~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This was a great series of stand-alone stories which dealt with the choices that the characters on Battlestar Galactica have made throughout the mini-series and first season. This will be the last installment in the series and what I’ve been referring to as my “swan song”. It got kind of long because I have a hard time letting go of things like this series which I’ve spent so long on.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She pulled back and studied him for a moment before slowly nodding. She understood the feeling. Without a word, she sat up and pulled the shirt off her body. His reaction was instantaneous as he grabbed her wrist and yanked her back towards him. She had just barely let out a laugh at his sudden impatience before his lips were on hers in a move that was both brutal and somehow gentle at the same time, taking her by surprise.

Only with Lee could she laugh and joke while being in such an intimate position.

She felt his hand sneak down slowly to cup her breast, gently rubbing the erect peak, and scolded herself at her quick intake of breath. She hadn’t been this hopped up on sexual energy since that little fling she had with a superior officer during Academy. The thrill of it had been mostly due to the forbiddenness of the affair.

This current affair went so far beyond forbidden that it was positively sinful.

They both felt the other slowly adjust to the change that had happen so quickly between them. The tone shifted from a frantic need to be close to a sudden need to not rush it. Lee had no idea why this was little impulse of his was actually working, but he smiled as he felt her shift her body so that she rubbed up against the steadily growing bulge in his boxers. Their interaction was starting to become a little less one-sided. He liked that.

He liked that quite a lot actually.

When he had been trying so hard all day not to imagine doing this very thing and being totally unsuccessful in it, he hadn’t even begun to comprehend how quickly she would set him on edge. The feel of her hair against him was tickling his neck in a way that made him wonder if he could handle this woman in her full glory. There had been stories about her, and he had never once doubted that they were true. He knew first hand what a handful she could be.

He had a feeling he was about to find out.

Lee wanted to take it slow, knowing that this might be the one and only chance he has to do this right. Too bad his body and his senses both weren’t cooperating as he lowered his mouth to her right breast, seeking out the immediate pleasure of hearing her gasp and moan under his touch as he slowly kissed his way around the nipple, content on just teasing her at the moment. He could feel it stiffen under his ministrations.

His attempts at torturing her were rewarded as she shifted slightly again in an unconscious effort to give him more access. He could feel her muscles tighten as she clutched onto the blankets that they had thrown off sometime in the past few minutes. He could hear her whimper slightly as he kept up his teasing movements. Her responses only drove him to tease her more.

She must have finally given up the small fight she had put up at first to keep this from happening. He had to admit that he had been fighting it himself even as he felt his hand reach out to rest itself on her waist. He hadn’t meant to do it, but having her so close was something he didn’t know how to handle.

He wasn’t sure the exact reasons she had fought it or if they were the same reasons as his. Right now, he was surprised to discover that he didn’t really care. She wasn’t fighting it now. That was all the mattered.

A small fear formed in his heart as the implications of what he had done sunk in. His actions had been so quick that even he couldn’t have stopped them. How was he to know that she wanted this? She probably hadn’t even had the opportunity to realize she could make him stop this with the smallest hint of resistance. He suddenly wasn’t sure whether this was their mutual choice or if maybe he had persuaded her.

“Kara. Do… do you want me to stop?” he found himself asking even though he was afraid of the answer. He wasn’t sure he could stop. But he also wasn’t sure he could keep going if the small, nagging worry of whether she was only letting him touch her because she didn’t know how to tell him no still resided in him.

She didn’t respond with words. Instead, he felt her grab his neck roughly to pull him into a seeringly hard kiss that would probably leave bruises on both of their lips in the morning. There was his answer. Loud and clear. He could feel his heart start to race as her touches pulled and tugged at everything inside of him.

Damn. She had been holding back on him.

Lee didn’t mind her taking control of the situation at all, but he found that he couldn’t let himself relinquish all of the control. As much as he would love to see how far she would take this by her own choice, he just couldn’t keep his hands off of her.

Lee coaxed her mouth open, unable to wait any longer in desire to touch that soft tongue he had been staring at the whole time they were drinking the special coffee she had made earlier. She was beginning to buck gently against him almost as if she didn’t care he was still clothed. It was an infuriating reminder that he still hadn’t felt her completely bare against his.

Knowing they were both thinking the same thought at that moment, she continued to test the depths of his mouth with hers while slowly moving her hands over the muscles of his chest and downward.

“So this is what it’s like to be in bed with a god,” Kara said against his lips. He could feel the corners of her mouth turn up in a slight smirk. Playfully, she leaned down to place a small lick on his throat and then a quick and painfully pleasant nip. “I always wondered.”

He didn’t know where this playfulness had come from, but he wasn’t about to complain. Now when she was making all of his sense go haywire just by being near him. He didn’t even want to imagine what she would do if she actually did more than tease. Lee suddenly realized that if this was going to last anywhere near as long as he wanted it to, they needed to slow down.

