Finding Purpose (13/?)
Title: Finding Purpose (13/?)
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: 2,499
Beta:
i_am_girlfriday
Disclaimer: I am merely borrowing them. No copyright infringement is intended.
A/N: This fic is AU after Epiphanies.
A/N 2: I'm so sorry for the delay in this fic. I was swamped with real life stuff like exams and then holidays. I promise that the next chapter won't be nearly as long coming out. Thank you to eveyone who's still willing to follow this.
Previously:
Glancing around at the group that had exited the raptor closest to her, Kara caught sight of two more stretchers. The dark skin of the man on one threw her off for a second. She shuddered as memories of the farm on Caprica washed over her. Tearing her gaze away her eyes landed on the third stretcher.
Time stopped. She felt all the blood drain from her face. Every ounce of happiness that she had been feeling disappeared.
She inhaled sharply. A second later his name passed from her lips. “Zak?”
Chapter 13
When Lee exited the raptor he was grinning like an idiot, but he didn’t care. He’d just lead three teams of marines into a cylon ship, and rescued six humans that had been held as prisoners of the cylons and used as prototypes for the human cylon models. The day’s events couldn’t have gone more smoothly. The last thought probably shouldn’t have made him as happy as it did, but after everything he’d gone through the past few weeks to get back to normal, he allowed himself the indulgence.
In less than a second he caught sight of Kara-she was beaming at him from across the crowd. He ignored the fluttering feeling in his stomach and started to make his way towards her. With some stupid comment on the tip of his tongue, Lee opened his mouth to call out over the people between them. He stopped when Kara turned away abruptly.
He tried his best to see what she was looking at, but given how busy it was, it was hopeless. As he continued to weave through the deckhands, marines and pilots he kept his gaze on Kara. Without warning her face blanched.
Lee picked up speed and became more forceful as he made a path through the crowd. Something was wrong. If the blood rushing out of her face hadn’t given it away, the tense posture of her body would have. His heart was pounding fast-he couldn’t think of anything that would cause Kara to react like that.
He pushed past the last of the people just in time to hear her speak.
“Zak?”
Lee’s head whipped around quickly, suddenly pulling his attention away from Kara and focusing on the stretcher that was only a few feet away from her. The sounds of the hangar deck faded away and all he could hear was his own quickened breath and the pounding in his ears. Only an arm’s length away his brother was lying on a stretcher. He was thin, and almost frail looking, but Lee would recognize that face anywhere.
He felt oddly detached, as he stood there stock-still and stared at his brother’s unconscious form. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew his reaction was due to shock. All he could focus on was Zak…Zak who was right there…Zak who was supposed to be dead, but appeared very much alive…
The sound of violent retching broke him from his astonishment. Ignoring the questions from the medics and knuckle draggers, Lee looked around frantically until he found the source of the noise. Kara was on her hands and knees beside the nearest bulkhead, emptying the contents of her stomach onto the deck.
Instinct took over and Lee ran toward her.
***
Kara was vaguely aware of running away from the crowd and falling to the deck, before getting sick. There was nothing left to bring up, but her body insisted on trying. Bile burned in her throat and she couldn’t breathe; she was choking. Her vision blurred in front of her eyes and she was sure she was going to pass out.
The next thing she knew there was a hand pressing firmly against her lower back, and a voice was telling her to breathe. It became more insistent and Kara struggled to inhale. One shaky breath followed another as the hand began to rub small circles on her back. Eventually she was breathing semi-normally, though her body was still trembling.
Rocking back on her heels, Kara turned her head to find Lee kneeling beside her. Even in the fog of shock, she wasn’t surprised to see him.
“Lee, it’s…”
“I know.”
As some of the disbelief began to ebb away, she took in his appearance-his face was white, the muscles in his jaw were straining and he was shaking too-he knew.
They both looked up as the medics rushed the stretchers past them and out the nearby hatch. When she caught a glimpse of Zak she was hit by a rush of emotions: disbelief, relief and fear… fear that this was too good to be true.
