"Hey."

He looked up at her from where he was sitting on the metal overhang overlooking the flight deck. "Hey, Starbuck, have a seat."

She sat down next to him and dangled her feet off the walkway into the open air. "I thought you were working on rotation scheduling?"

"Still am."

"Really?" She questioned teasingly. "Hmm. I know I'm not the CAG--."

"And many people have thanked the gods for that little miracle." He interjected.

"—But doesn't it help to have the rotation lists in front of you?"

"Yes." He nodded. "Unless your brain is so fried that you confuse the rotation list with requisition requests for supplies from the fleet."

"You didn't." She gasped amused.

"Yeah. For about twenty minutes Racetrack was paired with a lovely little CO2 scrubber from the Ethereal Dawn."

Starbuck snorted. "Her last ECO was Jingles. Given that option again she might prefer the scrubber."

Lee smiled at that. "Yeah. I just needed a break. I know it sounds stupid, but sometimes I think that if I come here, the planes will pick their pilots for themselves."

"Doesn't sound stupid." Kara paused, biting her lip, and looking anyplace but at him. "I'm sorry that I yelled at you this afternoon." She whispered.

"No you're not." He chuckled.

"Okay. I'm not." She answered truthfully. "But I am sorry that I did it in front of other people."

His eyes got wide. "You are?"

"Yes. It makes people think that I don't respect you, which is incorrect, and it undermines your authority, which is wrong." She said still not looking at him.

"Thank you."

"However--."

He rolled his eyes. "No, you see, I knew you were gonna do that. No however. Just sit there and be wrong."
"Okay." She smiled, finally looking at him. "In my own defense I was having a pretty bad day."

"You were?"

"Yeah." She chuckled at his obliviousness. "Didn't you see how the sea of specialists parted as I made my way through the hanger deck?"

"So the non-coms are scared of you. Is that something new that I'm supposed to take note of?"

"Guess not." She laughed. "But it got pretty bad. The Commander took me aside and told me to leave CIC before 'I did something I'd regret'."

"Like punching Colonel Tigh." He teased.

"Nah. I'd never regret that." She laughed, and then she lowered her head. "Baltar was there, though, and he asked me if I wanted to…."

"What?" He asked softly, his hand clutching into a fist.

"…..go somewhere to relieve tension." She finished softly.

"Do you want me to kill him? I will if you want me to."

"Nope, no need."

"What did you say to him?" He whispered.

"Hard to remember, I was concentrating pretty hard on getting his clothes off."

He saw the blinding grin, reaching up to her beautiful hazel eyes that emerged a second later and let out the breath that he didn't realize he was holding. "Kara? Given what happened the last time you and I discussed your relationship with this man, do you really think that this is something you should joke about?"

The smile was still on her face as she winked. "Probably not."

They stayed silent for a moment. "What did you say?" He asked again.

"You mean after I stopped laughing hysterically?"

"Yeah."

She shrugged and looked away. "Told him I didn't hate myself that much."

"I'm glad." He nodded.

"Glad that I didn't sleep with him?"

"Glad that you don't hate yourself that much." He corrected. "And that you didn't sleep with him."

"Yeah, well. I figured it best that I got out of there."

"What did you need me for?" He asked.

"I didn't need you for anything."

"Then why'd you come looking for me?"

"I didn't. I came here and you just happened to be here." She stated.

"Why'd you come here?" He asked surprised. "You're not on duty."

"I needed to get my head together. This is where I come to get my head together." She saw that he was looking at her dumbfounded. "What? You too?"

"Yeah. Been doing it since I came onboard. How long have you been doing it?"

"Since I came onboard. Which means I've been doing it longer, which means I have dibs, which means it's mine, which means you have to leave."

"Okay." He said making a move to get up, chuckling as he did it.

She grabbed his arm and pulled. "Sit your ass back down, Adama."

As he sat back down he looked upon the flight deck below, watching as purple and gold sparks flew from the soldering torch as it danced across the metal flesh of the Viper. "So we both do it?"

"Yep." She confirmed. "Great minds think alike."

"Like Artemis and Apollo."

"Yep." She nodded. "Wait…huh?"

"They say we're twins like Artemis and Apollo."

"Who the hell ever said that?" She giggled.

"At first it was our friendly neighborhood terrorist. He heard my callsign and started calling Dad 'Zeus' just to taunt me. Then he saw….what he saw on Kobol, and he decided to expand the mythological references. 'The king of the gods and his favored children.'"

