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Title: Hic Sunt Dracones
Author: elly427
Summary:And then there are moments like this.
Rating:PG-ish M for sex. Takes place during 'Revelations.' Spec for s4.5, but it will never happen like this. Character death.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: I started this after 'Revelations' aired and meant to post it much sooner. Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wisteria_ for those conversations on my steps for making me think about some of this.
[][][]
Hic sunt dracones
by elly427
[][][]
If there is anything to be grateful about for this whole situation, it is this: Kara Thrace, back in his orbit, back in his space, back in his life like she hasn't been in months.
It's been a while, it has, so of course he notices the changes.
She's softer now, more solicitous. Kara before had been a brittle thing, selfish and grasping and he had wanted her anyway. This Kara, the one who stands close but doesn't quite touch him and tries to comfort him in the middle of his father's office without expecting anything in return, is an enigma.
He likes it, likes her, but it scares him a little too. He saw her before she died and he saw her before the Demetrius and he can't account for the change.
He wants to touch her, wants to make her say something they'll both regret, but before he can the comm behind his father's desk buzzes. He only hesitates a moment before rounding the desk and answering it.
His father is back.
[][][]
All of them stay on the hanger bay and watch D'Anna's raptor until is disappears from sight.
He wants to say something to Kara after D'Anna leaves, but he doesn't know what. I understand if you need to go is exactly the wrong thing to say and he doesn't mean it anyways. He thought he'd made his peace with her possibly being -
Well. That's not the point.
The point is maybe has hasn't, and he has to choke back the words on the back of his tongue that would beg her to stay.
He swallows convulsively and she's there next to him, stride falling in with his, close enough that her arm brushes his with every step. Her hair is shiny and restrained and glows under every light they pass under. She's suddenly so alive, so vibrant that his thoughts tangle and he can barely keep one foot in front of the other.
She leans in a little and he can smell her, that mix of tyllium and surplus soap and starch and just Kara, underneath it all, as familiar as his own scent.
"You okay?" she asks. He wants to laugh because he should be thinking the same about her, not being so self-absorbed and worried about what her defection might mean to him, let alone to what's left of humanity. He can't though, because even the bark he thinks he could manage would be out of place in such a solemn atmosphere.
"Yeah," he manages and she smiles, small and private and his heart squeezes and lets go in the length of a stride.
[][][]
Once the decision is made to blow up the basestar if necessary, he leaves his father's quarters as quickly as he can. Lee leaves the Admiral Tigh and Kara and follows corridors blindly.
He still knows this ship, though, and it's not hard to find a quiet place, especially with so few people still on board. He takes a breath, and another, and another and his hands are curled so tightly into fists he is sure his short nails will soon break skin.
Another breath. He holds this one, holds it and holds it until he lets it out in a gust and gasps another one in. And again. And again. And again until he starts to see spots in front of his eyes.
He thought he was over this sort of thing, thought that since the Olympic Carrier all those years (and has it really only been three?) he was immune, able to make these sorts of decisions.
But.
But. Those people over there were his pilots and his president and they won't be just another list, like the list from New Caprica was, like the lists of civilian casualties he received over and over as the CAG.
The hand on his back is sudden and a surprise. He takes a shuddering breath at the contact and it takes a moment before he can open his eyes.
Kara is standing next to him, her touch light but warm, sliding over to his side. It's the first time she's touched him since she arrived back from the Demetrius. He wishes he didn't know that even as he savours the contact.
"Breathe," she says, and he does, takes a calming breath, then another, then slows himself down so he won't hyperventilate.
Her voice is low and soothing. "These are difficult decisions we're making. You're making."
He squeezes his eyes closed tightly again, manages "yeah," and concentrates on the steady sweeping motion of her hand. She slides her hand under the fabric of his suit jacket and on to the much thinner material of his dress shirt, and he wants her to just slide inside him if it would feel as good.
"You're making the right decisions," she says and it makes him open his eyes. She sounds so . . . sure. Confident. Like she knows. Like she's reading from some book of prophesy. Not that he believes.
"Yeah?" he asks and manages a tight smile.
"Yeah," she says. He turns to face her more fully and her hand settles on his hip. She looks him straight in the eye, and later it occurs to him that he never saw her blink.
"If it was me over there, would you have made the same decision?" Her face is gentle but her hand is hot, so hot through the fabric of his shirt and onto his skin.
He, on the other hand, is frozen. He can hear the last rattle of breath in his ears, and his blood turns to ice in his veins. He tries for air, tries to force something past his lips, tries anything but instead ends up looking like a fish out of water.
She smiles at that, soft and knowing and so free of sarcasm that he barely recognizes her. He doesn't have to answer; they both know what he'd say and that's enough.
[][][]
She's been sitting across from him over his desk for an hour now, and he knows she's not concentrating on the charts in front of her. He knows Kara when she's focused on something, and that's not her right now. Something has been off since the four were outted, since her husband, her husband was revealed as one of them.
He knows some of the things she must be thinking, some of the things racing through her head and part of him aches for her. He can't even imagine if Dee had been outed, and the ink on their divorce has been dry for weeks now.
He flips over a chart, lets it settle and leans forward, intent on the page before he says it.
"I still love you, you know." She doesn't respond but that's okay, for now.
He sneaks a peak when she flips her own chart and she's smiling, small and secret, but so Kara it makes him bite the inside of his own cheek to hide his answering smile. She looks up and catches him. Most of the smile disappears and is replaced by a far more serious expression on her face.
She traces the edge of the chart in front of her, looks down at her finger and then back up at him. "I know," she says, and that's it. She looks back at her chart with the determination that had been missing minutes before.
He wants to wish for more but can't. She's here and she's alive and she's more at peace right now, bent over this planning table in this too-small room, than he's ever seen her. And if he wants to tell her exactly how much he loves her, how he's afraid she just might be the big bad love of his life, well. That's about him, and he loves her enough not to put that on her right now.
He turns his eyes back to the chart in front of them, but now he is the one whose eyes are unseeing. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.
When he opens them again, Kara is watching him. Careful. Waiting.
He looks back, and for one moment, one moment of doubt thinks he sees someone else in front of him, some thing else, but he blinks and she tilts her head, licks her lips, and it's gone, what ever is gone. It's just Kara in front of him.
"If the viper is right," she says, but he knows she doesn't doubt. "Earth should be just about . . ." she leans closer and taps the edge of his chart, the edge of known space. "Here," she says, and smiles, bright, broad and one like he hasn't seen in what seems like years. He can almost hear the echo of her old laugh in his ear.
He looks down, away from her, and sees she is right. She's right, and if the viper and the cylons (he swallows that down for later, much, much later) are right, her ragged-nailed finger is pointing the way to earth. Earth. He smiles back at her and watches her face and eyes soften more in return.
