Fic: BSG: Wheel

Title: Wheel
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Characters/Pairing: Lee-centric. Roslin/Adama, hints at Kara/Lee
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Through Revelations in S4.
Summary: Written for fluff_friday, so it is, predictably, fluff. Lee works out some family issues.
Disclaimers: I do not own anything or anyone mentioned in this fic. I am not profiting from the writing or posting of this fiction. All these characters belong to Ron D. Moore, David Eick, Sci Fi, NBC Universal and their various subsidiaries. Title and epigraph belong to John Mayer, and if you're curious, it's from "Wheel" on the Heavier Things album.

A/N: Thanks to leiascully for crit, as per usual, and for a few lines hither and thither throughout. My apologies for anything that doesn't make much sense-- finals are already starting to eat my brain!


I believe that my life's gonna see the love I give return to me. --John Mayer, "Wheel"

Lee Adama had a headache.

It was not the first time he had found himself slumped over his desk, one hand rubbing his aching temples, the other gripping some official complaint from yet another disgruntled section of the population. In fact, he reflected wearily, the past few months had often caused him to wonder why he had considered running for President at all.

The trials and tribulations of starting a new civilization on a mostly radioactive planet did not seem to adversely affect his Chief of Staff, however, Lee thought, somewhat bitter about that whole state of affairs. Romo Lampkin seemed even more at home in his new office on this war-ravaged planet than he had in the courtroom, and Lee found that the man was overly fond of strolling into the President's office, Lee's sanctum sanctorum, chuckling about the daily dose of misery Lee would find on the agenda, and then strolling back out again, all the while whistling merrily.

Cheerfully malevolent, Lee thought. Romo Lampkin in two words or less. But Romo was exceptionally good at his job for all his idiosyncrasies, so Lee had resigned himself to living with them.

Lee sighed. At least he'd gotten the man to stop wearing those ridiculous spectacles after they had won the election. "Small victories," Lee mumbled wryly to himself.

"Now, Mr. President, small victories are the best kind-- means your opponent was paying attention." Romo sauntered in and dropped unceremoniously into one of the extra chairs. "Joseph Adama. Heavily paraphrased, mind you," he admonished with a mocking grin.

Lee blinked at him. "Do you ever knock, Romo?"

His Chief of Staff merely smirked. "You wouldn't be doin' anything untoward, would you, now?" When Lee just continued to blink, Romo continued. "No, of course not. I never doubted you for a second. You're our very own paragon of virtue, after all."

"Right," Lee scoffed, leaning back in his chair. "That's why I'm so popular." He gestured at the mass of complaints covering his desk and sighed again. He felt like he did that a lot lately. "So, what do I need to know before I call it a night, Romo?"

Lampkin directed his attention to a few of the more strongly-worded complaints on his desk, smirked a good deal more, and casually mentioned that Lee might consider looking over the latest memorandum on judicial appointments from Geminon's Quorum delegate, since the Cylon delegates were sure to grill him on it at tomorrow's meeting. After a few more laughs at his Chief Executive's expense and a cryptic comment about a spare bottle of Leonid wine under his desk, Romo had traipsed out, leaving Lee grimacing over Geminons and Cylons and generally feeling inadequate.

He grew more and more amazed that President Roslin had negotiated all of this nonsense right alongside her cancer treatments. Laura , he reminded himself firmly. She had been after him for months to call her by her given name, now that he was the President and she was the woman who had married his father. He could never quite manage it, though. Every time he said it, he vowed never to say it again. It just felt awkward, like the first time he had flown a Raptor after all those years in his Mark VII. But Madam President was too formal, and Mrs. Adama was too impersonal, so Laura was where they were for the present, stuck in a holding pattern until further orders were given.

"Hey, Prez," a familiar voice drawled from the doorway. "You ready to get outta here, or what?"

Lee shook himself and glanced at the door. "Kara? What time is it?" He squinted at her and rubbed his eyes with the back of one hand. "And are you wearing a skirt?"

Kara rolled her eyes. "Lee. We're having dinner with your p-- with the Old Man and Roslin," she corrected, shifting her jacket from one arm to the other to cover her discomfiture. "They finished the cabin. It's called a celebration, Lee. We were cordially invited, remember?"

"Oh, frak," Lee muttered, ashamed to realize that he hadn't been out to the cabin since their little groundbreaking ceremony a year ago. He vaguely remembered some passing aide telling him that his father had called. He thought harder and recalled a phone message with something about a dinner, and that he should bring Kara, and maybe a bottle of wine, if he could find time to stop being the President and start being a son, because there should be at least one day when they all had the time. "Frak," he said again, grabbing his jacket and coming around from behind the desk.

