Where there is Love

By Crystal Wimmer

Lee turned towards Kara and faced her, really faced her. His body was warring with his mind to hurry this moment, but he was managing — just barely — to keep himself in control. "I've waited a long time for this," he told her softly.

Brown eyes stared into his as she smiled. It wasn't the kind of smile he would have expected from her, but he was glad to see it. "Me, too," she said very softly.

Gently he lowered his lips to hers, giving her plenty of time to retreat if she needed to. She didn't. She wrapped her arms around him and did everything but crawl up on him to get closer. He felt an enormous amount of relief in just knowing that the feeling — the need — was mutual. The kiss became hotter, and wetter, until he didn't really know where he stopped and she started.

Her hands were everywhere, and he didn't mind. His own were doing some traveling as well, over soft breasts, firm buttocks, and strong legs. She was amazing from head to toe. He had always admired her body, muscular rather than skinny, but feeling it beneath him was something even more incredible.

She seemed just as fascinated with his body, her hands were tracing over familiar pathways and new ones as well. Each touch made him ache more, reminding parts of his anatomy that there was more than one purpose in life, even if it had been a damned long time. The touches made him crazy, and yet he wanted more of them. He wanted all of them.

Lee never knew exactly how they made it to his bed. Clothes seemed to fall away as her body heated beneath his, moving constantly, always questing to get closer. He couldn't seem to get them close enough. Skin rubbed against bare skin as he felt the heat between them increase. He wanted to rush forward, to consummate this, but he had his reservations. He hated himself for the doubts, but he had to be certain that she was with him.

"Kara, are you sure?" he asked softly in between kisses. This would change things. He knew there would be no going back from it. He had to give her the choice. Pulling away he looked down into her eyes, soft and sleepy from his kisses.

"What do you think?" she asked with a pure Kara grin. It reassured him as nothing else could. Regardless of what had come before or would come after, this was Kara and she was his.

He leaned down once more, kissing her again despite the smile that he couldn't quite shake. She was smiling too. This was going to happen. Finally, after years of loving her and wanting her, he was finally going to be able to show her.

The voice took him totally by surprise. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Lee's head snapped up and he met the accusing eyes of his brother. Zak's face was furious as he stood in the open doorway, and the bottom dropped out of Lee's world.

He came abruptly awake, the warm weight of Kara in his arms his only anchor in a spinning world. The echo of the dream had him wanting to shove her away as the guilt washed over him, but he couldn't help but hold on to her. It had felt so very real. His brother's eyes had been so hurt and miserable, even more than angry. After nearly five years, he could still remember that look, although it had previously only been directed at him for beating Zak in a game or outscoring him on a test.

He took a deep slow breath to calm himself, and then another. He didn't want to wake Kara. He didn't want to explain it. He didn't know if she'd understand or not, but he wasn't taking the risk. Their relationship was still too fragile and too precious to lose. Still, he was shaking so badly that he couldn't guarantee that she could sleep through it. Gently he eased himself from behind her, sitting up on his side of the bed and placing his head in his hands.

He had no clue what he was going to do. He didn't know what he should do, or what was right. Zak was dead, and had been nearly five years. Lee knew that — he knew it — and yet those eyes had been so real to him. He couldn't get his expression out of his mind. He had always done his best to help his brother out, knowing that for some reason Zak admired him. He guessed it was the big-brother thing, so he had taken it as a responsibility. He had done his best never to let Zak down, just to avoid the disappointed look that the younger man could fire his way. It had a way of making him feel two feet tall.

The arm around his waist startled him. He had thought she was sleeping. "Are you okay?" she asked softly. Her voice was deep, gravelly, and sleepy. She had scooted over to his side of the bed, probably seeking heat more than anything else. Suddenly the room felt damned cold.

He wanted nothing more than to lay back down next to her and lose himself in her warmth for just a while. He usually slept so well in her arms, both comfortable and content. But the dream was too fresh. "I'm fine," he answered in a shaky voice. Then, deciding to stay as close to the truth as he could, he added, "It was just a dream."

