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angelicalangieTitle: Wounds
Rating:PG - if only for one word of language
Character: Lee Adama/ Kara Thrace
Category: Character Exploration
Summary: Some situations never change, but sometimes the people in them do.
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Notes: Comments are welcome, this is entirely unbeta'd, please no flames! - I did have issues with tenses (so if you spot them and have any ideas on what I should have done, yell out in the comments) This is only unbeta'd purely because I don't know anyone into BSG to beta my work :( If you know of someone who may help me, or would like to beta me please let me know.
The world feels strangely like it is repeating itself. All this has happened before, and will happen again. He doubted the book of Pythia had been talking about Kara at the time, but he smiled to himself as he thought that maybe, just maybe Kara had taken the line a little to heart. The first time he had seen Kara, in the intervening two years since his brother's passing, and it had been in a brig. This brig to be precise. Though it looked a little different. Kara's redecoration had certainly made it look more spacious. He'd give her decorating advice a miss for his own quarters though.
Before he enters his mind takes him back. To that first encounter on Galactica, when they had both been so young. When they had not had the impact of the worlds ending and the fight to remain alive, the worries of marriages, of abductions, of politics and commands on their shoulders. When one hadn't either disappeared yet, or died.
Five years previously
He had saluted the NCO at the door, before moving to the figure on the floor doing press ups. He looked at the woman he had met slightly more than a handful of times. The woman who had been engaged to his brother. Who he had shamelessly flirted with whilst drunk and nearly taken on the dinning room table – the night he had met her whilst his brother slept not 20 feet away. He deep down regretted those actions, and even further down regretted not having taken the chance when he had had it. And here he was watching her in the brig, because her wild and reckless ways had caught up with her once more. He shook his head as her leaned on the bars of the brig and finally spoke.
“This seems familiar.”
Kara Thrace stopped at the apex of her press-up and turned her head to see the speaker. Of course she had known someone was there, and before he had reached the bars she had known it was him. She, of course, would not give him the satisfaction of any surprise. Especially as they had been scheduled to fly the fly-past together. Had been, before Tigh, before his mouth had gotten in the way. Before her temper had flared and before she had to assume some kind of bravado about having her wings clipped.
“Captain Adama, Sir. Sorry I wasn't there to greet you with the rest of the squdron. Did they kiss your ass to your satisfaction?” The bravado would have to continue.
Lee snorted, a part of him wanted to laugh, wanted to share in the bravado and recklessness. He was however, the senior officer, and that could be construed by all and sundry – sundry being Kara – as encouragement.
“So – what are the charges this time.”
He smiled, tried to let her know that he wasn't the enemy. He couldn't help however, but show the disappointment in his eyes. He knew her strength in the cockpit. Knew her intelligence. Hell, he'd been on the receiving end of her attacks both in the air and on the Pyramid court with his brother. For the briefest of moments they sized each other up and the conversation continued.
“Hmm,” she looked off into the distance to work through the steady list of retorts to why, when asked, she was there. Inspiration, or perhaps just knowledge of Lee's humor, lead her to a preferred line.“Striking a superior asshole.”
The friends angle had worked, he thought to himself, as they both leaned away from the bars in friendly joviality. Before straightening up and nodding as he decided he knew her well enough that she would have been thinking of that line for a while. Something to distract her whilst she whiled the hours in the brig away.
“Ah, and I bet you have been waiting all day to say that one.”
There was just the slightest amount of resignation in his voice. Somethings would never change about her. This was the one thing he had hoped working on a ship with his father would have ironed out. No such luck there then. She looked up into the corner of the room nodding in agreement.
“Most of the afternoon, yeah.”
“Right,” they laughed quietly and tightly. An atmosphere brewing between the pair.
“How long's it been?” She knew the answer before he would speak it. Knew the distance, felt it in the conversations she had had with his father.
“Two years,” Lee replied the atmosphere dropped again and this time it had a physical sensation not unlike the one you got when you had a sharp descent. It was the type you felt in your stomach.
