"You're scaring me, Lee," Kara whispered when the quiet became too much for her.

"I'm sorry. I don't know how to start. This all has been an adjustment for me, and I can't say I'm back to normal yet."

"What's been an adjustment?"

"I'm surprised you hadn't noticed." Lee set down the gun which Kara suddenly realized he had been grasping tightly in his right hand this whole time. He pushed the sleeve of his jacket back. "This was what Billy was talking about when he said we didn't escape the Cylons without being harmed."

Kara was about to cry that she knew Billy had been referring to Lee and not himself when her eyes finally registered what he was showing her. The whole of his hand had been replaced with some sort of metal device. Where the metal met flesh looked slightly purple and scarred, almost as if it was just a bad bruise that was almost healed over. "What is that?" she asked, pulling her eyes up to meet his.

Lee flexed his hand before letting out a long breath. "It's a Cylon Centurian hand. I lost mine protecting President Roslin in the first few minutes of the attack. There were Cylons everywhere, and the rounds we had weren't working. One attacked us and my shot made contact with it when it was in mid-air. It exploded in a shower of shrapnel, and a piece caught my arm. There was so much chaos I didn't even grasp what had happened at first." Lee realized that he was babbling and took a deep breath before trying again. "In the end, the only reason I made it out of there alive was because the Cylons perceived me as little to no threat because of the damage to my hand. I was barely conscious, the pain was so great. As soon as the Centurians had moved on, Billy dragged me to the brig. He kept insisting that there were medical supplies there that he could use to stop the bleeding. I think he might have been in shock from the fallout, but I was too out of it myself to realize. So we went to the brig but instead of finding supplies, we found Boomer."

"This is too much," Kara said, shaking her head and taking a step back. She knew that he was trying to go slowly while still telling her everything as quickly as possible before she freaked out. And freak out she probably would because she was telling the truth. It was too much. First her home was damaged and now Lee, too? Her heart couldn't cope with this.

"Please, just try to listen," Lee pleaded. "I don't know any other way of explaining except to tell you the little I remember about what went on."

Kara could sense that Lee was trying his best to make her understand while containing his frustration at her unwillingness to listen, and that felt familiar amid all this chaos. So after a moment she nodded and he continued. "The only reason Billy let Boomer out of her cell was because she promised she could fix me. I told him not to be stupid and that he needed to get a transport to get away before the Cylons realized we weren't dead. He didn't listen to me. Said I was losing too much blood to know what I was talking about. Probably only had a few minutes left in me."

Lee paused as he realized he had lost some of Kara's attention. She had gone from staring at him in concern to staring intently at his hand in what he could only guess was her usual morbid curiosity. He knew what she wanted. Bracing himself, he extended his right hand, and she reached out hesitantly to touch the cool metal. She jumped when the fingers suddenly extended into long, sharp claws.

"Sorry! It takes some getting used to," Lee said with a laugh. "I guess I should just be glad Boomer took the time to modify it so it wasn't all sharp and deadly the entire time."

Kara watched him concentrate and the claws retracted back in to form a "normal" hand. "I still don't understand how you ended up with it."

"I was mostly passed out from the pain, but from what Billy tells me, Boomer said she could use the metal scrap and what she knew of Cylon technology to attach a hand from a dead Centurian to my arm."

"Why would she want to help you?"

"I think she knew that there was no way she could get through the situation we were in on her own. No matter what's gone on, somehow Boomer's held on to the fact that she had a life as Sharon Valerii once. She still perceives us as her friends and this ship as her home. I think that's why she didn't want to see me die."

Kara's fingers continued to linger at where the metal met flesh. It was becoming rather distracting, but Lee found that he didn't want her to stop. It had felt like an eternity since someone had touched him so openly.

"I still don't understand how it was possible," he continued to explain, "but it worked. Somehow the nerves in my arm bonded to the hardware inside the Centurian hand. I can feel it just like I could feel my old hand."

"That makes no sense."

"It's just another thing about the Cylons that we had no idea. If you think about it, this could be a major medical advancement for us."

"And you only had to lose a hand to figure it out," Kara hissed, her words laced with sarcasm and anger. Now that her curiosity was satisfied she was right back to concern. She had no clue how he could be so rational about such a crazy thing.