Kara crossed her arms and leaned forward a bit to poke him in the chest. "Don't tell me. You forgot the wine."

"I--" he stopped and grinned suddenly. Romo strikes again, he thought. "I left it with Romo," he said, and went to fetch the bottle.

---------------------------
Bill Adama met them at the bottom of the hill, dressed in old slacks and a worn recon jacket and looking for all the worlds like he had never been the highest ranking officer in the colonial fleet. He appeared happier than Lee had ever seen him, actually, and Lee had to smile at that. The former Admiral lumbered over to them and wrapped Kara in a big hug, pounding her on the back and saying, "What do you hear, Starbuck?"

She threw Lee a look that said, "He does this every time," before leaning into the embrace and answering, "Nothing but the rain, sir."

"Then grab your gun and bring the cat in," he said, releasing her and turning to Lee. "It's good to see you, son," he said at length, and Lee figured that was better than nothing, considering he hadn't actually made the time to see them since the election, and really, if he was honest, since the wedding.

"Dad," he said levelly, holding up the wine bottle. "I know it's been awhile. But-- I bring peace offerings?" He lifted his shoulders and waited.

Bill stared him down for a moment and then reached out and took the wine, turning it over to inspect the label. He grinned. "That's one good Chief of Staff you have, isn't it?"

Lee sputtered. "Dad, I, uh, I mean, with all of the--"

To his surprise, his father just laughed. "Forget it. You're here, and that's what counts. Come have some dinner," he said, "And we'll give you the grand tour."

"Can't wait," Lee stammered, still a little uneasy as he followed his father and Kara up the hill. He stumbled a few times on the way, though he noted that Kara did not. She's been here before, he realized sadly, and wondered how much of life he had missed since taking office. He sighed again and tried to pay attention to the conversation Kara was having with his father.

"So why'd you come to meet us, Old Man? It's not like I don't know the way up this frakkin' hill after all this time," she was saying.

"It's only courteous to make sure your dinner guests don't get lost in the woods," Bill answered, somewhat gruffly, and Kara laughed and punched him on the arm.

"Riiiight. I bet she kicked you out because you were sampling all the food again," she accused, and when he made no reply, she cackled and turned to look at Lee over her shoulder. "We were supposed to grill vegetables last week with Helo and Athena," she said, "But by the time we got here, someone had managed to eat them all."

"You were so late, I didn't think you were coming," Bill defended. "As I believe I explained to you at the time."

"Don't believe him, Lee!" Kara crowed. "He tried to tell us he burned them, until Laura came in and told us the truth." She giggled. "How much trouble were you in, anyway?"

Bill smiled. "I've done my time," he answered, and Lee was mercifully saved from any impertinent remarks Kara might have made, as they had finally arrived at the cabin. Laura met them at the door with hugs for Lee and Kara and admonitions for all of them to come in and sit down already, because the food was getting cold, and the lords' knew when Lee had last had a decent meal. Lee followed the others inside into the kitchen, taking note on the way of paintings hung here and there that were obviously Kara's work. He was going to ask about it, but he felt that he couldn't without sounding like he was five years old again and whining that he didn't get the Viper-shaped bed that he'd asked for, and why did Zak get everything cool while he got the responsible-older-brother presents. And so in lieu of sounding like a child, he pulled back his chair and smiled at his family and settled in to eat dinner.

---------------------------
Dinner was delicious, some sort of roasted fowl seasoned with herbs from the garden. Lee sighed.

"That was really good," he said. "I wish I had time to cook every once in awhile. Be a nice break from the Quorum."

Laura smiled. "I must admit that I don't miss their squabbling."

"Who could?" Lee said, arranging his napkin carefully over his empty plate. "And to help matters along, we've got those judicial elections coming up in a few weeks," he complained, ignoring a warning look from his father. "That will certainly add joy to my day."

"Hmmph. I don't quite agree with your policy on that, by that way," Laura commented crisply.

Lee grimaced. "Look, maybe it's not what you would have done, okay? But I think it's a good rule. It's in the best interests of justice."

She pursed her lips and lifted her eyebrows. "But at what cost, Lee?"

"An acceptable cost," he said, feeling sulky.

"Acceptable to whom?" she said meaningfully.

"I'm not as naive as you pretend I am, you know," Lee said, trying to keep his voice level. He knew he had failed when his father abruptly stood up from the table with that I will be waiting for you in the study look on his face.

Laura gave them both a pointed glare, and Lee reflected momentarily that it really was amazing how multipurpose her expressions could be. With one quirk of her lips, she had simultaneously said, "Stay out of this, Bill," and "Oh, I don't think so, Lee."

"Would it kill you to tell me that I'm doing this right?" Lee all but whined, wincing inwardly at how frakking young he sounded.