“Two years,” she agreed. “We must be getting old. Seems like the funeral was just a couple months ago.”
Lee's face sharply dropped from the warm smile it had been moments before to something a lot more drawn in. A sadness crept over his features as the conversation veered into areas he would rather not have to go into.
“Your old mans doing fine. We don't talk about it much. Maybe two, three times a year.” Her eyes bored into him, searching something out, perhaps it was just a way of connecting, she had felt the barrier the moment he walked in. Or may she was just needing someone to sympathize with both her and the old man. “He still struggles with it though.” And suddenly Lee dropped one of those barriers down, he became uncomfortable, he body language changed. He stepped away from the bars, away from her. Perhaps as a way of walking away from the hurt and the sting veiled in her words.
“I haven't seen him,” he didn't look her in the eyes with that admission. Couldn't. Apparently the bond they had forged on this ship was strong enough for her to know more then he did from afar. But then, he had been the one that had pushed his father away. A punishment for crimes from a child perspective. He still felt those wounds. The wounds of desertion, of betrayal, of expectations and of the parent left behind weakened and fragile – seeking solace in alcohol to cover her own failings. Perhaps that was why he blamed his father for all the events that came after, because there was no one else that he could - and all the what if's had come after his leaving.
Kara pushed closer to Lee, eyes widened and in stronger position than Lee in that moment. Despite the bars keeping her captive. She was pushing her point. She was not known for subtlety. But when she enacted it, the point was hammered home just as soundly as if she had made a pointed, barbed comment. “Why not?”
“Kara, don't even start.” It was a warning, but one coming from a place of hurt, and not carrying any real threat.
“How long are you going to do this?”
“I'm not doing anything.” Another of those moments in the conversation that made him feel awkward cropped up, but she was not done just yet.
“He lost his son, Lee.”
“And who is responsible that?” Same wounds came up, same chip on the shoulder. She seemed to know exactly what button to push to get the same response from him. And just as suddenly as open space had crept up on them, they were squaring off against each other.
“Same old Lee,” The slight zing of derision tainted her voice as she spoke.”You haven't changed either.”
For a moment neither said anything. Lee looked at Kara as though engaging with her for the first time. An icy filter shuttered down his eyes, before anger took hold, his face changed from blank coldness, to one of indignation of hurt and anger all swilling around making for a potent brew. And then hurt took hold of him and his words.
“Zak was my brother.” How, he thought, could she not understand what that meant? Did she not know that he had been the one to take responsibility for Zak through his childhood, protected him, helped him with his homework and some nights even fed him. How then, could she not know what his brother meant to him.
“What was he to me? Nothing?” She visibly locked down her feelings, the words came out as a sarcastic retort.
“That's not what I meant. And you know it.” Lee knew when he had made the wrong move. Sometimes talking with Kara, he felt he was playing Pyramid all over again. He had to think objectively, had to thing three moves ahead and be strategic. It made for exhausting times. Perhaps that was why they hadn't spoken since the funeral.
“You know what Lee, you should go. I'm getting the urge to hit another superior asshole.” She may as well have, was all Lee could think in reply – after the fact. But lee knew when the getting was good, or as good as it would get. And he knew when to leave the conversation before tempers truly did overspill, and life became more difficult than it needed to be.
And now here they were, the same situation, right back where they started. But perhaps he could hope, they were different people. The wounds of the past had, to a greater or lesser degree, been put to rest and sutured as best as could be expected. Life had taken them in such vastly different directions. She had died, and he couldn't rectify how she was here lying in the same brig as she had been that first time on Galactica. But this time was different. She was not active doing push ups to while away the hours til she could be in a bird. She was in a corner, and for all the worlds she looked trapped and yet she still hat that grin, the know-it-all grin that could toss everything away. The door to the brig opened and Lee entered.
“Uhm, Zarek nominated me for the vacant Quorum spot, so uhm...” he drifted off not knowing where else to take that sentence. There are just too many variables to it and this isn't the type of situation he is used to. Well seeing Kara in the Brig is oddly familiar, but him not part of the colonial forces, him leaving. These are things that are disturbing his normal conversational flow.
