BSG Fic - Shuffling - Kara/Lee - 8800 words

[letterstonorah]

Title: Shuffling
Author: letterstonorah
Characters/Pairings: Lee/Kara, Bill, Laura
Rating: NC17
Summary: Following Kara's mutiny and jump back to Caprica, Lee does a ridiculous amount of angsting. 
Warnings: smut, Lee being a serious angst bear, suicidal ideation, violence
Spoilers: Season 2, up to the Pegasus plot
Word Count: 8880 words

Betaed by the brilliant wicked_sassy, who snarkily informed me that no, "decimate" does not mean "destroy", but to reduce by a power of ten. Hearts, my lovely beta boo. Your thoughtful commentary made my day. 

Readers, your comments and feedback are cherished. 

Shuffling

"Of course, they say every atom in our bodies was once part of a star."

Gattaca

Kara jumps away in that cylon raider, and Lee knows that he'll never see her again. And so the frak what? The worlds keep turning. Light still travels at a speed of nearly three million meters per second. Galactica and the fleet surge forward into infinite darkness. And for what? For what?

#

Lee searches for her everywhere, in the places that no one else would think to look. In bowls of porridge. In pipes leaking water. In the grease stains of Chief's orange jumpsuit.

Kara's desertion has transformed all of Galactica into a tomb of sorts. Etched in the walls: Kara Thrace was here.

He recites the words as he would recite verses of the scrolls. Kara Thrace was here. Kara Thrace was here. Kara Thrace was here.

The phrase is scribbled in marker on the ceiling of her bunk, right under: Lee Adama, get the frak out of my rack.

You, too, Hotdog.

Kat, you can stay, but no, you can't borrow my vibrator.

If you do, I will find out about it and subsequently kill you.

If it turns out you're a cylon, I will kill you multiple times.

Lee Adama, why are you still in my rack?

Lying in Kara's old bunk, swathed in her dirty sheets, Lee laughs and cries and hiccups and curses. He wants her back so that she can yell at him and frak around with other guys on him and reject him. The key part is: he wants her back.

The bunkroom is blessedly abandoned. Sheets and blankets hang haphazardly from the beds. Wet towels cast a smell like sweat and mildew. The only thing missing is Kara in briefs and a bra, flipping some rook the bird as she strides to her bunk.

Lee props himself up with his elbow onto his side, his palm against his cheek. The Galactica is all metal and hard lines and jarring angles. This room is no different. Order and regimen. Conformity and edict. But Starbuck was all rebellion and hot temperament. She was warm and bendable and alive.

Never before has Galactica felt more like a machine now that Kara isn't here to soften the ship's hard edges.

Lee shifts around and draws the curtain. Relishes the darkness and the heat and her smell. His hand wanders to a collection of Kara's possessions, tucked into the crack between the bedframe and the wall. This is wrong, he knows it. But he doesn't care. Hasn't cared for a couple of days now.

Rifling through her property, folding himself into her bedding, Lee can pretend that he owns a small part of her. He's staking his flag here. Claiming her as his, whether she'd like it or not—and of course, she wouldn't like it.

Who cares. She's dead.

What he finds: a tattered notebook, a jar filled with booze, a few granola bars, a book of poetry.

Reading the notebook feels like too much of an invasion, even for him, even now, so he takes a look at the poems. None of them are familiar, and it's a literary style that takes him aback. There are words and images that don't belong together. Convulsing hypothalamuses. Babies with gnashing gums. Throats like drain pipes. Nights like postdated letters.

Only one line in the entire book is underlined, the page it's on dog-eared.

Again you find yourself wailing alongside the tempest.

Lee doesn't know what it means, but he makes a note of the quote, the poem title, and the poet.

"Captain Adama? Is that you?"

Lee feels someone grab his shoulder through the drawn curtain, some plebe whose name he can't remember. His call sign might be Turtle. It might not be.

Startled, Lee sits himself up, opens the curtain, gives the rook his sternest glare. "These sheets need to be cleaned," Lee says.

"Sir?"

"These sheets. Bring them to the wash. We need to get this bunk ready for its next inhabitant."

With those words, he stands, gathering up Kara's few items and a shirt of hers that was hidden under her pillow.

"Excuse me, Sir, I was under the impression that—"

"I could not care less about what impression you were under, ensign. Do it, and do it now."

Lee exits through the open hatch and heads to his own quarters, where he can bury Kara's things amongst his own.

#

Not now and never has Lee been a religious man, but he knows this: everything that is, already was; and everything that was, still is. It's complicated.

The point is, everything inside of Lee, everything that was inside of Kara—quarks and such—has existed as long as the universe has, and will exist forevermore. There's no such thing as creation, merely a shuffling of parts. All birth is rebirth in disguise.

Lee's no philosopher, no scientist, no believer or religious fanatic. He does, however, know that phantoms are real. Because there is Kara now—right frakking there, running down the hallway because she's late for the briefing.

It's not her, of course, but Lee swears to gods he can feel the air change, can smell her in the recycled oxygen.

Death should not be like this. It should be final and absolute. Why does Kara haunt him?

#

Her viper, scuffed and broken, sits unused on the hangar deck. It's stillness reminds Lee of a gravestone, and he's keeping vigil inside of her cockpit, sans flight suit. If he closes his eyes he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he can feel her ghost, absorb her shadow. The CO2 expunged from her body is still floating in the air. Her desperate sweat is still dried onto the seat. The angry indentations from her hand are still on the throttle.

"Apollo? Apollo, that you?"

It's Chief.

"Yeah?"

"She'll be back, Apollo. You can count on it."

Lee wants to believe the words, but he doesn't. She is dead in some far-off star system, her cylon raider torn and scarred, her body blue.

Lee nods curtly at Tyrol and extricates himself from the cockpit. Lee accepts the deck officer's extended hand as he comes down.

Chief Tyrol pats his back and says, "Even if she doesn't come back—which she will—she knew that you cared about her, that you guys were friends. Nothing changes that."

Of course, Chief had witnessed Lee and Kara's conversation—or fight, whatever. Tyrol's words of reassurance should help, but they don't. Lee tries not to let the guilt of his last interaction with Starbuck overwhelm him. Frak, he's got to get out of here.

As he's leaving, his pace measured and clipped, someone asks him about doing a routine maintenance check on his Viper. Lee is this close to saying, "Frak you, and frak my Viper. I'll be in my rack hanging myself. Good bye." Only he doesn't, because he's Lee, and Lee keeps it together.

This place—why did he even come here? Because this is where he last saw her, and her ghost is present here more than anywhere else. When he focuses, the sting from her knuckles plowing into his cheek still resonates. Her timid apology, so uncharacteristic of her, still lingers in the air.

His last words to her were—he doesn't recall what they were exactly. Just knows that he regrets them, that of all the millions of things he could've said (I'm sorry. I love you. You're beautiful. Zak is dead and we're alive and it's the godsdamned end of the worlds Kara; if not now, when, because never is not an option. Why not me? Why the frak not me?), he chose the exact wrong thing.

The metal walls of Galactica feel so oppressive. The dark gray of the surfaces domineer and taunt. He wants only to be photons and electrons and energy, to let this consciousness go and give in to the vacuum of the void.

#

The order to report to his father's office does not come as a surprise, even though Lee's done everything in his power to avoid it. He's always working, isn't allowing himself to wallow. He's got a job to do, and Kara's sedition doesn't stop that.

Though it should. Why hasn't her departure caused more of a ripple in the fleet? Her presence was always so affecting and torrential, so shouldn't her absence be more felt?

The aftermath of genocide is, perhaps, apathy to death.

