"You and Kara Thrace are connected… I'll marry you… until the Cylons come back or Kara Thrace walks back into your life."

"Tell me you're just as afraid as I am, about needing someone as much as I need you."

"I'm not the one you want to be with, Kara."

"KARA THRACE LOVES LEE ADAMA!"

"Things just got complicated – again."

Unfinished Business, Extended Version

Chapter One:

Bending at the waist, Sam tugged at his laces to the cadence of her parting, biting words.

'Don't forget your boots, Sammy."

Gods, she was a bitch – and not the kind he liked. Feisty, cocky and daring, yes – that was his kind of woman. Condescending, sarcastic and down-right mean was the woman who just sauntered out of the bunk room and didn't look back as she succinctly summed up the high points of their marriage with those five words.

Tying his other boot, jerking the laces so tight he'd have marks on his feet later, he wished he could call her a slut, tell her she was frakked in the head or some other ego-salvaging insult. But he couldn't. She was Starbuck, the Killer of Leobens and still the best Viper pilot to have ever straddled a flight-chair. The woman might be damaged, but those who didn't know her personally regaled her. She was a legend within the Fleet and more than once he'd found himself dropping her name, and the fact that he was her husband, whenever he got into a pinch that he couldn't talk his way out of with a good Pyramid story . If anything, shame at letting himself be used as little more than a 'back-scratcher' for her 'itch' had him glancing up at the nearby table-top to see if she had tossed down some cash before she left. She would've too – if she thought about it.

But, the kick to the gut was this: he still loved her.

That sent a chair flying across the bunk-room.

He'd put hands up and said, 'okay', when he found her in that apartment on New Caprica standing a little too close to that frakking dying Cylon and a blonde toddler on her hip when her only explanation was a terse, 'not now'. She had looked him in the eye and told him point-blank that she couldn't handle being with him and that she wanted to hurt someone and it might as well be him, and he stood there and took it. Hell, that didn't even keep him from coming back for more the first chance he got.

But this… This was… This was it.

Shrugging into his Buccaneer's vest and running a shaky hand through his Kara-tousled hair…

A sudden realization had him stopping in mid-motion.

She never touched him.

Well, she 'did' – but not like that. She had gripped his shoulders – for leverage. She had hooked her legs behind his knees, but only so that they could connect more solidly. She had intertwined her fingers with his, but only so that she could push her palm against his so that she could speed up the arrival of her impending orgasm. Her need was release, not Samuel T. Anders. But she never 'touched' him. And when he tried to press a kiss to her forehead afterwards – even as their breathing had yet to even out – she had hopped out of bed and started rummaging around for her clothes. Telling her he wanted her back barely made her pause long enough to coldly restate that casual frakking was all he was going to get from her and that she couldn't handle anything else.

Those words, coming from her mouth, echoing in his mind, sent his sizable fist into the door of someone's locker.

Flexing his hand, testing to see if the 'oh frak, that hurts' pain in his knuckles drowned-out the 'I told you so' mantra that his Id was chanting in his head, he scrutinized his face in the mirror and with no clear reason why, thought about shaving.

Leaving the bunkroom and making his way to the head, a sliver of pride appeared in the wasteland that was once his male ego. It was enough to lift his chin but not strong enough to pull his hands out of his pockets.

Kara would be going to 'the dance' – to him – freshly frakked and smelling like Sam Anders.

Shutting the hatch to the shower room behind him, a quick scan of the room translated to him having to wait for a turn at a sink. The head was crowded; those just coming off duty were scrambling to clean up before attending the night's festivities.

Exchanging casual greetings with crew-members who knew of him but people he couldn't put a name to a face, a voice carried through the steam and over the sounds of running water. A towel sailing to a bench opposite the shower stalls couldn't be missed nor were the pair of grey panties it landed on.

"Hey, Seelix – where'd you say you left that spare bra of yours?"

The spark that was going to see him through the night was snuffed out by a wet, used towel.

How apt.

There was a time when carrying his woman's scent on his body validated a very primal side of his masculinity.

Right now, Sam Anders was the walking, talking, living equivalent of Kara Thrace's wet towel.

Turning on his heel, making for 'the dance floor' by the longest route possible, gave him ample time to repeat the same vow.

Gods be damned, Kara. One more chance – that's it.