"Earth," he says out loud, and it sounds like he can't believe it because he sort of doesn't. But he can't ignore the look in her eyes and how steady her hand is on the map.
She believes in Earth. He believes in her. It's that simple.
"We should take these to Gaeta, get him to confirm the coordinates." He reaches to roll up the scans in front of them, but her hand stays his.
"No," she says, shakes her head. "No, I'll take this to Gaeta. You go to your father. And find Roslin. She'll convince him." And I won't, he hears.
"Kara-" he starts, wishes she weren't right, but the side of her mouth quirks and he forgets what he was about to say.
"Come on, Mr. President." The quirk turns into a teasing grin and he can't help but grin back. "Time to speak truth to power. Isn't that why they gave you the job, anyways?"
He laughs, looks away, looks down at where her hand is still on his wrist. He doesn't think, just twists his hand and grabs hers before she can let go, threading their fingers together.
She doesn't pull away, just looks at him curiously, looks at him like he's something new and exotic, something she's never seen before. Maybe he is.
"Kara-" he starts again, and tightens his fingers around hers when she starts to interrupt him again. "We're going to make it. You were right. Earth." His voice isn't reverent when it speaks the name of the planet, but maybe it is when he says "You were right."
She smiles again, this time a little shaky. "We'll see," she murmurs and looks away. She pulls her fingers from his and he lets her.
She straightens her shoulders, adjusts a sleeve and doesn't look at him. "You should go to your father."
He keeps looking at her, waits until he catches her eye again. "Okay," he says, nodding once. She looks away again.
He doesn't hide the way he is watching her as she rolls up the necessary charts and photos. She ignores him, like she always has when he watches her. He thinks that the way she fumbles with a few of the rolls is telling enough; she knows exactly where he is and what he is doing whenever they are in the same room, just like he does with her.
She tucks the charts under her arm and stands tall, a solider again.
"I'll take these-" she says, tilting her head to the door.
"Okay," he agrees. And then, as she turns, "Dinner?"
She doesn't exactly freeze, but she does stop, and when she turns back to look at him, it's a little like she's glowing. It might just be the lights, but he doesn't think so.
"Okay," she says. "If you're free of all of your presidential duties."
"I will be," he says. He'll make it true if necessary.
"Good," she says with a decisive head nod. "More time for me then."
He snorts, and she leaves him alone in the room. He waits where he is for a moment, imagines her popping her head back around the door and saying "Me too, Lee" or "I still love you too, you idiot," or even "meet me back here for dinner later, and be naked."
But she doesn't because, well, she's Kara, and she's never done what he's wanted or wished or imagined. And that, it seems, is finally okay.
[][][]
But dinner gets cancelled because of course his father and Roslin want to hear about their findings as soon as possible.
He's already in his father's office when Kara arrives. She tosses him an algae bar and he gives her a wry grin. She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms but he can see the humour, the excitement behind her eyes.
The only maps they have of the space earth occupies are old. Ancient, even and only on the ship because his father is a pack rat-cum-collector. Roslin glows a little at the news of their age, and Gaeta clears his throat.
"Earth would be, as far as I can tell-" Gaeta points to the map, "-here."
They all lean forward, even Lee, even Zarek. No one breathes and no one speaks until Roslin pushes the sickbay table holding the map away. "Here be dragons," she reads, but her eyes are closed. The text on the map is florid and curling and old fashioned.
For a second, no one speaks, no one breathes, no one even moves.
Gaeta breaks the silence with a short laugh. "An old cartographer's inscription. It means-"
"Lands unknown," his father finishes. "Lands people went to and never returned from."
Roslin burns with hope, Lee can see it in her smile and the way she looks at his father.
Lee is not so sure.
Dragons are a myth, but a hundred other dangers aren't.
He glances at Kara and she's not smiling either.
[][][]
There are lists to make, decisions about who gets to go down to the planet first, who should be their chosen representative to negotiate with the people of earth so that everyone else can come down as soon as possible, There's cylons to deal with and a formula needs to be worked out (because a cylon has x amount of strength compared to one human, shouldn't they get to bring more humans? Just in case the cylons make some sort of power play and try to overwhelm them? He scribbles the thought in the margins of his notepad.)
He's probably not the one who should be doing this - he hasn't slept in what feels like weeks, can't remember the last time he ate a real meal or showered, and he's probably got better things to do - but he doesn't know who else will do it if he doesn't. So he does.
His pen scratches over the rough fibers of paper recycled once too often and tears through in places.
He keeps going, though, because there isn't a better option.
[][][]
With Kara back, there are moments of incredible joy
When he finds her after the jump to earth it's like a switch has been flipped. The world has colour again, has texture, has hope. She smiles wide, so wide and she doesn't tense in his arms at all when he wraps them around her.
When she laughs like he hasn't heard since Zak when he lifts her up. She squeals just a little when he picks her up and spins her, her feet off the ground and her arms around his neck.
When he finally sets her back down, pressed between the bulkhead and him and just takes her in, happy and smiling and incandescent.
When she kisses him back when he presses his mouth to hers.
It tastes like nothing and everything from before, and she's laughing into his smiling mouth and it's just - it's just perfect.
She pulls away, arms still tight around his shoulders, breathless and unable to hide her smile. "We did it," she says, like she can't quite believe it.
"You did it," he says and she looks away, shakes her head at him.
He frowns at that, starts to say "Kara-" when a rowdy group of servicemen come careening around the corner, sweeping them up and into their group celebration. Kara lets herself be tugged from his arms and he accepts his own fair share of back slaps and handshakes.
When he looks back over at her again, she's smiling, but it's not the same as before. He can almost hear her thinking behind the smile she gives a sergent.
She catches him watching and maybe he's wrong, maybe he's just become accustomed to the bottom always falling out, because she catches him looking and her smile is brilliant, blinding, more than before.
[][][]
And then there are moments like this, just strange and unsettling enough that he doesn't know if he's imagining things or not.
He watches - Lee doesn't want to call it earth, but he can see the planet revolving through the port holes as well as anyone, and earth seems as good a name as any.
He's tired enough that that sort of prevaricating isn't driving him nuts yet.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" he turns and Kara is there, two steps behind him and glowing like he's never seen her.
"It is," he agrees. "Like Kobol was." She quirks an eyebrow and hides a smile from him.
"What's this?" she asks, and steps closer, steps to his side. "Lee Adama, not a believer?"
He takes a breath when she brushes against him. "I will be," he says. "When we get down there and find the thirteenth tribe."
