Title: Still Approaching Zero (sequel to Approaching Zero)
Author: Alice J. Foster (a.k.a. shipperfey)

Summary: Ten years and they'd never found Earth; never found peace. Now they tried to find the future by making copies of themselves, and hoping those facsimiles would be stronger than they were—just like the Cylons before them.

Rating: NC-17 for sex and mature themes

Category: Angst, Future fic.Spoilers: Post Unfinished Business (about 7 years after season 3), ignores the AlmostFinal Four.

Pairing(s): Kara/Lee, but implies a polygamous relationship between Kara, Lee, Sam and Dee.

Word count: 2,320

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

Warnings: sexual situations, language, sex

Started: 12/1/2007
Finished: 12/3/2007

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 to PhDelicious, for the wonderful and quick beta-work. And to latteaddict, for writing such wonderful stories that she actually inspired me to write this, which has been stuck in UnwrittenLand for almost a year.

&e&e&

Lee bent down to kiss Kyrie good night, thanking the gods that all five children were finally asleep. Fatherhood suited him, better than his wings ever had.

The corridors of the Galactica were quiet as Lee headed to his office, his feet carrying him more slowly than he had hoped. When he finally reached his destination, he couldn't help but chuckle as Kara seemed to have dozed off on his couch, dozens of papers covering most of her body including her slowly expanding stomach. Sixteen weeks since her lone ovary decided not to give up once again, fourteen weeks since it released an egg and new life was created, and twelve weeks since they'd celebrated. Ovulation calendars were like scorecards on vipers: badges to show for fighting, medals for those that made it out alive.

There was so much new life around them that it would be easy not to rejoice, but when humanity was hanging on by a thread, you enjoyed every small glint of hope. Ten years and they'd never found Earth; never found peace. Now they tried to find the future by making copies of themselves, and hoping those facsimiles would be stronger than they were—just like the Cylons before them.

His—he had no word to describe Kara that didn't sound stupid or unworthy. She was his everything and yet she wasn't really his at all... she was wearing a long t-shirt; he suspected it had to have belonged to Helo because it was so long it hung past her knees when she stood up. Over the years, it had become her official pregnancy uniform, and the holes and spit-up stains were like motherhood badges, proof that Kara Thrace was as good at being a mother as she was at flying a viper.

"Hey," she moaned sleepily at him, glancing at one of the clocks on the wall. "Thought you were watching the kids," she added, sounding more alert as she sat up and started to organize the papers around her.

"They're all asleep," he explained brightly, feeling more excited by the minute at the prospect of spending some time with her—alone.

"All of them?" she asked, sounding impressed.

Lee smirked, feeling incredibly proud of himself; impressing Starbuck was still not an easy task, even after so many years. "Every single one. As expected, Kyrie kept demanding to stay up until you tucked her in, but she settled for three stories instead when I told her you were busy. I wonder who she gets her negotiating skills from," Lee added pointedly.

Kara shrugged innocently. "I have no idea what you're talking about… Helo mentioned Hera was also heavy into compromising when she was four; must be a phase or something."

He pulled her feet off the couch and sat down, easily pulling her feet back onto his lap. "Right, a phase," Lee parroted, even though everyone knew that Kyrie, their only girl, was a perfect miniature of her mother, down to the foul mouth and the need to play dirty. Her older and younger brothers were no match and more often than not they had bruises to show as proof.

"Thank you for watching them. Did Dee or Sam say anything?" she asked and he could tell she felt guilty for not doing her part, after all this was her night to watch the kids and give Dee some time with Sam and him. In fact, it had been Kara's turn to watch the kids every night for almost three months now, since they'd found out she was pregnant again, for the third time.

Lee took a foot in his hands, his thumbs tracing the underside with just the right amount of pressure and he was rewarded with a moan. His body instantly reacted, and he had to shake his head to be able to remember her question. "Sorry—no, they didn't say anything. Frankly, I think Dee welcomed it for a change."

Kara nodded, both of them doing the mental math and realizing Dee hadn't gotten pregnant in almost a year; Kara had given birth and gotten pregnant again within the same timeframe. Dee's previous three pregnancies hadn't taken as long to happen, and everyone was feeling anxious. The guys' efforts had been focused solely on Dee for a long time now and all four were welcoming any breaks in their routine.

"Cottle said if she doesn't get pregnant again within six months, he wants to try some fertility treatments," Kara added and Lee could hear the fear in her voice. The fertility treatments were still new and extremely dangerous, but the law said that any woman over eighteen and under forty-five, who had a uterus and were mentally stable, should be actively trying to procreate; if pregnancy did not occur within a year, they would need to seek medical assistance in order to remedy the situation.

Extreme times called for desperate measures.

Pushing impending doom out of his mind, Lee's hands continued to massage her feet as she sorted through papers.

"This is pathetic," Kara complained, "half my female pilots are grounded due to pregnancy, and half my male pilots are requesting exorbitant amounts of time off to 'abide by colonial law.'"

Lee laughed, even though he knew this was a serious matter. Their own family unit was a perfect example of how the colonial law was meant to be followed. "Survival of the species, Kara," Lee offered in response, and one of his hands trailed up her leg, avoiding the area he missed the most, to touch her expanding stomach.

"Well, it will all be for nothing if the Cylons launch a surprise attack and we lose-- all because I'm eight pilots short," she replied, her hand covering his as she continued, "The new recruits are too young, Lee. Sixteen!"

He knew she was right, but they had no option; he also knew she was the best at her job, and she would wash out anyone who couldn't take the pressure. "You were seventeen when you enlisted," he pointed out.

"That's different," she argued.

