Title: Leftovers

Pairing: Lee/Kara

Rating: PG to R

Disclaimer: It's not mine, but I think I'd treat the characters better than Ron.

Summary: After returning from Caprica, Kara's got a lot to deal with … oh, and Lee too.

A/N: I've had about three-quarters of this story written for about six months now and finally figured out how to make it work. So, here it is. I really hope you like it.

This will probably replace my post-New Caprica story I teased during the "Kara Stands Still" series as I just feel like I've really tapped out that timeframe. Hopefully, this is a worthy replacement.

TamSibling

---- ----

Chapter 1

---- ----

Astral Queen

Did she want to talk? Kara paced the locker room, unable to sit still as the minutes passed. Lee had left about an hour ago and while she had initially laughed off his attempt to cheer her up (and his awkward admission of love), she was no longer content to sit, staring at Sam's damn pyramid ball and thinking "what if."

But she didn't have much faith in 'talking.' In truth, it had never really worked for her before. However, the knowledge that it was Lee she'd be opening up to suddenly changed her whole view on the prospect of conversation.

It shouldn't; not really. He was still pissed at her, despite the kiss and the hug and the teasing, she knew it. Lee didn't drop grudges, ever. He was pissed about Baltar and he was going to stay pissed. She snorted softly as she bounced the ball against the floor. She could only imagine how pissed he'd be when he found out about Anders.

She'd only been off Caprica for a couple of days and already, Kara wished she hadn't made that stupid promise. Who was she kidding? There was no way the Old Man would ever green light a mission back there and even if he did, the chance that Anders would still be alive was almost non-existent. To make everything just that much worse, she didn't want to bring him back to the Fleet. She had no desire to be continuously reminded of a mistake she'd made in a moment of weakness—she had Baltar for that.

Kara blinked quickly, realizing there were tears in her eyes. When had she become a crier? With a barely contained growl, she whipped the ball against the metal mesh between the benches, the ricochet setting off a tinkling sound of concussed metal.

"Problem, Buck?"

She turned quickly, relaxing marginally as she recognized Helo standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest.

The ball had rolled under a far bench and Kara moved to retrieve it. As she was about answer Helo, she bent to pick it up and winced. "Frak," she bit out, cringing as the pain in her side flared, sending a white hot spike through her abdomen.

"Kara?" She saw Karl's shadow looming over her before she felt his hand on the small of her back. "What's wrong?"

Turning her head to the side, she glared at him before trying to stand up again. As long as she moved a millimeter at a time she could do it without hurting herself. Fully upright, she took a deep breath, her hand resting gently over the scars on her left hip. Breathing in and out, she waited until the pulsing pain subsided, before looking back to Helo.

He didn't even wait for her to formulate an excuse. "Kara, there's gotta be some kind of medic on this ship. You should go get checked out."

"No," she told him firmly, ignoring his look of disapproval. Ignoring the fact that she was pretty sure her side hurt more now than it had three days ago. Ignoring the fact that the skin around the scars was growing redder and uglier by the day. "I'll be fine."

"Sure you will," Helo muttered, disbelief evident in his voice. "Even you aren't indestructible, Starbuck."

Kara grimaced, wishing she'd never let Helo see what Simon had done to her in that hospital. "Frak off, Helo."

"Is that what you told Apollo, too?"

Her eyes flashed to him, narrowing as she tried to gauge just what exactly he knew. "What are you talking about?"

"The guy's walking around like his dog just died," Helo explained. "You wouldn't have been the one that put a bullet in its head, would you?"

Rolling her eyes, Kara turned away from him, heading across the room to the nearby sink. As she turned on the water, she watched it fall into the drain, waiting a few seconds for the rusty brown water to trickle out. When it was running clear, she cupped her hands underneath the spigot and splashed it to her face. At least it would cool her down a bit; it was frakkin' hot on this ship.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Helo," she told him as she patted her face dry with a rough towel. Chucking it into a corner, she turned back to him and added, "And as much as you obviously want to start a fight with me, I'm going to warn you, it's not a good idea."

He pursed his lips, head cocked to one side as if seeing her in a different light before he moved forward and rested a hand to her shoulder. She prided herself on not flinching. "I'm not trying to pick a fight, Buck. I'm just trying to point out that it appears Apollo cares for you. Maybe you shouldn't be so quick to throw that in his face."