"What about?" she asked as she pulled herself closer to him and laid her head on his lap. His body had its typical reaction to her closeness, and the guilt washed over him once more.

"I don't remember," he lied. To hell with honesty; he couldn't do this now.

"Come back to bed," she muttered, her voice telling him that she wasn't really quite awake. He didn't know if that made him feel better or worse. There was a big part of him that wanted to confide in her and seek the comfort he really knew she could give. Another part was afraid that the mere mention of Zak's name would send her in a down-spiral of her own guilt and pain. Finally he decided that neither reaction was something he could cope with in his present mood. She wouldn't likely remember this in the morning, and that was for the best.

"I will," he promised. "I'm going to get a drink of water first."

"Mmm hmm," she agreed, putting her head back on his pillow and curling around herself for warmth. Blond hair peeked out from the cocoon she made of her blanket as she tried to stay warm. It didn't escape him that she had curled up in his space, her head on his pillow. He tended to do the same thing when she was the first out of bed. He would have never believed her to be a cuddler when sleeping, but then he wouldn't have believed it of himself either. It amazed him what they could bring out in one another.

He stood up slowly, deliberately walked across the dark room and into the tiny bathroom to find a glass by feel. He filled it, and drank the full glass in one long gulp. It didn't help. His groin was still burning from Kara's innocent actions, and his mind was still whirling from the dream and all the insecurities it had brought to mind.

There was guilt as well, raw and painful. She wasn't his. She was Zak's. She always had been. A part of him didn't know what he had been thinking, becoming involved with her. In an attempt to distance himself from the troubling thoughts, he drank another glass of water, then left the glass on the sink to walk back into his room. He seated himself on the edge of the desk, able to see only her outline at this distance by the glowing light of the clock next to the bed. She was sleeping again, soft and sweet. Lords he loved her. He just didn't have a clue what the hell he was going to do about it.

He knew what he wanted to do. He had known that for almost a year. But Kara had been through too much in the years since the war began, and he knew she had needed time to find herself again. She had told him as much at one point, and he had been more than willing to wait. Honestly, he still was, but gradually there had been less of a need.

A year ago, he had asked Kara to move in with him. Well, if not asked, at least offered her the option. Initially she had refused, as much for propriety's sake as for her own, but gradually her practical side had shown through. One morning six months ago she had shown up long before his alarm had gone off. She had been shivering and sick of it, or so she'd told him at the door. Without any more consent than that, she had crossed the room and crawled into his bed. He could either kick her out or join her. There hadn't been much of a battle in his mind at that point. He had been cold, too.

They were always cold. It was a simple fact of life that heat required fuel, and fuel was always at a premium in the fleet. Even when it was plentiful, lessons of the past had forced them into a constant mode of conservation. Temperatures were still kept uncomfortably chilly on the ship whether it was day or night. Crewman slept in their uniforms and argued over blankets, but they managed in the cooler conditions. It wasn't unhealthy, just uncomfortable. Water was tepid at best, and the air itself was the same. Being cold became a way of life.

There were really only two times of the day that Lee felt truly warm. The first was waking up with Kara next to him. It was amazing how much heat two bodies could generate with adequate covers. Even more pleasant was that the less clothing they wore, the warmer they became, regardless of the temptation it imposed. It was a converse relationship that was wreaking hell on his good intentions, but he couldn't regret it. When he woke up with her wrapped around him, he felt warm and sleepy and content. It was something rare enough that he treasured it.

The second time of day that he felt warm was during their morning run. Kara set a grueling pace some mornings, but even when she was slacking he kept warm. Their morning running path involved dodging bodies, climbing and descending stairs, and stretching out their legs as much as possible on the few long corridors that the Galactica possessed. He loved the morning tradition as much as the company. She was undemanding of conversation — usually too busy concentrating on whatever was on her mind — and more than willing to keep her own silence as well. He took the time to mentally organize his day, wake up thoroughly, and just enjoy the view when she led the run. Kara wasn't skinny despite her daily mileage, but instead she had curves in all the right places. And she had a damn fine ass. A man would have to be dead not to appreciate that.

