Choosing Sarah

Reunion (2.0): Chapters 16-17

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:07:36 GMT

Do Not Be Silenced

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 22:32:36 GMT

Often, I think, we shy away from talking about sexual assault. And then when we do talk about it--often after the fact--we speak of it with shame, focus on things that should have been done to prevent being sexually assaulted. I refuse this ideology. I refuse it for myself and for the people I care about.

Blaming the rape victim seems a standard MO--she shouldn't have been dressed like that, she shouldn't have gone drinking alone, she shouldn't have let him give her a ride home. FUCK THAT! Preventing sexual assault is not the domain of the potential victim. Preventing sexual assault is everyone's responsibility--we need to let people know it is never okay to rape someone.

I found the following online. I am not sure who to credit it to. Its stark language was very affecting to me, and I think these words have great potential to both prevent assaults in the future and to combat shame for those who have been the victims of sexual assault.

A lot has been said about how to prevent rape.
Women should learn self-defense.
Women should lock themselves in their houses after dark.
Women shouldn't have long hair and women shouldn't wear short skirts.
Women shouldn't leave drinks unattended. Fuck, they shouldn't dare to get drunk at all.

how about:

If a woman is drunk, don't rape her.
If a woman is walking alone at night, don't rape her.
If a women is drugged and unconscious, don't rape her.
If a woman is wearing a short skirt, don't rape her.
If a woman is jogging in a park at 5 a.m., don't rape her.
If a woman looks like your ex-girlfriend you're still hung up on, don't rape her.
If a woman is asleep in her bed, don't rape her.
If a woman is asleep in your bed, don't rape her.
If a woman is doing her laundry, don't rape her.
If a woman is in a coma, don't rape her.
If a woman changes her mind in the middle of or about a particular activity, don't rape her.
If a woman has repeatedly refused a certain activity, don't rape her.
If a woman is not yet a woman, but a child, don't rape her.
If your girlfriend or wife is not in the mood, don't rape her.
If your step-daughter is watching TV, don't rape her.
If you break into a house and find a woman there, don't rape her.
If your friend thinks it's okay to rape someone, tell him it's not, and that he's not your friend.
If your "friend" tells you he raped someone, report him to the police.
If your frat-brother or another guy at the party tells you there's an unconscious woman upstairs and it's your turn, don't rape her, call the police and report him as a rapist.
Tell your sons, god-sons, nephews, grandsons, and sons of friends that it's not okay to rape someone.

Don't just tell your women friends how to be safe and avoid rape.
Don't imply that she could have avoided it if she'd only done/not done x,y or z.
Don't imply that it's in any way her fault.
Don't let silence imply agreement when someone tells you he "got some" with the drunk girl.
Don't perpetuate a culture that tells you that you have no control over or responsibility for your actions. You can, too, help yourself.

If you agree, repost it. It's that important

Thoughts on why McKeller sucks

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 02:57:53 GMT

Rodney and Keller do not belong together--no matter how hard TPTB are pushing toward the idea as if it were an inevitability. The most basic problem between the two of them is that the two simply do not fit together, and no amount of slicing and splicing their characters is going to change that. Here are a couple of reasons why I think this pairing sucks:

Why Keller Likes Rodney
I think Rodney makes Keller feel better about herself. She confessed once that she accelerated through school. Socialization must have been a huge issue for her. I think she had a hard time fitting in. Still, even she gets people much more than Rodney does. Additionally, she can actually help Rodney through the worst of his social gaffes. She can make him more palatable to others, and by doing so, make herself look better and feel better about herself.

Why Rodney Likes Keller
She makes him feel normal. She makes him feel like the things that he's rejected in the past--specifically a relationship, companionship, marriage, children (basically the things he'd not wanted until he saw how much Jeannie enjoyed them and how important they were to her)--Keller makes Rodney feel that these things are possible for him.

Additionally, I don't believe Rodney really knows himself or what he wants in a partner. I don't think he ever chooses who he gets into a relationship with. I think he goes about his life, and then he looks up one day and sees somebody interested in him. I don't believe he truly asks himself if he actually likes the person. I think he finds himself in relationships with people because they seem to like him, and I think that's evidenced by the fact that Rodney is really thrown when someone shows an interest in him.

Rodney has difficulty evaluating whether or not he wants to be with someone, and so when someone he's attracted to shows an interest, he flusters and then says yes--not because it's what he wants, but because he thinks he may as well want it and what's in front of him now is better than any hypothetical.

However...
A) Keller's trying to fix Rodney.
B) They're boring together!

On Fixing Rodney
Rodney is the one making all the effort here in this 'relationship'. I think he wants to have that normal relationship like other people do. However, just like he did with Katie, he is manipulating himself, trying to change himself to do it, and moreover, he thinks that he should change himself because he thinks there's something inherently wrong about himself on a very basic level. Keller feeds into this by correcting him.

The Yawn of Their Togetherness
They don't have any chemistry. When they're in a room together it's kind of like <yawn> so what? Seriously, they're kind of cute in a social misfit kind of way, but the only reason they might ever work is because of the effort Rodney would make to make it happen. They don't connect. You don't notice every time they step into a room with each other because they don't notice either. I don't really think they care about each other like that. I think that each just symbolizes to the other something they wanted for themselves and an avenue by which they might achieve such.

Last But Not Least
Rodney and Keller could never work because Rodney's already in love with John. (Duh!)

The Legend of Kirk, A Stargate: Atlantis Fanfic

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:42:47 GMT

Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Title: The Legend of Kirk
Author: suicidallemoneater
Rated: M for mature sexual content and coarse language
Word Count: 5,191
Category: McShep, first time
Timeline: Season 4, after Miller’s Crossing (4x09) and before Quarantine (4x13).
Disclaimer: Not mine. No infringement is intended and no profit is made, but might I be so bold as to point out that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?
Summary: Colonel Sheppard really isn’t Captain Kirk, and Rodney knows it, so why perpetuate the myth?
Author’s Note: With thanks to Leah, Lynn, and Heidi for some great beta jobs! I really appreciate your time and the different viewpoints you each brought to the table. Thanks guys for helping me present a better story!

Prologue: The Fable Begins

He hears the gasp in the dark, even over the grunts and groans of his lover beneath him. The unexpected noise startles John so badly he pulls right out of Gavin’s ass.

John turns to see two shocked blue eyes staring back at him.

“McKay,” John’s proud of how even he keeps his voice. “Something wrong?”

McKay just keeps staring while Gavin poses himself a little more blatantly—if such a thing is possible—beneath him and John tucks himself back into his shorts.

John hollers this time. “McKay!”

“What?” McKay shakes his head. “Right.” He peels his eyes away from the ass John’s just been fucking to look at John’s face. “Teyla had an emergency with her people on the mainland. Lieutenant Ford went back with her,” McKay recites without blinking or breathing. “He told me to come find you.”

“Right.” John stands and finishes zipping and buttoning his BDUs. “That means we should head back, too,” he tells McKay and straps his thigh holster back on as calmly as possible. Then John slips on his jacket, nerves wrangling, and heads out of the small forest clearing the same way McKay came in.

“Major,” the scientist calls for his attention. “You don’t need to,” McKay gestures openly with one hand, “you know, finish anything?”

John looks to Gavin, still laying on the ground where he left him and appearing increasingly irritated by the second. John glances between Gavin and McKay, assessing the risks they each pose. “Give me a minute, and I’ll meet you at the ‘gate,” John finally declares, knowing that talking to them each privately is the only way this won’t get out.

“Sure, right, I’ll just,” McKay points his thumbs behind him, presumably toward the Stargate, but who can tell in the middle of a forest? “Get going, and you can take all the time you need.”

McKay’s already disappeared back into the night before John realizes the assumption behind the other man’s words. He nearly winces at the idea that McKay thinks he’s just going to slip his dick right back into Gavin as if there weren’t a potential crisis on Atlantis. Instead, he focuses all his attention back on his suddenly erstwhile lover, knowing the greater charm he displays in leaving, the more likely he’ll have the young man’s silence once he’s gone.

It only takes a few minutes, a lot of smiling, and a bit of kissing, which John doesn’t usually seek with a one night stand though he doesn’t necessarily mind either, along with a show of reluctance he doesn’t exactly feel in returning to his duty, and John is off after McKay.

The ‘gate is already activated, and McKay is nowhere in sight when John reaches the DHD. Still scanning the area, John taps his earpiece, “McKay?”

But it’s Dr. Weir that answers. “Major?” she questions. “Is everything alright? Rodney indicated you might be delayed.” The tone of her voice makes a statement, but John knows a question when he hears one.

“No delay. Everything’s fine,” John plugs in his code, just in case she really has doubts. “Is it okay to come through?” he asks permission.

A brief pause on the other end, and then she says, “You’re good to go, Major.”

John steps through the event horizon immediately—the accompanying rush that seems unlikely to ever get old tempered by his growing anxiety. Why did McKay not wait for him? John finds out with the first words he hears once he steps back through to Atlantis.

“—And then I spotted the Major through the trees, where Captain Kirk and his gamma ray-drenched hair are all over this—”

“McKay!” John yells—stilled with shock at the scientist’s words. “Don’t,” the word is desperate, and John knows it, but he tries to instill a warning in the word as well.

The dickhead looks up and spots John as if he’d been unaware that John had walked back through the wormhole. “Ah, Major,” McKay glances around to his audience of marines with a smug smile, and the fucking jarheads return it.

John’s jaw locks. He barely manages to grit through clenched teeth, “This is not the place, McKay.” Don’t do this, he can’t make himself say, even when McKay has John’s life in his hands.

“Please,” McKay’s words are smothered in sarcasm, “you barely had time to say ‘alien priestess’ before you found your first one on you.”

John rushes forward, right into McKay’s face, holding his fists taut at his sides. “You are such an unbelievable—” he spits with such venom he can barely tighten the reigns on his anger when he finally realizes what McKay’s actually said. ‘Alien Priestess,’ the phrase twists in his head while his stomach turns and aches. Priestess, his mind repeats, Kirk. John licks his lips, faintly noting the sheen of sweat and sickly pallor McKay’s face has developed.

“Well, I don’t see that’s it’s anything to be ashamed of, Kirk,” McKay’s babble begins. “And while it’s certainly irritating that of course the person with the strongest expression of the gene would end up being our expedition’s Captain Kirk, as long as you stick with the alien priestesses and leave me the blond scientists, I don’t really see where we have a conflict.” McKay clears his throat, and his voice rises nearly an octave, “Do you?”

John blinks, just realizing how close he’d gotten to McKay, finally catching just how nervously McKay is gesturing in the tight space between them.

“No,” John answers in the silence that’s enveloped the gateroom as Dr. Weir and his men watch to see how their military leader will react to what they must see as McKay’s somewhat off-color but still relatively harmless attempt at humor. “In fact, I think maybe we’ll get along a lot better than I thought.” John offers a twist of his lips, not quite a smile, and tilts his head. “If you can lay off the Captain Kirk jokes.”

McKay lifts his chin and crosses his arms, “I make no promises.”

John stares McKay in the eye, and the scientist hurriedly uncrosses his arms to stand a little taller. The relief is too much to hold in, and John lets out a bark of laughter. McKay must feel it, too. He starts laughing with John. A few of the marines add into their chorus of chuckles. John lightly cuffs McKay on the shoulder.

“Come on,” John gestures to the balcony where Dr. Weir’s raised eyebrow and slightly mystified smile preside over the gateroom. “I think we’ve got a debriefing.” He directs McKay towards the stairs. McKay babbles on as they walk. John’s hand, just briefly resting on McKay’s shoulder, is the only outward indication that any change has occurred, but John listens a bit more carefully when McKay speaks after that. He hears a lot more than he ever expects to because, unlike most people McKay has ever met, John’s just realized that whatever McKay says the loudest is often what he really means the least.

Chapter 1: Re-enactment

A step through the ‘gate is all it takes, and the loud jeering and pointed heckling is replaced by the soft rhythms of John’s daily life—booted soldiers, secured weapons, and the electronic whir that gives life to Atlantis.

“What happened?” Carter demands as soon as the whole team materializes.

John opens his mouth but blinks away from his CO, unable to tell the truth and unwilling or maybe just unaccustomed to lying. Rodney usually tells these lies for John, and John always lets Rodney step between him and the rules of his position. Rodney doesn’t even know what happened on the planet though, couldn’t lie for John even if he tried. Regardless, John knows, as he always has, that he never should have let Rodney lie for him to begin with. John shuts his eyes and readies his throat.

“The Colonel mistakenly approached one of the king’s heirs in a manner inappropriate to the royal house,” Teyla begins calmly, before John can speak. “The king was most disappointed in both his heir and our trading party.” John looks up at her incredulously at the understatement. “However, I convinced him to continue trading with us as long as the incident is never mentioned again and as long as Colonel Sheppard does not return to the planet,” she concludes with a slight bow of the shoulders Elizabeth would have recognized immediately—it’s a symbol of apology among Athosians. Not only is Carter unable to distinguish the body language, she also has no idea that Teyla just fed her a load of bull.

John stares at Teyla, waiting for her to glance his way, to catch his eye, but her gaze is resolutely on Carter. Quickly, John looks over to Ronon, who simply looks bored, accepting Teyla’s explanation, at least as the official story, though probably not buying it as the truth. Then John dares to look at Rodney, who’s glaring back at him, quietly furious—quiet for the moment anyway. He’s probably already guessed the most relevant parts of the story, and that means John’s going to get an earful.

“Colonel,” Carter begins sternly and waits for his eyes to fall on her. “I’d like to see you in my office.” She glances at his teammates. “Everyone else stow it.”

Even as he bites his lip at the dressing down he’s about to get, John winces at Carter’s SGC idiom. They don’t say ‘stow it’ on Atlantis. They say ‘hit the showers’ after a mission, whether or not the team needs to head there right away. It started as a little tease between Elizabeth and AR-1 and spread as a welcome to every team coming through the ‘gate to Atlantis. Anything else just sounds wrong on coming home.

John’s team starts walking off the raised platform that the ‘gate stands on. Rodney stalls when John grabs his arm. The look they exchange is brief, intense, and John has to let go of Rodney’s elbow when his friend’s fierce anger nearly causes him to stutter backward a step. John sighs, not greatly anticipating their next exchange.

“Colonel?” Carter calls again.

“Yes, ma’am,” John answers like a good little soldier. He walks after Carter, who has no clue the reprieve he’s just been given, however briefly it’ll last.

Chapter 2 Flare

John makes for his room when Carter’s finished lecturing him on ‘being sensitive to the customs of other cultures and finding the appropriate balance as a team leader.’ She very notably didn’t say anything about John being the military leader, because he simply isn’t any longer. That bothers John more than he thought it would, but in some ways, if they can’t have a civilian leader in Atlantis, Carter is the next best thing.

Carter gets the problems with balancing exploration and defense better than Elizabeth ever did, but then she doesn’t listen to John nearly as much, either. Despite her admitted good traits, though, her presence in the city will probably never suit John. Rodney spent years expressing his undying love for Colonel Carter, so much so that for the first several times they’d met, all John could think of her was ‘this is it?’ Even now, just the thought of Rodney’s admiration for the Colonel prickles John’s skin, despite the fact that Rodney and Katie Brown have been together for months now, and Carter seems unlikely to return Rodney’s affection regardless.

John sighs as he steps through the corridor. Rodney’s feelings for either woman shouldn’t matter one way or the other, not to John. But they do. They always will.

The Colonel takes a deep breath to prepare himself as he thinks open the door to his quarters. One glance to the right, where John’s neglected desk sits—the one Rodney always takes over when he comes by—and he confirms what he’d already expected: Rodney’s right there waiting for him. Rodney must have gone to his own room before coming here. He’s already changed out of his BDUs and back into his daily science uniform.

“So,” Rodney begins without preamble, “you ‘approached one of the king’s heirs in a manner inappropriate to the royal house’. What a shock.”

John squints his eyes shut for a brief second. “Rodney,” he shakes his head as his whines, “Can we not talk about this for once?” When he opens his eyes back up, Rodney’s staring straight at him, glare solidly in place.

“We don’t ever talk about this,” Rodney crosses his arms, “not really.”

John crosses the room and sits on the bed. He starts untying his combat boots—a bid for time—because in a way, Rodney’s lying, his friend always lectures him on being more careful the few times he’s almost been caught, but in a bigger way, Rodney’s telling the truth. The two of them have never discussed John’s sexual partners, nor Rodney’s willingness to lie about them.

“So you pick now to start?” John keeps his voice even, his eyes steadily on his boots.

“Teyla just lied for you, John,” Rodney points out, and John can’t help the way his heart still flutters a bit when Rodney says his name. He’d only started that about a year ago. Sometimes he even says John’s name in front of other people. “Teyla,” Rodney emphasizes again.

“Well, she didn’t technically lie,” John directs his words in Rodney’s direction, though he doesn’t glance his way, instead giving excessive attention to his boots as he slips them off and sets them at their place against the wall. “Everything she said was true, just incomplete.”

John hears Rodney stand up behind him and start pacing. “Look this is not some sort of game like that idiotic computer golf thing you make me play.”

“Hey!” John interrupts because no matter what he says, Rodney’s totally into Tiger Woods Golf.

“I don’t mind lying for you on this,” Rodney plows forward, “but—”

“Yes, you do,” John contradicts with a sigh, finally looking over to his friend again. Rodney’s always pissed at John when he ends up lying for him.

Rodney stutters in his pacing for a beat. “Okay, yes I do,” he acknowledges, then gestures even more freely with his hands. “But bringing Teyla into this when you know how her people react—”

“Damn it I know, Rodney!” John interrupts, and God how he knows. Homosexuality is such a strict taboo within the Athosian culture, it’s hard to believe the ban can exist side by side with the people’s otherwise incredibly lenient sexual practices. “I didn’t do it on purpose. It’s not like I asked her to videotape me fucking some guy.”

“So she caught you fucking some guy?” Rodney picks up John’s words right away to use against him.

John winces. “Rodney, come on!”

“Is that what happened?” Rodney insists, and John jumps up from his seat on the bed.

“It’s none of your fuckin’ business,” he declares, then violently strips off his tac vest. He lifts his leg to rest his foot on the bed so he can more easily unbuckle his thigh holster. He shifts his weight and sets his weapon down easily on his bedside table when the action’s complete. John exhales, pushes a hand through his hair. He hates it when he and Rodney fight, and this argument just isn’t worth it. “Look, Rodney, I’m—” he looks up and his apology halts as his mouth goes dry.

John blinks a few times, as if to make sure his eyes aren’t deceiving him, but every time his eyelids lift again, Rodney’s still looking right at his crotch and the lingering hardness of his dick that even a conversation with Carter couldn’t get rid of completely. Slowly, still disbelieving, John sets his leg back down on the floor. At his change in posture, Rodney blushes and looks away.

“You’re right. It’s none of my business,” Rodney’s mouth runs away with him, and his eyes stay resolutely away from John’s. “I shouldn’t have bothered you. In fact, I should go.” His voice rises with his nervousness. “In fact, I already left.”

John speeds forward, makes it to the door before Rodney can. He brings his hand up to the wall between Rodney and the door, effectively blocking his friend’s escape route. “You’re jealous,” the revelation’s so incredible, John barely has breath to voice it.

“What? Don’t be ridiculous!” Rodney discounts immediately, and crosses his arms over his chest. “Oh yes of course,” he switches tactics. “You would think I’m jealous of all the man-ass you’re getting. I have Katie. Why would I want to,” he clears his throat, as if the words within it are too crass for him to say, “you know, have sex with guys like you do?”

“You don’t,” John still speaks so softly he’s sure Rodney wouldn’t hear except he’s right next to John now. His upper body’s even closer to John than it was a moment ago, and John doesn’t think he’s the one that moved, or well, he’s not the only one that moved in any case.

Rodney releases his arms to let them fall to his sides. “Well,” Rodney blinks rapidly a few times and just barely raises his eyes to John’s lips before they skitter away. “I’m glad we got that straightened out.” But when he looks back towards the door and takes a step as if to move away, he looks disappointed.

John drops his hand from the wall, and with the other he grabs Rodney’s hip before he can pass. “You want it to be you,” John declares still not quite believing his own words. And then Rodney’s eyes finally meet his again, and John can’t breathe at all because he knows that he’s right.

Rodney shakes his head, slowly at first, but then more vigorously. His eyelids flitter downward. “No, that’s not,” he stutters. “That’s not true. I never…”

His heart pounding furiously in his chest, John steps towards Rodney again. Slowly, as if he’s afraid he’ll be burned, John aligns his body with Rodney’s, and with seeming suddenness, they touch each other at points that they never have—thigh to thigh, arm to arm, cheek to cheek. The feel of their stubble meeting and rubbing makes John’s breath catch. He can feel the rapidity of Rodney’s breathing, see the quick rise and fall of his chest, but then all at once, self-doubt hits, and John is praying that he hasn’t read Rodney wrong, hasn’t screwed this up beyond all recognition.

Unable to take it back, John moves forward. He shifts his other hand to Rodney’s hip, spreads out all his fingers. “I want it to be you,” he takes a last leap forward, his voice a whisper in his best friend’s ear.

For possibly the first time in his life, Rodney doesn’t say a word. Instead he tilts his neck a little. It’s just a tiny movement, one that John’s not sure is conscious at all. And because John doesn’t know if Rodney’s responding to John’s mouth near his ear or his neck, he goes for both. He rubs his open mouth against Rodney’s neck then lifts his chin to nuzzle Rodney’s jaw and ear lobe.

Rodney doesn’t move, barely seems to react to John’s touch. John pulls his face away from Rodney’s, shuts his eyes. Fuck, he thinks. He starts to lean back, to ease his body away from his friend’s, when Rodney grabs his forearm and stops the motion. John tries to look in Rodney’s eyes, but Rodney keeps his lashes resolutely downward. John keeps watching his friend as a blush spreads across his cheekbones and reaches all the way down his neck.

His heart swelling with hope, John leans forward again. His eyes are open when he kisses Rodney for the first time. Rodney stands there stiffly, just letting him. The only part of his body inviting John in is still that single hand on John’s forearm. Its grip never eases as John teases Rodney’s lips.

John licks and nips until Rodney’s mouth opens just a touch, still quiescent but somehow permitting. Rodney tastes like warmth with shades of sweetness and tartness. He doesn’t kiss John back, but he still doesn’t pull away, so John keeps kissing and licking and sucking and taking his time to explore the contours of Rodney’s mouth because even if John is right and Rodney does want this, with Rodney’s mouth unmoving under his, it doesn’t seem likely John’s ever going to get this chance again.

There’s a slow and rising melancholy to John’s kisses, right up until the moment that he shifts his hands more directly onto Rodney’s ass and pulls the other man’s body into his, taking one last chance to feel everything Rodney’ll let him get away with. Rodney gasps into his mouth when John’s half-hard dick pushes against Rodney’s abdomen. And then Rodney slides his hand up John’s arm to his shoulder, and he finally—finally!—kisses him back.

Rodney’s mouth is strong and demanding—of course it is. His kisses are anything but the careful pecks John’s seen him give Katie Brown. Rodney’s kisses are dirty and open-mouthed, and they make John’s dick twitch and grow where it’s trapped between their bodies.

“Ahh,” a whimper fills John’s mouth as it escapes from Rodney’s. John’s pretty sure of the cause, but just to be certain, he grinds his cock against Rodney’s body. And there’s the little moan again. Fuck, and there’s Rodney’s cock pushing against John’s thigh.

John releases Rodney’s mouth a moment to catch his breath. His nose catches the scent of Rodney—sweaty, masculine, and real—right at his collarbone, and John puts his mouth to it because now he has to taste it. Rodney pants above him and lifts his hand farther up. His fingers skirt John’s nape and comb heavily through John’s hair. After a minute of John’s mouth biting along his collarbone, he uses his fingers to yank John’s mouth back up to his.

John squeezes Rodney’s ass with both hands, loving the roundness he feels. He wants to hear that whimper again, so John grinds his dick against him, pulling Rodney to him while he pushes into him. John smiles against Rodney’s lips when he gets his reward. He doesn’t ease his hips away from Rodney this time, makes sure their hips vacillate between rubbing and grinding.

John rotates one hand to follow the crease of Rodney’s ass, and the other man’s knees actually shake for just a moment.

“John,” Rodney breathes his name and pulls his other arm up to hold onto John’s shoulder.

“I gotcha,” John’s voice is certainty itself, anything to keep touching Rodney, keep kissing him. “Come on,” he says and backs up towards his bed, pulling Rodney with him by his grip on the other man’s ass.

When they reach the bedside, John goes for Rodney’s belt, unbuttons and unzips his pants, makes them looser so his hand can fit beneath the layers of material to slide right onto the skin of Rodney’s backside.

“Fuck!” Rodney hollers when John cups his ass in both hands. He pushes John onto the bed and nearly tears off his own science uniform shirt. John hurriedly follows suit, not bothering to unbutton his BDUs, just flinging the top over his head. Before he can get to his slacks, Rodney’s there, kneeling above him, unbuckling and unzipping and—fuck—reaching inside to pull him out.

“Oh,” Rodney moans again, the sound both heated and somehow surprised. He blinks rapidly, breathes heavily while his hands and his eyes gently explore John’s cock.

“Rodney!” John gasps his name when both Rodney’s hands shift to circle his cock. It startles Rodney somehow, maybe just hearing his name like that from John’s lips, John doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter because John can’t last long like this anyway. He grabs at Rodney’s waist and yanks down both Rodney’s pants and shorts, angling him this way and that so John can get both garments past his knees. John leans up and Rodney leans down so their mouths meet again and over and over. This time when John follows the crease of Rodney’s ass, he teases those fingers in between those cheeks. It must feel really fucking good because it makes Rodney grasp John’s shoulders tight and his eyes roll back in his head.

It barely takes any maneuvering for them to get Rodney underneath John, for John to divest them both of the rest of their clothing, and then for Rodney to grab him and for John to crawl upward so their naked bodies align on top of John’s bed. They both moan to feel so much skin against skin. And John kisses him, mouth open and shifting, teasing around Rodney’s mouth as his hand moves to his bedside table, opens the drawer, and retrieves a moderately sized white tube. John knows Rodney’s aware of it because he drags the chilled plastic down his flank, but Rodney keeps his eyes closed, just keeps seeking John’s mouth with his.

While their lips stay connected, John lifts Rodney’s thighs, sets his feet flat on the bed on either side of John. John flips open the lid of the tube, and teases Rodney’s cock with his thumb and forefinger. The other man seems to flinch in pleasure with the sensation, too sensitive to simply play much longer. John drags his finger down. He’s so nervous, and he’s not sure if Rodney can feel him trembling over his skin, down past his balls. He skirts Rodney’s hole, and Rodney howls with the sensation, unable to keep his lips on John’s any longer. John squirts a bunch of the lube onto his finger as well as right onto Rodney’s ass. Rodney just shudders. John teases around his hole, biting his lip to remind himself to take his time, but when Rodney’s head starts thrashing back and forth on John’s pillow, John gives in and pushes a finger inside.

“Oh, oh, fuck John. That’s so, you have to, OH FUCK,” Rodney roars when John’s finger reaches his prostate. His mouth works soundlessly, open and shut, for a minute or so while John stretches him inside. When John pulls out and adds another finger, he starts to whimper again, “I can’t, you have to, oh please, oh please, oh please, come on!” he begs and pushes back against John’s hand. John has to close his eyes to try to cut some of the sensations, but that just makes him focus more on the feeling of his fingers up Rodney’s ass.

“Oh God, Rodney,” he begs in a kind of supplication. Then he shoves another finger up his ass, hoping he’s not going too fast, hoping Rodney can take it. Rodney starts moaning continuously then, fucking down onto John’s fingers vigorously.

“Come on. Do it already,” Rodney challenges. John looks up to find Rodney’s eyes right on his.

John shakes his head, panting so hard with desire he can barely talk. “It’s too quick. Gonna hurt.”

Rodney shakes his head right back at him, “Fuck me, John,” he orders, and John’s dick leaps as if it could jump right into him.

“Turn over,” John demands, reaches for a condom from the still-open drawer. He puts it on in a hurry, but Rodney’s on his hands and knees, waving his ass at him impatiently by the time he’s got it in place. John puts a bit of the excess lube from his hand onto the condom directly then pushes in close to Rodney and aligns his dick with Rodney’s hole.

“Fuck,” he whispers at the all-consuming sensation of pushing in. He moves as slowly as possible, trying to listen for Rodney’s reaction, but not truly able to hear anything besides the ringing in his ears. “Oh God, oh fuck, Rodney! Is it, okay?” he begs the question, needing so badly to push in all the way. He still can’t hear a fucking thing, but then Rodney wiggles his ass back against John’s dick, and John hopes to God that’s the sign he’s looking for because he automatically pushes his cock all the way up Rodney’s ass. It’s not until John’s balls are twitching against Rodney’s ass cheeks that John can hear a damn thing again.

“Stop teasing and fuck my ass!” Rodney’s order is like sweet music to John’s ears, and he immediately obeys the command.

“Oh!” Rodney moans shortly when John eases out and pushes right back in. “Oh!” he moans again and again. “Oh, yes! Like that!”

John groans back at him, his voice a higher pitch than he would ever admit to later. “Oh, Rodney!” He grabs Rodney’s hips with both hands, needing the leverage to fuck him harder. “Feels so good inside your tight ass!” John exclaims and starts twisting his hips a little more.

“John, yes, fuck my tight ass,” Rodney gasps, and then his arms give out and Rodney leans on his forearms while John pounds into him. “Oh, yes that angle!” Rodney keens again and pushes back against John, just as John shoves back in.

In this position, John can lift and move Rodney’s hips more, can fuck him deeper and harder both.

“So good,” John says, thought no longer a part of the process. There’s just his dick and Rodney’s ass, and that high pitched wailing that Rodney makes every time John’s cock hits his prostate.

“Oh! Oh!” The howls are the only warning John gets before Rodney’s ass clenches tightly around John’s dick, and then Rodney’s coming without either of them touching his cock.

“Yes!” he calls back. “Oh, yeah,” he keeps fucking Rodney’s hole jerkily as he comes. He tries to catch himself with his hand on the bed, but John ends up collapsing onto Rodney’s back for a moment, where he just breathes, just sniffs the potent scents from the other man. He kisses Rodney’s back sloppily a couple times, then lifts a bit in order to pinch at the base of the condom and pull out of his ass.

He ties off the condom and tosses it in the plastic garbage can beside the bed, knowing he’ll have to put it in the bathroom disposal later, but too tired to move that far right now.

“Rodney,” he says with a smile and twists himself around a bit to lie down on the bed next to the man. John lays his hand on his best friend’s back, rubs against it lazily a moment. The worry builds inside him the longer Rodney won’t look his way, but there’s nothing John can do about it right now. Rodney will either accept what they did together or run as far away from it as he can, and John honestly doesn’t know which choice he’ll make.

Eventually, even though Rodney doesn’t turn to face John, he does lean back into him, lets John hold him against his body and skim his fingertips along places John hadn’t had time to explore. John hopes Rodney gives him the chance to later, but he doesn’t think he’ll be finding out either way tonight.

The End

Battlestar Galactica Poem: My Favorite Frak

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 07:07:45 GMT

Fic Type: Poem

Title: My Favorite Frak
Author: Choosing Sarah
Rating: M
Pairing: Kara/Lee
Word Count: 295
Timeline: Just before the Eye of Jupiter (3x10)
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Battlestar Galactica characters or stories (etc). No infringement is intended and no profit is made, but might I be so bold as to point out that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?
Author's Note: I wrote this poem some time ago as a way to help me write the dynamic between Lee and Kara in my long ass Battlestar Galactica (2003) fic "Reunion." It was something I'd never planned on posting, and, in fact, I'd forgotten all about it. I'd ended up saving it deep in the collective extras of a few chapters. I just found it again, and I think it's pretty cool.

Also, the poem barely has any end punctuation for a reason: because this thing between Lee and Kara starts and starts over and over again, but it never, ever ends.

My Favorite Frak

I love the way you tease me
across the room you invite me
    without words
    without blame
    without misunderstandings
Frak me you say with those heavy eyelids and that lying smirk that’s not nearly so composed as you’d like

I love that you never leave the room first but make me do it
make me find the perfect spot
setting me with the blame should we get caught
Sometimes I want them to see me…
    push you against a wall
    bend you over a desk
    pull you into my lap
Sometimes I want them to watch while I frak you into submission
    into admission
    into me as I pound into you

today in your bunk we take turns biting your lip
Your tongue comes out to soothe the hurt
As a child I hated the sight of blood, but I love the way that yours tastes
    in my mouth
    on my teeth
    mingling with mine
I take your clothes off,
your clothes that look just like mine, but hide something softer, sweeter, more malleable
And then there is just…
    the way you push your breasts against my thumbs, force them onto your
        nipples, ordering me harder
    the way you tease me with your fingertips, then abruptly curve your knuckles to
        mark me with your nails
    the way you never hesitate to grab my dick with both hands
    the shudder that runs through your body when you take my whole cock inside you
    those moans that change pitch, get higher and higher—you always scream when
        you come—
and you gasp, twist, clutch, yell
and there is only the tight, hot, scented motion of us
        right
           there
        right
           there
        right
          there
                  yes!

I love that I’m still inside you when it starts again

Writer's Block: Annals of Animal Warfare

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 04:52:17 GMT

Putting the laws of time and plausiblity aside, picture a battle between the megalodon (a prehistoric shark with a six-foot jaw span) and a giant squid (reported to be the size of a school bus). Who would win?

Submitted By menocidesavior

View 500 Answers

Well, obviously, the giant squid would win. Anything with that many arms could easily tickle his opponent into submission. (Duh...)

Reunion (2.0): Chapters 14-15

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 04:27:18 GMT

wtf???

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 07:14:03 GMT

Why is it that whenever I feel like I'm getting the ground to solidify underneath my feet, it always ends up falling apart? Bloody fucking hell, give me a break already! I am so damn tired. Is there no place safe or sacred? I just need something solid to rest my back against for a little while. Give me peace and perspective for a day, and I can fuel my year, I fucking swear it.

...

I hate you, my friend. I hate the fact that I keep your promises. I hate that you make me feel less than I felt yesterday, less than I believed I was. I hate you, and it hurts so badly because I still love you more. I wish I didn't. Maybe then I'd be stronger.

More than any of this, in this moment, so much more than I hate or love you, I hate myself because I still wait for your call, and I know I will come when you beckon. I hate the way you make me feel like a loser. I hate that the things that are precious to me don't seem to bloody matter to you. I hate that I don't know what to say to you, am too afraid to speak my mind, to give you cause to leave me permanently. I fucking hate myself for that. I hate how connected I felt to you, how alive you always seem to make me feel. I hate that I would let myself be devalued for vanity's sake (though whether yours or mine, I don't yet know).

Such cannot possibly be called friendship, and yet I know so little of this that I would still name it so. I fucking hate you for the way you make me hate me.

Reunion (2.0) Chapters 12-13

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:41:08 GMT

Complete Story Index

Chapters 9-11

Chapter 12 Seat of Her Pants

There’s a buzzing noise to the left of Lee’s head, but it’s barely there before it’s gone again, halted by the dulcet tones of Kara in the morning. She shifts in the bed beside him, and then there’s a click.

“Lee Adama get your ass up right this second!”

His head shoots off the pillow. He looks around, but can’t find her blond hair in the dark. “Kara, what the frak?” His eyes check the alarm clock beside the bed. “It’s 0530.” He falls back down to the cushion. “You don’t have to be anywhere until 0800. Wake me up when you want to leave, and I’ll drop you off.”

“Lee do you have any idea who that was on the phone?” she demands but doesn’t wait for a response. “It was Major Patterson. He reserved two Viper Sims for you and me this morning if we can be there by 0615.”

His lids rocket upwards. “The frak!” he hollers, jumping from her bed. She flicks the light, and he finds her, hair at all angles, her breasts rocking free beneath the dark green tank she ripped off him last night only to throw over her own head before she’d go to sleep. There are no pantylines beneath the tank, but if she lifts her arms a little higher while she scurries about the room, he’ll know for sure what she isn’t wearing under his shirt. “Kara, Viper Sims?” His stillness is in direct contradiction to her flurry of movement, but the calm is necessary to his balance as he tries to catch up.

She pauses in the middle of grabbing her own tanks and cargo pants. “Viper Sims,” she comes back, the huge grin across her face confirming the fact of it more than her actual utterance.

He grins back and rushes for his own clothes. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he yells to her back as she hustles into the bathroom.

“I wasn’t sure if he could get them or not,” Kara’s voice comes through the half-closed door. “He just called two minutes ago to say it was a go.”

“Viper Sims!” He pulls his pants to his waist and stalls, looking at the zipper Kara nearly tore free of his slacks last night. “Frak I need a shower.” He kicks them back off, leaving him naked.

“Me first!” Kara yells back, the initial spritz from her crappy showerhead punctuating her claim.

He jogs up to the bathroom sink and squeezes a line of paste onto her toothbrush.

“You better not be using my toothbrush again,” she calls from the stall. “You know that’s disgusting.”

“How many times did we have sex last night, Kara?” he tries to speak around the bristles moving back and forth across his molars.

“Sharing bodily fluids is one thing, sharing plaque is another.” She jumps out of the still-running shower and steals the toothbrush from his hand as he passes her and jumps in.

“Ahh!” he screams when the freezing water hits him. “Dammit Kara!” He hurriedly flips the hot water back on.

She throws back the curtain just enough to peek her head in, glances downward and back to his face. “You’d better stick to cold water if you want your dick to fit in your flight suit, Apollo.”

He flicks a hand towards her head, but she maneuvers the curtain back before she can catch the splash. He rushes through the shower, barely soaping up before rinsing off. Lee twists the knobs and yanks on the curtain, grabbing his towel as he steps out of the stall.

Fully dressed, Kara slips out of the bedroom as he hurries back in. He grabs her by the waist in the doorway, dropping his towel as his other hand comes up to catch her cheek. Her mouth is open to his for the few seconds that they meet. When he pulls back, he knows the wide grin spanning her face is a match for his. He bites his lip, squeezes both his hands where he has them around her. “Ha, ha!” He lets her go to fist his hands, then rushes toward his clothes.

Thwap! She smacks his ass before backing towards the kitchen.

“Way too tempting not to,” she explains when he looks over his shoulder to meet her eyes.

The grin doesn’t leave his face while he finds another pair of pants and the tanks he set out before.

“Do you want a raspberry bar or a cherry one?” Kara yells on the other side of the wall.

“Cherry!” he sounds back. Raspberry’s her favorite. He finishes dressing, adds his tags and hustles for the door. He grabs the key ring in one hand, bends to pick up their wallets and her dinky little notebook from the coffee table with the other.

She gets to the front door just as he’s opening it. “Oh wait!” She looks back to the coffee table.

“I’ve got it.” He holds up the hand full of their junk.

She nods, and they step out together, Kara closing and locking the door behind them. “OK.” Kara reaches out a hand, and Lee transfers half his load to her. He stuffs his wallet into his thigh pocket while Kara follows suit beside him. She hands him the cherry bar and opens the raspberry with her incisors.

Lee just shakes his head beside her but doesn’t bring up the contradiction with her toothbrush paranoia. She chomps into her energy bar while he’s ripping his open with both hands.

He thumbs the keys and unlocks the passenger door of the truck, hopping in and leaning over to flick the release on her side of the cab. He slides the key into the ignition before slipping his seatbelt over his lap. Kara jumps in, tosses her empty wrapper onto the floor at Lee’s feet, and immediately starts the car, weaving out of the parking lot and directly into traffic. Lee bends over, picks up her litter, and puts it in the plastic bag he set aside the day before for that purpose. When he looks back up at Kara, she’s alternating smirking at him and focusing on the filled roadways between them and the academy.