She must have come to the exact same realization because she brought her hands up to his face. With one finger, she lightly traced the scar on his chin before licking it slowly and sensually with her tongue. “I remember the day you got that,” she winked at him. “You were protecting me.”

“More like trying to get the fight over with before you ended up killing someone.”

She touched the scar lightly with her fingertips. “Got any more I don’t know about?”

“You’ll just have to find that out for yourself.”

“Challenge accepted,” she said while snaking her hands around to feel his backside through the cotton cloth of his boxers. It was something she had imagined doing for longer than she cared to remember. All those times when people asked her if she had ever managed to sneak a touch and if it was as great to feel as it was to look at. She had gotten tired of lying to people, of telling them she had never wondered that herself and it was odd to think of Lee in that sense. In actuality, she thought about that very thing every time she saw him in that damn flight suit.

She had no idea who was responsible for the Colonial standard uniform for a Viper pilot, but she fully intended to write them a letter of thanks one of these days. The stolen glimpses of him in passing whenever they were stationed on the same Fleet lasted her through many a lonely night. She could remember the feelings she had driven to the surface with only her hands and the memory of Lee in a flight suit.

Right now he was causing the same feelings inside of her. And she had to admit that the reality was much better than her phenomenal fantasies.

And this new picture of Lee out of his flight suit was even better than the one of him in it. There was a thin layer of sweat on his chest and shoulder, and she could smell a faint sweaty heat rising off of him. It was masculine and sexy and made her damp between her thighs. He really was a god.

After a few moments of relishing in the sight of him, she let her hands work their way around to the front of him. Lee could feel her teasing touch around the waistband. She had adjusted nicely to his little proposition to risk the nature of their relationship. Honestly, he had thought she would end up decking him when she turned around and caught him in the act of making a move to cop a feel.

Suddenly, he remembered the look in her eyes as she had turned around to face him. She had been surprised to see that he was awake, but she definitely hadn’t been angry at what he was doing. In fact, she seemed downright aroused. And knowing that he had done that to her was almost too much for his already tense system.

Lee moved his hands slowly down to the last piece of clothing she had on her body. He knew that once her underwear was off, there was no hope of his being able to stop. Frak. There probably was no hope already.

“I’m not going to stop you,” she whispered hoarsely in his ear, almost as if she knew what he had been thinking

Lee took a deep breath as he reached his hand down to slowly draw the tiny piece of fabric down her thighs. Her words were bringing him dangerously close to giving in to his sudden impulse to rip off his remaining clothing and take her right then and there with probably a lot more force than he had ever intended.

She had always had that sort of effect on him.

“No one has kept me on my toes the way that you have,” he said, brushing his fingertips over her. She instinctively pressed herself against his hand, urging him to stop teasing her. In actuality, he thought that she would have put up a little more of a fight than this. He knew she was a complicated kind of woman, but as he parted her tenderly with his fingers and delved inside, he realized in this setting she wasn’t that complicated.

In the back of his head, he realized there was still one thing that might screw everything up. If he let her take any little bit of control, he might be ending this little encounter a little sooner than he wanted to. Control was not a thing he gave up to her without a fight when it came to this particular situation. He wanted this to last. He wanted her to see how stupid it was for them to have not done this before. A lot rode on him taking his time and getting this right.

Knowing she was already almost ready to topple over the edge, he pulled back from her and shed his boxers in one swoop. He might want to take his time, but it was getting downright uncomfortable in those things.

Kara felt him sit back and knew that he was staring down at her. Normally shameless staring wasn’t something she let those she was intimate with get away with. But she wanted his eyes on her. Gods, she had never wanted anything as much as she wanted to keep the feeling of him looking at her.

And judging from the smoldering look on his face, he wanted to keep looking at her just as much. After a moment’s hesitation, the warning ringing through her head that maybe she was making a mistake came flooding back. It caused her to hesitate a few seconds, but the sight of him naked before her soon made her forget anything but how good it felt to be with him.

Frak doing the right thing when the wrong thing felt so good.

“You are amazing,” he said softly.

It was at this moment, for the first time, Kara noticed that he was looking at her with the normal fires of passion in his eyes she had come to expect from the men she took as lovers. But there was something else there that she couldn’t quite put her foot on at the moment. This was the first time in years that she had ever had trouble reading a man when he was vulnerable in front of her. Then again, this was the first time in a long while that she actually cared about what was going on inside the man in front of her. She hadn’t been in a position like this with someone she actually cared about in so fraking long.

“You are so damn beautiful,” he said, touching the side of her face gently with his hand.

“So I’m told at least ten times a day,” she said, using humor to mask the feelings of both fear and uneasiness at her failure to have an immediate reading on the situation completely. She also wanted to hide the precious few seconds she had been delayed in responding to his honest comment. No one had been that blatantly adoring of her in so long. It made her heart ache with a joy she didn’t think she’d ever feel again.