"I am not going to coddle you, Mr. President," she shot back. "I would be doing you a disservice if I did." She picked up her wine glass. "I understand what you are trying to do, and it is certainly admirable that you have so much faith in the will of the people. But allowing them this much control over a fledgling judicial system at this moment?" She drank the rest of her wine. "It's a terrible idea."

"What would you have me do?" Lee shouted in exasperation. "Appoint judges who support only my view of the law? What about the next president? I am not giving my office that kind of total control over this civilization! The people still have rights and they still have a voice, and I am not going to be the one who takes those rights away, Mom, I'm just not!"

Everything suddenly went very still.

Laura nearly dropped her wine glass. As it was, she barely managed to set it gingerly on the table in front of her plate before saying, "I-- excuse me, please," and hurrying out of the room, hand over her mouth.

Lee watched her go, utterly confused for the moment. He glanced at Kara, who was staring a spot in the middle of the table with huge eyes. "What was that about? Is she okay? She's not--" he gulped, afraid to so much as look at his father if the answer was affirmative, "She's not sick again, is she?"

Bill took off his glasses and set them on the table, then stared at his son with a not-quite-amused, not-quite-irritated expression. "She's fine, Lee," he said, shaking his head. "But if you'll excuse me, I think I should check on my wife." He smiled slowly. "Starbuck?" he asked, and when she nodded, he left the room.

"Dad--" Lee called, uselessly, and sighed again. "You want to tell me what the frak is going on, Kara? You've obviously been granted permanent admission to the Adama family, so could you please fill me in?"

"Hey, Prez," Kara said disdainfully, brandishing her butter knife at him. "It was your decision to run for office, okay? Did you think the rest of us would just stop living and wait for you to catch up?" She twirled the knife around for a moment before letting it fall onto the table. "Look, I don't want to fight, Lee--"

"Frak, Kara, is she really okay?" Lee said sharply. He could feel the familiar jaw muscle start to twitch with his increasing irritation. "I need to know."

Kara sat very still, watching him, with this irritating smile on her face. "Well, well, well. You really meant it, didn't you?" She pulled her lips to one side. "And I thought I was the only one who wanted a redo on my childhood."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

She cocked her head to one side. "You don't even have a frakkin' clue what you just called her, do you?"

"Huh?"

Kara rose halfway out of her chair and leaned over to smack him on the arm.

"Ow!" He rubbed his bicep. "What the frak?"

"It didn't hurt," she tossed back, sitting down again. "And she's fine, by the way."

At that, Lee let out a breath he wasn't even aware he'd been holding, and Kara continued, "Now, think about what you said, flyboy."

"Look, all I said was-- oh, lords." Lee slumped back in his chair. "I didn't. I did." He took a breath. "Did I just... call her Mom?"

Kara grinned. "About time! Gods, I can't believe you were that slow. Good thing you didn't fly a Viper that way or you'd have been a smear on somebody's cockpit years ago."

"Very funny," Lee said, without amusement. "And what am I supposed to do about it now? I've obviously upset her, and I can't blame her-- gods, she married my dad, she didn't sign on to adopt a thirty-something baby," he spat, balling his fists up in his napkin.

Kara started to reach over and grab his hand, but stopped at the last second. "Lee. I--gods, Lee. She's good at the job, okay?" She blew out a breath, sending her fringe skyward momentarily. "I'm up here all the frakking time, so I should know. And I know it's selfish, but I'm glad you've been so busy, because. . . I needed this," she said, gesturing around the room. "I don't even know how to tell you how much I needed this, but... look, Lee, I think it's your turn now."

"Kara, I'm old enough to take care of myself--"

"I'm not," Kara asserted, flicking a few crumbs at him to emphasize her point. "Being able to dress yourself and run a Quorum meeting does not mean you can take care of yourself."

"Oh, this'll be good," Lee said. "Kara Thrace, Psychologist to the President. Please, enlighten me, Doctor."

Kara, surprisingly, did not take the bait, though her eyes flashed momentarily. Instead, she was silent for a minute, and then took a deep breath, and another deep breath, before she finally spoke. "I know we've never really talked about your-- about her," Kara said, shifting uncomfortably and fidgeting with the tablecloth. "But Zak told me enough. And I should have told you this a long time ago, Lee, but he was always grateful to you. For taking all the blame, for standing in the way. But he never told you because-- gods, I think because he was ashamed."

Lee blinked hard. "He was my little brother, Kara. What else was I supposed to do?"

"He said you'd say that," she laughed, sniffling a little. "And he said you wouldn't want an apology from him. But after he died, you know, I think Iwanted you to apologize. Because you broke the rules."

He stared at her, bemused. "What rules, Kara?"