“You're Zarek's wingman.” It's simply a joke, but it hits harder to home than he would have like to recognise.
“Alright, alright you know, stow it. I have heard it all before now. The guy's a piece of work I know. His head's as big as the house I grew up in. But I'm pretty new to all of this and I could use the help. Besides, I never really could say no to anything.” He smiled at her, and he thinks a thousand other thoughts, and none of them have anything to do with Zarek, or the Quorum.
“Except me.” And she is wrong and he suddenly wants to make her see that she is wrong. And he still doesn't know what it is he should say exactly, but he just says anything.
“Especially you.” An understanding look passes between them, but there is not as much understanding going on as he would like. He is certain that she is only thinking about the recent past. He is thinking about it all. And what a tangled web they've woven over the past few years. “You know, I think I finally understand what you meant about having a destiny. I've got to do this and the fact that I don't have an explanation as to why … doesn't really seem to matter anymore.
The beatific smile radiates from her, but it is only half there. She is so wounded by the people around her viewing her with distrust and fearing her. And she is so distracted by what she thinks is her destiny – and for all he knows that is real – that talking to her is like talking to someone who is try to hold conversations at the same time. It's impossible to gauge her thoughts, or her feelings.
“It's so surreal.”
“So say we all.” He can't think of anything else to say, or feel. There are a thousand miles of pent up feelings and he purses his lips keeping them all in. Fighting for the strength to continue his conversation to prolong whatever is about to come around the corner, because here he feels safe. The emotions battle through him and he lets out a breath as though he were about to say something. And then Kara looks as though she is going to say something. But she doesn't. She gets up instead and moves towards him and instead proffers her hand.
“Good luck on your journey, Lee Adama.” There is an honesty in the simplicity of her words. And this is a long, long way from where they had started in this brig, all that time ago. They aren't the cocky, head-sure youngsters they had been back then. He looked at her hand and took it firmly in his. The emotions war on his face as he thinks about her and all that has happened since she came back.
“You too, Kara Thrace.” And then the moment broke, as all moments do. There was awkwardness and uncertainty, yet they remained looking at each other and a whispered; “alright” escaping as he turned around and began walking towards the door to be let out.
“Lee.” Kara called out, he turned and her emotions this time war on her face, and the openness and the honesty and the fact that this once she is letting him catch him unaware and before he knows it he is kissing her. He holds her head possessively holding her to him, tasting her lips. He lets her know with his mouth that there is a part of him that belongs to her, that he will never desert her, before finally finishing with a kiss on her forehead, followed by kisses on her face. Of all the mistakes he has made – she was never one of them, and he knows that to his core. Breath is laboured and urgency abounds in a room within a room.
“I believe you.” He gives her something to cling to, to hold to. To hold fast, and never let go of. The hold each other for as long as they dare. He may not be married, but she still is. Though perhaps propriety was jettisoned a while back.
He leaves her in the room within a room. He can hardly call her second home – of a sorts – the brig, a jail. As he walks to the briefing room, along corridors her has paced and run and conversed along – he is still thinking of her. And him. Of who thy used to be, and who they are. Epiphanies these days seem to be a common commodity and he feels like he may be having one again. When he joined this ship in the early days of the war, he was wounded and putting himself back together. She was the one that had some semblance of a life and had seemingly moved on after his brothers accident.
Now the tables had turned. She was the one wounded. Lee was certain she never got over what that frakker Leoben had done to her on New Caprica, and now she was being lumped in with his kind in more than a few peoples minds. He didn't know what had happened out there. He had seen plenty of things he thought were impossible. This didn't seem too far out of the ordinary, these days. All he truly knew was she was his Kara, and she hurt like he had. She had helped him with his wounds, the Gods only knew how. So now, he decided for himself, he would help her. He just had to figure out how, amongst all the insanity he was about to be plunged into.
Rating:PG - if only for one word of language
Character: Lee Adama/ Kara Thrace
Category: Character Exploration
Summary: Some situations never change, but sometimes the people in them do.