She reached out for his hand and pulled him down on top of her. “I want you to show me.”

He gladly took up her challenge and let himself get used to the way she fit so nicely against him once more. Her skin felt as if it was on fire even thought there still was no heating in her house, and the heat radiating off of her was making him more and more satisfied with his decision to come to her bed.

“Gods, you don’t know what you’re doing to me,” he choked out as he felt her hand boldly grasp his shaft and rub it slowly.

“Tell me then,” she managed to spit out before pushing him over so that she was straddling his body. She was so stuck in the throws of passion that she didn‘t even take time to scold herself for giving in to him so easily.

Kara had spent five years making sure that she understood how much her friendship with Lee meant. She had come up with reason after reason as to why she should never act on her feelings for him. How it would only end in more pain and suffering if she did.

And she had thrown away the logical thought from all those years at the first chance she got.

There was no going back now, she thought, as she slowly began to stroke him with a little more force. He almost sounded as if he was in pain, which only egged her on. He fiercely grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her mouth to his. Again she was surprised by the brutality of his actions. She knew that if it had been anyone else, she would have been less than pleased.

But knowing this was her kind and gentle Lee, losing himself to the passion of being with her, made anything and everything he did completely acceptable.

Her Lee. She felt herself smile against his lips at the thought of that.

Lee felt himself groan loudly as she bit down on his lip roughly. It seems like he wasn’t the only one getting carried away in the heat of the moment.

And speaking of getting carried away, he was going to have to stop what she was doing to him with her hands if he didn’t want to get carried away. Again he reminded himself that he only had one shot at getting this right.

He reached down to cup both of her wrists together in one palm and yanked her until she was once again flush against his body. Figuring it was his turn to do the torturing, he reached down to cup her breast. In the back of his mind, he knew that what they were doing would irreparably change them.

But in his heart, he didn’t care. If he only got one night with her, that would be enough to last the rest of his lifetime.

Her nipple pressed into his palm, and Lee let his thumb rub over it, circling, flicking. When he couldn’t take it any more, he leaned down and took her into his mouth, sucking ruthlessly. He rolled his tongue over her nipple again and again until Kara thought she was going to orgasm on the spot.

“I can’t get enough of you,” he said simply as he switched over to her other breast. “I want to feel you tremble.”

“Oh gods,” she whispered huskily as she felt him nip her breast playfully. “Did they teach you how to do that in war college?

“No. This is all more of a field experience situation than something I learned from a textbook.” He rubbed himself up against her thighs, and for one blissful moment, she thought he might take her right then, fast and hard. “I also learned that it can be much more fun to give than to receive.”

She gasped as he inched his hand away from her breast and down her stomach. The pressure of his fingertips was heightening her awareness of her surroundings. For a brief second, she wondered if there was any possibility that Helo or the Old Man could stop by for a surprise visit. She had never made sure the doors were all locked.

All thoughts about being discovered in a compromising position flew from her mind quickly, though, as his hand circled her opening, and he pushed one finger carefully deep inside her.

The roughness of his hand combined with the gentleness of his touch was almost too much for her, and it seemed like he was only just getting started. Kara tried to stifle the giggle that suddenly wanted to come out of her mouth as she realized just what she was in for.

All thoughts of laughter disappeared, though, as Lee opened his mouth on her throat, sucking her skin in against his teeth, while her hips moved in rhythm with his thrusting finger. She could feel the tension building deep within her.

“Oh gods, please,” she muttered, reaching her own hands down so that they rested on top of his.

He knew that she wasn’t normally the kind of girl who begged for anything. But in bed, under his hands, it seemed he had her doing the uncharacteristic. He almost lost the small amount of control he still had at the idea of what power he had over her.

Adding a second finger, Lee worked her back up to that level of pleading he had slowly let ease as he came to the realization that he might be achieving a response that was so uncharacteristic of this stunning woman. She moved her hands out onto the sheets again and grasped them as tightly as she could manage. In her arching and writhing, her breasts moved towards his waiting mouth, and he felt a sudden need to be touching her in two of her most sensitive areas. He wallowed in the intimate feel of her as she began to moan under the movements of his hand and tongue. Small tremors coursed through her body causing her to let out a loud groan of pleasure.

“Shhh,” he whispered. “You’ll wake the neighbors.”

“I don’t care about my stupid neighbors. You have had me so on edge all fraking day, Lee” she admitted, pulling his face up so that she could kiss him on the lips.

“Let me help you with that,” he said with a laugh that sent shivers down her spine.

He kissed his way down her body, through the valley between her breasts, pausing at her belly button to marvel at the tattoo he knew hadn’t known was there a few years earlier, over her hipbones, to the one place he knew she was desperate to be touched.

It also happened to be the one place he was desperate to touch her.

He allowed a moment pause to get a little more control over himself. He wanted this to be just right.

