Author's note: My most sincere thanks go out to Jennifer for her endless patience in reading and commenting on content, and to Lona for her blessed nitpicking in line-edits.

Chapter 2

Kara Thrace loved to work. She really did. Okay, so maybe she didn't. But she did love to fly, and when that was her daily assignment she couldn't have been happier. Unfortunately, on a ship with ninety-three pilots and thirty-four Vipers, she wasn't on the roster nearly as often as she would have liked.

Today was one of those annoying days where she was assigned to repairs and general maintenance with her flight chief. Frankly, although they had replaced the vast majority of the hundred or so crewmen that had been lost in the initial battles of the war, keeping up with the constant maintenance of their spacecraft continued to be an issue. There were no more spare parts, except for those they made. There were no more new spacecraft, because all had been used and abused for more than two and a half years. And there were no more name plaques that designated a craft to a particular pilot. It was share and share alike in both squadrons. So today was Kara's day to work on the birds and do her fair share to keep them all in the air. She was good at it. She was experienced at it. But it still wasn't her favorite thing to do.

The day in general hadn't gone the way she would have liked. She had started it out by waking up cold and alone in a bed she preferred to share. It wasn't completely irregular for her to wake up alone; she and Lee both took odd shifts on occasion, although not as often as some of the lower ranking pilots. It wasn't even irregular for dreams to force one or the other of them onto the deck before they would normally want to open their eyes. Even after two years, nightmares and sleep disturbances were common in their post-apocalyptic existence. But there had been something just not right this morning, and she couldn't put her finger on it.

The odd mornings were becoming decidedly more frequent of late, which both annoyed and puzzled Kara. Some of it she understood — the dreams and work shifts — but some of it left her concerned. Something was on Lee's mind lately, and he wasn't inclined to share. That bugged her.

She and Lee had known one another since childhood, and had lived together off and on for most of their lives. She had been his roommate in War College and the Flight Academy, so she was pretty familiar with his rhythms and routines. And she had been sleeping in the same bed with him for nearly the last six months, most often sharing their daytime hours as well. It was an essentially platonic arrangement, although both of them seemed to have feelings that were a little more than friendship. Or at least, she hoped they both had them, because she knew that she did and that Lee had at one point.

But lately it was so hard to know. To begin with, their shifts seemed to coincide less than they used to. As Lee was the one making the schedules, she had to think that it was deliberate. On the other hand, he might just be rotating them out of a desire for fairness within the squadrons. He had a reputation for being almost painfully equitable in managing the workload, so he might just be staying above reproach. Somehow, she thought it was more than that.

Sliding herself further up under the Viper, Kara reached up to remove the corroded tubing that was causing a leak in coolant. She didn't know what Tyrol was making his coolant from these days, but it went through the silicon tubes faster than they could replace them. Still, it seemed to be doing the job, and that was the name of the game. If it meant constant replacement and recycle of their coolant lines, then that was just what they had to do. It wasn't as though they had no time to do it in.

Time was something that there was more than enough of when you were wandering through space. And regardless of the grand speech William Adama had made a more than two years back, it really seemed like wandering to her. After all, if they knew where the hell they were going, they would just jump there and get it done and over. Instead, they had been managing on nerve and desperation for almost two and a half years, and to her that constituted a distinct lack of a master plan. It wasn't something she had just figured out, but it was definitely something that wasn't discussed. She would never call the Commander on it, though. Aside from respecting him more than anyone else she knew, she didn't want to be confirmed right. A little hope was just about all they had.

Well, that and some friendships that she wouldn't have ever believed could mean so much to her. Kara had never been one to connect too tightly to those around her. After losing her parents as a child, and then losing her fiancé to an accident, getting close was the last thing she wanted. Getting close meant losing people, and that was something she could do without.

But three years ago she had lost everyone, close or not, and she'd come to realize since then that you had to have someone to hold on to, otherwise it just wasn't worth the effort to wake up in the mornings. So she'd let herself care a bit, and maybe show it more than she had before, and somewhere along the way she'd made some pretty good friends. Even so, she had suffered a bit of loss using that philosophy. Their journey had not been a safe one.

