For about the fiftieth time that week, Kara woke up to find herself in a new location. This time, however, it was about as familiar as it could be. The recognizable smell of sweat and motor oil hung in the air, and she could feel the light filtering in through the curtain attached to the bunk even though she was hesitant to open her eyes. The noise of the pilots talking and laughing somewhere below was welcome to her ears. This was where she had wanted to be the whole time she had been gone from Galactica.

The only thing she wasn't sure about was why she was in Lee's upper bunk and not her own down below.

"Good morning, sunshine."

At the sound of that familiar morning raspy voice in her ear, she suddenly realized that she wasn't alone in Lee's bunk. Smiling, she opened her eyes and looked down at where Lee lay with his arm draped protectively over her stomach. "Hi."

"I'm still alive."

Lee flicked on the light in the bunk. "Thanks to me. I picked your unconscious butt up off that hangar bay and carried you down to Doc Cottle all by myself."

"I wasn't going to die."

"Actually you might have. The wound on your stomach got partially infected somehow. Doc had to reopen the wound and stitch you up again." Lee smiled and reached up to play with a tendril of her hair. "I held your hand the whole time just in case you woke up."

"Oh, you hopeless romantic, you." She struggled to sit up.

"Don't move. The Doc said you should stay in this bunk without getting up for at least the next twelve hours."

"So I guess that means someone's going to be flying my CAPs?"

"And mine. I told my father that I think I deserved a little downtime for bringing the Arrow back to the Fleet. Downtime can be a lot of fun if you have someone to share it with, you know?"

She shivered as he lightly trailed his fingers down her side until they rested on the waistband of the sweats she was currently wearing. Her eyes had flown shut as her mind latched on to all the things they could be doing during the unexpected downtime. But when his hands paused, they flew back open.

"The Doc says that you also shouldn't exert yourself physically for the next twenty-four hours," Lee said, giving her a comical frown. "He actually recommended to my father that I not be granted downtime. I think he might have realized something was going on between us."

"I wonder what tipped him off," she said with a laugh. "Maybe the fact that you wouldn't leave my side during my operation. Or the fact that you, in all probability, abandoned your ailing father to pick my butt up off the hangar room floor."

"Could be. Or it could have been when I pulled him to the side after setting you down on a sickbay bed and told him that if he didn't fix the woman I loved, then I would personally make his life a living hell."

"Awww. You didn't." She ruffled his hair with her hand. "You're so damn cute when you're being protective."

"I seem to end up doing that a lot when I'm around you."

"What can I say? I'm just a vulnerable pile of mush most of the time. Someone's got to make sure I don't get walked all over. But let's not dwell on that. Instead, let's dwell on the fact that you told Doc Cottle that you loved me."

"It gets easier to say every single time, Kara." He smiled up at her as he rested his chin lightly on her chest, being careful to mind her fresh wound. "You should try it sometime."

She rolled her eyes. "I love you."

"I love you what?"

"I love you… please?"

"Say my name, Kara."

She crinkled up her nose at him. "No. That just sounds funny."

"Come on. Say my name, Kara." He tickled her side lightly.

"No. I don't want to."

"You didn't have trouble saying it before. Or should I say moaning it?"

"Were you taking advantage of my unconscious state again, Adama?"

He let out a laugh. "I wish I had thought to do that, but no. I was simply referring to your little display of love for me down on Caprica." When she looked at him confused and still slightly vulnerable, he wanted to laugh even harder. But he held back. "I mean, you weren't exactly with me physically at the time. But somehow I felt like I was right there." He reached his hand down to slowly push its way in past the top of her pants. "I mean, I was there with you, wasn't I, Kara?"

Her face froze in horror as she realized what he was referring to. "I… You… But… You weren't supposed to be awake."

He shook his head. "And that makes it fine that you let a guy hand-frak you while you were in love with me?"

She bit her lip and shrugged. "Got to get your release somehow. It seemed the safest way."

Lee withdrew his hand from her pants and laughed at the wounded look on her face at the sudden coldness the withdrawal left behind. "I'm not punishing you for that. Doc Cottle said no exerting yourself and I'm afraid if I continued on my little journey there, we would both end up exerting ourselves for pretty much the rest of our downtime."

Kara felt herself shiver at the thought of being alone in a bed naked with Lee. She paused and cocked an eye open to look at him. "How much time off did we get anyway?"

"A whole four days."

"Okay," she said, resuming her thoughts. Again she shivered at the idea of being alone in bed naked with Lee for a whole four days with nothing to tear them apart.

"But I don't think you're going to last more than two," he said softly.

"You think I can't stand being bed-ridden? Because I'm telling you, if you're here with me, it won't be that hard. What'll be hard is the non-exerting part."

Lee let out a laugh. "No. I wasn't talking about anything like that. It seems that my father has set up a rescue mission for the downed Raptor. A group of Galactica's finest is going down to the surface of Kobol to pick them up on the way to the Tomb of Athena."

Kara's eyes went wide. "Really? And I'm stuck here in my bed?"

Lee shook his head. "I got the Old Man to agree that if you didn't move a muscle for two days and Doc Cottle gave the okay, you could come with me on the mission."

"You're going."

"Of course. It is my Arrow after all."

Kara laughed at all the hidden meanings to that phrase. "So, Apollo? What are we going to do for two days while we wait?"

He reached up and turned off the light in the bunk. "Come up with ways for you not to exert yourself, of course."

She had time to smile for a few seconds before he leaned down to kiss her.

"Lee?" she said, pulling away from him for a moment.

"Hmm?" he whispered. He tried to pull himself back in close to her only to have her pull her lips out of his path yet again.

"Have I gotten more stable for you?"

His face scrunched up in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"You said to me the night of Colonial Day that you were struggling to make me someone you could count on."

He shut his eyes and tried to push the desire back down. She was being serious about this, and he couldn't just tell her it didn't matter and beg her to start kissing him again. That wouldn't be very respectful. "Kara. I never said I couldn't count on you. In fact, there's never once been a time where I doubted that you had my back. In the air or on the ground."

"But you can't rely on me to be there all the time. I'm too hot-headed, and my temper's too much of a pain in the ass. I'd probably end up in the brig when you needed me most."

He shook his head. "No. You really wouldn't. I mean, the one time where I needed you by my side so much that I wasn't even willing to admit it, you were there. I needed you to come to Caprica with me, and you wouldn't take no for an answer when I tried to make you stay. So, see? When it comes down to it, you're incredibly stable in your own special way."

"Don't patronize me, mister," she said, narrowing her eyes at him.

"I'm not. I'm just trying to get you to stop talking so we can go back to the kissing." He bit his lip and gave her the look she had silently dubbed his 'cute smile'. "Can we please go back to the kissing?"

"You're insatiable, Lee Adama."

"And you love me," he said, pulling himself up so that his head lay on the pillow next to hers.

"Yeah," she said with a smile as she stretched her neck to place a kiss on his nose. "I really do."

END