Dee gasped as she awoke, a cold sweat trickling down her temples. She felt her heart pounding in her chest, and it took a few seconds before she realized where she was. Something, some dream, had awoken her, but now, by the ambient light of the bunkroom, she couldn't remember what it was.

She rolled over to glance at the clock. 0313. Gaeta wouldn't be coming off shift for almost another three hours. Sighing, Dee quietly slid out of the bunk and slipped on some pants. Calm now though she was, she knew returning to sleep was out of the question.

The hallways were silent; everyone not currently on shift was probably sound asleep in their racks. Even the Rec Room was quiet and dark as she passed by. It wasn't always like this, she remembered. In the first few days and weeks following the attacks, the halls of Galactica had always been full, the Rec Room crammed with pilots at all hours of the day. Sleep was no longer a priority, not with the possibility of sleeping forever constantly looming over their heads.

She made a detour to the Mess before continuing to her final destination- CIC. At this time of night it was only half full, each station manned by only one person instead of the normal two. This, too, had changed since the first attacks. Then CIC was always fully staffed, no matter the time. Now, most night shifts were reserved for rookies and those who drew the short straw.

Which was exactly why Gaeta was now bent over what appeared to be several star charts, writing down vectors and coordinates and other such things she knew nothing about. On their second date she'd asked him to describe how he did it, but somewhere between the physics and the "bending of time" he'd lost her. He actually blushed when he saw her bewildered face, then shyly pulled out a pen and drew her a model on her napkin. When he'd finished, Dee still had no idea how to calculate a jump.

But she did know that she'd fallen for him.

"So where we going next?" She asked softly beside him as she handed him the coffee she'd picked up in the Mess. "Somewhere warm, I hope."

"Hmmm," Gaeta murmured as he took a long sip of the coffee. "Hope you packed your bathing suit." As inconspicuously as possible, he slid his free hand into hers and gave it a brief squeeze. "What are you doing up?"

Dee shrugged. "Couldn't sleep. And I figured you could use a fresh cup." She nodded to his old coffee, which had long since gone cold.

"Yeah, this stuff is only bearable when it's hot." He took another long gulp and grimaced. "And then only barely." Setting the mug down, he returned to the star charts. "So which sounds better to you- System 5-8-2-Beta or 6-3-9-Gamma?" When she didn't respond after a few moments he looked up from his work. She was staring at DRADIS, mouth slightly agape. "Everything ok? Dee? Ana?"

At her given name Dee's eyes snapped to him. "What? Oh…Sorry….I guess I kinda…."

"Zoned out?"

"Yeah."

"You should go back to sleep."

"Yeah, I will…" Her gaze returned to the large console. "In a minute…I just feel like…"

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Like, déjà vu. Like something's about to happen."

"Ok." Gaeta looked at her skeptically for a moment, then returned to his star charts.

For several minutes CIC operated in quiet. Then-

"Contact!"

Gaeta's head snapped up at the sound of Dee's voice. "What?"

"Single point, looks like a Raider." There it was, flashing on the screen. That's what she'd been waiting for, wasn't it? Dee tried to shake the feeling in the back of her mind that something more was coming.

"Probably a scout," Gaeta muttered. Turning to the comms officer, he said in a louder voice, "Notify the CAP and get the Alert Fighters launched."

"He jumped!" Dee pointed. "Look." DRADIS was blank.

"Should we stand down Sir?" Bates asked from the comms desk.

"Not yet."

"This doesn't feel right Felix," Dee whispered as they both stared at the console. "Why would he jump like that?"

"I'm not sure I want to know. But it can't be-"

Just then DRADIS lit up.

"Multiple contacts. Two basestars…" This was it, the feeling that had woken her. Dee found herself once again uttering those fateful words. "They found us."

She and Gaeta stared at one another for the briefest of moments. They were veterans, they'd done this before. Just never without Tigh or the Old Man around.

Then instinct kicked in.

Gaeta grabbed the phone. "Action Stations, Actions Stations. Set Condition One throughout the ship. Repeat, this is not a drill." Turning to CIC, he barked out orders in quick succession. "Get the fighters up in the air. Spool up the FTL. Contact all ships and have them jump to Delta Coordinates."

From up on her desk Bates looked lost and terrified as she pushed buttons seemingly at random. "Frak, frak…"

Dee was already at her side. "Let me." She tried not to sound pushy, but this was no time to worry about stepping on some rook's toes.