Kara felt his tongue dart around where his fingers were still buried, urging her until he found the spot he was searching for. The sudden intrusion made her sit up and push back against the headboard of the bed while parting her legs to accommodate this new sudden longing to stay this way forever.

In the back of her mind, she still found herself wondering how she had gotten so lucky as to have him here in her bed. What had she done that was so right that the gods sent him to her doorstep as a reward?

Oblivious to her thoughts and suddenly rather determined to have her climax, Lee teased her mercilessly, drawing her into his mouth and sucking softly, insistently. His eager tongue was flicking expertly against her flesh. She gripped damp handfuls of his hair and pushed herself against his mouth, demanding. His growl of satisfaction reverberated through her body.

He shoved her back down onto her back and lifted her legs up high, parting them even further. He rubbed her with the roughness of his tongue until moments later she let loose a tearing moan as an orgasm raged through her body. He moved with her bucking and squirming until she had calmed down.

“Damn,” she whispered pulling him up to her when she finally had her breath and frankly the basic ability to move her body, back. “They definitely don’t teach that in the military.”

With a laugh, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close to him. “Don’t relax quite yet. Because I am far from done with you, sweetheart.”

She both eyed and felt his still present erection. “I can tell. We’ll just have to do something about that, now won’t we?”

His pupils shot wide as he saw her lick her lips. He had been right to suppose that this woman would be the death of him, and right at this moment, he didn’t mind the prospect of dying.

“I want you inside me,” she said huskily. “All the way inside me.”

Kara didn’t know where the words came from. This was Lee she was talking to. They had been through so much together that this should have been chocked full of fumbling and embarrassment. She shouldn’t be feeling so confident in herself. But she was.

“Don’t make me wait anymore, Lee,” she insisted.

It was all he could do to not push himself into her to the hilt at her use of his name. But instead, he remembered once more how he wanted this to happen just right. So instead of taking her hard and fast like his body wanted him too, he teased her lightly, rubbing himself against her so that he entered her just ever so slightly.

Somewhere in the middle of all this madness, he had suddenly understood that teasing her was almost as pleasurable as the actual fulfillment. This was really unlike any other situation he encountered. It was also better than any fantasy he could have ever dreamed up.

Unaware of his current thoughts, Kara found herself thinking along the same lines. Making love to Lee was both everything and nothing like she had imagined. It was so much more.

Lee could feel her squirming underneath him. The anticipation of what he was about to do had finally gotten the better of her, and she closed her eyes in agonizing pleasure. She felt herself surrendering to his control.

“Look at me,” he growled.

Her eyes flew open at his insistent tone.

“I want to see your eyes when I do this.” Without any more hesitation or teasing, he pushed himself into her with one long, groaning slide.

Kara leaned against him and sucked in air, adjusting to the fit, feeling the thrill of having him inside her. Her hands caressed his back with a tenderness that brought unexplained longing to her. She should have known that she couldn’t just let this be two lonely people coming together in the night. Already her heart was begging for it to be more.

And then she felt something shift in both of them. All the self-control they had both been trying to muster up had gone flying out the window when they came together as one. Withdrawing himself completely, Lee slowly began to work up a rhythm while still managing to tease her.

Knowing what was so close to being within her grasp, she felt herself finally growing impatient with him. With a look of determination, she locked her legs around him and held him deep inside her with an unsurprising strength as she rocked with him, thrust for thrust. All of the sudden, it was she and not he that was setting the pace.

“Oh gods,” he muttered, resting his head against the mattress and closing his eyes. He was almost drowning in the feel of being deep inside her.

“Look at me,” she practically cried in pleasure. When his eyes flashed open at her command, she added, “I want to watch you scream.” She tightened her heels on his back and pushed hard up against him as he buried himself in her once more.

He slid his arm beneath the arch of her back, pulling her into him as tight as he could. Shocked gasps jerked out of her with each heavy thrust. The gentle intimacy that was once there was completely shattered. Somewhere this had turned hard and primal. He felt his control begin to wane as he realized that she was excited by the brutality of his movements. It was almost too much to know that she trusted him as much as she did.

He took a moment to look down at her. Her mouth was gaping open, her body was heaving against his, and her soft thighs were clenched around him. Almost in disbelief, he watched as she cried out again and held herself around him as tight as she could as she went through yet another shakingly violent orgasm. She was unbelievable.

She was unbelievable, and he was hopelessly in love.

As soon as she could focus again, Kara rolled over without breaking contact so that she was on top of him. She had no idea how he had been able to hold on while she had completely lost herself. All she knew was she wasn’t going to let the situation stay that way for much longer.

Raising her body up until he was almost out of her, she let herself sink back down onto him. The groans erupting from his lip just spurred her on, and she rose up and took him in again in a hot, slow glide of pressure. Rocking against him, she felt the heat rise up and slink slowly back down again and again.