"Yes, it is… these aren't regular sixteen-year-olds, Kara. They saw the end of the world. They're different, rougher around the edges, desperate to make a life for themselves… to give their existences meaning. And I can't think of a better person to guide them."

&e&e&

Something swelled deep within her, and Kara took a deep breath and pushed all the papers around her to the floor of his office. She moved as fast as she could with the added weight around her midsection, and didn't stop until she was straddling him.

The sensual smile he gave her made her realize he missed this as much as she did. "I thought you had work to do," he teased.

"Something came up," she teased back, pressing her center down onto what had suddenly come up between them. She'd been ignoring her needs for so long, trying to be considerate of Dee's situation, and now—now it was like a Viper that had never decelerated when entering the atmosphere, burning everything in its path.

"Oh, gods," he moaned and she laughed.

She helped him out of his clothes and lifted herself long enough to give him room to push his pants off, enjoying the way the rough fabric rubbed against her sensitive skin. Being sixteen weeks was always fun; the second trimester was definitely her favorite.

Kara Thrace wasn't cut out to be the girl you that get to meet your parents, or a wife, and most definitely not a mother. The first she had no choice over because Zak's death took it away. The second, she had a choice but she chose wrong. The third was the one that surprised her the most, because although it was more of a decree than a law, she accepted it. Like Lee's declaration of love aboard the Astral Queen, there were no takebacks in motherhood.

The day they found out she was pregnant again, Helo asked her how it felt to be a mother. Kara said 'being a mother was like being the CAG of a very small ship,' and then she snickered before adding 'with much smarter pilots.' Helo looked almost offended.

But tonight her mind was not on Helo, but on the man who possessed the most wonderful hands in the entire fleet. The same hands that were now free to focus on her body, moving up her outer thighs to cup her buttocks through her underwear.

She bent down to capture his lips between her own, his tongue sneaking its way into her mouth like a viper coming in hot for a crash landing.

The hands on her ass quickly moved under her shirt towards her sensitive breasts and she moaned into his lips. It was a pity they didn't get to do this as often when she was pregnant; she really wanted Dee to get pregnant and soon, and part of it was just so that she could have this again more often.

Lee's hands jumped away from her body as a sharp kick pushed against him from the inside of her body. She laughed against his mouth, and his fingers spread wide against her stomach as the baby kicked again, both adults breaking into gleeful smiles as they experienced the baby's first movement.

They tried not to distinguish between their children—Dee's, hers… Sam's, Lee's… It didn't really matter, they were all loved the same. But it was impossible not to see how Billy had Dualla's mouth and Lee's nose, or how Haemon had Sam's eyes... and Kara was secretly wishing that this time she'd have a boy with gorgeous blue eyes. None of their kids had Lee's eyes yet, and that was a shame.

There was a hiccup from deep inside of her and Lee laughed again before he started tugging her shirt off. She lifted her arms to help him, enjoying how her center rubbed against the silky hot skin of his erection through the cotton of her panties.

Lee's hands held her up so his lips could reach an engorged nipple. She screamed when his teeth scraped against the sensitive nerves, feeling his lips forming a smile against her skin. "Gods, I missed you, Lee," she confessed, pulling back to look into his eyes.

The desire she saw there made her entire body shiver. She didn't even see his hands moving to her center until a cold breeze hit her and she realized he'd simply pulled her underwear off to the side. The breeze was gone as quickly as it had appeared, having been replaced by the scorching heat of his erection.

As his hips moved and he entered her slowly, her head felt too heavy and she let it fall back, trusting him to hold her and keep her from falling.

Nothing should be this good unless it involved vipers; but it was, and before he was even fully sheathed inside her, she was coming, the extra hormones and her recent abstinence making her entire body shake so hard she had to bite down on her lip to keep from waking up the entire battlestar.

"Frak, Kara—," Lee grunted from beneath her, stopping his movement and resting his head against her chest, obviously trying to regain some control.

"Don't hold back, Lee," she told him with certainty.

&e&e&

She was trying to kill him. That was the only possible explanation. The Gods knew he loved Dee, and he loved sex with Dee, but this—it never felt like this with Dee. It never felt like pulling 8 Gs while blindfolded: exhilarating, and he never quite knew if he'd come out alive.

His hands found their spot on Kara's hips and he used them as an anchor as he started pushing himself into her; it didn't seem possible that she could be so tight, so hot, or so wet. He wished it hadn't been weeks since he'd last had her, because then at least he would have had a fighting chance. But right now the best he could do was to hang on tight, and try to last long enough to get her to come again.

Her hands stationed themselves on his chest, and he looked up into her eyes. Over the years, Lee Adama had seen those eyes reflect every possible emotion in the book, and right now they were a mixture of love, desire and mirth; he knew it wouldn't take much to drive her over the edge once more.

His hand carefully wedged itself between their bodies, moving her underwear a little more until his thumb expertly found the bundle of nerves there. Kara hissed a warning at him, and he would have teased her but he was using up too much energy to keep from climaxing.

"You feel so good, Kara," he moaned against the skin of her neck, teeth scraping against the spot on her collarbone that could always make her knees buckle. Thighs trembled around him and there it was—her inner muscle contracting in an almost painful grip, and he finally let himself go.

She collapsed against his chest, and his arms went up to envelop her completely, holding her close to him as the stretched skin of her stomach pressed against his. "I love you," he whispered against the damp skin of her shoulder and she nodded her reply against his heart.

They rarely got to spend time as just the two of them, and Lee knew that was one of the many compromises they made for their family. Tonight, however, he was intent on keeping her all to himself.

That night, as they slept on the couch in his office, Lee Adama dreamt of a simpler life…

One where he didn't have to constantly worry about the fate of the human race…

One where he got to hold the woman he loved every night.