The horizon illuminates as they drive, the grays of night turning to the red shades of dawn. Lee watches the clock on the dash as it gets closer to 0600.

“We’re gonna make it,” Kara insists, zigzagging between the other vehicles as if she were already in the cockpit.

“That’s why you’re driving,” Lee comes back, his words emphasized by Starbuck’s slick merger into the far right lane.

She looks away from the road to catch his eye, maybe to see if he’s joking.

“I’m serious here!” he squeezes out through clenched teeth when she barely misses a rogue door, suddenly and inexplicably ajar on a parked car. “Starbuck!”

“Calm down, we’re almost there!” she jibes back, but he can see her swallow at the near miss.

They both exhale in relief when she reaches the rank-appropriate parking garage. They pay for their parking pass on the way in and beat a svelte little sports car to the last slot on the first level.

Lee checks the time when they slip out of the truck. “We’ve got five minutes to make it across campus and get into our flight suits!”

“Race ya!” Kara tosses him the truck keys while setting the challenge.

“Kara!” The silver keys jingle and bounce in his hands twice before he gets a firm grip on them and runs after her.

Lee chases her across the green behind the Chem Building, through the trees along the path of the Freshmen Run. He catches up to her down by the mini-park in front of Folstein Hall where they’d first met. They run side-by-side for the sim buildings.

“Which Viper Sim?” Lee asks when they get close enough.

“B,” her short and sweet response.

When they reach the building, he spurts ahead to open the door for her. She rolls her eyes and jogs right through. They hurry into the locker room, pushing through the early semester morning crowd to get flight suits fitted over their clothes. They meet again less than sixty seconds later at the check-in desk. A blond-haired major, whom Lee thinks was probably there when he and Kara rushed in a moment before, watches them closely as they reemerge, his posture stiff, as if he were not at all tempted to lean against the counter beside him.

“You know I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone dress in a flight suit that quickly outside of a live fire exercise,” the Major’s near jovial tone makes up for the lack of expression on his face.

“Major Patterson, sir. This is Lt. Lee Adama,” Starbuck introduces them.

“Sir!” Lee barely remembers to salute first and not to wait for the Major to do it. Lee was a commander far longer than he was a major.

“At ease,” Patterson chuckles at what he probably perceives to be earnestness.

“Yes, sir,” Lee nods, still catching his breath. “Thank you, sir, for finding us sim time. Starbuck and I really appreciate it,” Lee speaks for both he and Kara even though she hates when he does that.

Patterson nods, eyeing Lee as he does. “Don’t thank me yet,” he warns. “I’ve already programmed the simulator, and I’m going to put you through the ringer, Lieutenant.”

Lee nearly smiles at the familiarity of the threat. In all his time at the Academy and at War College afterward, every instructor he’d ever had rode him hard after they found out his father was a commander in the Fleet. When they challenged him, as they all did, he’d said that he would work hard to meet his promise—but that was before he’d known Starbuck. He grins. “I’ll do my best to exceed your expectations, sir.”

It was just a little cheeky, nothing overt, nothing like Kara might have said herself, but she pokes him in the back with her elbow from her position at his left, and he can practically hear her lips part in a smile.

Patterson glances to Kara and back to him. “Let’s see what you’ve got.” The Major hands them each a keycard. “Starbuck, you’re in 11, and…” he drifts off to wait for one of them to fill in the blank on Lee’s call-sign.

“Apollo,” Kara answers for him.

“Apollo?” Patterson raises almost invisibly blond eyebrows. “Apollo,” he clears his throat as if to keep from saying anything else, “you’re in 12.” He nods his dismissal and Starbuck and Apollo hustle to their sims.

Lee climbs up the ladder to Viper Sim 12. He looks to Kara, catches her eye. “Good hunting, Starbuck.” He continues the small good luck tradition that began when he was her CAG.

“Good hunting, Apollo,” she nods back, completing the ritual.

Starbuck grins, and he grins back. He jumps into the cockpit and fastens his helmet, knowing Starbuck is doing the same beside him. As a model Mark VI, the hatch closes on its hinges above his head, rather than sliding back like Galactica’s Mark IIs. The screens of the canopy darken in shades of gray, simulating the base of a launch tube. A mechanical voice counts down the launch: navcon green, interval check, grid lock…and then the screen shifts—rolls back and back—and he can feel the simulated Gs in his head, in his stomach, in his frakkin’ spleen. “Whoo-hoo!” he can’t help but holler as his sim clears the Battlestar, and he kicks in the burn right out of the tube. Starbuck’s own war cry comes through his headset before a low tenor interrupts.

“Cut the chatter,” Patterson’s sober voice echoes in Apollo’s ears, the Major apparently taking on the task of communications officer himself rather than to let one of the enlisted in training do so. “We’ve got four cylon raiders on Dradis, and we can’t get the other pilots out of the launch tubes before they reach you.”

Lee shakes his head once, grin still wide across his face—wouldn’t be the first time he and Starbuck found themselves facing such circumstances.

“Destroy the raiders before they can attack your ship,” Patterson continues, “the Battlestar Orion.”

“Orion,” Apollo whispers to himself as he and Starbuck move to intercept. Fleet simulators were the only place where a Battlestar Orion had ever existed. He’d nearly forgotten the term.

Apollo glances at his screens, the Dradis confirming the presence of raiders while the system checks confirm the continued viability of his viper. Though visual contact’s still impossible, he checks the spot through the stars where they’ll shortly appear. “Four bandits,” he calls over the wireless. “Range twenty. Weapons free, Starbuck.”

“Copy that, Apollo.” She takes up her usual place just short of his 9 o’clock.

When they show up on the screens of his canopy, the simulated raiders are boxier, bulkier than the real thing, more like the older models his father and Reaper would have fought during the First Cylon War. The raiders split as they come into visual range, trying to force him from his wingman. He and Starbuck don’t even speak to agree on their targets. They both bypass the front pair of raiders, who try to tease them away in a long, wide arc. Instead they go for the aft pair in the protected position two klicks behind—Cylons always hide their nukes in the rear charge.

Starbuck accelerates and comes over the wire, “Target acquired: tone and lock.” He gives her the kills, covering her six as the front pair doubles back to try to trap them. Apollo goes 180, sticking near Kara’s 5 o’clock.

The beeping begins in his headset immediately, the sound lengthens until he can echo Starbuck: “Tone and lock.” He blasts them both from the sky in two short bursts, the four raiders gone in less than 10 seconds.

Lee flips back around and takes a half second to check his Dradis and his peripheral vision. He eases right into a triple barrel roll, knowing Starbuck is following his lead on his left, spinning with him, again and again, for no other reason than because he’s doing it. The throaty, thrilled laughter in his ear only confirms his situational awareness. When they straighten out, Kara spins her bird to face his ship, speeding just slightly in front of him. She can’t even be two meters off his nose, giving him the closest Viper Kiss he’s ever had while still in full motion—even if they are in sims. Lee can see her smiling at him by the dim light of her helmet, courtesy of the camera inside her cockpit, just before she rolls to her right and he to his.

Starbuck forms up on his wing and glides towards him. The skies are still clear when she passes over him and waits for him to fall away and overtake her position from the same direction. Apollo follows the pattern she initiates, and they weave a Narrow Twist all the way back to the Orion. They fly closer and closer together as they soar, until their wings nearly touch in the shadow of the Battlestar. Starbuck breaks the Twist to razz the deck. There’s no sound in space and no turbulence without atmosphere, so the only purpose of razzing a spaceship is to scare the Dradis officer. Of course, since this is a sim, there is no Dradis officer. There’s only Major Patterson in the Simulation Control Room.

“Starbuck!” the Major yells as if she’d really put a bird at risk.

“Sir?” she asks innocently, just as Apollo tags her route.

“Apollo!” Patterson hollers through the headset in that same tone when Lee’s Dradis signal practically merges with Orion’s.

“Lee!” Starbuck squeals at his mischief, an echo of hers.

Once he clears the Orion, Lee starts a Panacean Circle, his reverse orbit of the Battlestar an imitation of the fifth moon over Asclepius, the largest gas giant in the system. He’s entirely too close to the Battlestar’s stern, and the Gs toss him up against the port side of his cockpit, making his hold on the stick on his right tenuous at best. If he blacks out, his fingers will slip, and his inertia will suck him right into the side of the Orion. He holds the Panacean Circle, rotates the traditional six times ‘round the ship in honor of all of Asclepius’ daughters. He adds another rotation despite the flashes of white on the edges of his vision so to give tribute to their grandsire—Apollo.

The last circle complete, Lee steers away from the Orion and watches Starbuck finish the final two loops of her Panacean Circle before joining him. “You added a turn,” she accuses, even though she’d spun with him on the Orion’s bow and couldn’t have kept track of both her own positioning and his.

“So did you,” he knows because she always follows him through that extra circle, that extra klick, the extra comeback, drink, and shift—she pushes him there.

“Couldn’t let you get one up on me, Apollo,” she teases.

He smiles unseen. “I’d never be ahead for long.” And he’d never be alone for long either: Kara would always find him—he’s more certain of that fact than ever before.

“Starbuck, Apollo,” Patterson interrupts from Viper B SimCon, and Lee’s grateful that the Major found them interesting enough to delay the start of the next sim until they’d completed their maneuvers around the Orion. “You have incoming bandits—thirty raiders, three air groups. Course 0-1-5. The alert fighters are in the air.”

Apollo checks his Dradis even before Patterson finishes his speech, noting the blips on the screen—vipers and raptors coming up on his six, raiders to his 2 o’clock. “Copy that, Orion.” Lee marks the distance. “Approximate thirty seconds until weapons range with the first air group.”

“Negative, Apollo,” the Major comes back. “Forty-two seconds.”

Brow crumpled, Lee’s eyes go back to the Dradis screen. An extra second’s viewing confirms Patterson’s time estimate. “Huh,” Lee bites the side of his mouth.

“Yeah, these raiders don’t have the punch we’re used—”

“Kara!” Lee breaks radio protocol when Starbuck starts to voice the thought he couldn’t quite stifle completely.

“If the cylons are still out there, then they wouldn’t have remained stagnant for thirty-seven years,” Kara scolds dryly. “Academy sims don’t account for the lapse in engineering. Most people below colonel acknowledge that.”

“Starbuck…” Lee purses his lips, shakes his head at his pilot, “just shoot the cylons from the sky, eh?”

“Copy that, Apollo,” Kara comes back, the smirk evident in her tone even if he can’t see her face. “Bet you I score ten cylons before you do,” she finishes in a rush, weapons blazing as the raiders come into range.

A small explosion marks the first of Kara’s kills. “You’re on,” Lee takes her challenge, zipping past her to the next cluster of cylons. His bullets cut through his first raider as hers rip through a second.

“Keep going like that, and you’ll almost be good enough to win, Apollo,” Starbuck’s jibe reaches him just as the alert fighters approach the battle.

“Watch out for the nuggets, Starbuck,” Lee warns. All of the simulated vipers are labeled as nuggets because they’re nearly always about as skilled as canon fodder in most sims and are sometimes more dangerous to pilot around than if the sim were to be maneuvered entirely without their diversionary services.

“Trying to distract me, Apollo?”

Lee darts around a particularly untalented nugget, just barely managing to take out the raider on his six before it destroys the nugget’s port engine.

“No,” he says, one side of his mouth raised. “Just trying to remind you, that the more nuggets die, the more our score goes down.”

“Frak, Lee,” Starbuck huffs, “our score.”

“Yeah,” he chuffs back, the irony of price not lost on him—back on Galactica, the cost would be in lives, not in a set of meaningless numbers. “But you still can’t tell me it’s not important to you right here, right now,” Lee points out and earns her silence. He checks her location in his canopy window, noting her positioning in relation to the surrounding nuggets and raiders before setting after the next bandit.

In the end, she assists him with a kill, and he helps her with two, evening their scores—nine to nine—before Kara takes her tenth raider with her lone remaining heat seeker.

The six raiders still intact turn tail and run. Both Lee and Kara chase the fleeing cylons, precipitating the order they assume imminent.

Instead, Patterson’s voice comes through tersely at their advance, “Starbuck, Apollo, break off pursuit.”

“Negative, Orion, we can keep them from jumping and relaying our position,” Kara doggedly sets the next cylon in her sights, Lee on her wing, while the nuggets scurry back towards the shadow of the Battlestar.

“Cylon raiders are not capable of FTL jumps,” the Major’s tones straddle anger and confusion. “Return to the ship immediately.”

Lee blinks and shakes his head as if to separate real, unreal, and frakking surreal. It’s a frakkin’ sim. He could hardly have forgotten that fact with these boxy raiders—easy target practice—running about and fleeing without much in the way of organization. Real cylons are so much smarter, stronger, and Lee knows, truly he does, that he and Starbuck can let these raiders go because they don’t actually exist. He sucks in a breath, tightens his jaw. They are not real. He lets the air seep from his lungs.

“Starbuck,” Apollo speaks her name as a command.

Kara remains on the raider’s six, but doesn’t take the perfect shot in front of her, and Lee knows she hasn’t forgotten its simulated nature, either. If Starbuck had honestly thought the raider a threat, she’d have blasted it from the sky three times already.

“I know,” her whisper is hoarse in his ear, “I just…the thought of this cylon getting someone when I could’ve…” She clears her throat and abruptly breaks off. Lee turns with her, staying just behind her wing, and letting her take point as he watches their six for the ride back.

Starbuck and Apollo make directly for the Orion, their only extraneous motion being the wiggling of their wings—I’m here. I’m here with you—when Apollo gives up the aft position to fly beside her. Most of the trip occurs in silence until Patterson directs them, “Starbuck, Apollo, Orion’s guidance system is down. Approach starboard landing bay. Hands-on, speed 1-0-0. Checker is red. Call the ball.”

“Copy that, Orion,” Lee answers. “Starboard landing bay. Hands-on approach. Speed 1-0-0. I have the ball.”

Kara echoes his confirmation to Major Patterson, acting much as she would if the Battlestar were the Galactica—staying directly beside Lee even as they land.

The microphone squeals briefly through Lee’s headset while he and Kara make their landings in tandem, but Patterson himself stays silent through the confirmation of the mag lock. “Report to the control room,” the major orders when the whitening of the canopy screens signals the end of the simulation.

The hatch releases above Lee, and his eyes seek Kara’s position. Her canopy lifts beside his, and she removes her helmet, her gold hair darkened with sweat. Lee takes his own helmet in hand, descending the ladder from his viper as Kara disappears from sight to leave hers. Lee jogs over to greet her. She meets him halfway and jumps him, throwing her arms around his neck. Her helmet bobs below his shoulder blade. His hands automatically go around her waist while her toes twist on top of his feet. “That was frakkin’ fantastic, Lee!” she exclaims, her words for the flight but her grip of him for the fall that might follow when the reach the Simulation Control Room.

His fingers drift down and squeeze her ass, lifting her awkwardly around the grip on his helmet to try to save his toes. He sets her down on the floor, keeping the closeness she initiated. “I was pretty fantastic wasn’t I?” he sets himself up.

“You?” She tucks her chin away to look at his face, letting him direct her towards SimCon with an arm around her shoulders. His helmet bumps against her upper arm as she pokes a finger into his flight suit and blasts, “I was the first one with 10 kills.”

“Which you never would have made if I hadn’t been there to help you,” he reminds her of his assists.

“Please,” she smirks, “be serious. If I hadn’t spent so much effort trying to keep the nuggets from getting themselves killed, then I would’ve made all ten kills in the time it took you to make half of that.”

“Hey, I had to keep the nuggets from killing themselves, too,” Lee reminds her, letting the arm around her shoulders slide down so he can unzip his flight suit to the waist and cool down, “and I did it while tagging nine cylons and giving you two assists,” he emphasizes the number, the better to contrast her help on but a single of his kills.

“You are such a sore loser.” She pushes her hand flat to his chest but then grabs the open flap of his flight suit to rein him back in to her. “I beat you fair and square, and I’m wondering how I should call in my earnings, Apollo.”

Lee squints back at her. “I don’t remember setting stakes, Starbuck,” he equivocates teasingly. Kara slows the closer they get to SimCon, but Lee pushes onward, remembering Major Patterson’s tone and needing to know exactly what he and Kara face as far as sim possibilities. The Major could ruin their chances of flying together in Academy sims if he took their mild disobedience personally.

“Oh come on,” she bumps her hip to his hip, “that had to get me something.” Kara stops completely outside of the SimCon room door, turning to Lee and trapping his hips so he can’t go any farther either. The smug smile painted on her face is too thin a veil to hide the worried apprehension, the apology in her eyes.

Lee lifts an index finger to trace her wrinkled brow. He smiles and shrugs, the better to say, frak ‘em if they can’t take a joke. When her forehead smoothes, Lee bends into her space to whisper in her ear, “So long as it doesn’t involve some grand embarrassment or sex in public, you’re on.”

When he pulls back away, she’s rolling her eyes. “As if I need to call in a bet for that.” She leans forward slightly as if to kiss him and prove her point, but then she just swipes her thumb across his bottom lip. He holds her stare until she turns to face the door to SimCon, straightens her shoulders, and crosses the threshold.

Chapter 13 Dreaming in Color

When Kara enters SimCon, Lee at her heels, her eyes immediately scan the two-story center complex of Viper Sim B. The wide balcony ringing the room offers almost half again the number of communication consoles as the bottom floor, giving an incredibly convenient one-to-one ratio between the stations and Viper Sims. Still, after living the better portion of the last few years on a Battlestar, the once familiar high ceiling in the center of the room only seems to be a waste of space.

Kara’s eyes fall on Patterson, and the Major is exactly where she’d expected him to be, on the first floor seated at one of the larger, center consoles available only to instructors. She steels her spine and marches over. Lee keeps to her side—as much her wingman as if they were still in the air.

The Major doesn’t look up when they halt in front of him. Instead, his eyes shift to another screen, which tallies the scores of their Independent and Mutual Flights. He makes them wait longer while he types in additional data. Kara can only ponder what he’s saying about them as the screen he’s using faces away from them. She shifts on her feet, trying to stay as still as Lee is beside her while they wait. Finally, Patterson straightens, shifting his eyes from Kara to Lee and back again.

“Although the simulation had to be cut short,” the Major looks hard at Starbuck, “the data was easily adjusted to the abbreviated perimeters.” Kara’s lips tighten at Patterson’s bombast, but she doesn’t dare interrupt for fear of making any reprimand worse. “In the first simulation,” Patterson activates a large flat screen beside her, but she keeps her eyes on the Major, knowing Lee will tell her if she misses something, “you ignored the cylon trap and remained with your wingman, earning extra points for the accelerated conclusion. Negative points for flying too close to the Battlestar Orion, but that was balanced by the perfect execution of a Narrow Twist and concurrent Panacean Circles.”

Kara raises her eyebrows, trying hard not to glance toward Lee. Patterson gave them extra points for showboating? Hard-ass, by-the-book, worse-than-Lee-at-his-most-anal Patterson?

“Two of the alert fighters were hit in the second sim,” the Major continues, “but neither one severely, so you earned bonus points for keeping your squadron alive and also for the number of independent kills you each made. Negative points for adherence to radio and pursuit protocols. However,” the blond-haired major looks away from her and Lee to the screen she still can’t see, “as the primary objectives in each sim were completed swiftly and with no loss of life, I am inclined to subtract the fewest points to indicate sub-minor and minor infractions respectively to these categories. As a result, Starbuck’s Independent Score is Upper Blue range, and,” he pauses and glances at Starbuck, his invisible eyebrows coiling along with her nerves, “your Mutual Score is Lower Indigo.”

Kara’s chest swells. She bites her lip, but she can’t keep a grin from appearing—anything above Green Levels gets them a free ticket—a priority pass—into Viper Sims, but to score an Indigo—Frak! Kara gives in and finally looks to Lee, who’s grinning beside her. The consternation in his eyes is buried underneath the thrill for their Mutual Score but still present. Kara tightens her lips, empathizing with his unease, knowing the score Patterson gives Lee will decide the future of their sim time together. She clears her throat. “And Apollo’s Independent?” she asks when Lee stays obediently silent.

The Major squints at Kara before turning to Lee. “I was highly impressed with the leadership skills you displayed, Lieutenant,” Patterson clears his throat, eyes flicking quickly in Kara’s direction, “especially considering your wingman.” Kara lifts her chin but is too curious of what Patterson will say to interrupt. “I’m giving you Lower Indigo for your Independent.”

“Lower In—” Lee starts beside her.

“That makes you All-Indigo!” Kara whoops. “Way to go, Lee!” Kara reaches out an excited hand to him before she thinks, but Lee grabs it, squeezing it tightly before letting go.

“Thank—thank you, sir,” he stutters, his huge grin full of pride and disbelief.

Patterson doesn’t immediately reply, and Kara’s too busy watching the glow of Lee’s expression to turn and look at the Major. She’s still looking at Lee when his gaze narrows, shifting his view to something within himself—cutting himself off from her. She bites her lip again—harder, but this time it’s not to contain a smile.

“Congratulations,” Patterson offers and clears his throat sedately, forcing Kara’s eyes back to him.

“Thank you, sir,” she leads, and Lee echoes the sentiment again directly afterward.

The Major shifts his feet as if about to release the data to their records and dismiss them to the locker rooms finally, but then he hesitates. “That’s your third Indigo, your first in Mutual if I recall correctly, Lt. Thrace.”

“Yes, sir,” she nods, well remembering each and every one.

Patterson nods back, slowly, still evaluating. “And it’s the first time you ceded mission command to anyone of your own rank when no Lead Pilot was assigned.”

“Sir?” Kara straightens. The unnatural evenness of the Major’s tone sets her on edge as much as Lee’s silent observance of the room beside her.

“I can only assume that the two of you conferred on this beforehand as Lt. Adama took Lead, and you followed without any discussion over coms,” Major Patterson concludes, but whether he is somehow suspicious or simply assessing, Kara can’t say. “I’d like to see how you perform in other circumstances,” he leads without actually offering a new date with the sims.

“Yes, sir,” Kara quickly jumps on the opportunity, though Lee is still confoundedly quiet beside her. “We can be here tomorrow at the same time…or at a different time,” she nearly trips over her words to get back in the sims with Lee.

“Excellent.” Patterson picks up a small computer tablet, presumably checking schedules. “0615 here again tomorrow then.”

“Yes, sir!” Kara and Lee respond in tandem.

“And by the way, Lieutenants,” the Major directs before walking off, “a word to the wise. While I can appreciate your frustration with the sims, it’s not a good idea to question your superiors’ decisions—even obliquely—without giving them an alternative.”

“Yes, sir,” Kara responds right away, but the Major is looking to Lee, as if it’d been him and not Kara who’d been smarting off in the cockpit.

Lee holds Patterson’s stare a long moment, almost long enough to cause Kara to jump in and say something before the Major thinks Lee insubordinate, but then Lee blinks rapidly and licks his lips, “I’ll keep that in mind, sir,” he says.

“Good,” Patterson answers back, still holding Lee’s stare until he looks down to Kara. “I’ll see you in ‘Theory, Thrace.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” she responds to his retreating form. When the door to SimCon closes behind Patterson, Kara sets her smile on Lee. “Sim time again tomorrow, Apollo.”

“Yeah,” he nods back absently.

“I thought he was going to Red-Level us for sure, and then to give you All-Indigo…”

“Mmm,” he only hums this time, his eyes shifting between the screen with their scores to somewhere along the SimCon balcony.

Kara tries to follow his line of sight, but there’s nothing on the upper deck at this early hour except a few overachieving underclassman working on their programming. She looks back to Lee and nudges his shoulder with hers. “Come on, do you think you can dredge up just a little excitement?” she teases, but the worry forming deep down in her gut starts to congeal.

His gaze clicks onto hers in an instant. He grabs her hand quickly, pulling her into motion toward the exit. “I’ve got an idea,” he shoots over her question to address her unspoken concern. “I need to work out some details, but ask me about it tonight, OK?”

Nodding, Kara lets her breath go—mostly. “OK. I’ve got classes and Officer Targets all day and then Helo again at 1730, but dinner?” She releases his grip to open the door to SimCon, holding it for him while they go through.

“Yeah. Brew Pub, 1900?” he asks with one last backward glance into SimCon’s upper level.

“That sounds good,” Kara agrees. “Gods, how I’ve missed onion rings,” she exhales with a near moan.

Lee grins. “I’ll be sure to bring the after-dinner mints.”

“Jackass.” She swats his head.

“And yet,” he pulls her close into his side with an arm low about her hips, “you still lay claim to me.” And just like that, Lee’s focus is wholly back on her.

“Eh,” she shrugs one shoulder, “you give great head.”

He halts their progress to face her and speaks softly, “You putting in a request for later?” He licks his lips three times—she knows because she doesn’t take her eyes off of them.

“Yeah,” she whispers back, “a request and an offer.” Her tongue darts out of her mouth, as if it could reach his moistened lips across the way.

Lee takes a deep breath through his nose. He clears his throat and shifts, stepping back slightly and glancing around, probably to see if anyone’s watching them.

Kara steps forward to angle her words to his ear, “I told ya you were gonna need that cold shower this morning,” she taunts and steps off toward the locker rooms. Lee bounces into motion on her six, and she knows he’s using her body as a shield to conceal his lower half from roaming eyes. She lets him hide behind her, smirking back over her shoulder at his embarrassment. She rolls her eyes at the sound of his carefully measured steps, designed to keep him just behind her. He sighs heavily after she shakes her head in amusement, and he takes a running step to catch up to her, walking the rest of the way beside her.

B
S
G

After changing out of their flight suits, Lee bids Kara goodbye in front of the locker rooms. The ease of her words, the confidence of her smile when she walks out the front door and he heads back towards the center complex of Viper Sim B almost makes him wonder if she has an idea of what he’s up to. He decides, as he hustles back into SimCon, that his thinking is too much in-the-box for Starbuck to be on the same track.

When he walks back through the door, Lee immediately scans the upper deck of the complex, seeking the cadet he spied earlier—the one with the thick indigo border marking the edge of her badge. His eyes skim over the consoles to zero in on the rectangular ID, still draped prominently above her console. His gaze drifts over to its owner, her short brown ponytail flipping back and forth between two screens as she crosschecks the data strings running across both. Instead of approaching her directly, Lee heads for the primary computer in the center of the room, printing out a new temporary badge, rimmed by a solid line of indigo. Though they share a swath of color, Lee’s ID, unlike the cadet’s, is a true square to indicate his viper pilot status.

Once it’s finished printing and laminating, Lee pulls his dogtags over his head and forces the latch to accept the still-warm ID. For just a moment, he notes the stark outline the indigo makes around the thin metal, swipes his thumb across it just to see the contrasting colors. He nearly smiles but then narrows his focus, gathering the chain in his palm and thumbing the dogtags when he shoves away from the main computer console towards the stairs.

Lee takes the steps two at a time to close the distance to the underclassman. As he walks, he eyes that indigo border that helped him separate her from everyone else in SimCon B. He bites his lip, shifts his gaze to the light color of her hair, trying to figure out a way inside her head. He’s struck suddenly by the realization that while there’s no proper way to start recruiting for his new project, approaching some random cadet programmer just because she’s got a thick indigo line around her name has to be the most frakkin’ idiotic way to proceed. His face pinches involuntarily at the thought. Nonetheless, when he’s half a meter from her position, his mouth opens, and he speaks, “Excuse me, Cadet.”

She startles, nearly jumping in her seat. “Sir!” She turns to look at him for a moment, perplexed. If she’d worn glasses, Lee supposes she’d have pushed them farther up along the bridge of her nose. Belatedly, she tries to move a pile of equipment from her lap in order to stand.

“Don’t get up.” He waves her down, checks her uniform for her name. “I don’t mean to bother you in the middle of a project, Henderson.” He smiles politely, hoping to convey interest but not too much interest.

“Not at all, sir.” She resettles in her seat, glances around the room when Lee doesn’t speak again right away. She clears her throat, “Is there something I can do for you, sir?” The pitch of her voice rises high on her question.

He points to the dual computer screens, “Is that your own code you’re writing, or is it one of the tom-com exercises?”

“Tom-com. They won’t let us write our own code until we’ve finished three semesters, sir.”

Unconsciously, he licks his lips. “Your project looks a little detailed for the usual programming assignment.”

“Yes, well,” her shoulders roll back in a superior sort of wiggle, “I asked the dean for a special dispensation to begin work on the upper division assignments once I completed my sophomore levels.”

“You must be pretty advanced,” Lee leads the conversation. “I bet you do a lot of original programming in your own time.”

The Cadet opens her mouth on a wide grin, but shuts it as abruptly a second later. Lee thinks she’s actually biting her tongue to keep from bragging. “I dabble,” she finally lets herself say.

Lee’s eyes gleam in satisfaction at the admission, at the pieces clicking into place.

She gives a fake little cough. “Was there something you needed, sir?”

“Yes, actually.” Lee pauses, looks behind him, and takes the empty chair beside her, pulling it closer to begin his conversation. “I’m a viper pilot.” He watches her expression carefully. “I need a programmer.”

“Sir,” her eyes scan the room again, and she whispers, “I’m not allowed to rig the sims.” She sits up straighter. “And—and I wouldn’t.”

“No, no!” Lee raises one hand, keeping the other locked around his ID. “I would never ask anyone to do that for me. I would never do that,” he assures her. Her wary expression eases slightly, and Lee watches as her curiosity returns with the tilt of her head. He leans closer. “I want to make the cylons smarter.”

“What?” her brows lift as she squeaks.

“In the sims.” He points to the door and the machines beyond it.

Cadet Henderson shakes her head. “Why?” She drops her eyes and clears her throat. “Sir.”

Lee notes the belated address, and he studies her face afresh. For the first time, he sees the lack of lines across her features, the clear set on her face. No one in the Fleet—in his Fleet—is as unburdened as she is—not even the children. Biting his lip with a grimace, he peeks at the two computer screens in front of the Cadet, at the lines of code, stagnant for the moment, but moveable, malleable. His eyes rocket back to hers, his mind returning to his purpose. “The sims we have now…” he trails off for effect, “it’s like somebody took footage of the cylon battles from forty years ago and kept plugging them back in with very little variation to show for it in between.” He puts his elbows on his knees and leans just a little farther into her space, a little further into her confidence. “We can make a better sim.”

“We can?” she stresses.

Lee nods once, decisively. “We can.”

Cadet Henderson huffs out a long breath and leans away. “No offense, Lieutenant—”

“Adama,” he offers even as her gaze peers downward to check his uniform. “Lee Adama,” he says, just realizing he hasn’t given her his name. He’d stopped introducing himself to anyone in the Fleet ages ago—everyone had already known who he was.

“Lieutenant Adama,” she repeats his name slowly, in measured tones, “what you’re talking about is creating new perimeters for all of the cylon-related aeronautical simulations, and one programmer and one pilot do not have the ability to change all of that overnight.”

“I don’t need overnight, Cadet,” he says, and he doesn’t. For one, the Fleet’s pilots would be significantly better equipped to handle the cylon threat if a new wide-scale program could be launched in two—even three years. He nods as if to confirm his own unspoken assessment. “We can do this. It’s not a two-man job,” he verifies. “But we can get it started. We can be the ones to have been there from the beginning—your programs, my flying. It is possible.” He uses the same tone he’s cultivated on a thousand impossible missions.

Cadet Henderson bites her lip, leans towards Lee like a fish on a hook. “It would be amazing if we could change all of the cylon simulators.” She brings her fingers to her mouth as she thinks aloud. “Just imagine the complexity of the code. It would be incredible,” she whispers.

“It will be,” Lee assures her. He watches her for a moment, her eyes darting back and forth unseeing, as if reading and evaluating some invisible source. Finally, the line of her mouth pinches, and she shakes her head regretfully.

“As much as I’d like to help you,” she looks to Lee with wide—and very young—brown eyes, “it’s a pipe-dream, sir. We can’t just write new sims without raw data. At the very least, to get started we’d need to access the Raider Sims in the Primary Sim Complex, and you can’t do that unless—”

Lee lifts his tags between them, letting the shaped metal and the line of his new badge fall down the chain with gravity. “Unless, you’re All-Indigo,” he says with a satisfied smile.

“Well,” his new programmer stalls, her greedy eyes glued to his badge. She licks her lips, shifting her gaze to his. “Looks like we’re dreaming in color, sir.”

Chapters 14-15

Reunion (2.0): Chapters 9-11

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:38:14 GMT

Title: Reunion (2.0)
Author: Choosing Sarah
Rated: M for mature content
Word Count: 40,000
Spoilers: Through Lay Down Your Burdens Part 2 (2x20) plus Unfinished Business (3x09)
Timeframe: Occurs six months after the Season 2 finale where it AUs.
Summary: Six months after they fled New Caprica, the Fleet returns to collect survivors. While the battle goes well for the Colonials, there is more than one front in this war. As Lee and Kara make amends, they find themselves at the center of the latest conflict with a chance to redirect the future if they can only reconcile the past.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Battlestar Galactica characters or stories (etc). No infringement is intended and no profit is made, but might I be so bold as to point out that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

Complete Story Index

Chapters 6-8

Chapter 9 Possession

Helo fumbles in the Raptor Sim’s hands-on approach to the imaginary Battlestar. This time, the third time, Kara doesn’t speak at all when the viewscreen explodes into shades of fire and mock death. Her eyes stay on Helo’s hands—heavy on the stick, tense, forcing—uncomfortable. Unnatural.

“Let’s try it again,” she finally says in the silence of the darkened cockpit, “but let’s do it a little differently this time.” When she looks up through the red emergency lighting, Karl’s eyes are already on her, looking past her gaze near her ear. “Helo,” she demands, and he looks to her, eyebrows folded inward, lips thin with both embarrassment and frustration. “You with me?” she smiles.

He smiles back, the force of his personality muted by aggravation. “Right here with you Starbuck.”

“Good. Close your eyes,” she commands.

He smirks at her demanding tone but obeys, turning his body back to the nose.

Kara resets the simulator, settling on a beginners’ tool for primary flight functions. The raptor’s screen shows them already mid-flight, with free and unblemished space around them.

“Okay, loosen your grip. Keep your eyes closed, and get a feel for the sim.”

A quirk of the head towards Kara. “Don’t tell me you put me on the Nugget Run!”

Eyes rolling. “Fine. I won’t tell you anything.”

He exhales heavily then, lips back to that thin line, but his shoulders ease back in his seat as she keeps talking.

“I want you to think of the girl you were with last night.”

“Ehm,” he clears his throat, jaw clenching when his chin jerks. “Sir.” He peeks at her through slit lids without turning his head.

“Eyes,” Kara commands, and he obliges with another sigh. “Go with me on this Helo. And put her in your mind, whoever she was.” The threads of muscles remain hard in his neck, but Kara keeps talking despite. “Whatever you did with her I don’t care, I don’t want to know. I just want you to remember how you touched her, talked to her.” Kara pictures Helo and the last time she saw him in full seduction mode, just before the end of the worlds, teasing into the personal space of that brown haired marine that got killed while Kara was back on Caprica. “Light fingers and soft tones,” she recalls aloud, picturing the way the corporal’s shoulders leaned farther into Helo’s space than he into hers after awhile. “You convince her, cajole her with your whole body, your every word, until her body’s bowing for you, and she’s wondering why the frak you haven’t invited her back to your bunk yet.”

“Are you sure you’re not coming on to me, sir?” His shoulders angle towards her, maybe to mask the way he shifts in his seat.

“Positive. Get with the program. Now think about the girl from the night before that.”

“I didn’t—”

“Then the time before that. Think about what you did differently.” She looks back to the viewscreen, finally able to note the sway of an easy touch. “You’d never approach two women in the same way. You watch them, listen and find your ‘in.’ You have to do the same with the ships you fly. They may have the same buttons, but each one has its own quirks.”

Helo chuckles beside her, causing her to glance back his way. “The same buttons?” She finds his eyes glinting at her under his lashes, his expression a hybrid of a grin and a smirk. “You’re killing me here. You know that right?”

It takes her a slow blink to realize he’s serious. Her Helo would’ve understood the analogy without applying it to her, but this one hasn’t yet formed the same boundaries. “Uhh.” The sound escapes through her teeth in the unusually awkward silence between them. “I’m sorry. I, uh, I didn’t mean to give you mixed signals. Sometimes I don't pay enough attention to what comes out of my mouth, but I’m…” she stutters while she tries to find a way to qualify what’s going on with her and Lee. “I’m unavailable,” she goes for simple.

“So you’re saying that no matter what comes out of your mouth, I’ve got a perpetual red light with you, is that right?” His voice is even, with fewer undertones present in his tone or expression than before.

“Yeah.” The word sounds like a commitment coming from her mouth, a promise to a man who isn’t there to hear it. “You can say anything to me, Helo,” she tells him, hoping he’ll take her up on it, knowing she’ll miss the interplay between them if he doesn’t. “I’m hard to insult, but if you manage, I’ll just tell you to frak off.”

He shrugs, nods, and finally—grins. “Well, it’s good to know where you stand, I guess.”

She clears her throat and thinks to the silent cell phone in her pocket. “You’re not kidding.”

B
S
G

It’s only after darkness blankets the sky that Lee leaves sight of the runway. He backs Kara’s truck onto the access road and drives toward the main drag, right hand remaining on the stick even after he shifts through the lower gears up to fourth. The high-pitched whine of tires on concrete distracts him, causes his eyes to wander from the road in confusion. He looks around the cabin of the truck as if trying to catch a recalcitrant thought. His eyes fall on the clock on the dash. He squints, trying to make sense of the hands.

“Frak.” It’s a statement. He reaches for his jacket, searching the pockets one-handed. The LCD display of his phone—brightly lit and complaining of nine missed calls—seems as unfriendly as Kara must be by now. He clicks two buttons to dial the number he programmed just this morning. He winces in preparation.

The line barely rings.

“Where the frak are you?” Under the hard edge of her voice, he can hear her concern. It gives him pause. The silence must last too long for Kara. “Lee?” This time there is real fear in her tone.

“I’m OK. It’s OK,” he forces past his lips, but can’t think of anything else to say.

She permits his elusiveness, seeming to realize it’s unintentional, but he can practically hear her close her eyes to focus on cues more subtle than his words. “I’m at Dionysus,” she says, and his mind conjures memories of the bar—the congratulatory drinks he’d had with his classmates when they’d passed basic flight, the sweet Leonian Ale he’d bought for a blind date and later the taste of it from her mouth. He’d never been to Dionysus with Zak, though. He doesn’t think Kara had either.

He checks his surroundings, noting the street sign. “I’m less than five minutes away.” He can feel the thickness of her silence through the line, and he knows he isn’t the only one lost for words. “I’m sorry about today. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s alright,” she interrupts. “You’re coming now.”

It seems like a question. “Yes,” he confirms.

She breathes heavily into the phone in what sounds like relief. “Alright then. We’re sitting at the bar.”

“We?” he questions, but she’s already hung up.

B
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Kara slaps the phone shut in one sweeping motion, bringing her hand up immediately to call the barkeep. She orders four shots of Ambrosia when the bartender—a brunette with short shorts and tight top—answers her hail. A quick glance at Helo, whose eyes are settled a foot below the barmaid’s, has Kara ordering a fifth shot. The brunette smiles and blushes at Helo, offering her name—Athena—as she pours the Ambrosia. Kara leaves Karl to his shot and his flirtation, grabs two glasses by their lips with her right hand, positioning the other two the same way in her left. She turns to face the door, and somehow Lee is already there, watching her as if he’s been waiting a while. She licks her lips and takes a step for him—another step—another. He meets her by the card tables near the old-fashioned jukebox.

His right hand steals beneath her left to gather its load of two glasses between his fingers. Both of them transfer a shot to each hand. She watches Lee lift his glass to his lips and throws back a shot herself. Her eyes are drawn to his throat as he swallows, the slow movement somehow so mesmerizes her that she doesn’t see his empty hand move until he’s grasping her wrist above her Fleet-issued watch. She drops the glass she just drained, watches it hit the floor, shatter between them. His eyes are on hers when her gaze again touches his face. She likes it—the open possession she sees in his eyes, feels on her pulse. She doesn’t try to get away. He still has a grip on her when they down their second shot.