But the majority of her attachments were still firm. Lee was one of the biggest. He was the last remnant of a childhood that the Adama family had made not only survivable, but enjoyable. Commander Adama was the other link to her past. She had known both of the Adama men since she'd been around five years old, give or take a few months. And since the beginning of the war, she'd made a few more friends. What had previously been acquaintances, like Sharon and Tyrol, were now solid friendships that she had come to rely on. She had also developed some attachments within her squadron. She considered Hawk a friend, and Evans too. If she needed them, she knew she could count on them, and she hoped they felt the same. She was also friends with some of the officers that worked CIC, although the opportunities were more limited as she hadn't shared quarters with them and didn't make it up to Command much herself. That was Lee's job. He could have it.

She had lost friends along the way as well. Roger Caplin had been a sweet kid, but not the best pilot they had. He had been killed when a support had given way and he'd been crushed by a falling Raptor. Fifty tons of metal did significant damage to anyone beneath it when there were not enough supports to keep it up. It had been the first post-war funeral she had attended, and it still surprised her that it had hurt so much more than the mass funeral at the beginning of the war. She supposed that had all blended into one huge tragedy, whereas losing Roger had been more personal. It had been an accident; that was all. It hadn't been an act of war, or even a pilot error. But knowing that hadn't made it any easier. Hell, Zak's death had been an accident, but at least then there had been someone to blame. Roger's death had just happened. There didn't seem to be any logic in it.

There had also been several suicides in the months immediately following their exile into space. Those funerals had been even harder to tolerate, because she could understand their need to escape. She'd had it lucky, surviving the war with many casual friendships and all that was left of what she considered her family. Others had been stranded alone, and had lost everything and everyone dear to them. She could understand how it would be easier to stop living than it would be to live through that.

But most of her post-war friendships were pretty much intact. They had only dealt with one Cylon run-in, and they had initiated that in an effort to get fuel. It had worked out okay in the end, and they had jumped far and fast from the contact. They hadn't encountered Cylons since, and that was fine with Kara. So far as she was concerned, the only good Cylon was a dead one.

Two more turns of the wrench secured the new silicon tube to the coolant system and ensured that this Viper had a chance to make it back from its next mission. That was one down. Tyrol had given her a list of nine Vipers that needed the same routine repair. He didn't believe in waiting until something broke down to fix it. Preventative maintenance was essential to keeping them all alive. If something broke down in the vacuum of space, towing it to a repair ship wasn't an easy task. Tyrol preferred for his ships to make it back on their own power. For the most part, they did.

Thankfully, they had only lost two Vipers since the beginning of the war, and that was due to leaving them behind on a Cylon occupied planet. It had been a calculated sacrifice that had saved the entire fleet, but it was something that Tyrol still grumbled about. The chief was more than a little possessive of his Vipers, both the Mark II models that he and his deck gang — most of whom were now gone — had restored, and the Mark VII models that had survived their downgrades and the first Cylon encounters. He had yet to resort to breaking down their Vipers into parts — not that the parts of two different spacecraft were at all interchangeable - but she could see it coming in the near future. There were a couple that he wouldn't allow to fly, and it was useless to have them sitting there beyond repair. Still, that was the Chief's decision, and not hers to make.

Kara wiped grease from her face and stood to go to her next assigned Viper. Great. No matter how careful she was, she always seemed to wind up slimed by the end of a repair session. She would need a shower, and that would be three for today. The first had been when she'd woken up, and had turned her from cold to frozen. The second had been after her run, and had taken away what little warmth she had been able to generate for herself. Now working had her almost warm, and she was going to have to get wet again. Lords, what she wouldn't give for a hot tub of water and an hour alone with it. Hell, fifteen minutes alone with it! She just wanted to get warm. It wasn't an uncommon complaint. They all understood the reasons for a sixty-degree temperature maximum, but that didn't mean they liked it. The entire crew felt as though they were slowly freezing to death. Okay, it was an exaggeration, but it still felt that way.

Rubbing arms that were still chilled even with the orange coverall's long sleeves, she made the short walk from one Viper to another, made sure that new tubing was in her pocket before sliding herself beneath the ship. She could have put her flight suit or a duty uniform under the coverall, but it was so damn hard to get them cleaned. Every time she had any uniform that really fit, she'd turn it into laundry and have it replaced with one that hung off her. There weren't many small uniforms around, and getting her hands on one had become a torture session. She hated baggy clothes. So her well-fitting uniforms were carefully locked in her squadron locker, and she was wearing one of the coveralls that made her both visible and decent on the flight deck. But not warm.