"Figures." Starbuck snorts. "Only someone as stupid as Zarek would say something like that."

"The President's doing it now, too."

She choked on a laugh. "The President is?"

"Yeah, well, you know, with all the studying of the Sacred Texts that she's doing, she's started to look around for similarities in everyday life."

"And she thinks there actually are some?" Kara snickered. "You might wanna see if you can get her to cut back on her chamalla intake. Chick's gone batty."

"There are some truths to it." He countered.

"You know, if I didn't already know that you weren't religious, I'd know that you weren't religious."

"Kara, come on."

"Other than your callsign, there are no similarities." She stated firmly. "And I think most people would stop referring to you as a god if they found out how you got your godly callsign."

"Nobody knows how I got my callsign. I've systematically silenced all those who could reveal the truth." He said nudging her shoulder.

She looked straight at him, the challenge highly visible in her eyes. "Apollo: The Sun God. Given to one Cadet Lee Adama when he returned to the Academy with a severe second degree sunburn that he received because he fell asleep, naked in the sun, exhausted after frakking Admiral Nagala's daughter into oblivion in the middle of the Academy archery court." She gasped dramatically and then clicked her tongue. "Oh, look at that. Somebody knows."

His mouth dropped open and his eyes got wide. "How do you know that?"

"That's for me to know and you to never find out. And you can't silence me, many have tried and failed." She nudged his shoulder back.

"But seriously." He countered. "I don't think it's unusual for people to identify us as twins. We're coming from the same place. We think alike."

"We sure as hell don't act alike."

"We compliment each other. One does what the other one can't do, sees what the other one can't see, so that all sides of the problem get taken care of. I'm god of the sun, you're goddess of the moon."

"And just when exactly was the last time you read scripture, Captain?"

"I remember grade school, Kara. I got an 'A' in mythology."

"You got an 'A' in everything. I bet you even got high marks in paste-eating."

"Artemis: Goddess of the Hunt. You're our best fighter. The people pray for Artemis to protect them during the hunt. How many times have you put your life on the line to protect this fleet?"

"Lee—."

"She's also the patron god of childbirth, helping women through pregnancy and labor. That thing you did on Caprica: helping those women in that hospital? You should get credit for that." He reached up and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

She screwed her eyes shut. "Nobody gets credit for that." She whispered. "Artemis never had children herself."

He hung his head. "Yeah."

She raised her head back up to him. "That's another flaw in your allegory, Captain. Artemis was chaste, pure, remained a virgin forever." She grinned. "So we're not exactly alike."

He laughed, never releasing his hand from its hold on the back of her neck.

"We may be Artemis and Apollo." She laughed, teasing him. "We're just switched."

"You tryin' to say I resemble a virgin huntress, Starbuck?"

"No. It's just Artemis was the virtuous one, while Apollo was the lusty bastard who couldn't keep his pants on. Maybe the gods decided to do a gender reversal deal this time around."

"Ah, but Apollo was the god of literature and music. You wouldn't know art if it slapped you in the face." He laughed.

"Know anything about my dad?" She whispered, looking him square in the eye.

His smile dropped. "No." He said sadly. "But only because you won't tell me."

She decided to shrug off his comment and go to a lighter topic. "You're right though, Apollo was supposed to inspire people, so it must be you. I've never inspired anybody to do anything but get into a drunken brawl, whereas you inspire people everyday. You inspired that little resistance against tyranny."

"You inspired it too." He said looking away.

"I did?" She asked, laughing in disbelief.

"Sure." He said looking back at her. "Do you really think I would have given a frak about the Arrow if you hadn't been the one to go get it? You think I jumped back to Kobol to find the Tomb? No, I did it so that I'd be there when you came back."

The intensity of his gaze was too much and she looked away. "Lee. I don't think we should…."

"Didn't Apollo want to sleep with Artemis?" He interrupted.

She chuckled slightly, out of breath, trying to deflect him from where she feared he was going. "Well, yeah. But Apollo wanted to sleep with everybody so it really didn't have anything to do with…."

"Then that's accurate. There's always been something very incestuous about the way I feel about you, Kara." He cut her off as he stroked her arm.

"Damn it, Lee!" She said pulling away from him.

"What?" He said defensively. "You know it's true."

