to her. His confidence of her meant a hell of a lot more than he would ever know.
“Thanks,” she said, her voice almost a whisper.
He reached over and squeezed her shoulder lightly and she did smile. “What’d Doc say about your knee?”
That quickly, her smile faded and she dropped her eyes, bringing her gaze to rest on the joint in question. “It’s getting better… apparently.”
“Apparently?” the Admiral questioned.
She shrugged, still staring at what little bruised skin she could see through the brace. “That’s what he says, but it doesn’t feel any better.” She felt another small surge of fear as the thought of never flying again crossed her mind.
She turned to face him again, trying to appear nonchalant. “I’m sure Cottle’s right though.” She put on a smile for his benefit, and he smiled back. It took her a few seconds to realize that the smile wasn’t reaching his eyes.
“Sir, are you… are you ok?” she asked tentatively, wondering if there were two broken Adama’s that needed fixing.
It was like he was lost in his thoughts, and it took him a while to answer. “Yes, I…” he broke off, as if he was pondering his upcoming words. “No,” he admitted. “I’m worried about Lee.”
Kara nodded, even though she hadn’t really been expecting to hear that. “So am I.” There was no point in lying, or beating around the bush with this.
“He’s been different since…”
“He ejected from the blackbird,” Kara finished. “I know,” she added quietly. She knew that too well.
The Admiral leaned back in the chair and wearily ran one hand over his face. It was the same thing that Lee did when he was exhausted.
He let out a sigh before he started talking. “I was hoping that he’d come talk to you. I figured it might do him some good.” Before Kara could say anything, he kept talking. “I know he won’t talk to me, but I thought that maybe he’d open up if it was someone he trusted.”
For a second Kara couldn’t say anything, she was still trying to take in what she just heard. “He does trust you,” she said certainly.
The Old Man shook his head and looked Kara in the eye. “No he doesn’t, not since the Pegasus arrived.”
Kara opened her mouth to protest the absurd statement, but stopped before she got any words out. Silently she shut her mouth again. Shit. Was that why Lee… It had to be, or at least partially, but didn’t he understand that his father’s decision had been the right one?
“What should I do Kara?” His voice was so earnest that she was startled. He was asking her for relationship advice. He’d be better off asking Tigh.
“Give him time,” she said quietly. It was the only advice that she could think to give, especially knowing how unstable their father-son relationship could be. It was something that she still felt guilty about.
He nodded, but didn’t look reassured.
“I’ll talk to him later,” she said.
The Admiral smiled. “I appreciate that Kara, but you don’t have to.”
“No,” she said quickly. “I want to help him too.” It was more than a little awkward telling that to the Old Man, Lee’s father, but she’d passed the point of caring about stuff like that. All she wanted to do was get the old Lee back.
The Old Man’s smile broadened a tiny bit. “I’m glad that you want to help, but quite honestly I don’t know how you’ll manage that.”
She felt disappointed. She knew that she probably wasn’t the best person to help Lee, but she didn’t need someone else, especially the Old Man, pointing that out to her. “I can try,” she said, her voice taking on an angry tone.
“You’re in sickbay Kara, and I can’t very well order him to come and see you.”
The anger faded away as she realized what the he was getting at. “Actually sir,” she said timidly. “He’s supposed to be dropping by later.”
The surprised look on the Admiral’s face would have been comical if it were under any other circumstance. “He’s what?”
She nodded. “He came by last night too.”
A relieved smile spread across his face and Kara got the distinct feeling that she was missing something. Before she had a chance to ask, the Admiral was standing up. He leaned down and kissed the top of her head lightly, just like the last time he had come to visit her.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
Even though she didn’t know exactly what he was referring to, she heard herself respond with a quiet, “You’re welcome”.
Just as the he was leaving her ‘room’, Kara called out, “Sir.”
He paused and looked over his shoulder.
“Do you mind leaving the curtain open?” she asked. “I need some fresh air.”