It took her even less time to replace this tube, but she wound up even messier. She wasn't quite fast enough to get from beneath the drops of coolant that hadn't been pulled from the system, so when one tube came out she got dribbled on. She really hoped this stuff wasn't toxic. She moved the new tube into position, tightened the fitting, and then did the same to the other end. One more down.

Unfortunately, while the work was moderately time-consuming, it didn't do a thing for her mind. She was still thinking at light speed, and those thoughts kept coming back to the same place. What the hell was wrong with Lee?

Okay, so they didn't have the most clearly defined relationship in history. Being unconventional wasn't something that bothered her. Half the squadron thought that her sleeping with Lee meant that she was doing a hell of a lot more than sleeping, and the other half didn't care one way or the other. She didn't see a point in setting any of them straight. Her friends knew the truth, and that was all that mattered. Still, there were days that she thought that if she were going to be persecuted for something, she might as well have the fun of committing the crime, or whatever it was.

But as easy as it would have been to fall for Lee, there were as many reasons to keep her hands to herself as not. The first issue was simple birth control: the Galactica didn't have any. Hence, most liaisons resulted in pregnancy at one point or another. It was something celebrated in a world where the survival of their race was seriously in question, but pregnant pilots didn't fly. And unfortunately that policy was extending to new mothers as well. Until babies were weaned, their mothers were grounded. Period. The remaining fleet didn't come with formula and bottles, so breast-feeding was essential for survival of their babies. It was a practical choice.

But being grounded would kill her, and she knew it. She wasn't all that eager to be a mother in the first place. She had a few years left to make a final decision — she wasn't old by any stretch of the imagination — but the only guarantee of not becoming pregnant was abstinence. She was really good at that. She hadn't had sex with anyone in five years — not since her fumbling and often funny experiences with Zak. Hell, she wasn't even sure she quite remembered how. If some mornings she woke up with a warm and fuzzy feeling and Lee wrapped around her, and on those mornings she wondered if motherhood would really be so bad, then thankfully those particular mornings were few and far between.

Maybe Lee had the right idea getting out of the bed early. Maybe that was what his problem was. Lords, she wished she knew.

The hell of it was that despite her best efforts, she wondered if she'd done something wrong. Months ago Lee had shown interest, albeit only a few kisses and perhaps a little groping. Every now and again she caught another sign that maybe his interest was still there: a glance or remark, or a joke that didn't fly, or a barely remembered hardness against her in the warmth of a shared bed. But he hadn't pressed matters, and she was too uncertain to push things herself, so they remained in a holding pattern that was slowly driving her insane.

There were too many reasons to stay apart. He was her best friend — first and foremost — and losing him would destroy her. She hated to admit that, but she was honest enough to do so. She'd faced the possibility enough times to know what it would do to her. Losing one Adama had been bad enough; losing Lee would be far too much. There was also the very real possibility of a breakup. After all, sexual relationships were far more tenuous than friendships, and she didn't want so much friction between them that they couldn't still be friends. Some people said that it was better to have loved and lost, but she wasn't one of them. She and Lee were volatile even in their friendship. They could argue with the best of them, and they often did just that. She wondered if they would have as many sparks in the bed as out of it, but she didn't want to put that curiosity to the test.

Her level of curiously was definitely increasing though. At one point, she wouldn't have thought of Lee as anything other than a brother. Back at the academy, when friends had admired him, she had honestly thought they were crazy. He'd been skinny back then, and hadn't had much of a build. Zak, on the other hand, had been into sports from a very early age, and he'd always been more muscular and well defined. Kara just hadn't seen the appeal. Granted, Lee had a gorgeous pair of blue eyes, but beyond that he was just average.

He wasn't average anymore. Age had gone a long way towards increasing his appeal. He was far better defined now; although he was muscular without being bulky. He wasn't all that tall, but he was taller than she was. He was definitely more athletic now, running daily and even lifting weights. And somewhere along the line, those average blue eyes had begun to fascinate her. It was almost embarrassing. She had been caught more than once by his intense gaze, and when he did it she had a damn hard time looking away. One of these days he wasn't going to drop it at a questioning look, either. She dreaded having to explain what she really didn't understand.

Initially she thought her attraction might even be lack of options. After all, the number of eligible dates had dropped from what had seemed infinite to a few dozen in the course of a day. Also, the Galactica's crew had seemed to split off into pairs with record speed. Kara thought it might have to do with a race to get the few family quarters that had been available, but it was also how some of the crew had dealt with the uncertainly of their future. When in doubt, procreate. She didn't have the same philosophy, but then she hadn't needed it. She'd had Lee to keep her busy and lately even keep her warm. She hadn't needed a lover, because she'd had a good friend. Now, she didn't know what she had beyond a hell of a lot of confusion.