She nods, and takes a step closer to the window. Her voice is distant when she speaks. "It was so beautiful, Lee." She turns to look at him and it's like she's lit from within. "Like everything and nothing you've ever seen before. We're going to love it." Her eyes sparkle and her teeth flash in a smile and he wants to step forward and touch her, push her hair from her eyes or pull her close to him, but he doesn't. She's almost untouchable like this, in this moment.
Instead he smiles, small, private but including her. "I believe so, Kara," he says, and her smile grows brighter.
[][][]
"Earth."
Earth.
[][][]
No one speaks on the ride back from the planet - Earth he thinks again but believes it a little less than he did on the way down.
Hoshi's voice echoes over the comm, excited and enthusiastic and he knows he's not the only one to close his eyes and bow his head at the sound.
There's a minimum of people waiting to greet them, and Lee thinks his father must have had something to do with that. As he steps off the raptor Cottle holds up a Geiger counter and he doesn't hear the crackle of a positive reading. The older man looks up at him through the view slot of thehazmat suit, concerned. He must see Lee's expression because his mouth twists and he says "come see me tomorrow, son," his voice crackling through the speaker.
Lee nods, doesn't know what else to do. Kara wasn't on his shuttle back, and he's not sure what he would do or say if she were in front of him right now.
His father numbly assigns him guest quarters. Lee doesn't even have to say he doesn't want to return to the Colonial One right now, even though he knows he could be honest if it were necessary to keep him here on this ship tonight.
There's something like defeat on his father's face, and it's the scariest thing he's seen since the worlds ended. He doesn't want to be far, not that there's anything he thinks he could do.
He knows he should shower after the planet, after the things his skin might have absorbed, but he just can't find the energy. He sheds his shoes and socks, his watch, his jacket but can't find the energy to go any farther before he falls onto the bed he's been assigned for the night. He lays and stares at the ceiling and listens to the footfalls outside his room for what feels like hours until he doesn't feel anything and he's no longer aware.
[][][]
He's woken by the sound of the hatch creaking open. He's been gone from the bunk room long enough that the sound is unfamiliar.
His first thought is Dee, that she's found out where he's quartered and is looking for some sort of comfort. That's enough to get him up and out of bed; for what purpose, he's not sure, but it doesn't really matter when his hands find flesh, find full hips and soft skin and every part of him sighs Kara.
He knows it's her, so he says it aloud, says "Kara," and her body curves into his. She smells like smoke and ozone and just her, and when she kisses him he kisses her back, presses against her until he can feel her bones against his skin.
"'Lee," she says and sounds as broken as he feels. He kisses her again, kisses her harder, wetter, more, like he wants to swallow her whole. She responds in kind and he can't help the sound that rises in the back of his throat.
He presses her back and she concedes, relents and takes first one step, and then another, then another back, again and again until she hits the edge of the room's desk. He boosts her up until her ass finds the edge and she wraps her feet around his calves and edges herself back.
His hands find her belt and it's a simple matter of unfastening her pants and her lifting herself up as he edges them down past her hips to pool around her ankles. Her hands are busy at the same time, loosening his belt and sliding fabric off skin so they're both naked where they're pressed together.
Kara - wriggles - against him and he swallows both their gasps against his mouth. She pulls away to bite at his lower lip even as she writhes against him, and he can't help himself. His hand finds his cock and positions himself at her entrance. She pulls away from his mouth, panting at the sensation, and works her hips forward and makes it so easy he can't help but push himself inside her on a harsh exhale.
She freezes, her hands digging into his shoulders and her legs curling around his. A beat, and then another, then another and she sighs as she moans, relaxes into his body even as her hips shift forward in a way that is so sexy and so demanding all at the same time.
Her mouth is open and wet and mindless against his, and he kisses her as he leans her back until she is draped across the desk. Once she is splayed flat he tears his mouth away from hers and thrusts into her again, hard.
Her mouth falls further open in shock and lust and pleasure, so he does it again. And again. He watches as her breasts bounce under her tanks, hidden from his view. Her eyes cloud and go distant, even though he is looking down at her from a space of inches.
"Oh,"' she manages between breathes and between thrusts. "Oh, oh gods" she moans and arches her back and her neck.
He drives into her, his flesh pressing hard into hers, the slap loud in the small room. Kara's mouth is open and round and stays that way, little "Oh"s escaping every time he drives into her.
He loves her, he does, and he believes in her and believes this is not the end and believes they'll find a happy end, but right now he doesn't care, just wants to come inside her, just wants her to come and tighten around him and dig her nails into his flesh, wants to hear her howl to the ceiling of Galactica, even if he'll never again hear her come under a dark, starry sky.
And it's like she hears him, hears his thoughts because her nails dig in and her body arches, rises up and off of the desk to connect with his skin where their tanks have ridden up over their bellies and he can't help it, he leans down and his mouth finds her neck and his teeth find her shoulder and he bites through the fabric - and she comes, arching harder and higher and crying his name in gasping little sobs, her fingers digging in and breaking open flesh and his heart and everything, all at once.
His hips stutter against hers and then renew their assault briefly. As she comes back down Kara manages a moan into his ear, pulls him closer and shifts beneath him. Frak, it's enough, that tilt of her hips and the renewed press of her breasts - frak, it's enough, and he finds himself all but rutting against her, pistoning against her hips and coming into her welcoming heat, the grasping wetness.
Oblivion. It's all he's wanted for days, almost as much as he's wanted her.
When he comes back down, Kara's hands are in his hair and she's whispering nonsense words to him, his body draped over hers. Some part of him wants to tense, wants to freeze because he's never known Kara to be like this, not before, and not yet after.
However, thank the gods, his body is too tired, too sated to be tense, and instead he breathes out a great breath and relaxes against her. His mouth finds her cheek, finds the tears there, and he rubs his cheek against hers to gently wipe them away.
Her eyelashes flutter shut against his cheek. "Lee," she manages, her eyes still closed, even as she wraps a foot more firmly around his calf.
"Earth." She says it like the name of a loved one lost, like she says "Zak" or the way she said his name when she flew into the nebula cloud.
He doesn't know what to say, doesn't know what to say to comfort her, so instead he says "Kara-" and wraps his arms around her suddenly-small frame. She buries her face in his shoulder and he feels her take a deep, shuddering breath.
After a long second, she lifts her head. "Lee," she says, clear, determined. She braces her hands against his chest, pushes him up and back and pulls at his (now unfamiliar) tanks. Her hand is hot in the middle of his chest and the heat and the weight of it force him backwards, backwards, one step after another until she pushes him over so he falls, lands flat on his back on his bed. She swings her leg over his body, so graceful, hovering over him.
"Lee," she says again, and leans down to bite at the joining of his shoulder and neck.
"Kara," he breathes, and for right now, for right now her name and her presence and her weight, pressing him down into the thin mattress, is enough.
