Chapter Text
Starbuck always seemed to do things backwards and upside-down. So it wasn’t too surprising that the first time it really hit her that Lee was dead was when she looked up from underneath the Viper and saw him grinning down at her.
* * * * *
Well, well, thought Cadet Kara Thrace as she traced a line on the sim schedule from her name to her opponent’s and found Lee Adama on the other side. Lee frakking Adama. Guess it had to happen eventually. I’m surprised they didn’t outline the letters with gold leaf, she reflected wryly, and she indulged a childish instinct to smear the plain black ink with a grease-stained finger.
She’d never even met the guy, and she was already sick of him. She’d managed to go nearly two months at the Academy without running into him, and while she hadn’t exactly been avoiding him, given the size of the Academy and the number and nature of her, well, extracurricular activities, staying out of the way of the instructors’ golden boy hadn’t proved too difficult so far. She’d’ve had to cut off her ears to avoid hearing about him, though. His father was a war hero, Commander of the Galactica, and to hear everyone gush on and on about him, Lee Adama was very much his father’s son—smart and hard-working and noble and blessed by the Lords, the Twelve Colonies’ best and brightest.
Not exactly her type, to say the least.
She still had no desire to meet him—and in fact, she thought it was fairly likely that if and when she did, he was going to leave the encounter with a few judicious adjustments to the pretty face the other cadets were always squealing about—but she had to admit, the prospect of going up against him in the sims was looking better and better. Rumors were starting to circulate among the faculty, and by extension the students, that in addition to being intelligent and responsible and in all other ways perfect, Cadet Adama had an excellent chance of becoming the best pilot in his class.
No frakkin’ way. The thought almost made her laugh. No way some by-the-book daddy’s boy was going to get the better of her, and the sooner she got the chance to prove that, the better. She might be a screw-up and a troublemaker and all the other things her teachers were beginning to call her, but Kara Thrace was the best damn pilot the Academy had ever seen and there wasn’t a chance in hell that anyone was taking that away from her.
When she strolled into the simulator room the next morning, five minutes late and still munching on the remains of an apple, he was already there, and she was almost too busy giving him a once-over to register the way her flight instructor was glaring at her.
“Cadet Thrace!”
Nice body, she admitted to herself as she took in Adama’s slender, muscled form. Shame about the stick up his ass, though, which was evident even from several feet away. She was just starting to reluctantly admire his blue eyes when her instructor’s next words caught her ear.
“Cadet Thrace! If you show up late for one more simulation, the only Viper cockpit you’ll be seeing for the next three weeks will be the one you’ll be cleaning while your fellow cadets progress to the next level of training. Do I make myself clear?”
She snapped to attention immediately. “Yes, sir! Won’t happen again, sir.” Her sim privileges weren’t something she was about to frak around with.
Lt. Cabon just grunted in reply, then jerked his head in Adama’s direction. “This is Lee Adama, call-sign Husker.”
Husker? What the hell kind of call-sign is that for a cadet? But she batted her eyelashes at him. “Charmed, I’m sure.”
She thought she might have caught the slightest quirk of Adama’s lips before Cabon drew her attention again. “Don’t push me, Cadet. Cadet Adama, meet Cadet Kara Thrace.” His lip curled up. “But you can call her Hot Dog.”
Kara could feel her face starting to burn. Nugget-names, they were called, temporary call-signs to be replaced when the cadets were deemed ready—one more rite of passage at the Academy. Ever since she’d been saddled with hers, she’d been determined to make it something to be proud of, rather than the mocking jab it was meant to be.
Adama was definitely grinning now—smirking, actually, in a way that made her fists itch. “Your reputation precedes you, Hot Dog.”
She gave him her sweetest smile. “Then you won’t be surprised when I kick your ass.”
Adama blinked, but his smile didn’t fade. Out of the corner of her eye, she could have sworn she saw Cabon grinning, too, but when she looked over at him, he just cleared his throat. “Strap in, nuggets, the battle starts in 60 seconds.” He raised an eyebrow. “May the best man win.”
Kara slapped her helmet on and dove for the simulator cockpit, sliding in with practiced ease. She felt the now-familiar rush of adrenaline as she shoved the canopy closed above her and watched the screens mounted inside come to life. Craggy, red-toned terrain all around her today, and she grinned as she grasped the stick, her eyes already scanning the horizon for Adama’s fighter. He’d look like a Cylon Raider to her, and she to him, some weird political mindfrak conditioning thing so they didn’t get used to shooting other Vipers, like another student maneuvered even remotely like a—
There he is. She hadn’t taken off yet—she found that waiting on the ground gave her the element of surprise—so she yanked back the stick and kicked in her thrusters. Her stomach lurched as the Viper rose out of the rocks to strike, quick and deadly like its namesake, and the pull and soar of flying filled her veins like it always did, mercury and ambrosia. A month in the simulators and she still had to bite her lip to keep from laughing out loud at the sheer joy of it, and she hadn’t even actually left the ground yet.
She arrowed toward the Raider, squeezing the trigger as she went, and he lurched to the side, barely avoiding her missiles, and maybe this was going to be over a hell of a lot quicker than she’d—
What the frak was that? as he dropped into a barrel roll, faster than she’d ever seen, spinning three times toward the ground before he pulled out of it, oriented himself and shot past her.
Huh, Kara mused, pulling hard on the stick and jamming the thruster pedal down to avoid the fire that was now heading directly for her six, courtesy of the great—and apparently maneuverable—Lee Adama. Despite herself, she felt a grin curving her lips, and she gave herself a quick shake, took a firmer grip on the stick, and settled in for the fight.