A man has his limits, Lee thought. And this sensual, slow pull that she was creating had him about to go insane. He couldn’t take anymore. His fingers bit into her waist, and his hips bucked as he seized control of the rhythm. All she could do was gasp and hold on for the ride which shifted effortlessly from deep and pounding to a sensual dance that slid over and over her.

His held-back climax finally began to rip through him. He shouted, groaned, and, exactly as she had demanded in what seemed like ages before, screamed as she continued to take his thrusts while he poured himself into her. Her walls tightened around him, and he felt her finally let herself go into one mind-bending orgasm that made him want to start all over again.

With a satisfied whimper, she rolled off of him and fell down by his side. He knew it was just about the worst thing he could do, but still he felt himself laying his head down against the bed and there was nothing he could do to stop it. She had taken a lot out of him, which was a hard thing to do. Now he was just plain exhausted. Too exhausted to even think of what might happen if he fell asleep without telling this woman lying next to him that he loved her.

He knew that if he didn’t tell her now, there would never be a time. Her defenses would come back up, and it would be over. Even as his mind screamed at him to keep his eyes open, he felt himself slowly drift off to sleep.

Fortunately for him, she was already fast asleep, completely worn out by their encounter. She unconsciously burrowed herself in close to his side, and he wrapped his arm around her.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Kara woke up with a lazy yawn and stretched her body out as she slowly opened her eyes. She looked around her bedroom and smiled, remembering that this place was her own. It was her home.

Then, she remembered what had gone on last night. “Damn. That was one hell of a dream,” she said with a laugh, pulling her hands over her face. She knew that she must look positively content.

After a quick glance at the clock told her that she still had three hours before she had to be running her first shipment of the day, she slid out of bed, picking her shirt off the floor. Her eyes caught on another piece of clothing thrown recklessly nearby.

She didn’t remember ever owning a pair of boxers.

She turned to look back at the bed and scrunched up her face in deep thought. The bed looked like a hurricane had run through it. The blankets and pillows were strewn everywhere, including a few of the smaller pillows having been thrown all the way to the other side of the room. She knew that tossing and turning in her sleep was a common occurrence, but this was bordering on ridiculous.

And that was when she heard the faint sound of water running from her bathroom.

“Oh gods,” she said, staring at the half-open door. “It wasn’t a dream.”

The water cut off, and she realized that she didn’t even have time to decide what she should do. Running, which was her usual response to things like this, wasn’t an option. This was her home after all.

Still unsure of what else to do but knowing she had to do something, Kara took a deep breath and let herself into the bathroom. Lee was casually standing in front of the mirror, a towel thrown carelessly around his hips. Her mind immediately started suggesting to her how easy it would be to just reach out and pull the soft cloth away from his body and then she could just…

She shook her head to make the thought stop before it finished. That was not a place she wanted to be going right now. Her eyes locked on Lee’s in the reflection of the mirror. “Hi,” she said, taking a few more tentative steps into the room.

“Hi.”

“What are you doing?” The words made her cringe. How stupid was that question right now?

“Well, I was thinking about finally shaving, but I haven’t done it in so long that I keep cutting myself.”

Looking at his face, she realized he was right, and she suddenly thought of what a pity it was to see such a beautifully rugged face like his all cut up. So forgetting the awkwardness and the still undefined something that had gone on between them, she walked over to stand next to him and slowly eased the razor out of his hand. “Then let me do it.”

He stared at her as she hopped up on the counter and motioned for him to come in close. The soft terrycloth material of the towel rubbed against her thighs, and she cursed herself for not taking the time to put on anything beside the one shirt.

Trying to focus on this nice uncomfortable mess she had just volunteered for, she lightly touched his cheek with one hand to hold his head steady and moved the razor carefully along his other cheek. It felt like his eyes were bearing a hole right into her heart. He was staring at her so intently.

She did her best to just focus on the job at hand, trying to remember all the things she had been taught when she asked to do this for her father when she was little. Shaving her father’s beard had never felt like this before.

Lee’s hands reached out to rest on her thighs, and she cursed as she felt herself growing damp again. Would her desire for this man ever be satisfied?

Knowing that the answer was no, she shifted her position so that she could shave the other cheek. She hadn’t realized how sensual drawing a razor across the curves of his jaw would be. Now she understood. It was making her want to lick the new smoothness of his cheek in order to taste him and then it would only take a small push to put the bathroom counter to good use.

Frak. Those thoughts she didn’t need right now were back.

Sighing, she drew the razor across his throat as he looked up, although he still somehow managed to keep his eyes locked on her. It suddenly occurred to her the amount of trust he had placed in her. She knew that the blade of the razor could seriously cut him if she made a wrong move. But he trusted her not to.

Her heart began to hurt as she realized how much she loved this man standing in front of her. No one had ever shown such blind faith and trust in her before. It was things as simple as letting her shave his face without one ounce of hesitation that made her understand how special he was.