Her body is soft, pliable—open—when he snatches her to him, when he lifts her arm level with his neck and tugs her forward until her gooseflesh kisses his body heat. She doesn’t have time to be disappointed that he twists his head away—as soon as his neck turns, his mouth opens, his tongue flat as he tastes the Ambrosia from her palm, his lips parted as he kisses up from the fleshy ball of her hand to her wrist, past the military watch, up…up…to the inside of her elbow.

“Lieutenant Adama?” Helo’s voice is almost completely incredulous. Damn, she’d forgotten about him. The clink of glasses, the roar of conversation, the idiot getting hustled at triad three tables over, all come back into focus when Lee slides their hands from his shoulder. She would’ve frowned at the abrupt motion, but Lee is still holding her wrist. Her hand twitches, itching to grab him back, but liking his possession of her pulse too much to slide away.

“Helo.” Lee’s voice is as rough as it had been over the phone, like he hasn’t spoken to anyone all day.

“Sir,” Karl returns, and Kara doesn’t have to look to envision the little nod that goes with the more sedate greeting.

Lee shakes his head, only now looking away from Kara. “We’re off the clock, Karl. So it’s just Lee or Apollo.”

The delay is brief, almost not worth noting. “So you finally got gifted?” Karl questions.

Lee stiffens. “Yes.”

“Wait a minute,” Kara interrupts, their conversation suddenly striking a chord within her, “so you guys know each other?”

Lee has no trouble meeting her eye, his stare so blank as to nearly go through her. “Helo and I met as sophomores.”

“You never said anything.” Her brow furrows, waiting for some reaction, some slight inflection to explain why she never knew they’d been acquainted before the end of the worlds.

“Cut him some slack,” Helo busts in on her thoughts. “You were just complaining about how you couldn’t get a hold of him all day anyway.”

Kara clears her throat, looks to Helo’s soft gaze. “No, you’re right. I couldn’t get to him,” the whispered words come through a locked jaw and clenched teeth. “Seems like he’s always just out of reach.”

Lee tightens his grip on her wrist, the pressure so hard she can feel the blood struggling to get back to her heart. When she looks again, the intent in his eyes, Lee’s full focus—his passion—on her, nearly makes her fold into him. She yanks her arm away. “The problem is I need something to hold onto, too.” A step puts her face in Lee’s space to hiss, “Something that won’t disappear.”

Kara doesn’t look at either man when she walks away.

Chapter 10 Depth Perception

Lee closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to watch her leave, but he can still hear her steps fading as she gets farther away. He can’t seem to follow, can’t make himself take a step outside his thoughts to reach for her. He’s too tired from shifting through the muddied waters of his own mind.

“So it’s been a while, Apollo,” Helo emphasizes his call-sign.

Lee opens his eyes to find Helo carefully ignoring his disagreement with Starbuck. Karl gestures to an empty table opposite the bar. Lee follows the lead and takes a seat, watches Helo give the barmaid a rueful grin as he lowers himself into the chair right beside him—Karl never takes into account the concept of personal space, even with other guys. For once though, the other man’s proximity doesn’t bother him, but grounds him. It’s familiar, comforting now, a piece of the life he left behind—will leave behind?—in the darkness above New Caprica.

Helo clears his throat, making Lee realize how long he’s been silent. He raises his eyes from the scratched and crumbling surface of the table.

“I see you haven’t lost your touch with women, Adama.” Helo’s eyes flick toward the bar entrance before balancing back above his grin, making Lee chuff in remembrance.

“Hey, at least there’s no ECO-wannabe butting in and making the moves on my girl every five minutes.”

“Your girl?” Eyebrows raise, a chin juts forward. “That’s not the way I remember it.”

Apollo shrugs, his lips tricked into a grin. “She had a hell of a way of making you forget about anything, didn’t she?”

Helo joins the laughter, relaxes back into his chair. “Did she do that thing to you with the three fingers and the tongue?”

“Oh gods yes. Before that I’d never really—” Lee cuts himself off, watches Helo’s grin stretch wider.

“Yeah, she widened my horizons, too.” Karl lets it go with just a waggle of the eyebrows.

Lee clears his throat, tucks his chin. “I wonder whatever happened to her.”

“You tell me. You’re the one that got the girl.” Helo grins and gestures with two fingers, somehow catching the barmaid’s eye immediately and scoring them two beers.

“Yeah, well not for long, she moved on to greener pastures. I heard she found some Captain, double promoted right out of War College.”

Helo shakes his head. “And I always pegged you for one who’d be going to Scorpia out of the Academy.”

Apollo clears his throat, hides his eyes. “Yeah.” His gaze shifts from Helo to the table then back again. A pair of short shorts—and the woman they’re attached to—hasten towards their table, distracting the conversation. Lee’s relieved, if surprised, that the brunette from behind the bar appears so promptly. He leans back so she can place the brown bottle in front of him. Helo just holds out a hand to accept his brew, along with a narrow slip of yellow paper with seven digits across it. Lee smirks at how quickly Helo works, but the other man just shrugs, a big grin stretching from ear to ear. Both men take long, slow sips. It’s the same Leonian Ale Lee recalls tasting from a sassy junior lieutenant’s mouth shortly before junior year ended. He wonders vaguely what happened to her, where she was when she died. He licks his lips, as if to chase that forgotten flavor of her mouth. She’s still alive, he reminds himself. It hasn’t happened, yet. They’re all alive, even Zak.

“You OK?” The concerned voice seems disconnected from Helo, who’s usually on Kara’s side in any argument.

“Yeah,” Lee nods, bringing his gaze up yet again to meet Helo’s, “I just have a lot on my mind.”

Helo nods as if he could understand, then he sprawls out in his chair, beer balanced on one thigh, while Lee looks around the room to keep trying to avoid the ECO’s eye. He puts his elbows on the table, and chugs half his beer in three gulps. A nervous motion sets the bottle on the table, one hand still gripped around its neck.

“So I like this girl you’re seeing,” Karl casually gestures to the front door that Kara stormed out of five minutes ago. “Don’t know what the frak she sees in you, but she’s cool. And very hot. Man can she talk dirty in a raptor.”

Lee’s eyes narrow in on Helo’s, judging the man’s tone. He watches another smirk break out on his face before realizing the ECO’s lascivious pitch was meant to provoke him. “If you’re trying to make a point, Agathon, I’d suggest you start moving quicker.”

“What the frak are you still doing in here, Adama?” Helo shakes his head at him, but Lee just leans away, turns his head to the other direction to sigh in disgust. “Fine.” Helo leans away, too, when there’s no further response. “Be a dick, but you’re going to be a dick without a girlfriend in another five minutes if you don’t go after her.”

“Kara’s not—” Lee cuts himself off. No use in opening the floor for Helo, assuming Kara would even want him. “Today,” he swallows, “today was bad.”

“That why you wouldn’t answer your phone to her?”

“No, I left the damn thing in the truck, I didn’t hear it,” he defends himself.

“Don’t tell me. Tell her.”

Lee follows Karl’s gaze to the front door, and watches a blond woman that isn’t Kara come over the threshold.

“Go,” Helo encourages, softly this time, “and give me the rest of your beer,” he adds reaching under Lee’s grip to loosen his hold from the brown neck. “If you don’t come back I won’t hold it against you,” he promises.

Lee stands, reaches into his pocket.

“It’s OK, I got it,” Helo indicates before Lee can count off the bills from his clip.

“Thanks,” Lee nods, but Karl just shakes his head and waves him towards the door.

B
S
G

She should’ve taken the truck keys, should’ve just snatched them out of Lee’s pocket. Kara looks forlornly toward the battered red vehicle at the far end of the parking lot. She’s tempted to hotwire it, but she hasn’t done that in years, and she’s not about to introduce a short into her electrical system over a stupid fight with Frakin’ Lee Adama.

A quick check into her cell phone’s memory confirms she still has the numbers of three cab companies programmed inside. She presses two buttons to dial her favorite. They used to have a Virgonese guy there who’d give her free rides for stories about viper aerobatics.

She listens to the taxi company’s recording automatically, offering her location when prompted but staying silent when the mechanical voice asks if she’d like a particular driver. Vipers and Apollo are melded together in her mind. And it’s not like she can remember Virgonese guy’s name anyway. He might have been Shane. Or Sean, maybe?

Gods, who wouldn’t I kill for a stogie right now? She thinks before she remembers that cigars aren’t the rare commodities they were on Galactica. She can pick up a pack of Caprican Sun at any corner store. Instead of soothing her, the thought unbalances her, causes her to glance around at the once familiar, once dead and gone, now ever-present all around her. People, mostly officers and their dates, shuffle in and out of Dionysus’ front door less than ten meters away—laughing, flirting, smiling, looking forward to getting laid—while she stands outside of it all waiting for her frakkin’ cab. The weather is warm under Picon’s sky but no longer hot with the sun below the horizon. The asphalt in the parking lot sheens under the streetlights. It looks almost wet, but the pavement isn’t slick under her sneakers. Her footing is solid even if the rest of her seems to be on a slippery slope.

“Frakkin’ Lee Adama.” The soft venom of her words can’t hide the hurt beneath, not even from her own angry ears. Kara looks to the stars, muted above her by the lights of the city. “And frak you, too, Helo,” she curses her former friend, wherever he is.

The door to the bar opens again, but the squeak that should follow with its closing doesn’t come, as if the person exiting Dionysus is either waiting or watching. A full minute crawls by without that resounding screech, and the idea that it’s Apollo in the doorway passes from a suspicion to a fact within her mind. She feels his eyes on her back—like a balm to sunburned skin, both itchy and soothing. She bites her lip, jams her hands deep into her pockets, refuses to acknowledge him. She’s sure it’s him. She’s sure Lee came after her. She’s pretty sure.

“Kara.” She sucks in a harsh breath when he whispers her name.

Her lips move, the traitors, so she bites her tongue—hard.

“Kara,” Lee says again. The damning squeal of the door yelps as he lets it go and comes after her.

Her words come through clenched teeth, “What do you want from me, Lee?”

His feet shuffle toward her, his steps light and measured. She wonders if he’s walking on the balls of his feet, if his delicate footing means he’s waiting to swoop or to bounce. He stops beside her. She turns her head away but not before catching a glimpse of his face from the corner of her eye. Her breath quickens when she realizes he’s not wearing his regular mask.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry about today—”

She huffs an interruption, as if today really mattered in the scheme of things. But all those other days, the everyday lies—

“And I’m sorry about Helo. We knew each other very briefly during sophomore year. We were dating the same girl, and,” by the way his voice changes, she knows he’s looking down, penitent, “it didn’t bring out the best in either of us.”

Chin lifting. “And you couldn’t tell me,” her head whips back around to him, “neither of you saw fit to tell me, that two of the most important people in my life knew each other before I met either of you?”

“We didn’t like each other, Kara.” His hands are open as he explains. She doesn’t dare chance to see if his eyes are the same. She doesn’t want to know.

“Frak you, Lee.” Her face casually turns back to the street again, waiting still for her cab. “I’m done with this. I’m just done with you.”

The rough hand on her bicep whirls her around, forces her to face him. “No!” he denies her words. “Frak you, Kara!” he curses back, his eyes on fire at her dismissal, his finger in her face. “You don’t get to say this is over because your feelings get hurt one time.”

She yanks away, shoves him with both hands to his chest. But he pushes back into her space, spiking her adrenaline and filling her body with heat and wrath. Fight me, Lee, she thinks what she’d never urge aloud. Fight for me.

“Back off!” she demands, voice low, fists tight, as she contrarily steps into him.

“No.” He moves again so he’s flush against her, so she’s forced to look up into his eyes or to weakly look away.

“Lee if you don’t get the hell away from me—”

“What are you going to do?”

Her whole arm clenches. She would’ve taken a step back to gain the space to punch him, but he grabs her wrist. She moves her left hand without real intent, and he takes that one, too, not letting her move.

Her breath forces her breasts into his chest. “Lee…” she warns again, her voice as hard as ever, but her eyes peek toward his lips.

He catches her, smirks from his mouth to his narrowed blue eyes and everything in between. “This really gets you off, doesn’t it, Kara?” He angles his face closer.

Her lips tighten against his moist exhalations. She would’ve shaken her head to deny his claim, but another deep breath grazes her nipples against his chest, making her realize he felt them hard and heavy the first time. She feels the blood rushing to her head, but before true humiliation can set in, Lee presses his hips to hers. His arousal, thick against her hip, quickly dispels any notions of embarrassment.

“You really like this alpha male, cave man crap, don’t you?” he accuses, but when she opens her mouth to answer, he leans in to take it. He forces her lips wider, pushes his tongue inside. She pushes back in a clash of teeth and lips and tongue. He shoves her arms behind her, to the small of her back. But she won’t let him encase both wrists in one hand. She makes him work for it, for her.

“Don’t push it, Lee,” she finally warns but still concedes to his kisses, lifting her chin and submitting her neck to the manipulations of his mouth.

He widens his stance against her, keeping her wrists in his capture but loosening his stiff posture to wrap around her more protectively. She lets him bite down to her shoulder, to that favorite spot of his between her neck and the bulge of her collarbone—it always makes her moan when he does that—before she tucks her chin and forces his lips up to hers. She mouths her way to his ear, to that sensitive patch of skin just below his jaw.

He gasps and pulls back, resting his cheek beside hers, rubbing the day’s grit and stubble roughly against her skin. She rubs back, loving the texture, needing that realness. “Well, I like the Alpha female crap,” he pants into her ear, “so I guess it evens out.”

Kara smiles into his skin, feels his corresponding grin break out against her cheek, and she parts her thighs to take his leg between them. Lee shifts his leg, slowly easing back and forth, offering only the slightest teasing friction. He drops his head and inhales deeply.

“Gods, I can smell you.” He presses further, but they can’t get any closer with clothes on.

“Come on. Take me home.” A promise exchanges by the quick tilt of her head and he lets her lead him away, one hand still secure around her wrist. She grabs his wrist above those constraining fingers, grips him tight so he can’t get away either. She weaves through the parked cars, their mutual hold unwavering.

She looks at him expectantly when they get to her truck, parked between two others, but he’s ahead of her. He’s unlocked the driver’s door almost as quickly as she’s turned around.

“Thanks.” She grabs the keys, reclaims her hand, steps in front of him, and opens the door.

Lee reaches past her, manually shuts off the dome light in the cab. He grabs her hips before she can step up onto the runner and boost herself in.

“Lee?” she questions, unmoving. He doesn’t answer, just steps behind her, fitting her ass into his groin, causing her to grip the upholstery with both hands. “Let’s go home,” she urges in what she’s afraid must be a pathetic sort of horny whine, but his hands shift, curl from her hips to her abdomen, down to the tops of her thighs, back up to the creases of her legs. “Lee?” his name ends on a gasp, as his fingers steal between her legs. “What the frak are you doing?” she asks desperately, leaning back into his body, hands naturally falling over his hands. “You never even used to do PDAs.”

“I know,” his words are hushed by her hair. His acknowledgment muted by his other hand, slipping to her fly, patiently working her button and zipper.

“Oh gods.” He slips his fingers through the open uniform into her panties.

“Frak!” His hips pulse against her ass when he reaches her, swollen and slippery. “Kara,” he growls, and the quick, short circles of his fingers make her gasp, unable to answer.

She tightens her grip on his forearms, loving the feel of the prickly hair against her hands and wrists, aching for more of his fevered breath in her hair, of his desperate hips behind her, of his clever fingers—circling, circling, thrusting… “More,” she demands, and he moves harder, faster, deeper… “Deeper…” deeper… “Gods, yes, Lee!” She stiffens and shakes, but he doesn’t slow down until she’s crumpled up against him.

“Oh.” She nuzzles her face into his neck contentedly, one hand climbing up to run though his thick, dark hair. She loves the feel of it through her fingers, and Lee always leans his head into her caress, even if he’s pissed at her.

“Kara. Kara, please,” his desperate words finally reach through the heated fog of her mind. “I’m so close. I’m so close Kara, please,” Lee begs, and she loves it. “The streetlights don’t reach and the two trucks—”

“Yes,” Kara promises. “Yes anything.” Yes to absolutely frakkin’ anything.

He kisses her temple briefly and pulls his fingers from her. She feels him releasing his fly, pulling out his cock behind her. Still, she’s surprised that he not-so-gently urges her forward, tugs her uniform and panties past her hips, down below the swell of her ass.

“Oh my gods,” she barely has breath to speak when she realizes he’s going to frak her right there in the parking lot. She quickly glances around, doesn’t see anyone standing and looking, but on the street, cars are moving to and fro, and the door of Dionysus opens and shuts under bright lights a bare fifteen meters away. She bends slightly to rest her arms on the seat of the truck. “Lee.” The head of his cock brushes against her bare ass as he shifts her and positions himself behind her.

Lee grabs her hips in both hands, slides into her, groans when she pushes back to greet him. “Kara,” he always says her name when he eases inside her, even from that first time.

She reaches back to find his hand on her hip. He takes her cue, squeezes her digits while he thrusts inside—so much deeper than his fingers, so much thicker, so much more.

“Kara.” The intonation of her name warns her he’s closer than she is. She minds the notice, moves her free hand down to circle her clit, the motion pushing her breasts into the seat’s side upholstery. She loves the grunt he makes every time her fingers brush against him on the downstroke. She gasps and aches, her breasts longing for wide hands or rough pinching fingers, yet even still, her less-frantic’d fingers choose to tangle with his, needing that connection.

“Kara,” he says one last time, his hips shoving into her erratically, slowing down until he stops, but he stays there, inside her, so she wiggles her fingers faster, comes around his softening cock, the weight of his body behind her a layer of heated protection she should probably spurn but doesn’t.

In the stillness that follows, she feels him attend to her, put her clothing to rights and kiss her back through her tanks, hears him tuck and zip. His hands return to her back then, rubbing up to her shoulders then sliding down to her sides, along her hips, and back up again.

Slowly, she becomes aware of other things: the rough cloth of her seat cover pushing into her cheek, the zoom of the traffic on the main road. “Shit my cab,” she recalls aloud and turns to look. Lee glances around, too, but there’s no yellow taxi anywhere.

“Guess he caught another passenger.”

She shrugs, bites her lip but can’t hide the huge grin spanning from ear to ear. “It’s only fair, I caught another ride.”

“Ah!” he chuckles with her—Lee smiles an easy smile with her—he eases his hands to her hips, urges her closer and kisses her. She relaxes into possessive hands and gentle lips. He rests his cheek against hers, and she reaches her arms up to run her fingers through his hair.

“I love that,” he says and sends gooseflesh up and down her body before she really comprehends what he says.

She chuckles back, partly at herself for her own foolishness, for girlish dreams that linger overly long, and so the sound is almost bitter. “I know.”

He stiffens in her arms, and she winces. But he holds on. He nuzzles his way into her hair. “I…” he stutters, “I love it when you touch me.”

The confession is soft, like a breeze, but it resonates through her like a solar flare—violently luminous. She holds him tighter, feeling the weight of his concession, trying to reciprocate, trying not to give too much away, to balance them both.

“Shh,” he whispers and softly kisses her ear, “we’re better at fighting and frakking, but we’ll get there.”

Chapter 11 fragile frakkin’ balance

Lee boosts her into the truck, one hand on her hip, the other on her ass. It’s only because he’s feeling her up as he does it that Kara lets the chivalric gesture slide. She slips the truck key into the ignition and eases the clutch while Lee rounds the vehicle. He hops into the passenger seat just as the engine turns over.

Lee left it in reverse, thinking ahead as always, so she only has to release the emergency brake—Lee—and look behind her. Her arm comes up to the back of the bench seat automatically when she twists to look for traffic meandering about Dionysus’ parking lot. Her hand finds Lee’s already there. When her startled eyes glance over, he’s smiling at her, his expression more open than she can remember in quite a while. She holds his gaze. There is no burden in the intensity of his stare but instead a concentrated weightlessness, like flying above the atmosphere. She realizes she’s grinning back at him.

She has to look away to finish maneuvering out of the parking spot, but Kara feels Lee’s eyes on her still as she uses both feet and removes her hand from his to switch gears—why did she buy a stick, anyway? She merges into traffic, the silence in the cab full of Lee, of the memory they’ve just made. She hums as she shifts up, the motion of pressing the clutch reverberating up her leg and echoing between her thighs.

Lee lifts his hand to her shoulder and squeezes. She chances a look at him while they drive down the boulevard. His smile, though gentled, is still holding. The moment she pops up to third gear, he slides his fingers down, teasing all the way to her hand. He laces their digits for a moment, just long enough to bring the palm of her hand to his lips and lead it back down to the gearshift.

It’s only when she licks her lips that she realizes how widely they span across her face. She should tell him about her deal with Major Patterson, about the possibility of flying tomorrow. But Lee speaks first,

“Did Dad ever tell you about Moira Jacobs?”

Kara feels her brow condense at Lee’s question. “Umm, Jacobs?” she repeats the name, but it doesn’t jog her memory.

Lee leans back into the worn cushions of the bench seat. “He met her near the end of the First Cylon War.” Lee uses terminology only she would understand. Before the end of the worlds, the First Cylon War had been the only one. “They were stationed together on the Battlestar Odysseus. They met in the air.”

“Wait,” Kara halts him at the familiarity of the story, “you mean Reaper?”

“Yeah,” Lee nods, and she tries to direct more of her attention back to the road. “That’s who I met with today.” He chuckles—long and low.

“What?” she grins to hear the sound.

He shakes his head, face aimed downward, but he can’t hide his sheepish features. “I used to have the biggest crush on her when I was thirteen.”

“Lee Adama! She must be old enough to be your mother!”

“Older actually.”

Kara guffaws, fights to bring her eyes back to the road. “Okay, so besides reliving fantasies of your father’s wingman,” she leads, because honestly, she will never let that go now that she knows, “what else happened at Headquarters?”

He shrugs this time. “Reaper told me I could have the post. Even gave me the paperwork,” he finishes casually, almost indifferently, but there’s a sudden tension in his posture when she glances over and watches him remove a thin bunch of folded papers from his breast pocket.

She sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, biting it, wondering if she should push, if it would rock their fragile balance too far. She exhales through her mouth and keeps her gaze locked on the road laid out before them. Of course she pushes, “Is that all?”

She hears the subtle and repeated shift of fabric, like he’s shaking his head. “She dated them for next week.” His voice is flat, like the words don’t matter to him, but his utterance makes her pause her breath.

“Frak!” she curses softly.

Again, Lee laughs beside her, but this time, the sound’s a little more unstable. “Yeah,” his voice gets a little louder. She thinks he must have turned to face her directly. “Think I can make it seven days, no papers without begging for another assignment?”

“Yes,” Kara answers honestly, because truly, Lee’s ultimate actions won’t be the problem—it will be the confusion and misdirection a week of over-thinking will get him.

“I don’t know,” a whispered response. “I just don’t know. But I feel like…” he pauses as he searches for some ephemeral word or phrase. “I feel like if I could just see these problems from the air, they’ll all come together. Start to make sense.” His voice remains low, so it’s almost like a shared thought rather than a spoken concern.

Kara opens her mouth, but immediately shuts it and looks away. Patterson’s promise of sim time isn’t a guarantee, and she refuses to let Lee’s hopes rise only to tear them down in the morning if the Major falls through. I understand, she wants to say of his dilemma but can’t quite utter aloud. I’m sorry, she thinks as well. I’m here. Her lips stay sealed together, but her eyes shift between Lee and the road they’re on.

They’re forced to stop at a red light. Kara automatically gears down, and then her tongue lets loose, “Let’s go home and frak until we can’t walk.”

Immediately the intensity of Lee’s gaze is on her. She meets that weight, carries it. Finally, Lee chortles beside her.

“Are you going to fly me over the moon, Starbuck?” He bows towards her, the full grin on his face nearly matching the expression in his eyes.

“Why stop at the moon?” Kara challenges, leaning back into his space—openly, as if sure. “You and me together, Apollo…. We can make it beyond the Red Line,” she tries to say it strongly, but her mouth is so dry she has to swallow, lick her lips.

The bald grin fades from Lee’s expression, leaving a smile in all the lines of his face, not just his mouth. He nods, cups her cheek in his hand. “So, it’s a deal, then,” his blue irises shift focus from eye to eye, steal down to her mouth and back up again, “we’ll fly the distance.”

She nods back at him, lashes down as she watches his lips come closer. She squeezes her eyes all the way shut. “Lee,” she gasps, and he licks her lips but keeps his tongue outside her mouth. He ends the contact with a quick, affectionate peck and pulls away, rubbing a thumb against her open mouth, wet from where both their tongues flirted but didn’t meet.

“Light’s green.” He clears his throat and tries again, “You’ve got a green light, Kara.”

She glances out the windshield. “Right,” she clears her own throat. “Let’s go home, then.” She nods, expecting Lee to slide back to his side of the vehicle, but this time, Lee doesn’t move away.

Chapters 12-13

Reunion (2.0): Chapters 6-8

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:33:40 GMT

Reunion (2.0): Chapters 3-5

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:29:52 GMT

Title: Reunion (2.0)
Author: Choosing Sarah
Rated: M for mature content
Word Count: 40,000
Spoilers: Through Lay Down Your Burdens Part 2 (2x20) plus Unfinished Business (3x09)
Timeframe: Occurs six months after the Season 2 finale where it AUs.
Summary: Six months after they fled New Caprica, the Fleet returns to collect survivors. While the battle goes well for the Colonials, there is more than one front in this war. As Lee and Kara make amends, they find themselves at the center of the latest conflict with a chance to redirect the future if they can only reconcile the past.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Battlestar Galactica characters or stories (etc). No infringement is intended and no profit is made, but might I be so bold as to point out that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

(I have serious issues with chapter 3 just to put it out there, so I'm hoping to come back and revise it later.)

Complete Story Index

Prologue-Chapter 2

Chapter 3 Immersion

Bacon. Lee smells bacon for the first time in a year—since the Fleet ran out. He looks beside him, but Starbuck’s already out of bed. Bacon. He sniffs, pulls on his boxers and one of Kara’s oversized T-shirts and follows the scent into the kitchen. Barely dressed in a pair of running shorts and one very non-regulation tank, Kara stands in front of the stove, spatula in hand. The bacon fries in one skillet, what looks like the beginnings of an omelet in the next. She must’ve been to the corner convenience store already this morning, there’s no way she had all these ingredients in her fridge last night.

Lee stills to watch her as she moves in her kitchen. His eyes traverse her body, pausing where the shorts barely cover her best before studying her motions again. After a moment, her movements become more stilted—she knows he’s watching her. She angles her neck to one side, as if he could kiss it from here. He breathes out, just a little, at the telegraphed invitation. The muscles in his chest relax a touch. He almost even smiles as he steals up behind her and gingerly slips his arms around her waist. When Kara leans back into him immediately, he eases into her more completely.

His lips touch to her shoulder—just a little tease. Her teeth close over her bottom lip, but she still smiles.

“Come to mark me some more flyboy?” she asks, then slides a hand up to hold him to her.

He doesn’t answer, just continues lightly pressing his lips to her skin, finally nuzzling her neck just to feel her breathing become uneven, to know it gets to her, too.

“Morning,” he finally says and eases away to try to look at her.

She clears her throat, straightens her neck out, and replies, “Good morning.”

They stand there beside each other for a moment with him watching her profile, safe from the burn of her eyes for a moment. When she turns to him, he’s grateful that she lifts her gaze slowly because it stills him where he stands. As she watches him, she tries to smile a little—not a hint of a smirk, nor the idea that the night before was at all a joke to her. He breathes out a little bit more, and her smile becomes jovial, becomes a grin. So of course he smiles back.

The ringing of a cell phone causes him to look away. She starts to move from the stove, but he waves her off and goes to fetch the source of the sound in the living room.

“Should be on the desk by the door,” she yells from the kitchen.

The little black phone is exactly where she says. “Hello?” he picks it up without looking at the ID screen, forgetting that he can.

“Lee!” His brother’s voice comes clearly across the line. “So this is Kara’s number. It was on my ID but without a name, so I wasn’t sure.”

“Zak.” Lee’s heart nearly stops. He has to sit down. He maneuvers over to Kara’s sofa, barely remaining on his feet until then. The screech of metal on metal tells Lee that Kara’s moving the pans off the fire. Her steps behind him confirm her eavesdropping.

“When I told you to get laid, I had no idea you would take me so seriously,” Zak chuckles.

“Gods, Zak, I’m sorry!” Lee squeezes his eyes shut, feels his stomach sour, waits for the condemnation he knows he deserves. “I don’t know why I would—” he cuts himself off. “I didn’t even think—”

“Hey, don’t worry,” Zak interrupts. “We all got home safe. Hooper, that guy with the brown hair and glasses? He gave us a lift. He can’t drink because of some enzyme thing, but he stills likes to go out,” Zak offers while Lee’s still considering the ramifications of his actions last night.

“But Kara—” Lee starts, not really having any idea what he’s going to say but knowing he’s ruined any possibility for her and Zak.

“I liked her, she seemed pretty nice. And good for you,” Zak adds. “I never thought I’d see my by-the-book big brother get kicked out of a club and Chalmer’s at that for crying out loud! People frak in the bathroom there all the time, just not on the dance floor,” he teases.

“You saw us?” Lee drops his head in his hand, already pounding with the depth of his betrayal. “Oh, gods you saw us,” he exhales the words, as he considers further. “Why didn’t you say anything?” he redirects.

Zak laughs again. “I didn’t really think you’d want the distraction. You should’ve seen Rachel’s face!” Zak continues, still laughing aloud. “I don’t think she ever believed me before when I told her you could let loose like anybody else.”

“That must’ve been something,” Lee adds lamely.

“Hey listen, are you guys coming up for air soon? A bunch of us are going out tonight, nothing strenuous because class starts tomorrow, but we wanted to know if you guys want to come.”

“Tonight?” Lee questions and turns to look at Kara. She nods, spatula still in hand, eyes wide and wounded. Oh frak. He has to look away. “That, that sounds good,” he stutters. “We’ll give you a call in a little bit.”

“OK, I’ll talk to you then,” Zak signs off.

“Bye Zak,” Lee speaks softly, peers back at Kara, and closes the phone.

She licks her lips and drops her gaze, going back in the kitchen to busy herself with breakfast. Lee swallows, then stands and trails after her. He pulls out a chair at the small square table, pushing aside bills and ready-to-eat food like energy bars and fruit to steady his elbows on its surface. He reconsiders the lack of space and organization, and he piles the bills together, puts all the bananas and grapes to one side, and then shifts the processed foods into another corner. He speaks when he can no longer avoid it.

“We had a deal, Zak and me,” Lee begins quietly, repositioning the fruit again. “He liked a girl that had a crush on me. He was barely fifteen. He hadn’t grown into himself at all. It was the most self conscious he’s ever been. I didn’t feel one way or the other about the girl, but Zak and I made a pact that day, never to go after the same woman. He never broke it,” Lee finishes in a whisper, his eyes falling on the table.

“Neither did you,” Kara insists, her voice still directed away from him.

Lee shakes his head, voice rising in frustration. “Kara, don’t you understand what I’m saying? Even if he fell in love with you tomorrow, he’d never make a move. He’ll think he’s honoring the promise we made to each other, when I’m the one who broke it.”

Kara stills completely. Lee hadn’t even realized she’d been moving in any way at all until she isn’t anymore. He sits up, unsure if he should move or in what direction, uncertain as to how hard it’s hit her. He watches her shoulders move as she takes a deep breath, the tenseness of the moment before abruptly gone. “Zak doesn’t even know me, and it wouldn’t matter if he did because I’m not that girl anymore.” A humorless laugh escapes her, “Gods there’s so much I could never say to him,” she sniffs, pauses to push her hair away from her face, “and he’d never even know the difference.”

Lee blinks away from her, the truth in her words resonating through him, because it isn’t just Kara’s truth for Zak. It’s Lee’s truth too—how could Lee ever speak to Zak about a world that didn’t include him? How could he ever burden someone he loved so much with the future he’d do anything to keep from unraveling? How can he reconnect with Zak when he can’t share his biggest secrets with him?

“Maybe he won’t know any different,” Lee responds aloud, not really sure of his own words. That’s why he purses his lip and has to remind her, “But you will.”

Kara twists to look at him briefly, but then re-focuses on the food. Something is burnt. He hopes it’s not the bacon. When she doesn’t turn around again for several minutes, he leans back in the seat. She finishes making their meal. She fixes them each a plate, sets one in front of him, one in front of the chair beside him. But instead of sitting next to him, she adjusts his position in the chair and sits in his lap without warning, clasping her hands behind his neck. His arms automatically wrap around her, forgetting they shouldn’t continue their intimacy with her body. Still, he doesn’t let go when his mind catches up with his movements.

Lee crinkles his brow, unsure of where this is going, afraid to be wrong about her again and simply shamed to hold her so closely with Zak’s voice still fresh in his ears. He watches while she bites her lip, adjusts her weight so she sits more heavily in his lap. The expression on her face is like any other time he’s seen her trying to bluff her way through a bad hand.

“Do you think this is real, Lee?” Kara finally says. “Do you think we’re really here together, in the past before we ever met?”

He clears his throat, contemplates both her question and her features, which are set in a mockery of her usual bravado. He’s still trying to figure it all out when he shakes his head. “To be honest, I haven’t thought about it very much.” He searches Kara’s eyes, then continues when she doesn’t speak again. “I woke up at my mom’s, and, once I realized Zak was alive, I couldn’t think about anything else. And then I saw you, and I didn’t think at all,” he concludes, jaw tense and gaze down as what he’s done to Zak, what he can’t ever undo, hits him again. Regardless of who he and Kara are now, Zak should have had the choice to figure that out on his own. Maybe he and Kara would’ve found a way to make it work if they’d had half a chance. With intent, he loosens his grip on her waist. He tries, but he can’t make himself let go.

With a hand under his chin, Kara forcefully pulls until they’re eye to eye again. He’s captured by the gaze that meets his. He’s struck by how earnestly she’s searching within him. “I’ve thought about it a lot,” Kara tells him. “When I left you and Zak yesterday, and then all through the night. I couldn’t sleep because I spent the whole night thinking about it.”

His brow furrows even more, as he’s still trying to catch up on both conversations they’re having. He clears his throat and has to blink away, trying to direct his full attention to her words, trying to ignore her weight, so warm in his lap, trying to ignore her eyes. Gods, but her eyes have never lied to him before, not when he’s really looked. “So what did you come up with?” Lee encourages, hoping for a distraction.

She stays quiet a moment, and he’s afraid he’s going to have to look back up at her before she’ll answer. He’s worried right up until she haltingly says, “I thought at first it had to be some sort of cylon simulator. One minute we’re cylon prisoners and the next we’re in the past, and we haven’t made any mistakes that matter yet.” She purses her lips, and he realizes he’s been watching them. “And we’re together.” He looks to the ground but gets distracted by her legs. “But this is too real for a simulator—the music in Chalmer’s, the frakking burnt omelet,” he sees her gesture to the table from the corner of his eye, and he laughs. Thank goodness it isn’t the bacon. “Then there’s you.” Her thumb slides along his jaw almost skittishly. He blinks back up to her gaze immediately.

The nervousness of her gesture makes him reach out his hand to grab hers, to still those fingers that never shake in the cockpit. She clears her throat. Her voice remains even when she speaks again, “I can’t think of a single reason cylons would put us here on purpose, though, and I can’t think of a way they’d be able to do it to us either.”

Kara watches him like she expects him to answer the questions she hasn’t quite asked. He rubs his thumb across her knuckles, and can’t keep himself from wondering how many times Zak had held her hand just like this. He squeezes his eyes shut. “There are theories about time travel,” Lee slowly recollects, distracted by the feel of her body against his. “They used to think that if a person could travel at the speed of light then he could appear in another part of the universe, not having aged a day, while time passed for everyone else.”

Kara nods. “Right, I remember reading that at the academy. The theory was proven wrong by the use of first FTL drive. And even if it hadn’t been, it would only work for going forward through time, not backward.”

“Yeah,” Lee argues, “but the theory could only be confirmed as incorrect up to a point.” He gets a whiff of the bacon and inhales deeply, filling his nose and mouth with the scent. Gods it smells good. His fingers itch to grab a piece, or maybe it’s his whole body, itching to get up and move away from this conversation they’re not quite having.

“What do you mean?” She shifts her weight on his thighs. Her legs, bare and so smooth, slide against his legs while she rebalances.

Automatically, he grabs her thigh to help stabilize her. The firm muscle over soft skin feels so good, he opens up his fingers without thinking, starts stroking just below the cuff of her shorts. He blinks, trying to concentrate on her direct question rather than the wiggling temptation in his lap or the fried enticement behind her. He clears his throat. And talks fast. “Some scientists working in an outpost past the outer colonies discovered that while FTL drives were active, aging seemed to occur differently somehow. It was very cutting edge stuff at the end of the worlds. Gaeta told me about it one day after a CIC shift. They think that the FTL drives may push the ships into subspace.”

Kara interrupts confidently, “And a nuclear blast in subspace could cause a rip in space-time.” Lee tilts his head and smiles, surprised. Kara rolls her eyes. “Gaeta told that to everyone. I guess it’s an interesting theory, and I even understand where the nuclear bomb comes in if the Admiral thought we were going to be kept as cylon prisoners,” she wiggles in his lap as she gestures, and he holds her hip tighter to try to still her. “But why the frak would we have been in subspace on the planet, and if we did travel back in time, then why would we come to here and now?”

“We were in a space ship,” he reminds her, trying to focus on his words, knowing she honestly wants his opinion. “Maybe the cylons revved up the FTL on the planet. It’s been done before. It just takes a hell of a lot more fuel, and it’s a lot more dangerous to calculate correctly because of the gravity. But as to why we ended up here and now…” He shrugs and takes a deep breath, the scent of the bacon acutely filling his senses once more. He peeks behind her, chancing a look at it. “I don’t know.” It’s probably getting cold.

Kara turns and grabs a piece of the meat, stuffs it in his mouth. He laughs at his obviousness and grabs the end of the strip, biting off a piece and taking the rest in hand. The full, greasy flavor fills his mouth better than the Fleet portions ever did.

“Better?” She raises an eyebrow.

He grins back at her while he chews. “Somewhat,” he speaks around the mouthful and dares to squeeze her thigh.

She smirks at him briefly, but her look of humor quickly fades. Lee chomps and swallows, then waits for her to speak. “I don’t believe the cylons are capable of sending us back here on purpose,” Kara confides, her tone conveying the weight she’s given the topic. She breathes out through her mouth, licks her lips twice. “I think it was a gift from the gods,” she whispers.

Lee looks away. With eyes low, he vaguely feels behind her to set the rest of the bacon back down. He clears his throat as another stalling technique. What can he say to that? If the gods gave her another opportunity with Zak, then he’s just squandered it for her.

“Lee,” Kara exhales impatiently, her tone forcing his eyes to hers. “Lee, what I’m trying to say is…” She furrows her brow, switching focus between his eyes like what she wants to say is written there. “Lee, if I’ve got a second chance, then I’m exactly where I want to be right now.”

He stares at her, her words and actions this morning cycling through his head as they finally come full circle, finally merge to create meaning. After a long moment, Kara peers down and away from his gaze, unable to hold under his gaping. “You know it’s OK if you don’t feel the same,” she ventures, her words breaking the spell.

“What about, what about Zak?” Lee asks, trying not to let himself think too far ahead yet. It wasn’t just Zak he had to think about, but Sam and Dee, too. But then if he and Kara have never met them, do they owe either one of them anything? His heart speeds up in his chest. Gods could he do this? Could he have this?