She forgot she was in a simulator, forgot that she’d be scored on her performance; her world narrowed to the red rocks swirling beneath her and the planet’s light gravity pressing her back against the seat and the maddening black dot of his Raider as it swerved and darted and spit fire at her. Finally, he couldn’t quite follow her into a dangerously sharp turn and she had him, wrenching the Viper up and around for a perfect vertical 180, her finger squeezing the trigger even as she blinked away the black spots dancing in front of her eyes from the g-forces. She couldn’t quite contain a triumphant shout as the Raider exploded in an extremely satisfying bloom of flame and debris. She did one final, exultant loop, then laid her ship down for a soft landing.
Awareness of the outside world gradually trickled back as she let her head thunk back against the seat for a moment, breathing hard, tension draining out of her limbs and a wide smile on her face. The screens around her went blank and the canopy clicked open, sliding back automatically. She looked up to see Lt. Cabon glaring down at her, his face tinted comically blue from the faceplate of her helmet.
“You fly like that outside the simulator, you’re going to get yourself killed,” he told her flatly.
“Maybe so, sir,” she answered, still grinning, “but I’d take a hell of a lot of those Cylon bastards with me.”
To her absolute amazement, Cabon actually cracked a smile, giving her a light cuff on the front of her faceplate that knocked her head back into the seat. It was possible she’d never been so happy in her life. Then his face went gruff again as he bellowed, “Clear out, cadets, the Colonial Fleet doesn’t pay by the hour,” and he strode from the room to corral the next batch of nuggets.
Kara pulled her helmet off, shaking her head to loosen her short, sweat-soaked hair from her head. She allowed herself a couple of seconds more in the cockpit, then levered herself out and dropped to the ground.
When she looked up, she saw Lee Adama standing there, watching her. They stared at each other for a long moment, both still red-faced and panting slightly, and the urge to give him a big, goofy grin almost overwhelmed her. The corner of his mouth twitched.
“What kind of a call-sign is Husker, anyway?” she asked finally.
His expression closed completely, and she felt like someone had dunked her in cold water. “It was my father’s,” he replied shortly, then turned on his heel and left.
“Oooooo-kay,” she said into the silence that followed, then shrugged, shoved her helmet underneath her arm, and headed for the showers.
* * * * *
“All right, nuggets.” Cabon’s voice came over their comms as their display screens flickered to life. “This is a group exercise, so you’ll be scored according to the success of the group, not individual achievement. That means you, Hot Dog.”
“Roger that, sir.” Kara hoped her eye-roll didn’t come across in her voice as she fidgeted impatiently in her cockpit. At least her squadron for the day wasn’t as bad as some she’d been stuck with—it included Tiny, who was 6’3” and a good 280, but slow enough that Kara frequently beat him in boxing matches; Broadside, a small, quiet girl with a pixie grin and a deadly accurate trigger finger; and Lee Adama, who she hadn’t seen since his bizarre daddy-issue freak-out in the sim bay three weeks earlier. She had to admit, part of her had been looking forward to flying with him again, seeing if his performance against her had been a fluke.
Cabon was still issuing instructions. “Keep your eyes open, watch out for each other, and stay with your leader. Good luck.”
Kara heard the click of his comm going silent, and couldn’t help herself. “Aww, and I was gonna fly with my eyes closed today.”
And then, “I heard that, Cadet,” and of course he did, and you’d really think she’d learn to keep her mouth shut one of these days.
“You fly with your eyes closed, Hot Dog, you’re going to miss me flying rings around you,” came Tiny’s voice.
She snorted. “Tiny, the only rings I’ll be seeing will be the ones around your eyeballs after I beat your ass in the ring tomorrow.”
Tiny and Broadside both laughed, and then Adama’s voice broke in.
“All right, guys, this is Husker, let’s stay focused here.”
Kara wrinkled her nose and laughed. “Wilco, Husker, just a little pre-flight—”
“Contact!” Broadside squealed suddenly.
“Frak,” Kara muttered, hastily firing up her thrusters. Apparently the usual thirty second prep period was no longer SOP. Adama hit the sky slightly ahead of her, with Tiny and Broadside bringing up the rear. The enemy was multiplying on her dradis screen—three, and now four, and she had to wrench her head around for a visual check before she could confirm a fifth.
“Five bogeys, coming in fast.” Adama sounded calm and controlled, frak him. Her brain knew it was only a simulator but her body was refusing to comply, pumping adrenaline into her veins.
“Broadside, three o’clock!” Tiny shouted, and Kara heard a breathless, “Copy that,” watched the other girl’s Viper swerve in midair and nail the Raider with a few well-placed shots.
“Nice shooting,” Adama complimented her, and Kara felt an unexpected surge of jealousy.
Tiny barely got the next one, sending it spiraling into a mountainside, and Adama executed a textbook Daniel’s Gambit to snare the third. By that time, Kara’s trigger finger was itching and this whole teamwork thing was really starting to piss her off. But the last two Raiders were craftier, and even though the odds were in their favor, after several passes and maneuvers, all her squadron was managing to do was waste their ammunition.
“Frak this,” Kara muttered, then, louder, “all units, break hard right, on my signal, behind that mountain.”
“But what—” Tiny started.
“Just do it!” Kara yelled over him, then, “Three, two, one, mark! Break, break!”
They broke obediently, dropping out of sight below the cloud cover, and as Kara had hoped, the two Raiders followed her, the easier target.
It was about then that she noticed that Adama’s Viper was still stuck stubbornly in formation with her.
“Husker, I told you to break right!” she shouted at him, wishing the sim would let her glare at him through the canopy.
“And Lieutenant Cabon told us to stay with our leader,” he answered steadily, “and those Raiders are right on our asses so I hope you have a plan or we’re all going to fail this exercise.”
“Frak!” she hissed, but killing him would have to wait till after she’d wasted these Cylons. “Tiny, Broadside, dradis says there’s a canyon about three clicks to the north, do you read that?”
“We read it, Hot Dog,” Tiny answered.
