A/N: This fic is AU after 213 (Epiphanies), so there are spoilers for up to and including that episode.
Disclaimer: I'm merely borrowing them. No copyright infringement is intended.

Finding Purpose 1

Kara stepped out of the shower stall, nearly dead on her feet. She pulled her towel off the hook and wrapped it tightly around her body to fight back the chill of the cool air. It had been one hell of a long day. Not one, but two CAP rotations. Normally that wasn't a big deal. Hell, she'd done it tons of times since the attack, but not on so little sleep, at least not since the cylons had attacked every thirty three minutes.

She sighed as she made her way to her locker and began the tedious process of getting dressed. Sleep was definitely something that had been eluding her lately, at least for the majority of each night. It was impossible to rest when she was worrying herself sick over her best friend.

Lee was… well, not Lee. She wasn't even sure that anyone else saw it, but he'd been acting differently ever since his emergency ejection from the blackbird. It scared the crap out of her, because Lee was supposed to be stable. He was the one person she could always count on to be the same, but now he wasn't.

She shut her locker with excessive force and the two other pilots in the head turned to look at her oddly. She just glared at them and they went back to whatever they had been doing before. On her way out, she tossed her damp towel in the overflowing laundry hamper.

The hallways weren't quite as deserted as the pilot's head had been, but she still didn't run into many people on her way back to the bunkroom. She slipped through the hatch, expecting to find it empty. Instead she saw that there was one other occupant in the room. Lee.

He was lying on his rack, staring up blankly at the bottom of the bunk above him. Kara's heart started to race as she experienced a creepy sense of déjà vu. The last time she had seen Lee like that he had told her that he didn't want to live any more.

She rubbed sweaty palms against the legs of her pants and walked over to stand next to him. He didn't even acknowledge her presence.

"Hey," she said quietly, after a few seconds, not knowing what else to say.

The only indication that he heard her was the slight tensing of his shoulders. He was just lying there and she didn't know what to do.

"So…" she began, but stopped when she realized she had nothing to finish the sentence with. She simply stared down at him for a few moments, watching as he did nothing. He was really starting to scare her.

"I'm fine," he said sullenly, not even turning his head to look at her. "Go back to playing cards or whatever."

"Lee," she said quietly, shocking herself a little with how concerned her voice sounded.

"I'm fine," he repeated, this time with more force, almost like it was a task to say it.

Hesitantly, she set her boots down on the deck and perched on the edge of his mattress, as far away from him as she could get without falling off. She had no idea what she was doing.

She suddenly found her hand reaching towards him, but she pulled it back when she realized what she was doing. She settled instead for placing her hand on the bed, in the space between them. It seemed like she sat like that for an eternity, the silence stretching out into a chasm between them.

"Just go," he said quietly. He didn't seem angry, just sullen.

"I want to help," she said quietly, the words almost catching in her throat.

"Go," was his quiet reply.

"Right," she said as she stood up, making sure to grab her boots. As she crossed the room to her bunk she couldn't help but feel that she had failed him somehow.

Lee sat alone at a table in the mess the next morning. There was food in front of him, but instead of eating it he was just pushing it around the plate. The grating noise of the metal fork on the ceramic dish was annoying, but he didn't stop. He just kept on with the monotonous movements, letting his mind drift. He knew that there was something seriously wrong with him.

It'd been nearly two weeks since his "space walk" as Kara had called it. He had no idea what had caused him to react like that, to just give up. He suppressed a shudder as he remembered the last few moments before he had lost consciousness. It had been so cold.

He reached blindly for his mug of coffee, taking huge gulps, hoping to somehow spread warmth through his body again. Instead of succeeding he managed to choke on the bitter liquid. He wiped a few stray drops of coffee from his lips with the back of his hand when the coughing finally subsided, and he tried not to think about how pathetic he had become.