Lee knocks before opening the hatch and stepping inside. The office, with its dark wood, shelves of books, and family pictures, provides a pleasant contrast to the starkness of the rest of the Battlestar. Resting on the stand is Adama's model sea ship, stately and proud, a testament to the past. Not simpler times, no, but a time when people were less alienated from the world around them.

For once, perhaps,he gets why his father loves that thing so much. Lee's been walking around for days in tune with nothing but traces of Kara. This is not natural. This is not how life is meant to be.

"Would you like a drink?" Bill asks. He's sipping a cup of coffee, and for a moment Lee can convince himself it's not the end of the worlds. He's just in his father's study, being asked if he's finished his homework.

"No, thanks," Lee says.

Despite having expected this meeting, he is unable to predict what his father's going to say. Wouldn't it be better to just skip this tete-a-tete, go back to ignoring each other like they did before the cylons annihilated the bulk of humanity? Lee knows himself well enough to realize heart-to-hearts have never been his forte.

"Sit down, Lee," the man says. Just like always, his voice is old and weathered, his face troubled and creased.

"I'd rather not, actually," says Lee. He's not trying to be combative. Standing gives him something to focus on. His leg and back muscles are at work. Sitting lets the grief settle in.

"You've got to rest, son. I've got people telling me you've taken double, sometimes triple shifts."

It's true. Ironically, out there in his Viper is the only place that Kara's ghost does not hover so near. There's tranquility in space. Just outside the metal hold of his fighter, lies oblivion.

"I'll take that under advisement, Sir," says Lee.

"How are you doing?" asks Bill, plowing forward.

"Great, Commander, just great." He remains at attention, trying to keep his voice neutral and even. Still, his words come out as sarcastic and abrasive, when really all he's trying to do is hurry this along so he can get the frak out of here.

"You know that you can talk to me," Bill says.

Lee needs to leave, needs to go before saying something regrets. Instead, he shakes his head, his posture finally relaxing, and lets loose. "Just like you talk to the president?" asks Lee, and this time the hostility is very much intended.

Since Starbuck flew the coop, Adama has been pointedly ignoring any and all requests for communication from Roslin. It's not like Laura could do anything about it. Her leadership was tenuous, her loyal followers fewer (and less armed) than Bill's. Short of flying Colonial One into Galactica, all she could do was wait.

"I thought you, more than anyone, would understand," says the commander.

It's the right button to push.

"You're being a child, Dad. For gods' sake, the silent treatment? Forget Laura, what about the rest of the fleet? By refusing to acknowledge her you're pretty much guaranteeing that innocent civilians' needs aren't being met."

"Maybe I haven't earned the right to lick my wounds, son," says Bill, "but Kara's gone, and she wouldn't be if it weren't for President Roslin. It's as simple as that."

"Is it? Maybe if you hadn't lied to her—to the whole fleet—about Earth."

Bill is silent as he hears Lee's chastisement. He sips his coffee, sets it down, then looks up at Lee. "We all do what we think is best, and that's the real reason Kara's gone. I didn't call you hear to talk about, well, whatever it is we're talking about. I know that you and Kara were close, and I just want to make sure you're holding up."

Lee finds himself rolling his eyes at that. Holding up. What a frakking euphemism. "Well, I'm not collapsed on the ground, am I, Sir? Haven't broken down just yet."

But the words ring false because Lee knows—and Bill must know this, too—it's only a matter of time, for Lee and for the entire fleet. They are holding up, but only because they have to. Because they're alive and that's what living things do. Keep moving until—not until they give up, but until the physical exhaustion overwhelms even the will to survive. The human race is treading water.

"If you want to talk, I'm here," says Bill..

"Am I dismissed, Sir?"

"Dismissed, Captain."

Lee pauses as he's exiting. He briefly contemplates saying something, but what the frak is there to say?

#

Lee has to believe that rightness matters. If it doesn't, then consciousness, sentience—all of it means nothing. People would be no different than floating rocks.

No one would know if he flipped through the pages of Kara's notebook. And how could Kara, who's no doubt dead, even care? Tree falling down in a forest, no one around, et cetera.

But he doesn't read it, doesn't even peek. He lays the book down neatly on the bottom of his locker before placing a few other objects atop it.

This is all the human race has left, these kinds of choices.

#

Flying CAP, as always, simultaneously ignites and deflates Lee. More than ever, he realizes that without the reference point of the Vipers flying in formation alongside him, and without the buoy of the fleet of ships, the universe is a big frakking place.

They've spent the better part of a year sojourning only one frakking galaxy out of billions. He wonders if some far away sun contains a molecule containing atoms of Kara and atoms of Lee.

"Hotdog, Apollo—back off a little bit," he says, not really sure where the words are coming form. Had he even been paying attention?

"Wilco, Apollo," says Hotdog.

Will comply.

Lee smiles, remembering how he'd once ordered Starbuck to stop breaking formation in order to show off. She'd said, "Wilno."

Will not comply.

#

It's been over a week since Kara's rendezvous with a certain cylon raider, and the bitterness has escalated rather than faded in him. Lee has angst down to a science. He avoids the rec room, the mess, any possible venues for conversation.

So when Laura Roslin of all people engages him in the hallways for a chat—it's like, what the frak? Can't she see he's brooding? That he couldn't care less about her prophecies and religious agenda?

The artificial lights of Galactica cast her in a sickly glow. She looks like a wilted, fading moon. Seeing here there, thin but impossibly strong, a flash of admiration for the woman surges through him. Even on the verge of death, she's consumed with so much purpose. What does that feel like? Purpose?

"What are you doing on Galactica?" Lee asks, not bothering to hide his surprise.

She smiles—and godsdamn it, he likes her, he really does—but why does she have to look so knowing all the time? It's condescending and passive-aggressive, and yes, Lee does that too, but on purpose. Laura doesn't even seem to realize when she's acting entitled.

"The commander and I decided to put away our differences in order to protect the fleet. Or, in his words, he forgives me."

Lee laughs at that. "He has a way of issuing pardons no one even requested."

"And you, Captain Apollo? Are you in the business of issuing pardons?"

What she's saying is—before she sent Starbuck to her death, they'd been friends, or something like it. So what now?

"No, I'm not, Madame President," says Lee, turning and walking away.

#

Two weeks. Will he ever stop wanting her back so godsdamn much?

Lee breaks his fingers after several hours tearing apart the punching bag. It hurts, but it doesn't. The location of the pain reminds him so much of Kara and the secret she once confided in him.

Yes, her phantom still hovers. He swears she's laughing at him.

#

Surprisingly, there are few blondes left on the fleet. Even fewer on Galactica.

So he fraks everyone. Brunettes. Redheads. Whatever. He's become such an easy lay. Lee's not completely frakking stupid—he avoids pilots, anyone on Galactica, really. They're talking enough already, about how, no, it wasn't the genocide of humankind that did him in, but crazy ass Starbuck jumping away.

There's one girl who, despite having brown hair, has a bit of Kara in her. Large, confrontational eyes. A streak of insolence.

He leans his back against the wall in a storage room as she goes down him, bringing him off with her tongue and lips and teeth. When he comes into her mouth without warning, his hips jerking into her involuntarily, he thinks: is this as good at it gets? If it is, gods, kill him now.

"What the frak is the matter with you, Lee?" his father asks one day. The Old Man's patience is gone. Disappeared is the calm and understanding Bill Adama of a few weeks ago.

"Nothing's the matter with me, Sir," says Lee. He's fine being constantly late, forgetting names, getting into fights.

"If any of us loses our sharpness, we all die, Lee. Understand? It's the Apocalypse. You don't have time to be a drama queen."

"With all due respect, Sir, if one can't be a drama queen during the Apocalypse, when can one?"