“Good. Keep your eyes peeled and rendezvous with us there unless you hear otherwise from me,” and ignoring their protests, she continued, “Husker, we have to get below this cloud cover.”
“Roger, wilco.” He banked hard, and she followed, wisps of vapor streaming past their canopies as they tore through the fog. As soon as she could see the ground, she spotted exactly what she’d been hoping for.
“Let’s see if you’ll stay with your leader now,” she muttered, and dove into the narrow gorge that had opened up below them.
Adama swore and dove with her.
She’d expected the Raiders to hang back, to maintain altitude and wait for them to come back out into the open, and her plan was to have Tiny and Broadside pick them off while they were distracted. It was a good plan, and the only problem was that for some indiscernible reason, the Cylons decided to follow them down into the gorge instead.
“This is great,” Adama snapped in her ear, and at least he was sounding a little breathless now. “This is much better than being above the cloud cover.”
“Shut up,” she ground out. Her tone lock warning light was blinking on and off, the alarm beeping unsteadily as the Cylons behind them tried to get a clear shot. The gorge was narrowing in front of them, and she could see light streaming through the rapidly-approaching spot where it closed together almost completely before opening out again.
She was almost sure there was enough room there for a Viper. Practically positive.
“We’ve got to shake them. We go through it,” she told Adama, and now a sort of manic glee was starting to spiral its way through her.
“We do what?!” Adama yelled, his voice cracking, but she couldn’t enjoy it because then the walls were closing in on them and she wrenched the stick desperately to the left.
She was through the bottleneck and out into the open again in a fraction of a second, her ship spiraling to regain its orientation. She glanced behind her just in time to see Adama pull up hard, flying over the bottleneck, and one of the Raiders that had been following them tried to do the same, caught a wing on the rock, and exploded.
She half-laughed, half-shouted in triumph. “Husker, you chicken-sh—”
Then she stopped suddenly as the distinctive whine of a tone lock alarm filled her ears.
The second Raider was directly behind her.
“Frakfrakfrak—” was all she had time for before the Raider miraculously vanished in a cloud of fire.
“Always stay with your leader,” Lee repeated cheerfully as his Viper swooped past hers, heading for the rendezvous point.
There didn’t seem to be much to say after that.
They joined up with Tiny and Broadside in accordance with the rules of the exercise, maintained radio silence as they landed their ships and ended the simulation. When they climbed out of their cockpits, the four of them stood panting in the middle of the bay and stared at each other, barely even acknowledging Cabon watching them from behind the evaluation screen.
“Damn,” Broadside breathed after a minute, her small face flushed.
Tiny grinned, a little unsteadily. “You two are frakking crazy.”
Kara looked over at Lee, who was looking a little shaky himself, and shrugged. “It was only a simulation.”
The look he gave her—eyebrows raised, mouth slightly open, eyes wide—was priceless. She burst out laughing, and it didn’t take more than a couple of seconds for the rest of them to join her.
“Well, I think it’s safe to say we’re done for the day,” Tiny said finally, after they’d all caught their breath. “Let me buy you two crazy frakheads a drink.” He slung an arm around Kara’s shoulders.
She grinned up at him, but Lee was shaking his head. “You guys go ahead—I’ve got work to do.”
Broadside frowned. “C’mon, Husker, Tiny never buys!”
Kara could see his face tighten at the name, but he kept a friendly, regretful smile in place. “Next time, maybe.”
He turned to go. Kara called out after him, “Hey, Lee. Thanks for having the Basic Flight manual shoved up your ass.”
When he turned back, his face was a combination of shock and amusement. “Thanks for not having any common sense whatsoever,” he replied, and she craned her neck to watch him leave as Tiny and Broadside dragged her toward the opposite door.
* * * * *
She barged into his barracks the next morning just before 1100, for all the world as if she’d been doing it every day for months. He was bent over a book, chewing on his pen, and he blinked up at her in surprise.
She grabbed the pen from his hand and slapped the book shut. “C’mon, we’re going to be late.”
“For what?” He was giving her that “you’re crazy” look that she so frequently seemed to inspire in people. She ignored it.
“Pyramid pickup game on the quad, c’mon!” She grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled hard.
“But I—” Even as he stumbled to his feet, he was reaching back for the book.
She rolled her eyes, and spun him around to face the window. “See that?”
“It’s a window.”
“No. It’s a gorgeous day, is what it is, and I’m not about to let you waste it in here with your head shoved up your—” a calculated pause, then, “books.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “So this is a mission of mercy.”
“Yep.”
“And it has nothing to do with the fact that your usual squad just lost its halfback to a twisted ankle.”
She grinned. “You been checking up on me, flyboy?”
And that was when she discovered just how easy it was to make the great Lee Adama blush. “On second thought, a little fresh air sounds like a great idea. Race you to the quad, readysetgo—” and he was halfway out the door before she gathered her wits and ran after him, laughing all the way.
* * * * *
Before long, the exploits of Husker and Hot Dog were famous—in some cases infamous—around the Academy. To be fair, the infamous ones were mostly Kara’s, but she dragged Lee along or asked him to bail her out often enough for his instructors to shake their heads and scold him about what a bad influence she was. Lee just smiled respectfully and nodded and continued to do exactly what he wanted where Kara was concerned.
Several weeks into their friendship, she was lying in the sun on the quad enjoying a well-deserved nap when she heard something thunk into the grass next to her head and damn near had a heart attack.
“Rise and shine, Hot Dog!” Dressed for the heat in shorts and a tank top, Lee was grinning down at her, clearly enjoying the way he’d nearly killed her.
She shaded her eyes from the sun, blinking as she tried to slow her racing heart. “Frak off, Lee. And don’t frakking call me that.” She levered herself up on one elbow and examined his chosen instrument of torture—a couple of thick history books, now tumbled right next to her head. Of course. Frakking Lee and his frakking books.