Lee wasn't dead; not by a long shot. And more than one morning he had actually appreciated the chilly water temperature as he got ready for duty. It wasn't that he was a pervert, or that all he thought about was sex, but five years of celibacy wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Especially not when he was spending the nights with her in his arms — something he would never trade — and his own body was finally waking up from a basic survival shutdown that had occurred at the beginning of the war.

Lee yawned quietly as he slid off the corner of the desk and went back into the bathroom to relieve himself. That task over, he grabbed his running shorts from his locker and slipped them on quietly. He wasn't going to get any more sleep tonight, and he was beginning to get chilled again. He wasn't ready to lie down, so he'd take care of the temperature issue in another reliable way.

Once outside the hatch, he slipped on the running shoes he'd grabbed from next to the door. After tying the laces in double knots, he began a gentle jog to warm himself up. Running was the perfect way to get his mind working, and right now that seemed like a good idea. He certainly wasn't thinking clearly enough for his own comfort while sitting in his room.

Running hadn't always been his thing. That was one more thing that Kara had shared with him over the years. He had started running with her at the academy, after a couple of women had been assaulted in the early morning darkness of the campus quad. It had just seemed the friendly thing to do. He hadn't ever bothered with getting up early and following her around their own neighborhood in high school, but the environment didn't seem as safe at the academy, and trying to convince her of that was like ordering her to run alone. She would do it just to spite him.

So he had started getting up with her then, and she had run him ragged. After a few weeks it wasn't as difficult, and he managed to develop a liking for it. He had never developed the addiction that she seemed to have — he was perfectly happy to miss a day now and again — but there were times that it had its uses. Now was one of them.

Lee got his speed up to a pace in between a jog and a full out run. He wasn't racing, or trying to keep up with Kara, but it was enough to keep him warm and occupy his mind. More importantly, the dimmed lights of the Galactica's main passageways helped to chase away the last remnants of the nightmare.

He was being ridiculous. Zak wasn't hovering anywhere close watching him with Kara, even if there had been anything questionable to watch. If anything, Zak would probably be happy that both his brother and girlfriend had managed to keep themselves together following the desolation that the war had brought. He wasn't a bitter man, nor one that held a grudge. In fact, Zak would probably be the last person to hold anything against anyone. More likely, he would have made a stupid joke and moved on from there.

That was Zak. Three years younger than Lee, there had been times it had felt more like ten. Zak wasn't the typical commander's kid, and he hadn't been any more responsible than he absolutely had to be. He had been known for sleeping in, missing tests, and charming his way out of trouble with almost anyone. It wasn't that he had been a bad kid — in fact, it was far from that. He wasn't the type to get others in trouble, or to deny responsibility if he were at fault for something. He had just been a little less intense than Lee had been, or even Kara for that matter. He had been relaxed about life, and he had enjoyed it. If there was one thing Lee didn't regret about losing Zak, it was that he had been lost while he was still fairly innocent about the world in general.

And yet, in a lot of ways he'd been more advanced than Lee was. He had been far more socially active than Lee at his age. Rather than studying or preparing something for a class, he was the one who had attended the parties and had made the connections that would have served him well later in life. He was also the one who'd had the sense to ask Kara out, although Lee didn't think he would have even considered it back then. In fact, he knew he wouldn't have, because his own father had made the suggestion more than once.

Dating Kara was something that hadn't even appealed to him back then. She had been a friend — and a good one — but she was more like a sister than a real girl. He'd actually been surprised when she and Zak had started dating. Granted, he'd been pretty busy with trying to get his grades high enough and his extra-curricular activities varied enough to be a decent candidate for the academy. Back then, his greatest fear had been that he wouldn't make it in. Kara, on the other hand, had seemed to take to it all so easily. She had the grades without even working for them, and she never cared to stay after school. He had been too preoccupied with his own life to notice where she was hanging out.

