This little story came to me while writing a whole different story… I was just thinking about all the times the people on Battlestar Galactica see each other naked, how everytime there's someone in a towel, or men and women in the same showers… it just stuck with me - the idea of how many times they see each other without any clothes on.

I was in the army and stationed at a base with pretty lax rules - we had unisex showers too and we kind of saw a lot of each other if you know what I mean… so I kind of know the feeling. This story came from there.

Disclaimer - don't own them, just renting, don't sue, I'm broke anyway

Pairing: Kara/Lee of course! Is there any other?

The difference between Looking and touching.

Kara Thrace knows that there is a huge difference between Looking and touching.

It's like the first time she saw a viper - she looked at it and it seemed like the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. She remember the first time she saw a viper - on her first day of the academy as she was making her way to her dorms she passed by the tarmac and saw a viper parked outside one of the hangers. The way the sun glistened over the metallic wings was just mesmerizing to her and she ended up standing there for hours, just looking at it.

That was Looking.

But it was nothing compared to touching, it hadn't even begun to prepare her for the first time she was allowed into that plane, for the first time she sat in that cockpit and touched the stick-shift, for the first time she turned a knob on the dashboard and felt the engine come to life between her legs.

No matter how many academy training movies of vipers she saw prior to that, no matter how man solitary hours she spent on that tarmac watching vipers take off and land from a far - nothing was as good as that feeling she got when she was actually touching that plane.

Kara Thrace knows that there are miles apart between looking and touching.

It's the same with her father - no matter how many times she saw his pictures, no matter how many hours she spent staring at the few old photographs she managed to hide from her mother's wrath, it was never the same.

Looking at those pictures was nothing like the times when she was little, when he took her into his arms and placed her on his lap as he played the piano. Staring at those black and white images was nothing like the few times she remembered from her childhood of him taking her hand or kissing her forehead.

Sometimes looking and touching were not even in the same universe

Like all those times with Lee. Those times when he walked out of the showers, wrapped in only a towel, his body glistening with droplets of water, his wet hair sticking out in all directions. All those times she was looking - it was hard not to. His call sign didn't even begin to do him justice. Those arms, sleek and muscular, the firm abdomen, the chiseled jaw and those piercing blue eyes. He truly did have to physic of a god. She had seen him in all his glory on more than one occasion. Living on such tight quarters as they did on the Galactica there was really no avoiding it - Unisex showers, joint bunkrooms. On Galactica you really couldn't go through a single day without seeing at least one of your shipmates naked at some point or another.

Every time she saw him, every time she got a glimpse of his body she felt those same butterflies in the pit of her stomach. That feeling of want, of need, that feeling of pure desire.

And then there was the touching part.

Like when he kissed her when she got back from Caprica and engulfed her in that big hug. She could feel his body pressed against her even through the thick fabric of both his uniform and her clothes. The heat that resonated from him, the feeling of his lips against hers.

Or that time when they were drunk and almost frakked before she broke down and told him about Andres. Even with all that was going on in his head she couldn't ignore that feeling. His skin against hers, the touch of his hands against her abdomen, the way it felt as she laced her fingers through his short hair.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, in the whole time she had been watching him, in the whole time she had spent looking at his body from a far, had prepared her for what it felt like to be touching him, to run her hands across his body and feel his hands on her skin. Nothing prepared her for the little bursts of electricity she felt surge all through her body. Nothing prepared her for the feeling of his heart racing when she laid her hand flat against his chest.

No, Looking and touching weren't even in the same universe when it came to Lee Adama.

Touching was better, so much better.

The only problem that looks can be avoided, you can just look the other way, avert your eyes and promise never to do it again. It was easy to avoid looking - at least until the next time.

Touching was much harder to stop.