In less than a second they were gone and Kara was pushing herself onto her feet. “We need to go with him,” she told Lee as he stood up beside her. His answer was a single terse nod.
Lee turned to look at Tyrol who wasn’t standing too far away from them. “Call the situation room and tell the Admiral to meet us in the infirmary.”
The Chief nodded, the look on his face was somewhere between confusion and worry.
Not willing to wait any longer, Kara took off as fast as she could manage with her knee, heading for the infirmary, with Lee less than two steps behind her.
***
The entire way to sickbay all Lee could think about was how he hadn’t recognized Zak sooner. He may have been leading the mission, and yes he’d been preoccupied with getting them off the ship alive, but how the hell had he missed that? He found his hands clenching tightly. He shouldn’t have missed it, end of story. He didn’t have time to dwell on any of that now, there were much more important things to focus on.
By the time they made it to sickbay, they were both slightly out of breath, but that didn’t stop Kara from barging straight in. She nearly ran in to the President and his father, both of whom were standing directly inside the entrance. Kara came to an abrupt halt and Lee nearly ran in to her.
“Lee, what’s going on?” His father demanded. “I got your message to get here right away.”
Lee inhaled deeply, hoping that it would allow him to get his bearings. “Dad, it’s… it’s one of the people we brought back.” Even his voice was shaking, but with so many emotions running through his body and his mind going into overdrive, he couldn’t do a thing about it.
His father tensed immediately. “Who?” He asked, his voice gruff.
Lee looked over at Kara briefly, and when she nodded he looked back at his dad. He practically choked on the name, because in so many ways he still didn’t believe it was true. “Zak.”
For a second he watched in horror as his dad physically faltered, nearly collapsing onto the ground. Both Lee and Laura reached out to support him.
“My son?” he asked, tears filling his eyes. “My son’s alive?”
Lee nodded, unable to say anything as his throat tightened. Bill sat down heavily in a nearby chair. Laura took a seat beside him and placed a hand lightly on his arm. Bill closed his eyes and he drew a few shaky breaths before composing himself.
He turned and looked at Laura; a glance that Lee couldn’t place passed between them. The President squeezed his father’s arm lightly, silently showing her support. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but then shut it. A few more moments passed before she quietly said, “He still has to pass the test Bill.”
His father nodded solemnly. “I know.” His voice scraped harshly in his throat.
“What are you talking about?” Lee asked, speaking quickly as he looked back and forth between the two of them. “What test?”
Laura looked at both him and Kara sympathetically. “Dr. Baltar’s cylon detector test.”
“You think they’re cylons?” Lee was confused, but it didn’t take long until the connection was made in his mind. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me that you thought it might be a trap?”
His father looked at him sternly. “You two had enough on your plate already, I didn’t want to add to it unless it was necessary.”
“That thing doesn’t work.” Kara stepped up so she was standing beside Lee.
The President shook her head ever so slightly. “There were problems with it initially, but I’ve been assured that those are now corrected.” She took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose with one hand. “Dr. Baltar has also increased the speed at which the test will run, but it will still take over four hours per person.”
Kara balked at Laura’s response. “You’re telling me that I have to wait four hours to find out whether or not that’s actually Zak?!”
“You won’t have to wait that long,” Cottle interjected, as if materializing out of nowhere. He looked at each of them in turn. “I’m going to run his blood sample and see if it matches what we have stored in the colonial medical database. It’ll be an hour, tops.”
“What about the other people that were brought back?” Laura inquired as she stood up.
Cottle sighed and shook his head. “They’re all in rough condition. We have no idea what the cylons did to them, not yet anyway. We’re guessing that they kept them sustained in a comatose state for transport only. But they’re malnourished, and weak. I doubt they’ll all pull through.”
“Zak?” the Admiral asked, his voice thick with worry as he stood up too.
“He’s the strongest out of all of them, but I’m not making any promises.”
Lee’s chest constricted. Even if that man was Zak and not a cylon, there was a chance that he might die. Lee didn’t think he could handle losing his brother twice.
