Disclaimer: The characters and situations of the TV
program Battlestar Galactica are the creations of SciFi,
Payback~ Apollo’s Lady
Kat and Hotdog were quietly exiting the curtained-off area when Starbuck approached. They both stumbled to a halt and offered hasty salutes. Kara hadn’t really wanted to see anyone, and her disappointment was reflected in her harsh tone. “What are you two doing here?”
Kat, never one to back down from a challenge especially one from Starbuck, replied confidently. “We wanted to see how Apollo was doing. Is that a problem?”
Starbuck would never allow Kat to win. “If you’ve disturbed him in any way…” she flashed a menacing glare.
Hotdog slouched ever so slightly back, but Kat held her ground. “What would disturb him more? Shooting him or waking him up?”
Hotdog’s eyes flashed wide with fear, and he grabbed Kat’s arm. He didn’t bother to wait for dismissal; he pulled Kat away. The last thing the Adamas needed was a fight between the two top guns in life station.
Kara sucked in her breath and wrapped her arms around her body to steady her nerves. She was glad Lee seemed to be asleep. She still hadn’t worked up the nerve to see him awake. She’d been forcing herself to make small observation runs on life station. She was fairly sure no one knew she’d been there at all. Courage intact, she stepped behind the curtain. She jumped at his immediate question.
“Will you two ever stop fighting?”
She looked blankly at her beloved commanding officer. “Sir! I didn’t know you were here.” She felt her face drain. She also had managed to avoid the Admiral since shooting his son. It had been hard enough to tell him over a phone. She was sure seeing him in person would kill her.
He glanced at Lee’s sleeping form. “He’s my son. Where else should I be?”
“Admiral, I can’t tell you how sorry I am.” It was all she could choke out. She wanted to turn and run, but her heart held her firmly in place. She knew she owed it to them both to take whatever was coming.
“I know you didn’t mean to shot him, Kara.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “You’d never intentionally hurt him.”
Her heart skipped a beat at the forgiveness and her eyes were finally cleared enough to see Admiral William Adama sitting before her. He looked heartbroken. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he bore the strain of guilt himself. She recognized the pain in his eyes. It was the same she’d seen in her own these past thirty-six hours since Lee was helped off of Cloud Nine and returned to the safety of Galactica. She had no idea why she said it. “Neither would you, Sir.”
He looked at her, stunned that she seemed to have read his mind. He briefly considered denying her comment, but denial never worked between he and Kara. Between them, there could only be truth or omission. “No, but I don’t think he always knows that.”
Kara pulled a second chair next to his and rested her hand gently on his. “Relationships are hard. They aren’t always perfect. Lee knows how you feel about him.”
Adama forced a small grin. “I have no right to complain. We’ve come a long way, he and I. I suppose, in a sick way, we have the Cylons to thank for that.”
“I’d like to think the two of you would have come to this point without them.” She flashed him a cagey smile. Her smile faded and she lowered her voice. “Don’t do this to yourself, Sir. He’s going to be fine. Cottle said so.”
Adama nodded. “I know. I was just thinking about how much of his life I know nothing about.” He turned suddenly to face Kara. “Tell me how he got his call sign.”
Kara blanched again. “Sir? You know that story for sure.”
He shook his head. “No, he never told me and I didn’t think I needed to know at the time. It didn’t really occur to me that Lee’s call sign was something special until I got this chance to watch him work.”
Kara shook her head. “I’m sure you’d like to know, but you know the rules. Only a pilot can tell the story of how he got his call sign. There are some rules even I won’t break, Sir. It’s bad luck.”
Adama chuckled. “Kara Thrace, you are the last person I’d ever expect to worry about luck. You carry so damn much luck with you; a little rumored bad luck won’t hurt you. Tell me.”
She pointed to Lee, still sleeping despite their conversation. “Me? No bad luck? I shot my best friend.”
He grabbed her finger and held it. “Tell me.” His eyes narrowed and his smile faded. “I need to know. You owe me this much.” A smaller smile returned. “You shot my son and CAG after all.”
She groaned. “Isn’t it enough that I’ll get to do all his work?”
He shook his head and released her finger.
She sighed and knew she didn’t have a leg to stand on. “You don’t know any of the story?”
He shook his head again and settled back into his chair, preparing to enjoy the tale.
Kara thought for a moment, collecting her thoughts. “You know how some pilots are easy to name? Lee wasn’t. He was vexing Drucil, our instructor. The first and most obvious name was going to be ‘Ice.”
“Ice?” Adama questioned.