“Lords, you sure wake up cranky,” he needled as he flung himself down on the ground next to her, resting on his elbows and tipping his face up to the sun. “Though, now that I think of it, I’d already heard that from Shadow in Gamma Flight.”
She snorted. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Husker.”
She was instantly sorry. She’d made a point of not calling him by his call-sign outside the cockpit, and as soon as the name passed her lips, she saw his spine stiffen and his mouth go hard. He sat up.
“Lee—”
“If you want my help with this history stuff, we should get started now. I have another class at 1400.”
He reached for the books, and she put her hand on his forearm, curling into a sitting position. “Lee, I’m sorry.”
He sighed and dropped his head. She could feel the muscles in his arm move as he clenched and unclenched his fist. “It’s fine.”
Silence hung between them for a moment, then she offered, “You’re the only one of us whose call-sign isn’t a joke. It’s supposed to be an honor.”
His laugh was short and bitter. “An honor. Right. An honor that reminds everyone here just whose kid I am. Thanks, but that’s an honor I could do without.”
She bit her lip. “Your father’s a hero. Isn’t that—”
“Just leave it, Kara, OK?” He looked up at her, and the hurt and anger in his eyes hit her like a physical blow.
She dropped her gaze to the ground. “Right. OK. Sorry.” She took her hand from his arm and stretched out on her back again, her forearm resting across her eyes. At least you have a father, she thought, but didn’t say. She was sure he was going to get up and leave, but after a moment, she heard him sigh and felt him settle on the ground next to her, his shoulder bumping companionably against hers.
“Anyway, we’re only stuck with them till someone decides we’re worthy of real ones.”
Relief made her snort out a laugh. “Thank the gods. I’ll probably get saddled with something worse, though.”
“Nah. You’ll get a good one. The good pilots always do.”
She did not—absolutely did not—feel a rush of warmth at the compliment. She was just too hot from lying in the sun. When she peered over at him from underneath her forearm, he was looking at her, grinning, one arm up to shield his eyes.
“So what do you think my call-sign should be?” he asked her.
She squirmed far enough away from him that she could roll over on her side and prop her head on
her hand, and looked him thoroughly up and down. Tanned skin, muscles on his shoulders and arms faintly sheened with sweat, bright blue eyes and strong jaw and she blurted out an answer without thinking.
“Apollo.”
He blinked at her for a second, then a slow smile spread across his face. “Really?” And now “smile” was being rapidly upgraded to “smirk,” and she felt her stomach do a long, slow roll, like an easy 180 in gravity.
“A pain in my ass, I mean,” she corrected quickly, but he kept on smirking.
“Uh-huh. I think that one would kinda clog up the comms. But I’m pretty sure that’s not what you said.”
She pulled up a handful of grass and threw it at him. “You’re delusional.”
He spluttered a bit and wiped the grass off his face… but not the smile. He mirrored her posture, leaned close. “Don’t worry, Kara. I won’t tell anyone you said I was a god. It’ll just be our secret.”
“Frak off.” She shoved his shoulder, hard, and let the momentum carry her back to her original position, the grass tickling her shoulder-blades and her forearm shading her eyes. She heard him hit the ground, felt him shaking next to her as he laughed.
“So what would you pick for me, smartass?” she asked, mainly to distract him.
“Well, most of the names I can think of for you aren’t exactly considered polite comm-chatter,” he started, and she struck out with her arm without looking, felt it bounce off his stomach as he gave an “oof” of surprise. He grabbed her wrist and threw her hand back.
“Hey!” he objected. “Watch where you’re hitting—there are sensitive areas exposed over here.”
“Oh, like you’re using them anyway.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
She laughed, feeling her muscles slowly relaxing in the heat. His shoulder was pressing up against hers again, sticking and unsticking from their sweat as they breathed.
“You know what?” he said after a moment.
“What?”
“I can’t think of a single word that adequately describes you.”
She hoped like hell that he wasn’t watching her, because a smile bloomed on her face before she could stop it. She smashed it down the best she could and licked her lips. “Yeah, but you’re not too bright.”
He chuckled low in his throat. “Is that why I’m the only thing standing between you and an F in Colonial History?”
“Shut up, Lee.”
He actually did what she told him for once, and she lay there with her eyes closed and listened to the sounds of the quad, the distant shouts and booted feet clomping against the grass, laughter and Lee breathing next to her.
“We should really get to the studying part soon.” His voice was sun-soaked and lazy.
“Uh-huh.”
“Just another minute.”
“Right behind you.”
“Good to know.”
Lee slept through his class, Kara tanked her history test, and she was bright red with sunburn for days, but she never regretted it for a second.
The regretting came later.
* * * * *
Kara made it through her first year by the skin of her teeth and a hell of a lot of cajoling, browbeating, lecturing, and relentless quizzing from Lee. Lee, of course, was fifth in their class.
“You can’t be the kick-ass, devil-may-care rocket jockey we all know you can be if you don’t pass Politics, Kara,” he’d tell her.
“Where’s the politics in flying a Viper?” she’d pout, knowing that he’d push her into it eventually. “See Cylon, shoot Cylon. No politics necessary.”
“But don’t you want to understand—” He’d stop at the look on her face. “No. No, you really don’t, do you?”
“Nope.” Sullenly.
He’d give that long-suffering Lee sigh, and she’d bite her lip to keep from smiling. “Well, I didn’t make the rules, Cadet, and if you don’t start making at least a little effort in your classes, you’re going to lose your chance to show me up after we get our wings.”
“Lee.” She’d blink up at him with exaggerated coyness. “Are you trying to tell me that if I just applied myself and tried to be the best I can be, if I really maximized my potential, released my inner chakras—”
He’d throw up his hands. “Fine. Wash out. Spend the rest of your life staring at the sky, wanting to be up there.”