“I’ll always love him, Lee. But I…” She locks her jaw. “I knew last night, it’s not the same at all. So you really didn’t break any promises to Zak,” she adds before he can get a word in. “I already knew I couldn’t choose him again.”

Lee shakes his head and worries the wound. “If this is because of his accident—”

“It’s not,” Kara sharply interrupts, her eyes now solidly meeting his. And then she waits.

Are we just talking about fighting and frakking again, Kara? He wants to know but doesn’t voice the question this time. Instead he shakes his head to free the trappings of the thought. Whatever it is, it’ll have to be enough. Her eyes stay open to watch his as he kisses her softly, his mouth closed, almost timid. He breaks away after the brief contact, trying not to reveal his tells.

“Lee?” Kara calls to him—a question, not a demand. She checks his face for a clue. She gasps a short breath, almost a sob, at whatever she finds, but she doesn’t give him time to answer her. Roughly, Kara pulls him to her again, her kiss desperate. For once, she seems to need words.

He shifts, and she follows. He opens his mouth to speak, and she fills it so quickly he knows she’s afraid. She loosens his tongue with her own needy one, “I’ve always wanted you,” he tells her then, lips still linked with hers, courage still linked with hers, “even when you were Zak’s,” he whispers a secret he’s never spoken aloud.

“I wanted you then, too,” she confides back. He breaks from her lips to look at her, to wager the truth of her words. But he knows, anyway, before he sees the shame in her eyes, that her gaze is a reflection of his own. With a fist in her hair, he yanks her mouth to his again. She bites his lip, the pleasure as sharp as the sting. He bites her back. She moans his name into his mouth as their blood mingles. The mixture tastes like absolution.

Chapter 4 Spinning Lachesis

His eyes stay on the bed while he listens to Kara start up the shower. He tries not to shift in his seat by the dresser, wondering if she’s reached for the soap yet. He braces himself to wait for the slosh and splash pattern that indicate she’s probably washing her hair.

Lee knows she’ll use the flowery shampoo and separate conditioner, a girly thing for Kara to do, but then she’d always let herself be more girly when no one was looking, as if it were shameful to like a sweet scent in her hair. Today Kara’s secret will buy him more time.

He turns away from the sheets they’d tangled in all afternoon, would’ve tangled in all day if Zak hadn’t called again. Lee walks to the living room, feeling every scratch, bite, and bruise Kara marked into his skin. He rubs the tooth marks on his chest; they seem deeper than the rest. He picks up his phone and heads for the kitchen where his call won’t carry to Kara’s ears. He dials automatically, surprised somewhere deep inside himself that he still knows the number by heart. He waits for an answer while he listens to Kara start to hum. He is intent on Kara’s voice, on the subtle lilting of the higher notes and the fullness of the lower ones, so he is startled by the husky alto that suddenly sounds through the phone.

“I’m surprised to hear from you after last time.” The woman in his ear can’t be bothered with the niceties of a normal greeting.

“I need to see you.” Apparently neither can he.

“Tomorrow, come early,” she says hurriedly, and a lower voice, a man, demands her attention on the other end of the line.

“I can’t be there before 0900,” he warns, but isn’t sure if she’s heard him, the line is silent. He’d speak again to check if she’s still there, but the shower stops. He hangs up the phone, careful to put it back in place by the door before venturing toward the bathroom. He smiles at Kara as she exits in a fluffy blue towel, reminding himself to keep his mouth shut for now, whatever the consequences are for tomorrow.

B
S
G

“Lee, Kara! Over here!” Zak’s voice carries across Mac’s Diner, too impatient to wait for their eyes to fall on him. Kara smiles at his buoyancy, at his vibrancy, his life.

Lee immediately sets toward his brother, pulling Kara with him by their joined hands. She yanks on them urgently, too sore to move that quickly. Lee glances back at her. His look of concern shifts quickly to a smirk. She rolls her eyes away from him, noting the green vinyl upholstery of the seats for the first time. She thinks they’d been blue the last time she’d been here. While Lee offers a quick hello to Zak and Rachel and three of their friends from last night, Kara vaguely wonders when the restaurant’s owner will seek the new hue.

Kara slides into the large semi-circular booth first, gingerly sidling up to Rachel, who is cuddling Zak. She offers them a smile. When she peers back at Lee scooting in beside her, he’s biting his lip, brow already furrowed with distress. She smiles at him, grabs his hand under the table, not really knowing how to reassure him in the small gestures he prefers. He doesn’t smile back, but the warm squeeze and hot look he returns is better.

“I didn’t get to introduce you to anyone last night,” Zak begins, and when Kara points her gaze in his direction, the first thing she sees is his barely controlled grin. “This is Mark,” Zak points to the blond boy opposite Lee. “Allison.” The girl with the perky nose waves. “And Greg,” Zak ends introductions with the nerdy-looking kid beside him. “Everybody this is my brother, Lieutenant Lee Adama, and Lieutenant Kara Thrace: Apollo and Starbuck,” Zak finishes proudly.

“It’s always good to meet more of Zak’s friends,” Lee the diplomat nods and answers for both he and Kara.

“How’s it going?” Kara chimes in just to be contrary.

“Zak says you guys are viper pilots,” Mark starts in, and Kara is surprised to remember she used to enjoy that kind of hero worship, that unabashed awe without the honest gratitude that grounds you in the reality of what you do.

Kara looks to Lee only to find him looking back at her, the tilt of his head suggesting he’d rather she field the question. She clears her throat. “Yeah,” Kara nods and looks across the table, “we both took the option for flight school and officer candidate school while we were still undergrads.”

“I didn’t know they still did that.” Allison gives them a skeptical glance. “What’s the need to rush people through to lieutenant at such a young age in a post-armistice world?”

Kara narrows her eyes at the slight. “Rushed through? Do you have any idea what it takes to option for either, Cadet?” Kara jerks her head toward Lee. “Lieutenant Adama was in the top five percent of his class in officer candidate school, and that was the top five percent of everybody, not just those who qualified for the early admission. He’ll make Admiral one day because he’s that damn good. The early admission isn’t for everybody, that much is obvious,” Kara lets her gaze drop down the cadet’s front and back up, “but just because you can’t hack it little girl, doesn’t mean that nobody can.”

In the uncomfortable silence that follows Kara’s reprimand, the other cadets cough slightly and clear their throats, but Kara keeps her hardest stare on their fellow, frightened into submission in front of her, until Lee pulls on the hand still entwined with his, bringing her attention to the waitress at the head of the table. “Right,” Kara blinks. “I’ll take a cheeseburger with fries and a chocolate milkshake.”

Lee exhales on a chuckle. “Can’t argue with that. I’ll have the same. Oh, but with bacon on the cheeseburger, please.” Kara watches him smile at the server with the ugly pink apron that boasts Mac’s Diner has the Best Burgers in Town, already charming the feathers Kara’s ruffled. “So I’ll make Admiral, will I?” Lee whispers directly into her ear while the waitress takes the rest of the party’s orders.

“Hey,” Kara shrugs, keeping the close proximity that he’s initiated to keep their conversation private. “It’s not like you’ve got far to go, Commander.” Since she’s already close, she nudges his cheek just a little with her jaw, just enough to feel the rasp of his unshaven face against her smooth skin. He rubs her right back.

“I’m just another lieutenant, now. Who knows what the future might bring this time?”

She chuckles. “Are you kidding, Lee? Early admission to both officer candidate school and flight school and then War College less than a month after graduation? They’ve been shaping you for command since your first semester at the Academy.”

He stiffens, and his breathing changes at her words. He lets go of her hand. She backs away to find the root of the problem, but by the time she can see his eyes, he’s shielded them. “Lee?” she asks, wishing she could’ve seen his eyes while she spoke. He gives her a tight smile, meant to reassure, but working towards everything except comfort. “Lee?” she demands this time.

“Hmm?” Lee furrows his brow like he doesn’t know why she’s questioning him. Before he’s forced to give her an answer, Rachel brings them back into the conversation with what she obviously believes to be a peacemaking subject after her fellow cadet’s faux pas:

“So how did you and Lee meet, Kara?” Rachel clinks her silverware together when she asks.

Kara blinks, her breath nearly stopped by the abrupt jump from her present to her past. She shifts her upper body to face Rachel, pulling her elbows on top of the table, stalling as she recalls: the mini-park near Folstein Hall, Lee directly from a meeting where he’d served as an aide for then-Commander Nagala at Fleet Headquarters, still in dress blues, hair perfectly combed, walk perfectly crisp, creases only permitted where appropriate. She and Zak had been playing Frisbee, sweaty and dirty from their near violent competition. Zak had egged her on deliberately, trying to get out all her nervousness at the idea of meeting a member of Zak’s family. Zak… Kara had loved him for it later, but when spit-and-polish Lieutenant Lee Adama walked over to her for the first time and held out his hand, she’d been horrified. Kara is nearly as tongue-tied at Rachel’s question as she had been in that moment nearly six years ago.

“She hit me in the head with a Frisbee,” Lee speaks up, takes the focus from Kara as much by the affection of his words as their actual content.

“What? You mean on purpose?” Zak responds quizzically, the expression achingly familiar on his ever-curious face.

“Oh yes, definitely on purpose,” Lee’s voice confirms behind her shoulder.

“Why did you throw it at him?” Rachel inquires, ears turning as red as they had the day before when she’d been holding back a laugh.

Kara licks her lips, her own grin startling her as the development in the conversation finally registers and evokes a better memory—this one more Lee than Zak—and occurring a bare moment after that first uncomfortable handshake: Zak had invited Lee into their game, but Lee refused to take his jacket off and play. She’d been sure the contrast between them had been too great, that he’d hated her on sight, what with her hair no doubt matted and greasy, sweat dripping from her forehead all the way down, and mud and grass covering her from end to end. So while spit-and-polish Lieutenant Lee Adama watched Zak gather their blanket and bag, Kara lobbed the Frisbee at his head. Her aim had been true despite her anger and hurt; the disc thwacked Lee’s temple and bounced to the ground, unrepentant at his feet. When Lee looked up at her, it was as if that Frisbee’s jolt had knocked his ‘good lieutenant’ mask out of place, just enough for her to catch a peek at the real Lee. The look he gave her somehow forged the first connection they ever had. She’d never known what he found in her returned gaze, but it made him smirk, made him unbutton his way to his tanks, grab the disc, and throw it right back at her head. She barely caught it, and he never let up on her since.

“I threw the Frisbee at his head,” Kara turns around to look at Lee but addresses her inquisitors, “because he was being an asshole.” She pokes him in the chest. “You hit me back,” she accuses, the curling of her lips now ridiculously beyond her control.

Lee grins back. “Eventually.” He grabs her thrusting fingers, pulls her hand to his lap in a gesture too gentle for them but possessive enough not to matter. “You were vicious,” he charges, but his assertion contradicts the tender way she lets him brush the pad of his thumb over her knuckles, “and you never let up. It was hard to get in a good shot when you wouldn’t let your guard down.” He follows this complement to her vigilance by releasing his grip, letting her hand go like he didn’t just treat her like a girl, like his girl.

Lee’s eyes on her face are as soft as his hands were on her fingers. Kara swallows and looks away, not waiting for them to change. She focuses on the others at the table, who start speaking of classes assigned and books yet to buy. If she had her frakking chocolate milkshake she would have sipped it, but instead she considers how best to enter the cadets’ conversation, wondering if she even remembers how to discuss such things. Then Rachel leans toward Zak, kisses his cheek, and tugs on Kara’s arm.

“Ladies’ room.” Rachel jerks her head to the back of the restaurant, part invitation, part demand.

Beside her, Lee immediately moves to follow Rachel’s decree, but Kara remains in the way for a beat longer. She’d forgotten that women ran to the restroom in pairs, that she had done this, long ago. It was frakkin’ bizarre if you thought about it. Finally, Kara slides from the booth without a word, catching Lee’s glance as she walks away from the table. She can tell he caught her delay. There is no amusement on his face, only empathy.

Kara trails behind Rachel, absently noting that prissy-nosed Allison hadn’t been invited.

Rachel waits to talk until she’s holding the ladies’ room door open for Kara behind her. “Whoever taught Allison to speak should be shot!” Kara smirks at Rachel’s reflection as it becomes visible in the long mirror spanning the wall above the ladies’ room’s three sinks. “Okay maybe not shot,” Rachel amends, “just locked in a room with her for three days straight.”

Kara leans against one of the small sink bowls, the far left one with the constant drip, facing Zak’s girlfriend as she reapplies makeup with some secret invisible-until-in-use supply. “The Quorum of Twelve would have your ass for even suggesting that kind of abject torture.”

Rachel pauses the motion of her blush brush. “Dammit you’re right. I guess he will have to be shot.”

Kara chuffs, turning back to the mirror. She glances between her obviously thrown-together-at-the-last-minute outfit and Rachel’s more elegant appearance. Frak! Kara curses to herself. The T-shirt had seemed like a good idea back at the apartment: easy on for now and easy off later, but the bland gray of the I Got S.M.A.K.E.D. at Aerlon Station tee does nothing for her. She rotates, still looking at her reflection. At least she wore shorts—Lee’s never said as much, but he loves her ass. Kara sighs, determinedly shifting away from the mirror. Why the frak does she even care? The clothes fit, they’re even clean, but the image of Lee comes to mind, as polished as she is frumpy, and she’s irritated at herself for caring about the difference.

“I was so glad to see you stick it to her,” Rachel starts again while Kara completes her private condemnation. “She’s been driving me crazy since Mark took up with her last semester.”

“If you dislike her so much, then why put up with her crap?” Kara quizzes while Rachel contorts her eyelashes.

Rachel shrugs. “Don’t really have a choice. Like I said, she’s Mark’s girlfriend.” Rachel quickly glances to Kara and back to her own reflection. “And I’ve known Mark since we were thirteen. Hopefully he’ll dump her soon, and we can all relax around him again.”

Kara bites the tip of her thumb. “You know sometimes those kinds of girlfriends, like Allison, stick around. Sometimes it isn’t enough to just ignore her presence. You have to learn to live with them, confront them, make some sort of compromise.”

“Come on. You just saw her in action.” The cadet gestures towards the dining room. “Do you honestly think there’s any way to compromise with the Queen of Sheba out there?”

“I’m just saying sometimes there isn’t much of a choice. There are some times you have to either find a way to deal with that kind of crap or lose a friend.” Kara walks to the opposite side of the room, her steps almost in time with the drip of the sink, pretending interest in the graffiti on the partition separating the washing area from the first stall. She can feel Rachel’s eyes on her, feel them in the other woman’s stillness, almost see them in her own peripheral vision. The small splashes of water on porcelain become louder in the silence. Finally a compact clicks, and Kara relaxes.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” the cadet begins, and Kara steels herself for an insult, “but Allison always used to remind me of Lieutenant Adama.”

“Lee?” Kara is startled into facing Rachel’s way again. “Why?”

Rachel shrugs, intent on her own reflection as she applies a deep red shade to her lips, and though the motion seems casual, Kara can tell she is making an effort to tread lightly. “He always used to seem so anal, so preachy.” She rubs her lips together. “Know-it-all, you know?”

Kara raises her eyebrows and one side of her mouth. “Well, Lee is all of those things.”

Rachel reaches for a paper towel, blots. “I guess after meeting you, seeing the two of you together, he seems like he’s more than just that, but before, I didn’t see that.”

Kara washes her hands at the far left sink, mostly just because it’s there and already dripping anyway. The dribble continues even after she twists both knobs as far off as she can. She shakes the excess water from her hands, reaches past Rachel to get a paper towel for herself, uses it, balls it up and holds it, squeezing it in an imitation of her daily hand-strengthening exercises. “Lee can sneak up on you,” Kara finally says. “You can’t just see all of him by looking at him dead on.”

Rachel pivots, her back now reflecting in the mirror. “Have you been together long? You and Lee Adama?” Rachel says his first name with the same intonation she’d given his rank. “You said how you met, but not when,” she digs, and abruptly, Kara can see Zak’s influence in Rachel’s line of questioning.

“Umm.” The crease forms between Kara’s eyebrows as she prepares a lie. “Actually…” Kara trails off, faltering with the knowledge that this answer will get back to Zak. She looks Rachel in the eye. The crinkle on her brow disappears. “The thing is Lee and I have known each other for a while. We just have really bad timing.”

Rachel nods, eases her eyes away, then puts her makeup back into her various secret compartments. When she glances back up, she jerks her chin and directs her eyes to Kara’s neck and a bruise shaped like Lee’s mouth. “So is that the mark of better timing?”

Kara clears her throat, the sound morphing into a laugh. She tosses the wadded paper towel into the open trash. She shrugs at Rachel, afraid to give her a real answer, afraid to put a name to this thing that she and Lee have started. “That’s nothing, you should see Lee’s.” Her eyebrows wiggle at the innuendo.

Smirking back, Rachel moves in front of Kara to open the door for them both again. “Looks like the food’s here,” she observes when they get closer to their booth.

The conversation at the table is still muffled from Kara’s position, but the look on Lee’s face, the layers in his expression are obvious to her. And Kara sees it for what it is, the mask of a good soldier… and a faithful commander. Kara stops to watch the farce, unaware of anything but the man sitting at the end of the booth, features set to face a mission he hasn’t shared with her. It is only in this moment that Kara realizes just how much Lee is like his father, ready to face any obstacle for his people: to live for them, to die for them—to lie to them. Commander Lee Adama is hiding information from his troops, and as Kara watches Lee, she is chagrined to realize that Lee still counts her in that number.

Chapter 5 Hard Six

Behind the wheel, Lee shifts through morning traffic. As the first day of classes, it’s more hectic than usual: freshmen unaccustomed to the broad campus and upperclassmen rushing the few available parking spots clash with the last-minute construction that always plagues the end of summer. Kara watches the mess outside the passenger window. Every now and again she feels Lee’s gaze on her before he flicks his eyes back to the road.

Flipping her head to study his profile, Kara prepares herself to hear a lie. “So what are you doing today?”

Lee clears his throat, throws her a quick glance and then gives the traffic more attention than its due. He shrugs. “Thought I’d look up a couple friends here and at Fleet Headquarters. Keep trying to get a hold of my Dad.”

She is momentarily distracted by mention of the eldest Adama. “You’ve been trying to get in touch with him then?”

“Of course,” Lee responds, “just because we came back to this point in time doesn’t mean I have the same problems with him as before. Dad never trusted the cylons to honor the Armistice after the first war. Even if he doesn’t believe everything, he’s still our best bet.” Lee inches the truck forward, halting just shy of the green expanse surrounding Garret Hall. She looks out the windshield to the red brick building that is her destination. She could walk easily from here. Lee exhales heavily, catching her attention. “Zak told me he was in that nebula over Geminon.” Lee elaborates, “War games.”

“The Clusterfrak?” Her brow furrows.

He grins. “Yeah.”

She doesn’t share his humor. “It could be weeks, even months.”

He sighs and looks away. “I know.”

Back outside the window, the people hustle as busily and single-mindedly as ants. The uniforms that the vast majority of them wear only enhance the perception. Kara touches her hand to the glass, a mockery of protection to one who knows the future that lay ahead. “What the hell do we do, Lee?” She shakes her head. “The end of the world is coming, and we’re the only ones that know.”

“We’re going to stop it from happening.” But for a small quiver, his words are almost matter-of-fact.

Her knuckles bend, scrapping her fingernails down the smooth surface of the glass. “How?”

“I’m working on it,” Lee says between the quiet drumming of his fingers on the steering wheel.

She turns back to him. “You are?”

He clears his throat again. “Maybe we should talk about this later tonight.”

“Maybe we should talk about this now,” she counters right away. “Where are you really going today, Lee?” she accuses when he doesn’t speak.

He doesn’t look at her, just gives all his attention to the vehicles around him while he finagles into a freshly vacated spot in the white zone in front of a dilapidated humanities building. He jerks the car into park, his anger showing through. The display gets Kara’s blood moving, ready for his temper, choosing it over his acquiescence.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Just the truth, Commander. Or is that too frakking unfamiliar anymore?”

“Kara—”

“No, I don’t fraking think so. You can either be my commander or be my friend. You can’t be both, not anymore.” Her heart stops at her own ultimatum. She hadn’t realized she would speak it until it was already out.

He locks his jaw as if he’s really thinking about it, and Kara’s breath shudders as she readies to back down.

“I’m going to Fleet Headquarters to talk to an old friend of my father’s. She offered me a position there before War College came through. I’m going to tell her I’ve decided to take it.”

“What? Why?”

“I can make better connections at Headquarters, have the ear of the right people.”

“Headquarters is greedy. Once they sink their claws into you, they won’t let you go; you’ll lose space. If I recall correctly, and I do, that’s what made you say ‘no’ in the first place.”

“You’re going to be late to class.”

“Frak that!” She gestures toward the red brick. “You can’t do this, Lee. If you turn down War College once—”

“Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I haven’t thought this through? I wasn’t offered a position at Headquarters again after this. My destiny was set in War College, and at the time I was glad for it, but now…”

“Well, duh, Lee. Of course they wanted to put their boy wonder in space after you re-earned your call-sign.” She ignores the glare he gives her at the mention of the long-ago incident above Scorpia. “They marked you for command a long time ago.”

“I can climb the ranks just as easily planetside—”

“Who are you kidding, Lee? This is about flying.”

“I gave up flying a year and a half ago!” he hollers. “I had to. I didn’t have a choice,” he continues, voice hoarse with an unspoken accusation: She gave it up willingly. “I don’t have a choice now either.” He backs away from the fighting potential of his insinuation. “At least this time I’ll have access to simulators and the occasional atmospheric flight,” he finishes, defeated.

“Lee…” She shakes her head, already mourning for his loss…for the loss of him. “No,” she reiterates while trying to think of a way to sway him.

“I’ve already made up my mind Kara. It’s the only way. We’re talking about the end of the world here. It’s not so big a sacrifice for Zak’s life, and my mother’s life, and the lives of all those people out there.”

“It will kill you, Lee.”

“It hasn’t yet.”

“Maybe we could—”

“No,” he interrupts her, his single word carrying more certainty than the rest of her argument.

She sniffs, shoots her gaze out the window to hide her eyes from his. Once she knows she won’t horribly embarrass herself by crying or something, she yanks her pen and notebook from the dash. She slides the pen into the spirals, trying to walk out on this conversation but not able to make herself go.

“I still can’t believe that’s all you take to the first day of class,” Lee tries to insert a bit of levity.

“I can’t believe you’re trying to make a joke when you’re about to throw your life away.” Her eyes are still on the notebook, but she can only see the future he has laid out for himself: cold, calculated, guarded. It is not a life she wants for Lee.

“I’m not throwing my life away.” His voice is hard, controlled in the face of her persistence.

She chuffs without looking at him, while he proves her point without ever knowing her concern.

“I’m gaining a life, Kara,” he continues, heedless of the interruption, “the life we were all promised that the cylons stole away. I’m not abandoning any hopes and dreams. I’m retaking them—for all of us. I want my children to walk the halls of the Delphi Museum. I want to make love on the beaches of Tauron. I want to take the day cruise through the canals of the Old City on Caprica. I want to tour every colony, even walk through the Hall of Grief on Sagittaron. I want to fulfill the promise that the gods made to us the day our ancestors left Kobol: I want to find peace in the knowledge that ‘all of this has happened before…’”

“‘And all of this will happen again,’” she finishes when he falters. She looks at him, then, at the face that’s too young to be his and the shoulders not broad enough for the burden of twelve colonies. “What if the promise was never meant to give us peace, Lee? What if it was a warning?”

He leans back into his seat. She watches him grasp the steering wheel with both hands while he contemplates her question. “Then maybe I can find a way to make a few more souls survive with us.”

Kara shuts her eyes, sniffs one more time, the better to force her features into submission. When she looks at Lee again, she reaches for him, seeks the hand nearest to her, grabs it, curls her fingers into the steering wheel on top of his. “Well, in that case, you’re going to need me, Apollo.” She licks her lips, gives her best Starbuck grin. “I mean, I am the best wingman you’ve ever had.”

He lifts his other hand to cover hers. “I’ve never trusted anyone else to watch my six,” he confesses with such tangible confidence that her breath stops to take in the responsibility.

She keeps the smile on her face, stifling any grief and uncertainty. “Damn straight.” Kara glances to her hand, surrounded by Lee’s, squeezes, and feels the returning pressure. “I’m with you, Lee,” she chooses him. “Whatever comes next.”

Chapters 6-8

Reunion (2.0): Prologue through Chapter 2

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:08:10 GMT

Here is the first segment of the revised version of Reunion from the new prologue through chapter 2:

Title: Reunion (2.0)
Author: Choosing Sarah
Rated: M for mature content
Word Count: 40,000
Spoilers: Through Lay Down Your Burdens Part 2 (2x20) plus Unfinished Business (3x09)
Timeframe: Occurs six months after the Season 2 finale where it AUs.
Summary: Six months after they fled New Caprica, the Fleet returns to collect survivors. While the battle goes well for the Colonials, there is more than one front in this war. As Lee and Kara make amends, they find themselves at the center of the latest conflict with a chance to redirect the future if they can only reconcile the past.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Battlestar Galactica characters or stories (etc). No infringement is intended and no profit is made, but might I be so bold as to point out that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

Complete Story Index

Prologue: Capture

The brightness burns through his eyelids as if they’re made of glass. Perversely, the first thought to cross his mind is that he’s gone blind—a terrible fate for the commander of a battlestar, to be sure, but a far worse one had Lee still been a pilot. He cannot move his body, cannot so much as look to left or right for Kara—Kara, who’d summoned him here with her precipitousness and still remained elusive. Instead he keeps his lids closed to save his eyes and stretches his other senses as best as he can.

He’s been drugged, that much isn’t difficult to ascertain, but even through his groggy state, it feels as though the cylon ship he’d walked into earlier that day—is it still the same day?—is still parked on New Caprica. At the very least the gravity that holds him to the hard table beneath him seems natural rather than artificial. It’s impossible, though, to tell if he’s still on the exact same cylon vessel he’d followed Kara into or even if they’re on the same planet.

He’d only trailed her by a couple hours, knowing as he did that the armistice she’d posed in the Admiral’s stead would only keep her alive for so long—gods! His jaw clenches at the thought. Even now, imprisoned by cylon captors, he’s pissed at her for her godsdamned thoughtlessness. If only she’d let the marines do their frakkin’ job, then neither one of them would be here now.

Abruptly he opens his eyes, which water immediately against the harsh light above him, around him, almost even inside him. Where the frak is she? He shouldn’t have assumed she’d be near—just because the cylons brought her to him after he’d first come to establish diplomacy doesn’t mean she’s close by now. He shuts his eyes again, focuses all his energy on his throat, his lips and tongue.

“Kara!” he tries to yell and finally breathes weakly.

He senses movement somewhere near his head. Blessedly, the burning light dims, and a shape forms in front of his eyes.

“Commander Adama,” it says, stiff in its politeness. It’s a voice he never knew particularly well. Even with the vague form above him, he almost can’t place it.

“Gaeta?” Lee manages, the question carried in the word acute.

“That’s right,” the other man continues, his voice detached even though he must realize Lee is drugged to the gills and holds the biggest secret Gaeta could have—which is itself the biggest secret and the best chance the decimated Colonial Fleet has going.

“What is—What the frak?” talking’s not quite so difficult when he doesn’t have to block out the blazing sun above him, but he still has trouble finding his words. “I—this is—we took out the basestars. We have New Caprica.” He catches the other man’s eye as carefully as he can, not knowing if he’s even able to act surreptitiously at this point. “We called for an armistice.”

Above him, Gaeta swallows and quickly diverts his attention elsewhere. Lee hopes his charged use of the word ‘armistice’ and Gaeta’s reaction to it isn’t as obvious to the cylons as it is to him.

Gaeta fiddles with some instruments or maybe controls on the side of the table—gurney?—Lee’s lying on. “We know of the Fleet’s control of New Caprican airspace, but I doubt you’ve completely overtaken cylon ground forces. It’s only been eight hours since the last basestar fell,” he says, and Lee is grateful to be given the timeframe. “And I worked under Admiral Adama for years,” Gaeta begins again cautiously. “It seems unlikely he would seek peace with cylons. I know the cylons who allow us to work within the safety of the base must agree.”

Lee narrows his gaze at the former lieutenant as best he can. Even knowing what he does, it’s difficult to trust Gaeta’s intentions when he plays the part of collaborator so well. “‘Peace is a conversation.’ Isn’t that what Olirre used to say?”

Gaeta moves out of his direct line of sight—not that Lee could see much of him anyway, not with the backlighting—but Lee can still make out his shadow, can tell he’s moving around. “I wouldn’t have thought a Caprican to be so well versed in the works of an Aerlon Dissenter.”

Again, Lee tries to gain a look around the room, but there’s no way to decipher who (or what) else might be in there with him and Gaeta. Kara could be across the solar system for all he knows, and a hundred cylons might surround them. “I guess people can surprise you.”

“True,” Gaeta replies, and Lee sees a brief movement that seems to be the other man’s nod. The idea is confirmed when Gaeta steps a little closer, back into view. “I know everyone on base was surprised to see Captain Thrace surrender at the outward perimeter,” and when Gaeta speaks her name, he gestures to Lee’s other side, as if unconsciously. Suddenly, Lee realizes she’s been beside him all along.

Lee finds himself blinking rapidly, trying not to let the new data or his gratitude for it overwhelm him. “Well,” he tries to shrug one shoulder, but it’s too firmly secured to the table at his back. “You know Kara.” His eyelids shut heavily over his gaze, without his leave to do so. It’s as if saying her name aloud holds too much power over him now that Gaeta’s confirmed she’s alive and near.

“Not really,” Gaeta moves around the table Lee’s strapped to, flicking switches, moving dials, and finally shuffling towards where Kara must lay. “The only thing I ever really knew about Starbuck was that she always took too many chances.”

Lee’s lips try to rise at the irony. “Some chances are worth taking,” he finally says.

Gaeta appears in front of him again without warning, tightens one of the straps holding Lee’s head to the hard table beneath him. “Maybe,” the former lieutenant allows, “but most aren’t.”

The shadows deepening Gaeta’s features suddenly seem ominous when he leans over Lee. What if his father had been wrong? What if Gaeta had really been a collaborator all these months? What if the Fleet’s call for armistice, however facetiously and calculated it truly was, hadn’t been a product of Gaeta’s work for the Admiral but had been a cylon machination from the beginning? What if the Fleet were truly at risk from this planet’s last cylon stronghold? Lee can feel his blood pressure rise as the questions mount in his mind. What if he and Kara die for nothing?

But then Gaeta narrows the width of his mouth—as if to control his breathing. And he stills, as if unsure what to say. Eventually, the words he speaks are anticlimactic in their ordinariness, “I’ll be ready to wake you up,” he clears his throat as if a word had gotten stuck within, “later. I’ll be ready to wake you up later,” he repeats hurriedly.

No sooner does he finish speaking than Lee falls asleep.

B
S
G

The screams that wake her up are her own. Kara realizes why she’s yelling less than a second later—she’s strapped down. Gods she’s strapped down. She can’t move a frakking muscle, can’t even breathe deep. Oh gods, oh gods, please! Please, please, please! she begs within her own mind even as her voice keeps screaming without form.

“Can’t you shut her up, already?” a harsh voice yells amid her screams, perhaps not for the first time.

“I had to wake her up to get a baseline,” a second’s tone, almost recognizable, begins more tentatively. “If I add another sedative now, it might limit the effectiveness of the experiment.”

“Let me go! Let me go!” she hollers, the familiarity of the second voice spurring her own into words.

“Perhaps if we’d woken them at the same time—” that voice begins, only to be cut off by the first speaker, a woman with a distinctly Virgonese accent:

“Too late for that now,” she says. Oddly, that brief phrase lets Kara recognize her first—she’s a cylon. That frakkin’ cylon reporter. Frakkin’ cylon bitch!

“What the frak are you doing? Let me go!” Kara demands. “Let me go!” she nearly sobs the words.

“Pathetic,” the frakking cylon dismisses her. “At least Commander Adama went quietly,” she finishes smugly.

Lee, his name narrows her worries down to grief. Oh gods Lee’s here, her memory rapidly spools through the battle for New Caprica, the brief but limited victory of the Fleet, and the chance she’d seen to better the Admiral’s plan—to get their mole out, to steal cylon secrets. I brought Lee here. She thinks again, I brought this onto Lee.

“Maybe if we angle her head for a moment to see him she’ll—”

“An excellent idea, Mr. Gaeta,” the cylon bitch interrupts, at once effectively identifying the man’s voice for Starbuck and seeming to take far too much pleasure in the idea of presenting Kara with Lee.

Clammy, male—human—hands settle about her face and loosen the hold of the metal across her chin and forehead. She twists her neck and finds Lee right away on a gurney beside her—so still. She’s never seen him so unmoving, not when he crashed after nearly six days of no sleep just after the end of the worlds, not in the aftermath from when they’d fallen into bed together that night. She watches him, so still, and can’t even breathe until she notes the slight motion of his chest beneath the cocoon of restraints the cylons have him contained by.

“Lee,” she breathes his name as an apology, even while she has to squint against the brutal sting his name invokes. If he hadn’t hated her before, he should now—if he lives long enough to do so.

“Take a good look, Captain Thrace,” the cylon taunts as she steps up beside Lee, as she slides her fingers from his hip up his chest and into his hair. “He’s whole for the moment, but he needn’t be for our purposes,” she concludes and then nods above Kara.

Kara doesn’t look away from Lee—can’t—not until heavy hands—frak they’re Gaeta’s hands—try to force her head back in position. “Please just one more minute,” she begs in a whisper, and Gaeta doesn’t immediately capitulate—frakkin’ lapdog doesn’t let her loose until the cylon bitch consents:

“Very well. Finish the preparations before you strap her back in,” she directs the lapdog.

Kara breathes out heavily, regret filling her as her eyes fill up on Lee Adama. Gods did she frak it up this time. She should’ve let Sergeant Biggs do his duty, to call for the armistice and die with the honor such an important task would afford. She never even knew who the frakkin’ mole was. How had she expected to get him out? So stupid. She’d only wanted to do something right by the Adamas for once. She’d only wanted to give something back to them. Now look what she’s taking away.

Her thoughts scatter, incomplete. They’re drugging her, she knows. She doesn’t have much time left. Gods, please. She keeps her eyes to Lee instead of closing her lids like she usually does when she prays. Please make this right. Let me make this right, she barely completes her plea when a loud rumbling—something like a bomb exploding—resonates from above the room.

“What?” the cylon bitch seems to yell through the tiers of unconsciousness Kara’s quickly slipping beneath. “Turn if off, Gaeta!” the cylon screams. “For God’s sake turn it off, so we can get out of here before Baltar’s little invention kills us all!”

A scurry of movement, both fabric and metal, commence in panicked layers. She watches, almost disconnected from the moment, as Gaeta rushes to a console between her and Lee, pressing buttons, typing data.

“Kara,” she sees her name come from Lee’s lips.

“Lee,” she tries to answer back, and she just barely has time to wonder if they’ve been saved or damned because there’s no one even to ask before the darkness envelopes her and takes her away.

Chapter 1: Home

“Aren’t you awake yet?” The soft tones of his mother reach him in the dark.

“Mom?” Lee tries to relax further into unconsciousness, to hold onto whatever dream he’s having. He hears the pattern of shift and scratch as someone walks toward him.

“Lee? Lee.” A gentle shake finally wakes him completely and brings him to pry open his lids. But instead of Pegasus’ ceiling staring him in the face, it’s his mother eyes.

“Mom?” He reaches out a hand, sure that her image will dissipate with his touch. “What’s going on?” No sooner does he ask than the memory of his circumstances on the cylon ship on New Caprica return, of Gaeta—both traitor and savior, of the Armistice Operation set in place to take out the cylons’ ability to pursue the Fleet, of waking up twice on a gurney—first to the coldness of calculations he feared he might not have been a part of and second to vague sounds of battle confusion and artillery. Last he recalls the memory of Kara’s voice, calling to him as oblivion overtook him again.

“You must have forgotten to set your alarm.” His mom brushes back his hair. “Michael and Jason will be here to pick you up any minute.”

“Who?” For a second the names mean nothing to him.

“Your trip to Tauron. Your last hurrah before War College?” she says a little more wryly.

“Michael Jessup and Jason Saracen.” The memory returns to him abruptly. “They were my friends at the Academy.”

“So you’ve told me.” Caroline Adama smiles. “You better hurry or you won’t make your flight.” She turns to leave.

“Mom?” Lee sits up and surveys the room, seeing his designated room in his mother’s house. “How did I get here, back on Caprica?” His gaze returns to Caroline. “How did you survive?”

“Survive?” Even in the dark, Lee can see his mother’s eyes widen in concern. “What are you talking about Lee? Did you hit your head?”

“No, no.” He watches his mother sit on the bed and reach for his face. “I just…” He swallows, considering the unreality of the situation. “I think I had a nightmare.” And for a moment Lee can almost believe that the last three years had been just that—only that. He shakes off the seductiveness of the idea with a shake of his head. “Where’s Dad?”

Caroline immediately straightens and looks away. “I imagine he’s on the Galactica. I haven’t spoken to him since the last court hearing.”

“I’ve got to talk to him,” he says, mostly to himself.

When his mother quickly turns back to him, Lee realizes the strangeness of his announcement, or rather how strange such an announcement would be if he were actually speaking to his mother. “I…Its about work.”

“I—I’m happy,” she stutters, “If you’re speaking to your father again. You know we both love you very much, and that’s never going to change.”

He and Zak had rolled their eyes to this same speech more than once after their parents announced their decision to divorce. “Mom, I’m nearly thirty.”

“Lee Adama, you’re twenty-two years old. As your mother, I can assure you that is most certainly not ‘nearly thirty’.”

“Twenty-two?” He’d been twenty-five when Zak died. If he were really twenty-two now, did that mean… “Zak?”

“His classes start Monday if that’s what you’re asking.” Caroline grabs his hand. “Maybe I should take you to the emergency room.”

“No.” Lee holds her grip and looks at her—really looks at his mother, and lets himself believe—could it be possible? “Mom. I’m all right, but I’m going to cancel my trip to Tauron. I’m going to go see Zak instead.”

Caroline’s hand relaxes slightly in his. “I think that’s a good idea. I know it’s his sophomore year, but it’s his first year without you there to guide him. That campus is so big. In any case, I worry less when the two of you are together.”

She barely finishes speaking when he opens his mouth again. “I love you, Mom." That must’ve sounded as abrupt as it felt—Caroline crinkles her brow a moment, but then she simply smiles.

“I love you, too, pumpkin.” And when she hugs him, she still smells like lilacs.

B
S
G

Kara wakes at once, with no desire to linger in sleep. She sits up immediately, tears the covers off her legs to stand and be rid of anything that would hold her down. It’s only then, as she can freely move and look about the room that she really takes the chance to breathe in, calm down.

The small bedroom and soft light make for only vaguely familiar surroundings to her in her frantic state. She turns to the bedside table, freezes when she sees the picture of her dad and her leaning against a table lamp. It had been taken just before her eighth birthday on one of his last regular visits to see her. She’d burned it when she’d heard from a radio announcer that he died—over five years ago.

It has to be a copy. She picks up the picture, breaks the frame to get it out. She flips it to the back and there, in bold red lettering, is her father’s handwriting, A winter’s day with my snow angel. “What the frak?” she asks aloud. She throws the picture on the bed and backs away, clawing for the closet behind her so she can grab the tire iron leaning against the wall. It isn’t until she opens the bedroom door that she realizes how she knew the tire iron was there: She’s in her old apartment. On Picon.

B
S
G

Lee hasn’t even found his luggage when he hears a low familiar voice behind him. “You crazy motherfrakker, what are you doing here?”

