WARNING: Contains disturbing imagery

The sun shone brightly through the yellow tinted morning. The air was cold, but the light warmed everything around it, creating a fine mist drifting through the ivy on the ground. The birds chirped in the trees, though fewer and farther away now that they had less competition in the world. Lee sat at the base of a tree staring at his wrists. He rifle was propped against the tree at his side, his combat vest was unzipped, his helmet on the ground beside his knee

It wasn't a battle ready stance, but it suited his mood . He had spent two full days in the city and had effectively managed to avoid detection. Two full days of re-con, and he had encountered horrors that more and more reminded him of the bad days in the service.

The first enemy sighting had been a group of survivors herded by Cylons out of the suburbs on the outskirts of delphi. From under cover, Lee followed their movements with his high rez binoculars. The women were separated from the men and taken to an unknown destination, while the men were taken into the fields surrounding the matchbox houses. Lee had spotted a smoke plume on the horizon, and soon realized they were burning bodies in a giant pyre.

People, bloody, dirty, still dressed in the clothes they had probably worn the same day of the attack, were taking bodies from smaller piles and throwing them onto the raging fire like firewood. When the new batch of civvies arrived, they were grouped in a tight circle and shot, their bodies piling on to of each-other. Lee watched a young boy make a break for it during the execution, hair bouncing as he ran, tearstained cheeks glinting in the sun. He managed three yards before his chest exploded outward in a mist of blood.

The dirty civvies had calmly begun tossing the new pile of bodies into the fire, indicating to Lee that this wasn't the first execution that they had witnessed. He noticed several other columns of smoke interspersed across the horizon.

Lee had moved on after watching a man, crying, pick up the boy and carry him back to where the others lay. Intending to continue toward the city to ascertain the fate of the civilian women, knowing that inside, he really didn't want to know.

His dispassion grew as he noticed there were no patrols, no security check points, no fortifications. The only discernable activity was the occasional flyby of a new kind of Cylon fighter and the sporadic gunfire in the distance.

The message was loud and clear.

They were beaten.

The Cylons had no need to prepare possible defenses because there was no possibility of a human counter-attack. Wholly depressing, but useful because he had unknowingly caugh up to the group of female civilians without running into any resistance. Twenty women pushed forward by twelve machines. Lee followed with his binoculars for as long as he could before their distance would have required a change location. The group dissappeared into what looked to be an old hospital about three miles north on the outskirts of town. Alone and without provisions, there was nothing he could do.

The rest of the re-con passed in much the same way, gunfire throughout the night and day, people rounded up, separated and either shot or moved to different facilities. Lee had managed to glimpse the location of the 'work force'. Looked to be about three hundred men and women, none of them under forty or over sixty. It confused him, the age range for the work force, the gender selections, all questions that couldn't be answered .

Finding nothing but growing horrors and death, Lee began the trek back to the bunker, only stopping once to rest. He had been awake for two days straight, and before that, an entire week. It was when Lee finally stopped walking, forest all around him, that the enormity and utter hopelessness of the situation washed over him. He fell back against the tree exhausted and slid down to its base. His need for comfort outweighed his caution and soon his helmet and weapon were cast aside. As he unzipped his combat vest, the overwhelming exhaustion that had brought him to the ground focussed the reality of his situation..

It made him slump further against the tree, his head tilting back to rest on the bark. His upturned face catching a ray of sun through the trees. Lee glanced down and caught a sliver of silver skin peaking out from his sleeve.

Lee's thumb lightly ran along the scar on his wrist. They didn't hurt much anymore, although sometimes he felt the stiff scar tissue move differently than the rest of his flesh. He didn't focus on it since the scar had ten brothers and sisters, between one and three inches long, running every which way, all down his forearm. The scars were closer and more concentrated along the side that ran from his elbow to his pinky. Lee's other forearm mirrored the composition but not the pattern. He managed not to have severed a tendon, and had been lucky enough to have missed most of his veins.

He'd nearly died that day, blood weeping out of dozens of wounds, fingers slipping on the buttons of the phone while trying not to pass out, dialing desperately to get help.

When he was young, Lee had considered killing himself a few times. Especially when he was taking care of Zak, everyone and their mother working against him, making everyday a new kind of misery. But that day, the choice between life and death had been nearly made for him. And after, he'd never thought of ending his life again.