He leaves without waiting to be dismissed. He gets it now, he thinks—the line from Kara's poem. Again you find yourself wailing alongside the tempest.

#

Lee's frakking some woman hard, probably harder than she wants; but she doesn't say 'no' or shove him off, and Lee's not a good enough man right now to stop without her explicit request.

Of course, he's thinking of Kara. That's a given. Some part of this woman he's frakking, some part of her is part of Kara, too. He doesn't know the exact biology or physics of it, but billions of years ago, while climbing out of the primordial ooze…and whatever, Lee can't finish the thought. He's had too much booze. This woman, this woman who's not Kara, feels really frakking good.

#

He thinks of ways to do it—to off himself, that is. With his sidearm (too bloody). The airlock (too many ways to err). Purposefully get frakked over in a dogfight (puts others in danger, and the cylons are MIA).

The fleet has been hanging around for almost a month now, dangerously vulnerable. The Old Man can't bring himself to jump away, not with the chance that Starbuck's still alive. Which she isn't. Lee knows this.

Similarly, Laura won't give up on Kobol. Every day they send down search parties for the Tomb of Athena. Every day they fail. It's a whole frakking planet. What had she been expecting? For her visions to supply an exact longitude and latitude?

He admires her faith, her belief. He used to believe in things, too, or he thinks he did. He doesn't remember. Yesterday blends in today blends in tomorrow, and Lee isn't sure he's even a real person anymore. He's just a cocktail of chemicals and molecules.

#

She comes back. Kara Thrace comes back.

He's flying CAP when the raider jumps back to the fleet. It's not Starbuck doing the piloting—not the way this thing is flying. Precise and measured. Like a frakking computer. Not a human being. Not a human being like Starbuck who is all impulse and potential energy.

But Lee just knows. She's in there. The raider dodges fire from the other vipers, but never lets off its own weapon stores.

"Hold your fire," says Apollo.

"Apollo, Galactica Actual—is it her?"

"It's her," he says, and he doesn't even feel relief. When he'd known she was dead, Lee had been content to just sort of, to sort of flail. His drive to survive jumped away along with that raider. He accepted his inevitable death. Was at peace with it. He could die and finally be with Starbuck in some weird, cosmic way.

Now that she's back, he's treading water again. He just wants to sink.

#

Inside the cockpit, Kara is only about three or four paces from dead. Lee sees her, and oh gods, none of the phantoms, none of the dreams, none of the visions he had could compare to the sight of her. Short, blonde hair matted with blood. Bruises all over. Unconscious. Her chest barely rises and falls with breath.

But her body is warm, gods, so frakking warm, so it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. However broken, twisted, mangled she is, she's alive. Not a ghost but a living body.

For a moment Lee feels kindred with the raider. The machine had inexplicably jumped back to the fleet and piloted a landing all in order to protect Starbuck. It doesn't make sense. This is an equation with no solution. But Kara does that—draws things in against their better judgment.

All around him, deck hands team about excitedly. Commander Adama has come to the Hangar to witness Kara's miraculous return. Chief barks out orders. A medical crew approaches with a gurney.

Lee barely sees any of it. How could he with Kara lying in front of him, returned to him like a precious gift?

#

A day or two later, and the gossip still hasn't quieted.

"So the raider jumped back here? By itself?"

"Starbuck says she remembers getting into the raider but had pretty much passed out as soon as she was safe inside. The next thing she knows, she's in Galactica's sickbay."

"Must be some kinda trick. Maybe she's a cylon?"

"If she was a cylon, we'd all be dead by now. Come on."

"It's just weird is all. I mean, why would the raider jump her back here?

"Maybe it likes Starbuck more than it likes the cylons. I mean, can you blame it?"

Lee doesn't even try to block out the chatter anymore. Really, he's okay with it. It's how he knows that she's fine.

Since that day in the hangar when they'd pulled her unconscious body from the raider, Lee had stayed away. No reason to tempt fate. She's here. She's back. That's all he can take. If he sees her again, he'll start hoping for things, like to be able to touch her and feel her and whisper all of his secret shames to her. He would want to possess her, hold her tight enough to make her hurt. He would want her to want him the same way, but she wouldn't.

#

"You know she's asked after you," says Bill. "She didn't want to. Held off on it for a coupla days, but I guess her curiosity got the better of her."

"Guess it did," says Lee, still at attention, refusing to let himself ease.

"Doc's gonna let her leave sickbay soon, so you won't be able to avoid her for much longer."

"Mm," says Lee.

"Son, you've got to let it go. Are you really still mad at her after all this time?"

That gets Lee's attention. "You think—? Gods, Dad, I'm not mad at her. Is that really what you think this is about?"

"What the hell am I supposed to think? Even if I could read minds, I'm pretty sure you'd find a way to block me out."

Despite himself, Lee feels bad. Bill had had to go through Kara's disappearance alone. Lee had been all but AWOL, emotionally unavailable. (One can't be emotionally available if one basically doesn't exist.)

"She's scared," Bill continues. "I've never seen her this shaken before. Something happened to her back on Caprica. I don't know what, but it's not pretty. She needs the people who care about her more than ever."

"I seriously doubt she wants to see me."

Bill smiles. "I wouldn't count on that. She's much less of a drama queen than you."

#

When Lee arrives in sickbay, Kara's sleeping, which is about the last thing that he expected. She's been back for a week now. Shouldn't she be stronger? Doctor Cottle keeps insisting that she's fine, but Lee has never seen her look so thoroughly waifish. She's lost weight. Her chin length hair frames her face in such a way to make her look small. Bruises have yellowed but not disappeared.

Just outside of the meager privacy offered by the drawn curtain, the room is quiet and still. Aside from a few sleeping patients, sickbay is mostly empty. A few feet away, Lee hears Cottle grumbling at Ishay about needing a light for his cigarette.

Lee tries to tune it all out, instead focusing on the beacon that is Kara. Lee tries to keep his distance, doesn't allow himself to do what he wants to do so much—touch her. Feel the warmth of her skin again. Confirm that she is alive. Here. Back. Breathing.

"I was waiting for you to confess your undying love to me while you thought I was sleeping, but I guess you're not going to."

Kara's eyes pop open and she's smiling broadly. It's like the last several months haven't happened. Hell, the last several years. Everything feels friendly and open, and aren't they supposed to have all this baggage or something? Kara does this to him, makes him feel like nothing else but the two of them together is worth a damn.

Lee returns Kara's easy smile. "I actually was planning on confessing my undying love, but I wanted to make sure that you were awake. You know, so I could see the look on your face."

Of course he's joking, except that he's not.

"Ah, well, here it is—the look on my face. What do you think?"

"Amazing."

The word just kind of slips out.

That—is that a blush? Yes, it is. She's blushing. Kara's cheeks flush red and she turns away just slightly but not quickly enough so that Lee can't see.

"So I heard you kinda went off the rails a bit when I left," says Kara, changing the subject. Her voice is amused rather than scornful.

"Yeah, well, someone had to replace you."

"Lee Adama, don't you know that I'm irreplaceable?"

Gods yes. He knows. He knows it more than he's ever known anything else. "I'm not sure," says Lee. "I thought I was doing a pretty good job."

"Well, don't be too upset, Understudy. I'm back now. Get used to it."

"I don't know that I ever will," he says, and he does what he promised himself he wouldn't. Allows a little bit of the pain seep its way into his voice. Allows her to know how much he has truly missed her. "I was so sure you were dead Kara. That I'd never see you again. I thought—hey, I already got my one do-over, when you flew back on that raider the first time. I was thinking—" and he pauses, wondering if he should say this. "I was thinking of ways to join you."

There's silence for a moment as Kara absorbs his words, and he has to look away, can't bear to see disgust or rejection on her face. For her to think of him as crazy or a coward.