She snorted. "You don't know anything about it, Helo. Trust me." She turned away from him worried that he'd see something she didn't want him to. Worried that he'd figure out she knew perfectly well what he was saying and even more worried he'd realize she liked Apollo's attention.

"Fine, Kara. Whatever." The exasperation in his tone was evident and Kara hid a smirk. As usual, she'd managed to annoy him enough that he was going to drop it. "I'm going to go see Sharon. Good luck with whatever frakked up think you've got going on."

He left before she could form a good retort. Frakked up thing—jeez, it wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that the Cylons had cut into her body, would it? She felt a deep desire to send the pyramid ball careening off the top of his head, but it was still stuck under the bench and she wasn't about to try retrieving it again. It hurt too much.

As she trudged toward the quarters she'd been given, Kara tried to convince herself that Helo didn't know a damn thing about anything. He had no idea how deep or storied Lee and Kara's history was and therefore, had no idea that their current state of being was their version of normal.

Easing herself into the uncomfortable rack that would be her bed for the next six hours, Kara tried to stave off the chills and hot flashes that alternated through the night, repeating silently to herself, that the world was completely frakked up and she should stop expecting anything to make sense. It wasn't going to.

After her third nightmare, Kara resigned herself to staring at the gray ceiling over her head, biting her lip to keep in her tears and praying to the Gods for a form of deliverance. She despised the fact that every time she did, Lee's offer to talk echoed through her head and that as the minutes passed, she had to resist the growing urge to go find him.

---- ----

Surface of Kobol

Kara stared at the Old Man and the president, watching the hesitancy of their reunion. She knew Adama was far from okay with what Roslin had done, and the fact that Lee had gone along with it, but she also knew that the Fleet's unity, their survival, was more important to him than pride.

"Hey."

Glancing up, she caught sight of Lee as he seated himself beside her. "Hey. Everything all right?"

He grimaced telling her the answer was no, regardless of what he actually said. "I suppose," he admitted, holding his hands out and allowing the small fire to warm them. It was so damp on this planet and frakkin' cold. Kara couldn't wait to get back to space. "I still don't trust Meier or his henchman."

Kara frowned. "Lee, we outnumber them almost five to one. Relax."

Lee's scowl deepened, but he kept his silence. Kara knew he wouldn't actually relax until they were back on Galactica and even then it wasn't a guarantee. That stick up his ass was pretty permanent.

"Do you think he's really okay with this?" he asked.

Kara followed his gaze and saw his eyes locked on his father and the president. "Which part?" she countered. "The president's mutiny or yours?"

His cheeks flamed red and Kara enjoyed watching him try to justify holding a gun to the XO's head. "Look, you weren't there. I can't even—"

Holding up a hand, she stopped his tirade. "Lee, take it easy." As he finally fell silent and met her eyes, she smiled wide and said, "I just wish I could have been there to see it."

Slowly, his mouth worked its way into a smile and the red on his cheeks faded, leaving a soft sparkle in his eyes. "Stop winding me up, Thrace," he told her, giving her a light punch in the arm.

The hit knocked her off balance just a bit, putting sudden pressure on her still healing wounds and causing Kara to wince. Biting back a curse, she straightened quickly, hand flying to cover the now throbbing area as she willed the pain away. All of this hiking and sleeping on the ground wasn't doing a whole lot to help the healing process.

"Kara?"

Frak. She'd hoped maybe Lee could have missed her sharp inhale of pain. "Yeah?"

"What's wrong?"

She refused to look at him. The concern in his eyes, just like the concern he'd shown her on the Astral Queen would be far too much for her to handle. Things between them were a mess, had been before Caprica and certainly weren't going to get better once he heard the whole story. She went for avoidance—her go-to Lee strategy.

"Nothing. I'm fine."

His face hovered before hers as he crouched beside her and she cursed his ridiculously blue eyes and how intently he was staring at her. "Try again, Kara."

Great, now he was using her name, not her callsign, her name. Things were devolving fast. "Let's just say Caprica wasn't a picnic, all right?"

His brow furrowed and Kara ignored the cute little wrinkle it created above his nose. "What happened, Kara?"

Forcing the last remnants of pain to the back of her mind, Kara straightened and told him, "Nothing, Apollo. I'm fine."

The amount of skepticism in Lee's gaze would have been comical under any other circumstance. Luckily, he didn't get a chance to question her further as his father rose and ordered them to get ready to move out.