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Notes: Comments are welcome, this is entirely unbeta'd, please no flames! - I did have issues with tenses (so if you spot them and have any ideas on what I should have done, yell out in the comments) This is only unbeta'd purely because I don't know anyone into BSG to beta my work :( If you know of someone who may help me, or would like to beta me please let me know.
The world feels strangely like it is repeating itself. All this has happened before, and will happen again. He doubted the book of Pythia had been talking about Kara at the time, but he smiled to himself as he thought that maybe, just maybe Kara had taken the line a little to heart. The first time he had seen Kara, in the intervening two years since his brother's passing, and it had been in a brig. This brig to be precise. Though it looked a little different. Kara's redecoration had certainly made it look more spacious. He'd give her decorating advice a miss for his own quarters though.
Before he enters his mind takes him back. To that first encounter on Galactica, when they had both been so young. When they had not had the impact of the worlds ending and the fight to remain alive, the worries of marriages, of abductions, of politics and commands on their shoulders. When one hadn't either disappeared yet, or died.
Five years previously
He had saluted the NCO at the door, before moving to the figure on the floor doing press ups. He looked at the woman he had met slightly more than a handful of times. The woman who had been engaged to his brother. Who he had shamelessly flirted with whilst drunk and nearly taken on the dinning room table – the night he had met her whilst his brother slept not 20 feet away. He deep down regretted those actions, and even further down regretted not having taken the chance when he had had it. And here he was watching her in the brig, because her wild and reckless ways had caught up with her once more. He shook his head as her leaned on the bars of the brig and finally spoke.
“This seems familiar.”
Kara Thrace stopped at the apex of her press-up and turned her head to see the speaker. Of course she had known someone was there, and before he had reached the bars she had known it was him. She, of course, would not give him the satisfaction of any surprise. Especially as they had been scheduled to fly the fly-past together. Had been, before Tigh, before his mouth had gotten in the way. Before her temper had flared and before she had to assume some kind of bravado about having her wings clipped.
“Captain Adama, Sir. Sorry I wasn't there to greet you with the rest of the squdron. Did they kiss your ass to your satisfaction?” The bravado would have to continue.
Lee snorted, a part of him wanted to laugh, wanted to share in the bravado and recklessness. He was however, the senior officer, and that could be construed by all and sundry – sundry being Kara – as encouragement.
“So – what are the charges this time.”
He smiled, tried to let her know that he wasn't the enemy. He couldn't help however, but show the disappointment in his eyes. He knew her strength in the cockpit. Knew her intelligence. Hell, he'd been on the receiving end of her attacks both in the air and on the Pyramid court with his brother. For the briefest of moments they sized each other up and the conversation continued.
“Hmm,” she looked off into the distance to work through the steady list of retorts to why, when asked, she was there. Inspiration, or perhaps just knowledge of Lee's humor, lead her to a preferred line.“Striking a superior asshole.”
The friends angle had worked, he thought to himself, as they both leaned away from the bars in friendly joviality. Before straightening up and nodding as he decided he knew her well enough that she would have been thinking of that line for a while. Something to distract her whilst she whiled the hours in the brig away.
“Ah, and I bet you have been waiting all day to say that one.”
There was just the slightest amount of resignation in his voice. Somethings would never change about her. This was the one thing he had hoped working on a ship with his father would have ironed out. No such luck there then. She looked up into the corner of the room nodding in agreement.
“Most of the afternoon, yeah.”
“Right,” they laughed quietly and tightly. An atmosphere brewing between the pair.
“How long's it been?” She knew the answer before he would speak it. Knew the distance, felt it in the conversations she had had with his father.
“Two years,” Lee replied the atmosphere dropped again and this time it had a physical sensation not unlike the one you got when you had a sharp descent. It was the type you felt in your stomach.
“Two years,” she agreed. “We must be getting old. Seems like the funeral was just a couple months ago.”
Lee's face sharply dropped from the warm smile it had been moments before to something a lot more drawn in. A sadness crept over his features as the conversation veered into areas he would rather not have to go into.