[][][]
He wakes in the middle of the night, halfway through rolling over. He's stopped by her body but more by her hand and her head on his chest.
Her hair is in his face, in his nose, and he's not sure how he managed to ignore that for so many hours. He shifts and moves a hand to smooth it down.
Kara sighs in response to his hand in her hair. Her breath tickles his chest and he unsuccessfully fights back a shiver.
His hand stills, pauses and then resumes its stoking. She's awake now; he can feel her eyelashes blink against his chin.
She shifts on his sheets, moves her leg a little further up his thigh and he blows out a breath, moves the messy strands of hair back to where they were before he smoothed them, before she woke up.
She stills, holds her breath and so does he. Then her fingers start moving again and she shifts her head, moves down and looks up, and her eyes are soft and wide and so unlike Kara in a million ways. He thinks he sees I love you there next to why'd you wake me up, you frakker? and how'd you get all the covers?
He doesn't answer, can't answer, and instead moves his arm down to pull her closer. She slides up his chest with his urging and his mouth finds hers, slow and soft.
She rolls on top of him, spreads her legs so he's there between her thighs, pressed up against all that hot and wet. It takes what feels like super human strength to tear his mouth away from hers, to push her to the side and to her back, to take the time to reacquaint himself with how she feels. He's only had her like this once, spread out beneath him, vulnerable, and that was on a cold planet with rocky dirt under her back.
When she comes her "Love you, gods, Lee, so much," is all he can hear.
[][][]
He wakes suddenly, his cabin still dark. One arm is thrown over his head as if in abandon from what Kara had done before he had fallen back onto the bed, exhausted. The other, the one that had pulled Kara's warm, soft form close, is carefully placed along his body on top of the covers.
There's a note on the bed next to him, her distinctive scrawl clear even in the dim light.
I'm so sorry. There's a space on the page that even he can hear the breath in.
I'm so sorry for all of it.
[][][]
He runs full out to the hanger bay, knows that is where he will find her, if he finds her.
He skids onto the deck, no shoes, no shirt, a safety violation waiting to happen. Laird looks up, bewildered.
"Captain-" he starts and stops. "Mr. Adama. Captain Thrace just-" the other man gestures in the direction of her viper's berth, and Lee doesn't have to look to see it's missing.
Hoshi is on shift, which is something of a relief, even though he knows the other man wants to protest at revealing information to a non-military source.
"She launched five minutes ago. Her signal merged with the planet shortly thereafter."
[][][]
They don't find her, despite the SAR mission.
"We can't leave her," he says to Sam at the end of one of the last meetings between cylon and human. "We can't leave her here. She'd never forgive us." Sam chokes on a semi-hysterical laugh, so Lee corrects. "Me."
Sam doesn't say anything else, and Lee wonders what the other man- frak, cylon, frak, whatever knows.
He's enough of a man to acknowledge he's afraid to ask.
[][][]
He prays for her, because he knows she would do the same for him, even though he doesn't believe.
It's the middle of night cycle when he pulls her icons from their hiding places. Something makes him still as he unwraps them, realizes she was the last to pull the velvet around them.
Sentimental, some part of him chides as he sets the cloth to the side.
Lord of Kobol, hear my prayer, he mouths silently, then stops.
Take the soul of Kara Thrace, your daughter - and he stops again, swallows convulsively, because was she? Even now, he doesn't know.
Take the soul of your servant - because at least that much was true. Kara believed, despite everything.
Take the soul of your servant, Kara Thrace, into your hands. She deserves that much.
[][][]
The fleet prepares to jump away and he fights himself, doesn't stare out the window in case of a flash of viper rising from the planet.
He thinks longingly of the last time she left him. At least that time she only married a cylon.
[][][]
Things get bad. Real bad.
Theoretically he still has his freedom and his movement but it's only enough to allow him to hear people talk, to hear people call her the Adamas ' slut, to hear people whisper that she frakked him and his father over literally and figuratively. He's not sure where the reserve of icy coolness comes from, but he uses it like a weapon, levels it with a glare on those he hears talking about her.
Others, well. One woman comes toward him in the corridor and swerves towards him. He braces himself for another impact. Instead she presses something into his hands and whispers reverently "Aurora. Gods bless you, sir."
When she's gone and he's able to start moving again, he looks down to find a pomegranate in his hands, firm and flesh unblemished. He can't begin to imagine where she found it.
He eats it that night in secret, carves it into sections and spits the seeds silently into a handkerchief. He has a small mound of seeds when he is done, and he knows he should do something with them but he doesn't know what. There's nowhere to plant them and he's not sure any of them will live long enough to see these seeds bear fruit.
[][][]
Later, as he stands hooded and cuffed in the centre of what he can only assume is the forward port airlock, he is glad she disappeared when she did, no matter what might have happened to her.
He hears the alarms and to distract himself from the countdown, he wonders if she will appear to him again once the airlock is open, flying with him again.
He barely feels the air around him rushing into space.
Author: elly427
Summary:And then there are moments like this.
Rating:
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: I started this after 'Revelations' aired and meant to post it much sooner. Thanks to
wisteria_ for those conversations on my steps for making me think about some of this.[][][]
Hic sunt dracones
by elly427
[][][]
If there is anything to be grateful about for this whole situation, it is this: Kara Thrace, back in his orbit, back in his space, back in his life like she hasn't been in months.
It's been a while, it has, so of course he notices the changes.
She's softer now, more solicitous. Kara before had been a brittle thing, selfish and grasping and he had wanted her anyway. This Kara, the one who stands close but doesn't quite touch him and tries to comfort him in the middle of his father's office without expecting anything in return, is an enigma.
He likes it, likes her, but it scares him a little too. He saw her before she died and he saw her before the Demetrius and he can't account for the change.
He wants to touch her, wants to make her say something they'll both regret, but before he can the comm behind his father's desk buzzes. He only hesitates a moment before rounding the desk and answering it.
His father is back.
[][][]
All of them stay on the hanger bay and watch D'Anna's raptor until is disappears from sight.
He wants to say something to Kara after D'Anna leaves, but he doesn't know what. I understand if you need to go is exactly the wrong thing to say and he doesn't mean it anyways. He thought he'd made his peace with her possibly being -
Well. That's not the point.
The point is maybe has hasn't, and he has to choke back the words on the back of his tongue that would beg her to stay.
He swallows convulsively and she's there next to him, stride falling in with his, close enough that her arm brushes his with every step. Her hair is shiny and restrained and glows under every light they pass under. She's suddenly so alive, so vibrant that his thoughts tangle and he can barely keep one foot in front of the other.
She leans in a little and he can smell her, that mix of tyllium and surplus soap and starch and just Kara, underneath it all, as familiar as his own scent.