And she’d smile, even though he had a point. He was adorable when he was frustrated with her, so earnest and trying so hard to help her see the error of her ways. He’d roll his eyes and start to leave, and she’d grab his arm, “All right, all right, don’t get your panties in a twist. Show me the way, O wise mentor,” and he’d growl and sigh and end up dragging her through yet another chapter, another test, another class.
She repaid him in her own way, by making sure he saw the sun every once in a while, by hauling him out to bars to get embarrassingly drunk with the other cadets, by doing everything she could to stop him from taking everything so frakking seriously.
They were paired together for most of their exercises now, so the first time she actually got off the ground in a real Viper, he was there with her. It was early in their second year and that first careful test flight, the green fields of the Academy stretching out below her, made every damn useless subject she’d ever taken seem worthwhile. She looked down as they passed over the Pyramid field and saw that a small audience had gathered to watch them—some just to watch them fly together, she knew, and some to see if she’d pull some patented Kara Thrace stunt—and grinned, tempted to give the people what they came for.
“Don’t even think about it, Kara,” Lee warned from where he hovered just beyond her wingspan, gliding smoothly through the test maneuvers.
“I don’t know how you fit in the cockpit with that huge stick up your ass,” she shot back, but it was mostly for show. To tell the truth, for the first time she could remember, she didn’t feel like she had to push, or shock, or do anything other than exactly what she was doing.
His laughter was close and warm in her ear, filtered through the comm. “I’m gonna use it to beat the crap out of you if you frak up my test flight.”
“Hey, if it gets it out of your ass, I’m all for it.” She glanced over to his Viper, and she could just make out his grin through distance and their helmets and the faintly scratched canopies of the training planes.
“A hundred cadets in our year. How’d I get stuck with you?” he wondered in mock despair.
“Just lucky, I guess,” she laughed as the ground rushed by below them.
* * * * *
“Kara, can I talk to you for a second?”
She turned away from Captain Arkan just long enough to see, through a haze of ambrosia, Lee standing at her elbow. “I’m a little busy here, Lee,” she drawled, and returned her attention to the Captain. She and Lee and several of their fellow cadets had hit the town tonight to celebrate the end of their second-year midterms, and after several glasses of ambrosia, Captain Arkan had approached her and asked her to dance. And not a minute too soon, as far as she was concerned, because Lee had been starting to get that look in his eye again, that speculative, verging-on-sexy look he’d been giving her way too often lately.
Arkan was handsome enough, laughed at her jokes, and had some pull in the fleet, and who cared if he wasn’t the brightest star in the sky? He’d do, for an evening’s entertainment—she’d been damn near claustrophobic at the Academy for the past few weeks, cramming for exams that she couldn’t care less about, and every time the good Captain couldn’t come up with a response to one of her jibes, it was like a breath of fresh air. She swayed a tiny bit closer, pressing her breast against his arm.
“Just for a second, Kara.” Lee was still behind her, was touching her arm, now, fingers warm just above her elbow. There was a polite smile fixed on his face, but she could see a muscle twitching in his jaw.
She grinned up at the Captain, whispered conspiratorially, “They’re so cute at this age, aren’t they?” and he laughed, predictably. She could practically hear Lee grinding his teeth, even over the noise of the bar. She gave a theatrical sigh. “It looks like I’m going to have to go deal with this, Captain.”
Arkan leered at her. “I’ll go get you another drink. Don’t be gone long, now.”
“This’ll just take a second.” She gave him her best smile to tide him over as Lee half-dragged her to a corner.
“What the frak do you think you’re doing?” she hissed at him as she yanked her arm out of his grasp.
He rounded on her, his mouth twisted in a sarcastic smile. “That’s funny, I was about to ask you the same thing.”
“I’m having fun, Lee, you should try it sometime,” she snapped.
“Yeah, I can see where the Captain would be a hell of a good time, what with the way he can barely put a sentence together.” His eyes were hot, his face flushed. He took a step closer to her, and she could smell him, sweat and ambrosia and male, and maybe he’d had more to drink than she’d thought.
Her stomach fluttered just the tiniest bit, but she ignored it. She smiled sweetly at him. “Well, I’m not in this for the conversation, am I?”
Something dark and dangerous flashed across his face, and she actually took a step back without thinking about it. He followed, staying inside her space, and she felt the wall against her back, and now the whole thing was really just starting to piss her off.
“It’s none of your business where, and with whom, I choose to spend my time,” she grated out, over-enunciating each word, trying not to think about the way her breath was catching in her throat.
“Oh, it isn’t?” he sneered. He placed his palms flat against the wall on either side of her shoulders, bracketing her between his arms. And if the looks he’d been giving her recently were verging on sexy, the one he had leveled at her now was downright pornographic. Ordinarily she’d have broken his hold immediately, slapped his hands away or kneed him in the stomach, but her knees were shaking and she couldn’t seem to make her arms move.
She settled for a defiant glare. “No, it isn’t. I don’t need your input or your permission. I’m not your little sister, Lee—I don’t need you to save me from myself, or whatever the hell you’re trying to do.” One last, desperate attempt to keep things from going the direction she was terrified they were going.
It failed spectacularly. His eyes sparked, and with an expression of raw hunger she’d never seen on his face before, he slowly, deliberately pressed his body against hers. Long and lean and hard and she couldn’t tell whose heart was pounding against her ribs. He tilted his head to the side, and she felt his breath warm on her neck, and then his voice, low and gravelly, resonating through his chest where it pressed against hers. “No, Kara. You’re definitely…not…my little sister.”
His lips brushed her ear as he spoke, and she shivered and let her head fall back against the wall, arching against him involuntarily. And when she heard his breathless chuckle, she panicked and slugged him in the ribs.
