Title: Approaching Zero

Author: Alice J. Foster (a.k.a. shipperfey)

Summary: …and she's happy, because the end of their race is giving her back the one thing she needs.

Rating: R for sex and mature themes

Category: Angst, Future fic.

Season: Post Unfinished Business (about 7 years after season 3)

Pairing(s): Kara/Lee, Sam/Kara, Kara/Lee/Sam, Dualla/Sam, Dualla/Lee.

Word count: 675

Archiving: My LJ (http://shipperfey. my website (http://obsessionscorner. Anyone else who wants it, please go for it, just drop me a line so I can visit it :)

Feedback: Please! You will make my day. Constructive criticism is appreciated as well.

Warnings: sexual situations, language, sex

Started: 12/18/2006

Finished: 12/18/2006

Disclaimer: Nope they don't belong to me. I'm just playing with them; I'll put them back before the writers realize they're gone.

A/N: Thanks as always to Tricia, my lovely beta. And Jenni, for getting me the "BSG: The Story So Far" DVD, which made me buy the S1 and S2 DVDs :D

She wakes up when Lee slides into bed.

Sam is still flush against her back, as she lies on her side, and Lee molds himself to her front.

It's always been his place. Sam is her support, always behind her, always there for her to fall back on; but Lee—he's always there, fighting next to her, standing in front of her with those demanding eyes.

If anyone had asked her how long it would take after the end of civilization for morals to stop mattering, she would've stared at them blankly. But she knows the answer now: five years. Five long years, stuck in a battlestar that kept falling apart around them – their touchstone that wanted to give up.

Sam complains about Lee being late again, and Lee responds by teasing him and calling him Sammy; it does the trick and it gets the three of them laughing.

Lee explains that Dee had problems getting the children to go to sleep. She sighs, because she knows how that feels; she knows where Dualla stands, behind that closed door, tending to their children.

They have five now. Two hers, three Dee's… not that they see the difference anymore – brother and sisters, all of them. They live together, they play together, they sleep together, and they survive together.

She tries to push the memory of their kids out of her mind as she focuses on trying to make another one; if they're lucky, their little effort might just mean the survival of mankind.

Their family is not the only one like this. Others were everywhere, some started it much before them; Cottle'd explained about how conception was nothing short of a lottery, and people were just trying to improve their odds.

The Cylons were finally gone; they lived only in their memories, in their nightmares. There were a few still left in the fleet; those were as human as she and Sam and Lee and Dee. Now they were all working together against the real threat – extinction by attrition. Their numbers decreased exponentially, every day. She saw a chart with big equations once, numbers and projections; they all ended the same…

... approaching zero.

Lee watches as Sam takes her, eyes holding her in place and not letting her forget where she is. She's thankful, because he doesn't let her pretend anymore.

As soon as Sam leaves her body, Lee's there, taking his place. She still feels her husband's hands on her hips, holding her in place as Lee pulls her into a kiss. He's still such a romantic – not that it's ever just about sex between them.

She feels the bed moving as Sam gets up; from the corner of her eye, she watches him get dressed, and she knows where he's headed. She knows he loves Dee and Dee loves him right back; they have something no one else has – they share what no one else does. They're the ones who pick up the pieces, and right now Sam will slide next to Dee and hold her until the morning.

With Sam gone, Lee rolls them so she's on top. His eyes hold hers, and he bites his lower lip. The newer part of her - the nurturing Kara that she discovered in a cell in New Caprica, who grew just the tiniest bit stronger every day -, that Kara wants to tell him to stop biting his lip. But she's still Starbuck; so she just laughs and bends down to trap his upper lip between her teeth. He laughs with her, and their tongues meet and she gives in to him.

When they're done, he holds her, hands woven into her hair so perfectly. She tries to forget that next week, she'll be the one sleeping in the adjacent room with the kids, waiting for one of them to slide into bed with her and hold her close. Her eyes close of their own volition, and she's happy, because the end of their race is giving her back the one thing she needs.