Regret, a battlestar galactica: 2003 fanfic

Title: Regret

Description: Kara Thrace is left to deal with everything she has done to Lee Adama. But will she get a chance to make it right again? One-shot, AU, KL

Word Count: 1,778

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Unfortunatly, I do not own BSG or any of its characters. That honor goes to Ronald D. Moore, who I am not. The lyrics are to the song 'I Never Told You' by Colbie Caillat.

I see your blue eyes every time I close mine
You make it hard to see
Where I belong to, when I'm not around you
It's like I'm not with me

Kara Thrace lay under her viper, meticulously repairing anything that was broken or could be fixed in any way, in an effort to keep her previous conversation with the Chief out of her head. "Frak!" she muttered as the words exchanged between them came flooding back into her head.

"I don't know if you heard about…" he broke off suddenly and widened his eyes at her confused expression.

"About who, Chief?" Kara questioned, although she knew inside who he would be telling her about, yet her head and heart refused to accept the possibility. 'He is Apollo, after all; he can't die. Or can he?' her head unhelpfully supplied. 'The Chief wouldn't be talking to you about this if something wasn't wrong…'

"About Apollo, sir…"

Those two words confirmed her worst fears. All at the same time, Kara felt her heart shatter into a million pieces at learning that it's other half was gone, as well as her body shut down. She nodded slowly so that the Chief would know she understood. 'Careful, Thrace…' she cautioned herself, 'you don't get to grieve in public, after all that's happened between you and Lee Adama. After all you've done to hurt him in the worst ways possible, after all you've done to push him away when all you really wanted was for him to stay, but knowing that he would have scared the crap out of you. Besides, you've still got work to do and the time for mourning is not now on the hangar deck.'

So instead of letting herself mourn the loss of her best friend in the worlds, the man she secretly loved (or not so secretly, according to the rest of Galactica's crew, with the exception of Lee himself and Bill Adama—hell, even Lee's frakking girlfriend, Dee, knew), Kara walked herself over to her viper in order to keep herself busy, so that she didn't have to deal with the fact that Lee was dead—at least, not yet.

Kara closed her eyes briefly to try and clear her head of the exact topic she wanted to stay away from, but knew she couldn't avoid forever—Lee's death. The exact second she closed her eyes, Lee's bright blue eyes—without the recent dullness and lifelessness that had been added to them because of the pain she had caused him—flashed behind her eyelids. She sucked in a sharp, pained breath and tried to will the image to go away—it hurt too frakking much to deal with—but to her extreme dismay, they did not fade, but only sharpened in clarity and intensity. Kara tried opening her eyes, but the images still floated in front of her eyes, taunting her.

'Too much to frakking deal with right now,' she thought, her head still spinning from the icy pain she had felt when Chief Tyrol first talked to her about what had happened with Lee, but also the fresh wave of grief that had washed over her at the sight of Lee's beautiful blue eyes. 'Always what I loved most about him…' her mind prompted. Her heart still ached because her other half was gone forever. Knowing that his absence was permanent made the pain worse. At least before, no matter what horrible thing she had done, no matter how much pain she had inflicted on him, he had always found his way back to her and that made his absences easier to deal with because inside Kara knew she would always have him back eventually.

But not anymore.

No matter how much she prayed to the gods to give him back to her, Kara knew that he was gone and would always be gone. And because her heart could not exist without its other half—Lee—that meant that she was dead, too, but her mind and body hadn't caught up just yet.

'Maybe it's good that I'm dead, too. At least then I'll be in the same place as Lee,' she thought with a grim smile. 'If not, then I'll get there. I'll be pulling one of my signature stunts, except the difference this time is I won't be there to tell the story of how I survived. Because I won't survive. Isn't that what happens when there's nothing left in the universe to keep you living? There really is nothing left, now that my other half is gone, is there?'

But I never told you what I should have said
No, I never told you, I just held it in And now, I miss everything about you
(Still you're gone)
I can't believe that I still want you
(And I'm lovin' you; I never should've walked away)
After all the things we've been through
(I know it's never gonna come again)
I miss everything about you, without you

Kara had figured it out too late. She did love him with all her heart; it wasn't just some physical attraction between them.

Too late.

Lee was gone and she never would have a chance to tell him that she loved him, too. Without him there as a constant reminder of what she had done to him, Kara couldn't help but remember everything she loved about Lee Adama, everything she still loved about him, even though this man, who had caused her so much pain on many occasions, was gone. It broke her heart into tinier pieces as she thought about all the small things she loved about him.

His smile.

His laugh.

The way his eyes laughed along with his mouth after she said something funny.

How easy it was to talk to him, to joke around with him.

How much he cared for her, even when his protectiveness went overboard.

Most of all, his eyes.

Anyone who didn't know them would have thought that they hated each other and after all of the pain—both physical and mental—they both caused each other, they should have. But those people would have been wrong. It was anything but hate. Even though on many occasions Lee's words had been purposefully hurtful, she was surprised to find that she still wanted him and loved him as much as she had before.

Kara knew she never should have walked away from what they could have had and the what ifs? constantly taunted her. But no matter how much she regretted her walking away from Lee, the chance to try to get that opportunity back was never going to come again.

Kara heard the sound of footsteps crossing the hangar bay, stopping in front of the viper she was working on. She waited, feeling somewhat annoyed at the unseen person. 'Can't they tell I don't feel like frakking talking right now…? Some people just don't understand how to leave—'

"Hey…" Her thoughts cut off abruptly at the sound of a voice that she would recognize anywhere, a voice that she had been longing to hear since she got out of the viper she had been flying. The voice she thought she would never hear again.

Lee's voice.

She slowly came out from underneath the viper and looked over at the person standing there and forgot how to breathe. 'I have to be dreaming… this can't be real. I mean, he's dead!' Kara blinked a few times, but Lee didn't disappear, he was still there with a small smile touching the corners of his lips. 'I guess the fact that he's still here means that I'm not dreaming or insane then…' she thought as Lee went to help her up.

She just stood there for a second, staring at him, at the bright blue eyes she thought she would never see again, before she finally spoke.

"I thought you were dead, Lee…" Kara's voice was pained and raw.

Then Kara moved to do the thing Lee never expected her to do. Give him one of her infamous right hooks? Maybe. Scream at him for making her believe he was dead? Possibly. But not this…

Kara had quickly stepped forward and kissed Lee hard on the lips.

"I do love you, Lee, you know that?"

"I guess I do now, Kara."

If there was one thing that Kara Thrace had learned from this entire experience was that there was not enough time in a viper pilot's life to not accept a good thing that comes their way. So for once in her life, Kara Thrace accepted the best thing in her life—Lee Adama—without considering the excuses she had made against it. For once in her life, Kara Thrace was truly and completely happy with her decision. She had finally found where she belonged, which was with the man standing in front of her.

FIN.

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