"I'm here now, Lee," she says.

"Yeah, but for how long?"

"Nothing is forever," she says. "I don't know. We're on a Battlestar with no planet to call home. I'll be here for a while."

Lee isn't going to let her joke her way out of this. "Look, just, can I ask you one thing I have no right to ask you?"

"Shoot." She crosses her arms over her chest, tilts her head slightly to the left, exposing the pale skin of her neck, soft and tender and—focus, Lee.

"Could you," Lee starts, "Could you not frak Gaius again?"

Lords, the humiliation on her face. Maybe he should take it back. But he can't. Doesn't want to. "I know there's no reason for you not to. Gods know, while you were gone I definitely—" She perks up at his insinuation. "I shouldn't have been such an asshole that day. Just please, for me, could you not do it again?"

"So it's okay if, say, I want to frak Hotdog or Chief, just not Gaius? He's your deal breaker?"

Lee laughs and begins to clarify, but he can't find the right words. What is he supposed to say? No, she can't frak anybody but him for the rest of her life? Even though he and Kara have no real history? No claims on each other?

"Speak up, Lee. For frakking once, just speak up and say what's on your godsdamned mind. Maybe that's your problem. Maybe you never say what you're thinking."

"Kara," he starts, and it's hard not to avert his eyes. Her eyes are daring him, and he's not sure he's up to the challenge she's put forth. If he can survive being rejected again.

Rules make his life manageable. Tab A with Tab B. Polish shoes in circles, not lines. Righty tighty, lefty loosey.

These past few weeks have been too unpredictable, and the risk feels too great. He's always standing on the edge, and he's finally about to explode. What good reason does he have to even fight it? After all, isn't that's how all this started—the explosion of the universe? Lee is in a hot, dense state, and maybe it's best to just let nature take its course. Have his own little Big Bang right here in this hospital room with Kara.

"Come on, Lee." Kara sits up, pushes off her covers, and swings her bare legs around to the floor. Her movement is strained, but she manages, and how can such a broke-down woman look so beautiful? "Tell me, would that be okay with you? You want me to get up right now, frak the first guy I see, as long as it's not Gaius?"

Lee doesn't even know what to do when she stands up, her hospital gown painfully short and revealing.

She limps past him, obviously struggling, her head held in defiance. "I wonder how many guys on Galactica want to frak me? Want to make a bet on it, Apollo?" She lets her tongue linger overly long on his call sign

"Kara, sit down," he says, moving to block her way.

"No," she says, hands on her hip, tongue poking out ever so slightly from the side of her mouth.

"I said sit, Kara. That's an order. You can barely walk for gods' sake."

"Why don't you sit? Maybe get a sheet of paper. A pen. Make a pretty plan of exactly what you're going to do. Wouldn't want to go off-program, would you?"

Lee sighs and runs a hand through his hair, looking up as if to pray to the gods. "You're not being fair."

"Right, because you're fair all the time." She throws her hands up wildly as she admonishes him, and he can tell it hurts. Lee doesn't miss the way she tries to covertly clutch her ribs.

"Please, Kara. Sit down."

She finally relents, taking a seat on the cot.

"The answer, of course, is no. I don't want you frakking Hotdog or Chief or anyone else for that matter."

"So then you want me to take a vow of celibacy? I think you've made a gross miscalculation on how exactly hot I burn."

Her implication causes a hot, sudden throb of desire in him.

"Lee?" she says, prodding him, not giving him a chance to think or even breathe. She's too godsdamned close, hogging up his air, causing his skin to become hot and on edge. Gods, he wants to frak her. Right here on this too-small cot, only a curtain away from the rest of sickbay.

Why can't he say it? Why can't he just frakking do it? He spent the last month regretting not going for it when he could, and now she's back, basically begging him to take a chance, and it's like he's thirteen again and none of the girls want him. Wallflower Lee.

"I want you, Kara," he says. "All to myself. Is that good? Is that what you want me to say? Happy now? That after I thought you were dead, I couldn't sort out this whole living business? Couldn't come to terms with being alive in a world that you weren't in?

Her bravado seems to flounder at his frank confession. She's still looking at him, but all of the challenge is gone from her eyes.

"Poetic, Lee," Kara says, and Lee knows it's supposed to be flippant and biting, but she doesn't quite pull it off. There's a tremble in her voice, a hesitancy in her tone. Thank gods. Lee is so over her machismo.

"Don't do that, Kara. You can't bitch at me about being too afraid to say what I want, then write me off like that when I finally do say it because the answer's too much for you. That's not allowed. Grow up. Get over it. Do whatever you have to do. It's okay if you don't feel the same way, but don't make me feel like shit because you can't cope with my feelings."

She turns away and inhales a heavy breath.

"I do, though."

He barely hears her as she says it.

"You do what?" he asks.

"Feel the same way."

She braves a look at him, and Lee can tell she's scared out of her frakking mind. He doesn't let himself smile at her admission. He's too afraid of looking like a fool, all giddy and dopey.

"You sure it's not just the morpha talking?" he asks because now he's the one that needs to deflate the tension.

"So what do we do now, Lee?" Kara asks, not letting him deflect. She's all business. She wants answers. It's go time now, and Kara is full speed ahead.

He vaguely thinks about asking her if she wants to commandeer a raptor, jump to some random point, then frak and embrace frak and embrace until they run out of stores and die in each other's arms, sucked up into the void of space.

But yeah, that's too much, too soon. It's too morbid a thing to wish for, and he doesn't want to frighten her, not when maybe she's coming around.

He really is trying quite earnestly to stamp down his inner drama queen.

#

The eternal question: where do they go from here? Lee can't help but think of his relationship status with Kara as a metaphor for the whole fleet. Even though he hates metaphors and anything not straightforward.

"Can I ask you something?" he says.

It's been a few days since their tell-all in sickbay, and they're eating in the mostly deserted mess.

"What?" Kara asks, not looking up from her food. It's nothing to write home about, but she inhales the slop voraciously. It occurs to him that any meal probably feels like a luxury to her. How had she survived on Caprica? She'd given few details about her journey, only that she arrived, was soon captured, but escaped.

"When I thought you were dead—" he starts, before Kara interrupts him.

"You know, you can stop prefacing everything you say with that. I get it. You were broken without me, blah blah blah. From now on, I'll just automatically insert 'when I thought you were dead' in front of everything you say. Okay?"

Lee rolls his eyes and smiles before continuing. "I went through your things."

"I noticed," she says, letting her spoon dangle from her mouth before removing it and loading it up with more—with more whatever it is that's passing for food these days.

"I saw that book of poems."

"So you're not blind, that's good," says Kara, clearly waiting for him to get to the point.

"You had something underlined."

"Yeah?"

"What did it mean to you? I mean, of all the things you could've marked, why that?" he asks.

Kara shrugs, but she's thinking about the answer. "Mostly because I like it," she says. "I don't know why. I just do. It feels true, even though I can't decipher precisely what it means."

He nods his head, because he understands exactly.

"Not that it's rocket science or anything either," she goes on. "Why do you ask? Is Lee Adama trying to get himself cultured?"

"As if you could school me in culture," he says, stealing what's passing for a chip off her plate.

She sticks out her tongue and pulls in her food tray possessively. "Try that again, and you lose a finger." She waves her fork at him in a threat before continuing to eat.

#

The Pegasus arrives, and Lee just knows this isn't going to end well.

#

"Tell me a secret," Lee says. "Something that if you were to die, it's a little piece of knowledge that would be lost forever."

"It's weird, huh," says Starbuck.

"What?"

"Thoughts. They're the only thing in the worlds that really die when you die. Forever."