Absently, Kara completed the maintenance on her assigned Vipers and then moved on to the next part of the list. Changing filtration units in Raptors took a little more concentration than switching out rotting tubes, but not by much. Her mind wasn't occupied any more by this task than the previous one, so her thoughts continued racing around her head.

The process continued — both the useless contemplation of her roommate and the routine maintenance tasks — until her shift was done. Seven hours of unthinking actions, interrupted only by two trips to the head and a quick trip to the dining hall to grab a bite of lunch. A bite was about all she wanted, too. Food shortages still required every other day to be synthetic nutrition, and this was an off day. She hated manufactured food. She would literally rather go hungry than eat the slop. So she took enough to get the growling out of her stomach, and left the rest for the next hapless pilot to eat.

There was a mild level of physical exhaustion after her shift, but it was very mild. She just hadn't done enough to really get fully tired. She would probably have to run again this evening just to get her mind to stop, but she didn't want to do that either. Running required fuel, and dinner wasn't likely to be any better than lunch. If she skipped the run, she could also skip the meal, or at least minimize it. It was a tempting proposition.

As it was, she slipped out of the filthy maintenance uniform and back into her duty uniform. A quick swipe with a washcloth and soap reduced the need for a true shower and made her presentable, and she headed back to Lee's office. It was one of Lee's privileges of being CAG — having his own office, bed, and bathroom — and one that she was truly enjoying. She tried not to feel guilty about it. After all, he had invited her to move in. She had just taken him up on the offer.

It hadn't been entirely selfish on her part. She did her best to be there for him when he needed her, and when things went wrong, he brought it to her. It didn't matter if it was a problem with the squadron or something little that was on his nerves; she was the one he came to with complaints or successes. She was the first one to know when he'd had a good day, or a bad one. She was also the one who had to take the fallout when he was too angry to deal with someone else, and yet had to blow or lose it completely. That hadn't happened as often lately, and she was grateful. It hadn't been the easiest part of being his friend.

Frankly, it was something she wasn't particularly good at. When he started yelling, she was just as likely to yell right back as to let him vent as he needed to. She supposed that helped in its way — he often got so annoyed by her that he forgot who he was pissed off at in the first place — but it didn't really help him solve the real problems. Her solution to problems was usually to beat on them, not to rationalize them. It honestly surprised her that Lee maintained his cool as well as he did.

Kara waved to a couple of friends as she opened the door to Lee's office and slipped inside. Okay, she had to admit that it was nice to have someplace — anyplace — private on the Galactica. There might not be a lock, but there was an understanding among those aboard that closed doors were to be knocked on before opening, and belongings were to be left alone. It was a pure test of the honor system, and for some reason it was working.

Towards the end of the day, Kara found herself lying on Lee's bed and waiting. She wasn't even sure what she was waiting for. She wished that she knew. There were a dozen things she could be doing to fill her time. There was always a card game going on in the ready room, but she wasn't in the mood for cards. She could always walk down to Sharon's room and play with the new baby, but for some reason the infant made her very uncomfortable. She could even go find something to read in the makeshift library that they had put together from what books anyone could scrounge, but she didn't think any of them would hold her interest.

Her day had turned into a spectacular mope. She had spent the last twelve hours going through the motions of living, and she hadn't spoken to a single person beyond a one-word greeting or a simple wave. She had picked up her assignment, done her job, eaten two meals, and cleaned up — all without interacting with anyone. It wasn't that she was always in her own little world, but it told her just how preoccupied she was with Lee's recent behavior and more specifically the way he'd turned his back on her this morning.

Maybe that was the worst part. She had woken up alone, and she could deal with that. But despite giving him her best smile — and that had been an effort before her coffee or her run — he had done no more than mumble and turn his back. It had left her feeling like she'd done something wrong, and even that wouldn't have bothered her if she could figure out what the hell it had been. She and Lee had actually been on good terms lately. Neither was particularly tired or sniping, there was very little stress on them beyond the everyday worries of deep space, and even the people around them seemed fairly mellow. She couldn't figure out for the life of her what had set Lee off. But something had certainly done it.