Kara interrupted his thoughts when she clasped his hand tightly. When he turned to look at her, his heart broke. There was pain and fear written all over her face, and Lee knew that she was thinking the same thing. He squeezed her hand, letting her know that he was there.
***
The next half hour was the longest of Lee’s entire life. It felt like it’d been decades since Cottle left them waiting. At some point he and Kara had sat down. She was seated beside him, her right hand still firmly holding his left. He’d lost feeling in his hand a while ago, but he didn’t say anything, just held on tightly.
There were still a million thoughts running through his head, but the main one was what if Zak’s a cylon? Lee almost shuddered as he pictured how devastated Kara would be. She had loved Zak, she still loved Zak, and Lee couldn’t bear the thought of her getting her hopes up only to have them crushed again.
The minutes continued to tick by slowly. All four of them remained silent until the President muttered, “Oh my Gods,” and raised one hand over her mouth.
Bill turned to look at her. “What is it, Laura?”
She shook her head in disbelief and lowered her hand. “Adama is a cylon.”
The other three all looked at her, unsure of what to make of her words.
She turned to look at the Admiral. “It’s what the Leoben model told me before I had him thrown out the airlock. I assumed he meant you, Bill. I never even thought…”
She let her sentence hang unfinished. “I’m sorry, I should have said something.”
He shook his head. “No. You couldn’t have known.”
Lee took a second to really look at his father, and realized that he was holding up better than Lee had originally expected. Other than the initial reaction to finding out about Zak, he had remained quite calm and composed. It must be his experience of command that gave him the ability to do that.
A few more agonizing minutes passed, and just as Lee was wondering what the hell Cottle was doing, the doctor reappeared. As if on cue, all four of them stood up expectantly.
“Well,” he began. “Everything matches up. He’s human.”
Lee felt an overwhelming sense of relief and happiness, but before it could even register properly, Kara released her death grip on his hand and hugged him so tightly that he could barely breathe. He hugged her back, pulling her even closer against him.
A few seconds later, Lee felt something wet against his neck and he realized that Kara was crying. Looking over her shoulder at his father, he saw that she wasn’t the only one.
“Is he going to be okay?” The Admiral asked, wiping away the tears as if they were an afterthought.
“We’re still not one hundred percent sure what was done to them, though it appears that your son will be fine.” Even Cottle was smiling. “But it’ll be a few days until he wakes up.”
Upon hearing the Old Man’s question Kara pulled back from the embrace suddenly and wiped her own eyes. “Can we see him?” She asked, almost hesitantly. She was happy, but Lee saw something else written on her face too. It took him a second to place it, but eventually he did-guilt.
Cottle nodded. “Yes, you can sit with him.”
***
Lee, Kara and the Admiral followed Cottle into the depths of sickbay. The President had excused herself shortly after Cottle’s announcement to discuss the follow up of the mission with Tigh.
Lee watched from behind as glances were passed back and forth between his dad and Kara. They had a special bond over Zak, and Lee had no idea where he fit into that, or if he even did at all.
Cottle pointed them toward one of the cubicles in the back corner that had a curtain drawn around it. His dad entered first, followed closely by Kara, and he came in last.
Lee froze for a moment when he saw Zak on the bed. Even though he’d had time to absorb the concept of his brother being alive, he wasn’t fully prepared to see him lying there, especially not after he’d believed he was dead for so long. What worried Lee was how insubstantial Zak looked. He’d always been muscular, but years in a cylon prison had left him frail.
Kara didn’t pause at all, and went straight to Zak’s side. Lee could see the tears still present in her eyes as she sat down in the chair beside the bed and reached out, taking Zak’s limp right hand in hers.
For a second Lee couldn’t breathe as another sudden realization hit him. He was losing her. He was losing Kara to his brother. He hadn’t even realized it, but somewhere in their time together on Galactica, Lee had come to think of Kara as his. In the past few months he’d fallen in love with her.
TBC
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6
Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12