“Zak,” Lee says his name like it’s as breakable as the man who held it. A young and skinny Zak Adama strides over to his big brother. He gives Lee a brief hug and would’ve moved away after two pats on the back, but Lee holds on.

When Lee finally lets his little brother go, he notes a worried look on Zak’s face. “What’s wrong? Mom said you’d been acting weird.”

Lee simply smiles through a shrug and keeps his eye on his brother. Zak leads him through the airport, all the while detailing the stats of his new roommate’s “utterly hot” girlfriend as they trudge towards the old junker Lee bought when he was a junior at the academy. He’d given it to Zak after graduation. The little coup is exactly the same—right down to the miniature island dancer on the dash.

Lee watches his brother drive through familiar streets, streets that should’ve been annihilated years ago by the nukes directed at Fleet Headquarters, near the colonial military academy they’d both attended. It’s already evening on this side of Picon, and the planet’s three moons shimmer in the bay as Zak takes the bridge over to the campus. Still everything Lee sees on this trip, everything he’s seen since he woke up and saw his mother, is more plausible than finding Zak, alive and jabbering, like he always does in Lee’s memories and dreams. Lee shakes his head. “It isn’t real,” he whispers to himself.

“Did you say something, bro?” Zak interrupts his debate with himself on the girlfriend’s possible measurements.

“Umm,” Lee thinks but can’t pick up on that thread in the conversation, so he changes the subject. “Have you talked to Dad lately?”

A look of incredulity is Zak’s first response. “Are you serious?”

Lee shrugs. “Yeah. Why?”

“Why? Oh maybe because six months ago you told me not to mention that we had a father unless it was absolutely necessary.”

“I know what I said, Zak,” Lee nearly stutters his brother’s name, a reflex atrophied through lack of use. “I just need to talk to him.”

“Did something happen?” His little brother looks suddenly so concerned. He always used to do that, Lee remembers in a flash. Zak could switch gears at the speed of sound. “Is there something you don’t want to tell Mom about?” Zak asks.

Lee shakes his head, then stops, just looking at Zak. “Everything’s OK, I just…” He clears his throat. What if it is real? What if there’s even the slightest chance? “I’m not sure what’s happened,” Lee confesses. “I just need to talk to Dad.”

Zak nods as he pulls into the only parking space left on the block, respecting Lee’s privacy—for now. He was always the nosiest little SOB when it came to Lee’s secrets. “Galactica’s taking part in war games somewhere near the Clusterfrak at Geminon,” Zak informs him.

“Does anybody actually know the name of that nebula?” The brothers exchange grins.

“Nobody in my year anyway.” Zak retrieves Lee’s duffle from the trunk.

Lee’s lips fall at that pronouncement. “That’s right you’re a sophomore.” He grabs his bag from Zak’s outstretched hand. How the hell is Lee going to meet Starbuck if Zak doesn’t know her already?

Zak rolls his eyes. “Everybody’s got to start somewhere. Don’t start that ‘I’m older than you and know so much better’ crap.”

“No, no, nothing like that.” Lee shakes his head, trailing behind Zak as he leads toward the underclassman dorms. “It’s just that you don’t start basic flight for another year and a half.” Zak’s look of puzzlement causes him to continue. “It’s just that there’s this instructor, but you wouldn’t have met her yet.”

“Is she good?”

Lee chuckles. “She’s a force of nature.”

“What’s her name?” Zak ushers Lee through the double doors of the dorm entrance.

“Kara,” he speaks on a sigh, adjusting the weight of his bag. “Kara Thrace.”

“Oh it’s like that?” A grin emphasizes the connotation.

“What? No! Of course not!” he flusters. “Get your mind out of the gutter!”

Zak eyes him dubiously. “Is she somehow in your chain of command?”

“No,” Lee strives for casual. When Zak continues to watch him, Lee elaborates, “Kara is more your speed than mine.”

Zak nods and looks away. He seems not to notice when Lee changes the subject to ask about Zak’s class assignments, but Lee knows he is aware.

They barely get through the dorm lobby when a cute little brunette eyes his brother up and down, posing invitingly in her room’s doorframe. “Hey Zak, are we still going to Chalmer’s tonight?”

Zak eyes her right back, then looks to Lee before turning back to the girl. “My brother just got back in town.”

“Don’t change your plans because of me,” Lee is quick to interject.

The younger Adama winces. “Well, I don’t want to leave you when you came to see me, and it’s not really your scene,” Zak explains. “It’s a dance club, not a jazz bar.”

“No, I’m cool with it.” He’d enjoyed Chalmer’s many times before with Kara or Zak or both. “I’ve been there.”

The brunette shakes her head at Lee, a frown on her pretty face. “How could you have been there? It just opened up two weeks ago.”

Lee clears his throat. “I meant metaphorically.”

Zak exchanges a glance with the girl, and Lee realizes he knows her. Her name is Rachel. She’d been Zak’s on-again, off-again girlfriend until he met Kara.

Zak shrugs and smiles. “If you want to go slumming with a bunch of sophomores…” He grins, but thankfully leaves it at that. “We’re going to go get ready.” Zak indicates Lee, and when he leans in to kiss his girl, Lee moves down the hallway to get out of their way. He hears his brother follow him, but then Rachel calls Zak’s name.

Zak’s only a couple paces behind Lee when she asks, “Are you done with that Military Tactics book I gave you?”

Zak shifts his feet before answering. “Um, yeah,” he looks at Lee, “Give me a minute, and I’ll bring it right down.”

Lee and Zak take the stairs to the fifth floor, passing all tastes of music and at least one flooded bathroom. No sooner do they reach Zak’s room, than he ransacks it and hurries out the door. “I’ll be right back,” he calls over his shoulder.

B
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G

Kara looks at the underclassman dormitory. The directory listed it as Zak Adama’s residence. She’s never been here before. He’d already moved out by the time he’d met her. “He’s alive,” she tries to convince herself. “He has to be alive because you’re not even a flight instructor yet, and you’ve never even met him.” She imagines she must look crazy sitting on the curb across the street from the building talking to herself.

If only Lee had been at his mother’s house when she called. Then she’d at least know if she is in this alone or not. Earlier she’d prayed that whatever the cylons had done to put her here, they did to Lee too. She’d felt so guilty afterward, but couldn’t bring herself to take it back, couldn’t stand the idea of being adrift in the past without a tether to cling to. “Please be here Lee.” She stands and fishes her cell phone from her pocket. “Please remember me,” she says a little more softly and steels herself for hearing Zak’s voice.

B
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G

Lee studies his brother’s dorm room. Zak’s roommate isn’t in, but he’s left his mess all over the carpet. The sloppiness of his belongings had always epitomized his character, Lee quickly remembers. It had gotten Zak in trouble on more than one surprise inspection, and Lee had never been able to tolerate the roommate as a result. Lee stands there for a long moment trying to remember the man’s name. Then in lieu of that, he tries to remember if he’s supposed to know it. The phone rings. He peers in the hall, but Zak is nowhere in sight. He picks up the receiver, nearly answers as ‘Commander Adama,’ recalling just in time that he isn’t. “Hello?”

“Lee?” the voice is emphatic, without pause.

“Kara?” he responds automatically. It occurs to him a moment later that if events are as they appear, then the two of them shouldn’t have met yet.

Kara recovers first. “So, Apollo. What the frak is going on?”

“Where are you?” He has to know, has to see her.

“I’m outside. I couldn’t…” she trails off. “I just couldn’t.”

“It’s OK. I know. Stay there, I’m coming.” He doesn’t bother saying goodbye. He just runs for Starbuck.

B
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G

He’s coming. She shuts her eyes and closes her phone. “Thank you Lords of Kobol.” Kara takes a deep breath, peers into the lobby through the picture window, and opens the front door to the building. She doesn’t know what direction Lee will come from, so she makes sure she’s visible from all angles. She keeps her ears open for his footsteps and waits.

Her feet are planted next to a dilapidated plastic tree that she doubts she could identify if she were a botanist. And then she hears His voice—Zak’s voice—he is somewhere close by, probably in a dorm room and definitely in the middle of an argument. She has to find him, has to see him talking, walking, gods—just breathing. Numbly, she follows the sound down the hallway to an open doorway. And there’s Zak Adama, in tanks and sneakers having his particular type of conversation with a delicate-looking brunette, just his kind of woman before he’d met her. He takes her breath away.

“Why the hell is your tight-ass brother coming tonight anyway?” the girl yells at Zak. Before he can respond, Kara hears herself speak,

“You have got to be talking about Lee Adama.”

Zak startles at the sound of her voice. He turns to her, a scathing comment on his lips she’s sure, until he notes the bar on her uniform. He narrows his eyes at her instead. “Do you know my brother, sir?”

“Yeah.” You introduced me to him. “I know Lee.” She leans against the doorframe and watches Zak Adama take two steps toward her, a gleam beginning in his eye as it roams from her face down. Despite the pleasure she takes in seeing his beautiful body moving and shifting in front of her, and despite the fact that he’s less than a meter away, the clearest emotion she feels at this moment is the loss of him. On his way back up, Zak catches sight of her name printed so neatly on her breast pocket, and, oddly, he backs off.

“Lieutenant Kara Thrace,” his voice is polite but warm, inviting.

She searches his eyes. “You’ve heard of me.” Does she sound too hopeful, she wonders?

“Lee told me you’re a flight instructor.”

Her stomach clenches at his words like they’re an accusation. “Um, no.” She looks down, can’t quite meet his gaze. “But I will be by the end of the semester.”

“Lee also said you’re a force of nature, sir.”

The description catches her off-guard, tricks her into looking back into Zak’s face. “Call me Kara, Cadet,” she tells him, feeling like she’s stepping back into herself after a brief respite.

He stretches out his hand to her. “Zak.”

She shakes the hand briefly, snatches her hand back, but then doesn’t quite know what to do with it.

“Kara!” Lee’s voice calls to her from down the hall.

“Lee!” she yells back, running to him before she knows it. She whispers when he grabs her, “Oh gods, Lee!” And Lee Adama folds her in his arms with a warmth she hasn’t felt from him since she left his bed for someone else’s. She hides her face against his chest to discourage tears or at least to hide them. He strokes her chin-length hair and calms her heart beating so furiously in her chest.

“It’s so good to see you,” she emphasizes, but he hasn’t spoken another word. He puts his hands on either side of her face and gently tugs. Kara lets him guide her eyes to his. She finally sees his face. “You’re so young,” she gasps, tracing the corner of his eye where the little worry wrinkles were starting to appear back in their real life. He smiles, but remains eerily silent, panicking her into feeling she’s all alone again, like when she woke up this morning, but somehow worse. She slides her fingers to the side of his face, pinching his ear hard. “Frakkin’ talk to me Apollo!”

He winces and slaps her fingers. “Aah! Son of a toaster, Starbuck!” She breathes deeply again. “Must you always resort to violence?”

“I must,” she affirms with a grin. “I really must.” The kindness of his smile captures her completely. Then the shuffling of feet behind her distracts them both, and Lee lets go of her like she’s fire.

She turns to see Zak walking—actually walking—towards them, and she reaches for Lee’s hand with both of hers, her only grip on reality. She can see Lee turn to her out of the corner of her eye before refocusing on his brother. “Kara Thrace,” Lee indicates her with his free hand, “this is Zak Adama—my brother and one of the best men I’ve ever known.”

“Thanks Lee.” Zak’s eyes shoot from her to Lee at this pronouncement, and Kara knows it’s because he’d never felt good enough to even be Lee Adama’s kid brother, let alone someone Lee could admire. “Kara and I already met,” Zak announces, and Kara can feel Lee’s hand tense beneath hers. “She introduced herself about two minutes ago. Oh but,” he indicates the girl he’d been arguing with, “I didn’t get to introduce my friend. This is Cadet Rachel Terrence.”

“Sir.” Rachel nods to her.

Kara shakes her head. “It’s Starbuck.” She looks between Rachel and Zak, finally connecting her name with an old memory. “Or you can call me Kara.”

“Kara.” Rachel smiles at her, such a wide smile to give a stranger. “A group of us are going to Chalmer’s tonight if you want to come.” The Cadet sneaks a look at Lee. “Zak already talked Lieutenant Adama into going.”

“Lieutenant Adama?” Kara raises her eyebrow at Lee, who just shrugs. “If you’re as good a friend of Zak’s as I think you are, you need to call this hemorrhoid on a cylon’s ass Lee.”

Rachel tries not to laugh. Kara can see it in the way the other woman’s ears turn red before she finally gives into a guffaw. The girl looks to Lee in horror. “I’m so sorry, sir, I just—”

Lee waves her off. “It’s OK. Kara’s right.”

Kara exhales and smiles through her teeth. “If only there were a way to laminate those words.”

Lee puts his nose to hers. “And yet,” he smirks and whispers, “there’s not.” Kara bites her bottom lip in a vain attempt to contain her smile at the lack of pretence between them. Lee’s eyes check the motion. Then he blinks slowly and backs away. “I…” Lee clears his throat, maybe his vision too, before looking up at Zak. “Somehow I doubt that Starbuck even owns a dress.”

She socks his arm. “Hey!” He uses her preoccupation to slide his fingers from hers. Starbuck’s brow automatically furrows at the loss of his warmth. When she looks up, she notes Zak very carefully following the byplay. Her cheeks heat with guilt before she can remember he doesn’t even know her. “I’ll have you know I own several dresses, Lee Adama. All of them earned in some hard-won games of triad.”

The only recognition Lee gives her joke is a look both cool and fleeting, but across from them Rachel and Zak start chuckling. Kara laughs with them, but in reflex, not in humor.

“I think this is where we separate.” Zak motions to Lee when the laughter dies. “You’re coming with us, right, Kara?”

She starts when he says her name. “Right Zak.” She points toward the front door. “I’ll just go home and change, and I’ll meet you there.”

Lee grabs her hand as she moves away. His grip is hard, but his thumb moves in a caress that’s so light over her wrist, she has to stretch her awareness as far as she can to keep feeling it. “Kara,” he says. And she tries not to hear any promises in the way he says her name.

Slowly, she looks up and meets his gaze. “Later,” she answers automatically, but he doesn’t let go. His eyes search hers, concern shining clearly, like he hadn’t just discarded her hand like it had hurt him to hold it. She smiles, oddly reassured by his need for assurance. She turns to Rachel. And Zak. “23:30?”

“Yes,” Lee affirms, loosening his grasp, sliding his grip down her hand. She squeezes his fingers, and then, like always, Lee Adama lets her walk away.

Chapter 2: Thread of Life

Kara’s barely out of his sight, and he regrets letting her go. Lee distractedly notes Rachel’s enthusiasm for the evening has increased substantially in the last ten minutes. She shuffles the Adama brothers out of her doorway, almost slams it in their wake in her eagerness to dress for the night out. Zak practically bounces up the stairs, but Lee travels more conservatively toward the fifth floor, deep in thought. Why did he let Kara go alone? She has to be reeling, hell he’s reeling. He should’ve…

“What’s with this ‘Apollo’ crap?” Zak interrupts Lee’s internal monologue when he re-enters his brother’s dorm room.

“Huh?” Lee checks through his duffel for club wear.

Zak pulls his tanks over his head. “Your friend Kara called you Apollo.”

“Oh, it’s my call sign,” Lee relays.

“You have the call sign of a god?” Zak stops in his search for his toiletries to laugh at the idea.

Lee’s lips press together. “Son of Zeus.”

Zak looks away, a brief flash of annoyance on his face. “When did you get gifted with it?” he moves on.

“Umm…” Lee falters. He’d gotten rid of his nugget call sign fairly late. He hadn’t been gifted until the first week of War College—two weeks away from now. “It was after one of the instructors caught some old footage of Dad,” he compromises the when for how. “Played it during a lecture. Then presto,” Lee pulls his hands out of his bag to gesture. “Instant call sign.”

“It could be worse.” Zak finally finds his shaving cream. “They could call you junior,” he teases.

“Don’t even joke about that.” Lee smiles, letting himself be drawn out for a moment. Then the surrealism of his current conversation hits him all of a sudden: He’s standing in Zak’s dorm room, talking with him about issues that haven’t really mattered in a long while. He’s talking with Zak—his dead brother.

Lee sits down on the edge of Zak’s bed. He takes a deep breath and smells that spicy shampoo that Zak used to use, the peppermint of his favorite bubblegum, and beneath them both, a scent Lee didn’t realize he’d known, let alone forgotten. “It is real.” He can barely hear himself think for all the ideas that pummel his psyche at once. He stands up abruptly, startles Zak when he grabs his hand.

“Hey!” Cadet Adama steps backward but can’t escape his brother’s grip.

“Zak, you know I love you, right?”

“Yeah, what the hell is wrong with you, Lee?” Zak looks to Lee’s hand then back to his face.

“Nothing. Nothing.” Lee shakes his head but can’t even blink for fear of what might happen if he takes his eyes off Zak. “You know there’s a hell of a lot more to life than flying, right? That crap Dad used to say, ‘A man isn’t a man—’”

“Until he wears the wings of a viper pilot,” Zak finishes with a nod.

Again Lee shakes his head, knowing his eyes are intense by the way Zak’s face crumples and shifts in response. “It’s not true. I didn’t feel any more like a man after I got my wings. I do love to fly,” he backtracks in order to be truthful, “But it’s despite what Dad said, not because of it.”

“Hey, I don’t want to get in the middle.” Zak raises his free hand. “With Anne as sick as she is, Dad needs all the support he can get.”

“Look, I’m not trying to turn you against him.” Lee loosens his grip by sheer force of will. “Maybe I did before,” he continues when Zak opens his mouth in silent rebuttal. “I don’t remember. I’m just saying that I was wrong.” That gets his brother’s attention. Lee tries to calm his thoughts by regulating his breathing. “I thought that I was headed in the direction I was because it was what I wanted, but I was wrong. I hated the idea of turning into Dad, and because of that I became someone I couldn’t recognize. I don’t want to see that happen to you.”

Zak searches his brother’s eyes, studies the tenseness of his muscles. “OK,” Zak nods. “I’ll be sure if I go after it that I want it.”

Lee averts his eyes, sniffs, swallows. “Good,” he nods back to his kid brother. Belatedly, he lets go of Zak’s hand, suddenly realizing that, as a viper pilot, his grip far supersedes that of his brother. He had to have hurt him. “Geez Zak, I, um…” he starts to apologize. Zak waves him off.

“No harm done,” Zak demonstrates with a crack of his wrist and a wiggle of his fingers. “But for frak’s sake, Lee,” Zak sets an arm across his shoulders. “You seriously need to get laid.”

B
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The music expands from the speakers, fills the air, and pounds on the walls—the ceiling—the floor—like it’s dying to get out. It thrums through Lee like a viper through a never-ending tunnel launch. He checks his watch and notes it’s still a couple minutes too soon for Kara. While she wouldn’t miss this next reunion with Zak, he knows she wouldn’t dare to come early for it either—too much anticipation in too public a venue.

Lee busies himself by ordering four shots of Ambrosia at the bar. He returns to his brother’s group of friends, who light up when they see the alcohol, apparently thinking Lee bought the drinks for them. For a moment, he very nearly feels abashed that he has no plans to share with them. Before they can reach for the shots, Starbuck swiftly comes up on their 3 o’clock in a flirty little black dress that hugs her ass just right. She bypasses the table for the liquor.

She takes her shots from his hands, leaving him his two. They give a private toast, one that’s never had words, but one that Lee always approximates to something like, I’m glad we’re here together. He wonders if Kara ever tried to vocalize their ritual, even internally. Probably not, he decides as they share their second shot on the heels of the first; she’s more likely to take life as it comes rather than talk to it once it gets there. He and Kara set their empty glasses on the table beside them—the one Zak and his friends have gathered ‘round, but she still avoids eye contact with the younger set.

Instead, she flattens her palm on Lee’s chest, spreading her fingers and maximizing points of contact. “Hey,” her lips form the greeting.

“Hey.” He brings his hand over hers and holds it to him.

Zak slides from his chair to approach Kara. He talks in Kara’s ear. It looks like he says, “It’s good to see you again.” There’s nothing sexual in the gesture, just a man trying to be heard over the din of the bass, but it startles Kara. She recovers well, laughs at herself, but Lee can tell she’s shaken. Zak asks her to dance, and Lee lets her go so the two can make their way to the middle of the floor. The table’s other occupants also pair off or look for partners, leaving Lee alone with Rachel at its tall, round surface.

Lee watches Kara with his brother, forcing himself to note, as he often did when she and Zak were engaged, that they were truly good together. He wants to be able to smile at the picture they make, a picture he never thought he’d see again. He blinks away.

He senses Rachel sipping her smuggled cocktail beside him and turns to face her. “Would you like to dance, too?” he asks her belatedly, just realizing he’s being rude to her.

She curls an arm around his and smiles. “I would, Lee,” she tries out his given name. “Thanks.”

Lee immediately stands and pulls out her chair. He takes Rachel’s hand and leads her through the maze of gyrating bodies, near the others. There is no other way to dance but close together, and although Lee is accustomed to tight quarters and no privacy due to nearly six years aboard various Battlestars, he is still somehow unprepared for the strange intimacy of dancing with his brother’s sometime girlfriend when both she and Zak are supposed to be dead.

It’s too much. They’ve only been on the floor a couple minutes, but Lee is ready to ask Rachel if she wouldn’t mind sitting back down. He actually opens his mouth to ask, when he sees Rachel turn. He feels her squeeze his hand and watches her disappear, leaving Starbuck in her wake.

“Hey flyboy,” Kara teases, and pulls him to her until they’re forehead to forehead. She places her hands at either side of his head, directly over his ears. “Shh,” she moves her lips, drawn pinker tonight than he’s used to. The sound is blocked, but he feels her meaning in the vibration of the air between them. She touches his mouth with hers fleetingly, and it is not enough—it is never enough—but it brings his focus to her and the points where they touch.

Her diversion works, but then, for whatever reason, she kisses him again. He kisses her back. He opens his mouth and tastes the waxy film of the lipstick he’s ruining, and the sweet, thick Ambrosia she’d drunk with him. When his tongue slips and slides with hers, he tastes a memory that would’ve been better off forgotten had he ever been capable of doing so. She moans in his mouth, and he forgets where he is, what is happening. Later he’ll realize that he even forgot Zak.

He runs his hands down her sides, skims his fingertips against her thighs, grabs her tight ass with both hands, and kneads. Her gasp and her hands running through his hair urge him to whisper her name, more than anything to remind himself it’s really her he’s with.

“Lee!” she moans back, right below his ear, and he hadn’t realized until that moment how much he’d needed her to say his name, to acknowledge him, his hands on her body, his need mixed with hers. He recaptures her lips and just as quickly loses them again to her abandon when his hand follows the line at the top of her thigh to tease a finger inside her.

“Ahh!” she breathes in a squeal, her legs parting wider to accommodate him. With head leaned back, she shuts her eyes and breathes in and out shakily while he plays inside her. She slips a hand down his back as if forgetting it belongs to her even as she grabs him roughly by the hair with the other. He gasps wetly at the lightning of sensation her fingernails score through his hair and lets her lead his mouth to her neck. Gods how he remembers the way she kept exposing her neck to him—just like this—that only other time he’d ever been inside her.

The arm she’d held lax suddenly tightens on his lower back, yanking his shirt up where it rests against his slacks. Her eager fingers lay claim to him. He bares his teeth as the idea mixes with the sensation. He only has a moment to feel that soft skin on his back before a curt tap on his shoulder stops him from marking her neck with his teeth. He looks behind him to find two very large men that can only be marines or bouncers. Still, he has to blink a few times before he can make the connection between their presence and his position, before he realizes they’re kicking him and Kara out.

“We’re going to have to ask you to take this out of here, sir.” The bigger guy points to the red exit sign. Lee licks his lips, suddenly very aware of where they are, where his hands are. He nods and slowly eases out of her. Less hurriedly, she scratches her fingernails down his back, at once jerking his gaze and all his attention back to her.

Her lips curl devilishly when she lightly shoves him away. “You heard the man, Lieutenant.”

B
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G

The night is warm when Kara steps back outside, no doubt the Ambrosia already hard at work, but Lee’s hand spanning her lower back is even hotter. She feels his tenseness in the quick and measured beats of his footsteps, sees it spanning his features with the blank shock that’s not quite worn away since the bouncers interrupted them. She lets him lead her behind the club and away from hearing range, while she watches the ground they overtake, considering how she might make him forget he just broke about seven aspects of Fleet Policy in order to get him to do it again. He stops her on the walkway between the parking lot and the back of the building.

“What the hell did you drive?” he begs with such strained urgency she answers immediately.

“It’s the red truck near the lot entrance,” she barely replies when he grabs her arm and drags her in that direction. She looks between his profile and the asphalt in front of her. “Oh,” she swallows a breath and pulls on his hand. He doesn’t query why, just turns and kisses her, mouth open, one hand in hers, the other blazing a trial to her thigh. She swings both arms around his neck, sends her hands gripping and twisting through his hair. His freed digits immediately join their counterparts below her waist.

He pushes her backward, leans her against the hood of an anonymous car. Her legs capture him by instinct. Her fingers work their way under his collar to caress his bare back, remembering how he used to beg her for a backrub when they’d been on Galactica together. He was always more content with light fingers than digging thumbs. It didn’t take her long to realize he just wanted to be touched.

His shuddering sigh forces her eyes up, but she is soon distracted by the audience of underclassmen she spies over Lee’s shoulder. With anyone else she wouldn’t care—privacy was a luxury that hadn’t survived the end of the worlds—but Lee has a tendency to get shy when he’s caught with is pants down.

“Come on flyboy,” she urges him up with a little push to his chest. He backs off after another kiss to the side of her neck and finds her eye, only then ascertaining her intention to pause for a better venue, not to halt altogether. His sigh this time is of relief. He peeks behind him at her vehicle and tugs her hand. They hurry towards it.

“Where are your keys?” he demands, glancing over her body and seeming to note the lack of purse.

She shakes her head and reaches in her pocket to unpin the two keys there. “I don’t think so Apollo. This is my ride.”

“You’ve had too much to drink,” he insists, holding out his hand.

“I had two shots of Ambrosia, same as you.”

“How much did you have before you left home?”

She stares at him in silence a moment, somehow unused to him knowing her so well despite the fact that he’s probably always known this about her. The intensity of his stare actually makes her breath catch—gods it feels so good to have him look at her again. This time when he prods her with an open hand, she releases the keys. He unlocks the passenger door first, opens it, and helps her in. She’s still surprised enough to let him. He goes around the vehicle and climbs in himself. He starts the truck and moves down the road. He follows the street signs and speed limits to her home, but she sees his fingers, itchy on the wheel, and the measured restraint in his leg as he strains to keep from opening up the throttle. She keeps to her side of the cab, watching him as he watches the road: the quick rise and shallow fall of his chest, the clenching and unclenching of his jaw, the constant shifting of his legs and seat as he adjusts and re-adjusts. All these things seem to support the unbelievable conclusion that this moment is really happening.

He parks in her assigned spot next to her apartment building as if he did it every night. He nearly jumps from the truck, runs around to get her door. She beats him to it, afraid the gods or Lee will change their minds. He takes her hand, and they hustle up the stairs. He unlocks her door with the key he still carries. He ushers her inside, then follows himself. When he shuts and locks the door, she pushes him into it.

Her hands yank on both sides of his shirt, ripping off a few buttons as she exposes his chest to her eyes, her touch. She traces his pecs with her fingers, leans in a second to bite the skin above, trying to force his submission, to ensure his focus stays on her, on what they’re doing in this moment. He leans against the door and lets her.

She kisses her way to his mouth while her hands tease their way to his slacks. She unbuttons, unzips, aches to make him undone. He gentles her fervor with the heat, the single-minded drive of his kisses. And she’s so grateful, so glad to be given another chance. Gods how she loves the feel of his mouth, the taste of him! She can’t get enough of the elusive flavor.

She kicks off her heels. They strike sharply on the wooden floor behind her. She feels Lee’s balance change twice as he toes off his own shoes. She reaches into his boxers while she’s got him trapped, strokes up…down, but can’t stand her own slow pace. She has to wrap her hand around him. His cock, hot and twitching in her grasp, seems as anxious to be inside her as she is to feel him there.

She slowly backs towards the general direction of the bedroom, moves a little faster when she’s sure he’s coming with her. He keeps her lips connected to his with a hand on the back of her head. She keeps his hips close with the grip she has on him. She’s glad the only light in the room comes from the streetlamps streaming through the blinds. She’s scared any more illumination would remind him too much of who he’s with, what she’s done. He sheds his shirt from his shoulders, lifts his hands high on her arms, pulls her closer to him even as he pushes her backward, urges them to move faster. His grasp directs her to the first bedroom door.

“The next one’s mine,” she whispers through kisses, not sure if he forgot or is simply too distracted. They make it through her doorway, towards her bed. She has to let go of him while he strips her dress from her body, freeing her breasts and leaving her only in her panties. His hands canvas the uncovered skin. His lips follow. “Lee!” she’s tricked into a giggle and bids him back up with a hand on his chin when he reaches her ticklish belly. He grins up at her before obeying the command, the glee in his eyes so light-hearted it takes her breath away. Oh, gods Lee, I love you, too, she thinks the words but doesn’t dare say them aloud.

When he straightens, she grabs his pants on either side of the open zipper and pulls him to her. His hands close roughly above her elbows like he’s going to stop her, but he doesn’t, just holds on tight enough that she knows she’ll have bruises tomorrow. She slips her hands around his waist, reaches beneath the waistband of his boxers, holds his ass in both hands. His swallow is audible. He clears his throat. Their eyes meet. And he looks so open, so bare. He only holds her gaze a second, maybe two, before his mouth goes deliberately, purposefully—straight for her neck, licking and nipping and biting, distracting her even from the grip she has beneath his shorts.

His hands leave her abruptly, and she watches as he reaches down, yanks off his clothes. His body is naked in front of her, and his hands are just as warm when he brings them back to her body, but his eyes don’t meet hers again.

I love you, Lee, she thinks again as he jerks her panties roughly down her thighs.

I love you, Lee, she bites her lip when they fall back heavily on the bed.

I love you, Lee, she arches her back when he pushes inside.

“I love you, Lee,” she mouths the words once he falls asleep.

To Chapter 3

Fic Update: Revamping Reunion, Progress of Immortal Like the Gods

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 04:10:56 GMT

I am finally getting back to my BSG story "Reunion!" I've been working on this fic for a very long time, and I am glad to be getting it back on track. I am revamping the story because I always hated the first 4 chapters. When I first started writing the story, I began with chapter 5 (Home). Because I felt I needed a good background for why the characters found themselves in this position, I felt the need to write chapters 1-4. The truth is, I really rushed through those chapters, and I never felt they really worked, but I allowed them to remain because I really wanted to get to the meat of the story.

In order to rectify this initial mistake, I've just completed writing a prologue for Reunion that will replace chapters 1-4. Chapters 1-4, and in fact the entire story of "Reunion" that is currently posted on fanfiction.net will be removed. However, I will upload the revamped version of "Reunion" to fanfiction.net prior to removing the old version, and I will direct anyone following "Reunion" to the revamped version from my fanfiction.net homepage. The original chapters 5 (Home) through 18 (Phantom Pains) will remain pretty well intact with only minor changes that primarily help to assimilate the prologue. As a result, the original chapter 5 (Home) will become chapter 1 (Home) with subsequent chapters following accordingly. Additionally, I will make the original chapters 1-4 of "Reunion" available on this livejournal to any misguided soul who wishes to read them.

As for my SG-1/Highlander crossover, "Immortal Like the Gods," I plan to return to that story in earnest after I complete "Reunion." I have so many things I want to do with that universe. Eventually, after "Immortal Like the Gods" itself is complete, I'd like to stem off with several more different branches, write more stories related to the basic premise of the universe with Immortal Daniel. Until then, one story at a time.

Writer's Block: Facets of a Hero

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 08:38:50 GMT

What makes a hero?

View 500 Answers

A hero is someone who keeps going, whatever happens. Heroes find a way to continue even when they stumble or when the world stumbles around them.

Immortal Like the Gods Chapter 5

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 19:24:01 GMT

Title: Immortal Like the Gods
Author: Choosing Sarah
Spoilers: Through Moebius Part 2 (8x20)
Category: Crossover with Highlander and (a little) Stargate: Atlantis. Character focus is (almost) exclusively from the Stargate universe, but concepts (immortality, the Game) from Highlander show up. Daniel-centric.
Timeframe: Begins in Ancient Egypt between Moebius Parts 1 & 2 (8x19 & 8x20)
Warnings: Canon character death
Rating: T for violent images
Summary: Crossover with Highlander. Back in Ancient Egypt in Moebius Part 2, we learn that everyone but Daniel had been killed in an uprising against Ra. What if Daniel had been killed, too? Only Daniel woke up…Immortal.
Disclaimer: Not mine. No infringement is intended and no profit is made, but might I be so bold as to point out that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?
Word Count: 14,000+
Story Status: WIP

The Complete Stories Index

Immortal Like the Gods Story Index

Immortal Like the Gods Chapter 4

This chapter goes out with great thanks to Thaumiel, who always knows exactly how to make me laugh and who’s been absolutely terrific as I slowly (I know, I know I know!! But I swear I will finish this at least!) get this out. Thanks sweetie!

Chapter 5 Growing Up Minnesota

1961

Daniel knocked twice—his knuckles rapping hard on the dark wooden door. A rustling started within, and he knew young Jack was begging his father to be allowed to open the door. Daniel could pinpoint the very moment Mike O’Neill capitulated: the heavy footsteps that had been nearing were replaced by light and quick feet. A moment later, young Jack’s face appeared as he drew back the curtain on the side window to look out. Daniel smiled to watch the unlined face break into a grin.

Little Jack turned away, and Daniel heard a muffled, “Yes, it’s him!”

“Well, let him in already!” Daniel only heard the cadence of Mike’s words through the wall of the well-made home, but he knew the phrase well enough to be able to assign it to the slight inflection.

The golden knob turned, and Daniel’s pint-sized friend opened the door wide. “Hey, Doc!” Young Jack said in perfect imitation of his father.

“Jack,” Mike drew out the name in warning.

Thick lashes hid those bright brown eyes. “I’m sorry, Dr. Samuel,” he corrected himself.

“Don’t worry about it.” Daniel tried to hide his smile, ruffling the young boy’s hair—if a crew cut could be said to be ruffled—as he passed. “It’s good to see you, buddy,” he said.

“You, too, Dr. Samuel!” Little Jack returned enthusiastically. Of course, as Daniel had discovered early on, his young friend was very often enthusiastic about everything.

The kitchen door swung open, bringing with it a deluge of fresh aroma—beef, vegetables, and was that freshly baked bread? Kate O’Neill peeked around the opening door, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.

“Samuel, it’s good to see you,” she said warmly, somehow causing Little Jack to fidget behind her with her statement. “I’m so glad you could come.”

“Yes, well,” he shook his head briefly, just once, in a habit he’d adopted just for his Murray Samuel persona. “When I get invited to Catherine O’Neill’s dinner table, I don’t turn it down.” He grinned and leaned down to kiss her cheek.

She smiled with both pleasure and affection, even though she’d heard the compliment a hundred times before. Murray Samuel could be creative, but he tended not to be.

“Mom is the best cook on the whole block!” Young Jack proclaimed in what he must have thought to be an extravagant compliment.

“Why thank you, Jack,” Kate laughed and smiled at her son, rubbing the backs of two fingers against his cheek.

The boy ducked his head and looked at Daniel, seemingly unsure if such a tender touch from his mother was still allowed at his age. Daniel let his lips curl softly at the image—even this young, Jack was rarely so insecure. Winking at his young friend, he tried to convey his approval. “You’re certainly right about that, Jack.”

Daniel shifted his bottle of wine from one hand to the other. As he intended, the action immediately garnered Mike’s attention, moving the conversation along. “Now, what is that, Doc? We’ve told you and told you not to bring anything when you come to dinner,” he scolded mildly, a smile threatening to break across his features. This, too, was something of a tradition when Daniel came to the O’Neills’.

“Yes, well, a friend of mine sent me a well-aged date wine from Israel. It’s supposed to be quite good.” He gestured to the deep red liquid inside. “The dark color comes from the khadrawy dates, which are produced via traditional oasis horticulture. I couldn’t see the sense in drinking it alone when I could share it with friends.” He shrugged and smiled, waiting to get caught in the fib. Daniel brought a new wine to each and every gathering at the O’Neill household. And with each bottle, he also brought an excuse of why they had to drink it together.

Kate just turned her head to one side and exchanged a look with Mike. They both shook their heads, but finally Mike smiled and said, “Alright, doc, but I think you used that one about five times already.”

“And that’s just this year!” Kate added and winked at her husband.

Mike stepped towards him in an oft-repeated move. “You want me to take that to the table for you?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, yes of course,” Murray Samuel flustered as if Mike didn’t say that every time. As per usual, Mike offered him a hearty pat on the back when he took the bottle.

“I’ll go get the wineglasses,” Kate offered and hurried into the kitchen.

“Ooh, look at this, Jack,” Mike took great care to make over the label. “This is definitely not written in English.”

“Let me see!” Jack demanded even as his father angled the bottle to his son’s eye level. Jack examined it a moment and shook his head. “That doesn’t look like writing!” He accused, turning back to Daniel, the scandal of the discovery clear in his tone.

“Ah, but it is.” Daniel took to one knee beside him, riding a finger along the text from its start on the right end of the label towards the left. “It’s just that this writing has an entirely different alphabet. It’s called Arabic.”

“Arabic? Really? I’d have thought Hebrew,” Mike asked, as interested in the impromptu lesson as Jack.

“Well, Israel’s only been a state for 13 years,” Daniel pushed up his glasses. “Language change takes a very long time, and Arabic will continue to be a common language in Israel for the foreseeable future.”

“It will?” Mike asked, and somehow his words span more than one question.

Daniel cleared his throat, remembering himself. “Well, um,” he shrugged as nonchalantly as he could, “um… probably, yes.”

“Can you read what it says?” Young Jack interrupted, and Daniel was so grateful for the distraction that he looked and read the label without thinking, speaking to the wine’s subtle flavorings and its vintage.

“Wow!” Kate exclaimed, the two-way door to the kitchen still swinging. “I didn’t know you could read Arabic, Samuel!”

Immediately Daniel straightened. “I, uh, huh.” He stood up. He kept his gaze on the bottle, and then on Jack, whose wide brown eyes were the same pure shade Daniel’d always kept alive in the back of his mind like a conscience —or a lodestone, always directing him back into his past, into the rest of the world’s future. “I…” he started again but stopped, because looking in Jack’s eyes, he was completely unable to assemble even the slightest fib. Daniel blinked away. It wasn’t that he often lied to the O’Neills anyway. He didn’t need to because, as good as he was at lying, he was even better at avoiding the truth. “I grew up with Arabic as much as English,” Daniel finally—and unwillingly—revealed at a whisper.

“So you grew up speaking two languages?” When Daniel looked back up, Little Jack was squinting at him.

“Actually…” For a moment, Daniel felt his brows lift in consideration, as if he were truly having a conversation with his friend and not this child who might never become Jack. “Actually,” he started again, surprising himself with what he wanted to reveal, surprising himself by remembering what he told the real Jack so long ago on their first trip to Abydos. I grew up with bunches of languages—speaking them, reading them, writing them—English and Arabic were the ones I used most throughout childhood. He almost said the words aloud, but Jack was old enough that he might remember them later, and even if he didn’t, his parents would.

The quiet lasted too long, and the O’Neills shifted around the room, regrouping to defend his silence.

“Hey, sport, help your mom with those glasses, will ya?” Mike addressed Young Jack. The boy immediately complied, taking two of the three glasses from Kate’s hands and holding them by the stems. Kate, brow furrowed, gave her husband a lingering glance as she took the bottle of wine from him and hurried Little Jack into the adjacent dining room.