He left the curtain open just enough so that she could see out of it. But he glanced over his shoulder on the way out and gave her a knowing look. There was no such thing as fresh air on a battlestar and he knew her real reason for asking.
***
Lee made it to the conference room only a minute before his meeting was supposed to start. He’d had to skip breakfast to make it there, but it was better than the alternative. He entered to find Tigh shifting through a large stack of papers, while nursing a mug of… something. Lee hoped it was coffee.
“You’re late,” Tigh said, without even looking up at the clock.
Lee automatically bristled at his words. “Actually Colonel, I’m exactly on time.”
Tigh merely snorted, and without looking up, indicated that Lee should sit down at the table across from him. Lee did so reluctantly and waited for the Colonel to finish whatever he was doing.
Not more than a few seconds later, Tigh looked up from his work. “Well, do you have the viper and raptor maintenance reports?”
Lee’s fists clenched under the table, and he managed to grit out a “Yes, sir” as he slid the papers in question across the table. The older man picked them up and began to flip through them, obviously not really reading them. He was flipping through way too quickly for that. At random intervals he would nod his head slightly, or make an odd sounding noise at the back of his throat. Lee had gotten used to that after months of being the CAG.
As soon as the XO had finished with the maintenance reports, Lee handed him the flight schedules. The early morning briefings weren’t exactly meetings so much as times when Tigh monitored all of Lee’s CAG duties. He would sit and wait while Tigh read various reports and they’d discuss them if they needed to. But normally they didn’t, and that was why Lee was surprised when Tigh took one glance at the flight schedule before tossing it back at him.
“What’s this?” he asked angrily.
“It’s a flight schedule… Sir.”
Tigh glared at him. “Well why the hell aren’t there more pilots on each rotation?”
Lee didn’t understand. He had scheduled just as many pilots for CAP as he normally did, no more, and certainly no less. “What are you talking about?”
“We need more pilots flying patrol if we’re going to secure and refine all of that tyllium.” Tigh responded sharply, obviously pissed off now.
Tyllium? When had they found tyllium? As far as Lee knew none of the raptor scouting parties had found any of the essential ore. He opened his mouth to ask what the hell Tigh was talking about just as the hatch opened behind him.
Closing his mouth and turning around, he saw his father. Their eyes met for a second and the Admiral gave Lee a small smile. He had no idea what that was about either.
“Good morning gentlemen,” he said as he walked over to the table and took a seat next to Tigh.
It took Lee a second to realize why the entire scenario seemed odd. Hid dad never came to the morning briefings. Not unless something important was going on, and even then it was rare. In that case he would more likely be called to a separate meeting, specifically about whatever crisis they were dealing with. What was even more odd was that Tigh did not look surprised to see him.
“I talked to the president last night, and we’ve decided how we’re going to go about this,” the Admiral said, effectively interrupting Lee’s confused thoughts. That quickly he had the unwavering attention of both other occupants of the room. Tigh looked like he was actually interested, and Lee was too, but mostly so he could know what the hell was going on.
“Our initial estimates of the tyllium were short, by a lot.”
“How much is there?” Tigh asked quickly.
“More than we could ever hope of refining.”
“We were damn lucky,” Tigh said bluntly.
They were damn lucky to have found any tyllium, let alone more than they could use. Lee just didn’t know how the hell he didn’t know about the discovery. Had he been so caught up in his own thoughts that he’d missed out on the most important piece of information in the entire fleet?
He felt shame burn through his veins. That had to be it. Gods, he was supposed to be the CAG and now he couldn’t even do that properly. His father’s voice brought him back to the present, and Lee just hoped that he hadn’t missed anything else that was vital.
“It will take us three, maybe even four weeks to refine all that we can store.”
“That’s a hell of a long time,” the XO stated. “How are we supposed to manage that?”
The Admiral sighed. “We jump the fleet to the tyllium.”
“The entire fleet?” Lee asked, suddenly very apprehensive about the plan.
“Yes,” his father said, meeting his eyes. “The president and I have deemed it to be an appropriate risk.”