"Not if you pass them on," he says.

Of all the conversations they could be having while flying CAP, this is probably the least appropriate. Thank gods for private comm links, and for the calm before the storm. Lee had recognized immediately that Admiral Cain was going to be trouble. Like his father, she believed in her way or no way. A clash is coming.

"Okay, here it goes."

"Mhm?" says Lee, keeping his grip steady on the throttle, enjoying the feel of flying alongside Starbuck.

"There's a part of me that's relieved the worlds ended," she says.

"How come?" he asks, careful to leave any and all judgment out of his voice, especially because he already knows the answer to the question, because he feels the exact same way.

"It just feels so frakking good to be done with all the pretenses of life," she says. Lee sighs. So say we all.

#

Rightness may matter, but there's other shit that matters more: love and trust and loyalty and all those other words they put on silver bracelets and trite tattoos. At the end of the day, being right only buys a person loneliness.

So of course he'll have Kara's back. He'd do it himself, were she to let him. She's got so much on her shoulders already; he'd be more than glad to carry this particular burden for her.

The weight would feel good. Like he was carrying Starbuck. Holding her close. Aside from a few knowing glances and awkward moments, their relationship has remained frustratingly platonic.

#

He catches Kara before the mission gearing up. She bows her head in prayer, clutches her dog tags.

She looks at him, and she's got her game face on.

"You ready?" he asks.

"I never really am," says Kara.

Lee thinks it's the truest true thing she's ever told him.

"We'll get through this, okay?" he says, grabbing her shoulders, ignoring the other Pegasus pilots looking on. Because he can't resist, he plants a chaste kiss on her forehead, lets it linger for a second too long. Even this modest touch is enough to get him riled up. As he's about to break away, she tilts her head up, catching his lips with hers.

It doesn't last long, but for a few seconds, Lee is quite sure he's reached his personal highest ground. Kara breaks the kiss, winks at him before heading out the ready room.

#

Long ago, Lee resolved that death is sometimes preferable to life. Like now. With his lips still buzzing with the memory of Kara.

Stranded in space, finally returned to the void from which he began—it's like falling asleep, or like a memory of falling asleep. Feels so good to remember her flushed cheeks as they broke apart. He's happy now. He's really frakking happy.

He knows that there's something he's supposed to be doing, but he's cold and he can't think clearly. Around him, the battle presses on. That is war, after all. One foot after the other. Lee's so godsdamned tired of it all.

Around him, billions of stars cast a brilliant light, completely oblivious to man's and cylon's trivial conflict. Some of those stars are dead, have been for a long time, nothing but blackness now. Yet their light still reaches Lee here, now, in the very present world.

Maybe he's not ready to give up Kara after all. Death be damned. The light of the Raptor approaches like a descending angel as he's fading in and out of consciousness.

Once he's boarded, they check him for injuries, but it's like they're talking through layers of sand. His brain can only register only one thing: Kara.

He abandoned her entirely without meaning to, and now he's pretty sure everything they've been working toward has collapsed.

"Apollo, can you hear me?"

He can, yes, but he hasn't in him the energy to speak or even nod.

Someone's tapping a wet palm against his cheek. "Apollo? Apollo?"

He jerks away, because all at once every touch that's not coming from Kara feels immediately repulsive.

Lee moves his head from side to side, avoiding the small flash light that shines into his eyes. "I'm fine," he manages, but his head hurts and gods, he's cold. Bodies shouldn't be cold. Bodies should be warm and red and alive. Like Kara's had been the day she returned to him. Bruised and battered, but hot with feeling and a pulse.

Someone helps to sit him up. Boomer, maybe, he can't be sure.

"I feel drunk," he says finally, getting his bearings.

Boomer—yes, it's definitely Boomer—laughs. "You're all right Apollo. You had us all scared to death for a minute.

"Starbuck, is she—did she go through with it?"

Even before the words are completely out of his mouth, he realizes he's said the complete wrong thing, wishes he could take it back.

"The mission was a complete success. Everybody's celebrating."

So it hasn't happened yet. Good. He can still be there for her. That's all he wants right now.

#

Lee can't quite look at her when she comes in and finds him in his rack. Can't quite make words come out of his mouth either. He wants to tell her sorry for not being there for her, wants to confess that he's glad Cain is dead anyway, even though this goes against everything he stands for.

Kara doesn't seem to mind. She climbs into the bed with him, her chest pressed into his back, her legs curling to match his. They breathe in tandem. She kisses the back of his neck and ears.

He thinks maybe she says, "I love you," but he could just be dreaming.

#

They've just finished sparring, and Pegasus's gym reeks with the smell of sweat and blood and engine grease.

A few other pilots are going at it with the punching bags, the sounds of smacking fists punctuating the air.

Kara bites the wrist of her glove to unlatch the velcro, pushes it off her hand using her thigh. Her hair is wet with sweat, her breath heavy with exertion. Lean torso. Flat stomach. All Lee can think is perfect, perfect, perfect.

Once she's undone her gloves and bandages, Kara uses her free hand to scratch at the scar on her belly.

"You okay?" he asks.

"Fine," says Kara. "It just itches sometimes."

"That from back on Caprica?"

"Yep."

Lee wishes he had a coin to toss. Heads or tails—does he or doesn't he press further?

"Just do it, Lee," says Kara. "Ask me. I know you're thinking it."

"What happened?"

"The cylons opened me up, took out some of my pieces. The end."

It takes everything in Lee to stay calm, to not punch something, anything—preferably of the cylon persuasion.

"I'm glad you got out of there," he says. The words fall terribly short, just like they always seem to do.

"Me, too," says Kara. "Wish I hadn't gone there at all."

"I'm sorry for how I treated you that day. It's my fault you left Kara. I did this to you, and I wish to gods there was something I could do to go back. I don't know, find a wormhole or something."

"I'm sorry, too, Lee," she says. He doesn't know what she's apologizing for, or if she's even apologizing at all. Maybe what she means is: what a frakking sorry ass situation we're all in, me and you especially.

Lee takes his index finger and reaches it out tentatively, checking Kara's face for a reaction. When she doesn't protest, he traces his finger along the scar, delighting in the way she shivers under his touch.

"Scars are our history. Our story," Lee says.

#

They're always touching. A hand on the shoulder. A finger grazing the cheek.

Lee pushes a lock of hair—longer than he's seen it in a very long time—behind Kara's ear. Kara uses her thumb to wipe off the chocolate smeared at the side of his lips. It had cost him a liter of whiskey, but it was worth it. As long as there was a will, alcohol would find away, but who knows when the colonies would be able to produce chocolate again?

They walk down the hall and their fingers keep catching each other. They're not exactly holding hands. Just going bump, then bump again, then bump again.

"People are catching on," Lee says.

"To what, exactly?" asks Kara. "Oh, Apollo and Starbuck are caressing furtively! Alert Admiral Adama! It's not like there's anything to actually catch on to."

It's an accusation, Lee thinks. That they're not moving fast enough. That she wants more. Gods forbid she actually say that. For someone so hell bent on getting him to be more forward about her desires, she's quite passive-aggressive about hers.

"Do you want there to be something for them to catch on to, Kara?"

Noting the empty passageway, he pushes her against the wall, leans down so his lips are right over her ear. "Is this what you want?" Lee moves himself into her so she can feel how much he wants her.

She smiles, but it's all wrong. Her usual cocky grin is long gone, replaced by something coy and knowing.

"Right here, Lee?" she says. There it goes again—the dare in her eyes.

"Frak that," he says. "I'm a commander now, remember?"

Now that this is finally going to happen, he finds that his teenage self has taken over—his teenage self before he devised his own set of rules and regulations for every godsdamned situation. He grabs Kara's hand tightly, rushes her through the corridors toward his private room.