Lee knew that he would meet death soon enough.

Knowledge that few possessed, a knowledge that dissolved any delusion of invincibility or immortality.

Death was a certainty in life. How long you lived, on the other hand, was anyones guess. It had been his only inner turmoil after leaving home and joining the service. When the decision came up to re-up and continue his military career, Lee had spent an entire day trying to answer the question that he was asking again now.

What would he do with what life he had left?

At the time he had chosen a life in the military, feeling he didn't belong anywhere else, already nurturing a healthy disgust for the weakness of most civvies and their 'moral' world. Vowing never to be that weak again, Lee opted for a life where he was challenged, accepted, and could enjoy his work.

But the cylon attack introduced an entirely different set of circumstances. There was no hope, no resistance, no chance. And sitting there, rubbing at the scars that changed his life forever, Lee pondered whether or not he wanted to spend what little time he had left dealing with a bunch of civvies in a hole in the ground. Looking up toward Delphi, he knew that it would only be a matter of time before the Cylons found them, a year, ten, maybe a hundred, but sooner or later the Cylons would find them and end their already short lives.

The idea that he would spend the time between then and now regulating the petty squabbles of a bunch of sniveling civvies made him cringe. A nice life in the woods till the toasters found him and put a bullet through his head sounded a whole lot better. Lee knew that if he didn't leave them now, he never would. He would stay and carry them until the end, and Lee desperately wanted to avoid.

Much to his ire, Lee heard his father's voice in his head. Reminding in gruff, gravelly tones that used to frighten him as a child, that he had a responsibility to those that look to him for leadership and guidance. A concept so ingrained that it was as involuntary as breathing. Squeezing his eyes shut, Lee tried to spare himself a few more moments before he allowed the truth to enter.

The sensation of his thumb trailing across his scarred flesh triggered a memory that cut suddenly into his train of thought.

This was how she had woken him up that first day. After the triad game, after the drive to the nearby motel, after several bouts of some of the best sex he'd ever had, Lee had awoken to her thumb lightly running along one of the scars on his wrist. His skin prickled and puckered at the sensation of being caressed. He remembered feeling a little too happy that she hadn't run off that morning as was scripted for their kind of encounter.

But something had changed the night before.

They had been going at it hard and fast, on the wall, the table, the bed. Competing against each other like the card game, constantly vying for dominance. Reveling in the feel of sweat and skin, when without even trying, they suddenly came simultaneously. He'd needed a moment to regain his bearings, reeling from a feeling, deeper and more powerful than he'd ever felt before.

Like a piece of him had dislodged, a part that felt old and hidden away, fell and connected with something that rang true. A tone that resonated within his soul. And when she opened her eyes he'd known that she felt the same.

The smile that had immediately lit her face served to get him hard again, and soon they were going, sliding, sighing, moaning, laughing, kissing, trying desperately to find that connection again.

Laying beside her, feeling her thumb glide gently against his worst memories did tapped something inside, two defining moments meeting each-other, and changing the other.

The memory filled him with a calm, rousing a determination that had been weighed down by the horrors of the past few days. As much as Lee disliked the idea of spending the last few days of his life listening to a bunch of whiney civvies, he wasn't about to let the gods beat him into submission with burdens.

It was a thought he had often when faced with hopeless struggles. If the fates were going to add more rocks to the pile he was already carrying, hobbling him down to a crawl, eventually crushing him to death, Lee's only words would be 'more weight'. It may piss off the gods, but they hadn't been his friends in the first place.

With renewed certainty Lee stood, collecting his gear, and setting out for the bunker. Disoriented from his musings it took a moment before he realized that it was nightfall. The lack of light would make the trek back harder but the longer he took to get back, the more pissed Achilla was going to be.

It didn't take long before he saw a flickering light to his left in the distance. The soft sounds of voices coming from the distance. Not one to be reckless, Lee slowed and silently approached.

"…god if I have to eat another stale MRE, it'll be the last thing I do."

Hidden behind the cover of a shrub and a tree, Lee was able to identify two people, a male and a female about four yards from his position. Remembering the look of flight gear, he identified them as flyboys. Lee cursed his luck, flyboys were only two steps better than civvies, navy boys and local guard falling in between as the people who irritated the frak out of him.