With a start, she realized that she had fulfilled her obligation to keep the most handsome face in the Twelve Colonies cut-free. Smiling brightly at her handiwork, she held the razor out for him to take. “All done and not a cut on you.”

He took the razor from her, but instead of stepping back which she had expected him to do, he simply set the razor down on the counter and stayed put. “Lee,” she said hesitantly.

“Shh.” He held a finger up to her lips in order to keep her from saying whatever she had been about to. “There’s something I have to do.”

He slowly lowered his lips towards hers and was happy when she slid her arms around his back and pulled him in the rest of the way. The kiss was tentative and light and yet it was full of all the passion they both knew they possessed if last night was any indication.

Sighing, Kara pulled back and looked up at him. Her rational side was starting to kick in. She couldn’t let herself do this anymore. Lee was still a part of the military, and she knew what that meant. Long undercover missions. Risking his life every day to keep the Twelve Colonies safe. Not being sure where he was going to wake up the following day.

She couldn’t be a part of that.

It was the life he wanted to lead, but she also knew that she couldn’t just sit back and experience the pain of having to be a powerless bystander. Having to wait to hear from him to know he was still alive. Being unable to be beside him when the yearning to have him inside of her got too strong. Knowing that at any moment he could realize how big of a mistake he had made and she couldn’t be there to convince him otherwise.

It would hurt too much.

She gave him a brave smile. “You need to be leaving.”

“What?” he said, confused at where that sudden outburst had come from.

“You have to get back to your unit. They won‘t appreciate it if you overstretch your military pass. I don’t want you to get into trouble just because I was greedy for your attention.”

“But I think it can wait for just a little longer,” he said with a wink.

It was so tempting to just agree and let herself go where the moment took her. Especially when she had a feeling that the moment might lead her to being pressed against that shower door, naked with him inside her as the water beat down against their bodies.

Frak. There were those thoughts again.

She moved off the counter and walked over to the other side of the bathroom. Space between them would help her keep her hands to herself. “I can’t do this, Lee. I’ve tried. But I just can’t. Don’t you understand?”

“No,” he said, crossing his arms in front of him. “I don’t.”

Crap. He was giving her the I’m-about-to-kill-you look that bordered on downright pissy.

“I’m only going to screw up whatever this is between us. That’s all I ever do. And I can’t let myself be responsible for causing you that kind of pain.”

He couldn’t believe she was actually doing this to him. After all they had been through, she was actually pushing him away. Lee looked at her for a moment before wiping the remnants of the shaving job she had just done off his face with a towel. Then, without turning to even glance at her, he walked past where she stood, pausing just long enough to toss the towel into her hands, and then he was out the bathroom door.

She suddenly felt compelled to make sure he didn’t think she was trying to hurt him deliberately. Because she hadn’t meant to destroy their relationship completely. She had just wanted to make clear that they couldn’t keep opening themselves up to one another and not expect to get hurt.

So she dropped the towel onto the bathroom floor and quickly grabbed her sweatpants off the bedroom floor and slipped them on. Then, she found herself following him down the stairs and into the living room where he began to pull his pack together.

She stood in the doorway to the room and watched him for a moment before the silence got to be too much. “Lee, you’ve been the only constant in my life for what feels like forever. I can’t screw that up. You see, I have changed a lot. I know when I’m making a mistake. And ruining what you and I have fought to build for over a decade would be a mistake. I can’t afford to screw this up, and that would be what would happen if you missed that shuttle.”

He stood up and slung the pack over his shoulder. “Newsflash, Kara. You already screwed it up,” he said sadly. Walking over to where she stood, he leaned over and gave her a light kiss on the top of her head. “I love you so much, but I can’t take this torture if you don’t feel the same. Goodbye.”

She watched in shock as he gave her one last smile and walked out the front door.

It took her a few minutes to realize what he had just said.

He had told her he loved her. Those were the words for which she had been hoping and dreaming for so damn long.

And then he had said goodbye. The word he had never said to her in all the time they had known each other because it was too final. It left things too neat and tidy.

He was gone. He loved her, and he was gone.

And then it hit her. He thought she didn’t feel the same way.

How the frak could he think that after what had gone on between them last night?

“Because you screwed it up again, Kara,” she said to herself.

Suddenly, she didn’t want to have to be rational anymore. She didn’t want to have to do the right thing and let him go because being with him would be hard on both of them. She just wanted to be happy. And Lee was what made her happy. He had been what made her happy for so long.

Stumbling, she made her way to the front door and stepped out onto the porch. She scanned the dirt road that led into the outskirts of Caprica City. There was no one on it.

He really was gone.

She had hesitated, and he was gone.

Sinking to the ground, she pulled her hands up to her mouth to hold back the sobs that were threatening to come out. Why had she been so stupid? She could have fought through all the pain and hard times and wondering if he was still alive out there. Everyone had always told her what a strong woman she was. She could have done it.