Lee wants to be gentle, but gods, every part of him is screaming now, now, now. His body is tense and shaking, desperate for her. He needs to feel her and devour her and be a part of her. Is that too much to ask? No. Can't be. Lee needs to believe their togetherness is possible. In the grand scale of the universe, rearranging it so that Kara and Lee are always side by side is such a very small thing.

When they finally enter his quarters, they let their lips collide together. Since the Day of the Spacewalk, as Kara has dubbed it, they've shared many kisses, but none like this. This is mad and unruly. No couth to be found. Tongues tangle and invade. Teeth crash and bite.

Lee and Kara are grabbing at each other, hands meandering under layers of clothes. Unable to wait any longer, he pushes her back toward the bed. Lee tries to be gentle as he lays her down, presses himself on top of her, but he knows he's failing. Her fingers are clawing his back, marking him up, ruining the smooth skin. Gods, please let there be scars, he thinks. Let there be evidence on his flesh tomorrow and forever that this is happening.

"Take those off," he says, forcing their mouths apart, gesturing to her tanks. He removes his own shirt and watches her as she fumbles to lift the fabric over her head.

And how the frak has he never seen this before? He's caught her naked form in profile, maybe. Seen her in skivvies and a bra—but her top bare in front of him, gods it isn't fair that he's only just now seeing this. "So beautiful," he says, watching her breasts rise and fall with the in and out of her breaths.

He drags his fingers down her cheek, her neck, her chest. She moans as he grazes his thumb along her skin. Kara pushes her chest up, needy and impatient.

"Lee, please."

"Please what, Kara?"

"I don't know, just—more."

Her voice, as rough and pleading as his own, sends him to an even higher level of arousal. He bends down and runs his tongue along the pulse point of her neck, uses one hand to reach under the waistband of her trousers to grab her thigh, and the other to caress her nipple.

She's moaning and writhing against him, and yes, Lee would be quite happy to do this the rest of his life. Make Kara mewl and beg and come apart at his touch.

Kara pulls Lee down on top of her, pushing her pelvis up to meet him. And frak this. He can't wait. In seconds Lee is fumbling with the buttons of his trousers, then with Kara's.

He pulls at her panties, and she's already so wet for him. He slides his bare cock against the soaking wet fabric, moving himself against her as she simultaneously bucks into him.

"Inside," she says. He knows that as soon as he slides into her, he'll be lost in a matter of milliseconds.

He continues to jerk his cock against her as he returns his mouth to her lips, her neck. One free hand traces the scar on her belly while another squeezes the flesh of her butt.

Kara moves her hips more quickly into him. Her nails are breaking skin as she loses herself in the drive to finish. Her whole body is slick with sweat beneath him, and as he rubs up against her, her eyes closed, he really can't tell his skin from her skin anymore. His heavy breaths, louder than usual, blend in with her rasping cries.

Kara starts to stiffen as she pulses herself into his cock, calling his name as she climaxes.

Lee doesn't waste any time. He's already waited too damn long for this. He pushes her panties aside and slides into her slowly, letting her get used to the feel of his hard length before moving in deeper.

He tries for slow, controlled strokes, but she's having none of it. Her legs latch around his back, pulling him down, forcing him in harder. It's all he can do not to explode inside of her right then and there. Kara rubs her clit as he drives in and out of her, and Lee's watching her like a man possessed. The sight of her right now would be enough to kill a man. Too godsdamn hot to be real.

Kara uses her free hand to encourage him to move faster, and by the time he's nearing his release, his thrusts are almost violent. As she starts to tremble again, biting his neck hard to stifle the sound of her moan as she comes, Lee follow quickly behind.

It's like what he was thinking before. A hot, dense state, finally reaching the point of combustion. He can't see or hear or think or smell. Only feel. Nothing has ever felt this good.

Lee rolls off Kara and pulls her into him, their breaths still heavy and fast as they spoon, her back against his chest and abs.

He'd talk, but he's got nothing to say? Nothing feels right or good enough, so they lie there, limbs twisting and weaving together.

Then finally: "It's good to finally be together," says Kara. She takes his hand, kisses each finger.

They shuffle around for a moment so that they're facing. They rest their foreheads against each other's, clasp their hands together. He is inhaling her air, and she his. Outside, the tempest may still be wailing, but together, right now, Kara and Lee are quiet and still.

End.



 *If you read and enjoyed, please take a moment to let me know.

Comments

[embolalia.livejournal.com]

You did a really lovely job on this! It feels exactly like I imagine the inside of Lee Adama's head feels, especially the drama queen moments :) And the scene with Kara in sickbay just perfectly captured how she was in season one, so quick to jump from aggressive to defensive to shy. If only things had gone this way!

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Isn't he SUCH a drama queen? During the rewatch last night, I just couldn't get over what a moody, high-strung angst bear he was being. But I find it totally adorable, and since I'm kind of a drama king myself, it was kind of fun to write him as an emotional wreck.

I'm glad you liked the sickbay scene. It was the most difficult bit to write, so it's nice to hear that it worked out.

Thank you so much for your lovely comment, Em! cheers

[mserrada.livejournal.com]

Haven't read it yet. Will comment on it once I do, but I wanted to drop a quick line because I can't find the link on bsg2003fic that directs to this story. Could be a FAIL on my side, but you might want to check it out.

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Nope, it was definitely a me fail. Le Sigh. Got it fixed now, and thank you so much for bringing it to my attention. Can't wait to hear what you think of it!

[websofseaweed.livejournal.com]

Wow.

this has got to be one of the most beautiful fics I have ever read. Part of me can't help but wish that the actual series had gone this way. You captured their dynamic so well-- the depth of their need for each other, and their fear, and the crazy love and devotion that makes them so perfect.

Thank you so much for writing this. I am bookmarking it and I'm sure I will be coming back to reread it many times in the future! I hope to see more Lee/Kara fic from you ;-)

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

*blush*

Your comment made me swoon a bit. Thank you so much for reading. I must admit, I used to be a little bit ambivalent about Kara/Lee, but reading and writing fic has made a convert out of me. Their intensity and dynamism is so compelling to watch develop, and I've had fun exploring it with my own stories.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, love. cheers.

[rirenec.livejournal.com]

Oh, I liked the dialogue in this and I can very much see this being Lee's head space. He's so desperate here. Loved it :)

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

Isn't Lee's head totally full of tah crazy? Instead of a frontal lobe and a hypothalamus and a medulla oblongata he's got little blobbing muscles of angst. I just wanted to pat his little booty and say, "I promise you a happy ending is coming."

Good to hear your thoughts, ma dear. cheers.

[onlyariana.livejournal.com]

Very angsty but I liked it. I loved Kara kinda grumpy about how she wasn't getting any. I just really like the two of them together. The playful banter and the shared competence. You really told it all well.

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, this was definitely angsty. I tried to make most of the Kara/Lee actions kind of sweet and playful to balance out Lee's various dark thoughts. I'm glad that seemed to pay off. Thank you so much for commenting, love.

[apodixis.livejournal.com]

I loved all the little twists from canon, how everything is similar but not exactly the same.

And gods! I love your storytelling so much. I've been working on a few different pieces at once and I always end up frustrated over my wording. I wish I had your gift!

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Re: canon. Sigh. I basically ended up writing out everything that I didn't want to deal with: Sam/the Resistance, assassin!Boomer, etc. So it was fun to offer up a slightly account of events. I especially love the Lassie-like raider.

And thank you for such a lovely compliment. I literally jumped up and ran through my apartment when I read it. You're a brilliant writer, my love, but trust me -- I know what it is to get frustrated when every single combination of words feels wrong or clunky somehow. Writing good prose = so, so difficult. wicked_sassy was an excellent beta, and I don't know if you have one or not, but sometimes it's just nice to get other eyes on things to help point out weird constructions and whatnot.

