The End ((AU rp for arrow_of_apollo))

[number_eight]

OOC: Takes place after THIS THREAD

He never saw her. Never kept his promise, but then again, Kara had miraculously come back from the dead, the Cylons had found them, and their whole world had been twisted around all over again.

Once things had calmed down, Helo told her that Lee was quitting the military for good. Part of her was glad, because she realized that she would never have to worry about CAP rotations that he would schedule just so they could be together. Of course, part of Sharon wasn't, because it meant a civilian life for Lee.

She would never see him again... and wasn't that what she wanted? Dee and Lee apparently ended their marriage, so she would never find out the truth, and as for Helo? Well, there was a team he was putting together secretly, and he'd asked her to be part of it. So, Sharon would be with her husband, Lee would be free, they would be apart...

Wasn't that what she wanted?

"So, I pulled a few strings and I'll be your Raptor pilot to take you over to Colonial One," Sharon told Lee, all business, but quite aware of the people that would be waiting for a proper send-off once they got to the hangar bay.

"Are you ready?"

Comments

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

Lee took one last look at his quarters, now as bare as the day he and Dee had moved into it and nodded to Sharon. "Yes. And no," he admitted, before grabbing his bag-- all his worldly possessions that actually belonged to him and not to the Colonial Fleet stuffed into a duffel and slung over his shoulder. He was wearing his one blue suit, the one that was becoming even more comfortable and familiar to him than his blues or fatigues ever did.

"Why, uh, why'd you do that?" he asked Sharon, hesitantly. "Pull strings, I mean?"

He'd barely seen her since Baltar's trial, of course. With Kara's return and his resignation, Lee hadn't seen much of anyone on Galactica in the last few days. But it didn't change the tension that thrummed between them, at least not from where he stood.

It took all Lee had not to break into tears when she led him to the flight deck. The assembled men and women standing there were just about the most beautiful and heartbreaking sight he'd ever seen. He didn't know what to do, so he shook hands and accepted congratulations and made a terrible joke instead of thanking Dee or begging her to stay his wife. Part of him was glad for the silence when the Raptor hatch shut.

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

"Because," she started, then stopped. She thought about it a bit more and finally admitted, "because I missed seeing you. I figured this might be one of the last chances I have to actually say good-bye to you properly."

And there it was, out in the open, and she couldn't take it back now. Whatever else was going on in the Fleet, whatever was happening with Hera and Helo, or Dee and Kara, there was that truth at last. What he chose to do with it was up to him, of course.

Sharon took her place and saluted, but noticed how emotional Lee got. When Dee told him "good-bye", Sharon quietly got into the Raptor and started up the engines.

"I know there's no rush for you to get over to Colonial One since President Roslin is staying with your father for a bit longer, so she'll need Ms. Foster with her as well. So it looks like it's going to be just you and me for this last flight."

She turned to look at Lee, really look at him. "I could take the scenic route."

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

"I, um--" Lee sighed. "I missed you, too." And he'd made the admission right back, of course at the moment when there was nothing really to be done about it, which he hoped in the long run would be for the best.

Sitting in the co-pilot seat, Lee watched as the flight deck sped away from under them, and the Raptor launched into space. At first he nodded absently to Sharon, thinking her words were simple small talk. Once he registered the last, though, he swallowed through a dry throat. The answer, though, wasn't difficult to come by or unexpected in the least.

"Yes," he answered. "Yes, I think you should."

He met Sharon's eyes as best he could. "Sharon, I don't know what it was we had, but... But I want you to know I don't have any regrets." It wasn't something he'd admitted to himself, let alone anyone else, but he owed it to her to say.

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

She nodded and started taking a long route which would travel the entire fleet before making its way to Colonial One. She felt her heart rate speed up even as she did it, partly because this felt like a real good-bye finally.

"I don't, either," she told him, not really sure what else to say. "I don't know what this was or wasn't, and I don't even know if I'll ever see you again since it seems Maggie's been making more runs than I have lately, so..." This was what she'd wanted. She'd wanted a clean break of it, and here was her chance but damn it, she wasn't doing it.

Sharon finally looked over at Lee and there were tears in her eyes. "Frak, Lee. I'm going to be leaving with Helo and Kara. Bunch of others, too. Your father okayed the mission and so..." So this was really it?

She tried not to let her lower lip quiver too much. "I don't want this to stop," she admitted in a whisper.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

If they could have just said their piece and then goodbye, that would have been easy. Even if it was hard for both of them to walk away from whatever it was they had, as long as they could both still manage to walk away, things would be fine. A new life for him away from the Fleet, and the freedom for Sharon to not have to be tied to him when they both knew it shouldn't be. But nothing about him and Sharon had ever been easy or simple, and when Lee saw the tears on Sharon's face, he knew this would be no exception.