She shook her head and scrubbed at her tears with her sleeve. "It's supposed to be every man for himself. You didn't need to defend him. He would have found his own way. "

Lee swiped a hand across his eyes and grabbed hold of the table, trying to keep himself tied to the moment, afraid of spinning out of control like he had longed to do when his brother had died, leaving all those years of protecting him from their mother an utter waste. "Zak was family," he said quietly, "And sometimes. . ." He looked away. "Sometimes you break the rules."

-------------------------
Lee found Laura later, sitting outside. He shuffled over and dropped down next to her on the grass in the fledgling garden his father had started. She was digging her toes into the soil.

"Hey," he said, running a hand through his hair abashedly, feeling more like an embarrassed ten-year-old than the President of the Twelve Colonies. "I, uh, wanted to apologize."

Laura inhaled sharply, and looked away. "Oh, it's fine," she said, waving one hand uselessly at him. "We should probably stay Laura and Apollo, right?" She smiled quickly at him, her best politician's smile, no warmth to it at all. "Simpler that way, hmm? No need to reinvent the wheel."

He frowned. "Huh?" Lee's eyes widened as realization dawned. "I was-- no, I wasn't. I meant, you know, for raising my voice," he mumbled. "I didn't-- I mean-- gods." He stopped and took a calming breath. This was worse than talking to the press. "It's just Lee," he said finally. "Or maybe Leland. But only if I'm in trouble. Calling you Laura gets awkward. But I didn't know how to fix it. I hope that's okay.""

Laura turned her head to look at him, her hair bouncing back over her shoulders. She beamed at him, looking like her heart had expanded to hold their entire solar system, and he smiled sheepishly back. One of her hands rose up in the air and froze there for a second, like she was resisting some unknown impulse, and then moved up to ruffle his hair.

He laughed. "Hey! Cut it out," he said, batting her hands away. "Mom." Lee grinned at her, and she smiled back. "I hope you know that this means you have to adopt Kara, too," he continued, then leaned over to confide in a conspiratorial tone, "Otherwise she'll get jealous."

Laura nodded and wrinkled her nose at him. "But I can't call her Leland, now can I?"

"You could try," Lee said. "She'd probably just make those big eyes at you, though, and run ask Dad if you were taking cha--" Lee stopped abruptly. Evasive maneuvers! he thought. "If you were, uh, feeling all right," he corrected lamely, dropping his head into his hands and feeling the familiar headache starting to creep back up his neck. "Um," he said weakly, "I didn't mean to." He left the sentence unfinished, hoping it would encompass all that he hadn't meant to happen. I didn't mean to commit you to elections that you lost. I didn't mean to embarrass you in front of the entire Fleet. I didn't mean to need you to be my mother. It had all just happened, whether he intended it or not, and now he had to live with it. A man has to take responsibility for his actions, or he isn't a man. Lee sighed. "I didn't mean to," he repeated.

"Hmm," she murmured, an angry edge to the noise. He screwed up his courage and glanced over at her. Laura's lips were pressed into a thin line, and she was sitting perfectly straight and still.

Time to spin up the FTL drive, he thought miserably, marveling at how quickly he could turn an armistice into another conflagration.

"Oh, frak this," he said, standing up so swiftly that he scattered bits of earth all over Laura. "I have no idea how this is supposed to work! I always say the wrong frakking thing, and it never matters how much I apologize or how much say I didn't mean it or--" he cut himself off, hoping the memories of his mother would vanish along with his tirade. They didn't, and he shook his head, then ran a hand through his hair. "Gods. How am I supposed to do this job, how am I supposed to lead these people, when I can't even get over my frakkin' childhood?" Lee kicked at the ground, hands in his pockets.

Laura watched him stare off into the distance for awhile, then finally reached up and tugged on one of his hands.

He looked down in surprise, eyebrows raised curiously.

"If there's one thing I know about Adamas," she said carefully, eyes sparkling, "It's that you are more stubborn than Sagittarons when it comes to family. And I am trying to imitate that," she said softly, "I really am. So sit down, Lee," she said, patting the ground next to her. "And let's have this conversation until we get it right."

He did as she requested, plopping without grace onto the earth beside her and drawing his knees up so he could rest his elbows on them.

"Maybe she's right," he mumbled.

"Hmm?" Laura queried, though without her customary insistent tone. Maybe she just reserved that for Quorum meetings, he mused.

Lee looked over at her, eyes wide and hopeful. "Maybe it's my turn."

She made no reply, just a barely perceptible nod, and he was about to regret ever starting this, any of it, when he felt her hand pull his head carefully over onto her shoulder. He let himself be pulled, and after a moment he shifted over and leaned into her a little more. Her arm went around his shoulders, and her head tilted to rest against his, and Lee knew he was finally home.