"Please don't be like that, Kara."

She could feel his voice falter as his tone turned to pleading. That vulnerability made her tear her gaze away from Lee's hand so that she could take a good look at him. He was standing there in front of her, obviously battered and broken, and yet he wasn't showing one physical sign of faltering besides the weakness in his voice. He wasn't showing signs of anything. Kara reached out to rest her hand on his cheek and tried her best to hold the tears back. It was hard to see him like this. "What did they do to you, Lee?"

"I have a part of Cylon technology in me now. It has a certain amount of influence over my behavior."

Her eyes went wide at the notion that something so small could affect someone so much. Through her shock, she managed to choke out, "Give me an example of how it could influence you."

Lee shut his eyes for a second, taking a deep breath before reaching out to grasp the hand that lay on his cheek. "Well, take when I saw you in that empty hangar bay. All I wanted to do was go running to you and pull you into my arms and never let go. Instead I stood there and analyzed the probability that it was actually you in front of me and did my best not to stare at the abomination living in the belly of the traitor Cylon you brought with you." Lee's body stiffened as he realized what he had just said. "I think that was the hand talking at the end there."

"You really wanted to never let me go?" Kara asked, choosing to ignore everything else he had said for the time being.

Lee's eyes held hers as he nodded slowly. "I need every pilot I have."

"Even the screw-ups?"

"Especially this screw-up," he said, giving her a smile Kara had thought she would never see again. "As fraking annoying as it is, I love you, Kara. You can keep trying, but I don't think anything you do could change that."

"Damnit, Lee. You're going to make cry."

"I think you already are." He reached his left hand up to push the tears off her cheek. After a pause, he leaned in to lightly brush his lips across where the tears had once been. "Gods, I missed you."

"What about Boomer?" Kara asked as Lee rested his forehead against hers. "You seem awfully… close."

"She recognizes the things I've been dealing with, things that Hot Dog and Billy wouldn't even begin to comprehend. She kept herself connected to the part of her consciousness that is Cylon just so she could be sure that the hand she had given me wasn't taken over. She's been teaching me how to control it. I respect her."

"Do you respect her like you respect me?" Kara asked. The question was loaded, and they both knew it.

"You have to understand, Kara. Under any other circumstances, she wouldn't have been the one I turned to for help." Lee let out a laugh and wrapped his arms around Kara, pulling her in tight. "I would have turned to you. You've earned my unconditioned respect, and when my ass is on the line, it's you I want beside me."

His touch was so welcome to her that Kara didn't even think to fight it. "I abandoned you," she whispered with disgust as his words sunk in.

"For something you thought was important, I get that. We all make stands for things we believe in. This life is too damn short to dwell on whether we made the right choices or not."

Kara pulled back to look up at him. "What happened to you while I was gone? The Lee I know would never forgive me so easily."

"Now it might just be my crazy Cylon hand but you deciding to jump away from the Fleet doesn't seem that weird in retrospect to all the things I've done."

A giggle fell off the tip of her tongue before she could stop it.

"I missed that sound," Lee said, tightening his hold on her. "So, what's the verdict, Starbuck? Do I pass the test?"

"You're okay, but the jury's still out on your hand," Kara replied. She snuggled against his chest and breathed him in. She could stand here with him forever. If only it wasn't the second end of the world, she was pretty sure she would. "I hate to be the serious one and break up this little moment we're having, Lee, but the leader in me insists. Do you have any fraking clue what our next move is?"

Lee paused a second before pulling away and bending down to pick up the gun he had dropped. "For starters, you and I need to load up on as many of those explosive rounds as we can. We're taking your Heavy Raider and going down to the surface of Kobol to find the Tomb of Athena and use that Arrow you've been carrying around to find where Earth is."

"You still believe in that?"

He shook his head. "Nope. Never really did." At her confused look, he shrugged his shoulders. "You did, though, and that's enough for me. Besides, in case you haven't heard, there's not really a whole lot to stick around here for."

Kara nodded and began to pile up explosive rounds into a nearby pack. A few seconds later, Lee joined her. "I have some good news for you, though," he whispered.

