~"Little soldier boy, come marching home."~

Chapter 1

As soon as the all-too-familiar scent reached her nose, Kara began to pray that the building's smoke detectors wouldn't go off. She had only lived in this apartment for a week, for frak's sake; forcing the entire building to evacuate at two in the morning was the last thing she needed. Quickly switching off the oven, she hesitated for a brief moment, then, bracing herself for the worst, grabbed the handle and pulled.

The second the door was open, black smoke billowed out, filling the room as Kara grabbed for a towel and began to wave it desperately, hoping to clear the air before –

Bweeeeeee!

"Oh, gods…" Kara buried her face in the towel and swore loudly. Already, she could hear the sounds of people moving around in the apartments around hers and beginning to make their way out into the hall. As the sole tenant who knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that there was, in fact, no emergency, Kara took the time to grab her favorite coat off of a chair before reluctantly joining the rest of her fellow tenants in the mass exodus out of the building.

Outside, it wasn't freezing, but it was certainly chilly enough that she was glad she'd thought to bring her coat. Most of the other residents were in their pajamas. A few had grabbed bathrobes. And one…

One was in his underwear. He was standing with his back to her on the fringes of the crowd, shivering, his arms apparently folded tightly across his chest. After pausing for a few moments to take in this interesting scene, Kara's eyes were drawn to a point several feet away from Underwear Guy, where the two sorority girls who lived a few doors down from Kara stood, obviously enjoying the view. Judging by the red that was beginning to creep up the back of Underwear Guy's neck, he had noticed the attention. As Kara watched, he began to take small, nonchalant steps to his right under the pretense of gaining a better view of the newly-arrived fire crew, slowly distancing himself from the girls. Unfortunately for him, though, Sorority Girl One wasn't distracted by the fire trucks, and, noticing his movement, quickly grabbed Sorority Girl Two's arm and dragged her to a position from whence their joint ogling of Underwear Guy could continue uninterrupted.

As Kara's attention turned back to the man in question, she realized that although his new position had done little to throw the horny sorority girls off his scent, it had served to afford her a descent view of his face – among other things. She suddenly found herself taken in by his bright blue eyes, which contrasted sharply with the dark blush that was still heating his cheeks. There was something about those bright – but unmistakably tired – eyes, along with the carefully maintained short cut of his dark hair, that for some reason made Kara think of the military. If he really was military, she thought, with a pretty-boy face like that, he must have had one hell of a right hook. Although, judging by his bare arms, she had a feeling that wasn't a problem.

Pushing such distracting thoughts aside, Kara decided it was time to do something about the sorority girls. In the week that she'd lived in the building, she'd butted heads with the two of them twice already, and she was now reasonably confident that she could scare them off. Sure enough, once she'd positioned herself more or less in between the girls and Underwear Guy, it took little more than an ugly look and a threatening gesture to send them shuffling off toward the opposite side of the crowd. Kara was still watching them retreat with an unashamed grin on her face when a soft voice just behind her right shoulder startled her.

"Thanks for that."

Kara turned quickly and found herself face-to-face with Underwear Guy. He was still blushing and hugging himself against the cold, but the small – albeit rather embarrassed – smile on his face was genuine.

"No problem," Kara answered, shrugging. "You didn't seem to be enjoying the attention, so…"

"Yeah," the man agreed. "They're a bit young and… giggly."

Kara let out a snort of laughter. "I know what you mean." There was a sudden flurry of icy wind, and her companion turned away from her for a moment so that the gusts were at his back. Kara took the opportunity to size him up. He was broad-shouldered but not very tall, and the jacket Kara was wearing had been her father's. She had a feeling it would fit this guy.

He gave her an adorably confused look when she shrugged out of the coat and held it out to him. "What are you doing?"

"What's it look like? You're in your underwear, for frak's sake; you need it more than I do."

"I can't take your coat."

Nice to know chivalry's not dead, Kara thought exasperatedly. "Look… can I tell you a secret?"