He nearly jumped when a hand reached in front of him, pouring sweetener into his coffee. When he looked up he saw Kara, and he wasn't all that surprised. She'd taken to hovering around him lately. Sometimes it pissed him off, but other times he found that he didn't mind. He didn't know which one it was at that moment.

Lee watched as she gave him a tentative smile, one that he couldn't quite bring himself to return. After a few seconds of uncomfortable staring she turned to leave. Suddenly he felt guilty. It wasn't like any of this was her fault.

Using his foot, Lee pushed out the chair across from him and indicated to it with a tilt of his head. Kara let out a sigh that sounded like relief, but Lee couldn't tell for sure. She sat down and when she moved to slide her legs underneath the table, Lee pulled his foot back, another after effect of his "space walk". He couldn't bring himself to touch anyone else. He was afraid that he'd somehow contaminate them. Thankfully Kara didn't notice his actions. She was however looking at him oddly as she set down her own mug of coffee on the table. Lee figured that he should at least try for some normalcy, for her sake.

"So," he said softly, pointing at his mug with raised eyebrows.

Kara gave him a small grin. "The sweetener makes it bearable at least. Then you don't have to choke it down."

Lee felt his cheeks get warm with embarrassment, or possibly anger. Kara must have noticed because her face fell and she began to twist the ring on her thumb nervously, staring at it and not meeting his gaze. He knew her well enough to realize that she was wondering what the hell she'd done wrong. In that moment, he was sure that what he hated the most about his ejection from the blackbird, was that it had somehow caused a rift between him and his best friend.

He was pushing her away again, and it wasn't intentional. Even the night before, he hadn't wanted her to go, but the words had been out of his mouth before he could stop himself. What he wanted to do, and what he ended up doing were two completely different things. He was disjointed and the feeling was unnerving.

Kara placed her palms flat on the table and made to push her chair back. She was obviously leaving, probably fed up with him. He couldn't help but let out a disappointed sigh, leaning forward to rest his head in his hands, elbows braced on the table.

He hadn't yet heard the telltale scraping sound of chair on deck that meant Kara was leaving, and he was tempted to look up and see what was taking her so long. Before he could, he heard her soft and tentative voice.

"Do you want me to leave?"

He couldn't help but look up, startled at her words. Her gaze locked with his and he was surprised at what he saw there, a myriad of emotions. Concern, frustration, sympathy, even traces of building anger. In the end it was Lee that shifted his eyes away from hers.

"I don't know what I want anymore," he admitted quietly. It hurt him to acknowledge that, but it was true. It was like someone had taken his life, turned it upside down and shook it. Now everything was mixed up and he didn't know what to say, what to do, he didn't even know what he wanted.

"I'm trying Lee," she said quietly, causing him to look toward her again. "I'm really trying, but I don't know what to do." Her voice was still quiet, but it had taken on a hard edge.

He broke away from her gaze again, unable to take all of the emotions he could see written on her face. He knew that she wanted to help, and it didn't take her words to tell him that she had no idea how. Hell, he didn't even know what he wanted her to do. Kick his ass into gear maybe? Force him to tell her everything? Just be there for physical comfort? He shuddered at the last thought. He didn't want to use Kara, never.

"And you think I do?" he asked, his voice growing louder and angry as he found his eyes inexplicably drawn to hers. "Cause I sure as hell don't."

The concern was still there, but he was pushing her. He watched as her face tightened and she clenched her jaw. "I'll see you on the flight deck," was all she gritted out before she walked away.

Kara knelt down to check the undercarriage of her viper. Everything seemed to be where it should be, looking like it was supposed to. She checked off the last box on her pre-flight checklist. She motioned a nearby specialist over and handed it to him.

As she was turning back around to face her viper, she caught a glimpse of familiar broad shoulders over to her left. By the looks of it Lee was just finishing off his pre-flight routine too.

She took a minute to just watch him. To any untrained eye he seemed to be a normal and diligent CAG. But she had been watching him for years and she could see that something was off. She wasn't sure if it was in his posture, or just his lack of emotion, but she could see it. And it worried the hell out of her. Lee was supposed to be the strong one out of the two of them, the fighter. Except now he wasn't and she had no idea what to do.

