The hatch to the bathroom closes with clunk and Lee uses the spare bit of metal to dog it.  He just needs 15 minutes to himself.  Time to catch his breath, re-center himself.  It hasn’t hurt this much since Zak died; hasn’t felt this bad since the call so long ago.  4 years.  He really is getting old.  The time is flying by faster than an FTL jump.  Leaps and bounds.  He thinks it was just a minute ago that he lost everything for a third time.

 

Lee thinks it’s a miracle that he’s made it past that minute.  The Peggy was destroyed along with his wife 5 weeks ago; she is gone now and he is floating.  Floating through each hour, each day, each duty.  There are shifts he doesn’t remember, conversations that he knows he had, but can’t remember.

 

The past year he has spent creating memories that have nothing to do with the pain of Zak.  He’s been trying to find a life that isn’t just pain, that isn’t good memories that tear at his heart and rip at his capacity to love.  But now there is fresh pain along with the old.

 

It was Dee and her honesty that pulled him from the danger of letting himself fall.  Deep wells of water, of pain, of suffocating tugs of the afterlife.  She has never lied to him, has always been honest when it comes to his problems, and even though he thinks she got a rotten deal when she married him, he loves her.  Loved her. 

 

It is a quick jerk of his hand and the water sprays on his fully clothed body.  He feels the need to wash away the fuzziness of grief.  He can’t concentrate.  Can’t bring himself into focus.  He feels melted, as if the Gods poured his emotions, soul, ambition, clarity and focus onto the deck.  For the last five weeks he has stared at that miasma of himself pooling on metal and has let it sit.  Now it is time to gather it up, put it back in and move on.  Learn to fight, learn to love, and learn to be Lee again. 

 

He knows what this feels like, he thinks as he slides to the floor in the shower.  Remembers vaguely the feeling of his shower as it poured down on him for a full day before Richter, his wingman, found him and yanked him out.

 

It was so hard last time, Lee muses as his eyes close.  But they say practice makes perfect and this is his third time picking himself up.

 

He doesn’t hear the pounding on the hatch, doesn’t notice the time slipping like droplets of water down the drain. 

 

Just a few moments to gather himself together.  To move past this fuzziness.  His eyes close, gentle fall of rain on his shoulders.  It should always rain in space.

 

“Frak, Apollo.”  In the hazy sunset in his mind, Lee smiles at Helo’s words.  But he’s taking a minute and he knows the hatch is held securely.

 

An arm reaches around his chest and pulls him from the shower, Lee feels the metal floor beneath him, and he looks up hoping to see clouds, gentle clouds gracing him.  But it is just Helo’s concerned face.

 

“I just needed a few minutes.”  He says in a voice very close to a whine.  He rolls on to his side and lays a hand on the floor, feeling the hum of Galactica.  Why is it people feel the need to interrupt his time? 

 

“You’ve had three hours.”  Helo’s pulling him up, leaning him against a warm chest.

 

“Just a few minutes, need to get it together.”  Lee’s mind drifts.  Warm clouds, funny sounds, laughter, Zak, Dee, Gianne, his mother.  Get it together, Lee.

 

“Clear out the halls, Racetrack.  We need to get him back to the bunkroom.”  Far away Helo’s voice was like a hum on the breeze.

 

“I can walk.  Just give me a few minutes.  I need to get it together.” 

 

Think.  Think.  Concentrate.  How had he pulled it together last time?  He remembers the drugged ride with his CAG out to the crash site to see Zak’s plane, crushed and burned.  Wonders if he can take another space walk to find his wife amidst the debris of his ship and crew.

 

I love you, Dee.

 

“Apollo, have you taken anything?  How much have you had to drink?”  Again it’s Helo.  Helo’s in the present, in a world where there is hurt, but he is living.  He’s not living here in his head; he is just poured out on the deck. So he focuses on the arm around his chest like a band, the voice by his ear.

 

“Nothing.”  Lee’s voice is shaky.  Hell, Lee is shaky.  Shaky and cold and he notices the water is pooling off his body.  “Helo?” 