“Your old mans doing fine. We don't talk about it much. Maybe two, three times a year.” Her eyes bored into him, searching something out, perhaps it was just a way of connecting, she had felt the barrier the moment he walked in. Or may she was just needing someone to sympathize with both her and the old man. “He still struggles with it though.” And suddenly Lee dropped one of those barriers down, he became uncomfortable, he body language changed. He stepped away from the bars, away from her. Perhaps as a way of walking away from the hurt and the sting veiled in her words.
“I haven't seen him,” he didn't look her in the eyes with that admission. Couldn't. Apparently the bond they had forged on this ship was strong enough for her to know more then he did from afar. But then, he had been the one that had pushed his father away. A punishment for crimes from a child perspective. He still felt those wounds. The wounds of desertion, of betrayal, of expectations and of the parent left behind weakened and fragile – seeking solace in alcohol to cover her own failings. Perhaps that was why he blamed his father for all the events that came after, because there was no one else that he could - and all the what if's had come after his leaving.
Kara pushed closer to Lee, eyes widened and in stronger position than Lee in that moment. Despite the bars keeping her captive. She was pushing her point. She was not known for subtlety. But when she enacted it, the point was hammered home just as soundly as if she had made a pointed, barbed comment. “Why not?”
“Kara, don't even start.” It was a warning, but one coming from a place of hurt, and not carrying any real threat.
“How long are you going to do this?”
“I'm not doing anything.” Another of those moments in the conversation that made him feel awkward cropped up, but she was not done just yet.
“He lost his son, Lee.”
“And who is responsible that?” Same wounds came up, same chip on the shoulder. She seemed to know exactly what button to push to get the same response from him. And just as suddenly as open space had crept up on them, they were squaring off against each other.
“Same old Lee,” The slight zing of derision tainted her voice as she spoke.”You haven't changed either.”
For a moment neither said anything. Lee looked at Kara as though engaging with her for the first time. An icy filter shuttered down his eyes, before anger took hold, his face changed from blank coldness, to one of indignation of hurt and anger all swilling around making for a potent brew. And then hurt took hold of him and his words.
“Zak was my brother.” How, he thought, could she not understand what that meant? Did she not know that he had been the one to take responsibility for Zak through his childhood, protected him, helped him with his homework and some nights even fed him. How then, could she not know what his brother meant to him.
“What was he to me? Nothing?” She visibly locked down her feelings, the words came out as a sarcastic retort.
“That's not what I meant. And you know it.” Lee knew when he had made the wrong move. Sometimes talking with Kara, he felt he was playing Pyramid all over again. He had to think objectively, had to thing three moves ahead and be strategic. It made for exhausting times. Perhaps that was why they hadn't spoken since the funeral.
“You know what Lee, you should go. I'm getting the urge to hit another superior asshole.” She may as well have, was all Lee could think in reply – after the fact. But lee knew when the getting was good, or as good as it would get. And he knew when to leave the conversation before tempers truly did overspill, and life became more difficult than it needed to be.
And now here they were, the same situation, right back where they started. But perhaps he could hope, they were different people. The wounds of the past had, to a greater or lesser degree, been put to rest and sutured as best as could be expected. Life had taken them in such vastly different directions. She had died, and he couldn't rectify how she was here lying in the same brig as she had been that first time on Galactica. But this time was different. She was not active doing push ups to while away the hours til she could be in a bird. She was in a corner, and for all the worlds she looked trapped and yet she still hat that grin, the know-it-all grin that could toss everything away. The door to the brig opened and Lee entered.
“Uhm, Zarek nominated me for the vacant Quorum spot, so uhm...” he drifted off not knowing where else to take that sentence. There are just too many variables to it and this isn't the type of situation he is used to. Well seeing Kara in the Brig is oddly familiar, but him not part of the colonial forces, him leaving. These are things that are disturbing his normal conversational flow.
“You're Zarek's wingman.” It's simply a joke, but it hits harder to home than he would have like to recognise.