"…Battlestar wasn't much better."

The man had a strong jaw, high forehead, and pale skin against short black hair. The woman had longer black hair, pulled into a bun with bangs, lower eyelids straight, giving a slant to her eyes, and large cheekbones wrapped in an olive complexion. He caught the way they looked at each other, nearly rolling his eyes at the puppy love going on between them. It was new enough that there was an awkwardness, forcing idle conversation.

"How long do you think it'll take to get to the airfield?"

That got Lee's attention, they were going to the local airfield. Why? If they weren't shot out of the sky on the way up, there was no place to go, no place safe anyway. His face twitched uncontrollably with frustration as he resigned himself to saving another couple of idiots.

"Should probably get there by tomorrow."

Slowly making his way towards them, keeping as silent as possible, holding out on revealing himself until the last possible moment, he noticed that the man's brow was furrowed, probably becoming aware of the same problem with the plan Lee had already deduced.

"Then what?"

Straightening to his full height, Lee brought his rifle across his front, pointed to the ground. He had maneuvered so that he would enter the clearing right across from them, with their fire in-between. Lee was going to surprise them and didn't want to get shot immediately when he stepped out.

"We take off and don't look back, try and find someplace safe, maybe one of the other colonies."

Lee rolled his eyes at the statement as he stepped into the clearing. That was the problem with flyboys when they were on land, their brains turn to mush. He had been standing in the clearing for a moment longer than it should have taken for them to realize someone else was there. Course with them looking deeply into each other's eyes, he could tell they were in the moment. Seeing the woman slip her hand to the man's cheek in a tender gesture that Lee knew was prelude to a kiss, Lee decided he'd witnessed enough theatrics, and startled them by clearing his throat.

The reaction was immediate, the two across from him were on their feet, weapons drawn, and ready to fight. Lee held his hands away from his weapon, keeping his palms open and to his sides to make sure they knew he had nothing hidden. The woman, recognizing he was a human, lowered her weapon, but kept it at the ready, while the man was a little bit more wary. His expression held some species of suspicion that Lee knew was usually reserved for the enemy, which made no sense. While he was running through the possibilities, the man still pointing the gun at him spoke.

"You mind introducing yourself?"

Internally groaning, Lee wondered how many times he would have to explain who he was, how he got there, and where they were going before someone mercifully put a bullet in his head. Cause that's exactly how Lee knew he was going to die, protecting a bunch of idiots.

"Major Lee Adama."

The man didn't back down a moment, though the name made their eyes shift, like so many others before them when they heard the surname Adama, but didn't seem like he was thinking of pointing the gun anywhere else.

"Well Major Lee Adama, mind telling us how you got out here."

Lee understood caution, but this smelled like something else, this man was treating him like a possible enemy, which didn't really make sense, since the enemy looked like seven foot silver robots. But taking a page out of Achilla's book titled 'diplomacy', Lee managed to keep his confusion and aggravation to himself.

"Was heading back to my base camp when I spotted you two having a moment."

That caught the woman's attention, who was now looking at him with an interest that spoke of something other than hope. It only added to the oddness of the situation. He was missing something that the two in front of him were in on.

"Base camp, where?"

Finally allowing his irritation to show Lee dropped his hands to his sides. He ignored her question and gestured to the muzzle that was currently aimed at his chest.

"Mind taking that gun off me? Don't really care for the idea of getting shot."

The big man, who probably outweighed him by fifty pounds due to height, didn't move an inch, simply spitting back a retort.

"Yeah well, we've met a few strange people the last couple of days."

Lee was getting fed up with the confrontation when it was undercut by the black haired woman touching the hand holding the gun, gently and silently asking that they should at least hear Lee out. The tall man studied her face for a moment before dropping his stance. His expression was guarded, but relieved, making Lee believe he wasn't the type to be naturally suspicious. Lee sat first, keeping the fire between them. Waiting till they were seated before he began.

"Well, I've told you who I am, how about you returning the favor."

He saw the man's jaw work for a moment. The high stress situation making this difficult for all of them.

"I'm Lieutenant Karl Agathon. This is Lieutenant Sharon Valerii, formerly of the Galactica."