Kara stood quickly, moving away from Lee as fast as she could, joining Karl and Sharon—the one place she knew Lee wouldn't follow. She could feel his eyes on her across the clearing as they packed their gear, but with her usual Starbuck aplomb, she ignored him.

"Starbuck?"

Meeting Helo's gaze, she asked, a tad defensively, "What?"

She watched him bite back a smile. "Something you want to tell me?" he asked, eyes darting to Lee and then back to her.

Using her fiercest scowl, Kara told him, "No," before hefting her pack and stalking off. She wanted to get off this godsdamned cold, wet planet and get to Galactica. She really needed to get in her bird and shoot things. Yeah, that would make her feel better.

---- ----

Lee had been skeptical, it wasn't much of a secret. He didn't believe in Pythia or prophecies or any of it. But he couldn't deny the reverence with which the president and Kara treated the arrow. He couldn't deny, once he stepped into the tomb that something bigger than himself was going on here. Standing inside the Tomb of Athena seemed to make their journey less ridiculous.

Lee wouldn't have believed what he saw inside that stone chamber if he hadn't been there. He never would have listened to Kara or his father or the frakkin' president tell him about being transported to a grassy clearing with monoliths representing each of the twelve colonies. Never would have understood the beauty of the night sky with its constellations shining down on them.

Even when he knew he should be studying the stars above, his eyes inexplicably drifted to Kara. Her breathless tone as she recited the scriptures drew all of Lee's focus. He could swear he saw the sheen of tears in her eyes and it made him take a step forward. She'd been on the brink of crying at least twice since her return from Caprica. Couple that with the obvious injury she was trying to hide and it made him fiercely protective. It angered him that he didn't know how to ease her pain. It buoyed him that he wanted to.

As he reached out to take her hand, offer her some sense of comfort, the starry night faded back to the interior of the Tomb. Surrounded by broken statutes, the wary crew blinked once, twice, trying to remember what they'd seen knowing that one day soon they'd wish they could forget. Forget the smell of grass and night air and the longing it had inspired in all of them for home.

The door had automatically slid open at their return and Billy took the president's hand leading her outside, Adama following. Lee turned to go, noticing that Kara stood before Apollo's statute, staring at the gleaming arrow where it lay cradled in marble hands.

Without hesitation, he stepped forward and rested a gentle hand to the small of her back. She jumped slightly, eyes darting to his face, her tension easing the minute she saw it was him. Lee kept his hand where it was, noting that she was shivering under her sweats. They all needed to get home and get warm.

"You okay?" He whispered, his mouth close enough to her ear that his breath tickled the strands of wayward hair that had fallen from her ponytail.

She bit her lip and Lee was ready for he to say "no." Instead, she nodded. "Yup."

Lee swallowed his sigh; he feared she'd never be honest with him. It told him she didn't trust him. He knew she had every reason to think him a superior asshole, but he'd been hoping that their time apart and his newfound confession might tip the scales. So far, no luck.

With a slight rub of his hand to her back, he urged her towards the entrance. "Come on, let's go."

Kara nodded again and took the Arrow in her hands, before turning to head out of the Tomb. Before she reached the door, she faltered once, her left leg giving out slightly, causing her to stumble. Luckily, Lee hadn't drifted very far and he was there to catch her, a strong arm around her waist.

"You okay?" He asked again, hoping this time she might be straight with him.

This time she actually was. "I'm not feeling so hot," she murmured, leaning against him heavily and showing more vulnerability with that action than he'd seen in months.

Reaffirming his grip on her waist, Lee steered her towards the nearest ledge. However, before she could take a step she let out a stifled cry, clawing at the hand he'd wrapped around her left hip to keep her steady.

"What, Kara?" She gingerly sat down, leaning back and Lee knelt before her. "What is it? Tell me where it hurts."

Biting her lip hard to keep from crying out, Kara did her best to lift the edge of her sweatshirt and push down the top of her pants. Lee saw the red, inflamed skin long before she finished.

"Frak, Kara. What the hell happened?" She didn't answer him and Lee risked a glance to her face to gauge her state. It had gone from bad to awful. Her eyelids were fluttering, and a light sheen of sweat had broken out along her forehead. Her skin was at least three shades too white and she was shaking even worse now. She was going into shock.

Frak.

"Commander!"

His father came quickly at his call. Lee had managed to lay Kara on the ground at the foot of the nearest statue by the time Adama, Roslin and Helo rushed back in.