Lee shook his head in confusion for a moment. "A mission? What mission? I never heard about--" But he wasn't CAG anymore, he reminded himself. Not that he needed to, as the answer came to him soon enough. "He's letting her look for Earth. Let me guess, he gave her some garbage scow of a ship, and a crew..."

Her last words were what finished him off, though. Lee reached across the cockpit and hit the controls to turn the Raptor to autopilot. Then, his hands found her face, gently holding it, letting him stare into the dark deep of her eyes. "I don't, either."

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

Sharon just nodded, not really knowing what to say to him about the mission. He wasn't supposed to know, especially now that he was going to be working with President Roslin, but she had to tell him why she wouldn't be around. When he turned the autopilot on, though, and held her face in his hands, she almost lost it.

This wasn't love. It was something different, something that she couldn't put a name to, maybe even something more. Sharon placed her hands over his, scooting closer to him. "Then let's not. Let's not let it end, let's... Lee, make it better." Wasn't that also what he did? He made things simpler, easier, and she had always gone along with it, then hated herself later.

She didn't want to hate herself anymore. And she didn't want it to stop. She wanted the simple solutions that Lee always had.

"Make it better," she whispered before she kissed him with all the pent-up emotions she'd been feeling the last few days.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

Make it better, she asked him, and Lee understood instantly why. How many times had he told her that when it was just the two of them, it wasn't Lee and Sharon? That they could forget every assumption and every expectation and every connection to any other living being except the one they had made between themselves? If they could tell themselves that before, why couldn't they tell themselves that it never had to end?

And there was only one way to convince themselves of that.

Lee returned her kiss, feeling it grow in intensity and hunger. His mouth opened, and he pulled at her desperately, as if he were trying to keep from drowning. But all he wanted to do was drown. With an audible groan, Lee tore himself away from Sharon and climbed out of the seat, pulling at her arm to follow.

The back cabin of the Raptor was cramped, and the floor hard steel, but there was enough room. And if there weren't, Lee knew they would still do this. Once Sharon had joined him, he frantically started pulling at the stays of her flight suit.

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

Damn flight suit. It felt like it took forever to get it off, but Lee's outfit was thankfully, much easier. No tie, just the shirt, slacks, and jacket. Once it was off, Sharon's hands were everywhere at once, trying to memorize this moment in case it was the last.

She gripped him tightly, stroking him as her mouth never left his. Soft little moans escaped her lips as she pressed her body against his, skin on skin. "Make it better," she groaned out one more time, small tears threatening to spill as she moved to the cold floor, looking up at him as she tugged him down on top of her.

It wasn't the most romantic of places, but then again, they had never had that.

Her legs wrapped around his as she pulled him inside her, hissing at the feel of him and holding on as if her life depending on this, him, everything right at that moment.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

It was true that they didn't have much time-- it wasn't as though a tour around the fleet would take hours-- but Lee and Sharon were still tearing at each other as though someone would be opening the hatch any second now. The moment her hand curled around his length, the heat began building inside of it, and when he finally felt her small breasts with their stiffened points crushed against his skin, there was nothing left but that hunger.

"I want you... I want you Sharon..." he groaned. Had he ever said those words? Lee had said he wanted "this", and had said what he wanted to do, but her name?

When he settled between her legs and drove his painfully hard length into her, all of Sharon-- arms, legs, and tightly gripping warmth-- pulled around him. Lee's hips began to roll, thrusting into the wet pull of her, deep rumbling sounds forcing their way out of his throat.

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

"I want you too, Lee." And that was the moment that she realized the same thing that he had just discovered. No, it wasn't love -- but the connection she'd been trying to deny all this time just couldn't be anymore.

Lee, with all his faults, was somehow better for her in many ways than Helo, with all of his perfections.

She would have normally kept quiet, the way they had to all this time, but they were alone and everything was frantic. She screamed, instead, clinging to him as the warmth sped up and down her spine and tiny muscles tightened around his length, trying to hold him closer and keep him within her longer. She was frakking him (or maybe he was frakking her) hard and fast, but not because it was wrong. Because it was right.

"Frak, Lee, yes, please..." Sharon's head flew back and hit the floor but it didn't register. All she wanted was Lee, inside her, filling her up, as her orgasm rolled again and again and never stopped...