"Yes, I do." Her voice getting loud. "I know it's true, and you know it's true, and everyone on this whole frakking ship knows it's true. We all know it, but no one's ever actually said it. And there's a reason for that: it's called plausible deniability. As long as we never acknowledge its existence then we never have to deal with the whole mess that it entails that we are just not ready for. We had a very concrete system of avoiding the issue, Apollo, and with one little sentence you just frakked everything up!"

"Good!" He shouted, and then noticed that the maintenance crew looked up at them at his outburst, so he lowered his voice. "Good. Cause you know what? I meant to. And maybe we are ready for the whole mess."

"Your father's not." She whispered back at him. "How do you think Zeus would feel if he found out that the mighty Apollo wants to frak Artemis?"

"I really don't think he'd be all that surprised." Lee snapped back.

"You don't know what the hell you're talking about." She sighed.

"Then maybe I'm done talking." And he leaned over and brushed his lips over hers. He felt her jump slightly and then relax against him as he felt the heat emanate from her cheeks as her lips slid over his in perfect unison.

"Lee." She mumbled into his mouth after a while as he wrapped an arm around her waist. "Lee. Wait. Stop." She pulled away from his head by only a fraction and kept her eyes closed as she breathed out in the most gravelly voice he'd ever heard. "You can't just kiss me like that."

His eyes went dark and she could still feel his breath, hot against her cheek. "I'm sorry. I thought you wanted to."

"I do." She whispered, her eyes still closed.

"Then what's the problem?" He traced her hairline with a gentle finger.

"I'm not used to you like this." She sighed, bringing a soft, tentative hand up to curl in the fabric of his shirt. She opened her eyes and stared him down, challenging him. "I'm so used to you living by manuals, following etiquette, overthinking and overanalyzing and overcompensating for any little break in propriety that you disregard every simple, basic emotion and instinct until there is absolutely no hope of you ever acting on it, of ever letting your brain shut off and your heart and your want take over."

"Oh."

"And now here you are, doing what I always hoped you'd do. But I never thought you'd actually do it, so I'm a little unprepared. It feels like we're spinning." She said trailing her hand up over his neck to graze his jaw.

He grabbed her hand in his and intertwined their fingers. "I've been doing the repressed intellectual thing my whole life, Kara. You know what it's gotten me?"

"No." She said as he bent his head to let his lips drift over her knuckles.

"Cold. And alone."

She grinned slyly as she winked at him. "You never had to be."

"You weren't ready for me."

"I'm not the only woman in the universe. I'm sure there were girls lining up."

He laughed. "For what? A quick frak on an office desk?"

"Or a gymnasium floor." She teased, but the slight betrayal she felt made its way to the surface.

He winced almost imperceptibly, but she noticed. "You know about that?"

"Yeah." She said lowering her eyes. "I know it happened, nothing else."

"Nothing else to know." He told her firmly.

"Nothing happened?"

"Okay. Something happened." He sighed. "Or something might've happened….if we weren't in a room full of people….or if we weren't both totally wrecked in the head over other people."

They both turned away from each other and he reluctantly released her hand as they looked again to their dangling feet and the flight deck below.

"Dee's nice." Kara whispered.

"Yes, she is." Lee replied.

"And she's pretty."

"Yes, she is."

"And smart."

"Yes, she is."

"And she's good to your father."

"Yes, she is."

"But she's in love with Billy Keikeya."

"Yes, she is."

"And the girl you really want is sitting right next to you. Isn't she?"

He laughed. "Yes, she is."

Kara smiled and shook her head. "Lee, Lee, Lee. Lee Adama—."

"Loves you." He finished for her. He paused and took her hand again, still not looking at her. "You never told me anything about the guy on Caprica."

She sighed. "Not much to tell. He was handsome, and brave, funny, a little arrogant; but I like that in a guy. He could pound you into the floor on a pyramid court. He was nice…."

"He sounds great." He whispered resigned.

"He was." She said firmly. "He really only had one flaw, and while it was a big one; it's not really something I can hold against him."

"And what was it?"

She turned to face him, bringing her hand up to turn his head to face her as well. "He wasn't the one I really wanted. The one I really wanted is sitting right next to me."

"Gods, Kara." He said as he touched her.

She felt his hand move from her face, to her neck, to her shoulder, to the crease of her elbow. Her breathing was harsh and erratic. Her eyes were screwed shut. "You really not into quick fraks on office desks?"

"Nope." He said tracing her collarbone. "Wouldn't be enough." He moved to trace her bottom lip. "Wouldn't be anywhere close to enough."

"You want more?" Her lip quivered and her voice broke.

"Yeah."