"You okay?" she asks. He wants to laugh because he should be thinking the same about her, not being so self-absorbed and worried about what her defection might mean to him, let alone to what's left of humanity. He can't though, because even the bark he thinks he could manage would be out of place in such a solemn atmosphere.
"Yeah," he manages and she smiles, small and private and his heart squeezes and lets go in the length of a stride.
[][][]
Once the decision is made to blow up the basestar if necessary, he leaves his father's quarters as quickly as he can. Lee leaves the Admiral Tigh and Kara and follows corridors blindly.
He still knows this ship, though, and it's not hard to find a quiet place, especially with so few people still on board. He takes a breath, and another, and another and his hands are curled so tightly into fists he is sure his short nails will soon break skin.
Another breath. He holds this one, holds it and holds it until he lets it out in a gust and gasps another one in. And again. And again. And again until he starts to see spots in front of his eyes.
He thought he was over this sort of thing, thought that since the Olympic Carrier all those years (and has it really only been three?) he was immune, able to make these sorts of decisions.
But.
But. Those people over there were his pilots and his president and they won't be just another list, like the list from New Caprica was, like the lists of civilian casualties he received over and over as the CAG.
The hand on his back is sudden and a surprise. He takes a shuddering breath at the contact and it takes a moment before he can open his eyes.
Kara is standing next to him, her touch light but warm, sliding over to his side. It's the first time she's touched him since she arrived back from the Demetrius. He wishes he didn't know that even as he savours the contact.
"Breathe," she says, and he does, takes a calming breath, then another, then slows himself down so he won't hyperventilate.
Her voice is low and soothing. "These are difficult decisions we're making. You're making."
He squeezes his eyes closed tightly again, manages "yeah," and concentrates on the steady sweeping motion of her hand. She slides her hand under the fabric of his suit jacket and on to the much thinner material of his dress shirt, and he wants her to just slide inside him if it would feel as good.
"You're making the right decisions," she says and it makes him open his eyes. She sounds so . . . sure. Confident. Like she knows. Like she's reading from some book of prophesy. Not that he believes.
"Yeah?" he asks and manages a tight smile.
"Yeah," she says. He turns to face her more fully and her hand settles on his hip. She looks him straight in the eye, and later it occurs to him that he never saw her blink.
"If it was me over there, would you have made the same decision?" Her face is gentle but her hand is hot, so hot through the fabric of his shirt and onto his skin.
He, on the other hand, is frozen. He can hear the last rattle of breath in his ears, and his blood turns to ice in his veins. He tries for air, tries to force something past his lips, tries anything but instead ends up looking like a fish out of water.
She smiles at that, soft and knowing and so free of sarcasm that he barely recognizes her. He doesn't have to answer; they both know what he'd say and that's enough.
[][][]
She's been sitting across from him over his desk for an hour now, and he knows she's not concentrating on the charts in front of her. He knows Kara when she's focused on something, and that's not her right now. Something has been off since the four were outted, since her husband, her husband was revealed as one of them.
He knows some of the things she must be thinking, some of the things racing through her head and part of him aches for her. He can't even imagine if Dee had been outed, and the ink on their divorce has been dry for weeks now.
He flips over a chart, lets it settle and leans forward, intent on the page before he says it.
"I still love you, you know." She doesn't respond but that's okay, for now.
He sneaks a peak when she flips her own chart and she's smiling, small and secret, but so Kara it makes him bite the inside of his own cheek to hide his answering smile. She looks up and catches him. Most of the smile disappears and is replaced by a far more serious expression on her face.
She traces the edge of the chart in front of her, looks down at her finger and then back up at him. "I know," she says, and that's it. She looks back at her chart with the determination that had been missing minutes before.
He wants to wish for more but can't. She's here and she's alive and she's more at peace right now, bent over this planning table in this too-small room, than he's ever seen her. And if he wants to tell her exactly how much he loves her, how he's afraid she just might be the big bad love of his life, well. That's about him, and he loves her enough not to put that on her right now.
He turns his eyes back to the chart in front of them, but now he is the one whose eyes are unseeing. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.
When he opens them again, Kara is watching him. Careful. Waiting.
He looks back, and for one moment, one moment of doubt thinks he sees someone else in front of him, some thing else, but he blinks and she tilts her head, licks her lips, and it's gone, what ever is gone. It's just Kara in front of him.
"If the viper is right," she says, but he knows she doesn't doubt. "Earth should be just about . . ." she leans closer and taps the edge of his chart, the edge of known space. "Here," she says, and smiles, bright, broad and one like he hasn't seen in what seems like years. He can almost hear the echo of her old laugh in his ear.
He looks down, away from her, and sees she is right. She's right, and if the viper and the cylons (he swallows that down for later, much, much later) are right, her ragged-nailed finger is pointing the way to earth. Earth. He smiles back at her and watches her face and eyes soften more in return.
"Earth," he says out loud, and it sounds like he can't believe it because he sort of doesn't. But he can't ignore the look in her eyes and how steady her hand is on the map.
She believes in Earth. He believes in her. It's that simple.
"We should take these to Gaeta, get him to confirm the coordinates." He reaches to roll up the scans in front of them, but her hand stays his.
"No," she says, shakes her head. "No, I'll take this to Gaeta. You go to your father. And find Roslin. She'll convince him." And I won't, he hears.
"Kara-" he starts, wishes she weren't right, but the side of her mouth quirks and he forgets what he was about to say.
"Come on, Mr. President." The quirk turns into a teasing grin and he can't help but grin back. "Time to speak truth to power. Isn't that why they gave you the job, anyways?"
He laughs, looks away, looks down at where her hand is still on his wrist. He doesn't think, just twists his hand and grabs hers before she can let go, threading their fingers together.
She doesn't pull away, just looks at him curiously, looks at him like he's something new and exotic, something she's never seen before. Maybe he is.
"Kara-" he starts again, and tightens his fingers around hers when she starts to interrupt him again. "We're going to make it. You were right. Earth." His voice isn't reverent when it speaks the name of the planet, but maybe it is when he says "You were right."
She smiles again, this time a little shaky. "We'll see," she murmurs and looks away. She pulls her fingers from his and he lets her.
She straightens her shoulders, adjusts a sleeve and doesn't look at him. "You should go to your father."
He keeps looking at her, waits until he catches her eye again. "Okay," he says, nodding once. She looks away again.
He doesn't hide the way he is watching her as she rolls up the necessary charts and photos. She ignores him, like she always has when he watches her. He thinks that the way she fumbles with a few of the rolls is telling enough; she knows exactly where he is and what he is doing whenever they are in the same room, just like he does with her.
She tucks the charts under her arm and stands tall, a solider again.
"I'll take these-" she says, tilting her head to the door.
