that vision thang - The Aftermath, Chapter 14 Part 2

Present Day, Galactica

    Orange encased legs, ending in scruffed boots, stuck out from beneath Kara’s viper. It was four hours past the end of Kara’s maintenance shift, yet she was still hard at word, having disassembled the hydraulics system and not yet put it back together again. The Chief had mentioned Starbuck’s presence- and refusal of offered help from anyone, even him- casually in the mess nearly an hour ago. Well, casually followed up with a request to remove Starbuck before the ground crew refused to work if they had to listen to her berating them anymore.

Lee had given her a chance to finish up and leave before he showed up to drag her out of there.
He finished his processed-algae noodles slowly, stopped by his office to drop off some ever-present paperwork, and then hit the racks to see if Kara was there. She wasn’t. She also wasn’t in the head or rec room. He knew how obsessive Kara could be at times, and luckily they weren’t stretched to the limits these days, so she probably wouldn’t be needed to fly a CAP tomorrow on the less than necessary level of rest for a human to function. Still, this wasn’t normal behavior, even for Starbuck. Stealing himself for a fight, he had headed to the hangar bay to find out what was going on.

    She was so busy with the bits and pieces of her viper- she had moved on to avionics, and had fluid lines and gauges spread all around her- that she didn’t notice Lee at first. And when she did, it was only his boots and BDUs; she didn’t even come out from beneath to find out who it was before yelling, “Frak it, Chief, I told you I was fine. It will be back together before the next shift!”

    “Starbuck!” Lee barked. “Get out here!” The authority in his voice indicated that this wasn’t a social call.

    He heard her heavy sigh as she took a moment to get her annoyance under control before she rolled out. He had a feeling their uneasy truce might be about to end. “Why are you still here and terrorizing the deck crew?”

    Kara wiped her hands off on a rag as she rose. “Are you here as the CAG, or as Lee?” she looked directly at him as she asked.

    He studied her face. There were dark, dark circles under her eyes, and her limbs hung heavy with an uncustomary tension. He didn’t even hesitate. “Lee.”

    “I can’t sleep. I already hit the gym this morning for hours. Still couldn’t sleep. Quite frankly, I’d rather be here than lying in my rack.” Kara put her hands on her hips, staring dolefully at the mess she had left under her viper. 

    Lee swallowed. He had never asked her directly what had happened to her on New Caprica, but this kind of insomnia- if she were having dreams, too- could be PTSD. It would be unusual NOT to have symptoms, given what they had been through for the past three years, but Kara hadn’t mentioned it before.

    Of course, until recently, Lee wouldn’t have been someone she would have confided in. “Dreams, too?” he asked, keeping his voice low and friendly.

    Looking at a random point over his shoulder, Kara flattened her lips in a look of distaste. “Yeah,” she admitted, her voice filled with emotion.

    “Are they that bad?” he inquired, trying to catch her eye. She was still staring off into the dark corners of the bay.

    “Yes,” she whispered, turning her back to him and taking a moment to get herself under control.

    Lee reached for a wrench and another wheeled cart. “Well, you can tell me about it while we put this bird back together again.” Laying himself down, he saw Kara make the mental choice to go along with him instead of fight him. He took it as a victory in re-establishing their relationship.

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    Three days later, Lee managed to corner Kara in the head to inquire if she was sleeping any better. Judging from the sounds she made in her sleep, which the thin privacy curtain did nothing to muffle, he was sure that she wasn’t. True to form, though, Kara tried to brush him off. “Yeah, I’m getting an hour or two more a night. Not a good night’s sleep, but better.”

    Studying Kara’s image in the mirror- he hadn’t seen her look that tired since the thirty-three minute attacks- he knew she was lying. He also knew that she had regretted showing him any weakness in the hangar bay the other night. He contemplated letting the matter drop, giving it a couple more days before he ordered her to see Cottle; then he realized that that was what a CAG might do, but not a friend. And he and Kara were trying to be friends again. Leaning on the counter, towel tucked around his waist, he crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. “Kara,” was all he said in a gentle tone.

    She snapped, “I’m fine. I’ll be able to fly, don’t worry about it.”

    “That’s not what I’m worried about, Kara.” Lee waited until she met his gaze in the mirror. “Starbuck always pulls her ass out of the fire. I know you wouldn’t fly if you weren’t capable.” He shifted and squeezed her shoulder lightly. “But I want to know how you are, my friend, not a pilot under my command.”

    Biting her lip, Kara grudgingly answered. “Not great.”

    Lee nodded. “I sort of figured that out. What’s wrong, and what can I do to help?”