She laughed at the memory. “Think about it. Think about your son. Most of the time, the man is all business. He always took everything to do with flying so seriously. He was cold and methodical in the classroom and the cockpit.” She smiled more broadly as the memories came to her. “Lords he was brilliant to watch. You could see his mind clicking. He never missed and he never failed.”
Adama smiled. “Sounds like Lee.” He gazed at his son and sobered. He knew the pressure he’d delivered as an absentee father had done that to Lee. He supposed he should be proud of it, but he wasn’t. It was yet another reminder of his faults. “Ice didn’t stick, huh?”
Kara shook her head. “There was the other side of him.”
“What side was that?”
Kara laughed and she looked at Lee. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m sure you haven’t failed to notice that your son is frakin’ gorgeous.”
Adama laughed. “So I’ve been told.”
“He was a huge distraction to some of the female pilots.” She quickly added. “I think some of the males as well. Even all serious, like he was, he was stunning to behold. A lot of the higher ups called him a pretty boy.” Kara sobered. “They were jealous. They looked for any way to bring him down. They started telling him his call sign had to be one of the gods, because that’s how he acted.”
She paused and saw the concern on Adama’s face. “He got a lot of grief for being your son. Some expected perfection from him because of it. He pushed himself to be perfect because of it and others were sure he was useless and only in flight school because of you.”
Adama nodded. “There was nothing I could do about that.”
“Lee knows that. It’s why he fought so hard.”
“He wanted to be better than me.” Adama said softly.
“I don’t think so.” She thought a minute. “Well, maybe in the beginning. I think deep down he knew it was in his genes to fly, like you. People constantly compared you two.”
“Really?” Adama was stunned to hear this.
She nodded. “So, they played around with ‘Ice’ and several of the gods, including ‘god.’ Nothing stuck, well not until training drills at Picon.”
Adama nodded. “Everyone’s worse runs.”
Starbuck nodded. “Mine for sure.” She shook her head. “Not Lee’s though. He was brilliant as always. He’s so frakin’ anal; he took the time to study the sun and various other conditions before we arrived. During the war games, he used frakin’ solar flares to hide his bird. He’d sneak in on the enemy and take ‘em out before they’d known what hit ‘em.”
“Very smart. He used the blinding light of the flares and so they named him after the god of light.” Adama said with pride.
“No one had ever done it before.” She laughed. “Course, he ultimately paid the price.”
“How so?”
“He spent too much time near the sun. He all but melted parts of his viper and dehydrated himself along with it. He spent a day in life station on fluids.” She sighed. “But that wasn’t the best part. That’s not what earned him the name.”
“It wasn’t?”
“Well, it helped of course. I mean, he’s good looking like Apollo and controlled the light and all, but it was what he did at the end of the games that solidified the name.”
“Do tell.” Adama demanded.
“When the battle was over, one of the pilots had suffered some damage and was losing power. She got caught up in a wave left from one of the solar flares and fell into the sun’s gravitational field. She didn’t have enough power in her engines to break free. Her comm. systems were out, so she couldn’t radio for help. Lee saw her. I’ll never know where he got the idea, but since his ship was fully functioning, he flew behind her and interrupted the field enough for her to fly free.”
She paused again. “When Drucil read the report, he said it confirmed it. He said it was as if Lee had healed the situation. So, since he was gorgeous, managed the light and healed, he was from that day forward, Apollo. It’s the most perfect call sign ever assigned a pilot.”
Adama grinned. He was sure Kara didn’t realize what she’d just said, or how big the smile on her face was. No, Kara Thrace would never intentionally hurt his son. Adama tore himself from Kara to look at Lee. Pride poured from his eyes and heart. There was so much he didn’t know about his son, and yet with each new thing he discovered, his heart threatened to burst. He wondered if his heart could really explode. Kara interrupted his thoughts.
“You can’t tell him I told you. He’d kill me for sure. He was so mortified by the call sign. He begged to have it changed.”
Adama laughed. “Your secret is safe with me. I can imagine he didn’t enjoy it much.”
Kara laughed. “Unless he’s in a bar picking up girls.”
Adama raised an eyebrow, fully imagining Lee using the name to his advantage in that situation.
Kara glanced at the clock on the wall. “I have to go. I have patrol in a few minutes.”
He nodded. “Thank you.”
She smiled and nodded in return. “You needed to know.”
“I did.”
Kara left and Adama picked up his son’s hand again. “That’s some story, Son. I’m proud of you.”
Lee’s head nodded. “Only Starbuck would betray me like that.” The words cracked a bit through his dry throat. He coughed to clear it and his eyes opened.
“How long have you been awake?” Adama asked mystified.
Lee laughed softly. “Wanna hear a story about a girl who bucked a star’s gravity well?”