Daniel watched mother and son place the glasses around the table in that perfect sort of harmony that only families achieve. It had always seemed before, that to watch it was to touch it, and to touch it was to be a part of it. But how could he have ever been a part of this when he’d always had to hold back the biggest pieces of himself?—Mary’s words showed him that. He felt his eyes scrunch shut without his permission, a natural defense to keep them from tearing up.

“We could take a walk before dinner, if you want,” Mike offered through Daniel’s silence, his words a subtle invitation.

Daniel opened his eyes, looked directly at his friend, and then he smiled. “What are you kidding?” Daniel may have been fooling himself, but he wanted that illusion of belonging for just a little while longer, “and let Kate’s good cooking get cold?”

Mike shrugged and smiled, but his eyes were as sharp and aware as Jack’s had ever been. “Just a thought.”

Daniel shrugged back. “Maybe later, alright?” He kept his posture loose as he and Mike continued with their small talk and Kate revealed his favorite hors d’oeuvres. Just a little while longer, Daniel thought again through the cheese and crackers…and as he watched the three of them laugh and grin at him and each other as they easily carried the weight of the conversation…and as they lingered over dessert. But it really was over; his time with the O’Neill’s was up.

“Thank you for a lovely meal, Kate,” Daniel Jackson complimented his hostess as easily as ever when she circled the table collecting their dishes. “I think you’ve topped yourself again because that was the best apple pie I’ve ever had.”

“You know you say that every time, Samuel,” Kate O’Neill chided even as she beamed at the success of the small dinner.

“How come you wanna be called by your last name?” Young Jack O’Neill asked in a rush, apparently no longer able to hold his question in.

“Jack!” Michael O’Neill cut in sternly. “I’m sorry, Doc,” the former captain shook his head and looked to Daniel.

Daniel waved off the apology. “Don’t be silly. Jack’s at an age where he’s questioning the world around him.” Daniel took on his best ‘I’m a doctor. I know what I’m talking about’ voice: it was best for achieving personal distance. “It’s perfectly normal for him to ask why things are the way they are, especially when the circumstances are unusual.” Daniel turned his attention to this Little Jack, as always looking for precursors to his friend in the young face. “The fact of the matter is,” Daniel lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, squinting his eyes, “I don’t really like my first name.”

“That’s the only reason you’re called Jack and not Murray,” Kate O’Neill told her son.

“Murray?” Jack crinkled his features.

“Yeah,” Daniel nodded, “your mom and dad asked me when you were born if I wouldn’t mind sharing my name. I told them I wouldn’t mind getting rid of it entirely, but seeing as how it was on all of the paperwork already, I thought I’d better keep it.”

“Dr. Samuel delivered you, Jack.” Kate repeated what Daniel knew to be an oft-told story in the O’Neill household: with all the dinners and barbeques and game nights he’d spent with the O’Neills, he knew it first-hand. “I don’t know how I would’ve made it through the birth without him. Maybe if the labor hadn’t been so difficult…” She shook her head and looked between her husband and son. She and Mike only had one child. They’d been too afraid to risk another pregnancy after Jack was born.

“Don’t even think it.” Mike stood with little difficulty. Daniel knew the other man’s knee caused him only a minor ache anymore. The elder O’Neill didn’t have the debilitating pain through the joint that he’d lived with constantly as little as nine years before. The cartilage had somehow started mending itself around the time Jack had been born. “You and Jack are plenty for me.” He moved behind his wife in a casual embrace after she set the dishes on the counter by the sink. “Maybe more than plenty.” He eyed his son.

“Michael!” Kate swatted at her husband with the dishtowel. “Jack was the name of Dr. Samuel’s father,” she continued on with the story as if she hadn’t been interrupted at all. “It’s also the name of your grandpa, which is lucky,” she told her husband, “because I don’t know how we would’ve told your father we weren’t naming his first grandson after him.”

Mike chuckled. “Very lucky we didn’t have to.” Jack’s Dad looked back up to face Daniel. “I finally got the new prism in the mail the other day, Doc. I just finished repairing your telescope.” He pointed his thumb towards the back door. “It’s out in the garage if you want to look at it.”

“That’d be great!” Daniel lit up, nearly forgetting himself but already standing. Discussing the stars with Mike O’Neill was the closest thing he’d had to having Jack back in almost 5,000 years.

“Can I come, too?” Young Jack piped in.

“Have you finished your homework, Jack?” Mike asked.

Jack looked to his lap, nearly causing Daniel to smile. Sometimes, when he thought of the juxtaposition between this boy, who could not tell a lie, and the older Jack, who spouted falsehood and fact with equanimity, Daniel wondered if the fine line he’d walked through history had been reduced to powder yet by the tread of his feet.

“Go finish your homework first,” Michael O’Neill directed his son, “and then you can meet us outside.” Young Jack beamed at his father the way Daniel had just a moment ago. “Come get me if you need help before then.”

Little Jack nodded. “May I be excused?” he asked. A quick nod from Mike, and Jack ran in the general direction of the living room.

Daniel and the O’Neills chuckled at his enthusiasm, and then Mike kissed his wife’s cheek as he made for the back door.

Daniel quickly moved after him but paused in front of Kate. “It really was a wonderful meal,” he told her sincerely.

“Go on.” She shooed him out of her kitchen, a big smile still on her face. “You two are worse than Jack when you start talking about stars and telescopes,” she teased him.

Daniel grinned back at her and trailed Mike into the cool, damp dusk of late spring.

Daniel slowed as he followed the light reaching outward from the garage windows, feeling the weight of his long journey catching up with him. Mike had already brought out Daniel’s telescope by the time he reached the high workbench.

“Hey Doc,” Mike said without looking over his shoulder, “I did the best I could with that crack along the base, but you’ll have to keep an eye out for it from now on, make sure it doesn’t get any bigger.”

Daniel watched the set of Mike’s shoulders as he worked, so much like Jack, the Jack he’d known. Mike’s head peeked around. His eyes caught Daniel’s.

“I’ll have to do that,” Daniel responded belatedly.

Mike turned back to the telescope, as if there were some last minute detail to work on before he handed it back to Daniel, though the former archaeologist knew the self-distraction was only a prelude to something else—just as it had been, as it would be again one day, with Jack. “Something on your mind?” Mike asked, inviting him into conversation for the second time that night.

Daniel walked to the high workbench Mike was using, looked at the telescope and Mike’s hands fiddling with it. He shook his head as memories of his first life hit him head on. He turned and leaned his back against the table. When he spoke, he surprised himself with the words that emerged: “I’m not what I seem.” He nearly cringed when the words made it out. He’d meant to be more subtle, to try to avoid the same sort of hurt distance from Mike that he’d gotten from Mary just the day before.

Mike glanced up at him. His gaze held no recrimination, though Daniel looked carefully for it. His friend put his attention back to the telescope, and Daniel looked away, too.

“I know.” Mike grabbed a bit of cloth from a shelf by the small window. “I’ve always known.”

“I—” Daniel cut off the delayed apology he’d forgotten to give Mary, cleared his throat. Squinted. Quirked his head to the side. “Uh…really?” His pitch went much higher in inflection as his gaze shot back to Mike.

The other man briefly looked to him again, nodded, and set back to work. He polished the outer lens of the telescope while Daniel tried to think of something to say when he hadn’t been planning on saying that much. How did you know? he wanted to ask but couldn’t get his mouth around. Instead he said, “If you knew that I was—” Daniel hesitated to say ‘lying’ because hiding his identity had never felt personal with anyone else, never felt like the lie it was. “If you knew,” he started again, “then why would you let me around your family?”

Setting down the wide cylinder, Mike kept the cloth in hand, bending to rest his elbows on the workbench. “Jack’s never sick. Neither is Kate. Or me.” He twisted his neck towards Daniel’s direction but didn’t quite glance his way. “You looked at my knee once just after Jack was born, and ever since then, it’s been getting better, even though I haven’t been to a doctor about it since then, and even though the docs at the Vet Hospital said it’d always be lame.” Mike angled his neck back to his workbench and put the small cloth to the telescope lens once again. He stayed quiet for several long minutes, spurring Daniel to look over at him: the worrying of his lip, the edge in his eye, the raw expression on his face, all made Daniel’s gaze scatter again quickly to give him what privacy such aversion afforded. “Then most of all,” Mike finally said, “the night Jack was born. I’d thought for sure—” He coughed into his hand, more a nervous gesture than a tickle in his throat. He straightened his spine, gathering the packaging necessary to transport the telescope. “You’ve never given me cause to doubt your intentions, Doc,” he sniffed and shook his head vigorously.

Daniel cleared his throat, which was suddenly almost too thick to let him speak. “I’ll always look out for Jack, for all you,” he whispered.

Mike sniffed again and pointedly didn’t look at Daniel. “You going somewhere, Doc?”

“Yeah,” Daniel got around to what he came to say, “I’ll be leaving town soon.”

“Yeah?” Mike echoed, still collecting the odds and ends related to the telescope. “You coming back?”

“You’ll hear from me,” Daniel gave the best answer he could.

The other man nodded slowly. “Can we get in touch with you, or will you be,” he vaguely waved his palm upward in a gesture that could have meant anything.

“Mary McDonald will know how to forward my mail if you give a letter to her. Don’t worry about postage,” he added.

Mike turned to Daniel, looked him over, and held out his hand. Daniel grabbed the outstretched palm. “You’ve been a good friend, Doc.”

“Daniel.” The word was out before he could think it, but Mike O’Neill just smiled.

“You’ve been a good friend, Daniel.”

He bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut at hearing his own name over such an achingly familiar pitch and tone. Then Daniel let go of his friend’s hand.

TBC…

Chapter 6

Immortal Like the Gods Chapter 4

Sat, 25 Aug 2007 18:51:04 GMT

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Immortal Like the Gods Story Index

Immortal Like the Gods Chapter 3

Chapter 4 Acceptable Risk

1961

The weight of his old broadsword pulled at his left, still sheathed as he walked on the long runway from his car to the abandoned hangar. The tug on his coat and at his belt was still familiar, even though he normally left the traditional swords at home in favor of the more convenient, more compact, extendable blades he’d had made by the Athosian artisans in Pegasus Galaxy. Daniel carried the broadsword because he couldn’t risk the Watchers witnessing and recording the use of extraterrestrial technology. Moreover, there was definitely a Watcher in that building. His life signs detector had read two humans and one immortal in the hangar just moments before.

Daniel slowly drew the heavy blade before entering the old hangar. The presence of the other immortal was constant now. The tingle that had run up his spine the moment Daniel’d stepped out of his Valiant had transformed into a constant thrum. Daniel could feel the malignancy of the buzz, the anger and youth of the man who’d set this challenge.

Daniel kept his eyes moving, watching the entrances, peeking around the decrepit planes, and checking out the broken windows near the hangar’s ceiling. He’d already switched his personal shield to emergency mode only—to be activated only if his opponent were to cheat. It irked his conscience slightly to use it, but there was simply too much at stake for him to risk losing his head to some dishonorable headhunter now.

No sooner did Daniel conclude the thought than the flash of metal and a wave of a long raincoat caught his eye. Daniel turned to face his opponent, dividing his attention between studying the hothead and surveying the large room. Daniel didn’t need to look at his challenger’s face. He’d gotten enough pictures of him when he realized the young immortal—a baby really, barely two hundred years old—was after his head. Daniel hadn’t taken the challenger seriously, and he should have, because now he had so much more to worry about than himself.

“Where is she?” Daniel asked when no one else emerged.

The youth looked to be about 45, light brown hair turning gray at the temples, wrinkles at his mouth and around his eyes seeming to indicate that he’d frowned more often than smiled in his first life. “She’s around,” he declared in the long vowels of his early UP accent, waving his sword to accentuate the many possibilities.

“Show her to me, or I walk away,” Daniel demanded.

“Still don’t want to fight for the honor of your woman?” Murphy taunted, his jaw stiff. “Maybe I should have taken the boy instead.” He lifted his chin, his voice not quite even, not quite committed to his words.

Still, Daniel blinked, “The boy?” he paused, revealing the fault line in his concentration.

The challenger’s shoulders expanded, a slight preview to how he might start the swing of his blade. “The one you show such interest in.” He tilted his head with exaggerated bravado as if to hide the emptiness of his threat. “I couldn’t figure out why he garners your attention, though,” Murphy revealed an honest curiosity. “He’s not one of us.”

Daniel narrowed his gaze, forcing his attention back to the fight. “There is so much more to this life than the Game.” His words were more for the benefit of the Watcher present than the immortal about to die, but it was, of course, Murphy who answered:

“Not for us.” Murphy shook his head and there was something like sadness in that statement until the young immortal squinted sharp brown eyes at him and added, “And certainly not for you.”

“Mmm-mmph!” the muffled sound of a feminine cry resounded through the hangar and Daniel’s eyes shot upward behind his opponent’s shoulder to find the source. He took two more steps forward and finally saw her—mud matted at her hairline, eye blackened, and clothes dirtied and ripped. At least there was no blood. She was tied to a chair and surrounded by a collection of glass—what looked like windows and crystals—beside and above her.

“Mary,” his lips tightened around her name as he eyed her fragile prison: A quickening in any sort of proximity to her would kill her. His eyes narrowed at the young immortal, reassessing the level of threat. “You bastard!” he hissed.

“I gave you the option of a fight yesterday, Samuel,” the challenger dropped his raincoat to the floor and started a wide circle towards Daniel’s position, “but you didn’t seem sufficiently motivated to accept.” The words were wooden, uncomfortable…almost scripted.

Daniel shook his head, denying his opponent’s stance. “No Murphy,” he shifted his sword as he removed his long jacket. “Yesterday I gave you the option to walk away. Today I’m not feeling so generous.”

“Don’t try to threaten me. This isn’t a game that the young can win.”

Daniel chuffed humorlessly. “On that,” he brought the broadsword up to point towards his opponent, “we completely agree.”

Murphy’s eyes flared in the moment before Daniel attacked. The young immortal angled his blade to halt the blow, but Daniel’s broadsword remained in motion, sliding down quickly to cut into Murphy’s sword arm before shooting back up to balance the strike. Murphy tried to back away—he wasn’t talented enough to maneuver his blade in such close proximity—but Daniel didn’t allow his opponent the space. Daniel pushed him backward, using deft blows to cut into Murphy’s arms, his sides, his legs, never permitting the young one to get in a single offensive move. Daniel didn’t usually toy with his prey, but he was flexible enough to make exceptions when warranted. He watched Murphy tire, watched his skills regress with every cut made and every blow barely met.

“Why is it the young ones are never thorough in their research?” Daniel posed rhetorically while Murphy’s sword barely blocked his latest charge, the young immortal’s back literally to the hangar wall.

“Please,” Murphy whimpered as his muscles strained from the effort of trying to meet the force of Daniel’s strike.

“Did Mary say that to you?” Daniel demanded. “Did she beg you please not to hurt her when you kidnapped her?” He didn’t wait for an answer, instead capturing the young immortal’s wrist, causing him to drop the handle of his blade. Then Daniel plunged his broadsword upward under the rib and into the other man’s heart. He watched death slacken Murphy’s features. He left the sword in his opponent’s chest, so he wouldn’t awaken too early, because although the younger ones usually took more time to heal, there were always exceptions. Then he turned to face Mary.

Even her swollen eye seemed wide in fright and disbelief. When he took a step for her, she struggled in her bonds as if seeing only the killer that had emerged from Daniel rather than the man she’d known for nine years. Daniel approached her slowly but steadily, whispering comforts in soft tones.

“It’s OK. It’s OK, Mary.” He shifted the large, framed window from its position in front of her, resting it against the hull of a biplane so it wouldn’t shatter and frighten his friend any further. “It’s me. It’s Samuel.” He knelt in front of her and worked her bonds loose with his hands rather than remove the small knife from its place at his right hip. “You’re safe now.” He freed her mouth, noted the bruise that had been hidden beneath the gag. “No one’s going to hurt you, now.” He freed her hands, and she shook off the ropes as soon as she had room to maneuver. “Everything’s going to be alright. I promise.” He freed her feet, and she stood shakily.

“You killed that man, Samuel,” she accused, gaze unfocused, feet unsteady beneath her. “You killed him,” she shook her head, wounded mouth twisting, “with a sword.”

“I know,” he couldn’t deny her claim, couldn’t admit the lack of permanence in the young one’s death, without admitting to so much more. “He didn’t give me a choice.”

“With a sword, Samuel,” she repeated.

“I did what I had to.” He wrapped an arm around her to lead her to the door. To his relief, she leaned into him.

“They were going to kill me,” she continued, stiffening in a way that had nothing to do with Daniel.

“Mary,” he jostled her shoulder, “just stay with me a little longer. You’re going into shock.”

“Shock?”

“Yes, you’ve seen it before a hundred times, remember?” he prodded. “There was that time Mrs. Donnelly witnessed the Henderson’s car wreck, and she got whiter than Ellen Henderson who’d lost almost a liter of blood.”

Stiffly, Mary nodded. “You worked your magic for Ellen that day.”

“Yeah,” Daniel’s tone flattened with unspoken irony, “I just waited until all of you were out of the room, and I waved my wand.”

Mary chuckled, and Daniel sighed with relief. He’d been debating beaming them aboard the Homer if Mary didn’t start responding, but that meant using neural technology on the Watcher to keep him or her from remembering, which was always risky. Again, he exhaled heavily and briefly tightened his arm about Mary’s shoulders. “Everything’s going to be OK,” he repeated the phrase for himself this time.

“Oh, your coat!” Mary exclaimed and scurried towards it.

“I’ll get another.” He reached a hand out to invite her back to him. “Let’s just go.” He’d barely finished saying the words when both a sharp ‘bang’ and a spider web of pain resounded in his head at once. He just had time to register that he’d been shot before he died.

S
G
1

It was only through years of practicing—literally years, over and over—that Daniel managed not to gasp as he revived.

“Then you tell me what it means, Henry.” The woman’s demand was the first thing Daniel heard.

“I don’t know, Gwyneth,” Murphy returned. “I’m over two hundred years old, and I’ve never even heard of anything like it.” The voices were close to Daniel, but apparently the young immortal was not so close that he could catch Daniel’s buzz, muted as it was by the protection of the energy field surrounding him.

‘They were going to kill me.’ Mary’s disbelieving words repeated in Daniel’s head suddenly. ‘They,’ not ‘he.’ Why the hell hadn’t he been listening more carefully?

“Could this be Holy Ground?” the woman asked. She must have been the young immortal’s Watcher. “Perhaps that’s why—”

“No, no. It doesn’t work that way,” Murphy insisted, and Daniel could hear him start to pace. “Holy Ground has its own feeling. Different places can feel different from one another, but I would know if this land had ever been blessed.” The words again emphasized the youth of the other immortal, and Daniel’s mind stuttered briefly on the young one’s attempts at brutality mixed with his naïveté. “Whatever the reason is,” Murphy muffled his words with what sounded like a nervous hand at his mouth, “we can’t kill him unless we can find a way around it.”

“Well, we need to figure out something before he wakes,” the woman asserted in a way that had Daniel nervous for Mary. Was his friend safe? He needed to know.

Opening his eyes just a slit as Murphy and his Watcher argued, Daniel almost immediately caught sight of the woman who’d shot him. She was the perfect sort of Watcher: short in stature and just barely thick about the middle, her hair a nondescript brown. Most immortal eyes would skim over her form without truly seeing her.

Murphy waved his arms suddenly, quickly drawing Daniel’s attention. “You shot him in the head. You’re the one who told me that all the records say that any injures above the shoulders take longer to heal,” the young immortal accused her. His tone became uneven. Her words, though, remained calm:

“And I also told you that we’ve documented the fact that the older an immortal is, the less time he needs to overcome his injuries. If he’s one of the Old Ones—”

“What, you think this is Methos?” the challenger guffawed. “Hardly.”

“The way he fought, Henry— ” Daniel saw her shake her head. “He could be.”

Murphy shook his head in disbelief, but then his features pinched. He tightened his grip on his sword, his wrist twitching in aftershock of the fight. The young one bit his lip. “Right.”

The squabble continued, and Daniel listened for softer sounds beneath it. Mary wasn’t anywhere in Daniel’s view, so he had to locate her by sound alone. He tried narrowing his focus, concentrating completely on the sounds around him. At first, he couldn’t catch a wisp of her, not the rustling of her clothing or a heavy hitch of breath. Then at once, there was a shift—leather on pavement—and then a sniff—quick and uneven. She was awake.

She was close to her captors. Another slight scratch of a rubber sole on concrete and he confirmed her location on the floor just below the bickering voices. His heart eased at the realization: He’d only have to make one lunge then to protect her. He flexed the muscles in his legs, the motion nearly invisible beneath his thick corduroy pants. He opened his eyes a little wider then relaxed into his quickening, letting it flow throughout his body.

Murphy fumbled with his sword, strangling his grip as the sensation resonated between them. A startled half second and the young immortal charged Daniel, probably in the hope of catching him off guard. Daniel easily rolled past the challenger, heading straight to Mary. He held out his arm and pushed her behind him. He regretted almost immediately that he didn’t activate his transporter and send them both to the Homer, but of the secrets that could have been spilled in that moment, it was better that Mary fully know of his immortality than the Watchers know about his technology.

With Mary safely behind him, Daniel yanked Murphy’s Watcher to him. He twisted her hand behind her back, causing her fingers to straighten with pain and her gun to fall to his other hand. Immediately he trained the gun just above and beyond the Watcher’s shoulder at Murphy. The young immortal paused at the sight of the weapon aimed directly at his neck, apparently considering the potential in rushing for it.

“Go ahead,” Daniel urged him. “I’m a terrific shot, learned from the best.” He didn’t take his eyes off Murphy, but Daniel still managed to locate his sword via his periphery vision. “I’ll have your quickening with the pull of a trigger rather than the swipe of a sword.”

Murphy narrowed his eyes, his chest heaving in the first sparks of panic. “That’s not possible.” He shook his head.

“It is,” Daniel countered, measuring the young one’s response with his eyes, while he considered the Watcher via his other senses. “You don’t need to remove your opponent’s head completely to release his quickening.” He listened for Mary behind him. Satisfied that she wasn’t in immediate danger, he forced his hostage forward one step, then another, and another, getting closer to his sword and farther from Mary. Murphy backed up as Daniel got closer to him. “All you have to do,” Daniel tutored, “is sever his spinal cord and destroy his carotid artery. All I have to do,” he dramatically cocked the gun, “is pull the trigger one time.”

Murphy’s lip began to quiver, “But the Game...” He swallowed hard. “The Game is with swords.”

“The Game is older than swords, older than any sword made on this planet.” Daniel’s voice was hard—much harder than Murphy had been able to pull off earlier. “We don’t need swords to kill each other.”

The challenger bit his lip—hard. He nodded almost imperceptibly. Finally, chest heaving, Murphy tilted his chin to the Watcher and confessed: “I forced the woman into this.” He blinked rapidly and released his sword to the ground, watching it go, then kicking it away for good measure.

“You’re lying.” Daniel spoke evenly, but he was intrigued by the shift in his challenger’s actions. “You plotted together,” he continued just to see where Murphy would go.

“No!” Murphy shook his head almost spastically. “It’s true! She didn’t want any part of it, but I threatened her life.” He lifted his hands away from his body in surrender. “It was me. Just me.”

“Henry,” the Watcher whispered, her breath hitching as she held back a sob.

“She belongs to a group of mortals that watch us, our kind,” he clarified. “She’s useful.” Murphy cleared his throat. “She would be useful to you.” His voice held a special kind of pleading when he looked between Daniel and the Watcher.

“Samuel,” Mary spoke up behind him, “I’m OK. And, and…” she cleared her throat and Daniel could almost see the consternation on her face, “and so are you.” Mary’s words were a statement, but her purpose held a quiet request for clemency. Despite their years of close acquaintance and even closer friendship, such quiet statements were still the only way Mary ever really asked anything of him.

Daniel released the Watcher. She immediately rushed over to Murphy, who tried to shrug her off.

“Go woman!” Murphy bellowed, using one elbow to push her away but keeping his hands clearly visible to prove his surrender.

“I won’t,” she argued and grabbed onto him. “I won’t leave you.”

“Go, you stupid woman!” His venomous words were caught out by the tears he barely kept between his eyelids. “I’ve never met anyone in my life as gullible as you are.” His voice broke, and then he couldn’t even look at her anymore. “It sickens me!”

“It’s terrifying isn’t it?” Daniel asked so calmly and so softly that he immediately silenced the others in the room. “The Gathering? The Game?” He lowered the pistol just a touch. “So frightening that you’d do almost anything to stave it off.”

“Yes!” Murphy jumped on it, straightening his posture and finally shrugging off his partner’s grip. “I would. I did. Me. Just me,” he repeated frantically.

“There are other things in life besides the Game,” Daniel told his challenger once more—silencing him. “But then you knew that,” he finished, eyes on the Watcher. “Still,” Daniel exhaled heavily and lowered the gun to his side, “I can show you more.”

“No.” Mary shook her head quietly, responding to Daniel’s query. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand.” She swiped her hand across the faux leather of his couch—the couch she sat on in his living room as it, and the rest of his ship, orbited the earth.

He continued to watch her for a moment before he turned around to look out his window. They were rounding Australia again. Mary had watched the first six rotations of the globe in silence as she listened to Daniel’s explanation. Then she sat on his couch to listen to the rest. She’d barely looked at him through the whole account, and but for the first thirty seconds directly afterward, he’d not seen her eyes at all once he removed his Mirage Device and reverted back to his true appearance. He wished for some indication from her—condemnation or acceptance. He’d never told anybody everything before. He hadn’t realized quite how long it would take—or quite how much it would take out of him.

“Are you—” Mary began so hesitantly that Daniel knew she’d been working up the nerve to ask. “Are you human?”

Daniel exhaled in near-humor at the question. He stalled his response, raising his hand so his fingertips just grazed the forcefield that protected them from the vacuum of space. He’d built that layer of protection. He’d used Ancient designs to develop the technology, but it was ultimately created by his hands, his mind. Would he have accomplished that feat if he’d been a regular man? Of course not. But did that mean he wasn’t human at all? “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. He shook his head and lowered his arm. “I just don’t know.”

He heard her rise behind him, shuffle four steps forward. “You offered to be that other man's,” she paused and corrected herself, “that other immortal’s teacher.”

“Yes.” He nodded, twisting his neck to the side. His gaze caught on his latest translation project—a small pyramid that projected the Last Treaty of the Four Races on its every surface. He couldn’t look any farther knowing her eyes were on him now. He suddenly wasn’t ready for that judgment.

“He was going to kill you.” Her voice was as even as it ever was in the operating room.

“Yes.” The word was short.

She took another step closer to him. “And he would have killed me, too, just for being close to you.”

“He won’t go unpunished,” Daniel promised her, but for all his words, he didn’t know how to explain his decision—his confidence that Murphy could be saved. “His Watcher won’t go unpunished either,” he continued. Daniel shook his head, offering the most perfect explanation possible—a reasoning she’d probably never understand: “They just didn’t understand how to survive in the Game.”

Daniel shrugged. Then he made the mistake of looking at Mary, just for a split second. He’d been so close to her for nearly a decade—in her life and in her mind and in her bed. He knew her face. Moreover, he knew the expression she wore. When he looked back out the window, he crossed his arms against his stomach—an old defensive posture he could never quiet get rid of. “And now with the device I inserted beneath your collarbone,” he continued as if he hadn’t faltered at all, “it’s impossible for anyone to use you against me again. I can protect Mark and Heidi and the kids in the same way if you want me to.” Daniel probably should have given them all tracking devices ages ago, anyway. It was the best protection he could afford them given the danger of his company. But it had felt wrong to perform the slight operation without consent. And yet—his conscious pricked him—and yet Daniel had made the choice for Jack and his parents, and that didn’t feel presumptuous at all.

She shuffled her feet behind him without moving closer or farther from his position. They stood apart in silence for long minutes while she considered and he waited. When Mary finally spoke, her words were stilted. “I thought…I thought maybe we would grow old together.” It was so quiet in the room he could hear her lick her lips. “Actually,” she paused, her voice becoming thicker, “I thought we already were,” she exhaled heavily, and he could hear her struggle to keep any inflection from her tone. “And I’d never,” a sharp breath, a short pause and then her voice was even again, “I’d never even seen your face.”

“Mary.” He shook his head, unable to turn and face her tears, or more to the point, the decision they represented.

“I value your friendship and your protection and your trust,” she declared decisively. “I always will. Murray Samuel was one of the most wonderful people I’d ever met in my life, and I hope you can live up to him, Daniel Jackson.”

Startled, Daniel whirled upon hearing his name. Mary’s cheeks were blotchy, but without any visible wetness. When he looked closely, Daniel saw acceptance in her red rimmed eyes, maybe even forgiveness, but he also saw a wounded distance in the way she looked at him. He nodded his understanding. “I hope I can live up to it, too,” he confided.

She let him hold her hand when he beamed them back into her kitchen. She squeezed his fingers when he left. It was her way of saying goodbye.

TBC…

Chapter 5

Immortal Like the Gods Chapter 3

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 05:11:17 GMT

Title: Immortal Like the Gods
Author: Choosing Sarah
Spoilers: Through Moebius Part 2 (Season 8)
Category: Crossover with Highlander and (a little) Stargate: Atlantis. Character focus is (almost) exclusively from the Stargate universe, but concepts (immortality, the Game) from Highlander show up. Daniel-centric.
Timeframe: Begins in Ancient Egypt between Season 8 Moebius Parts 1 & 2
Warnings: Canon character death
Rating: T for violent images
Summary: Crossover with Highlander. Back in Ancient Egypt in Moebius Part 2, we learn that everyone but Daniel had been killed in an uprising against Ra. What if Daniel had been killed, too? Only Daniel woke up…Immortal.
Disclaimer: Not mine. No infringement is intended and no profit is made, but might I be so bold as to point out that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?
Word Count: 10,000+
Story Status: WIP

The Complete Stories Index

Immortal Like the Gods Story Index

Chapter 2

Chapter 3 What the Right Hand Is Doing

1952

Daniel drove into his neighborhood slowly two nights later. It wasn’t his first night back to the two story Victorian on Hollander Street since Jack had been born—he’d returned the previous evening to avoid arousing suspicion in his interest in the O’Neills. Tonight, though, he would actually go home.

He quietly shut the car door and walked up the narrow path, straightening a small gnome-like statue while he surreptitiously looked and listened…and felt. An economy of movements opened the front door, locked it behind him, and checked the log of his home security system. He activated the more advanced warning systems, not so much as a means of direct protection, but as an early alert. He turned on the lights, setting them to a timer: It would be suspicious if they stayed on the whole night, and he wouldn’t be there to turn them off—he wasn’t staying.

Daniel made his way to the basement door and down the steps. Once ensconced in the windowless room, he activated the beam. The periphery of his vision caught the bright flash, and when he looked around again, he was aboard his ship.

He exhaled heavily. “It’s good to be home.” Immediately Daniel removed the small device on his chest that masked his appearance and made him look to have darker hair, a broader forehead, and squarer jaw. Construction and programming of the Mirage Devices were far easier and more efficient than using hair dye and costumes, especially considering he had the Watchers and other Immortals to be wary of.

That done, Daniel went to primary ship’s computer to check on the lifesigns instruments he’d placed subcutaneously on each of the three O’Neills. The panel lit up green. He nodded and checked to see if the data feed was coming in the same in his wristwatch. When he saw that it was, he exited the control room for his main living quarters.

The ship was almost as big as Prometheus had been, or rather, almost as big as it would be. Once Daniel might have blanched at the idea of such a large space for one person, especially as most of it was used for some manner of storage, but as he couldn’t know how much he might have affected the timeline in the 5,000 years since he’d traveled back to Ancient Egypt with SG-1, the ship was necessary should circumstances require him to protect Earth—at least until they found the Ancient outpost in Antarctica again, but that wouldn’t be for another fifty years.

Daniel peeked into what served as his refrigerator and dug out a beer. He tore off the latest computer readouts on universal activity most likely to affect Earth or Abydos or any of the other of Daniel’s concerns. The substations he used to relay the data were mostly Asgard because maintaining his own system of satellites was ridiculously time intensive. Still, there were some areas that Daniel took pains to monitor himself—such as Atlantis. The Ancients never told their allies where they’d taken their lost city when they’d removed it from Earth, and, for reasons he couldn’t name, Daniel was wary of informing anyone—even the Asgard—of its location.

As a result, he hadn’t been to Pegasus in over a thousand years, not since the Asgard developed the capability to trace an energy signal through hyperspace. Of course, he didn’t particularly want to revisit the Wraith either.

Daniel slid onto his couch, readouts of local galactic activity in hand. While it was more efficient to simply read the computer screen, it didn’t take much more energy to print and recycle the paper, and Daniel much preferred the tangible feel of parchment under his fingers as he read rather than to simply interpret the ephemeral shapes of light that his modified Asgard computer offered.

Ignoring the printed paper in his hand for another moment, Daniel glanced around the room. It was the most earth-like section on his ship, but even his living quarters reflected the overall design of his craft—a mélange of Asgard, Ancient, Goa’uld, and other miscellaneous technologies. Daniel even would’ve incorporated Wraith systems into the fold—they were the most advanced in self-repair—had he not kept a hearty suspicion of their biotechnology. He’d had other ships, bought or bartered from other races, but this was the third incarnation of his own design. At 150 years old, his current vessel—Homer—was maybe a quarter through its lifetime.

While he modestly thought the ship to be of great design—as it should have been considering he’d been studying the various technologies for practically all of his life—he wondered what Sam might have done with it, how much more she would’ve improved his amalgamation.

His old friend was constantly on his mind of late. He wondered what she would’ve said of his actions two days ago. Would she have predicted the mistake he’d made? Might she have guessed that Mrs. O’Neill didn’t have any other children because she’d lost her ability to do so when Jack was born? Of course, even that supposition was conjecture at this point.

Daniel slammed his head back against the headrest. It was too soft to give even a satisfying noise so he threw his latest stack of readouts to the floor and tossed his beer bottle across the room. The bottle gave a little bang-crash as it hit the floor, but then the mechanical maid set to work and quickly removed all trace of it.

“Why the hell was it me?” He questioned for probably the millionth time without hyperbole. Why had he been the one, the only one, to wake up that day 5,000 years ago after Ra had killed them all?

Flashes of those days before it ended zipped through his mind—they’d always worked well together, had always been close, but once they had no support from Stargate Command, they’d moved as one body, became more than a family. And then his team was dead. Persuem’s training and then the first challenges he’d faced had kept him occupied for years afterward, stalling the shock.

It wasn’t until the alternate version of his team arrived in Ancient Egypt that Daniel truly allowed himself to contemplate the fact that they weren’t ever coming back. The differences between his friends and the strangers with their faces and quirks had only made the lesson all that much more painful. Still, Daniel had been sure he’d gotten that point, that there wasn’t ever any going back.

And yet, he’d come to Minnesota to wait for Jack to be born, to deliver him from his mother, and by doing so he may have irrevocably altered the timeline.

Daniel removed the glasses. He only wore them for show now anyway and for the extra data his modifications provided. He rubbed his eyes through his lids and shook his head. “Sam would’ve known better,” he reminded himself one last time. He would’ve left it at that if he could’ve, but the problem was, if he had changed the timeline, what should he do about it?

Daniel stood as he contemplated the problem. He bit his bottom lip, first one side of the fleshy protrusion, then the other. He paced between the coffee table and the couch. He’d been trying so hard not to be too blaring throughout history. He’d been so careful not to change much of anything, been so afraid that any differences would mean that his friends wouldn’t be born, that his culture wouldn’t develop, or worse: that events from the Alternate SG-1’s timeline would come to pass.

Daniel got off his sofa and ran to his office and to the files he’d compiled years ago, first on papyri and later transferred to crystals. He’d written every detail he’d ever remembered of his old life—every story from Jack, every regret from Sam, every wisdom from Teal’c—he wrote down everything he could remember once he realized it was starting to fade. He tended to read parts of the log every once in a while, sometimes every few years, sometimes not for centuries, but Daniel always returned to the memories of his first life.

He also had files of the Alternate SG-1’s lives, knowledge of their earth and their history, which was too disparate from his own timeline to merely be a product of Ra’s interference.

Daniel sat down and looked at his computer, at the file names marking the Other SG-1’s history, but he didn’t need to open a single document to remember when he knew the problems of their timeline were partly his fault…

2995 BCE

The alternate timeline’s Teal’c, though even more reticent to speak than Daniel’s own friend had been, was compelled to give an abbreviated history of the Goa’uld for the benefit of Samantha and the Other Jack. Naturally, after discussing his position as First Prime, he went on to speak of Apophis.

“Think Stalin and Hitler to the nth degree,” Daniel suggested to the alternate Sam and Jack, their confusion easily decipherable from across the fire around which the four of them sat outside Daniel’s mudbrick abode.

“Stalin?” Samantha asked, a wrinkled brow pushing her glasses farther along the bridge of her nose.

“Hitler?” the Other Jack shook his head, a more blank than usual expression coating his face like Vinyl-Shine.

Daniel squinted at them, his jaw shifting as he realized: “You really don’t know who they are do you?”

Daniel looked to the fire separating him and Teal’c from Samantha and the Other Jack. He didn’t need to see the duo to know they were shaking their heads at his query. “Hitler and Stalin were two of the most evil dictators of the twentieth century. Hitler was responsible for murdering 6 million Jews in the Holocaust as well as inciting a world war, while Stalin sent easily 30 million of his own people to die in Siberian gulags.”

“Gulag?” this Other Jack questioned, “You mean like in the War of Communist Expansion?”

“Excuse me?” Daniel’s eyes shot back up to watch the two alternate earthlings across the fire.

“The War of Communist Expansion.” Samantha nodded to accentuate Other Jack’s claim.

“I take it you didn’t have that in your timeline?” the Other Jack tucked his chin as he asked.

Daniel shook his head slowly and Samantha immediately took it upon herself to allay his confusion. “The conflict started in Korea in 1950 when the North Koreans invaded South Korea. The Soviets supported their venture and simultaneously invaded Turkey to gain direct access to the Mediterranean.”

“Then the fighting spread to Africa and Asia when the US and the Soviets took sides in local politics.” Other Jack picked up the narrative. “The fighting kept up for years. Neither side would back down. The US had better resources and more guns, but the USSR had more people and kept pulling men from their newly acquired areas to continue the war. Everyone wanted an end to the war by ’63, even the politicians, but the US knew we couldn’t march on Moscow, not with the number of Russians we’d have encountered.”

Samantha shook her head. “That’s when President McCarthy fired the nuclear warheads on the USSR.”

“President McCarthy?” Daniel nearly swallowed his tongue, barely noting Teal’c, still silent beside him, assimilating every parcel of knowledge regarding his new allies.

“We’re not going to get into an argument about whether or not they should’ve dropped the bomb on St. Petersburg, are we?” Other Jack directed to Samantha.

“It was a cultural city, not a base of military operations.”

“It was their biggest port, by neutralizing—”

“Neutralize nothing. The Soviets just fired their missiles back at us.”

“We had a nuclear war with Russia in your timeline?” Daniel barely choked out.

Jarred out of their argument, they looked at Daniel. “The War of Communist Expansion.” Samantha reiterated, and she and Other Jack nodded together.

“It’s what we’ve just been talking about for the past five minutes.” The former Colonel narrowed his eyes at Daniel.

“But I didn’t realize…a nuclear war,” he emphasized the method.

“We were actually very lucky they targeted New York and Washington,” Samantha continued matter-of-factly, lifting her hands parallel to the ground to illustrate. “The jet stream pushed the fallout towards the Atlantic, and our farm land remained viable west of the Appalachian Mountain Range. The Great Lakes were barely affected at all.”

“Wait, so that’s at least three nuclear bombs that went off in the same year?” Daniel looked from Samantha to Other Jack as he asked.

“Five,” the Other Jack corrected.

