A Book By Its Cover

This story and all themes and ideas contained in said story are the sole ownership of J.L. Scott. Any copyright infringements can be prosecuted in a court of law.

To borrow a phrase: Battlestar Galactica no mine...no money, no sue, please?

He had to wake up. Something was telling him he had to wake up. Now!

Lee's eyes flew open and he sat up quickly. His senses were already alert, looking for the danger. The ground was dry, the sun was up, the fire was dead. Ariel was gone.

A quiet whistle made him turn his head. His eyes followed his ears. He would have missed her. She had re-braided her hair. The green of her dress was almost the exact color of the bush she was half immersed in. She was looking back at him, as if she had been the one telling him to wake up. There was a quietness in the air Lee did not want to disturb. There was an edge of danger flaring his nostrils and pumping his blood. Ariel motioned to him to come, but to be quiet. Lee had to look down to watch where he put his foot, so as not to break a twig and give away their location. When he reached her, she held something out to him and he took it. It was warm and juicy. Meat. He looked up at her. She was putting a strip of the same stuff in her own mouth. Lee lifted the meat to his nose and sniffed. She rolled her eyes at him. The smell reminded him of the fact that it had been far too long since the last time he ate and he stuffed the meat in his mouth, chewing quickly, wiping the juice from his chin and licking his fingers. When he swallowed, she held her hand out again, closed fist. He cupped his left hand and was happy to see dozens of little black berries fall into it. He popped several into his mouth at once. They were sweet and tart and exploded with juice. He wanted to know why they weren't speaking.

Ariel's arm lifted and her finger pointed. Lee looked. There were trees and bushes. The sun glinted.

Glinted.

Off metal.

Cylons.

Now he heard them, crunching around in the underbrush. They were close and there were a lot of them, too spread out to go around. They were headed out, away from the village, toward the plains. The woods weren't thick, a line of trees really, separating the village from the fields. If it hadn't been so wild, Lee would've thought the villagers had planet it that way as a natural kind of defense. Defense from what he didn't know. At any rate, the Cylons would soon get through the wood's thickness and then might abandon the area as already searched. Were the machines smart enough to realize that just because it had been searched once there still might be something there? Machines. Machines that looked like humans, that bled, that gave birth. Where was the line? Could he have accepted them, if they hadn't been so bent on killing him and the rest of humanity?

Lee pulled his gun out. Ariel's hand covered his. His skin blushed beneath her touch, his body warmed. He ignored it. She shook her head and pointed again. The Cylons weren't headed their way. In fact, they were headed the opposite way. It didn't make sense. Perhaps the gods were with them. Ariel released his hand and Lee put his gun away, popping more berries into his mouth. He hadn't dropped them. Ariel sank from view, dropping down to the ground within the bush. Lee followed her down to the ground, able to see her face through the branches of the bush. She smiled at him.

They were all discouraged. The room was filled with it. They all studied the map. None of them saw anything.

Adama pulled the glasses off his face and wiped his hand over his eyes, blowing out a breath.

"There has to be a way" Starbuck muttered. Not even she had been able to come up with a plan to rescue Lee and Ariel. Not a way that would leave the majority of the Fleet out of harm's way and didn't include her own self getting blown up or captured. Tigh had come up with nothing, Adama had come up with nothing. They stared at the same map they had been staring at for hours. Starbuck had gone back to check out the status of the Cylons. They had landed on the planet, spread out, as if they were looking for something. Looking for Lee and Ariel. Adama swallowed, though nobody noticed. His son was stranded in enemy territory. His son, his only son. They weren't going anywhere.

"Hey, wake up" Ariel's soft voice filtered through Lee's mind. He'd fallen asleep again. Despite the hard ground and the immanent danger, it had been the best sleep he'd gotten since the Fleet had escaped Caprica. He opened his eyes slowly and was delighted to see Ariel's soft face, haloed by early afternoon sunlight, smiling sweetly down at him. It was a sight he could wake up to every morning.

He straightened up and saw that his head had been resting in her lap. He moved away, slightly embarrassed. She got to her feet and brushed her skirt off. There were little stains from the berries she had collected. He hadn't had the chance to ask her about that yet.

"We're getting a late start" she said. The bit of ripped cloth was tied around her waist. There was a stain in it. Her hand dipped into the folds and pulled out another slice of cooked meat, cold and hard now but chewable. Lee ate it thankfully.

"Where'd you learn to hunt?" he asked, his voice still quiet, afraid Cylons could still be in the area.

"I've been hunting since I was young" she answered, "It's a necessity of life here. I don't especially like doing it" Lee nodded. Of course it was. Of course she didn't. He should've been the one up early, out finding food, watching for Cylons. He was the man.

