"Hey, Lee."
He turns and her heart lifts, because he's hot - really hot. Uniforms don't really do anything for her these days, but Lee wears his the way she wears hers - as if the clothes are his very skin and bones.
She's frakked a few uniforms in her time. Most were disappointments; under the grey and green they were just posturing kids, out to frak a superior officer and boast about it to their fellow men. At least, until... She frowns, reaching for a thought that flutters just out of reach.
She lets it go, because Lee Adama's confident gaze is sweeping over her, and she is pretty sure he's no posturing kid. Take off the uniform and he'll be the same all the way through.
"So what's up, Kara Thrace?" he asks and flashes his little boy grin.
"Got a little something for you," she says, and there's that thought again, floating around the outer reaches of her mind. Something she should know.
"Oh, yeah?" He takes a step forward, and she can't wait, she just can't wait to get him back to her apartment. But she catches a flicker of uncertainty in his expression, and that thought in the back of her mind looms larger. Darker.
What is it that's wrong?
Still, he's moving closer, and if his eyes are veiled in sadness, his body is communicating other messages, and so it isn't until their lips meet that the thought coalesces into a single word.
Zak.
She pulls away, meeting Lee's gaze for just a second and now she understands his sadness, because sure, Lee's hot and sweet and maybe if she'd met him first they could have... but it's Zak she loves, Zak who will be hurt if he ever discovers this, Zak she should be with now.
He doesn't call after her as she strides down the empty street. His sadness retreats until she turns a corner, and it's only then that she realises, with a wrench of relief, that she is dreaming.
She's not a flowers-in-her-hair kind of girl, so her only concession to the solstice is a shower and a fresh uniform. Sure, there's a candle in her locker, and she could probably even find some herbs if she put her mind to it. But given everything that's been taken away from them since the last summer solstice, she figures that the gods will allow for a little flexibility in the ritual.
Because she's ready. She's ready to put Zak behind her; ready to swallow the guilt, because if Lee can forgive her, she can find the strength to forgive herself. The world has changed, and now is the time, surely, for a new beginning in a new world.
She glances around the tiny duty locker and frowns. The nearest sun could be anywhere, and their new world is fenced in by the grey walls of Galactica. But that's OK. It's OK, because she's seen Lee's eyes soften when he thinks she's not looking; she's seen the desire he works so hard to mask, because they're professionals and - worse - because he's an Adama and she's Kara Thrace.
If she closes her eyes, she can picture him again; she can see the way he looked at her on Colonial Night. The combination of desire and promise in his eyes is the sexiest thing she's ever seen.
It's time, it's definitely time, and she rehearses the it the way she would a Viper landing: he'll come through the door, and if he's with someone, she'll catch his eye and he'll know, like he always does, that she wants to see him alone. And when they're alone, she'll pull out the remains of that ambrosia she's been saving, and lock the door, and they will have themselves a frakkin' good time.
She looks up languidly at a commotion outside the door, eyes already soft with what she's going to do to Lee on this night for wishing. It feels so natural to see Lee ambling through that doorway that it takes her a moment to notice the way Dee is holding his arm. She catches Lee's eye, and he clocks it, like he always does - and gives a tiny shake of his head, a widening of his eyes that pleads, 'Later'.
Dee's shining, wearing her big, tender heart on her sleeve for Lee, and Kara knows it isn't her fault, but that doesn't stop her wanting to scratch out Dee's eyes.
She has no idea what she says to get herself out of the cabin, only that once she does she is running, heedless of the people she barges into. All she knows is that she needs to escape from the sight of Lee smiling down at Dee Dualla the way he should be looking at her.
In the memorial hallway, she breathes through the pain and Zak's smiling face materialises in her mind. It's not time yet. Not yet.
The earth that is found here is all wide open skies and pale green hills, nothing like what she's used to in Caprica City. Kara trudges through the undergrowth, wondering how long it'll be before the people here invent tarmac.
It suits Lee, though. In the late evening sunshine, everything is shaded in yellow and grey, even the shirt he's wearing. It was part of a uniform once, but now it's just an old, familiar shirt. He hasn't been cutting his hair, and if the longer style doesn't exactly suit him, it softens the grim set to his face, making him look almost as young as the evening on which they first met.
The fire is guttering to nothing. Lee's reading by the light of the dying sun and a burning torch stuck in the soil, and she feels a rush of tenderness for him. Take away the whole of civilisation; take away everyone he knows and loves, and he's still Lee, still the man who accepted and loved her unconditionally when no one else believed she was real.
It's solstice night: a night for wishes; a night for letting go and for new beginnings, and that's why she's here. To grant someone's wish.
She takes a step, quietly, in the long grass. He doesn't move, so she takes another, and another, until she can see his back rising and falling as he breathes, and make out the tendrils of hair blowing around his shoulders.
She's smiling and blinking back tears. "Hey, Lee," she says, and waits for him to turn around.