“Oh, five.” Daniel’s eyebrows rose. He cleared his throat. “I’m not an expert on the environmental sciences, but wouldn’t that cause a nuclear winter?”

“Not exactly.” Samantha began. “While the fallout from the nuclear bombs did cause the Long Winter, which lowered the average temperature around the globe by nearly two degrees for three years,” she peered over at Daniel, “It doesn’t seem like very much, but it’s actually very significant considering worldwide temperatures, and it lead to widespread famine through the early 1980s.” She continued with the primary situation when he urged her on with a rapid circular motion with his hand. “The governments of the US and USSR were able to use some sort of experimental scrubber to counter the radiological damage from the warheads. We’ve never been able to reproduce the effects in any of the tests thereafter, but we’ve kept trying.”

“Some people think the government got the nuke scrubbers from aliens.” Jack shrugged. “I never really believed that before, but hey.” He held out a flat palm pointed towards Teal’c, who said nothing but frowned more deeply.

“Well, I guess anything’s possible because we certainly don’t have that kind of technology where I come from.” Daniel sat back on his low mudbrick stool.

“Still, it’s hard to believe that aliens would bother to get involved in earth’s problems,” Other Jack said.

“I bet you’re one of those guys who believed it was the Fytro Mis.” Samantha guffawed as his Sam never would have.

“What?” Daniel whispered, recognizing the term immediately.

“Don’t tell me you don’t have legends where you come from?” Other Jack asked.

“Not that one.” Daniel shook his head, in shock.

Samantha and Other Jack glanced at one another for a brief moment before the former Colonel described, “There’s a legend about a warrior; it’s older than the Greeks. This guy, who’s invincible, would go to the leaders of the world’s nations and save them from some big catastrophe that’s about to occur. He’s lived for thousands of years, prevented wars, stopped famines, you name it. He’s like a god to some people.”

“And like the Devil to others,” Samantha countered.

“Like the Devil?” Daniel echoed. “Why?”

Samantha lifted a shoulder, let it fall lax. “For interfering too much or too little. Supposedly he knows the future,” she shook her head as if the idea were ludicrous to her even though she was sitting in Ancient Egypt, “and he has the power to change it, but he still lets things like the Black Death and the War of Communist Expansion to occur.”

“And he’s called the Fytro Mis?” Daniel interrupted.

Samantha raised her hands, palms up. “Whatever that’s supposed to mean. The word’s so old no one knows where it comes from, let alone its translation.”

“It’s Ancient Egyptian.” Daniel stood. “A Fytro Mis is a man without family. It’s what the local population would call each of us. It’s what they call me,” he finished before he walked away.

1952

Daniel blinked back into the moment, leaning more comfortably into his chair. He studied the blank computer screen in front of him while pondering questions he’d always been afraid of voicing. He’d been so careful throughout history, wanting so badly to interfere but not daring to chance making it worse.

But what if he were being unnecessarily cautious?

He looked to his wristwatch, to the lifesigns gleaming green across the board for the O’Neill family. He thought of Jack, at once charming and funny as well as caustic and bitter. Who would his friend have been if he hadn’t lost Charlie? With Daniel there to guide Jack, getting into the Stargate Program and the event of his son’s death would no longer be a package deal.

Daniel bit his lip, his heart beating faster while he tried not to move and spoil the thought: At this late date, Sam and the successor Daniel were the only ones yet to be born. Surely he couldn’t do anything that would jeopardize that now? He just had to stay away from Sam’s family for a little while longer, just until she was conceived, and Daniel didn’t even know where he’d come from; his parents had never indicated that he’d been adopted, but now he could wait for the other ‘him’ to come around. Maybe Daniel could even see where he came from, who his people were.

He could learn so much about himself, about immortals, if he could only observe his parents and the surrounding area where he’d been born. Maybe history wouldn’t be altered too severely if he made a few changes. He could intervene so that his successor wouldn’t lose his parents the way Daniel had. And if that worked, then he could do things for Sam and Jack and Teal’c. There would be some lines he couldn’t cross, some things that formed them too significantly, cut them deeply for him to change, but other events…why not?

Daniel reached out his hand, activating the computer screen with a touch. He could do something more useful with these memories he’d carefully written and rewritten, recounted and kept alive for so long. He could forge a new future—a better one this time—and he could use all of the information of the way the world was in his timeline, in the alternate timeline, to his advantage.

He tamped down the idea that another him might have had these same thoughts, might have changed history in the alternate SG-1’s timeline, might have really been the legendary Fytro Mis. Even if that myth were true, if an alternate Daniel had lived that long, he had enough data that he wouldn’t make the same mistakes.

He steeled himself as he opened the files on his old life. Another Daniel would be born in thirteen years. He’d have to plan carefully in order to observe without interfering. He’d certainly have to plan out his actions better than he did coming to Minnesota to see Jack back into the world. Daniel had someplace to be in July 1965, but until then, he would watch over Jack and plan for the future.

TBC...

Chapter 4a

Immortal Like the Gods Chapter 2

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 05:03:53 GMT

The Complete Stories Index

Immortal Like the Gods Story Index

Chapter 1

Chapter 2 Welcome Back Jack

1952

He had tried to stay away. Then he’d tried to keep his observations only from afar. But in the end, Daniel Jackson ended up exactly where he knew he would on October 20, 1952—McGinnius Memorial Hospital in Clarksville, Minnesota. The only real surprise was that he’d lasted long enough in the Game to be able to stand in the town hospital waiting for Jack O’Neill to be born again.

The credentials he’d procured for this task were somewhat laughable compared to those necessary in the world he’d left behind when he and the rest of SG-1 had traveled back in time to Ancient Egypt. But he kept the fake driver’s license with its caduceus printed on the back carefully tucked into his wallet and securely folded into the front pocket of his slacks. The printed piece of paper was official even if the name on it wasn’t. He doubted anyone would bother to try to find out though—small towns like this needed all the doctors they could scrounge. And today, and maybe even for the next few years, Daniel Jackson aka Murray Samuel was a medical doctor, specialty in obstetrics and gynecology.

“Dr. Samuel! Dr. Samuel!” A pleasantly plump brunette called for his attention.

“Yes, Rose?” he answered carefully, painfully aware that they were alone in the hospital break room at ten at night and that Rose wanted a successful husband more than she wanted anything except perhaps her next breath.

“It’s Mrs. O’Neill, doctor.” The often overly excited nurse proclaimed.

“What about her?” Daniel adjusted his glasses and narrowed his focus.

“She’s in a lot more pain than she was five minutes ago. I don’t know what’s wrong, but Nurse McDonald said to find you immediately.”

Daniel ran down the hall and then down the flight of stairs. Mary McDonald had 25 years of nursing under her belt if she had a day. Daniel trusted her diagnoses much more than that of most of the doctors of the era.

Captain O’Neill (retired) jumped up on his one good leg when he saw Daniel bounce out of the stairwell. “Doc you’ve got to do something,” he pleaded and moved down the hallway to catch up with Daniel’s pace. “She’s been screaming something awful and that featherbrained Dawson girl ran out in a panic—”

“It’ll be alright,” Daniel promised just before he got to Catherine O’Neill’s door. The constant moaning and crying would have led him to the right place even if he hadn’t memorized the exact number of steps to this room. “I give you my word that she and your son will survive.” Daniel pushed into the small quarters and firmly shut the door behind him.

Mary McDonald looked up in relief at his entrance. “Dr. Samuel,” she exhaled and shifted from her position between Mrs. O’Neill’s open legs. “I didn’t have any choice.” Her hands were covered in blood above the boundary of the small plastic gloves she wore. “The baby’s coming now. It’s coming too fast,” she finished more softly.

Daniel nodded and grabbed his own gloves, along with the special stethoscope he kept around his neck. He’d built Ancient technology into it ages ago, but he’d only inserted the necessary medicines for a complicated childbirth last night. He hadn’t known what to expect from Jack’s long ago comment that he’d been difficult right from the start, so he’d included just about everything for every contingency he’d known.

“Stay there,” he told Mary before she could move. Then he placed the flat piece of the stethoscope on Mrs. O’Neill’s bare belly. The modified device picked up the distress of the baby’s heartbeat while it dispensed fast-acting painkillers and muscle relaxants into his mother. Daniel felt around the distended skin, his eyes fixed below her belly button, his glasses and their own modifications measuring the data from circumstances no one else could possibly see. He smiled. “Everything’s going to be fine, Mrs. O’Neill.” He set his eyes on hers. “Your son’s just a little impatient today. I need you to take a few deep breaths, and then you’re going to push.”

“Ohh,” Catherine O’Neill exhaled and eased back against the pillows on her hospital bed. “How did you do that?” she asked breathlessly, and he knew the pain had lessened. Daniel couldn’t remove all of the pain of the proceedings without garnering suspicion, so the medicines mostly just disconnected Catherine’s nerve endings from registering the sensations as pain.

“Magic.” Daniel winked at her. “OK, Mary.” Daniel pulled his watch a little higher above his wrist and gestured for Mary to make room for him at the foot of the bed. The nurse immediately complied. “Why don’t you switch out your gloves and help to support Mrs. O’Neill’s back?”

Mary furrowed her brow, but again followed his direction. Daniel gratefully accepted the compliment and set to work. “There’s no time for the delivery room, Mrs. O’Neill,” Daniel addressed Jack’s mother. “So this is what we’re going to do: You’re going to take three deep breaths, and, when you exhale the third one, you’re going to push. Mary’s going to help you with the back labor, and I’ll be right here to walk you through. Alright?”

Both Catherine O’Neill and Mary nodded at him. The labor moved fairly easily from that point. Unnamed, little Jack O’Neill entered the world at 10:37 that evening. Daniel quickly checked the readings on his watch for an advanced APGAR, then let the face turn back to its regular appearance of hands and numbering.

“Hey,” Daniel let his finger slide down baby Jack’s cheek. “Welcome back.” Daniel bit his lip and forced himself to look away, up to Catherine and Mary’s expectant faces. “Congratulations Mrs. O’Neill. You have a son.”

Catherine’s eyes closed with a keening sob. “Thank you. Thank you,” she whispered, and Daniel knew the gratitude was only partially for him.

Mary moved to the foot of the bed to help him tie off and cut the umbilical cord. Then, much to Mary’s surprise, Daniel handed Jack to Mrs. O’Neill, still bloody and naked. “Let him rest against your skin. He probably won’t want to nurse yet, but you can try. Mary?” He turned to the other woman and eyed the space she’d occupied during the birth. She immediately retook it, and Daniel delivered the afterbirth.

“My husband?” Mrs. O’Neill questioned as Daniel changed gloves.

“Why don’t we clean the baby off first?” Mary suggested, and Daniel yielded to her sense of propriety.

Mary looked at him oddly when Daniel moved closer to the child—closer to Jack—to help her clean him, but she said nothing of it. With the task completed, Daniel rechecked Catherine’s status, slipped off his gloves, and exited the room.

Captain O’Neill nearly paced right by him when he opened the door. “Doc?” Jack’s father walked up to him, his limp much more pronounced than it had been when they’d arrived late that morning.

Daniel smiled. “Mother and son are fine. Both came through the birth terrifically.”

“Thank you, doc. Thank you!” Captain O’Neill pumped his hand fervidly. “So it is a boy; your guess was right. Can I go in?” His eyes flipped between Daniel and the door.

“Absolutely.” Daniel stepped out of his way. He watched Jack’s father reopen the door and close it behind him, shutting Daniel out.

Daniel breathed deeply, walked down the hall to the nearest chair in the open waiting room Jack’s father had earlier eschewed. He banged his head against the solid wall behind him. He did it again; it wasn’t as if it could do him any harm. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut against the unmerited disappointment coursing through him. “What the hell did you expect?” he blasted himself, “For a baby to get up and say ‘what the hell have you been doing, Daniel?’”

“Dr. Samuel?” Mary’s voice pushed through his privacy, high on its inflection.

“Yes, Mary,” he answered and immediately distracted himself with the oddities of polite social interaction that would permit him to use the given name of a woman not much older than him in appearance, but wouldn’t allow her the same due to their respective ranks.

“Captain O’Neill has asked about staying the night, I know the hospital policy would normally—”

“No, I think it’s a good idea,” Daniel interrupted, “I’ve never understood why we wouldn’t want the loved ones of an ill or injured family member to help us keep an eye on their progress.”

Mary grinned at him. “I’ll let him know he can stay.” She paused in the door when she might’ve left.

“Was there something else?”

“I thought we were going to lose the baby,” she whispered, “Or Catherine.”

“I’m glad we didn’t.”

“So am I.” She shifted on her feet. “But I’m also surprised.”

“Surprised?” Daniel’s eyebrows rose.

Mary nodded. “Until you got there, the birth was very difficult, but after you arrived, it went more smoothly than most. I was certain that if she didn’t lose this child she’d lose all the others.”

“Others?” Daniel stood. “What do you mean?”

“All the others that might have been born,” she clarified. “I was concerned this birth would prevent her from having other children in the future. And then you came in the room, and calm came with you.” She chuckled.

Daniel cleared his throat, looked away. He put a hand to his mouth and shut his eyes. Jack had never had any siblings. Was that why? Was his mother incapable of carrying any more children after him? He shook his head, a denial, but nonetheless, the part of Sam Carter he carried with him reminded him of the problems of tampering with the timeline. “I couldn’t have affected events that much, though,” he said it to himself or maybe to his Sam, long dead, but Mary answered his doubt.

“I don’t know what you did, but I’ve never seen anything like it. She was in distress, and then she wasn’t.”

“Umm…” Too late, Daniel sees the potential problem of Mary having been in the room during the birth. If only it had been Rose, who was always preoccupied with her number one goal in life. She never would have questioned anything he did, and where the hell was that girl now? “Mrs. O’Neill was the one that did all the work. And you did a spectacular job as well, Mary. All I did was catch.” He chuckled in the hopes that she would follow.

She shook her head, her eyes still on him, trapping him. “You’ve been at McGinnius Memorial for months, Dr. Samuel, and I’ve seen you do many things.” The statement was leading, but she stopped there and changed the subject. “My son is in Korea. His wife, my daughter-in-law, is pregnant, due in four months. She’s had one miscarriage, one stillborn. And you…” Mary lifted one hand to her neck, drawing Daniel’s eye to the gold cross as she twiddled it between her fingers.

Daniel shook his head, the inference too close to his memories of the Goa’uld. “Mary, I—”

“I don’t need to know how or why,” she interrupted, “But if I bring my daughter-in-law here, would you take care of her?”

Daniel licked his bottom lip, held his jaw stiff. “Of course.” There was no other answer.

She let go of a deep breath. “Thank you, Dr. Samuel. You’ll have my gratitude. If you ever need anything…” She bit her lip as if pondering her word choice. “I’m a very quiet person. I’m known for keeping to myself.”

And with that, it appeared that Mary McDonald had promised him not only a favor but also her discretion.

“Thank you, Mary. I’ll keep that in mind.” And he would: In the last 5,000 years, Daniel Jackson had learned to take every advantage he could. “Why don’t we interrupt the new family to check on Mrs. O’Neill’s blood pressure?” Daniel adjusted his stethoscope around his neck, and Mary’s eye lingered on the device for a bare second longer than she might have before.

“Yes, doctor,” she acknowledged. Then she just turned and led the way.

TBC...

Chapter 3

Immortal Like the Gods Chapter 1

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 04:55:51 GMT

The Complete Stories Index

Immortal Like the Gods Story Index

Chapter 1

3000 BCE (Give or take)

The first thing he felt when he woke was the burning heat of the hard sand beneath him. Instead of shying away from the discomfort on his skin, Daniel Jackson rubbed against it, reveling in the slight pain as it rolled in waves along the length of his body. He was alive.

He lifted his face from the ground and wiped the sand away from it, gasping for breath so suddenly and violently, it was as if his lungs had been completely devoid of air. The sun beat down on his body through the thickness of his robes. He looked around automatically as he sat up, trying to catch a glimpse of Sam or Jack or Teal’c. At least one of them had to have survived the interrogation in order to save him. Daniel spied an extinguished campfire and unfamiliar purse beside it. He reached for it, unbearably ravenous, and unable to remember when he last ate.

Before he could open the flap, a sensation, not quite a pain, started in his head, moved throughout his body, like pins and needles as a part of you just wakes up.

“Hello Dan’yel.” A short man with dark hair and high cheekbones greeted him.

“Persuem?” Daniel barely recalled his name, in truth he barely knew the man, who always looked more Asian than Egyptian. He tended to follow Daniel around, and Jack not quite jokingly called him Daniel’s stalker, sure that the man had designs on Daniel’s person. Daniel agreed there was something odd about him, but he never felt Persuem was attracted to him or that he was a threat in any way. In fact, Persuem often went out of his way to protect Daniel from the Jaffa and especially from Ra and the other Goa’uld that ruled Earth. Beyond that, Daniel did not think it odd that another Fytro Mis, a ‘man without family,’ would hope to find entrance into SG-1’s inner circle. The ancient world was an unforgiving place to those without familial connections.

“Persuem.” Daniel said again, noting for the first time how far they were from the city: even the Goa’uld motherships were not visible anymore. “What happened? We were captured, my team.” He clarified, though he was sure Persuem knew whom he’d meant. “Where are the others?”

“They are dead, Dan’yel. As were you.”

“No.” Daniel shook his head automatically, heart thumping heavier in his chest. “No, I mean SG-1: Sam, Jack, and Teal’c. There has to be at least one of them. We were on the mothershi—in Ra’s palace.” Daniel automatically changed his vocabulary so Persuem would understand. “I couldn’t have survived unless one of them helped me out of there.”

“I assure you, they are dead.” Persuem countered. “Their bodies hung for three days in front of the Chappa’i until the Jaffa cut them down.”

“No. That’s impossible.” Daniel’s voice was a whisper. “They can’t be dead.” He looked down to his own body. “I’m not even hurt.” He exhaled. “Sam, it’s Sam. She’s the only one who can work the healing device. Unless—” He considered that the Goa’uld might have placed him in a sarcophagus. He shook his head. “No.” If that were true then he’d still be in their custody. He escaped, so another of SG-1 must have as well. He couldn’t have made it here alone, not with his wounds, and none of the native Egyptians had the knowledge or ability to help him get out of a mothership. He couldn’t be the only one.

“I am sorry, Dan’yel.” Persuem’s voice was soft, though not quite gentle. “Now that this has happened, we have much to discuss.”

“Where are their bodies?”

“Dan’yel?” Persuem’s tanned face crinkled, his dark brows furrowed at Daniel’s demand.

“If they’re dead, then where are the bodies?” Daniel noted Persuem’s military stance, the sword that never left his side, and the total lack of people anywhere nearby. For the first time when he looked at Persuem, Daniel saw the threat that Jack must have seen.

“Your friend Katep retrieved their bodies from the Jaffa. They were buried, as per the instructions left beforehand.”

Daniel’s features tensed, lips pursed, eyes narrowed, holding onto the fraying thread of disbelief while he still could. “If what you’re saying is true, then how is it that I didn’t die with them?”

“Ah, Dan’yel,” The other man nodded, his expression clearing. “You did, but then you awoke.” Persuem’s speech was so calm, his stance so reserved, Daniel knew it was on purpose—a device to make him believe. He simply didn’t know if Persuem spoke the truth or not. Daniel licked his lips, afraid of finding out.

“OK.” Daniel spoke, his mind stepping into the nightmare. “They’re dead, and I was what?” His breath shuddered involuntarily. He breathed out of his nose and squeezed sand in both hands. “Was I put into a sarcophagus?”

“No.” The other man denied the claim. “The magic of the gods did not touch you. You are immortal. You were born so, Dan’yel. No wound can kill you now. No wound but one.”

Daniel shut his eyes. “Look, Persuem. I’m sorry, but I can’t do this now. I have to go back to the city. I have to…If they’re dead I have to see to their rituals, their belongings.”

“I am sorry, but this I cannot allow.”

Daniel stood above Persuem, who simply remained still and watched him. “I don’t care about what you can allow. I have an obligation to them.” Daniel looked to the horizon on all sides, but no landmarks were visible, no dunes familiar. “Which direction is the city?” He demanded, but automatically looked east. They were most likely in the Libyan Desert, though he supposed they could’ve been in the Negev. Either way, Daniel didn’t know their location within the desert, let alone where the waterholes were.

Persuem remained as calm and unmoving as before. “If you return now you will die. You are being hunted.”

“I thought no wound could kill me.” Daniel poked holes in his logic.

From below him, Persuem’s stare finally drifted away. “You can die by beheading. It is the only way any of us can be killed that will not permit us to rise again.”

Daniel followed the other man’s eyes to the sword he always kept in his presence. Slowly, Daniel began to back away. “Look—”

“I will not kill you, Dan’yel.” Persuem interrupted. “I have labored to save your life. I will not take it now.”

Heavily, Daniel sat again, a little farther away from the other man. “These things that you’re saying…” He shook his head.

“Dan’yel. Watch.” Persuem grabbed a knife, and Daniel started to crawfish away, but Persuem only put the blade to his own hand. The cut was deep. The blood ran thickly. A blue lighting, like static electricity, covered Persuem’s hand, and the cut healed before Daniel’s eyes.

The archaeologist licked his lips. “It could be some sort of technology I haven’t seen before or—”

Persuem moved quickly, faster than Daniel could have moved away. He slit Daniel’s hand, closer to the wrist than the palm.

“What the hell?” Daniel tried to cover the wound with cloth, apply pressure.

“No!” Persuem boomed, grabbing his unmarred wrist.

And Daniel saw his skin reseal itself. The blood stopped flowing, the pain eased into nothing. He wiped the excess blood from his skin. “How did you do that?”

“I did nothing.” Persuem took a seat on the sand again. “Our wounds will heal themselves. We will not age; we will not die, not unless—”

“Unless we’re beheaded.” Daniel finished, acknowledging that Persuem might be telling the truth—about everything. “Why me? Why not one of my teammates—Teal’c or Sam?” A deep, quick breath. “Jack?” He whispered.

“I do not know. I have never met anyone who does. But now that you believe, you must know about the Game.”

“The Game?” Daniel questioned.

“All of those like us, we are a part of the Game. There are rules to the Game: All fighting must be one to one. No fighting may occur on Holy Ground. And the most important rule: there can be only one.”

“One?”

“One of us.”

“Wait a minute. These fights are to the death?”

“Yes.”

“I—” Daniel looked to his hand, at the blood drying there. “This is insane. I’m having some sort of hallucination. Or maybe this is just some bizarre new Goa’uld interrogation technique.” He hypothesized.

With a hand to his chin, Persuem forced Daniel’s eyes back to him. “When you woke, you felt something. This feeling is similar in all of us, but not precisely alike. To me it feels as the air in a lighting storm. It begins in my skull and traverses my spine. Whenever we are close to another of our kind, we feel this. It warns us that another like us is near. So we can prepare for battle.”

Sam probably could’ve come up with a dozen different reasons for how Persuem could have placed the feeling in his head after he woke up, Daniel thought. But somehow, he believed Persuem’s explanation. “Why not kill me, then? If our kind is destined to fight each other to the death, then why don’t you kill me? Why haven’t you killed me already?”

“Every animal teaches their young how to survive before sending them off on their own. I will teach you to remain alive in the Game.”

“How old are you?”

“Three hundred seventeen floods.” He gave an Egyptian accounting.

“Three hundred and—” Daniel cut himself off, put two fingers to the bridge of his nose. “But you didn’t live all those floods in Egypt, did you?”

Persuem shook his head. “No. My people came from the east. There was a great war for our land and many died. We lost. We were forced to move.”

“It’s not really surprising.” Daniel considered. “Such mass migrations were fairly common in the ancient world, considering the miniscule population of the planet when compared with modern—” Daniel cut himself off, realizing as he did that he’d been waiting for Jack to do so. “They’re dead.” He said, only now believing. “They’re all dead.”

“I am sorry, Dan’yel.” Persuem offered, sounding more sincere than before. “Your training will begin tomorrow.”

TBC...

Chapter 2

To the Reader: If you dig this concept, then you have to read Corwalch's Which Came First? It's on fanfiction.net and was among the inspirations for this story.

Immortal Like the Gods Story Index

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 04:39:18 GMT

Title: Immortal Like the Gods
Author: Choosing Sarah
Spoilers: Through Moebius Part 2 (Season 8)
Category: Crossover Highlander the Series. Character focus is (pretty much) exclusively from the Stargate universe, but concepts (immortality, the Game) from Highlander show up. Daniel-centric
Timeframe: Begins in Ancient Egypt between Season 8 Moebius Parts 1 & 2
Warnings: Canon character death
Rating: T for violent images
Summary: Crossover with Highlander. Back in Ancient Egypt in Moebius Part 2, we learn that everyone but Daniel had been killed in an uprising against Ra. What if Daniel had been killed, too? Only Daniel woke up…Immortal.
Disclaimer: Not mine. No infringement is intended and no profit is made, but might I be so bold as to point out that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?
Word Count: 10,000+
Story Status: WIP

Immortal Like the Gods Story Index (WIP)

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Complete Stories Index

Reconsecration

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 03:24:34 GMT

Title: Reconsecration
Author: Choosing Sarah
Rated: K+ some mature themes but not much in the way of rough language and only vague reference to violence
Category: Angst, Drama
Characters: Lee, Dee, Kara
Spoilers: The Eye of Jupiter (3x10)
Disclaimer: Not mine. No infringement is intended and no profit is made, but might I be so bold as to point out that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?
Summary: After the Eye of Jupiter (3x10), Lee makes a personal choice.
Word Count: 1930
Story Status: Complete

WARNING! If you came for a feel good Kara/Lee love story, turn back now because it’s not here.

The Complete Stories Index

Reconsecration

After their hurried jump away from the Cylons, Lee watches the deck crew tug the last Raptor inside the hanger deck. He knows by the landing that Starbuck didn’t fly it. He wonders if she and Dee watched each other at all during the hectic flight from the Algae Planet, even as he knows that Kara wouldn’t have taken her eyes off her husband’s dead body, and Dee would’ve only made fleeting eye contact with Starbuck before flickering away. He’s found that there’s always something of a promise in his wife’s gaze, no matter who she’s looking at, and she’s got a hard time locking her stare just before she makes a decision.

“Major Apollo?” Dennicee, Galen’s new deckhand from one of the Geminon freighters, approaches with a clipboard. Lee lets himself be distracted with the mundane task of combat inventory while the Raptor unloads.

He’s going to have to face his wife and his girlfriend, but he’d rather not do it at the same time.

The bottom sheet of the board lists the casualties that Galactica’s already recorded. Lee licks his lips, tightens his jaw. He yanks the pencil from its hold in the metal clip and very neatly prints the names Sgt Hawthorne, PO Harris, and Sam Anders with a plus two below to indicate two civilians he’d never known the names of.

When he looks up again, Kara’s Raptor has already unloaded. The people who’d crammed in earlier are scattered throughout the hanger deck. Dee is nowhere in sight, so the passengers must be scattered throughout the ship, too. The dead will need to be removed for space burial. He approaches the ship gingerly. He’s not surprised when Kara emerges alone, a single tag on the chain she carries in her hand. She must have left the other with Sam as she did before on Caprica.

She doesn’t look up at his approach, but she pauses on the edge of the wing when he’s a meter off. She jumps down and away from him, shunning any possible assistance he could offer. She might’ve walked away, but he places his hand on her shoulder. Kara shrugs off the gesture, slowly but pointedly. Instead of stepping off though, she stills.

Lee slides forward tentatively, and she doesn’t move away. His hand tries for her shoulder again, and when her palm comes up to cover it, he echoes the movement on the other side. He slips his arms around her from behind. She leans into him. He buries his face in her hair, wanting to tell her he’s here and he loves her: He’ll always love her. Instead he breathes deeply through his nose, smells her sweat and the must of the planet, the tang of blood in her hair. He notes the way she surrenders to his touch—the feel of her breasts just beneath his arms as they cross over her chest, the solid warmth of her up against his whole body. She turns suddenly, unexpectedly, wrapping her arms around his middle while they’re still there in the hanger deck, hiding her face in his neck.

The wet heat of her mouth and nose gives him chills even now, after everything. Lee holds onto her tighter. He kisses her hair just behind her ear.

“I’m sorry about Sam,” he whispers and means it.

The wetness seeping into his skin down to his collar tells him she heard him. Finally she nods.

“I need you,” she puts her mouth to his ear, voice low. “I really need you right now, Lee.”

He runs a hand down her spine, silent as she waits. “I’m here,” he finally responds but doesn’t follow the invitation with any motion of his body.

She wipes her face with the back of one hand and pulls away just enough to look at his eyes, and she sees what he’s really saying: I’m here for you, Kara, but not like that. Not anymore.

She looks away, but not before he catches the heaviness in her gaze, the sudden sorrow that’s not just for the loss of Sam anymore. Lee nearly reneges, but the image of Dee comes into his mind’s eye, and he sees his wife’s bravery, her self-sacrifice, her grace, her fire—slow-burning but constant. And he’s never loved his wife more, never been so proud to wear her ring or so ashamed for tarnishing hers.

Kara nods, her arms sliding from his shoulders. Her breath shudders, and she keens, low and deep. Her hand comes up to cover her mouth, to prevent further sounds from escaping. He runs his palm down her arm, inviting her back into his embrace, but she shakes her head. He would still hold her if she’d let him, but he knows she won’t. A part of him even wonders why she’s still standing here beside him when she won’t accept anything from him—it’s always all or nothing with Starbuck, and only ever on her terms. Another part of him recognizes she hasn’t moved yet because she’s trying to figure out another place to go.

Lee shifts from foot to foot and wonders where his wife is. He shouldn’t leave Kara like this, doesn’t want to leave her like this, doesn’t ever want to be done with her truth be told. He’d made a choice, though, when he’d married Dee. He’d gone back on it, would’ve renounced it completely if Kara had just been willing. But then, if she had been willing, how long would it have been before Kara was Lee’s wife and Lee was the one telling the next guy how much he loved her, how it’d always come back to the two of them no matter who was warming her bed at the moment?

Lee sees it now, contrasts this projection with the life he has with his wife—small touches through their days in the CIC, soft smiles every morning as he awakens by her side, a furrowed brow or gentle grin shared as he talks about the problems with CAP and they both rue about the loss of the Pegasus even as she knows he loves being CAG much more than he ever liked being a commander, and he knows how much she missed the Galactica’s crew when she transferred to be with him. Then there’s Dee’s even tones that color by the smallest shades as she tells him about her own day and the new challenges she faces as an officer that she didn’t have as an enlisted. Beneath it all is that slow burn that is in everything his wife does, every part of her that is. And he loves it. Lee really loves his wife. His passion for Dee may not burn as brightly as the torch he carries for Starbuck, but he finds himself just as consumed by it now.

Lee loves them both, but he trusts his wife in a way he’s never been permitted to trust Kara, in a way that Kara has always given him cause to doubt.

Kara glances upward, her eyes meeting his again. He knows his gaze softens, sees it in the reflection of her expression. The intimate stare reminds him of the last time they’d made love down on the Algae Planet two days before the Cylons showed up.

He doesn’t know what pulls his attention away from Kara, but he looks up and directly into his wife’s eyes. He wonders how long Dee had been watching them. His wife’s lashes fall, her neck clenches as it turns, and she sucks her upper lip into her mouth. Lee steps towards her, necessarily away from Kara, again and again until he’s right in front of Dee. Her eyes—filled but refusing to overflow—remain fixed away from him.

Hands on her hips, he pulls Dee into him. His wife’s body comes stiffly, like it’s forgotten how to move with him. Lee leans his forehead into Dee’s, closes his eyes, and just breathes her in.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers before he knows he’s going to speak.

Dee sucks in a harsh breath and turns into him. “Lee?” she shudders delicately in question, a direct opposition to her inner strength, and pulls back within his embrace.

Releasing his lashes, Lee meets his wife’s stare. “I’m sorry.” He stretches his thumbs towards her waist.

Dee looks from eye to eye. Is she judging his words? His sincerity? His meaning? He sniffs and steels himself, waiting for her to ask. He’ll answer her. He silently promises Dee the truth of everything—even if she asks him in the middle of the frakkin’ hanger deck.

A slow smile starts across her face. Even as cautious as the expression is, Dee’s tentative lips make him smile back. She lifts her hands, which had hung stiffly between them, up to cup his jaw. She tickles him just below his ears with the span of her fingers.

He kisses his wife’s smile—affection and apology, love and surety, and under it all, determination.

He raises his right hand to stroke the band encircling her finger where it rests against his neck. He’ll get it right this time. He closes the distance between them, his very kiss a swear towards his intentions. When they part, Lee presses his lips to Dee’s cheeks, her lashes, her brow, moving back past her cheekbone to her sensitive earlobes.

“Lee!” his wife finally giggles when his quick kisses reach her neck. She tugs on his jaw, pulling his lips back to hers. Her mouth is sweet, open, gentle. How could he have ever wanted more?

Dee’s grin spans her face when they pull away to breathe.

“I love you,” he tells her without provocation, without expectation, without any dressing besides that single declaration.

The words make her bite her lip, but her smile doesn’t fade. “I love you, too.” Dee raises her hand—fingertips in his hair, palm to his cheek. He can feel the small hard metal of her ring, a contrast to the softness of her hand. She lifts her eyebrow, shifts her hips. “Do we have time for a shower before we have to report?” his wife flirts with him.

“Maybe just this once,” Lee teases back, sliding his hand from hers to cross over her shoulders as she turns around to exit the hanger deck. Dee grabs his fingers where they hang down the right side of her neck. He gives one last kiss to her temple, and they walk out together.

He can feel a set of eyes on them as they move, but when he looks up, it isn’t Kara’s stare he finds but Helo’s. A quick glance around confirms Starbuck must already be gone from the hanger. He expects condemnation when his gaze flips back to Helo, but instead of reproval, there is a reprieve. A nod tells him Karl will look after Kara as best as he can, as much as she’ll let him. Lee nods back—a thank you, an apology. Lee looks down and then back to his wife. Her eyes are already on his. She must’ve seen the whole exchange.

Dee leans into him, her ponytail pushing into his shoulder, letting the room fall away as they stride together. Lee lifts her left hand with his own. He kisses the ring she’s kept on her finger for five months. She grabs him back, raises his hand to her lips, and copies the move. Lee shares a world in the smile he exchanges with his wife. He’s made his choice, and it’s the only world he wants.

END

The Complete Story Index

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 03:11:51 GMT

Here's an index of all of my fanfiction stories. I post as Choosing Sarah on fanfiction.net and as suicidallemoneater on wraithbait.com.

Complete Story Index

Battlestar Galactica

Reunion Story Index
Rated: M for mature content
Category: Drama, AU, Kara/Lee
Summary: The Fleet takes back New Caprica, but the war is still in full force. As Lee and Kara make amends, they find a chance to redirect the future if they can only reconcile the past. Kara/Lee.
Word Count: 40,000+
Status: WIP

Reconsecration
Rated: K+ some mature themes but not much in the way of rough language and only vague reference to violence
Category: Drama, Angst, AU
Summary: After The Eye of Jupiter (3x10), Lee makes a personal choice.
Word Count: 1930
Status: Complete

My Favorite Frak
Rated: M
Word Count: 295
Status: Complete
Fic Type: POEM

Stargate: SG1

Immortal Like the Gods Story Index
Rated: T for violent images
Category: Crossover, AU, Daniel-centric
Summary: Crossover with Highlander (concepts used, characters not so much), some SGA, too. Back in Ancient Egypt in Moebius Part 2, we learn that everyone but Daniel has been killed in an uprising against Ra. What if Daniel had been killed, too? Only Daniel woke up...Immortal.
Word Count: 10,000+
Status: WIP

Stargate: Atlantis

The Legend of Kirk
Author: suicidallemoneater
Rated: M for mature sexual content and coarse language
Category: McShep, first time, slash
Summary: Colonel Sheppard really isn’t Captain Kirk, and Rodney knows it, so why perpetuate the myth?
Word Count: 5,191
Timeline: Season 4, after Miller’s Crossing (4x09) and before Quarantine (4x13).
Status: Complete

Fandoms include Battlestar Galactica and the Highlander and Stargate universes.
Disclaimer: Please note that as this is fan fiction, I do not own the copyrighted material. No infringement is intended and no profit is made, but might I point out that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

Reunion Story Index

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:43:01 GMT

Title: Reunion
Author: Choosing Sarah
Rated: M for mature content
Spoilers: Through Lay Down Your Burdens Part 2 (2x20) plus Unfinished Business (3x09)
Timeframe: Occurs six months after the Season 2 finale where it AUs.
Summary: Six months after they fled New Caprica, the Fleet returns to collect survivors. While the battle goes well for the Colonials, there is more than one front in this war. As Lee and Kara make amends, they find themselves at the center of the latest conflict with a chance to redirect the future if they can only reconcile the past.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Battlestar Galactica characters or stories (etc). No infringement is intended and no profit is made, but might I be so bold as to point out that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?
Story Status: WIP

Reunion Story Index (WIP)

Reunion (2.0): Prologue through Chapter 2
Prologue: Capture
Chapter 1: Home
Chapter 2: Thread of Life

Reunion (2.0): Chapters 3-5
Chapter 3: Immersion
Chapter 4: Spinning Lachesis
Chapter 5: Hard Six

Reunion (2.0): Chapters 6-8
Chapter 6: Shadow Box or Shadow Boxer
Chapter 7: Shift
Chapter 8: Helo Again

Reunion (2.0): Chapters 9-11
Chapter 9: Possession
Chapter 10: Depth Perception
Chapter 11: fragile frakkin' balance

Reunion (2.0): Chapters 12-13
Chapter 12: Seat of Her Pants
Chapter 13: Dreaming in Color

Reunion (2.0): Chapters 14-15
Chapter 14: Phantom Pains
Chapter 15: Grip

Reunion (2.0): Chapters 16-17
Chapter 16: As Dawn Breaks (so do I)
Chapter 17

Reunion: Original (and obsolete) Chapters 1-4
Seriously, you don't want to read this. The new version is much better, I swear.

Reunion ORIGINAL Chapters 1-4

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 22:27:19 GMT

Reunion is a really long BSG story I've been writing for ages. I recently revamped it because I seriously despised the first 4 chapters I'd written. The rest of the story will be able to be found either on this lj (check the Reunion Story Index) or at my fanfiction.net page. However, chapters 1-4 will soon only be able to be found here. These chapters are unnecessary to the understanding of the larger story and honestly, rather poorly written, but if someone wants to see approximately how I envisioned Kara and Lee getting into their predicament, well here it is.

Reunion The Original Chapters 1-4
By Choosing Sarah

(For the complete story, go to the Reunion Story Index Page)

Spoilers: Through the Season 2 Finale, Lay Down Your Burdens Part 2
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Battlestar Galactica characters or stories (etc). No infringement is intended and no profit is made, but might I be so bold as to point out that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

Summary: Six months after they fled New Caprica, the Fleet returns to collect survivors. While the battle goes well for the Colonials, there is more than one front in this war. As Lee and Kara make amends, they find themselves at the center of the latest conflict with a chance to redirect the future if they can only reconcile the past.

Chapter 1 No Time for Regrets

“Lee, I need you on this.” Admiral William Adama speaks to the second highest-ranking officer left in the fleet, his son.

“I have your orders, sir.” Lee answers without looking back at his father. “I’ll get the job done.” His voice falls to a whisper. “No matter what the cost.”

The elder Adama glances around the commanding officer’s quarters of the Pegasus for what might be the last time. He notes the duty logs and assignment requests and supply schedules stacked in neat piles on his son’s desk. His eyes wander to the two sets of clothes folded on the bed: first the large blue digs of a pilot and commander, then the smaller set, its two shiny bars indicating the newly acquired rank of full lieutenant. “She’s a good ship, stronger than the Galactica. She could survive.”