Ariel smiled at him, a blush creeping into her cheeks. She shook her head and sighed, "Come on, let's get hiking"

They stayed in the woods, heading north in a pretty straight line. Once or twice they had to stop to hide from a Cylon patrol. Lee never heard them, saw them, until Ariel had already told him to duck, to hide, to be quiet. They moved when and where she said, and Lee wasn't thrilled about the loss of control. They didn't talk, except for when they had to. Lee could hear birds chirping in the trees and small animals burrowing deep away from the intruders. The sun was warm through the trees, though he could tell they were making their way north because the breeze was getting cooler and the ground was becoming more rocky, steeper. They would be in the mountains soon, he was sure.

By the time the sun was starting to go down they hadn't seen a Cylon in quite a while. Lee had actually been enjoying the hike, being out in nature. He'd always wanted to go camping as a child, he and Zach would set up tents in their backyard. Except for the Cylons and the fact that Starbuck should've been back for them a long time ago if there was anyway for her to get there, he was having fun.

"There are some caves around here" Ariel stopped walking and looked from side to side, "I can't remember exactly where, I haven't been up here in years" It was the first time she'd admitted to not knowing exactly what she was doing. Lee was gratified to know that she was human after all. He stopped beside her, his calve muscles starting to burn and his throat yearning for water. She looked tired, finally. She looked sweet.

"The ground gets rockier over there" he pointed to the right, east and north, "More likely that caves would form in rock" Of course caves formed in rock. He was tired.

"Yeah, I think that's right. If not, we'll have to sleep outside. It'll be cold" she started off again, this time in the way Lee had picked. They came across a stream, stopped for water. The caves weren't far past that. They found them just as the sun dipped below the horizon and it was dark, except for the full moon. The cave they chose was not deep, they could see the back and had to duck so as not to hit their heads. Ariel less so. She was not tall. The top of her head came up just under Lee's chin. Perfect.

They had a nice little fire, just inside the cave so the smoke would still blow out, though there wasn't much smoke as Ariel had pointed out the night before, and there was a lot of heat so that the cave was rather toasty rather quickly. There was meat hanging over the fire. While Lee had started it, Ariel had been hunting. He didn't know how she caught anything without a weapon, but he didn't ask. He didn't want to hear about her snapping the poor creature's neck, ripping its skin from its flesh and gutting it. She had borrowed his knife.

"You know what would be perfect with this?" Lee asked as he passed her a piece of the meat, "A good glass of Caprica Valley wine" She laughed and nodded.

"And pea soup" she added. Lee had not indulged in the "if we were still home" game. He didn't want to think about if he was still home. There was no home now.

"Commander Adama, he's your father?" Ariel questioned. Lee stopped chewing for a moment and then started again. He didn't remember anyone saying they were related, though of course he could have just missed it.

"Yeah"

"So, what's he like?" Ariel wanted to know. There was grease on her chin and she wiped it away. The firelight was playing across her face and across the wall of the cave behind her. Lee could see her in a fancy restaurant with low lighting, sitting across the table from him, laughing at some joke he'd made. Maybe he'd walk her home and she'd live in one of the huge apartment complexes in downtown Caprica City. Lee shook himself. He was not playing this game. She was here, with a scratched face and muddy feet, asking him about his father.

"What do you mean?" he asked, forcing a smile on his lips.

"What's he like?" Ariel repeated, a smile on her own face. She looked good when she smiled.

"Um, he's a good leader" Lee started, not sure where to go. What was his father like? "He's intelligent and fair, um, he's very loyal" Ariel was looking at him oddly, as if she were hearing more than he was saying.

"You don't ever call him Dad, do you?" Her aqua eyes seemed to pierce through his own. What was the old saying? "The eyes are the window to the soul." Lee could feel her reading his soul and he would've been very uncomfortable if that feeling of trust wasn't so settled in him.

"Father but never Dad. You admire him and yet you're angry with him" she went on in a sort of detached tone and Lee wasn't sure she was talking about him anymore. She was right, he never called his father "Dad" anymore. He had, when he was younger. But not anymore.

"I know how you feel" Her color was vibrant. Striking in the warm touch of the firelight. Her hair was perfect auburn and her skin was the glow of a perfectly toasted marshmallow, with just a hint of strawberry in her cheeks and cherries in her lips. There wasn't much color on the Galactica. Ariel hadn't seemed quite right on Galactica. She had been like a dream walking through reality.

"My father was brilliant, and I admired him for that, but…well, he wasn't very good in the father department. He was very…secluded. And demanding" Now it was Lee's turn to hear more than what was said. There was a said look in her aqua eyes and he wanted to know about it, to wipe it away.

"What do you mean?" he asked quietly. Ariel shook herself, smiled and shrugged as if what she'd said had been nothing but trivial.

"Oh, you know how some people are, always expecting more and never being satisfied with what they get" She wiped her hands on her skirt and laid her head on her arm, her hair falling into the dirt.

"We should get some sleep, we have a difficult hike tomorrow" she said and closed her eyes.

Yes, Lee knew how some people were, always wanting more and never being quite satisfied with what they got.