    “I can’t stop dreaming about New Caprica. I can’t put him out of my mind-“ Kara’s voice wavered, but did not break.

    “Right. Sam-“ Lee started, remembering a similar conversation that seemed a lifetime ago, about the presumed dead man Kara couldn’t get out of her head. If only Lee had been lucky enough that Anders hadn’t made it back to the fleet back then. He felt a pain in his chest, purely a psychological reaction to the mention of Kara’s dead husband.

    “No, not Sam,” Kara interrupted to correct him.

“Who then?”

“Leobon.”

    “The Cylon?” Lee asked, surprised.

    “He kept me prisoner, in a cell fixed to look like an apartment.” Kara picked up a brush and pulled her hair back into a loose ponytail. “He wanted me to love him, to want to be there with him.”

    Lee didn’t want to have this discussion in a public area of the ship. He was very afraid of his reaction to the details Kara had left out of her official debrief. He could distantly acknowledge what had probably happened to her as a prisoner of the Cylons, but it would be quite another hear them directly from her. “Are you sure you want to do this here?”

    Kara took that as a rejection. Whirling, she shook her head and rolled her eyes. “If you didn’t want to know, why did you ask?” she spat out as she pushed past him and out the hatch.

    Lee paused a moment to heave a purely mental sigh. Kara always expected the worst, to be rejected. She never considered that he was thinking about her, too. Grabbing his shower kit, he followed her out, reaching her just as she slammed her locker shut.

Grabbing her boots and shoving feet into them, she shot him a dirty look. “Just what is it that you want, Commander?” she asked in as formal a tone as she could manage.

“Don’t take your anger out on me, Kara,” Lee tried to keep the anger from creeping into his voice, but failed.

“You weren’t down there with us, Lee. You don’t want the nitty-gritty truth.” She took a deep breath, trying to calm down before the tears edged their way out. “You want to get to pick and choose the details of what it was like down there. You don’t really want to know what he did to me, because then you can’t ignore it anymore.” Roughly lacing and tying her boots, she rose to leave.

“I want to know!” Lee shouted. “But I honestly wasn’t sure if the communal head was the best place to discuss your kidnapping and confinement, Kara. I thought you might want some privacy.” He threw his kit into his own locker, dragging out sweats to pull on. “But I forgot that Starbuck doesn’t need people to be nice or thoughtful- she can do it all alone.  Most of us mere mortals can’t.”

Kara threw him an angry, evil glare. But she and Lee were trying NOT to fight- trying to act like real friends. Friends confide in each other. Her voice harsh and raspy, she asked, “Do you really want to know how I am?”

Lee paused at his locker, closing it softly to turn and face her. “Yes.”

“I’m a mess.” Kara sat down on her rack and put her head in her hands. “I can’t sleep. If I fall asleep, all I dream about is being in that cell, where no one knows I am and not able to get out. And the Fleet has left, taken the survivors it can, and I’m left there with Leobon. For ever.”

Lee settled himself next to her on her rack and wrapped an arm around her. Leaning his cheek against hers, he pulled her into a true hug, breathing in the scent of her. “It didn’t happen. It can’t happen now. You’re safe.”

“It did happen. For four long months.” Kara stated plaintively.

Lee closed his eyes, remembering the pin balling of emotions he had felt at leaving the colonists behind; the wrenching pain, even with the strain between them, of leaving Kara to the Cylons. “I’m sorry,” Lee whispered, “that it happened.”

“I don’t blame you, Lee.” He felt the tears leak from her eyes and fall onto his hands.  “You had to leave, to save us. There is no blame here. There just is no way to make it up, no way to make it better. I have to work through it. Sometimes its not easy.”

Lee nodded. “What can I do to help?” he asked.

“This is good.” Kara leaned into his hug. “Just- stay here, and talk to me.”

Settling himself and Kara back against the wall, he shifted his hold on her, putting her back to is front, cushioning her from the cold metal wall of her rack. Wrapping his arms around her middle, he settled his chin on her shoulder. “So talk to me.”

And she did. For hours. He heard the worst of her fears, about the child that wasn’t hers but she thought was, the child’s injury and Kara’s culpability in it, about Leobon’s attempts to make her love him, about her multiple murders of his copies and the endless returns. About her fears for Sam and the other colonists she could not longer help, for the Admiral and Lee, whom she had deserted. That she would die alone there, for no purpose other than a twisted cylon’s ravings about destiny. As she talked, they moved slightly, adjusting position as muscles ached and joints protested, until she eventually lay by his side, his arm around her and her cheek pressed against his bare chest. As they drifted off to sleep together, emotionally spent, Lee remembered the last time he and Kara had fallen asleep this way.