"Goodbye, Kara."
Lee returned to his tent. Actually, the makeshift home had two bedrolls on the floor. He and Kara had slept together – slept – during the handful of nights they'd been down on Earth Nouveau.
He was simultaneously barren and at peace.
Barren because she had gone. Now he knew that Kara had truly died in the mandala. Or on the first Earth they had found. She had been living on borrowed time, stretching the limits of reality so that she could guide her people home. Him, his father, Laura – they had all been leaders of the human race. But it was safe to say that Kara Thrace was the mother of its rebirth.
At peace because… well. Kara had fulfilled herself. Sadly enough, he hadn't been part of her end-game, her destiny. But he loved her plenty enough that he could be happy that she had… completed herself. It had completed him in turn.
Yes. Lee was having trouble finding his thoughts.
But that night a miracle took place.
Kara gave him one last gift. It must have been that. Because he sure as hell didn't have the imagination to come up with all that.
As sleep claimed him, her bedroll as she had left it beside him, Lee's dreams were invaded by Kara. She gave him snippets of the past – lives they had lived together in previous cycles – and she gave him a magic place of would-have-been.
The forgotten past…
Dressed in armor, two knights, they fought with heavy broadswords, sweat on their brows as each one tried to best the other. The crowd cheered, alternating between him and her. Kara was the winner, by a fraction of skill or luck. The crowd went mad but her eyes burned as she refused to lord it over him.
Later, free from their confining armor, they were ripping at linen and making love almost violently on a rough bed, a fireplace the only source of heat and illumination.
At a party, sleek satin stifling her, heavy jewels hanging onto her. They were introduced and the chemistry began instantly. By the end of the night, drunk on too much wine, her husband passed out somewhere, Lee had cornered Kara against a wall and tempted her with freedom.
She gasped and accepted, pulling him in for a kiss. As his hand was about to go the last inches and get rid of her underwear, a loud cough interrupted them. His father's razor eyes scalded them apart.
And then the impossible future…
A log cabin. Lee is chasing a blonde little girl in the meadow right in front of the cabin. Kara is watching them from the doorway, indulgent smile and all. On her hip there is a baby boy with a shock of brown hair. The sun is like a truth potion. Wherever it hits, it transforms into unadulterated beauty. Lee's eyes are at their brightest; Kara's body has never vibrated so much. They can taste the magic in the air.
Kara calls them in to dinner. The baby fusses in his crib but Lee tends to him while Kara puts their daughter to sleep. Lee beckons her over.
"I think he's in need of your unique care, wife."
And he still can't get over it all as he calls her by her title.
Kara smiles and rolls her eyes. Laying down she gets comfortable and once the baby has stopped suckling and is asleep at her breast, Lee starts to tease. By the time she's put the infant in his bed, she's wet and strangely desperate for him.
She also can't get over it all as he lays her down on their pile of furs, a return to primitiveness.
And in the quiet they make love like they never have before, like they will never get to. Slowly, savoring each taste, each kiss, each mouthful, each thrust and arch, each proof that their bodies are like lock and key.
Lee wakes up gasping, crying, howling. He's in so much pain he wants to locate the last sidearm in the world and use the last bullet in existence to put an end to the loneliest life on Earth.
Lee will never find another mate and the Adama line will effectively die out. But he's incapable of more. Kara Thrace was his for the claiming but she's been snatched away before he could properly dig his claws into her. As the cycle is broken, he can only hope he will find her in the Elysian Fields.
Otherwise eternity will be a long predicament he's not sure he's got a solution for.
A/N: Based on the reviews I got for this piece, I just want to clarify something: Lee doesn't committ suicide. He's just very seriously contemplating it. In the same manner you'd put down an animal to get it out of its misery. But what I mostly wanted to come across that Lee's life was mapped out after Kara's disappearance. He lived the remainder of his life alone and the last bit was the description of how he was waiting for his own demise, uncertain as to whether Kara would be there in the afterlife.