She would have done it if only she had been smart enough to take the chance.

The tears fell gently down her face.

No matter how hard she tried, no matter how much she changed, one thing was obviously not going to change. Kara Thrace would always be a screw-up.

But her mistakes in the past had never hurt as much as this one did.

She buried her face into her hands and let herself go, the sobs shaking her whole body, as she mourned the loss of the last piece of happiness she had had left.

Minutes later, she was surprised to realize that the tears didn’t seem to want to stop. A feeling of such hopelessness filled her up that she suddenly wondered why she had thought her life was so satisfying in the first place. She lived by herself in a house far away from the fast pace of Caprica City. She only really had two people close by who she would call her friends. She had a shipping business that was nice and all, but it paled in comparison to flying a Viper through a roll at 6 Gs. And her best friend was physically millions of miles away on a normal day.

And now she had pushed him into being a million miles away from her in every other sense.

The despair started to close in around her.

And that was when she felt a pair of arms reach out to encircle her. Surprised, she looked up at the man in front of her. “Lee?” she choked out, hating how fragile her voice sounded.

“Oh gods. I didn’t mean to make you cry, Kara,” he said, pulling her in tight against him.

“What?” she said, still not sure if he was really there or if it was her mind playing another cruel trick on her.

“I got a mile down the road and then realized that I would be stupid just to let you end this without putting up a fight. This is just too good to let go. We have both worked too hard for me to just let you ruin it all like you normally do.”

She shook her head at him. “I don’t understand.”

“I love you, Kara. I don’t care if you don’t feel the same way. I love you. And I can’t live without you in my life anymore. I’ve already waited far longer than a man should have to.”

“You’ve been waiting for me?”

He smiled at her and leaned down to kiss her lightly. “For so damn long.”

When she just continued to stare at him with those doe eyes that said she was scared to death of what he was saying, he figured it was time to lay all his cards on the table. “Damnit, Kara. Don’t you realize that this-” He paused to shake her lightly. “-is the only thing that matters? Forget the regret that’s constantly building inside you. You’re letting yourself miss all the good things in life by holding yourself back. I can’t control the way I feel about you, and I don’t want to. I love you. And I’m not going to let you slip away from me.”

It surprised him when she suddenly grabbed his head in her hands as tightly as she could and crushed her lips to his. It was like she was afraid that this was the last moment they would have together, and she wanted to make it last. He wasn’t complaining as every single thought he had ever had in his life was erased by her lips. If this was his last moment alive, then so be it. He had everything he would ever need, and it was all there in this one kiss.

“I’m not slipping,” she said after pulling away to catch her breath. “You seem to have caught me.”

He pulled looked at her and smiled. The tears had finally stopped. Shifting slightly, he pulled her in so that she leaned against him. His arms held her tight. It felt so right to be sitting on the porch of her home, staring out at the planet they had called home for all their lives.

After a moment, he broke the silent peace. “You’re right. I did catch you. And I don’t plan on letting you go.”

When she didn’t say anything back, he figured now was as good of a time as any to start explaining the pieces of the puzzle he had left out before. “I want you to know that I had been planning to visit you even before the whole mess with Boomer forced the military to give me leave. You see, Crashdown didn’t just hint at the fact that you were getting serious with Helo. He told me that Helo had asked you to marry him and that you had said yes.”

“Where does that moron get his information?” Kara demanded.

Lee’s heart rose at the faint sound of anger in her voice. It was much better than the hopelessness he had heard in her cries as he came back towards her house. That sound had caused him to drop his pack in the middle of the road and start sprinting as fast as he could. He had been with Kara for some really hard times, but she had never sounded as desolate as that very moment.

“I could kill Crashdown,” she said, still obviously dealing with a few anger issues.

“I don’t know if you should. Because what he told me… it got me to do a lot of thinking.”

“About what?” she asked.

“About whether or not I was happy that you had found someone you could love.” He grasped her hand in his and intertwined his fingers with hers. “I realized that if I didn’t come and see you as soon as I could that I would regret it. If I didn’t find you and let you know how much I love you, have always loved you, that I would be losing the best thing that had ever happened to me while also losing the best woman I could have ever loved. If I just let you go without a fight, I couldn’t live with myself.”

She found herself wondering how she had resisted this man for so long. “Lee.”

“Yes?”

“Thank you for coming back,” she said, playing with the hand she held in her own.

“After all that, I couldn’t believe I was just going to let you push me away,” he said with a laugh. “I spent so much time trying to figure out what was happening between you and Helo and making sure that you were really and truly over Zak. And I was just going to let it go.”

“Lee?” she said again tentatively.

“What?”

“You were wrong you know.”

“About what?”

“Me not loving you.”

“Oh.” Her words sunk in, and he knew that the grin on his face could be classified as goofy. But he didn’t care.

