A.N.-Hey there, here's the next chapter. Please, please, please review if you read this, I need all the feedback I can get. I'm easily dissuaded from continuing if I feel like no one likes this.

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Chapter 4

"Any word?"

Adama looked towards his son, the lines of worry and fatigue standing out starkly against his pale face. He was wearing himself out. "She's still unconscious, but her vitals are stronger."

Lee nodded. "Lee, you need to eat. There's a difference between dropping weight and emaciation. You're driving yourself into the ground, son."

Lee sighed. "I know. I've just been so worried about Kara. I'm with her every minute I'm not working. She's more important than food."

"Lee-"

"Dad, you know she is."

"I'm not disagreeing, son. But you're not going to help anyone if you pass out from sleep deprivation and malnutrition."

Lee was silent. He knew his father was right, but he felt like he owed it to Kara to stick by her side. Well, metaphorically anyway. He'd yet to actually go inside since the first day she'd been there. He'd tried to go in repeatedly, but his fear got in the way.

They'd waited so long, messed so many opportunities up, always afraid to show how they really felt for fear that it would ruin their relationship, and now it might be too late. He didn't know what he'd do if she didn't make it.

Adama sighed. "I'll have your meals sent to you, as long as you actually go sit by her bed." Lee looked up. "I know everything that goes on on my ship, son. I know you haven't seen her since she first got here. I'm willing to overlook a lax in your duties if you agree to sit by her. Who knows, maybe it will help."

Lee nodded. He could do that. He'd do whatever it took. He owed it to her. "Okay. After my CAP."

---

As she watched him walk around the deck after his CAP, pausing for a bit at Kara's viper, checking to make sure no one was watching him, and running his hand along the ship, Dee realized just how much Kara Thrace meant to Lee. And she was finally able to think of this without the signature anger attached. The thought hurt like hell, but not as much as she thought it would've.

She supposed it was due to the situation. The human race was nearly extinct, and they risked their lives day after day, never sure of what the next day would bring. Life altering situations tend to bring certain realizations to the surface, one of those being that to find true love, the sort that she could tell Lee and Kara felt for each other, was something so rare and special these days, that to get in the way of it was almost wrong. To find happiness these days was so rare, that no matter the circumstances, you couldn't seem to hate or begrudge that person their happiness.

It was with this thought in mind that she walked toward Lee, intent on letting him go, once and for all.

---

Lee looked around his office. He knew he was avoiding going to sickbay, and while he was ashamed of himself, he couldn't bring himself to go. He couldn't stand to see her looking so fragile and broken. It would break him.

On the upside things were finally better with Dee, which was a huge load off of his back.

Lee let out a huff of frustration. He was such a frakking wimp.

Okay, Adama, time to be a man. Starbuck would be over there in a flash. And with a deep breath, Lee left to go to sickbay.

---

Lee slowly sat down, never taking his eyes off of her. She was so damned beautiful, even with the fading bruises and cuts. A new wave of self-hatred came back at him full force. This was all his fault. If he hadn't have been such a frakkin' idiot and said all those things, she wouldn't have felt like she needed to get away from him so badly that she needed to move to New Caprica. It was all his fault, and he'd spend the rest of his life making it up to her, if she'd let him.

Gently taking her hand into his, Lee stared at her, just taking her in. He'd been denied her presence for so long, that to merely sit near her once again was causing him all sorts of feelings he'd been trying to deny for awhile.

Lee slowly brought her hand up to his lips, giving it a light kiss, before bringing it to his forehead, leaning his elbows on his thighs. He needed to get this off his chest before he exploded.

He opened his mouth, trying to force the words out, but nothing would come. He tried again, with the same result. On the third time he practically growled in frustration before forcing the first thing that came to mind out. "Kara Thrace you better wake up soon, or I'm going to have to demote you down to a petty officer. Nuggets are gonna be passing you up soon if you don't come back and practice soon." There, that was better. It wasn't what he needed to say, but it was something. "Who's gonna show them all the crazy moves, and teach them how to disrespect their superiors if you aren't there?"

Lee dragged in a breath of air as he suddenly choked up at the memory of all the times she'd stood up to him, or they'd flown together. She'd never backed down, never left him. He should've done the same.

"Kara...I'm so sorry. I'm more sorry than you'll ever know. I frakked up. I frakked up bad and I know it. I should've gone after you, I should've tried harder. You would have. I failed you and I'm more sorry than you'll ever know." Glancing up at her face, he saw that she hadn't changed at all.

Seeing her like that, so quiet and broken and so not Kara, something inside of Lee snapped. Once again, he found himself breaking down. "God damnit Kara. You can't leave me," he cried into her hand, pressing it closer to his face. "I need you. Do you hear me? I need you. You can't leave me. Not until I've made it right. Not until I know you're going to be okay. I need my screw-up Lieutenant by my side to tell me when I'm being a frakking idiot and I need to pull the stick out of my ass, or pull me out of some crazy situation."

Lee paused to take a breath, sucking in great gulps of air. Everything seemed to wrong, nothing was as it should be. Kara shouldn't be in a hospital bed looking so frail. His father shouldn't look so old and beaten. None of them should be in this situation.

"Kara, just...just please come back to me. I can't do this without you."

Lee brought his head down to rest beside their intertwined hands on the bed, crying softly into the bed sheets.

---

Sam once again back silently out of the doorway, listening to Lee's tear filled declaration. The raw pain on Lee's face... it superseded any emotion that he'd expressed so far.

Apollo loved her in a way Sam would never be able to.

That thought stung, but he couldn't deny it. Especially not after he'd been on the ship for so long. It was hard to avoid the stories, especially once Kara showed back up. All anyone ever talked about was the legendary Starbuck and Apollo, and the crazy things the did for each other, and how the two were closer than anyone would have imagined, given their major differences. Hell, he'd heard enough stories from Kara herself, even after she insisted that she didn't miss Lee.

He knew that Apollo would have been down there after Kara in a second if he'd known what was wrong. And he knew that Kara knew. He knew that she would see it in his eyes when she saw him that he hadn't done anything to save her. He hadn't done anything to save her, yet she'd risked everything to go back and save him. Gods, he was an idiot.

The guilt was suffocating.