“Alright, alright you know, stow it. I have heard it all before now. The guy's a piece of work I know. His head's as big as the house I grew up in. But I'm pretty new to all of this and I could use the help. Besides, I never really could say no to anything.” He smiled at her, and he thinks a thousand other thoughts, and none of them have anything to do with Zarek, or the Quorum.
“Except me.” And she is wrong and he suddenly wants to make her see that she is wrong. And he still doesn't know what it is he should say exactly, but he just says anything.
“Especially you.” An understanding look passes between them, but there is not as much understanding going on as he would like. He is certain that she is only thinking about the recent past. He is thinking about it all. And what a tangled web they've woven over the past few years. “You know, I think I finally understand what you meant about having a destiny. I've got to do this and the fact that I don't have an explanation as to why … doesn't really seem to matter anymore.
The beatific smile radiates from her, but it is only half there. She is so wounded by the people around her viewing her with distrust and fearing her. And she is so distracted by what she thinks is her destiny – and for all he knows that is real – that talking to her is like talking to someone who is try to hold conversations at the same time. It's impossible to gauge her thoughts, or her feelings.
“It's so surreal.”
“So say we all.” He can't think of anything else to say, or feel. There are a thousand miles of pent up feelings and he purses his lips keeping them all in. Fighting for the strength to continue his conversation to prolong whatever is about to come around the corner, because here he feels safe. The emotions battle through him and he lets out a breath as though he were about to say something. And then Kara looks as though she is going to say something. But she doesn't. She gets up instead and moves towards him and instead proffers her hand.
“Good luck on your journey, Lee Adama.” There is an honesty in the simplicity of her words. And this is a long, long way from where they had started in this brig, all that time ago. They aren't the cocky, head-sure youngsters they had been back then. He looked at her hand and took it firmly in his. The emotions war on his face as he thinks about her and all that has happened since she came back.
“You too, Kara Thrace.” And then the moment broke, as all moments do. There was awkwardness and uncertainty, yet they remained looking at each other and a whispered; “alright” escaping as he turned around and began walking towards the door to be let out.
“Lee.” Kara called out, he turned and her emotions this time war on her face, and the openness and the honesty and the fact that this once she is letting him catch him unaware and before he knows it he is kissing her. He holds her head possessively holding her to him, tasting her lips. He lets her know with his mouth that there is a part of him that belongs to her, that he will never desert her, before finally finishing with a kiss on her forehead, followed by kisses on her face. Of all the mistakes he has made – she was never one of them, and he knows that to his core. Breath is laboured and urgency abounds in a room within a room.
“I believe you.” He gives her something to cling to, to hold to. To hold fast, and never let go of. The hold each other for as long as they dare. He may not be married, but she still is. Though perhaps propriety was jettisoned a while back.
He leaves her in the room within a room. He can hardly call her second home – of a sorts – the brig, a jail. As he walks to the briefing room, along corridors her has paced and run and conversed along – he is still thinking of her. And him. Of who thy used to be, and who they are. Epiphanies these days seem to be a common commodity and he feels like he may be having one again. When he joined this ship in the early days of the war, he was wounded and putting himself back together. She was the one that had some semblance of a life and had seemingly moved on after his brothers accident.
Now the tables had turned. She was the one wounded. Lee was certain she never got over what that frakker Leoben had done to her on New Caprica, and now she was being lumped in with his kind in more than a few peoples minds. He didn't know what had happened out there. He had seen plenty of things he thought were impossible. This didn't seem too far out of the ordinary, these days. All he truly knew was she was his Kara, and she hurt like he had. She had helped him with his wounds, the Gods only knew how. So now, he decided for himself, he would help her. He just had to figure out how, amongst all the insanity he was about to be plunged into.
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no subject
Date: 2010-10-18 12:08 pm (UTC)My favourite line is - 'Of all the mistakes he has made – she was never one of them, and he knows that to his core.'
A truly beautiful sentiment.
Thanks for sharing.
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Date: 2011-02-22 04:44 am (UTC)