Lee gulped down a nasty response about the president and his father’s joint decision making.
“We’ll stay until the cylons come. Except for a few days ago, we haven’t encountered them, and even then we found them, not the other way around. We can only assume that after the destruction of the resurrection ship they’re hesitant about engaging us in combat.” Bill looked at Lee and Tigh respectively. “We’ll get as much tyllium as we can while we’re there.”
Lee found himself nodding along with the Colonel. Given the circumstances it probably was the best plan, but jumping the entire fleet would use up a hell of a lot of fuel. If the cylons showed up early into the recovery of the ore, they were screwed.
“What about the civvie ships?” Tigh asked. “I thought that they were still doing repairs.”
The Admiral nodded. “They are, but thankfully they’re almost finished. The reports I got said that all the ships in the fleet will be FTL capable by tomorrow.”
The repair teams that Lee had helped organize a few days ago must have been quick and efficient. It made him feel slightly better, knowing that he wasn’t fully inept.
He didn’t dwell on the thought for long; his mind was still reeling over their miraculous discovery of tyllium. Whatever the case was, it seemed like the shortage would be short lived. The search was over and it left only small minute details in need of discussion. When they finished Adama stood, Lee and Tigh standing along with him.
“Well, I believe that’s all,” his father said, the words feeling almost empty to Lee. It barely felt like the conversation had begun at all. It had just sort of rushed by him.
Together Lee and Tigh saluted the Admiral and watched him leave. Once he was gone, they both sat back down to look over the now unfinished flight schedules. Lee only needed to figure them out, and then he could get out of there.
***
Not too much later Lee found himself entering sickbay for the second time in less than twenty four hours. He was feeling rather nervous. A small voice in the back of his head was saying that he had no reason to feel that way. But he didn’t know what or who he could trust, with only one exception.
He straightened the collar on his jacket with his empty hand, feeling oddly self-conscious, as he started towards Kara’s bed. He wasn’t even half way across sickbay when he noticed that the curtain around her bed was parted slightly. He could see her lying on the bed, staring out the crack. As his feet brought him a few steps closer, she saw him.
The smile on her face made him feel a bit better, and he didn’t have to force his feet to go the final distance. He stepped through the small gap in the material before closing it behind him. He didn’t know why he did it, but it just felt right.
“Hey,” Kara said, sounding timid. Well… timid for her anyway.
“Hey,” he replied, shifting his weight from his right foot to his left, and then back again. He was feeling a little unnerved under Kara’s gaze. It wasn’t scrutinous, but it was revealing. Kind of like she was trying to determine his thoughts by merely looking at him.
After a few seconds she said, “Sit,” and indicated the chair beside the infirmary bed. He couldn’t remember if it had been there the night before or not.
He sank down into it and realized how tired he felt. It wasn’t even mid-morning - whatever the hell that meant in space - and he felt about ready to hit his rack. But it wasn’t the exhausted listlessness that he had grown accustomed to, and that seemed better, or at least more real to him.
It took Lee a few more seconds of silence to realize that Kara was staring at the papers in his hand. It suddenly occurred to him that it might be giving off the wrong impression.
“I just need to take them to my office after this,” he said quickly, glad that the words hadn’t gotten jumbled on his tongue.
“Good,” Kara said. “I thought you were going to make me work on flight rotations with you.”
“I wou…” he let his words drop off as he saw that Kara was still smiling. He felt a surge of relief as he realized that she was joking; she wasn’t mad at all. There had once been a time when he would have noticed that right away.
“What are they for anyway?” Kara asked, reaching over to pluck them from his hands.
“Mission report,” he said automatically. The smile began to fade from Kara’s face and he wished that he could take his words back.
“You haven’t written yours yet?” she asked quietly.
Lee shook his head and sighed. “No.” There was no need to elaborate why. “But the Admiral wants them on his desk by the end of the day.”
“Umm, Lee,” Kara began in an unsure voice. “There’s something that you should probably know.”
TBC
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3