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

It couldn't have been pretty, Lee supposed, the two of them frakking on the floor of a Raptor in a tangle of his suit and her jock smock, both of them grunting and groaning, but for him, it was the closest thing to perfect he had known in a very long time. There was nothing but need between them, hunger and want. Sharon was wild beneath him, pulling and scratching, and it only drove his pace faster and harder.

When she screamed and climaxed, Lee felt her flood around him. He was lost in the warm, wet, tight grasp of her and if he'd been anywhere near reasoning at that moment, he would have been amazed his thrusts hadn't frakked Sharon right through the hull. Her back and his knees would be bruised and battered, but Lee didn't feel any of it. All he felt was her.

"Sharon... frak, yes, Sharon!" he roared as his own orgasm came from nowhere, a sudden bursting of the wall. She was still writhing and shuddering under his body, and even as he climaxed in three or four hard waves, he didn't stop thrusting.

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

She was sweating from it all, clinging to him still, and finally she grabbed his face between her hands and kissed him, hard. "Don't leave." It could have been taken any number of ways -- don't leave the Colonial Fleet. Don't leave her. Don't pull out and leave her body empty.

Sharon finally caught her breath and knew they had to get dressed again, though. It had been fast because they hadn't had enough time, and she had to get him over to Colonial One. Slowly, she pushed him off her and struggled to get back into her flight suit, smoothing her hair out as she stumbled a little and went back to take the Raptor off autopilot. Sitting down, she couldn't look at him.

"What are we going to do now?"

How was Sharon to know that it was the same question Kara had asked him back on New Caprica?

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

He didn't want to leave. His arms ached from holding himself up, and his knees were going to be black and blue from kneeling on the steel deck plates, and he was bare assed naked on the floor of a Raptor that would be docking with Colonial One in less than a few minutes, and Lee didn't want to leave. Instead, he panted and listened to his heart pound and just stared at Sharon until she pushed him off.

They dressed in silence-- two of his shirt buttons had been torn off, at some point, but he was able to make do-- and took their seats. Except for the warmth of the cabin and the rumpled state of their appearance, it was as if nothing unusual had happened between leaving Galactica and then.

Sharon asked the question Lee had been asking himself. He only hoped he had an answer. When Kara had asked him the same thing, he'd been so frakking sure that he knew the right thing to do. It was simple, and clear. Nothing with Sharon had ever been either of those things, and they weren't going to start being so now.

"The only thing that can happen," he said back, trying to fix his jacket collar, "I go on to my new post, and you go back to your husband and your daughter and your mission." Lee sighed. "And you and I have to be satisfied with remembering."

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

"Right," she said quietly, shaking her head at him. She'd finally given in, finally done it his way, finally had wanted things easy and clear. She'd finally admitted that she needed him and this and she didn't want it to stop, and what did he do?

"Right. Well, it's been a pleasure then, Mr. Adama," she said, all business as she turned the Raptor towards Colonial One, wiping away the stupid frakking tears that appeared seemingly out of nowhere. "God, I hate you. I hate you for doing this to me, for pushing yourself into my life, turning it upside-down, and then walking out like nothing happened."

She finally looked at him after they'd landed. "I hope you remember, Lee. I hope you remember every single frakking day and I hope you remember what you just gave up at this moment."

She stuck her hand out to shake his.

"Goodbye."

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

If there were frost on the Raptor's forward cockpit, Lee wouldn't have been surprised, considering the sudden drop in temperature between them. No one who saw them right in that moment could ever have imagined that just five minutes earlier, they'd been half-naked on the floor of the rear compartment, frakking like their lives depended on it.

He could handle the cold. If Sharon decided to shut him out and pretend as if nothing had ever happened, Lee wouldn't have just understood-- he'd have welcomed it. With him leaving the Fleet, there would be no reason for them to be anywhere near each other, and having an emotional gap as big as the physical one would just cement the separation.

Then, Sharon broke. It hurt Lee to see her cry, but it made him just as angry to hear her blame him for the tears. "We did this together, Sharon. We both made the choices that led us here. Both responsible, both guilty."

"I thought I could make that decision once," he answered her after the skids touched down but before the landing bay was pressurized, "to throw away every responsibility and commitment just because of..." Lee trailed off, not knowing what to call this. He didn't feel for Sharon what he felt for Kara, but there was something. "It wouldn't have worked then, and it wouldn't work now. I may need you, but other people need you more."

Outside of the Raptor, Lee shook Sharon's hand, then stepped back and saluted her. "Good luck and gods' speed, Lieutenant." Tory Foster was standing nearby, and nodded to him. Lee followed, took one last look over his shoulder, then walked away.