"How can you possibly have any good news for me, Lee?" she asked with a short laugh.

"Well, we never got around to rescuing that downed Raptor on the surface of Kobol. If they're still alive when we get there, you'll have Cally and Seelix with whom to share the burden of repopulating the human race."

"All right!" Kara said with a sarcastic enthusiasm. "Get me on that Raider and let's get going!"

Lee gave her a smile, pleased to see that some things didn't change. He watched her at work for a moment before turning back to the job at hand.

Kara let her mind work through what he had just told her, and she was pleased to feel things starting to add up. It didn't help the ache that was deep inside her for what had been done to her home, but it made things a little easier knowing she still had Lee to depend on. Well, she mostly had Lee to depend on. She still wasn't sure if she could trust that hand. Her eyes ducked to look at his left hand, and she remembered the way it had sat not so idly on her hip as Lee had held her only seconds earlier. Maybe she couldn't trust that one either.

"You're staring," Lee said as he hitched the pack up onto his shoulder and held a gun out for her to take.

"Sorry. Just wondering a few things."

"Like what?"

Kara followed his lead and stepped out into the empty corridor. "Like why you were so scared to tell me about what happened to you? You barely said a word to me since I got here, and that only changed because I started freaking out about the Cylons' master baby plan."

"I don't know if you realized it, Kara, but your eyes shifted right to where I had been standing when you said you never wanted to have kids. I know you too well to just let a comment like that hang in the air."

"I don't want kids."

"You're lying," Lee said as they walked slowly down the corridor side-by-side. "But I'll let it slide for now. You asked me a question, and you deserve an answer. Honestly? I was scared. I didn't know how you were going to take it. I'm a different person than when you left the Fleet. I do things now that you would never dream I would do. I make impulsive decisions, risk my life for no good reason sometimes." His words cut off, and he turned to look at her suspiciously. "Wait a second. Do you have an Cylon hand I never knew about?"

She let out a laugh. "I know. Your little description does sound a lot like me."

They lapsed into silence again, and Kara was suddenly took in the significance of their surroundings. They were right outside the bunkroom she had called home. Her mind suddenly recalled of all the times she had gone on a run around these very same corridors. For the first two years on Galactica, her daily jogs had been a solitary time where she could really wrap her mind around things. But then the world had ended and Lee showed up on her doorstep. Every day from then on, he had been the one to drag her out of bed to run each morning. She used to hate how persistent he could be, annoying her with those damn cadences from Academy. In retrospect, she figured she'd be eternally grateful for the memories of racing with him down the corridors of their home. He made her forget how tough the world could be.

"So, are you in love?"

Lee's abrupt words made her stumble. "What?"

"Helo was talking about that pyramid player on Caprica. Anders, right? He seemed to imply that you were attached to him." Lee cleared his throat and turned to meet her surprised gaze.

Kara immediately moved her eyes down to watch her feet as they continued through the corridor. She had really been hoping that Lee would have just glazed over that part of their story.

"He mentioned that you had a hard time leaving."

"I did."

"Fall in love or have a hard time leaving?"

"Anders was something I could rely on, Lee. I mean, I had just come back to my home planet to find out that it was nothing like I thought it would be. Obviously it wasn't anything like the last time I had seen it, but it also wasn't anything like I ever would have imagined. There were no bodies, no real damage. It was like humanity had simply boarded ships and left. The planet was abandoned. And then it wasn't. There were people. Real people who had nothing to do with the Cylons. They were resisting."

"And you fell right in with them."

"At first they were just useful, and then I got taken by the Cylons."

"I still can't believe Helo let that happen."

Kara was thrown off by the sudden raw anger in his voice, and it made her pull him to a stop. "Lee, there was nothing he could have done. There's was nothing anyone could have done. When the Cylons attacked, the whole area turned into chaos. I didn't even realize I was hit until it was too late. So if you want to blame someone, blame me for not having my head in the game."

"Kara," Lee said, looking at her in disbelief.

"I just wanted to get that point across."

"And you did." They both started moving again in silence for a few moments before Lee pointed out, "You still haven't answered my question."