"My Gods. What happened?" The Old Man's injuries prevented him from dropping to his knees beside his daughter as he wanted to, so he simply stared over Lee's shoulder, demanding answers.

"Frak if I know. She was fine before. But now-"

"It's the Cylons."

Every eye turned to Helo, Kara's plight momentarily forgotten. "Explain, Lieutenant."

"Kara was captured on Caprica. We got caught in a firefight and we thought she had retreated. When we got back to base we realized she must have been hit. We found her in a Cylon facility – a converted mental hospital. They stitched her up."

"Not very well," Adama ground out, turning back to face Kara.

Lee's eyes stayed riveted to Helo. As Kara again cried out in pain, Lee propelled himself to his feet, jamming his arm against Helo's trachea and shoving him into the nearest wall. "What did your girlfriend's family do to her?"

Helo glanced to Kara and then back to Lee and if the Captain hadn't been just the slightest bit irrational, he might have seen regret in the other man's eyes. "They stitched her up. She seemed perfectly fine once we got her back, just a little sore and tired."

"It's infected." The president had taken Apollo's place at Starbuck's side while he did his best to wring information from Helo. Now, the older woman gently studied Kara's inflamed skin and made a diagnosis. All of them were inclined to agree with her.

"She's running a fever and the area is infected. We need to get her back to Galactica. She needs antibiotics and fluids."

Releasing Helo quickly, Lee knelt beside Kara, taking her cold hand in his. She was so frakkin' cold. "Kara, come on. We gotta move. Time to go home."

He tried to get his arm under her shoulders and lift her, but she cried out in pain making Lee stop at once. Laying her back down, he glanced back to his father. "I don't think she can make it back to the Raptor."

"She doesn't have a choice," Adama told him. Heading outside, Lee heard him start giving orders. "Chief, we need to rig a stretcher."

Helo followed Adama while Roslin stayed with Lee. Offering him her canteen, she said, "She won't survive the trip on a stretcher. It'll be much too painful."

"I know." Lee tipped the canteen against Kara's parched lips, helping her drink before resting her head back against the ground. Glancing to the president, he allowed a small smirk to form on his mouth. "You try telling him that."

The president returned his grin. "I will. We'll simply go back to the Raptor and land it closer to you and Lieutenant Thrace. You will be staying with her, I assume?"

"Frak yes." Lee blushed a deep shade of crimson as he realized he'd just sworn in front of the president of the colonies. "Ma'am," he added hastily, glancing back to Kara.

Roslin seemed unfazed. "We'll get her home, Captain. Don't worry."

---- ----

But Lee was worried. It would take the group almost a full day to hike back to the Raptors. That was if they made it back at all—there were still Cylons out there and the chance for flash flooding and a dozen other things that could go wrong before they could get back to him and Kara.

He'd done his best to make her comfortable in the hour or so they'd been alone. The team had left them with both their packs and Lee had spread out his own sleeping bag for Kara to lie on before wrapping her up in her own. It seemed to help her shivering a little bit.

He'd gathered enough dry wood for a fire and lit it, hoping that the flames might also help Kara fight off the damp chill that seemed to have settled on all of them since landing here. She had been pretty much out of it since they'd gone and Lee was disheartened by the paleness and heat of her skin. She was running a high fever and despite dosing her with as much morpha as he dared, it had yet to dissipate.

"No."

Kara's deep moan drew Lee's attention away from the fire and back to her side. Sitting next to her, he took her hand in his and squeezed it gently. "Shh, it's okay, Kara. You're okay."

"Lee?"

She sounded so confused. Lee hastened to reassure her. "Yeah, Kara, it's me. I'm here. You're going to be fine."

"Lee, I'm sorry. I didn't … it didn't mean anything."

He had no idea what she was apologizing for, but he didn't care. "Just rest, Kara. It's okay."

"Please, Lee. Please don't hate me."

He rested his hand to her burning cheek and blinked hard to dispel the tightness behind his eyes. Leaning down, he brushed a kiss to her forehead, and whispered, "I don't hate you, Kara. I love you. Just rest now. Please."

Kara mumbled something else he couldn't make out and then she was asleep. With a sigh, Lee stayed next to her and held her hand and tried to get his own emotions under control.

Then, surrounded by the broken idols of the Gods Kara believed in, Lee prayed.