Bates handed over the comms willingly. "I'm sorry; I've only been here two weeks…" She gave CIC one last bewildered look before taking off, running as fast as she could out the door.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Lee grabbed the sleeve of the first deckhand he saw. "Sit-rep."

"I don't know sir, I just got here."

"Apollo!" He turned at the call of his name. The Chief was waving him over.

"We know what the frak's going on?"

"Got CIC on the line. I got here five minutes ago; CAP is on an intercept course. We're getting the last of the Alert Fighters out now. Here." He handed him the phone.

"Apollo."

"Lee." Dee's voice was strained and Lee could barely hear her over the noise on the deck.

"Say again."

"I said we've got two basestars. They've both launched Raiders. Admiral's ordering all birds in the air."

"How long?"

"Several ships are reporting trouble with their FTLs."

"How long?"

"I- I don't know."

Lee punched the wall. The Cylons had caught them with their pants down. "We'll keep them off the civilians as long as we can. Apollo out." Hanging up the phone, he turned to Tyrol. "Launch them all."

"Sir." Tyrol started shouting orders to his crew. "Get those launched! Start moving those towards the tubes. Move people, now! Everybody's wings up!"

Lee gave himself a second to look around the Hanger Bay. Kara had been right beside him since the alarms sounded, but he'd lost track of her when they arrived here. He found her quickly. She was near the entrance, issuing last minute instructions to a group of former nuggets who had just arrived. He reached her side just as she dismissed them to their birds.

"What we got?" she asked as they jogged to their Vipers. He couldn't help but notice a gleam in her eyes.

"Two basestars."

Now she was actually smiling. "Payback's gonna be a bitch," she muttered.

It suddenly hit Lee that the last time she'd seen combat, she'd been taken. No matter how others might believe she'd mellowed since her return, Lee knew better- Kara was Kara, and she was itching for revenge.

"Hey." He pulled her close at her bird.

"What Lee? We gotta go."

He knew that. He also knew her. She'd never let him forget it if he went soft right before combat. So he said the only thing he could. "Good hunting, Starbuck."

She winked, but he knew she'd understood the deeper meaning. "Try to keep up, Apollo." And then she was gone, leaping up her ladder and jumping into the cockpit.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

It was even worse than he'd imagined.

Galactica provided some cover from the basestars, but the pilots were on their own when it came to the Raiders. The older ones were handling themselves well; Lee was glad to know that they hadn't completely forgotten their training. But the nuggets- both this new class and the one before them- were experiencing a baptismal by fire. None of them had even been on board Galactica last time the Cylons had attacked with this much force.

Lee could only hope some of them made it back alive.

He was vaguely aware of the ships jumping around him. But they were going too slow, and there were still too many that seemed to be stuck.

And if all that wasn't enough, the Raider currently on his six refused to be lost. It was like they were toying with them. Out of the corner of his eye he saw an explosion, but couldn't tell if the cause was Cylon or Colonial. That's how you're gonna end up, if you don't get it together Lee….

His console beeped. The Raider had him in its sights. "Frakfrakfrak…"

"Bank right Lee now. Right NOW!!"

Out of instinct he obeyed her voice. Out of nowhere Kara's Viper swung into view in front of him, also twisted on its side. Had their wheels been extended, Lee was sure they would have brushed together. Guns blazing, she took out the Raider with a banshee scream. "Frak you bitches!!"

But before he could respond, both their ships were rocked by a nearby explosion. He heard several screams cut out, and then several voices talking over themselves on the wireless.

"Serenity!" Kara's voice barked out, overpowering the other voices in his earpiece. "Shut the frak up, get a hold of yourself, or you're dead. All of you, focus!"

Lee twisted his Viper around toward the source of the explosion, and immediately wished he hadn't. Half of a smaller civilian ship was battered and charred. The other half no longer existed. Intermingled with all of this were the remains of several Vipers that had just happened to be too close when the Cylons took it out.

Before it could all register, he heard Dee's voice again. "Galactica to all fighters. Come on home. Repeat, come home, combat landings."

He watched as the remaining Vipers turned and sped back to Galactica. Kara flipped back, firing volleys indiscriminately towards the Raiders, who now seemed to have lost interest in fighting. Her comm. was cut, but Lee could imagine the curses she was firing as well.