He looked confused again. "I don't… sure?"

Kara moved closer. "I'm the one who set off the fire alarm."

He raised an eyebrow, smirking slightly. "Really?"

"Really. I was…" she rolled her eyes, now decidedly embarrassed herself. "I was trying to cook." Ignoring the fact that her new friend was now obviously struggling not to laugh, she thrust the coat at him more insistently. "It's my fault you're stuck standing out here in the middle of the night in your underwear, so would you just take the damn jacket already?"

Finally reigning in his laughter, the man took the coat and slipped it on, relaxing somewhat as it blocked out the wind. Offering a hand that was now, to his great relief, noticeably warmer than it had been before, he said, "My name is Lee, by the way. I live in 2C."

Kara shook his hand briefly. "Kara Thrace. 4F."

"Nice to meet you, Kara Thrace," Lee said with another small grin.

Gods, he has a nice smile. Trying to ignore the thought, Kara asked, "What about you, then? You don't have a last name?"

Lee hesitated for a fraction of a second, and then answered, "Adama. Lee Adama."

For a brief moment, something tugged at the edges of Kara's memory. Then she saw the look of apprehension on Lee's face, and quickly pushed it aside. Wherever it was that she'd heard that name before, he didn't seem to want to talk about it. "So how much longer do you think they'll keep us out here, then?"

Looking relieved at the change of topic, Lee answered quickly, "Probably not too much longer. I mean, once they figure out the place isn't really on fire."

"Yeah…" Kara shuffled her feet sheepishly, now realizing just how biting the wind really was.

Lee grinned slightly. "You know, if you want I could – I could drop by your place sometime and give you some tips. I'm a pretty good cook."

"Hell, just move in and cook for me." Kara could have smacked herself when she saw Lee immediately begin to blush again. It just figured that that soft voice and those big blue eyes were too sensitive for such a brash joke. "Sorry… bad joke."

"No, it's, uh, it's okay," Lee answered a little too quickly. "I knew you were kidding."

On the far side of the crowd, the firemen were beginning to usher people back into the building and returning to their truck. As Lee watched them go, Kara noticed with some surprise that he seemed almost reluctant to go back inside. And that was when it hit her: as tired as Lee seemed, he didn't look like the rest of the people standing around the building. He hadn't been sleeping when the alarm went off; like Kara, he was wide awake.

"Hey," she said on a whim, "you weren't sleeping either, were you?"

Lee glanced at her for a moment and then looked away quickly. Obviously another subject he wasn't too keen on, then. "Not exactly."

"Why don't you come over now, then?" Lee looked at her in surprise, and Kara shrugged. "Well, neither of us can sleep, and I'm getting pretty sick of microwaved meals, so…"

"Okay." Lee studied Kara curiously for a moment, his head tilted slightly to one side. It had been a long time since he'd had a woman invite him into her house, much less a woman he'd just met and in the middle of the night. But there was just something about Kara that he liked.

"Okay," she echoed, returning his gaze and wondering just what the frak she was doing inviting a guy she barely knew into her apartment in the middle of the night. There was just something about Lee that she liked.

At long last, almost seeming to come out of a sort of trance, Lee broke eye contact and blushed again. "Why don't I just, uh… go back to my place and put some pants on?"

Kara couldn't quite contain her snort of laughter. "You don't have to if you don't want to."

Lee's face grew even redder, but this time he laughed, too.

So yes, if you were wondering, my title is blatantly stolen from "Leaves from the Vine" from Avatar (I know the 'soldier boy' in question dies in that, but shhhh)(this is gonna get angsty so it kinda almost works sort of)(just go with it).
Anyway, it's been ages since the last time I posted anything on here, and I'm just now getting back into the swing of things, so I can't promise regular updates. I'll try to add to this as often as I can. I'm hoping having it already posted will encourage me to write more, so if you like it and you want to motivate me, feel free to review ;)