She turned her head away from him. "What if I can't give it to you?"

His heart stopped in his chest at her obvious pain. "Kara, what are you--?"

"Artemis never had children." She blurted out. "Cottle said that after they did what they did to me on Caprica that I might not be…."

He wrenched her face back to look at him and looked in her eyes. "I don't care about that." He saw the look of disbelief on her face. "Kara. I don't care about that. I didn't think you did either. I didn't think you even wanted to have children."

"I didn't think I did either, I guess you never know how you really feel about something until somebody tells you that you may not have it." She trembled. "I'll tell you what though. I wouldn't have minded having a few Adama's."

He sighed and turned away from her. "I'm not gonna let you do this." He seethed.

Her heart turned over in fear. "Do what?"

He turned back to her. "Find an excuse not to do this because of something so insignificant."

"It's not insignificant!" She almost shouted.

He moved to soothe her. "I know that. But did you really think that I would want to spend one more day, one more frakking minute apart from you because somebody told you that maybe someday in the future you might not be able to have children that we might not even live to be able to see? Do you really think I'm that stupid? Do you really think that I love you that little?"

Her mouth dropped open and he saw her lips move, but it took her several tries before she could actually speak. "Don't ever let me run away from you." She whispered resolutely.

"I won't." He laughed.

"You promise?"

"I swear." He breathed out seductively. "I'll tie you to the bed if I have to."

"Uhh." She groaned as she rested her forehead against his. "What the hell are you trying to do to me?"

"Mmm." He choked out, gulping for breath as his heart beat wildly in his chest.

"Okay." She said pulling back to look at him as she grinned. "So you're not into desks. What about flight deck overhangs?" She raised her eyebrows.

"Noooo. It wouldn't be fitting for Artemis and Apollo." He said lightly but steadily kissing her.

"I'm gonna kill Zarek for bringing that up." She mumbled into his mouth.

"I'm gonna kiss Zarek for bringing that up." He laughed pulling back from her.

"Oh no you're not." She grabbed him by his collar. "You're not kissing anyone but me ever again. Ever, ever, ever again."

"Yeah. Uh-huh. Sounds good." He whispered transfixed by her lips but totally distracted from the words coming out of them.

"I don't know if you remember from your grade school lessons, but Artemis and Apollo systematically murdered the people that disrespected their mother." She winked. "You might wanna tell Tom Zarek and his cronies that if they try anything else with the President that they'll have to sleep with one eye open."

"Uh-huh." He said absently as one hand embedded itself in her hair while the other danced up her side and he buried his face in the crook of her neck.

"Are you listening to me?"

"Uh-huh." He sighed.

"What did I just say?" She teased.

He pulled back to look at her, confused. "Something about sleeping with Tom Zarek in grade school. Wait? Was that right?"

"Yes." She laughed as she kissed his temple. "That was exactly right."

"Come on." He said standing up. "Let's get outta here."

"And do what?" She said as she let him pull her up.

"I don't know." He said looking around uncertainly. "What do you usually do after a conversation like this?"

"I've never had a conversation like this." She laughed. "You already shot down my office furniture suggestion. You got any better ideas?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "As a matter of fact, I do."

"Okay." Lee Adama said as he stood at the podium in front of a ready room full of pilots. "That just about covers it. There's just a few more things I need to go over with you on the rundown and then you can go: Due to several items being missing or misplaced, Chief Tyrol has asked that I require you to log all of your equipment now. Combat has asked that you watch your fuel burn due to a processor on the Monarch being out of commission for a few weeks. Lt. Thrace and I got married yesterday and each shift is gonna have to pull an extra two hours due to Vipers 289, 273, 194 and 212 being grounded for refitting." He turned to the woman next to him. "You got anything else to add, Starbuck?"

"Just that the next person that puts a divot into the deck because they came in too hot is gonna spend a night in the brig." She pointed to the pilots in front of her. "And don't think I won't do it."

"Okay, guys." Apollo said getting his things together. "That does it. You're dismissed."

The CAG and the Lead Pilot were the first to walk out of the ready room, as was customary. And it was also customary for the rest of the pilots to immediately follow after. But for some reason, on that day, they stayed glued in their chairs.

Racetrack was the first one to speak. "Um. Did he—." She paused as she looked around bewildered. "Did he just say what I think he just said?"

"Yeah." Helo laughed in amused disbelief. "I think he just did."

"Ah, man." Hot Dog groaned. "We gotta log all our equipment now?"

-finis