She hadn't been lying when she talked to Lee earlier. She wanted to help him; she was trying to help him. It just wasn't working. Maybe it wasn't enough; maybe she wasn't doing the right thing. Actually, it was obvious that she wasn't doing the right thing. She tightened her hands into fists as the frustration flowed through her.

Abruptly, she turned away and tried to clear her head. She couldn't think about that. She was going to be stuck in her cockpit for the next three hours and the last thing she needed was to be dwelling on it. She spent enough time doing that when she wasn't on duty.

She zipped up her flight suit and did up the buckles as she walked up to the side of her bird. Cally was waiting with the ladder and she climbed up the steps and sank down into the worn out seat. She was passed a helmet and collar that she put on. She stole a glance and saw that Lee was doing the same thing not that far away.

After sliding the canopy shut, she waited impatiently for them to track her viper over to the entrance of the launch tubes. Naturally she got the one beside Lee, but when she glanced over again he wasn't looking at her.

Her heart fell as she remembered back to about three days before Pegasus had joined them. Lee and her had been in front of these exact same launch tubes, waiting for the jump to be completed so that they could launch and fly CAP. It was nearly the exact same situation as now, except now they weren't laughing and joking, they weren't smiling or having fun, and it hurt.

As Lee sat and waited for Galactica to execute its jump, he could feel Kara looking at him. He didn't even need to turn and see her to be sure. A part of him was glad that she cared, another was angry that she hadn't given up on him yet, even though he had, and the third just didn't care.

She was the only person so far who had noticed that something was different with him, that something was wrong. Everyone else just saw the CAG working harder, nothing wrong with that. It was true though; he was working harder. Well… he was working more anyway. For the first time in what seemed like forever, he was not only caught up on his paperwork, but ahead. Of course doing all of that work left him little time for anything else. He hadn't played a single card game, been to the rec room… Hell, he didn't even think that he had gone to the gym since he ejected from the blackbird, and he had always been one to work out religiously.

His thoughts were interrupted when he felt the all too familiar tug of the FTL jump. Once the feeling subsided and the jump was complete, deckhands worked in a flurry of organized movement to bring the pilots on CAP into the launch tubes.

It was only a few seconds later, just before the mag locks on his viper had been secured, when the alarm claxons went off. He heard Gaeta's voice over the speakers. "Action stations, action stations. Set condition one throughout the ship."

The next thing Lee knew he was giving the launch supervisor a sharp nod before he sped out of the side of Galactica. The jerk of acceleration threw him back in his cockpit and when he entered into the black of space, he hit the reverse thrusters lightly, needing to take a second to get a look at the situation. There was someone calling out the position of the enemy over the comm system, but sometimes a visual worked better.

From the looks of it they had jumped into the middle of a cylon fleet. There were three basestars and two smaller ships, ones that he couldn't identify.

Immediately he started barking out orders over the radio. He told Kat and Duck to go and set up a defensive perimeter around Colonial One. It had somehow managed to jump in close to one of the unknown ships and raiders were heavily guarding the cylon vessel. They hadn't attacked yet, but Lee wasn't taking any chances.

He nearly swore as he saw that Kat and Duck's approach was not helping the situation. The vipers were too much of a threat and as they got closer the raiders started firing on them and the President's ship. A quick scan of the battle scene told him that most of the raiders were guarding the two small ships. Without a second thought he ordered the alert fighters to join up on him. They were making an attack run on that ship, whatever the hell it was. He knew what the best type of defense was.

As they got within firing range, the cylons shifted the focus of their attack, easing up fire on Colonial One and hitting the vipers as hard and as fast as they could. Vipers and raiders laced together in a complicated pattern, shots being fired by both sides whenever there was a chance.