He'd been in for the shock of his life when he walked into his and Zak's shared bedroom to find the two of them casually necking on the bed. They hadn't really been doing anything — some kissing perhaps, but nothing more. Yet Lee had felt his stomach drop as he realized that he'd missed something along the way. Kara had been about eighteen then, and just getting ready to leave with him for the academy. Zak had been only fifteen. Lee supposed that was what had shocked him the most. At fifteen, Lee hadn't even begun to think of girls beyond who was best at math or who might help him out with psych.

Once the initial shock had passed, the two of them hadn't bothered him. Well, the relationship hadn't bothered him. Coming back to the room after a long day to find Kara in a clinch with Zak rather than studying for the next day's tests had grated on his nerves, especially when he knew she would match his scores point for point. Also having Zak show up with a big smile that promptly drooped when he realized Kara wasn't there, well that had been a blow to his ego. As tired as being a big brother had made him, he had always loved the mild adoration that Zak threw his way. It was hard not to be the center of his world anymore.

Sharing a room with Kara had been his father's idea — a way to give them both a familiar roommate and reduce the risk of getting stuck with a jerk — but it had turned out to be a good one. He and Kara had been surprisingly compatible for two such different personalities. She got him to relax a bit — not a small task — and he got her to buckle down a little on her studies. The problem was that where he had to work his ass off to stay at the top of the class, Kara had the mathematical mind to do it without even thinking, much less concentrating. It was what had made her so lazy in the primary grades.

Lee rounded the passageway that went past CIC and his father's quarters, then turned to head back down a stairway to the lower level. He had to concentrate a little on the stairs, but otherwise it didn't bother him. He had enough speed built up that he didn't need to slow, and his breathing was deep and regular. For Kara, this would have been a light workout. For him, it was comfortable.

He tried to remember when he had started seeing Kara as a woman. He supposed it had been shortly after she and Zak had announced their engagement. He and Kara had both been teaching by then, although she was teaching flight itself whereas he was doing a stint as math instructor. He hadn't liked it, but he had been rather good at it. Well, that and he had liked the respect that the students gave him. He had liked to lead, even then. He hadn't known how important those leadership skills would be to his future.

She and Zak had been an item for more than three years, and the relationship had gone well past anything that Lee had thought possible. First of all, he hadn't known Zak could maintain an attention span for anything for that length of time, and secondly because he really thought Kara would want to go out with guys other than his little brother. It wasn't that he had anything against Zak, either. He was a good kid. But that was just it: Zak was a kid. He was flighty and careless and endlessly sweet, but still mostly a kid at heart. Kara, by contrast, was just about the most mature person he'd ever met. She might joke around or laugh stuff off, but it wasn't for lack of consideration. She'd had a rough start in life, and knew more about being an adult when she was five than some people ever learned. He loved his brother, yes, but he hadn't understood what she could see in him.

Knowing her now, he could peg the appeal. Kara was a born cynic, and she had needed something fresh and honest in her life. That was Zak to a tee. He might have been a pain in the ass on occasion, but when you were really down he was the one person who knew just the right thing to say, or just the right thing to do. He'd never met anyone he couldn't get along with. Back then, Lee hadn't even realized that Kara needed that kind of support.

He knew it now. Kara wasn't the kid he had grown up with any longer. She was a woman, lovely and sweet and stubborn as they came. She could hold her own in an argument, and he firmly believed she could take him out with a single punch if she were so inclined. He supposed he should be intimidated by that kind of hold, but he wasn't. He was challenged, and refreshed, and occasionally irritated as hell. They weren't always the quietest roommates, but they had a kind of balance that he needed. And that really frightened him, because he had never liked needing anything from anyone.

Slowing from a run to a jog, and then a jog to a walk, Lee began his cool-down. He didn't want to get cold again, but neither did he want to be gasping for breath when he went back into the office. His watch told him that it was after five; he had been running for more than an hour. The only thing it had accomplished was to make him sweaty and tired. He didn't feel any clearer on anything than he had when he'd started.

Easing the hatch open, he slipped in to see that the bed was empty. It didn't surprise him. Kara wasn't one to sleep late, and she was on first watch today. He was too, for that matter. He sat down on the edge of the bed, doing his best not to sweat all over everything. He rather wished he'd grabbed a towel before leafing and left it on the desk so that he had a way to dry off. He could go into the bathroom of course — Kara wouldn't likely mind it, and it wasn't as though they hadn't run into one another that way before — but it wasn't something he was ready to deal with this morning.

