Title : Stardust and Stoicism

Author : Annika (imaginaryalice)

Series : Battlestar Galactica

Pairing : LeexDee (KaraxLee)

Rating : PG-13

Prompt : "Please kill Dee"

Disclaimer : i don't own anything

Author's Notes : Written for the BSG Death Ficathon - write a story in which a character dies. I chose the above prompt because it made me laugh out loud when I read it. Lee was one of my favorite characters when the series began and while I'm primarily a LauraxLee shipper, canon-wise I love Kara and Lee together ("No take backs" is priceless). Then there's Dee which as a flirtation I liked but as a relationship seemed somewhat boring and random. My goal with this fic was to make LeexDee into something worth reading, I hope it is. Lee's POV.

Warning : Obviously, someone dies :P

You never know what you have until it's gone. At least that's what they always tell you. I think it's more like you never know what you want to have until you make the wrong choice.

"Lee?"

"Yes?"

"What are you thinking about?"

Kara. Drunk. Naked. On top.

"Nothing important." I shake my head and attempt a smile. "Sorry, didn't mean to go all distant."

"I'm used to it." She smiles too but it's no more truthful than mine.

"That's a terrible thing to say!" Despite the words I'm not angry or even upset. The mood is light as it always is with us. There's no rage, no horrible hurtful arguments we need weeks to recover from. We don't fight at all...we are entirely without...

Passion.

"You know that's what I love about you." I look at her and her eyes are twinkling. They really are beautiful eyes. I raise my eyebrows in query. "Your quiet authority and stoic pride...you are a true officer and a gentleman." She means it as a compliment but my stoic pride? When did stoicism become a good part of my personality?

I've always been reserved. Zack was the free spirit. Mom was the forward thinker. Dad's a dreamer in his own way. I'm practical, thoughtful...boring.

Stoic.

When I was young someone had to be the good kid. When this all began they needed me to be a leader, they needed direction. Laura and Dad needed me to be a hero even if I wasn't sure I could be.

But Kara never wanted me to be stoic or reserved or any kind of hero. She just wanted me to be me. When had that changed?

I remember our last meaningful interaction. Kara flippantly made fun of my relationship with Dee and then snogged her boy toy senseless as if I weren't there. But all the times before then, I remember them too and frak it they meant something.

I don't know how much of this played out on my face, Dee is looking at me quizzically. She crosses the room to sit beside me and with a small hand turns my face to hers.

"Hey. I didn't mean to send you into an introspective spin." I shake my head, trying to throw the memories out of it, such things only get in the way of what's right there in front of me.

Passion is overrated.

"What?" I hadn't meant to say it aloud. Dee pulls back and looks at me with an indiscernible expression. I realize this is the moment. I could alter our relationship, take it to the next level or end it. I'd seen these moments before, with Kara, with Laura, even with Dee once or twice before now and I'd always let them go on by. I look at Dee, her beautiful eyes full of something like fear as if she realized the import of the moment herself. When had our flirtation turned into something worth losing?

"I lied." I begin. Her eyes narrow slightly but she doesn't say anything, waiting for me as she so often had. "Before when I said I wasn't thinking about anything important. It wasn't true. I was thinking about Kara." Dee flinched slightly at the name but still she watches and waits. "I think about her a lot. The truth is I've been in love with her for a long time, maybe as long as I've known her. For a while I thought she loved me too, maybe she does in her own impossible way. I think Kara can love more than one person at a time...you know her, she's so full of -"

"Passion." Her voice is quiet and tinged with something that might be hurt or may be anger. I nod.

"Passion overflowing and unrestrained, that's Kara. And I would be lying if I said I didn't want that sometimes." Dee looks away, down at her hands, clasping and unclasping in her lap. I reach out and hold them still. "But passion can be overrated and there is more than one way to love someone." She looks back up at me. "You taught me that." Suddenly she's crying. I've never seen her cry, not even when Billy died. It makes me feel warm and I laugh to find our relationship is screwed up and unhealthy in it's own way.

Nine weeks later, post-Cylon attack.

In battle the Pegasus was nearly impossible to run with the skeleton crew we were down to. As one of a handful of raptor pilots left on either Pegasus or Galactica I had left Dualla in charge of the battlestar during this most recent engagement. Thus I am in my raptor, miles away when it is destroyed by the cylons. I watch, stoically, as the cylons blow up my home again. Dee is gone, reduced to atoms, floating in space like stardust.

You never know what you have until it's gone.