Lee was vaguely aware of Kara flying his wing as he darted underneath the belly of a raider, unable to get a clear shot off. He pulled back on the throttle, intending to arc up and turn to shoot down the raider he'd just missed. Instead he had to bank sharply as a different raider appeared out of nowhere, directly in front of him. At the sensation of the turn, and seeing the ship coming straight for him, he froze.

"Starbuck, Apollo, target's FTL is history. She's all yours."

"Roger that Apollo. Redwing initiated attack run Alpha…"

He didn't ever hear the rest.

Kara's voice was filling his ear and he was smiling. It had worked, now they could take out the resurrection ship. He turned around from watching it and the next thing he knew he was spinning out of control and all that he could see was fire.

Somewhere, distantly, he heard chatter over the comm, but it didn't register.

He ejected, more out of instinct than from conscious decision. The flaming piece of metal that had been his ship grew smaller and smaller as his seat shot clear of the debris, the thrusters on the underside of the chair doing their job.

"Apollo!" He could hear Kara's voice calling out, but he couldn't answer. It was as if he mouth was glued shut.

Then it was black; black and cold. He remembered the cold most of all, how it seeped in through the hole in his flight suit, creeping up to settle itself in his bones, even deeper maybe; right at the very heart of him. If he had been able to move, he would have shuddered.

His hands were clutching the throttle tightly, but he was still. Panic started to set in as he realized that he would die out there, at that very moment. He was a sitting duck in the middle of a cylon shooting gallery.

There was a raider heading straight for him. Its red eye filled his vision. That was it; his life was about to end. He heard a sharp intake of breath and barely registered that it had come from him. He could only sit there and watch, his body completely paralyzed.

Kara followed Lee's sharp and precise turns through the fight, but she was having a damn hard time keeping up with him. It didn't stop her from offing cylons any time she had a clear shot though.

She swooped around one raider as Lee darted under it at the last second, not quite quick enough to get a shot at it. Then she saw a raider coming straight for Lee. He banked hard at the last second and she was able to take it out.

She shot down another raider as it approached them from the right. When she turned her bird back around and took in the sight in front of her, she knew that something was wrong. Lee's viper wasn't maneuvering. For a second she felt her stomach clench with guilt, thinking that he'd been hit when was she turned the other way. She'd failed him again.

"Apollo!" she said loudly, not able to keep the panic out of her voice. As she was waiting for a response, she flew in close by his viper. He still hadn't answered her, but she couldn't see any damage on his ship, there was no way that he'd been hit.

"What the frak!" she muttered angrily. What was he playing at? Was he trying to get … She gulped, not wanting to finish that thought. Another raider swooped in close to them and she flipped her bird quickly to take it out.

She made an upside down pass over the canopy of Lee's viper; she needed to know what the hell was going on. He was just sitting there. "Shit," she swore as the thought came to her. That had to be it.

This was the first time they had run into the cylons since their attack on the resurrection ship. More importantly, this was Lee's first time in combat since he ejected from the blackbird. He'd flown dozens of CAP rotations, but not a single fight. Normally a seasoned pilot wouldn't seize up, but close calls like that would mess with anybody's head.

She started shouting orders at the squadron from Galactica. There wasn't much to be said, but they needed some direction, and they sure as hell weren't getting it from Lee. He had frozen up, like a nugget in their first dogfight. Without a moment's hesitation she ordered Kat to take command of the pilots. Kara couldn't be keeping track of the fight; she needed to focus all she had on making sure that she kept Lee's ass alive. There was no way in hell she was going to let him die.

She shot raider after raider as they came near, needing to fly with true Starbuck style to catch them all. The case of vertigo she was experiencing was nearly overwhelming, but that didn't slow her down. Just when she thought they were in the clear, a raider swerved out from behind the cylon ship and headed straight towards Lee. She tried to fire and swore vehemently when she realized that she'd used up all of her ammo.

Kara did the last thing that she could do and flew her viper between Lee's and the oncoming raider.

TBC