"Okay," he agrees. And then, as she turns, "Dinner?"
She doesn't exactly freeze, but she does stop, and when she turns back to look at him, it's a little like she's glowing. It might just be the lights, but he doesn't think so.
"Okay," she says. "If you're free of all of your presidential duties."
"I will be," he says. He'll make it true if necessary.
"Good," she says with a decisive head nod. "More time for me then."
He snorts, and she leaves him alone in the room. He waits where he is for a moment, imagines her popping her head back around the door and saying "Me too, Lee" or "I still love you too, you idiot," or even "meet me back here for dinner later, and be naked."
But she doesn't because, well, she's Kara, and she's never done what he's wanted or wished or imagined. And that, it seems, is finally okay.
[][][]
But dinner gets cancelled because of course his father and Roslin want to hear about their findings as soon as possible.
He's already in his father's office when Kara arrives. She tosses him an algae bar and he gives her a wry grin. She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms but he can see the humour, the excitement behind her eyes.
The only maps they have of the space earth occupies are old. Ancient, even and only on the ship because his father is a pack rat-cum-collector. Roslin glows a little at the news of their age, and Gaeta clears his throat.
"Earth would be, as far as I can tell-" Gaeta points to the map, "-here."
They all lean forward, even Lee, even Zarek. No one breathes and no one speaks until Roslin pushes the sickbay table holding the map away. "Here be dragons," she reads, but her eyes are closed. The text on the map is florid and curling and old fashioned.
For a second, no one speaks, no one breathes, no one even moves.
Gaeta breaks the silence with a short laugh. "An old cartographer's inscription. It means-"
"Lands unknown," his father finishes. "Lands people went to and never returned from."
Roslin burns with hope, Lee can see it in her smile and the way she looks at his father.
Lee is not so sure.
Dragons are a myth, but a hundred other dangers aren't.
He glances at Kara and she's not smiling either.
[][][]
There are lists to make, decisions about who gets to go down to the planet first, who should be their chosen representative to negotiate with the people of earth so that everyone else can come down as soon as possible, There's cylons to deal with and a formula needs to be worked out (because a cylon has x amount of strength compared to one human, shouldn't they get to bring more humans? Just in case the cylons make some sort of power play and try to overwhelm them? He scribbles the thought in the margins of his notepad.)
He's probably not the one who should be doing this - he hasn't slept in what feels like weeks, can't remember the last time he ate a real meal or showered, and he's probably got better things to do - but he doesn't know who else will do it if he doesn't. So he does.
His pen scratches over the rough fibers of paper recycled once too often and tears through in places.
He keeps going, though, because there isn't a better option.
[][][]
With Kara back, there are moments of incredible joy
When he finds her after the jump to earth it's like a switch has been flipped. The world has colour again, has texture, has hope. She smiles wide, so wide and she doesn't tense in his arms at all when he wraps them around her.
When she laughs like he hasn't heard since Zak when he lifts her up. She squeals just a little when he picks her up and spins her, her feet off the ground and her arms around his neck.
When he finally sets her back down, pressed between the bulkhead and him and just takes her in, happy and smiling and incandescent.
When she kisses him back when he presses his mouth to hers.
It tastes like nothing and everything from before, and she's laughing into his smiling mouth and it's just - it's just perfect.
She pulls away, arms still tight around his shoulders, breathless and unable to hide her smile. "We did it," she says, like she can't quite believe it.
"You did it," he says and she looks away, shakes her head at him.
He frowns at that, starts to say "Kara-" when a rowdy group of servicemen come careening around the corner, sweeping them up and into their group celebration. Kara lets herself be tugged from his arms and he accepts his own fair share of back slaps and handshakes.
When he looks back over at her again, she's smiling, but it's not the same as before. He can almost hear her thinking behind the smile she gives a sergent.
She catches him watching and maybe he's wrong, maybe he's just become accustomed to the bottom always falling out, because she catches him looking and her smile is brilliant, blinding, more than before.
[][][]
And then there are moments like this, just strange and unsettling enough that he doesn't know if he's imagining things or not.
He watches - Lee doesn't want to call it earth, but he can see the planet revolving through the port holes as well as anyone, and earth seems as good a name as any.
He's tired enough that that sort of prevaricating isn't driving him nuts yet.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" he turns and Kara is there, two steps behind him and glowing like he's never seen her.
"It is," he agrees. "Like Kobol was." She quirks an eyebrow and hides a smile from him.
"What's this?" she asks, and steps closer, steps to his side. "Lee Adama, not a believer?"
He takes a breath when she brushes against him. "I will be," he says. "When we get down there and find the thirteenth tribe."
She nods, and takes a step closer to the window. Her voice is distant when she speaks. "It was so beautiful, Lee." She turns to look at him and it's like she's lit from within. "Like everything and nothing you've ever seen before. We're going to love it." Her eyes sparkle and her teeth flash in a smile and he wants to step forward and touch her, push her hair from her eyes or pull her close to him, but he doesn't. She's almost untouchable like this, in this moment.
Instead he smiles, small, private but including her. "I believe so, Kara," he says, and her smile grows brighter.
[][][]
"Earth."
Earth.
[][][]
No one speaks on the ride back from the planet - Earth he thinks again but believes it a little less than he did on the way down.
Hoshi's voice echoes over the comm, excited and enthusiastic and he knows he's not the only one to close his eyes and bow his head at the sound.
There's a minimum of people waiting to greet them, and Lee thinks his father must have had something to do with that. As he steps off the raptor Cottle holds up a Geiger counter and he doesn't hear the crackle of a positive reading. The older man looks up at him through the view slot of thehazmat suit, concerned. He must see Lee's expression because his mouth twists and he says "come see me tomorrow, son," his voice crackling through the speaker.
Lee nods, doesn't know what else to do. Kara wasn't on his shuttle back, and he's not sure what he would do or say if she were in front of him right now.
His father numbly assigns him guest quarters. Lee doesn't even have to say he doesn't want to return to the Colonial One right now, even though he knows he could be honest if it were necessary to keep him here on this ship tonight.
There's something like defeat on his father's face, and it's the scariest thing he's seen since the worlds ended. He doesn't want to be far, not that there's anything he thinks he could do.
He knows he should shower after the planet, after the things his skin might have absorbed, but he just can't find the energy. He sheds his shoes and socks, his watch, his jacket but can't find the energy to go any farther before he falls onto the bed he's been assigned for the night. He lays and stares at the ceiling and listens to the footfalls outside his room for what feels like hours until he doesn't feel anything and he's no longer aware.
[][][]
He's woken by the sound of the hatch creaking open. He's been gone from the bunk room long enough that the sound is unfamiliar.