She was the last to land, and as she made the trap Galactica jumped.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Every bird that landed was in need of some kind of repair. The same could have been said for a few of the pilots. As he descended his ladder Lee glanced at the clock. 0407.

The attack had lasted little over half an hour.

Tyrol was making his rounds, double checking which ships had come home and which had been lost. Lee knew he should join him, but that would have to wait. There was a pilot he needed to see first.

He'd seen Kara land, of course, but a part of him needed to see her, with his own eyes, before he could deal with the other tasks that lay before him. Make sure she was really there and not- well, to make sure this wasn't like last time.

She was still in the cockpit, head bent down, hands buried in her scalp- a picture of angry frustration. She moved suddenly, slapping the console before finally exiting the Viper. Her face told it all- she was pissed.

The nugget parked across from her finally tumbled out of her Viper, face streaked with tears, and proceeded to throw up. Kara's attention immediately turned to the nugget. Lee groaned inwardly. The last thing that kid needed right now was a verbal smackdown from Starbuck.

"Kara!" he called, but she ignored him, continuing on her intercept path toward the poor kid, who was now in the midst of dry heaving.

And then she did something Lee would have never thought her capable of.

Kara laid one hand gently on the nugget's back, while with the other she gathered the loosened strands of hair out of the other's face. Standing next to each other, Lee could see now that the nugget was small, almost petite. Juggs, he remembered, the youngest of the nuggets, so named because, as Kara had put it, "The kid's flatter than Hot Dog." He couldn't hear what Kara was saying, but whatever it was, it calmed the girl down.

"Sir." The Chief was at his side, handing him a clipboard. "Here's the preliminary report."

"How bad?"

"It could have been worse. We're starting repairs on the far end."

"Get whatever pilots you need to help you."

Tyrol nodded. "You know the worst part? I'd almost started believing they were just gonna leave us alone. Stupid, huh?"

"We all thought that, Chief. All of us."

"Yeah, well…." Tyrol's thought faded off as he walked away.

Juggs was now cleaning her mess as Kara headed towards him. "How is she?"

Kara glanced back at the nugget. "She was right next to the ship that exploded. Saw Spider's face when the missile hit. But she's tougher than she looks." She nodded at the clipboard. "How many did we lose?"

"Seven."

"Huh." She bit her bottom lip unconsciously. "I kinda thought…"

"It'd be more?"

"Yeah."

Lee nodded. "Me too."

"All nuggets?"

"Four. Not all." Across the Hanger Bay Buttercup sat on the ramp of her and Racetrack's Raptor, weeping openly. "Frosty didn't make it."

"Frakkin' toasters," she muttered, taking the list from him and flipping through it herself.

"Chief's starting repairs up there."

"Ok," she handed the clipboard back to him. "I'll gather up the nuggets and get them started." Over her shoulder she added, "And you can thank me later, Apollo."

"I didn't need your help."

Kara rolled her eyes. "Right."

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

It was nearly half-past seven by the time they finally returned to quarters. Lee immediately collapsed on the bed, not even bothering to strip off his flightsuit. "Great," he groaned. "CIC in two hours."

"Yeah, well, you're getting no sympathy from me," Kara said as she shrugged out of the clingy material. "The frakkin' CAG has me scheduled for CAP in-" she glanced at the clock- "thirty-four minutes."

"I'll cover for you." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. Kara whirled around from the lockers and glared at him, clearly insulted. "Never mind, forget I said anything." He stretched out on the bed and rubbed his face.

"I'm jumping in the shower. No way I can go back up feeling like this."

"Uh-huh," he muttered.

Seconds later he heard the sound of running water. It was oddly soothing, especially after what had just happened.

They'd been caught off guard, all of them. The Cylons had been away for so long; everyone had started to believe, like the Chief had said, that maybe they were gone for good. Tonight had proven them all wrong. It was a brutal reminder that they were still at war; that life was still fragile.

Kara's words from years ago ran back through his mind.

He jumped out of bed and threw off his flightsuit. She didn't move as he opened the shower door and stepped in, but he felt her body mold against his as he wrapped his arms around her.

"Bout time," she said teasingly. "I thought I was losing my touch."

"Never," he whispered, gently kissing her shoulder. For a few minutes they just stood there, letting the water wash the battle from their skin. "Thanks."

Kara nuzzled her face against his neck. "Anytime."