Kara let out a loud sigh and turned on one side, staring at the door. He was late. If that didn't beat all, the guy was late. Very gradually, the kernel of doubt and worry began to twist itself into a genuine anger. Why the hell was she even worrying about all this? This was Lee. It wasn't like he was incapable of speaking his mind. If he had a problem with her, then he could frakking tell her about it or drop it altogether. She didn't really care which. In fact, she didn't have a clue why she had even let this mess with her head all day. She was getting as bad as some of the whiney kids that were flying the Raptors. Everything was a drama to them. Everything was life or death. Well, damn-it, she knew what was and wasn't life threatening, and Lee having a bad day was definitely on the less intense end of the spectrum. The only life in danger at the moment was his, because for some stupid reason he'd been on her mind long enough to get on her nerves. She had better things to worry about.

That was the way Lee found her nearly an hour later: just the other side of pissed off.

"You're late."

Lee looked up at her and she saw his eyes widen. At the very least he knew he was in for it. "Am I?"

Innocent? Not damn likely. "Forget how to tell time?"

He closed the door behind him and made a cursory glance at his wrist. "I didn't take that long getting through the paperwork," he muttered. "I'm only a little later than I was yesterday."

"Fine," she allowed, flopping over onto her back and changing her glare from him to the ceiling. She wasn't going to get trapped in those frakking blue eyes. She was ticked, and she planned to stay that way.

"Have a problem today?" he asked cautiously. That's right, she thought. Tread carefully.

"You tell me," she suggested.

She could almost hear the frustration in his voice, but she didn't believe for a moment that he was innocent. He knew just what he was doing. After twenty-five years, he knew every button that she had, and he pushed them like a master. It wasn't really relevant that she knew him just as well.

"Kara," he said with a tired sigh. "I didn't get much sleep last night. Are you going to get over this, or should I just go grab a bunk in squadron quarters?"

That had her head whipping back to him. "It's your room," she ground out.

"Maybe, but I'm in no mood to fight for it. I've spent the last two hours crunching numbers to get the most missions out of the least fuel, and I'm not ready for a fight just to get into my own bed."

"So this is my fault?" she asked just quiet of a yell.

"I don't even know what the hell is going on," he argued. "You're pissed. I get that. I have no clue why. Did I do something I don't know about?"

It was so close to what she had thought that morning that it took the wind right out of her sails. She was going off because he had come in an hour after his shift ended, rather than only ten or fifteen minutes. He didn't have to report to her after all. He wasn't married to her.

"Just ignore me," she suggested on a heavy sigh. "It's been a hell of a day."

He walked over with a genuine sympathy on his face. It was almost enough to set her off again. Almost, but not quite. "You okay?"

Turning her head sideways, she glanced at his face and those stupid, blue eyes caught her. As usual, she was stuck there. "Don't ask," she requested. There was no sarcasm present in her words, just honest exhaustion. She had thought about this until she couldn't think anymore. She was tired of being angry. She was just plain tired.

"Is it anything I need to know about?" he asked softly. "Anything with the squad, or with the crews?"

"No."

He nodded his understanding. "You hit anyone I need to know about?" he asked with a grin.

"Not yet," she mumbled, then finally returned the smile. "I'm okay, Lee. Chalk it up to a day under Vipers rather than in them. You know how I feel about maintenance."

"About the same as I feel about paperwork," he muttered with a smile. He bumped her over using his hip and took the space beside her. She might have protested, but he was just so damned warm. How was she supposed to fight that?

"Just about," she agreed. At least she wasn't looking him in the eye anymore. She'd had about enough of that. "Other than battling math, how was your day?"

"Same old same old," he replied quietly. "My dad says hi'."

"Tell him the same," she requested.

They lapsed into a silence that was neither comfortable nor uncomfortable, but just there. She really missed the days when they didn't need to say anything to one another. Now she knew they did, but had no clue where to start.

"You tired?" he asked her. Like there was any question about that.

"Yeah."

"You gonna shower?"

"No."

A long pause, and then, "Are we okay?"

She thought about that. It was her opening. He had given her the perfect invitation to get all this out in the open and deal with it. All she had to do was open her mouth and let him have it. All she wanted to do was turn over and kiss him.

"We're fine," she told him softly. Then she turned her back on him, and backed herself up into his warmth. She didn't bother with covers, or getting rid of her uniform. She just closed her eyes and went to sleep. Maybe tomorrow would be better.