His first thought is Dee, that she's found out where he's quartered and is looking for some sort of comfort. That's enough to get him up and out of bed; for what purpose, he's not sure, but it doesn't really matter when his hands find flesh, find full hips and soft skin and every part of him sighs Kara.
He knows it's her, so he says it aloud, says "Kara," and her body curves into his. She smells like smoke and ozone and just her, and when she kisses him he kisses her back, presses against her until he can feel her bones against his skin.
"'Lee," she says and sounds as broken as he feels. He kisses her again, kisses her harder, wetter, more, like he wants to swallow her whole. She responds in kind and he can't help the sound that rises in the back of his throat.
He presses her back and she concedes, relents and takes first one step, and then another, then another back, again and again until she hits the edge of the room's desk. He boosts her up until her ass finds the edge and she wraps her feet around his calves and edges herself back.
His hands find her belt and it's a simple matter of unfastening her pants and her lifting herself up as he edges them down past her hips to pool around her ankles. Her hands are busy at the same time, loosening his belt and sliding fabric off skin so they're both naked where they're pressed together.
Kara - wriggles - against him and he swallows both their gasps against his mouth. She pulls away to bite at his lower lip even as she writhes against him, and he can't help himself. His hand finds his cock and positions himself at her entrance. She pulls away from his mouth, panting at the sensation, and works her hips forward and makes it so easy he can't help but push himself inside her on a harsh exhale.
She freezes, her hands digging into his shoulders and her legs curling around his. A beat, and then another, then another and she sighs as she moans, relaxes into his body even as her hips shift forward in a way that is so sexy and so demanding all at the same time.
Her mouth is open and wet and mindless against his, and he kisses her as he leans her back until she is draped across the desk. Once she is splayed flat he tears his mouth away from hers and thrusts into her again, hard.
Her mouth falls further open in shock and lust and pleasure, so he does it again. And again. He watches as her breasts bounce under her tanks, hidden from his view. Her eyes cloud and go distant, even though he is looking down at her from a space of inches.
"Oh,"' she manages between breathes and between thrusts. "Oh, oh gods" she moans and arches her back and her neck.
He drives into her, his flesh pressing hard into hers, the slap loud in the small room. Kara's mouth is open and round and stays that way, little "Oh"s escaping every time he drives into her.
He loves her, he does, and he believes in her and believes this is not the end and believes they'll find a happy end, but right now he doesn't care, just wants to come inside her, just wants her to come and tighten around him and dig her nails into his flesh, wants to hear her howl to the ceiling of Galactica, even if he'll never again hear her come under a dark, starry sky.
And it's like she hears him, hears his thoughts because her nails dig in and her body arches, rises up and off of the desk to connect with his skin where their tanks have ridden up over their bellies and he can't help it, he leans down and his mouth finds her neck and his teeth find her shoulder and he bites through the fabric - and she comes, arching harder and higher and crying his name in gasping little sobs, her fingers digging in and breaking open flesh and his heart and everything, all at once.
His hips stutter against hers and then renew their assault briefly. As she comes back down Kara manages a moan into his ear, pulls him closer and shifts beneath him. Frak, it's enough, that tilt of her hips and the renewed press of her breasts - frak, it's enough, and he finds himself all but rutting against her, pistoning against her hips and coming into her welcoming heat, the grasping wetness.
Oblivion. It's all he's wanted for days, almost as much as he's wanted her.
When he comes back down, Kara's hands are in his hair and she's whispering nonsense words to him, his body draped over hers. Some part of him wants to tense, wants to freeze because he's never known Kara to be like this, not before, and not yet after.
However, thank the gods, his body is too tired, too sated to be tense, and instead he breathes out a great breath and relaxes against her. His mouth finds her cheek, finds the tears there, and he rubs his cheek against hers to gently wipe them away.
Her eyelashes flutter shut against his cheek. "Lee," she manages, her eyes still closed, even as she wraps a foot more firmly around his calf.
"Earth." She says it like the name of a loved one lost, like she says "Zak" or the way she said his name when she flew into the nebula cloud.
He doesn't know what to say, doesn't know what to say to comfort her, so instead he says "Kara-" and wraps his arms around her suddenly-small frame. She buries her face in his shoulder and he feels her take a deep, shuddering breath.
After a long second, she lifts her head. "Lee," she says, clear, determined. She braces her hands against his chest, pushes him up and back and pulls at his (now unfamiliar) tanks. Her hand is hot in the middle of his chest and the heat and the weight of it force him backwards, backwards, one step after another until she pushes him over so he falls, lands flat on his back on his bed. She swings her leg over his body, so graceful, hovering over him.
"Lee," she says again, and leans down to bite at the joining of his shoulder and neck.
"Kara," he breathes, and for right now, for right now her name and her presence and her weight, pressing him down into the thin mattress, is enough.
[][][]
He wakes in the middle of the night, halfway through rolling over. He's stopped by her body but more by her hand and her head on his chest.
Her hair is in his face, in his nose, and he's not sure how he managed to ignore that for so many hours. He shifts and moves a hand to smooth it down.
Kara sighs in response to his hand in her hair. Her breath tickles his chest and he unsuccessfully fights back a shiver.
His hand stills, pauses and then resumes its stoking. She's awake now; he can feel her eyelashes blink against his chin.
She shifts on his sheets, moves her leg a little further up his thigh and he blows out a breath, moves the messy strands of hair back to where they were before he smoothed them, before she woke up.
She stills, holds her breath and so does he. Then her fingers start moving again and she shifts her head, moves down and looks up, and her eyes are soft and wide and so unlike Kara in a million ways. He thinks he sees I love you there next to why'd you wake me up, you frakker? and how'd you get all the covers?
He doesn't answer, can't answer, and instead moves his arm down to pull her closer. She slides up his chest with his urging and his mouth finds hers, slow and soft.
She rolls on top of him, spreads her legs so he's there between her thighs, pressed up against all that hot and wet. It takes what feels like super human strength to tear his mouth away from hers, to push her to the side and to her back, to take the time to reacquaint himself with how she feels. He's only had her like this once, spread out beneath him, vulnerable, and that was on a cold planet with rocky dirt under her back.
When she comes her "Love you, gods, Lee, so much," is all he can hear.
[][][]
He wakes suddenly, his cabin still dark. One arm is thrown over his head as if in abandon from what Kara had done before he had fallen back onto the bed, exhausted. The other, the one that had pulled Kara's warm, soft form close, is carefully placed along his body on top of the covers.
There's a note on the bed next to him, her distinctive scrawl clear even in the dim light.
I'm so sorry. There's a space on the page that even he can hear the breath in.
I'm so sorry for all of it.
[][][]
He runs full out to the hanger bay, knows that is where he will find her, if he finds her.