Anyway, so glad that you enjoyed the story, duck. cheers.

[koolaidmom11.livejournal.com]

Wow! This was so emotional and evocative mad I really, really loved it. Being inside Lees head was killing me but I can totally see him self-destructing like that.

In short, it was beautiful.

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you, thank you L!

Poor Lee. He really was on a bit of a bender in this. I just felt like the show never fully explored what his grief would be like when forced to live in a world without Kara -- especially after she died in Maelstrom.

I'm glad that you liked it. Your comments always mean so very much to me.

[kdbleu.livejournal.com]

This has such a nice balance between angst and banter which really makes the whole piece. That and the believably happy ending.

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

My motto is, "I'll put up with infinite amounts of angst as long as there's a happy ending."

I'm glad that the banter and playful interactions between Kara and Lee helped balance this out. That was my hope.

So much of this was snarky!Lee -- which comes out every now and again on the show. It was fun to explore that side of him alongside angsty!Lee.

Thanks so much for your comment, K. cheers :P

[mserrada.livejournal.com]

ROFL over the markers above Starbuck's bunk.

You did a great job of making so many of Lee's 'drama queen' moments both painful and sort of humorous: "Frak you, and frak my Viper. I'll be in my rack hanging myself. Good bye."

The twists on canon, not having Lee mutiny against his dad, works very well here. (and no mention of Sam. imagine that ;^)

Liked that the Raider brought Starbuck home, like it was looking out for her. Maybe she should name it Lassie? Good goat *pats it*

Well balanced sickbay scene between Injured/Kara trying to get through to Locked-down/Lee. She was both forceful and fearful.

'Just not Gaius'--boy, Lee sure knows how to woo a girl :)

There interchanges and banter felt so like them. Nicely done.

I thoroughly enjoyed this look at how Lee could've reacted to Kara's loss. Thanks for an excellent piece!

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

YAY. So happy you appreciated the humor! I was feeling sooo very snarky when I wrote this fic.

Lassie!Raider. I just talked about that in a comment to somebody else? Did you see that, or did we just mind meld? IF WE DID, WE ARE OBVIOUSLY SOUL MATES.

Writing out Sam was so incredibly easy. Lol, I got through writing the whole fic without even remembering his character popped up around this time.

Anyway, thank you so very much for the comment. Made me smile and giggle :o)

[shah-of-blah.livejournal.com]

This whole story is beautiful. You've got an excellent grasp of both the characters and this era in the story. I'm kind of curious about some of the other AU-y elements, such as did Kara get the arrow, why didn't she find Helo and Sharon, did Boomer shoot Adama, did Crashdown die, etc. etc. Any thoughts on writing a sequel of some sort? :P

This is all the human race has left, these kinds of choices.

I think this is my favorite line. Absolutely chilling.

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you so much! So lovely to hear from someone I haven't heard from before. Writing this fic drained me pretty dry, so I'm glad that it paid off for readers.

Re: the AU-y elements. I really struggled with this. I didn't want to over explain things, especially since I was so closely following Lee's POV. My hope was that readers would just assume what I wanted them to, but I don't think it quite worked out. Alas! Something to work on in future stories. A sequel isn't out of the question but probably unlikely. In my world, Boomer doesn't shoot Adama, and Helo/Athena/Sam/Resistance just doesn't happen.

So good to hear from you, love. That was one of my favorite lines, too. :P

cheers

[wicked-sassy.livejournal.com]

Oh, my dear, I love the final result! SO GOOD. I really like the tweaks you made from when I first saw it, and I also like what you kept and didn't change. If I could cuddle this fic, I would.

The scene where Lee learns about Kara's Caprica scars is excellent. Love this especially: "Scars are our history. Our story."

YES YES YES.

Oh, and the last line is gorgeous. <3 <3 <3 Well-done!

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU!

Your advice was soooo helpful. I tried to add more visual/action/descriptive details to ground the story more...and of course, that sparring/scar scene.

I pretty much took all of your advice, though I could not let go of Wallflower Lee as well a few other things. And, and, and, it was beyond hard to let go of "sepulchre." I'm still angsting a little bit about it.

You were so unbelievably helpful, and I'm so thankful we're now a pair. Nora/Deena fuhevah.

[margaretmoony.livejournal.com]

My heart, it breaks.

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Oh, love! Thank you so much for the comment. I can't seem do anything without angst these days, but I hope the ending was happy enough to make their journey together worth it. Poor Lee. I am so mean to him.

[pocochina.livejournal.com]

Really, you had me at "serious angst bear," but oh my goodness this is a fantastic look into Lee's poor messed-up mind.

And LOL, he thinks he has an inner drama queen. No, Leland, that's just you.

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

lol. Oh thank you, darling. I mean, I feel like "serious angst bear" is the only way to describe him in this. Such a cutie with all his wallowing and sadness and brooding. I love a brooding man. I really do.

queen!Lee = my favorite.

Thanks again. This was such a joy to write, and hearing that folks enjoyed it makes me get all tingly.

[koolaidmom11.livejournal.com]

I just read this again...slower


It's EVEN better the second time

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Awwwww! Thank you so much, my love. I'm so glad this has been getting so many positive responses. I was worried it might be a bit too angsty for general consumption. Has anyone ever told you that you are the sweetest, most awesome thing?

[elzed.livejournal.com]

Very enjoyable rewrite of canon with so many of the irritating bits left out - and I lovd the touches you added; like Kara's bunk; and Lee going off the rails and frakking around, and how they finally give into each other (also? hot)

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Thank you, thank you! I didn't even intentionally leave out the irritating bits. It was just like, "meh." Actually, writing this made me realize how contrived some of the Kara/Lee conflicts were, re: Sam, etc.

I'm glad you liked Kara's bunk. That was my favorite part to write, hehe. And I love angsty!slutty!Lee. Especially when he gets to use all his new sexin skillz on Kara.

Thank you again for dropping by to comment :o) Means the world to me.

[requialexa.livejournal.com]

Man, when I first started reading this (the first time) I thought it was great but cracky...but then the story really grabbed me and I got sucked into this just slightly skewed alternate version of them. And it stole my soul!!
There was so much I loved and there was one line that gutted me but I can't remember which one...and so many lines to lol at and then so much hot.

"With all due respect, Sir, if one can't be a drama queen during the Apocalypse, when can one?" Oh, all the drama queen stuff was lovely and I wish Papa really had talked to Lee a little more like that...not belittling him but just calling him on his shit, showing him how to own his own feelings.

"So then you want me to take a vow of celibacy? I think you've made a gross miscalculation on how exactly hot I burn." Oh, gods I love that line! Such honesty, so true to Starbuck's character and more gender-line bending, just like so much of what is Kara. And his reaction *guh*

"It just feels so frakking good to be done with all the pretenses of life," she says. Lee sighs. So say we all. Wow. This bit was so original and so true to them, at least in this universe. I loved this secret! I loved the whole section about thoughts and mortality. Brilliant!

And I loved this version of the space walk and his silence after. And then teh secksytimes. *dies* I love this fic so much! I cannot wait for more from you!! I had to wait til I was on a proper computer to comment on this so I could type on a proper keyboard (rather than my phone or kindle) because I had so much to say. There are still so many parts of this I could talk about. I have to stop. You'll get the big head and I want you to keep writing :D

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Oh my lords.

Best. Comment. Ever.

Lol, it's funny that you found this to be cracky at first. May I ask what seemed particularly unbelievable? Was Lee too much of an angst bear? At any rate, I'm glad that you were able to be drawn into the story anyway.

