Fic: Nobody Special, Kara (K/Z, K/L), PG-13, pre-mini AU, no warnings

[lanalucy]

Chapter Three. Also on AO3.

Thanks to newnumbertwo for the beta!

Lee followed Kara’s truck, watching the neighborhood change from crappy to crappier, pondering the afternoon and Kara’s odd responses at the funeral. He still wasn’t sure why he’d gone down that particular street, or how he’d known that Kara would be in that particular bar. When she pulled up in front of a run-down but still decent building, he wondered why she’d moved here, why she’d moved at all. On her Fleet salary, she could afford better than this dump, and she'd had a great apartment.

She got out of her truck and walked toward her apartment without looking at him. He kept an eye on her until she got to her door, then found a space, locked his car and ran after her. She’d left the door open for him. When he closed it behind him, she said, “So, you want a beer and a sandwich, or you just wanna frak?”

“Kara…”

She shook her head, still looking down at the kitchen tiles. “We both wanted this, Lee, from the first time we met. Let’s not pretend it’s anything but what it is.”

He tried anyway. “Why’d you move here, Kara? You can afford better.”

“I’ve never lived here before. No memories of anything else. Besides, I’ve already been hearing noises about shipping me off someplace for a year - some crap about unfamiliar surroundings helping me deal with the trauma of losing a student. What they really mean is they don’t want me teaching anyone else if I’m gonna kill ‘em.”

“Kara, that’s not -”

“Doesn’t matter, Lee. I can live here. And if they send me someplace else, this place has a military clause, so I won’t be breaking the lease. So, you wanna frak, or what?”

He sighed. If this was the way Kara was going to be, he didn’t want to do it. He wanted the friendship he thought they’d been building. Not that he didn’t want to frak her, but he wanted it to mean something to her.

“It’s okay, Lee. I get it. I wasn’t good enough for Zak. I’m not good enough for you, not even good enough for a pity-frak. You want that beer?”

It finally clicked for him that this was her way of offering him that friendship. She wanted him to want the beer, to want to sit and talk to her. Maybe she wanted the frak, too, but she wanted the other first. “What do you have?” When he turned toward the kitchenette, he thought there was a tiny softening at the corner of her mouth.

He followed her to the kitchenette, and it amused him that the entire top shelf was nothing but beer, and she had the makings for at least a week’s worth of sandwiches. Food and drink - in some ways, Kara was very simple, uncomplicated, but in others...Gods, she was the most complex woman he’d ever met.

Four beers later, he was feeling it; he’d dropped off his mother and gone after Kara, so he hadn’t eaten all day. When he asked, Kara pointed at the head - not like he couldn’t have found it; this apartment was tiny. When he came back, there was a sandwich in front of his chair. He hid the smile behind his hand and sat.

“Thanks, Kara. I was getting hungry.”

“Figured. You were weaving a little. Never could hold your drink worth a frak.” When he froze, teeth in his sandwich, eyes wide, Kara snorted. “What? I’m not givin’ you a pass because of what day it is.”

“Of course not,” he said around the food in his mouth.

“Why are you here, Lee? Why’d you come find me in the first place? I told you not to bother.”

He swallowed, took another sip of beer. “I thought we were friends, Kara. I wanted to be sure my friend was gonna be okay.”

“Well, you’ve seen it. ‘m fine.” She slouched in her chair, tipping the beer up to drain it. “We’re not friends, Lee. Guess we never were. It was all a big plot, and I was the idiot your brother picked to frak over.”

He put his sandwich down, frowning. He didn’t understand that - it wasn’t like the Zak he knew to use people.

“What? You don’t believe me? Still got the note. Kept it to remind myself never to be so stupid about a man again. I’ll stick with frakkin’ ‘em from now on.”

“Kara, I don’t know what Zak did, or why he did it, but my friendship, our friendship, was real. I’m not getting anything out of this.”

“But you want to. You’ve always wanted to. ‘less that was just about gettin’ in my pants because I was your brother’s girl. Maybe we just shouldn’t’ve stopped that night. Then we’d know, and you wouldn’t have had to bother today.”

Lee’s mouth was hanging open; he didn’t have any idea how to respond to that. Tell her he did want her, and play into her frakked up version of events, or insist on playing the gentleman, and never feel her fire consuming him. Neither felt right. “Never said I didn’t want you. You decided that you weren’t even good enough for a pity-frak. I just wanted to be your friend first.”

“I haven’t got time to be “friends” first, Lee. I’ll probably be gone inside of a month, shipped to some crap battlestar or remote weather station, and you’ll never see me again. You wanna frak me, this is your one and only chance.”

Lee gave up. Maybe if he at least made it good for her, she’d remember the Adama name without cursing it. “Can I at least finish my sandwich first? I really am hungry.” That got him an actual smile, small but real.