"Anders was someone new to me, Lee. He was refreshing, untainted by what the world had gone through. It was such a large change of pace when you considered what we've had to live through the past few months, and I've never been one to shy away from something new. He was something completely different than I expected. In my mind, Anders stood for the way life used to be."

"Used to be?"

"The world's not going back to what it once was. And neither am I." Kara sighed. "I was hesitant to leave Anders and the rest of the resistance back on Caprica because I thought I was leaving them to a life worse than mine. But coming back here, I know that the opposite is true. They have a better chance of finding something good by staying on Caprica. The Cylons might grow tired of the planet and move on. They could rebuild."

"We could rebuild, too," Lee pointed out.

"With what? There's only a handful of us left."

"A handful's more than none."

"That's very positive of you, Lee. Problem is I don't see one thing left that is worth going through all that trouble for."

"Obviously I didn't make one thing clear then," he said.

Before Kara knew what was happening, Lee had her pinned against a bulkhead wall and was giving her the kind of predatory look that made a girl think being the prey wasn't that bad of a thing. The last time he had looked at her like this was on Colonial Day right before he stepped in close to ask her to dance. The memory of his flirty tone made her shiver slightly.

He ducked his head down to kiss the side of her neck. "Oh, that's new," Kara whispered. She forced herself to grab hold of the protruding piece of the wall when she felt Lee's lips part as his tongue reached out to taste her.

By the time he finished his slow journey towards her lips, Kara felt like her knees were going to give way. Lee chose that moment to grab her tightly by the waist and pull her in close to him. Her heart sped up as she brought her arms instinctively around his head to tickle the back of his neck. She had always loved the way this hair felt running through her fingers. She could feel his arms strengthen around her as he slowly pulled her in until she was standing on the tips of her toes. Never once did her lips leave his.

Whatever was going on between them was unfolding like a slow, sensual dance. It was the kind of kiss Kara hadn't felt in years. It demanded from her but at the same time would take no more than she was willing to give. The way his lips pressed gently against hers with just a little bit of pressure was virtually intoxicating. She couldn't help but part her lips in response, asking him to push her further.

Their tongues melted together in a desperate quest to touch, to taste. It was as if they were both struggling to find something in one another and when it lay naked and exposed in front of them, they discovered that they couldn't let go. Breaking apart now would hurt too much.

Eventually it became a matter of oxygen and Kara felt Lee pull away, leaving her braced up against the wall with her eyes held shut and her mouth hanging open. She figured she would try to wake up when her heart stopped beating so fraking fast.

"Point taken," she said, her voice reduced to a sexy whisper as she slowly slid her eyes open.

Lee looked like he was about to say something, but they were interrupted by a figure coming running around the corner. Kara wasn't surprised to see it was Boomer. What surprised her was the little sting of jealousy in the pit of her stomach. It was hard to stare your "replacement" right in the face. She tried to push that ugly feeling away as Boomer skidded to a stop in front of them. Plus Lee's arms were wrapped around her body and Kara could still feel his heart beating from the kiss they had just shared. If there had been a competition going on for Lee's affection, she was pretty sure she had just won.

"Is something wrong, Boomer?" Kara asked as she pulled herself out of Lee's arms. It wouldn't be nice to rub the Cylon's nose in her crushing defeat.

Boomer glared at her for a moment before turning to look at Lee. "I was nice and let you two have your little private reunion moment, and now the rest of the team has dropped off the DRADIS. I can't find them anywhere, Lee. I've been running all over the ship. They've disappeared."

"You think the Cylons got them?" Lee said. The concern was evident on his face.

"It was only a matter of time," Boomer said. "I doubled back as quick as I could. Figured if they had gotten to the others, you were next on the list. We need to get off this ghost ship as soon as possible if we want to stay alive."

"We have to look for the others," Kara said, looking to Lee. He gave her a small nod in support. "They might not be dead."

"There's not time," Boomer said, shaking her head. "There's no way they survived if the Cylons found them."

"We're not abandoning them without knowing for sure," Kara insisted.

Kara was waiting for Boomer to continue arguing when the air erupted with gunfire. She watched as the machine who had once been her friend took hit after hit. Turning in shock, she was stunned to see Lee standing beside her, the smoking gun held firmly in his right hand.