He was totally unprepared for it, of course, and he doubled over and she finally had space to move out from between him and the wall. After a moment of stunned gasping—on both their parts—he swung right back at her, his face a mask of fury. She ducked to avoid it but the ambrosia had killed her reflexes and he winged her anyway, and the pain that exploded across her cheekbone was a relief. Distantly, she was aware of sudden shouts and the scrape of chairs moving across the floor, but she could hardly hear over the blood rushing in her ears. The last thing she remembered clearly was the hurt and anger on Lee’s face before he rushed her and tackled her to the floor.
* * * * *
Seeing as “drunk and disorderly” was something of an understatement for their conduct in the bar, it didn’t surprise her at all that as soon as their friends dragged them apart and carted them back to campus, they were intercepted by a superior officer and thrown—still bleeding—into the brig. Kara was fairly sure there’d been a lecture in there somewhere, too, but her head was too full of ambrosia, hurt, confusion, and a dark sort of excitement to remember it. They were tossed into adjoining cells, but neither of them was feeling particularly chatty, and it wasn’t long before she fell asleep to the deafening sound of Lee’s sullen silence.
She woke, disoriented, on the narrow cot, with a pounding head and an aching body and the vague sense that something had gone very, very wrong. She groaned, and the movement of her mouth shot fire along her cheekbone. She reached up a tentative finger to test the spot.
“You know,” Lee offered conversationally, “this is really a great place. Lots of time to think. I can see why you spend so much time here.”
Her finger came away dusted with dried blood, and she could feel the imprint of her teeth inside her cheek. Memory was trickling back now, fuzzy except for the very vivid sensation of being shoved up against a wall by her friend who definitely, definitely did not think of her as a sister. She closed her eyes against the memory, against the small, sudden frission of heat between her legs. She squeezed her eyes shut more tightly to block out the image, tried to push herself up into a sitting position. A dozen fresh pains piped up cheerfully, and she bit her lip to suppress another groan.
“Are you OK?” he asked, and his tone was so penitent she couldn’t help but respond.
“I’m fine,” she muttered. “You hit like a girl.”
He laughed wryly. “If that girl happens to be you, then I must hit pretty damn hard.”
For the first time, she looked over at him, slumped carelessly on the bunk, and was shocked and just the tiniest bit pleased to see that she’d apparently given as good as she’d gotten—his shirt was torn, his chin was smeared with dried blood, and he’d made an excellent start on one hell of a black eye.
She could only hope his hangover was half as bad as hers.
“Hope I didn’t mess up your pretty face,” she managed around a dry, aching throat. “Alison in Theta Flight will be so disappointed.”
The half-hearted joke fell completely flat. Of course. She caught the hint of a wince before he dropped his head, hiding his face from her.
She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. She and Lee argued constantly, with words and occasionally with fists, but they were lightning-storm fights, quickly sparked and quickly over. This was different, and she shifted uncomfortably around the cold, hard lump that seemed to be forming in her stomach.
The silence hung heavy between them, pressing against her until she wanted to scream.
“He was the wrong guy for you, is all,” he finally mumbled into his chest, and she sighed and rested her head against the wall behind her.
“It’s always the wrong guy, Lee,” she answered wearily. That’s the whole point.
* * * * *
“Lords, you suck at this,” Kara gasped between fits of laughter as she listened to Lee struggling through the hedge behind her.
“Sorry…” His voice was hitching with laughter, too, muffled by leaves. “Sorry I’m not as accomplished a delinquent as the legendary Starbuck,” and on the last words, he finally dragged himself free of the branches and stumbled smack into her, setting off a fresh round of giggles.
“Don’t spill it, dumbass!” She held out the hand that was clutching a half-empty bottle of ambrosia, trying to lessen the impact, and then shoved him back with a shoulder and watched him struggle to regain equilibrium. “Did you know your vocabulary expands when you’re drunk? A few shots and it’s like you swallowed a frakking thesaurus.”
He ignored the observation, and just stood there grinning goofily and breathing hard. “I can’t believe we just did that.”
She grinned back. She’d set records on nearly every simulator sequence the Academy had, showed her instructors a few tricks in an actual Viper, and managed to establish a reputation as the best pilot in her class—maybe the best pilot the Academy had seen in years—and still, she considered convincing Lee Adama to cover the LSO’s office with graffiti on graduation night to be one of her proudest achievements.
The moonlight was just bright enough for her to see him clearly—well, as clearly as was possible given the alcohol humming through her veins. He had a leaf or two stuck in his hair, his meticulously starched gray jacket was hanging open, and the skin and tank tops beneath were streaked with red paint. They'd both left their shiny new wings safely behind in their rooms, not wanting to risk them on the dangerous mission.
She clapped a hand on each of his shoulders. “Consider it a graduation gift. Welcome to my world.”
“Y’know, you could have just gotten me a—”
A distant shout froze them both for a second, then she grabbed his sleeve and dragged him after her, staggering and laughing their way across the Academy grounds. The whole trek was a little fuzzy, but somehow they eventually made it to the outskirts of the Academy property, far beyond where any superior officer was likely to find them, at least until morning. There was a patch of ground beneath a tree that suddenly looked very inviting, and she collapsed down onto it, pulling Lee down with her.
They just lay there, panting, until he grabbed the bottle out of her hand and raised it in a wobbly salute. “Happy graduation, Starbuck.” He took a long pull.
“Happy graduation, Apollo.” It never ceased to amuse her that the name she’d picked for him years ago had ended up being his call-sign; a few whispered words to the right people, and it had stuck, the perfect payback for him teasing her about her choice. Lords only knew what the hell her call-sign was supposed to mean, but it was a hell of a lot better than Hot Dog, she knew that for sure, and she liked it even if she didn’t understand it, liked the sky and the strength and the attitude in it.
She retrieved the bottle and took a swig of her own, the alcohol leaving a warm trail down her throat and into her belly. There were probably half as many parties happening that night as there were graduating cadets, but after a few drinks with their fellow graduates, she and Lee had gone off together by unspoken agreement, despite the catcalls and knowing looks from their friends.