Lee hadn’t known it was possible to be as happy as he was at this exact moment.

“I think that I’ve loved you since that day I looked up from my cell in hack and saw you smirking at me from behind those bars.”

“That long?” he said, kissing the top of her head.

“Maybe longer. I’m not sure.”

“You know, I couldn’t tell you when I first fell in love with you,” he admitted. “But I know when I first admitted it to myself.” He played lightly with the band on her left hand. “It was when you went completely insane and lodged the nose of your Viper in mine during that first wave of Cylon attacks.”

“You were dead in the air with that stupid fraking engine gone,” she said as way of explanation.

“But what you did went against everything we had been trained to do.”

“The Old Man told me to bring you back,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. She had never told Lee why she did what she did that day. At the time, she thought it might hurt to know that the father he had so callously cut out of his life cared about what happened to him.

“So you only saved me because you knew my father wouldn’t be happy if I got left behind?”

“If you mean his whole world would have ended if you didn’t come back, then yes, that’s why I did it.” She pulled her head back to look up at him. “Not to mention that my whole world might have ended to.”

He smiled at her. “That explains it.”

“What?”

“The look you gave me when the Chief finally cut open the Viper cockpit hatch you had managed to completely jam. You gave me this really frightened look. And then you punched me in the jaw.”

“I couldn’t just let you think that you could go and die on me whenever you wanted.”

“That look was the moment I first admitted to myself that I loved you. And the punch made me understand that it wasn’t going to go away any time soon.”

Kara twisted around to face him. “You remember how I said Zak made me feel wanted?”

He didn’t flinch at her casual mention of his brother and the relationship they had. If he no longer felt guilty when she talked about how much she loved Zak, then maybe they really did have a chance of figuring out this thing between them. “Yeah. I was hoping that maybe I could show you how that feels again.”

“He was the first man who ever made me feel that way,” she said. “But with you, it was always different. You are the first man who has ever made me feel needed.”

“I don’t think I can live without you,” he said simply.

She sat up and tried to shrug out of his arms. It wasn‘t surprising when she felt them tighten around her. “Lee, you’re going to have to let me go and learn to live without me. Because no matter what, you still have a ship to catch and your unit to return to.”

“Not for long.”

“What do you mean?”

“That was the other reason I came to Caprica. Something shifted in me after I saw what Sharon Valerii had done to her life, after I was forced to kill her. I just knew that this life wasn’t for me anymore. I might have quit sooner if I hadn’t seen the Cylons’ viciousness firsthand like I did those first few days on Galactica.”

“You quit?”

“Yeah. I went to the Military Headquarters here on Caprica and turned in my resignation.”

“What about your men?”

“They’ll be fine. I left them in the hands of Crashdown. And they have Cally still to make sure that no one dies.”

“If anyone can do it, it’s that girl,” Kara said with a smile.

“So, anyway, it looks like in a few weeks I’m going to need a place to stay.”

Kara stared at him for a moment. Future memories began to flash through her head.

She would be able to wake up with him next to her in her bed for the rest of her life. If she got scared, he would be there. If she wanted comfort, he would be there. If she needed a laugh, he would be there. If she just needed to feel, he would be there.

She would get to do all the things she had always dreamed of. Dancing outside in the grass while the sun set. Making love in the rain. Eating at all the romantic restaurants on Caprica she had always wanted to go to but had never had someone who loved her enough to take her.

She had pictured all of those things she dreamed of happening with Lee. And now they could.

The most vivid image was the one she had never allowed herself to imagine.

Walking down the aisle, escorted by the Old Man. Seeing Lee standing there waiting for her. Telling him she loved him as all her friends looked on. Knowing that somehow the gods had given her a second chance to make things right.

She would be the mother of his children. Little copies of her and Lee combined. Slacking off and working hard. Screwing up and succeeding. Causing hell and bailing others out of it. They would be the best damn pilots the Academy could imagine with the genes of Starbuck and Apollo in them.

She would grow old with him. They would sit on the porch of this very house and remember the day that he had been too stubborn to let her push him away. They would remember the day that he changed her life by refusing to let her go.

For the first time since Lee had shown up on her doorstep the day before, she knew that this was really happening. It wasn’t just another daydream or fantasy. There was no doubt about it. He was here, right in front of her.

And she finally admitted to herself that she deserved this. She deserved to be happy.

There was a small buzzing through the house as her alarm clock started to ring upstairs. The noise pulled her out of her daydreams, and she glanced over at Lee who was still patiently watching her and waiting for an answer.

Well, Kara figured that she had said she needed another capable pilot for her business anyway. Maybe this was the gods’ way of making sure she got the best one available. Because Lee Adama was the best thing for her in every sense of the word.

Letting a faint smile of promise come to her face, Kara wrapped her arms around him and pulled him into a gentle kiss. “Welcome home, Lee.”