Title: "Finished Business"

Spoilers: Up to 'Unfinished Business'

Summary: Lee has a change of heart at the end of 'Unfinished Business'.

Author's Notes: Sorry this is a little late, but I wanted to write an extension after watching Lee and Kara beat the crap out of each other. Kara's behavior really disgusted me, especially how she treats and treated certain people like Lee and especially Anders. Personally, I don't see how Lee could ever be together with Kara for any length of time, so I wrote this showing that he finally gets a clue.

I haven't seen the next episode after this, so my knowledge only goes so far as this episode.

Battered, exhausted and bleeding, Lee Adama leaned on Kara Thrace, as she did on him, while the emotional turmoil within him slowly ebbed. All around the two, bemused spectators slowly left the area around the ring – all except one.

Heart pounding in his chest, Lee opened his eyes and, looking over Starbuck's shoulder, caught sight of everyone leaving. As his gaze swept the room, he made contact with the only person standing near his corner of the ring.

Dualla.

Lips pressed together and eyes blinking somewhat, Lee's wife merely stared at him for several long moments, an unreadable expression on her face. Dee then slowly turned and walked away. A sudden hot flash of shame flooded Lee down to his very being.

What the hell am I doing?

Yes, he'd been honest when he'd told Starbuck that he'd missed her, but he'd meant that as a companion, as a friend. He missed the bantering they used to have before New Caprica…before that one night they'd shared together, when everything came apart. He knew now that it had been a mistake to try something with Kara that night at the end of the party. And how much of a fool had he been when, after pronouncing his love to her, she'd gone off the next morning and gotten married to someone else? He could still remember the look on her face as he 'congratulated' her and Anders on their impromptu marriage.

Kara fracked him…and then, fracked him over.

Yet another example of how Lee couldn't understand the woman. How could he hope to have anything worthwhile – let alone long term – with someone like that?

Kara, unaware of Lee's thoughts, pulled away slightly and then, with eyes closed, leaned over, her lips inches away from his. Lee pulled back at the last moment and Kara, lips still puckered, opened her eyes, frowning.

"What?"

"I'm sorry, Kara," Lee quietly said. "I – I just can't."

Kara's eyes widened slightly and her mouth opened slightly in surprise. Then her lips twisted slightly into an all-too familiar sneer.

"So you're going back to Dualla?" she snorted. Lee's eyes narrowed at the tone of her voice. It reminded him of the same way she'd once humiliated him about his relationship with Dee in front of Anders. He could still hear her mocking cackle behind his back as he'd left her and Anders to pretty much frack in the crew's quarters.

"I've got a good thing going with her and I'm going to do the best I can to get it back," he said.

"Lee, you don't even love her!"

Lee paused and sighed. "Maybe. And maybe what I have with her isn't perfect, but at least it's stable. I know where I stand with her." He shook his head. "I don't know where I'd stand with you, Kara, because I don't think you know what you want. How do I know you'd respect me? Would you respect me like you did Anders?"

Kara's thoughts raced back to the hook-up she'd had with her 'husband'…as well as the brush-off she'd given him afterwards. Although Lee could not have known any of this, her now flashing eyes told him that he'd hit a nerve. He took a deep breath.

"Let's just be friends, okay?" Lee said, taking off his gloves.

Kara scowled at Lee, frustration and disappointment coursing through her. "I had you pegged all along: Your old man really does have more balls than you."

Lee tensed and almost opened his mouth and let fly with a scathing comment. However, he'd calmed down somewhat and would not let this woman get the better of him. Lee had always prided himself with being on an even keel emotionally. Yet someone like Kara always knew which buttons to press; this night was a classic example.

No, he certainly was not perfect nor blameless in this whole sorry mess - far from it. Maybe he should have distanced himself from her so as not to give any signals. Maybe he should have been stronger and not given in to his desire for Kara. Maybe he should have remembered one of the cardinal rules of relationships: never date or go after your brother's ex. But he'd broken it willingly…and had paid for it. It just had burned him so much that he'd finally let down his guard for someone he cared for only to have that person betray his trust in the worst way possible. He'd known Kara Thrace for so many years that a part of him should have seen something like this happening. Ironically, she certainly did some time back when she's told him flat out, "There is no us!"

And there certainly wouldn't be anything between he and Dee if he didn't try and find her and do a hell of a lot of apologizing. He looked back at Kara and brought his hands up in a placating gesture.

"Good night, Kara," he said quietly and started to turn around.

But Kara, with an ugly expression on her face, wasn't having it.

"At least Zak had more guts than you!"

Something snapped inside Lee. Hearing his bother's name brought back the moment when it had looked like he and everyone he'd cared for would die, when Kara had confessed to him that she had passed his brother in basic flight. And Kara had told him only because they might all die at the Ragnar Anchorage. If they hadn't been at Ragnar…if the Cylons had never attacked…to this day, he, and his father would be none the wiser. He thought that with everything they'd gone through, he'd somehow forgiven the woman. But at hearing Zak's name used so casually made him see nothing but red.

Although no comment flew at Thace, Lee's open palm certainly did. Kara's head whipped to the side from the slap as she unceremoniously fell on her backside. Staring up in amazement, Kara's hand touched a reddening welt on her cheek.

"Don't…don't ever say his name again, do you understand?" Lee hissed through clenched teeth. Breathing hard he said, "Everything you touch, Kara, gets burned: Me, my father, my brother…hell, even Anders. You fly so hard and fast, no one can keep up, and in the end you leave them hurting. I'm sorry, that's not what I'm looking for. What I'm looking for went through that door and I pray to the gods I can salvage what we had. Dee may not be perfect, but at least she's always been there." With that, Lee jumped off the ring, grabbed his dog tags and ran off after his wife.

Kara sat there for several moments, just looking at the doorway Lee had disappeared through. She started to pull herself up when she stopped short. There, leaning several feet away against a bulkhead was Anders.

For a half-second she thought he'd come back to her and actually started to smile when his eyes narrowed. They flickered from where Kara sat to where Lee had left the area, and back again. She got the message: he'd had seen the whole thing. She opened her mouth to say something, anything to get him to stay, but Anders simply shook his head in mild disgust.

Abruptly, he spun on his heel and left the area, leaving Kara all by herself.

-FIN-