She took another gulp of ambrosia to avoid examining that too closely.
“Do you think Popcorn’s going to miss you?” he asked, reading her mind like he occasionally did. “Miss his last chance for a night of passion with the famous Kara Thrace?”
She guessed the teasing was better then the tantrums—those had become less and less frequent over time, though they were all the more violent when they actually happened. He seemed to save up all his best insults and accusations for the occasions when she’d really disappointed him. And it wasn’t like he’d exactly been celibate, even if his sexual escapades weren’t as infamous as hers. But now he was just needling her, more a formality than anything else. Re-visiting their greatest hits for old times’ sake. “He’ll get over it,” she answered dryly. They were quiet for a minute, then, “We graduated, Lee. We’re pilots. I can’t believe we did it.” She grinned, feeling a thrill of pure joy rush through her.
“I can’t believe you did it,” he replied, all raised eyebrows and sly smile, and he shot out a hand to catch her arm before it made contact with his stomach. “Aww, getting slow, Kara. I told you that ambrosia was going to dull your reflexes.”
She was pretty sure he knew exactly what her response to that was going to be, but she tried for casual anyway. “I wasn’t even trying.” She let her hand slump closer to the ground, gradually released her hold on the bottle, out of his line of sight.
“Suuuure you weren’t.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Oh, I believe you.”
“I wasn’t. Not like I am now—” and she jumped on him, and sure enough, he was ready for it. But the ambrosia had gotten to him, too, and the wrestling match was fairly even until finally he cheated and tickled her ribs, making her bring her wrists in to where he could grab them and slam them down on the ground on either side of her, his legs pinning hers with his superior weight.
“Cheater,” she accused him, laughing and panting.
“I learned from the best,” he shot back cheerfully, and damn if he couldn’t mimic her cocky grin pretty well when he wanted to. “You really thought you could take me, didn’t you?”
“Bet your ass.” She bucked, but gravity was against her.
“Aaaand it looks like you were wrong, doesn’t it?” She rolled her eyes, struggled, got nowhere, and now he was smirking as a mischievous light sparked in his eyes. “Say it. ‘Lee, I was wrong to have doubted your manly strength and crack pilot reflexes.’”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “Lee, I was wrong to have doubted your insanely inflated ego—” and she tried to sneak a leg out from under him, but he anticipated her and shifted his weight to keep her in place. She was cackling now, and between that and the ambrosia she was doomed from the start. After a moment or two of useless maneuvering, she gave in, promising herself she’d ambush him later. “OK, OK, I was wrong, I was wrong! Get off. I said I was wrong.”
“Ha!” He grinned triumphantly, then went on in a patronizing tone, “Well, you should be used to it by now.”
She shrugged as best she could under the circumstances, gave him a patented Starbuck Eyebrow Raise. “Hey, everyone has a skill.”
His grin widened and he stared down at her, his hair disheveled and his face flushed with alcohol and laughter. He had a smear of paint across the bridge of his nose. Her heart seemed to be beating a little faster than the brief grapple warranted, but she didn’t think about it, focused on the happy buzz that was softening the edges of everything. When he didn’t move, she wriggled a little, tried another laugh. “OK, you’ve made your point. I bow to your superior reflexes. Now let me up, tough guy.”
But his smile was slipping as he watched her, a look of concentration creeping over his face. She licked her lips nervously and his eyes, huge and dark in the dim light, tracked the motion and lingered. And it was all such a frakking cliché, but she had to squash the sudden conviction that this whole night—hell, maybe the whole last three years—had been leading up to this.
“Lee…” She meant it as a command, but it came out a question.
His eyes flickered back to hers, and there was a stubborn glint in them now. “Just… Kara, I…” and without warning, he bent his head and kissed her.
She hadn’t—had never—thought about what kissing Lee would be like, so she didn’t know why it seemed, at first, exactly like she’d imagined it. Slow and sweet and a little hesitant, the tingle of ambrosia still on his tongue where it brushed across hers. She thought maybe it would be safe after all, and she opened her mouth a little wider, arched her back and writhed a bit against him, experimentally.
It was like tossing a match into a tylium mine. He made a strangled sound and fell into her, his lips and tongue suddenly demanding and one of his hands releasing her wrist to slide along her arm, down between her breasts where her jacket was unbuttoned, finally dipping around her waist to her back and pulling her hips tightly against his. She gasped into his mouth at the contact, her fingers clutching his shoulders involuntarily, and she felt him grin before he placed a trail of wet, determined kisses along her jaw, down her throat. And this was definitely not safe, not even sane, but she couldn’t stop herself, closed her eyes and focused on the sensation as he murmured open-mouthed along her skin, “Kara, Kara… you don’t know how long… Kara…”
Something caught in her throat, a sob or a laugh, and she pulled him closer, her nails digging into his triceps through that perfectly starched jacket. Distantly, she was aware of his hand knocking over the ambrosia bottle, the liquid seeping into the ground next to her head. She dragged his mouth back up to hers, desperate to taste him again, slid her hands underneath his jacket and hooked a foot around his thigh, and they groaned together as she ground herself against him.
He had his tongue buried in her mouth and her jacket off and one hand underneath her shirts, splayed against the bare skin of her stomach, when he abruptly pulled away, breathing hard.
She almost decked him.
“No, no, just for a second,” he managed between gasps, grinning at the look on her face. “I think there’s a utility shed near here. Blankets. I’ll be right back,” and he ignored her incoherent protests, dove in for a hard, lingering kiss before he stumbled away.