He skids onto the deck, no shoes, no shirt, a safety violation waiting to happen. Laird looks up, bewildered.
"Captain-" he starts and stops. "Mr. Adama. Captain Thrace just-" the other man gestures in the direction of her viper's berth, and Lee doesn't have to look to see it's missing.
Hoshi is on shift, which is something of a relief, even though he knows the other man wants to protest at revealing information to a non-military source.
"She launched five minutes ago. Her signal merged with the planet shortly thereafter."
[][][]
They don't find her, despite the SAR mission.
"We can't leave her," he says to Sam at the end of one of the last meetings between cylon and human. "We can't leave her here. She'd never forgive us." Sam chokes on a semi-hysterical laugh, so Lee corrects. "Me."
Sam doesn't say anything else, and Lee wonders what the other man- frak, cylon, frak, whatever knows.
He's enough of a man to acknowledge he's afraid to ask.
[][][]
He prays for her, because he knows she would do the same for him, even though he doesn't believe.
It's the middle of night cycle when he pulls her icons from their hiding places. Something makes him still as he unwraps them, realizes she was the last to pull the velvet around them.
Sentimental, some part of him chides as he sets the cloth to the side.
Lord of Kobol, hear my prayer, he mouths silently, then stops.
Take the soul of Kara Thrace, your daughter - and he stops again, swallows convulsively, because was she? Even now, he doesn't know.
Take the soul of your servant - because at least that much was true. Kara believed, despite everything.
Take the soul of your servant, Kara Thrace, into your hands. She deserves that much.
[][][]
The fleet prepares to jump away and he fights himself, doesn't stare out the window in case of a flash of viper rising from the planet.
He thinks longingly of the last time she left him. At least that time she only married a cylon.
[][][]
Things get bad. Real bad.
Theoretically he still has his freedom and his movement but it's only enough to allow him to hear people talk, to hear people call her the Adamas ' slut, to hear people whisper that she frakked him and his father over literally and figuratively. He's not sure where the reserve of icy coolness comes from, but he uses it like a weapon, levels it with a glare on those he hears talking about her.
Others, well. One woman comes toward him in the corridor and swerves towards him. He braces himself for another impact. Instead she presses something into his hands and whispers reverently "Aurora. Gods bless you, sir."
When she's gone and he's able to start moving again, he looks down to find a pomegranate in his hands, firm and flesh unblemished. He can't begin to imagine where she found it.
He eats it that night in secret, carves it into sections and spits the seeds silently into a handkerchief. He has a small mound of seeds when he is done, and he knows he should do something with them but he doesn't know what. There's nowhere to plant them and he's not sure any of them will live long enough to see these seeds bear fruit.
[][][]
Later, as he stands hooded and cuffed in the centre of what he can only assume is the forward port airlock, he is glad she disappeared when she did, no matter what might have happened to her.
He hears the alarms and to distract himself from the countdown, he wonders if she will appear to him again once the airlock is open, flying with him again.
He barely feels the air around him rushing into space.
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Why, why, why do you do this? Why do you break my heart into little pieces?
It was awesome, IF YOUR INTENT WAS TO RIP MY HEART FROM MY CHEST.
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"She's softer now, more solicitous. Kara before had been a brittle thing, selfish and grasping and he had wanted her anyway. This Kara, the one who stands close but doesn't quite touch him and tries to comfort him in the middle of his father's office without expecting anything in return, is an enigma.
He likes it, likes her, but it scares him a little too. He saw her before she died and he saw her before the Demetrius and he can't account for the change."
I swear that's exactly what's going through his mind when they're standing in his dad's office while he's waiting for Roslin. You so nailed that!
however then you detoured and sucker punched me with that ending!!!
very angsty.
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But! I am glad that bit in the beginning rang true for you. I think that POV really informed the way I've watched s4 and I'm happy I'm not the only one.
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she knows exactly where he is and what he is doing whenever they are in the same room, just like he does with her
I love this about pilots.
Oblivion. It's all he's wanted for days, almost as much as he's wanted her.
Ouch.
Her signal merged with the planet shortly thereafter.
I love how you never truly confirm if this is Kara, Lee's Kara. Maybe all he has is belief.
oh Elly. So sad.
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I love how you never truly confirm if this is Kara, Lee's Kara
Man, I don't think I've decided if it's Kara or not, and I've got a lot more info that Lee, I think. I don't know if I want to know.
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(Totally something the show would do. YOU DIDN'T HEAR THAT, RON MOORE.)
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(Thank you!)
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And now I get to print out your fic and curl up in bed with it. Yay! Will give copious feedback tomorrow. :)
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Anyways, hope you enjoyed! :)
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No, no, it was beautiful and well-written and damned heartbreaking.
I'm only ok reading it and not needing to call the little men in white coats because I know--am totally convinced--it will not end so tragically for our pilots.
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Er. *is sheepish* I'm sorry. These two! I am really optimistic about them on the show! My brain just likes them broken! I don't know why! I too believe it won't end like this for either of them either!
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I'm sorry I can't articulate anything. I...wow. Um. For like, the first 2/3 of the story I was fervently hoping that something akin to this might happen on the show (all the private smiles, and the brilliant ones too! They were so happy!). And then...ok, it was amazingly heartbreaking and that's about all I can say.
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You totally coaxed me into believing the piloticians had a future and then RIPPED IT BRUTALLY AWAY FROM THEM!!!
Which is, like, not fair. Even if it is masterfully and uberangstfully executed.
*sobs*
Also? Hot. BUT THEN THE COLD OF SPACE OMG.
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I am glad you enjoyed it. I am sorry again! :)
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But really PG? Don't think so :)
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Now, that was an ending. Wow. ;_;
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And the pomegranate? And the ending? Just perfect!!!
Loved every word from the beginning to the very end. <3
She doesn't pull away, just looks at him curiously, looks at him like he's something new and exotic, something she's never seen before. Maybe he is.
Just, just stunning.
There's something like defeat on his father's face, and it's the scariest thing he's seen since the worlds ended.
One of the best sentences.
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Thanks so much for the feedback!
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I'm glad you liked it, even if it seemed a bit heartbreaking. I'm sure we'll get a happier ending on the show. Well, I'm not sure, but optimsim!
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This was beautiful and hot and sad and poetic. My goodness ... thanks for sharing it with us.
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More please. There's a great deal unanswered here: what happened that put Lee in that airlock to begin with, plus where Kara went to.
More substantive comments once I've re-read this at length.
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I don't think I will be adding to it - part of the appeal of writing it was the ease of telescoping time - letting the parts of Revelations we saw on the screen form the frame for the rest of the story. Still, I suppose you never know with the rest of s4.5.
Thanks again!
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(Your icon is hilarious and adorable, btw.)
The Icon!
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