TITLE: Smarts, Doesn't It?

AUTHOR: DramaLexy

DISCLAIMER: Oh, IF ONLY I owned this show…but I don't, so don't sue.

SUMMARY: Post-Episode 7 "Six Degrees of Separation" fic. Kara/Lee friendship.

DISTRIBUTION: If you want it, be my guest. Just let me know where.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I did some digging into the ring that Kara was wearing at the end of "You Can't Go Home Again" and didn't find any singular consensus as to its origin and meaning. So I made up my own lore. PLEASE send feedback!

"Every day you spend in that bed is another day that I have my opinion of you confirmed."

And even though she knew it was reverse psychology, it was very good reverse psychology. The last thing that Lieutenant Kara Thrace needed was to confirm anything that Colonel Paul Tigh thought. So she'd gotten her ass out of bed and taken a pair of crutches from her doctor with a minimum of colorful expletives, and now she was hobbling towards the hangar deck to see what the hell was being done to 'her' Cylon raider.

And if Lee opens his mouth, I'll kick the crap out of him on the spot, she thought to herself. In fact, I still owe him one from the last time I saw him…

As irritating as his hovering and ribbing had been, she was glad that he was there. For a good few hours when she was trapped on that planet, she'd been convinced that she'd never see him again. She'd even pictured her own funeral – now that would have been a sorry affair. But the part that had gotten her to keep going, keep fighting to find some way off that uninhabitable rock, was the thought of Adama and Lee at that funeral. She'd caused them to lose enough already – she was going to get home no matter what.

She'd been having nightmares about the crash, not that she was going to tell anyone else that. Dreams about falling from the sky in her crippled Viper, the fighter burning up around her as it went through an atmospheric entry that it wasn't designed for. She hadn't actually felt the heat, thanks to her suit, but she knew she was lucky not to have been incinerated in the stratosphere. It was all about timing – getting low enough that she wouldn't need the fighter's protection from the scorching heat of falling through the steadily-thickening atmosphere, all the while praying that the Viper would hold together for that long so she could safely eject. The Lords had definitely been with her on that flight, from beginning to end.

The ring that Kara was wearing on her thumb had started to slip off her finger, and she paused for a moment, precariously balanced on her crutches, in order to attach the silver band to the chain for her dog tags. Jewelry on deck was a no-no, but she wasn't letting go of the ring. It had been Zak's, and she'd had it with her in one way or another (on her finger, on her chain, even tucked into a pocket if she really needed it out of the way) since his death. It had been on her dog tags when she'd gone out on the training run with her students…wait, had that really been a week ago?

Frak, I really have been sitting around for too long.

The doctors had taken everything off of her when she'd returned to Galactica. She wasn't sure how Adama had gotten the ring, considering her tags had been returned to her at the Life Station, but she was glad he had. During his visit, slipping the band back into its customary position on her finger had been a silent sign that things between them were okay. They'd never forget what she'd done, but time had passed, the world had ended, and more grudges between members of their little 'family' weren't going to bring Zak back.

Speaking of…

She almost wasn't surprised to see Commander Adama walking towards her in the corridor, and momentarily wondered if he'd put Tigh up to his earlier visit. Her knee protested as she came to a stop, and Kara tried to hide a grimace as she shifted her weight off of it. "Afternoon, Sir," she greeted the commander, getting her balance squared away before raising a hand to salute him.

"Whatcha hear, Starbuck?"

"Nothing but the rain, Sir."

"And how do you feel?" She looked up in surprise – that wasn't his line.

"F-fine, Sir." Adama smiled, indicating her busted knee with a wave of his hand.

"Smarts, doesn't it?" I'm going to kill Lee. They won't even find his body…

"Yes, Sir."

"Good. If it hurts, you know you're still alive." Kara couldn't help but crack a smile at that. If the comment had come from anyone else, she probably would have decked them. And they both knew it.

"Yeah."

"Carry on, Lieutenant."

Adama moved past her, making his way back towards the CIC, and Kara continued on her journey to the deck. Maybe if her leg was still working by 1900 hours, she'd see if the Commander wanted to get dinner with her and his son. She knew that they still had a lot of things to talk about.

Of course, that's assuming that Lee's still alive by 1900 hours. These things might actually become the 'crutches of death.'

"Hey." Lee looked up from his spot crouched underneath the raider with Cally and Tyrol when he saw Kara approach. His surprise in seeing her was evident in both his face and his voice, and Kara was NOT going to let him get another one of his badly-delivered clichés out.

"Shut up, all of you," she replied. "Not one single word from any of you, okay?" The Specialist and CPO were both trying to hide smiles. Lee wasn't bothering with concealing his, but she hadn't really expected him to. "What seems to be the problem?"

"Well, your new boyfriend's a bit of a jerk, Sir," Tyrol told her, and Kara realized that she felt better already. For her, just being on the hangar deck again was almost as good as the Life Station's 'magic pills.' Almost.

"It's a girl," she shot back, and they got to work.

TBC...