She lay there in the near-dark, shaking, heart thundering, wondering how the frak he even knew what planet they were on, much less where the nearest frakking utility shed was. But it was so perfectly him, so utterly her organized, efficient, gentlemanly Lee, who just happened to kiss like sin itself—
And that was when it hit her. This was Lee. This was Lee, and this was her, and he was her best friend and her only family and if she frakked this up, that was it for her in the universe. Sudden panic swamped her, swallowed her, stifling adrenaline and hormones and every other emotion, and it took everything in her not to get up and run away right then—the only thing that stopped her was the absolute conviction that he’d never forgive her. She took the coward’s way out anyway, rolled over and tried to even out her breathing and prayed he’d be gone long enough to make it believable.
He was.
It was several minutes before she heard his uneven footsteps and his breathless whisper, “Sorry it took so long, but I think these’ll be—” The footsteps stopped abruptly, and she could feel him looking at her, and concentrated on breathing steadily and snoring slightly and generally doing an excellent impression of Passed-Out Kara, a sight he’d seen a hundred times before.
“Kara?” he tried. And again, a little louder, “Kara?”
She thought that maybe if the pilot gig didn’t work out, she should give acting a try, because after a moment of silent observation, she heard him sigh, “Frak,” and drop down on the ground next to her. She felt the friction of cloth against her skin—frakking blankets, she thought viciously, out of nowhere, as the weight settled over her—then his fingers at her temple, brushing her hair back from her face. He sighed again and pressed a kiss into the curve of her neck.
She hoped he didn’t notice the goosebumps.
“Goodnight, Kara,” he whispered in her ear, then settled himself next to her, curled up on his side with his back against hers.
Goodnight, Lee, she answered silently, praying she had enough ambrosia in her to let her sleep through the ache in her chest.
* * * * *
She woke in the middle of the night to find him wrapped around her—or she was wrapped around him, she couldn’t really tell. He was lying on his back, and she was half on top of him, head on his chest and one of her legs sandwiched between his, her arm dangling across his chest and shoulder. The blankets were crumpled up beside them. He had one hand splayed across her ribs and one buried in her hair, and she didn’t try to fight it, just lay there smelling the warm night air and Lee, aftershave and the starch of his uniform and the faint echo of paint.
He twitched and muttered in his sleep, his hand tightening briefly across her ribs, and she barely caught the words “Starbuck” and “port thrusters.” She smiled.
Even asleep, he was flying with her.
Her arm was numb where it was twisted underneath her, and she knew that if she didn’t move soon, her neck might be permanently stuck in this position. Not to mention that Lee had probably lost circulation in at least one of his legs by this time. And the grass would be wet in the morning, and anyone could walk by and find them there.
She closed her eyes and went back to sleep.
* * * * *
In the morning, she woke to a vague headache and Lee snoring softly in her ear. They’d obviously shifted positions again during the night, and now he was spooned up behind her, his legs bent against hers, one arm wrapped tight around her waist.
Oh, and the hand attached to that arm was cupped snugly around her right breast. Also, his crotch seemed to be saluting her enthusiastically where it was pressed up against her ass.
The humor of the situation struck her all at once, and she bit her lip on a giggle, cleared her throat slightly. Lee stirred at the sound, and his thumb brushed over her nipple as he pulled her closer, breathed, “Kara…” against her neck in a voice rough with sleep.
Suddenly the whole situation seemed a lot less funny, but she resolutely ignored the lavish fireworks display that was suddenly taking place in her nerve endings and kept her tone light and teasing. “First one’s free, flyboy, but after that, all bets are off.”
She felt him jump a bit and stiffen against her—well, the rest of him, anyway—and then he rolled away. He sat up and just blinked at her for a moment, red-faced.
“Kara.”
“Morning,” she said cheerfully.
“Uh… morning.” He winced, ran a hand through his hair, which promptly stuck up in approximately twelve different directions. “Did you by any chance whack me over the head with something really heavy last night? ‘Cause I have this stabbing thing happening right behind my left eye…”
She held up the empty ambrosia bottle. “I think we have this to thank for that.”
He winced again and held up a hand to block out the sight. “Agh. Lords. Put that away, will you?”
She tossed it out of sight behind the tree trunk. “You’re such a lightweight, Apollo,” she told him, shaking her head with mock disappointment.
“Kara, if you tell me you’re not feeling this at all, I’m going to have to kill you. This is your fault.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I took advantage of you and poured ambrosia down your throat. You poor thing.”
Oops. Wrong thing to say. He glanced over at her at the words “took advantage of you,” a speculative, mischievous look coming into his eye. “Actually,” he started, smirking, “as I recall—”
She felt a thrill of terror, forced a laugh. “I don’t recall much of anything that happened last night, so don’t waste your time.”
Three years in, and apparently she’d finally found a way to make Lee Adama stop smirking. He stopped dead and just stared at her, and the look on his face hit her right in the gut. “You don’t remember anything?” he asked finally, sounding a little strangled.
“Not much, no.” Her smile hung empty and unnatural on her face. She hoped he wouldn’t notice. “You know me, Lee, a few shots and everything gets pretty fuzzy.”
His jaw clenched. “Right, yeah. Of course.”
She should have just shut up then, but something about his expression made her keep going. “Why? Did I miss something important?” She gave him a teasing grin, even as she was wondering what the frak she was doing. “Did you rock my world, Apollo? Did you—”
And now he laughed, short and humorless. “It’d take a lot more than a bottle of ambrosia to get me to put the moves on you, Kara. I might as well be frakking half the guys at the Academy.”
Damn. Damn. She might hit more often, but he sure as hell hit harder. She couldn’t breathe for a second. “Right,” she managed eventually, hoarsely.
He rose abruptly, tugging at his wrinkled jacket. “I have to pack.”
“Right,” she repeated, and he gave her one last, piercing look before he turned his back and walked away.
She let herself fall back onto the grass. Hey, her headache wasn’t so vague anymore—it was actually pounding now. Behind her right eye, the perfect match for his.
Through the headache and the stomachache, there was something nagging at the edges of her mind. If she’d put a name to it, she would have called it disappointment.