So he sat, and despite his best efforts to the contrary he got cold. If he hadn't been so damn sweaty he would have put something on, but he hated to overuse the laundry when it had been his own poor planning. If he'd come back half an hour sooner, he would have been showered, dressed, and out before Kara woke up.

When he heard the water stop, he had to brace himself for what was coming next. It happened most mornings, but he hadn't gotten used to the rush of blood that accompanied Kara's emergence from the shower in no more than a towel. He should be used to it, he thought, but he wasn't. If anything, the sensation got stronger rather than going away. It was uncomfortable enough that he almost wished he could return to the days of thinking of her as his little brother. Almost.

But not quite.

She didn't disappoint. Kara stepped through the open doorway to the small bathroom and greeted him with a semi-sleepy smile. She had one towel around her body, everything hidden that should be, and another in her hands to scrub her hair dry. "Morning," she said brightly. "You left without me."

He shrugged one shoulder, caught between feeling guilty and aroused. It was a lousy place to get caught. "I couldn't sleep," he explained. "And I didn't want to wake you up."

She nodded as though she understood and walked towards her side of the bed where her shorts and tank tops were laid out. He knew what was coming next, and while some days he looked forward to a little innocent gawking, today he wasn't sure he could survive it. Turning abruptly away, he took his unruly body to the shower and turned the spray on full blast, blessing the tepid water for its coolness and not even caring that he would be shivering in moments. Water filtration wasn't an issue as the system they used required essentially no active power drain. It worked on the same system that provided the Galactica's gravity, pure water pressure and simple plumming. They lost a certain amount of fluid to body waste and evaporation, but the vast majority was recycled with little effort on their part. Showers might be cold, but any reduced length was up to the person taking them.

Lee stayed in the shower just a few minutes longer than he usually would, making sure that he was sufficiently chilled to make it to his room, and his uniform, without anything embarrassing occurring. He didn't have a clue why it should bother him that Kara might know she got to him. He'd made his feelings for her perfectly clear, and was even fairly sure they were reciprocated. But the simple fact that his body would show obvious evidence when hers did not was enough to keep him nervous about the situation. She had to have noticed — it was nearly a constant state around her anymore — but gratefully she hadn't said anything. Yet.

He had no clue how long this limbo could last. They were somewhere between friends and lovers, too far in either direction to completely abandon the other. Every day seemed to be uncharted ground, and yet he wasn't even sure he would go back if he could. Somewhere in the last couple of years, he had fallen in love not with the girl next door, but with the woman right in his own room. Some days it was the most wonderful feeling in the world. Other days it felt like this, and he couldn't think of anything he wanted to get further away from. If he screwed this up, he lost everything: friend, lover, and the last link to his brother that remained.

That was the hell of it. In his mind, for the last ten years, Zak and Kara had been almost one. Now every time he looked at her, the image of Zak was still there, and yet the link was fading. He didn't always think of Zak when he looked at Kara. Only part of the time. Maybe the reason that the dream was bothering him so damn much was because it didn't bother him; because he didn't really think that Zak would blame him or begrudge him, but would instead want both of them to be happy. He couldn't blame his doubts and reservations on a ghost, however much easier it would be. The doubts and concerns were his own, and they weren't going away.

He knew exactly what he needed to do about all of it. He needed to sit down with Kara and talk this out with her. He needed to find out just exactly where he stood, and if they were any closer to the same footing than they had been six months before. Hell, he just needed to tell her how he felt and see if any of it at all was two-way. That was all. They just needed to talk about it.

But as Lee walked back into his room, his eyes falling on the two damp towels that Kara had tossed over his office chair, he realized that talking was the last damn thing in the world that he really wanted to do. He wanted to ignore it. He wanted to deny it. He wanted to flush it all down the frakking toilet because if he were wrong about it — any of it — then he didn't have the faintest clue how he was going to live through it.