 

“Let’s get you back to officer country.”  A huff of exasperation, ill concealed disgust.  That’s right; Helo hates Lee as much as all of Galactica’s crew does.  Hell all of his crew hated him too, up until they died.  But Lee couldn’t handle losing them.  Knew he wouldn’t survive if his father died in the attempt to save the people of New Caprica.  So he had argued bitterly to the end to save what was left of his heart, his dad, his wife, his crew, and his ship.

 

“I thought I dogged the hatch.”  Lee feels the metal of Galactica beneath his palms as he leans away from Helo to push himself up.  Standing.  He needs to be standing.  Needs to be moving.  Moving on.  Moving forward.  Moving past the pain.  The heart gushing pain of losing himself.  Get up.  He can see Helo now that he is standing.  Standing in a puddle of water, soaked to the skin in his sleepwear. 

 

“You forgot the secondary hatch, sir.”  Helo’s face is blank, but there is a twitch in the corner of his jaw and his eyes, usually so friendly, are cold and narrowed.

 

“Right.”  Lee concentrates, hard, swallows and heads for the door

 

“Sir, let me walk you back…” 

 

Lee’s legs are carrying him along the halls.  He needs to get moving.  It’s better to move.  It’ll be better when he’s up in the stars.  He needs to fly again.  Needs to feel the pressure of launch, the dance of high G’s along his skin.  The music of stabilizers tapping out a rhythm.  And the control, he needs the control to center himself as if he is a loose and spinning viper.

 

After Zak’s funeral he spent 3 days hiding from the world and another one sitting in his shower before his wingman and his CAG had pulled him out.  They had driven him in a happy drugged state to view the crashed Viper and had poured him back into himself before they left for the Atlantia.

 

They aren’t around anymore, their vipers turned off and left to float in space as missiles hailed down on them, it is a sob that catches him now, and Lee stumbles a little down the corridor.  He needs to get moving, get back into space, and try not to remember Dee’s hand as it slipped around his waist every night. His throat is raw and clogged.  Get up.  Do it because he’s pretty sure that no one’s interested in picking Lee Frakin’ Adama up.

 

He can’t see.  Open your eyes, he thinks to himself.  Stop it.  Everyone’s lost someone.  Focus. 

 

On the first step, his wet and barefoot starts to slide out from under him, and Lee knows he’s going down, and then there is an arm.  A tight safety line around his chest, blue banded arm.  It’s pulling him back, pulling him away from the stairs.  “The bunkroom is this way, sir.”  It’s Helo again.  Lee looks at him and feels his mind start to haze around the edges.

 

“I need to get into the air,” Lee’s voice is soft.  “Before I lose myself.”  He needs Helo to understand.  Needs to push away the grief with fighting, with flying, with all the things that have nothing to do with Zak and Dee.  He doesn’t want love and understanding.  He wants to start.  Start to be a new Lee without pain again.

 

He wants the pressure on his chest to be the push of fighting to live, not the pressure of emotions he can’t handle.

 

“As soon as you get some sleep, sir.”

 

“What?”  When had the conversation moved on without him?  Who was Helo talking to?  Lee looked right and left, seeing no one, he concentrates on what just went on, what came out of his mouth, out of Helo’s.

 

“Oh. Okay.  Sleep.  Right.”  By the time he has finished the sentence, he is in the bunkroom.  What should he do?  He looks blankly at the room.  Sleep, that’s right.  He goes to crawl in his bed when a hand stops him, and there is a towel.  A towel?  He looks at it blankly.

 

“You’re wet, sir.”  Lee looks down at himself.  He’s wet.  He shouldn’t sit in the rain.

 

He ignores the towel, and shucks his clothing on the floor and crawls into the cocoon of the sheets, ignoring the damp feel.

 

“Just a few minutes, Helo.  I just need a few minutes to pull myself together.”  As he drifts to sleep, he feels as if his insides have melted, a molten miasma of emotion pooling in his belly.  “I loved her.”  It’s the first time he’s said it out loud.  Dee never heard him say it.  There is a quick squeeze of a hand on his shoulder, and then the curtain is drawn.

 

Get it together, Lee.  It’s all just pain to him.  He can’t face the memories.  Dee, Zak.  They all hurt so much.

 

Pain, memories, Zak Adama, Anastasia Dualla Adama.

 

It’s all the same thing…