Lee nods. “She could. Let’s hope there’s enough of us left to man her afterward.”

Adama crosses the room and places his hand on Lee’s shoulder. “I’m proud of what you’ve done here this last year and a half. Even if you weren’t my son, I couldn’t be more pleased with how well you’ve commanded this ship, especially after we left New Caprica. You’ve earned the respect of every person in the fleet.”

Lee nearly laughs. “Not the whole fleet. Not after—” He bites his lip, but not soon enough.

“Not many people know what really happened between you and Starbuck.” Adama advances to Lee’s side and proceeds to pour them each a glass of water. They toast each other like it’s the finest Ambrosia, though it’s not quite so rare as that, even among the decimated colonial fleet. They each take a seat on the faux black leather of Lee’s couch.

The younger man leans forward, elbows on knees. “I didn’t tell Dee everything.” The Admiral raises a black brow streaked with gray. Lee spots the gesture from the corner of his eye. “She knows the worst of it.” Lee immediately sets to justify himself. “I just didn’t tell her that Starbuck wanted a child out of it.”

After a long sip of water, Adama observes, “It’s hard to believe that Kara wanted children.”

“I don’t think she did.” Lee shifts in his seat, stretches his neck. “I think it was her husband.”

“Sam.”

“Right.” Father and son share the silent stillness of the room, sitting together and stealing the memory for later, just in case one of them survives. Lee sets his glass on the side table. “Do you think she’s still alive?”

“We’ll find out soon enough.”

The young commander takes his glass in hand. He moves to the bar and refills it. “What does it say about me that after everything that’s happened, when I consider this mission, my first thought is of her?”

“It says you still care about her.” The Admiral leans forward to loan his cup to the coffee table. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

“When it comes to Starbuck, I’ve always cared too much.” The words are perhaps a prelude to a confession, a confession the Admiral does not allow.

For a long moment Adama says nothing. When he speaks, he doesn’t disagree. “Maybe we both did.”

Tentatively, Lee turns toward his father. “I hate that I came between you, that I made you choose sides.”

“It wasn’t a matter of choosing sides. You’re my son.”

“If she’s alive…” Lee begins and stalls. “If we survive—”

Admiral Adama jerks sharply toward Lee. “It’s too early for regrets, Commander.” He stalks Lee, who straightens under the onslaught. “You are to do everything in your power to see to it that you sur—that you and the people under your command survive.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So say we all.” He grabs his son’s arm at the elbow.

Lee meets his father’s eyes, greets the grip with his own. “So say we all, sir.”

B
S
G

Lee watches his father’s shuttle on Dradis as it returns to the Galactica. Another fifteen minutes will see the Old Man’s fleet-wide announcement of the upcoming mission. Assignments have already been established. But there are only 8,000 people over twenty ships, the last known humans both alive and free. The bulk of the civilian population will move to the rendezvous point, with much of the Tylium that remains. Lee isn’t the only one uneasy about leaving so many people without weapons, their only defense being the possibility of escape, but there is no choice if the mission to New Caprica has any hope of succeeding.

Dee meets his eye from the other side of the CIC command console. She circles the centerpiece to surreptitiously capture his hand beneath the view of prying eyes. He smiles at the subterfuge—everyone knows she bunks with him.

“I have the calculations for the jump whenever you’re ready, sir.” She speaks as if her fingers aren’t flirting with his.

“Thank you, Dee.” He glances down at their joined hands. He sees her surprise in the stiffness of her posture when he brings them to his waist level. His smile fails as he contemplates what he would tell her: he wishes he loved her more; he wishes they’d never started this relationship under the cloud of Billy’s death; he wishes it would’ve just run its course and burnt out like it would have if Kara hadn’t shot him and then stayed away; he wishes he would’ve recognized this dysfunction sooner; he almost even wishes they’d never had those couple nights together when they’d both been stationed on Atlantia. When he again meets her eyes, it is but a brief contact. Her lashes cannot conceal her disappointment, though. “I’m sorry.” He says, but he doesn’t know what for.

She bites her lip and reclaims her hand. “So am I, sir.”

He knows without looking there are tears in her eyes. He says nothing, but he doesn’t walk away either. Nor does she.

Chapter 2 Red Skies

“Jump successful, we’re in orbit above New Caprica. There are three Basestars and multiple Raiders.” Dee announces and the first Basestar immediately shifts toward them. “And they definitely see us, sir.”

“Fleet status?” Lee questions.

Specialist Davies checks the screen in front of her. “All present and accounted for, sir.” The curly-haired communications officer briefly touches the headset over her ear. “Admiral Adama has ordered us into position Alpha.”

“Copy that.” Lee acknowledges. “All ahead full.” He directs toward flight. “Come Starboard twenty degrees on my mark.” He and Dee both watch Galactica’s Colonial signal on the Dradis. “Mark! Get me a firing solution on the first Basestar and then launch the fighters. Specialist Davies, get on the horn and signal the planet. Let the people know we’re here.”

B
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G

The Gifford had once been a colonial salvage ship. It was built to withstand a barrage of small debris, but the fire it comes under when it jumps directly into New Caprica’s ionosphere is a bit more than the ship is accustomed to withstanding. Nonetheless it is holding up admirably, for now. However, its durability isn’t the only reason the Gifford was chosen for its landing mission. It also has a very large holding area and a very small cockpit. The former holds a platoon of marines; the latter, the ship’s pilot, its Dradis officer, a civilian, a marine, and Sharon Valerii.

Sharon watches the sharp descent of the craft through the front window. Her fingers itch to take control of the stick. When they’ve passed through the upper levels of atmosphere, she nods to the marine, a tall bulky man easily 275 pounds and all of it muscle. He is more conservative than she images he would be. He grabs the Dradis officer’s head and neck and jabs the long ceramic knife up and into his lower back. A kidney blow is not as fancy or bloody as the throat, but far more sure.

She moves into the vacated seat as he drags the body away. She almost feels guilty.

B
S
G

Immediately upon entry to the atmosphere, the newly refitted Astral Queen sends a barrage of bullets to protect itself and the Gifford from the Cylon surface-to-air missiles.

“Holy frack! The Gifford’s signal just switched from Colonial to Cylon!”

“What?” Tom Zarek demands. “Can you get them on the radio?”

The current ship’s communication officer, a former prisoner, returns, “No. They’re not responding. It’s got to be Adama’s fracking pet Cylon!”

Tom pauses, glances at Jack Rudy, his second in command, who nods back ever so slightly. “Shoot it down.”

“What? There are over sixty marines on that ship. If we shoot it down Admiral Adama will never—”

“There are over thirty-nine thousand people on that planet. They are the fleet’s priority. Now use the forward guns and shoot it down. Focus all other fire power on the ground, we still have a mission to accomplish.”

Tom barely moves and doesn’t at all look away from the weapons screen until he’s certain that only the forward guns are being used on the Gifford.

“She’s going down.”

Tom looks up at the ship five kilometers in front of them just in time to see explosions on its stern and port side.

“Should we keep firing?” The Communications Officer asks.

“No, but tell the Galactica what’s happened. Then focus all guns on the SAMs. Jack,” Tom redirects attention to his friend. “You know what to do.” At this command, Jack runs out the door. He’ll make his way to the forward gunnery room and replace the blank cartridges with hot ones.

B
S
G

Admiral Adama watches the screen as both the Pegasus and the Galactica focus artillery on the first Basestar. He hears Helo report on Tom Zarek’s ship and answers. “Tell the Astral Queen to continue on her course and land to the south of the city, and give me a sitrep on the Pegasus.”

Helo gets on the wire to carry out orders. “Sir, the Astral Queen confirms your orders, and Pegasus is holding her own and ready for the sequel.”

The Old Man checks the screens for projected statistics on the Cylon Basestars. He takes a breath and nods. “It’s a go.”

“Pegasus you have a go.” Helo forwards the command.

B
S
G

“Acknowledge that.” Commander Lee Adama directs Specialist Davies. “Flight, start the roll.”

“Aye, Aye, sir.”

As the Pegasus completely rolls and bypasses the first Basestar, Lee briefly and absurdly imagines the first failing Basestar with its long arm-like reach tickling the belly of the Beast. Lee quickly turns his attention back to Davies. “Get me Hotdog on the wire.”

“Sir?” The pilot, though in the middle of the fight himself, immediately responds.

“Hotdog, send it up her skirt.”

“Copy that, Apollo.”

Lee watches the Dradis as the other fighters protect Hotdog while he delivers the nuke to the second Basestar. Hopefully it will be right on target and take the whole ship in the explosion.

“Everybody scramble!” Hotdog hollers to his fellow pilots. The Pegasus shields both the Galactica and most of the Vipers from the blast, but they still lose one fighter as the Basestar lights up. There is no time to wonder who it is. The shock wave and the incoming artillery shake the large Battlestar, along with the nerves of its crew.

“Stand strong people.” Lee instructs them as Davies and Dualla put right one of the fallen stacked guidance systems. “We’ve still got two more Basestars left.” Even as he speaks the words, the Galactica finishes off the first Basestar, shaking the ship again and knocking over at least half of what had just been set right. “Engineering, how is hull integrity?”

“It’s shaky, but she’s holding.”

“Focus everything we have on that third Basestar. If she jumps we lose a week on rescue operations. Tell the fighters to push into the atmosphere. Vipers have much greater maneuverability than Raiders on planet.”

“Sir, we’ll need to gain a higher orbit, the planet’s gravity is pulling us in. We can’t stand the heat of atmospheric entry with the damage we’ve sustained.”

“Tell Galactica we need her to take over primary artillery so we can pull this beast out of the fire.”

“Copy that, sir.”

Almost immediately, Galactica advances on the third and final Basestar, giving the Pegasus a better view of the dogfights moving away from the debris of the first Basestar. For a split second Lee cannot help but to want to be a part of it. Then he forcibly pulls his focus back to the larger battle. “OK, pull us out of this orbit.”

B
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G

The Gifford makes a hard, but controlled, landing to the east of New Caprica City. Its temporary Cylon signal gets it to ground safely near the mountains where the high altitude makes it difficult for the Centurions’ hydraulic systems. Any resistance to Cylon activity would be based from there.

Sharon peers down at the body of the Cylon model killed in-flight. If it had not been for Hera, for the possibility of getting her back… “Let’s get out of here before the Centurions arrive.”

B
S
G

The third and final Basestar explodes while supporting its Raiders.

“Yes!” Admiral Adama yells, though his cry is muted by the others’ in Galactica’s CIC. He picks up a headset. “We have achieved air superiority, repeat, we have achieved air superiority.” Then he looks to Lt. Agathon. “Relay that message to the ground troops. I want our attention focused on the fighters. Get on the horn to the Vipers and tell them to beware of incoming from this direction.” He spots Captain Kelly to his left. “I want all decks to report on their situation.”

“Aye, sir.” The acting XO responds.

“And get me an update on the condition of the Pegasus.”

“Sir, I have the Astral Queen on the line. Mr. Zarek requested a secure line to speak with you.” Helo says.

Admiral Adama silently acknowledges the request as he picks up his headset again. “Mr. Zarek.”

“It’s done.” The Astral Queen’s captain reports, “They went down thirty-eight minutes ago.”

“Thank you, Mr. Zarek. Any word yet?”

“No, Admiral.”

“We shouldn’t expect anything inside the hour. We’re cleaning up the fighters up here. Prepare your men for deployment.”

Zarek pauses before speaking. “They’ve been ready Admiral.”

“Good hunting, but be careful not to kill our contact.” Adama hangs up before there is a response.

Chapter 3 Wild Card

Kara Thrace moves through the trees, her husband covering her flank. Their group of ten mismatched soldiers is either stalking a group of Cylons or a landing party of Colonials. For perhaps the first time in her life she begs the gods to please let her run into the marines.

“Bulldog.” She hears a hard, male voice.

“Chesty!” She fervently responds. Impulsively, she jumps from her hiding place. The first face she sees belongs to Helo’s Sharon. Oddly, she knows beyond a doubt that it is no other Model Eight.

“Kara!” Anders yells behind her, she’s probably blocking his shot.

“It’s OK.” She half turns. “It’s our Sharon.” Kara very nearly hugs her. Instead she just grins as the arriving marines slowly recognize her and come out of hiding. With a wave, she urges her party to do the same. “So how’s the fight going?” She’d addressed Sharon, but a huge marine sergeant she vaguely recognizes from the Pegasus responds.

“We don’t know. We had to break away pretty early, but at least two of the Basestars are gone.”

“Do you have explosives?” Kara asks the speaker. “We have priority targets.”

“We’ve got that covered, sir. We’ve been instructed to take out the SAMs so the others can land.”

“Oh no.” Kara shakes her head while Sam reaches her side. “We’ve got way more important objectives than that.”

All but her, Sam, Sharon, and the sergeant—Biggs is his name—spread out and greet their counterparts. “With respect, sir, I have my orders from Admiral Adama.” Sgt. Biggs says.

Her lungs seize mid-breath. She clears her throat. “Then the Admiral is alright?”

“Yes, sir.”

She feels Sam’s presence at her side very sharply. “And Commander Adama?” She whispers more by default than design.

“He was alive this morning. I can’t say about now. The Pegasus is taking the brunt of the fighting.” The marine barely answers when he’s about to walk away.

Kara quickly recovers due to this act of disrespect. “Sergeant, Command does not have all the recon I do. If they did, they would agree with my objectives. We can send a larger group after the SAMs, but we need a strike force with explosives to attack the Cylon supply depot and their central nerve center. There’s only one location planetside because they always had their ships in orbit.”

“Sir, you’re not military anymore.”

“Bullshit. I came out of retirement the minute the Cylons landed. They’ll keep putting up new SAM stations if we don’t take out their supply, and more than that we will cut off their head if we take out their command.”

Biggs gestures to her to walk away from the group with him. “Sir, we have an inside man.”

“A Cylon?” Kara lowers her voice incredulously.

“No. He’s human. I don’t know his name, but he’s been playing the part of collaborator for the last six months.”

“How do you know he’s not collaborating now?”

“Because the Admiral told me so, and that’s good enough for me. Now I have orders, so we will stick to the SAMs and leave the rest to him.”

“In that case,” Kara concedes. “We’ll lead you to them.”

B
S
G

The group of invading marines consolidates forces with the resistance and splinters into groups of fifteen to twenty. Each group is heavily armed with small arms, grenade launchers, and explosives. By nightfall, most of the Cylon outposts are destroyed. On this new planet, unlike on Caprica, the Colonials are finally winning.

Kara’s group meets up with two other cells to surround the central Cylon supply. “How will we find our contact?” She asks Sgt. Biggs as they eye the gray and white structure, which was a mid-size, rounded, spacecraft before it was set to work as the center of Cylon activity on the planet.

“We’ll have to get in there, sir. When we do, he’ll know it’s time.”

“Doesn’t somebody actually need to know who he is before we can do that?” Sam questions.

“No.” Sharon enters the conversation. “If an individual is captured, then that fact will be accessible to every station in the facility.”

Kara shakes her head. “They probably have several people captured in there. What would one more mean?”

Biggs fields her question. “I’m supposed to request an armistice.”

“You?” Kara looks to the bulky marine.

“Our contact will know to set the wheels in motion once that request has been made. It’s better off that I don’t know who he is, just in case.”

“They won’t believe it.” Starbuck shakes her head. “They’ll kill you, and then the plan will be for nothing, we would just have given them extra time to prepare for us here.”

“Whether or not they kill me, doesn’t matter. He’ll follow through on the plan. He’ll get as much data as possible to the Galactica and then he’ll destroy what remains.”

“You expected to die today, Sergeant?” Sam asks because it is beyond him—the idea of surrender, no matter how temporary or what the larger picture involves. He’s fought the Cylons with every fiber of his being since the first attack, and he cannot comprehend another way but to fight. It is this fact that so aligns his life with Kara’s.

“I volunteered.”

Starbuck chews her lip, considers the structure in front of them. “Cylons won’t kill me.”

“What?” Biggs is thrown off guard by this abrupt statement.

“I should’ve been dead at least a dozen times over after they invaded, but the Cylons won’t kill me. They keep trying to capture me.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know why, but I do know, if I go in your place, I have a chance.”

“Kara, what the frack are you doing?” Sam demands.

“Wouldn’t it be a far greater tactical advantage in future operations if we could get our inside man out of there?” She argues on all sides, to Biggs and Sam and even Sharon.

“If he can get out, he will. It will not help in any way to have someone in there that the Cylons, for whatever frakking reason, won’t kill. In fact, since we don’t know what he has planned, then it could make it harder.” Biggs lays it down.

Kara looks away and considers the structure in front of her, and finally exhales. “I didn’t think of that.” She clears her throat and looks back to the Sergeant. “So we know for certain then that this source is male? Because if he does make it out, then I don’t want to shoot him by mistake.”

Biggs nods in confirmation and both he and Sam relax their posture at her acquiescence. The marine looks around, his last free glance before forfeiting his life. “I need to give the men instructions before I go.” He walks away to speak to another soldier. He moves to pull Sharon with him as she has been all day, but she clears her throat.

“Um, Starbuck, since most everybody here is male, would you mind being the one to guard while I…”

Kara widens her eyes as Sharon gestures behind her, toward the grounded Cylon ship. “Sure, Sharon. Excuse us.” She directs a smile at Sam. On impulse, she kisses his cheek while they pass.

They walk several yards away and slowly move in the direction of the Cylons. When they can’t see or hear the group of men anymore, Sharon says, “You’ve got two minutes to get there before Biggs realizes.”

Kara takes a step away and turns. “Not that I’m not grateful, but how did you know what I’d do?”

“I’ve seen you fly, Starbuck. You don’t ever blink.”

Kara half-smiles. “Tell him I’m sorry.” She says as she walks away.

B
S
G

His face falls the instant he sees Sharon walk back alone. “She didn’t?” Sam begs, but the Cylon simply nods, refusing his denial.

“Son of a Bitch!” His curse grabs the attention of the marines.

“What the frack? Keep it down.” Biggs orders.

“Kara just surrendered.” He points to the installation with his whole arm.

“Frack! Where the hell is the radio?” As a specialist hands Biggs an earpiece, he wonders what he can say to the Old Man.

B
S
G

Kara leaves her weapons in the woods. She walks slowly along the road, her hands level with her head. After several minutes, she can hear the clunk of metal behind her, but she does not look.

“Keep walking, Starbuck.” A hated figure, blond and svelte, comes up on her left and talks in her ear like they’re old friends. “If you so much as stumble, I’ll slit your throat.”

They walk in silence inside the Cylon command center. It’s similar to the ship Kara once stole from Caprica, but larger. She’s taken through several layers of security, enough to know she can’t get out on her own. Six maneuvers her into a small room with a Model Eight inside. The Six follows Kara in and forces her into a chair.

“What are you doing here, Starbuck?” The Sharon Model asks.

Kara turns to the face of her former friend. “Admiral Adama would like to request an armistice.”

“I somehow find that hard to believe.” The Six Model chides.

“Well, believe it or don’t,” Kara speaks through clenched teeth. “We’re winning this battle, and we’d rather stop running, but we won’t be your slaves anymore. We want peace.” They glance at each other over her head. She wonders if they’re buying it.

“If this is true, then why would the Old Man send you as his representative?” The affection with which the Model Eight speaks of Adama gives Kara pause. She wonders, as she always does when she sees this model, if it is the Boomer she served with on the Galactica.

“If you know anything about the Admiral, then you know that we were close. He knew you’d take me seriously when I requested a meeting between a fleet representative and the Cylons.”

The blond leans onto the table beside Starbuck, directly into her personal space. “We’d heard that in the seven months before our arrival, you were no longer favored by either of the Adamas.”

Kara licks her lips. “That’s true. But the presence of anger does not equal the absence of love.”

“How quaint.” Six smiles and Kara knows she is about to die.

“So what happened?” The Sharon Model asks, redirecting Starbuck’s attention back to her.

Kara gives her a hard stare. “It’s personal.”

“We need an act of good faith, Starbuck.” Six slides her hands up Kara’s arms in a mock caress. The Cylon rests her fingers on either side of Starbuck’s neck, and Kara hopes she breaks it rather than strangles her to death.

“Who was at fault?” The Sharon insists, her voice smooth as Ambrosia.

“It was my fault.” Kara whispers without looking up. “It was all me.”

“What did you do?” Sharon urges in that same soothing tone.

Kara clears her throat and looks Sharon in the eye, but she can’t hold the Cylon’s stare. “Sam wanted kids,” Kara finds herself confessing for the only time other than when she told Helo. “But he couldn’t have any because of the radiation on Caprica. I wanted to get them for him.” She blinks to disperse the tears in her eyes. “I went up to the Pegasus. I was only going to ask Lee, but—” She takes a choking breath and loses her voice while the memory replays—smiles and jokes that he’d suddenly shared with her after so long had turned to kisses and caresses while she forgot what she came for but got anyway, just not in the manner she’d expected.

“But you seduced him instead.” Six knows without being told.

Kara stays silent. She can’t refute the charge.

“That doesn’t sound like something Lee’d run to the Old Man with.” Sharon observes, and when Starbuck looks up at her again, she’s sure she’s looking at Boomer.

“It’s not.” Kara confirms. “The Admiral had heard I’d come up to the Pegasus. By then Lee had figured out why I’d come. He was angrier than I’ve ever seen him. We were still undressed and arguing when the Old Man came in.”

“Didn’t I tell you, Sharon?” The blond gloats. “It’s not a Cylon thing to frack a man over. It’s a woman thing.”

“I’d still do anything for them.” Kara unintentionally highlights her reason for coming.

“I understand, Starbuck. Truly, I do.” Six lays a hand on the table. Her perfect nails drawing Kara’s attention. “Alright. We agree.” She abruptly announces.

“You agree?” Kara asks, at first unsure what has happened.

“We’ll allow a fleet representative to discuss an armistice. We invite Commander Lee Adama to partake of our hospitality.”

Kara is stunned, tries to argue out of it. “They’re not going to let that happen. Lee’s a part of Command. Command doesn’t ever go anywhere themselves, they send representatives.”

Six sends two fingers from Kara’s temple to her jaw. “Somehow, I think Apollo will be willing to make an exception just this once.”

Chapter 4 Armistice

“Do you mean to say they actually want the ceasefire?” Lee’s brow furrows under the weight of that complication. The Adama men meet in the Pegasus ready room as the damage to the Beast is much more severe than that to the Galactica. It is a dangerous time for a commander to leave his ship, and Lee wants to do nothing of the sort.

“It’s likely just a way to buy time.” Admiral Adama acknowledges. “But there are several problems.” Lee brings his gaze to his father’s to best gauge his words. “They’ve requested you specifically to negotiate with.”

“But why?” Lee shakes his head. “I’m a senior officer. They have to know that’s directly against Colonial Fleet SOP. We’d never go for it.”

Adama clears his throat. “Which leads me to our next problem. Sgt. Biggs was unable to deliver the message to the Cylons because Kara heard the plan and went in his place.”

Lee sits on the edge of the largest table, heedless of the stacks of paper he’d just placed there. “Then she’s alive.”

“For now.” The elder Adama points out.

“Why would she do this?” He exclaims, fists shaking.

“It presents us with a problem to be sure, but it also presents us with an opportunity.” The Old Man slips into a seat behind the large table, and Lee automatically turns to face him. “You know that because of a longstanding order, one of our former officers has been collaborating with the Cylons for six months and informing us of their actions when he is able to do so. He was prepared to make this his final mission. What you don’t know is that officer’s identity.” Lee raises his brows, when Adama pauses for effect. “Lt. Gaeta.”

“Gaeta?”

“Apart from Baltar, he has the greatest mind in the fleet, and I’d sure as hell trust him a lot further than I would our president.” He practically spits the word. “If we could extract him from that situation, between what he’s learned and what he knows, we could potentially avoid Cylon contact for years, long enough to repair and rebuild the fleet. We need that time.” He adds unnecessarily.

“Yes, we do.” Lee agrees. “We should repatriate Gaeta at all costs.”

“I won’t ask this of you.”

“You don’t have to.”

They stare at one another in silence until the elder Adama nods. “There is a plan.” He removes his glasses and lays them on the flat, brown surface. “I have Captain Kelly working on it, but you’re going to need to go in blind.”

Lee smiles. “Ahh, ignorance. It’s like being a Viper pilot all over again.”

“Isn’t that the truth? You don’t realize how much being in command requires you to know until you get your own clusters.”

“I know. I understand that now.” Bill can only nod and shut his eyes at the validation he receives in his son’s observation. “And what about the Beast?” Lee deliberately looks around the room. “Who’s going to take the bit in hand while I go on shore leave?”

“I’ll do without an XO for a while. I’ll send Captain Kelly over. If we had time, I’d promote him to Major before I did so. He’s earned it. He’ll have Dualla to help him with the logistics, but he is capable of running a Battlestar.”

Lee walks behind his father. “I hate to leave her.”

Adama smiles. “She’ll be here when you get back.” It is not until he turns to look at his son, sees Lee’s hand on the bulkhead, that he knows the younger man is reluctant to leave the ship, not his girlfriend.

Bill stands up and collects his files. “The shuttle leaves for New Caprica in two hours. Captain Kelly will brief you as soon as he arrives on the Pegasus.”

“I’ll be there.”

B
S
G

The Raptor touches down inside the fenced perimeter of the Cylon complex.

“Sure you want to do this, sir?” Racetrack asks. For security’s sake, she is the only other person on the craft. She’s a competent stick, but she’d been a better ECO.

Lee stands in his dress blues, his clusters visible on either side of his collar. “Open the hatch, Lieutenant.”

She follows the command and bids him, “Good Hunting, Apollo.” As he leaves.

When a Centurion approaches him immediately after the Raptor takes off, Lee fights the instinct to reach for a gun that isn’t there anyway. The foot soldier scans him for weapons and explosives. Finding none, it gestures toward the building itself. Apollo studies the structure as he walks. According to intelligence, it’s a ship, though it looks more like a neo-Tauran city housing development than anything else. He wonders where they’ve taken Kara and where Lt. Gaeta is assigned.

The technology within the building is like that of modern Battlestars like Atlantia, made for durability but with more amenities than Galactica or the Pegasus imagined. It is made for housing humans, Apollo is stunned to realize, or maybe just human-like Cylons. He continues following the wordless directions of the Centurion. The stark and spotlessly white walls make him aware of his isolation from other humans more than their simple lack of presence. One day with the Pegasus crew aboard would turn this place gray. The Centurion finally halts outside a small hatch. Apollo takes his cue and steps through the door.

He nearly steps back out.

“Morning CAG.” Except for the lack of a uniform and wicked scar across her face, she looks exactly as she did the day she shot his father. She looks like Helo’s girlfriend in the Galactica’s brig. “I suppose I shouldn’t call you that anymore.” She gestures to the seat across from her. “I hear you’ve been promoted.”

Apollo takes the proffered chair. “I didn’t expect to see you.” The shock loosens his tongue.

“Why not?” She doesn’t wait for him to answer her question. “I am the Sharon you knew.” She confirms. “The only Boomer there is. It’s only logical that the Cylons would lead you to someone you already know.”

He’d thought the anger gone by now. He doesn’t feel it when he sees the Sharon on Galactica. He breathes shallowly in and out his nose while he focuses on this model’s nearly black eyes, remembering that moment when she pulled the trigger—once, and then again. “The people of the Twelve Colonies would like to propose a ceasefire.” He bites the fleshy side of his mouth. “Among the points of our proposed treaty would be a clause allowing the Cylons and the humans to collect our respective survivors and retreat to neutral territory.”

She seems to consider his offer before answering. “You could annihilate this outpost with a single nuke at this point, and you could have evacuated at least nine-tenths of the human population before any Cylon reinforcements arrived. Why would you stop now?”

“Maybe we believe in mercy.”

Boomer shakes her head. “You don’t, Apollo. Not when it comes to Cylons. And neither does your father. There’s something here that you want. Information? Hostages? I’m not sure.”

“What we want is every man, woman, and child—every human man, woman, and child—to come with us, not just nine-tenths of the population.”

“I don’t buy that either.” She doesn’t look away. “I was with you that day, the day of the attacks. You told me yourself that you supported President Roslin’s decision to leave the ships without FTL drives behind.”

“That’s right. I did.” He emphasizes. “And it was the right decision at the time. But now we have more options. And fewer souls to barter. We’re thinking about the future.” He concludes. “The future of humanity.”

“So are the Cylons.” Boomer counters. “But unlike humans, Cylons are interested in the survival of both races.”

“Is this—” He stands and points toward the door and what lay outside it, “Is this your ideal for the continuation of humans and Cylons? Side by side, master and servant? Humans will not tolerate being slaves. Neither did Cylons if you’ll recall.”

“I know better than you do. I’m the one you caged up on Galactica.” She raises her voice.

“And what about the Farms on Caprica, and gods know where else?” He continues. “Cylons didn’t go through that indignity, but humans did! Kara—” He clenches his jaw. “Kara did.”

Boomer shakes her head, narrows her black eyes. “Your attitude, your anger is precisely the reason that we know this peace is a lie.”

“No. You’re wrong.” He steps up to the table, digs his index finger into the hard plastic. “My anger is exactly why we want peace. We want it to end. We want to live from day to day without the shadow of war following us like the polar winds! We want to be free! Not just our bodies, but our minds.” Lee shakes his head and backs away. “If Cylons can’t understand that, then they’re the ones who should be slaves.”

B
S
G

“What do you think, Boomer?” Caprica Six is the only one to use her old name anymore. She only does it in private, though. Individuality scares the other Cylons.

“I don’t know. It could be either way. I don’t doubt that the Fleet wants peace, but the idea that Admiral Adama will adhere to a treaty with Cylons…” She trails off.

“What do your instincts say?” Six encourages an answer before the others enter the room.

“He sent Starbuck.” Boomer considers aloud. “The Old Man always favored her. Whatever they’re planning, they won’t do it in halves. We have to be ready for the most extreme possibilities within the opposing scenarios.”

“Simultaneously? How delicious.” Another Model Six speaks as she enters the room.

“Isn’t it, though?” Caprica Six returns, sliding on her programmed Cylon persona like a well-worn coat.

The other Six looks past Boomer at the two surveillance screens of Apollo and Starbuck. “It looks as though we’re going to continue to have a use for President Baltar and his aide after all.”

“What do you mean?” Boomer asks.

The Six looks up at her as if startled she would have to ask. “We have the second-highest ranking officer in the fleet in our possession. It would be a shame to let this opportunity go to waste.”

“But the device isn’t ready yet.” Boomer glances at the video feed of Apollo. “Not only could it damage the subject,” She quickly argues. “But playing our hand too soon could potentially ruin the entire project.”

“A second source could stabilize the experiment, or at least allow us greater leeway.” Caprica Six helpfully points out. All three Cylons look at the live feed of Starbuck.

Boomer tempers the decision as best she can. “Let’s put them together first. See if it’s worth the risk.”

Both blonds nod and set out to implement the plan.

B
S
G

He hears the door open and tries to control his breathing before he sees Boomer again.

“Lee!”

Wrong pilot. His mind flusters to catch up as he tries to stand and turn at the same time. He trips back into the table as he works to catch his balance. “Kara.” He doesn’t believe it until he sees her—hair about as long as his eyebrows, but still that beautiful color, calling out to him. He meets her in the small space and touches the tender locks before he can consider the action.

“Yeah, I—” She blushes. “I went a little overboard.” She runs a hand flat from his collarbone to his lower ribs. “You look really good though.”

The last six months on the run had been hard, he’d lost all the weight he’d gained when the fleet had been sedentary. He tries to convey this when he realizes he’s still touching her hair, rubbing over the fine softness in a way he knows he’s not allowed. “I’ve missed you.” He says before he remembers that’s not allowed either, not even before she was married. He clears his throat and looks between them, suddenly recalling why he was so angry for so long, why it was easier to stay angry afterward than to forgive, at least until he wasn’t face to face with her any longer.

“Oh please, no.” Kara grabs his face with both hands. “Oh please, Lee.” But she can’t force his eyes to meet hers. “Please, I can’t do it again.” Her eyes are as tearful as her words. He can hear it in her voice.

Lee shakes his head with the memory of that awful day and all the ones without her. His chest heaves in a sob he’ll be embarrassed about later, as he suddenly realizes how lonely he’s been without her. Unable to speak for the thickness in his throat, he takes her about the waist and yanks her toward him, crushing her breasts against his chest with the strength of his grip.

“I’m sorry.” She whispers, just once and so softly it’s barely more than her breath by his ear. She starts to tangle a hand through his hair, keeping the rest of her close to him, maintaining contact all along the length of him.

He nuzzles his freshly shaven check to her check. They move smoothly against each other but still cause a pleasant friction. Kara must think so too because she moves in counterpoint to him. He keeps her locked in his grip with one hand and slides the other down her back, finally seeming to exhale as it makes the journey back up. Then, like he always does, Lee lets her go. She doesn’t let him drop his hand from hers though. She keeps it secure even when they move to sit in the chairs. They sit in tactile silence, waiting together for whatever comes next.

B
S
G

“It would seem that Captain Thrace wasn’t lying after all.” The Six Model says. It is difficult to tell one from another, but Gaeta knows it isn’t the Six that President Baltar favors.

“I think we’ve found our first test subjects.” This is spoken by one of the male Cylons. Doral they call him. There’d been a copy of him at the Galactica’s decommissioning ceremony. He’d been a reporter.

“No, no, no!” President Baltar insists, gesturing erratically. He is the only one of them to ever give a negative response to the Cylons. Then again, he is the only human with a Cylon protector. “I’ve been trying to tell you for weeks, it’s highly unstable. Who knows what might happen if we cross our wires, so to speak.”

“You were supposed to have already fixed the problems with human testing.” A D’Anna Biers Cylon spoke a little too closely to Felix’s ear. Why do the Cylons have such a tendency to become reporters, he wonders? There is a much bigger risk of exposure inherent in the occupation than with say, an engineer. Is the varied access really worth the high profile?

“There were complications with human testing because of the small gene pool and the high incidence of memory overlap between subjects.” Gaeta does not let himself remember that they were a brother and sister and cousin once. They are just test subjects, or rather they were. They had to be.

“Yes, yes, Mr. Gaeta is absolutely right. And now we’re talking about potentially using it with Admiral Adama’s son and a woman he considers family? Who knows what he’ll do if he realizes? He just has to drop a nuke, and he’ll kill us all! Oh God we’re as good as dead!”

“Gauis, Gauis, Shh.” President Baltar’s Model Six urges. “We’ve analyzed those tests and determined that part of the reason they failed was because the experiments lasted too long. Three hours should be long enough that we have everything we need without risking Adama’s wrath. All we need to do is stall.”

B
S
G

When she woke up, she was tied down. “What the frack? Lee! Lee!”

“Kara, I’m here.” She hears Lee’s voice. He’s close. Her head’s tied to a backboard. She can’t see him, but she feels his hand move to hers. Accepting his palm into hers is the extent of movement her bonds allow.

“Lee!” Despite the tether to him, she is near panic.

“I’m here.” He repeats. “That means that whatever happens next, this isn’t one of those Farms. Not unless they think they’ll get me pregnant.”

“Lee this is not the time to try out a sense of humor.” She derides, but she likes his logic. More than that, she likes his voice. “How did we get here?”

“I think they gassed the room we were in. Do you remember getting sleepy? That’s all I’ve got before waking up here.”

“I don’t remember!” She feels the fear fill her like before, back on Caprica.

“I do. You fell asleep first.”

“I did?”

“You did. It amazes me that you can hold liquor like a camel does water, but give you a half of a pain killer and you’re out in under two minutes.”

“That happened once.” She pinches his fingers.

“Only because you started breaking them into quarters after that.” He squeezes back.

“I wouldn’t have needed the painkiller at all if you hadn’t decided that you could do more push-ups in five minutes than I could.”

“Umm, Starbuck, did you forget? I did.”

“Only because Zak kept making me laugh.”

His fingers stiffen in hers, then relax as his thumbprint slides in an undecipherable rhythm across her hand. “You remember that joke he used to tell about the muffin?”

“Oh my gods!” She laughs. “He had best bad jokes ever! Do you remember how it goes? Could you tell me?” She asks like a little girl.

“OK.” He squeezes her hand. “Two muffins go into the oven to bake. One muffin says to the other, ‘Man, is it getting hot in here?’ The other muffin says, ‘Oh my gods! A talking muffin!’” They laugh together this time, her hand stays tightly and securely surrounded by his.

“I don’t get it.” Another voice says above their heads.

Kara struggles to see the man, knowing Lee is doing the same beside her. She can’t move no matter how she tries to maneuver, but it turns out she doesn’t have to. The owner of the voice comes into her view. “Gaeta?” She calms at seeing him. Then she realizes he’s a collaborator. “Gaeta you motherfrakker!” She’d spit at him if it wouldn’t come back and hit her in the face. “You were a Fleet officer!”

He looks away, maybe starts to walk away, but then Gaeta says. “I haven’t been a Fleet officer for a long time.” Felix moves closer. “The Cylons are so powerful.” He whispers. “The Colonial Fleet may have won a battle here, but the Cylons will win the war. They won’t kill us as long as we cooperate. They want us to live and be their children.”

For a full two seconds, she’s speechless. “They have you totally mind-frakked Felix, if you believe that shit!” Kara exclaims, and Lee slowly squeezes her hand, harder and harder until it hurts. But pain is good; it brings her back, reminds her how she got here from this morning. “It is one thing to live in peace. It’s an entirely different thing to live in subjugation.” Thank you Lee, she squeezes back.

“I had heard,” Gaeta begins while Kara is still distracted. “That the Fleet had requested an armistice. Is this true?”

The way he says the word makes her look him in the eye, and when Lee runs his thumbnail back and forth, so smoothly, so lightly over her palm, she thinks that both men are trying to tell her something. “Yes.” She answers. “We’ve asked for a ceasefire.”

Lt. Gaeta nods, nearly smiles. “That’s good. It’ll be good when we can just get back to the sciences: We’ll especially need to explore bio-mechanics and physics.” One side of Kara’s mouth curls through a concentrated effort. Upon seeing this, Gaeta continues more excitedly. “President Baltar and I have done amazing work in these fields. One day bio-mechanical life will rule the whole galaxy.”

“What about biological life?” Lee asks Gaeta. The lieutenant moves between their heads. Kara can see him out of the corner of her eye, and from the way Gaeta is glancing back and forth, she imagines Lee can too.

“Generally speaking, biological life is not as hearty as bio-mechanical species are. For instance, the humanoid Cylons can survive under far more strenuous circumstances than humans can. We’ve done some research, some of it added to what the Cylons have already done, that tests their limits. Their threshold for pain is twelve times that of humans. They don’t require nearly as much sleep or sustenance to sustain them, and their capacity for memory is remarkable.”

“Thank you Mr. Gaeta for that lovely soliloquy on our attributes.” A somehow familiar, if accented voice, interrupts Gaeta. “Please begin.” From its coldness, Kara knows it is a Cylon.

“Yes, of course.” Kara watches Gaeta step away. She feels sleepy almost as soon as she hears the switches flipped and dials turned. She doesn’t see Gaeta again. Her eyes must be closed. But she feels him touch her shoulder. “Come see me when you want to wake up.” He says. Gods he laughs like such a geek. She thinks she tells him this, but she’s not sure.

A loud pop startles Kara back from the brink of unconsciousness. “Kara!” Lee calls to her, but his voice sounds odd, clumsy somehow.

“Lee.” She tries to say back. She doesn’t know how well she’s succeeded.

“Oh my God!” The Cylon woman who spoke earlier cries again. “Turn it off! Gaeta, turn it off! Baltar’s little project is about to kill us all!”

“Tha’s gunfire.” Lee says in that same heavy tone. She wonders if they’ve been saved or damned when she feels what might be his hand in hers. She can’t move her mouth to ask before the darkness takes her away.

END Chapters 1-4