Work Text:
"Hey, Lee, wake up." The woman gestured like she wanted to nudge the man on the ground with her toe but stopped short. "Gods, when did you become such a lazy frakker? Lee! Wake up!"
He tried to fumble around for a wristwatch that had long stopped working, but his hand barely moved the old blanket covering him. "No, it's still too early."
"The former CAG who used to chew me out for being thirty seconds late at 0600 thinks it's 'too early'?" she snickered.
"Used to chew you out for being thirty minutes late and hungover, you mean. You sound like Kara, but she's been dead for..." He tried to count years that he had long lost track of. "...a long time. I must be hallucinating."
"Open your damn eyes, Lee." Despite the mild profanity, her voice sounded more worried than annoyed. "It's me, I swear."
His eyelids slowly parted; she was still wearing the same clothes that she had on when they last spoke. "Gods, you haven't changed at all."
She shrugged. "Yeah, well, being dead kinda stops the whole aging thing."
"Why are you here, Kara?"
She abruptly looked away. "Punishment for starting one too many drunken fistfights."
He tried to frown, but his facial muscles were less than cooperative. "No, the real reason."
She turned her back to him and studied the sparse but ornate decorations on his dwelling's curved walls. A crude wooden box with tattered reminders of life before Second Earth – a rusted saw, a dull Colonial Military-issue knife, a few faded pictures from Galactica's memorial wall – sat off to the side. "Is this a village elder's hut? You just couldn't give up being a politician, could you?"
"Retired village elder. And there are only a few dozen adults in the village in a good year. I was more of a glorified conflict mediator than a politician." He tried to sigh, but it came out as a weak wheeze.
She winced. "A few dozen adults is a good year? Do I want to know what a bad year is?"
He tried to shake his head. "No, you don't."
"Is this a good year or a bad one?" The eerie quiet outside made her think better of the question and change the subject. "What happened to exploring?"
"I did plenty of that, but I always ended up right back here."
"Is that why you built your hut on the exact spot where you last saw me?"
"A part of me always hoped you'd come back here someday, I guess." He tried to smile at her despite his previous failure to frown and was equally unsuccessful. "If anyone could come back from the dead twice, it's Kara Thrace."
She stared at the pelt covering the doorway as if hiding her face from him. "Looks like you finally got your wish."
"Kara, why are you here? Please don't dodge the question this time."
She watched a cloud pass overhead through the ventilation hole in the roof. "Lee, please don't..." she trailed off.
"Not saying it isn't going to change anything, Kara."
"Fine." She looked away from the sky and back down to her friend lying on the floor; he struggled to maintain eye contact with her as she searched for the words that hurt the least. "I... I have another mission."
He wheezed again, more ragged than before. "A 'mission'? What, are you going to lead humanity to another new home?"
She crouched down beside him. "No, just one human. Get up, Lee," she pleaded one last time.
With a final rattling exhale, he left his old life behind and joined his old friend. "Where are we going?"
She watched another cloud float by through the hole in the roof. "I still don't know."