The drama queen/Apocalypse line was my favorite to write. I admit, I was feeling a bit snarky when I wrote this (which is probably where the crack vibes are coming from). Snarky!Lee makes me swoon. Thank you for pointing out all of the particular lines that grabbed you. It makes me feel all swoony and blushy.

Re: secksytimes. ISN'T PORNS TEH BEST?

Anyway, thank you so so so so so so so much for the long, lovely comment. Yes, yes, yes, you are amazing.

[kivryn.livejournal.com]

Love it! Such an interesting look into Lee's head. I especially love how your Kara pushes and pushes him and he actually doesn't back off! (leading of course to sexytimes <3) Wish the show had given us this!

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Kiv, thank you so much, love. It was so much fun to devise an alternative universe where Kara and Lee could come together earlier on. My thought was to imagine how Lee might feel after Maelstrom...and how after Kara's return after that, he was just so thankful for her return, and she was so thankful for his trust in her, and that brought them together. So I tried to make something like that dynamic happen earlier on.

Anyway, thanks again and cheers :o)

[pennyante.livejournal.com]

Lee searches for her everywhere, in the places that no one else would think to look. In bowls of porridge. In pipes leaking water. In the grease stains of Chief's orange jumpsuit.

I mean, right? No one thinks to look there because no one else sees in KaraVision(TM).

But seriously, what beautiful details.

Never before has Galactica felt more like a machine now that Kara isn't here to soften the ship's hard edges.

I love that you made me think about this—that the battlestar goes back and forth between being animal and machine. How better to describe the difference between Pegasus and Galactica than to say that Pegasus was *more of a machine*? Also, I believe in this detail. Lee Adama doesn’t speak in similes metaphors, but he thinks in them, because of his abstraction-brain.

She is dead in some far-off star system, her cylon raider torn and scarred, her body blue.

And this, on the other hand, is almost breathtakingly literal. I really felt, at this moment, how committed (angstbear) Lee is to the self-protection mechanism that is believing Kara to be dead. And I love that the self-protection mechanism only changes a little, in this fic, once it turns out she’s alive.

For a moment Lee feels kindred with the raider. The machine had inexplicably jumped back to the fleet and piloted a landing all in order to protect Starbuck. It doesn't make sense. This is an equation with no solution. But Kara does that—draws things in against their better judgment.

To see Lee being self-conscious about his passion ruling his reason, when it comes to Kara, is good for the heart wounded by canon. I love the writing here. “This is an equation with no solution.” Indeed.

--
I’m reading new fics for the first time in a long while (I’ve been avoiding them because crazy me is afraid that someone else has already written my story and I’m burying my head in the sand to avoid knowing). But I saw this one posted and I’m so glad I read it tonight--it was a delight of plausible emotions, canonical detailing, and solid writing! Hooray for this! Can't wait to dig into some of your others sometime when I've had more sleep!

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes yes. Lee developed and patented KaraVision™ in secret. This is so that he could angst and brood and sulk about ghost!Kara in private. LEE IS A CLOSET HERMIT, DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND? :p Anyway, thank you for pointing that line out because it's truly one of my favorites -- because, because I always remember folks when looking at the most mundane of things. And I do love how everything in the worlds started together before combusting into a bajillion pieces. Hence the Gattaca epigraph!

This fic -- this fic, heh. It was somewhat inspired by this very, very, very well-done story: Periapsis. Have you read it? It's what I was going for tonally, though the characterizations are different for a few obvious reasons. Anyway, re: his coping mechanism (assuring himself that Kara is dead), though not canon-consistent, is something I could see him doing. And well, I honestly felt like his suicidal ideation in Resurrection II needed more build up.

Anyway, I'm so glad you found time to read this and leave such a thoughtful comment -- especially if you're on a fic-reading moratorium!

[kozulina12.livejournal.com]

One of the best K/L fics - hot and angsty and so THEM. Is that a new one? Never seen it before. Thank you so much, enjoyed it!

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Oh wow! Thank you so much! What a thoughtful comment, and I feel so very flattered. This fic was a lot of fun to work on, but it did take a lot out of me; so I'm glad it has seemed to pay off for folks. And yes, this is a new fic! I'm fairly new to the fandom in general :p So happy that you enjoyed, and I hope to hear from you again on future fics :o)

[helikedmyshoes.livejournal.com]

What I love most about this, and what struck me even more than all the angsting, is the courtship between Lee and Kara after the talk in sickbay. I like that they're stuck in this weird place after all the confessions, that they talk more and spend more time together while all that undercurrent sexual tension runs hot between them. The hands touching, the scene in Lee's rack. Those really rang true and deep, and while I loved the angst and thought it was really well done, it's this part that really felt true and real. Beautiful.

Also, you write awesome porn. :)

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Oh, hey there! Thank you so much for the lovely review. I feel so happy when I hear from folks I don't usually hear from. I really appreciate your thoughts.

I definitely agree that angstbear!Lee doesn't hold a candle to Kara/Lee bonding. Actually, I think that a sequel might be in the works; I'd like to explore a lot more of their coming together. Their relationship is so intriguing, and there are a million and one ways for the story of *them* to unfold.

And I'm glad you liked the porn :p

I hope to hear from you again, love!

[abelard369.livejournal.com]

omg, amazing. my favorite fic of the new year. thank you thank you thank you for the perfect rendering of lee, pining for his perfect (oh, so imperfect) kara. this is exactly how i think of lee: wanting, wanting, wanting her so badly, and why can't she see it? and i love that in your story, she finally does and maybe always did, and finally lets them both see it at the same time. their perfect pilot love. just beautiful. you are an excellent writer. thank you so much for writing this.

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Awww, shucks...What an amazing comment, love. You know, I was having quite a dreary day, then bam, this review in my inbox -- definitely brightened things up a fair bit. I'm so glad that you liked this. I think the only person who wants Kara more than I do is, perhaps, Lee, and I'm glad I captured that here. Thank you very much for reading and commenting. I'm doing all kinds of blushing over here. Your kind words definitely restored some of my confidence in this fic. Hope to hear from you again, cheers :p

[n-e-star.livejournal.com]

That was amazing.

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you so much, love! It was very fun to write, I must admit, and I'm so glad that you were able to enjoy it. Now I'm off to finish another fic in hopes of posting tonight. Cheers :p

[sci-fi-shipper.livejournal.com]

Another great fic with wonderful insights. I think you are writing a fresh and invigorating take on Lee that I enjoy immensely. I look forward to reading more!

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

This fic was angstbear!Lee. This was partly inspired by apodixis's fic. (Have you read it? I don't want to spoil things!).

I wanted to explore grief in a closer way than the show did (not that they should've done it more. They had a lot on their plates plot-wise). But that's what fic is about, yeah? Exploring holes. Thank you for reading and commenting. I'm so overwhelmed.

[koolaidmom11.livejournal.com]

Norah! I just read this again and it just feels so real and true and right!!

This...is exactly how he felt

Perfect

[letterstonorah.livejournal.com]

Oh dear! What a lovely comment. I'm so glad that this fic has had so many positive responses, because it is in many ways my One True Fic, and it's the first one I had betaed by the lovely wicked_sassy. Thank you for letting me know you re-read it. Made me so happy to read your comment :p

[damao2010.livejournal.com]

I started to read this when it was posted by I wasn't able to finish it then and I forgot about it later. (Bad me.) I'm glad you mentioned it today at NoTakebacks. I love the angst. It feels incredibly real. I love your writing. The images and the language are so rich and so insightful. The characterization feels spot on, too. Not only Kara and Lee. I loved the bits with Adama and Laura, as well. I hope you continue to write and write and write. :)