Lee didn't think, he ran. His father, who was wearing a very saddened and disturbed expression, stopped him.

"Kara disappeared Lee, she took a raptor for a run and never came back. She disappeared off DRAIDIS a few hours ago."

"No."

"Yes, do you know why?"

"No, we have..." Lee struggled for words. He gave up on words and let himself be embraced by his father. Who also seemed to be struggling against an odd restraint.

"Are Demetrie and Jason asleep?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"I don't know, but I know Kara. And she wouldn't have left them if she didn't have a damn good reason."

Lee let out an odd strangled sob.

"She'll be back, she'll be back Lee." Bill repeated, as if he wanted desperately to believe it. "If she was going for good Demetrie and Jason would be gone too."

"That's true." Lee managed, "But what if she didn't jump. What if?"

"Don't say it. Have hope."

Hope became harder to have as weeks passed. Some of the other moms on the Galactica offered to nurse Demetrie and Jason, until they could be successfully weaned. They were fussy, they both cried more; they missed Kara. Bill and Laura conceded to watching the children for Lee. Looking at families made him sick to his stomach. Even the sight of Cally and the Chief walking little Nicholas down the corridor made Lee feel like keeling over. Noticing how Cally's belly was swelling with child again nearly made him cry. At first he rotated between avoiding and clinging to his children. Then Jason got sick. Lee ran to sickbay to see his son sitting on a hospital bed crying as a few medics attended to him.

"Odd," One medic remarked, "Jason means healer."

Another medic glared, "It's not funny." He told the first medic as he administered an antibiotic to the crying child.

Lee remembered inadvertently a much happier moment, when he had been cuddling with Kara picking names. Or trying too, she had insisted on Demetrie and Jason. "What does Demetrie mean?"

The medic looked at him quizzically, "Something like devotee of Demeter, goddess of the harvest, crops, fertility, spring…stuff like that."

Kara had picked names for their children deliberately. Lee realized, Jason the healer. Their daughter Demetrie named after the goddess of the harvest, fertility, spring and with it new life. She had known, Lee realized.

Jason recovered well. Lee settled into a new routine of duty and work. His children remained a bittersweet joy in his life. Especially with Demetrie looking more and more like Kara as time passed. His son's white blond hair was a constant reminder of what was missing. What they were missing. What Kara was missing. Demetrie and Jason's first birthday. Their unsteady first steps. His children's babblings forming into words. Calling himself Daddy in hope that his children would follow suit. Even more strangely listening to his father and the president of the colonies calling themselves Grandpa and Grandma. Lee sternly forced his brain away from contemplating any additional implications of this. Sometimes time dragged on forever, sometimes it raced. Kara was never far from his thoughts. It went unsaid between him and his father, they were both confident Kara was dead. And before he knew it six months had passed. The president was always hassling him about spending time with his children, and then proceeded to have them brought to Colonial One where she could play with them. It took Lee hours to track them down. Kara would have laughed so hard at that… And time began to race again.

Then very early on morning…

Lee felt himself being shook in his sleep.

"Lee." He heard a familiar voice, and knew it was her.

"Kara."

"They've grown so much." Kara bit her lip, "I thought maybe they'd remember me, silly huh?"

"I don't know. What did you expect Kara?" Lee felt relief and anger surfacing at once.

"Not to be kept so long, I didn't know how much time had passed… The old man was afraid to tell me when he realized I didn't know." Kara's tearstained face came closer as she lay on the bed next to Lee.

"Cylons?"

"Yeah, I've already been debriefed. I'll tell you later." Kara knelt down next to the low bed, bringing herself eye level with Demetrie, who was sleeping soundly.

"I told them about you, we all did."

"She looks more like me." Kara breathed, "They both do."

Lee felt at a loss for words. He had hoped for so long that Kara would come back. And now that she was, what came next? "They're fifteen months old Kara."

"I thought maybe two or three months, not six." Kara began to cry. "Will they still love me?"

Lee pulled her into his arms, "It'll be okay." Lee kissed her tenderly, "We'll take a few weeks off, be a family, they'll love you again." Lee's anger at Kara had been forgotten as soon as he saw her cry.

"The cylons don't know they exist… It took them ages to realize that I'd had a baby. I managed to convince them my baby died when they interrogated me."

"Why?"

"They had an unhealthy interest." Kara replied, "They'd want my children."

"Why?"

"Because I have a destiny, and so do they."

"What's that?"

"We'll have to wait and see, mine's already been written, theirs' too."

Lee shivered slightly as Kara slipped under the blankets next to them.

"I love you Lee."

"I love you too." Lee replied, and then on impulse he kissed her again.

"Do you still want to marry me?"

"Yes."

"Good, I'm all yours." Kara kissed him again, "Because monogamy and family life are beginning to sound very good to me. Cylon basestars; not fun."

"What about the destiny?"

"Our children are going to grow up on Earth." Kara replied. And kissed Lee again before he could sort out exactly what she had said.

FIN