Chapter 12

Lee turned behind him to the eagerly curious faces of Billy, Cally and Dee. He cleared his throat pointedly and motioned with his eyes to the back of the raptor.

"Aw man. This is just like when I was twelve. The grown-ups wanted to talk and it was 'bye bye, kiddies.' "Cally grumbled following Dee to the rear of the vessel.

Lee focused his attention on the radar for a moment, checking that no surprises were popping up in their vicinity and then noticed that Billy was still seated behind Jessica's chair.

"Don't you have 'Aide' things to do? Every time I see you, you're pushing paper. Go push some papers, Keikeya." Lee ordered.

"This could be a matter of colonial security, Captain." Billy insisted, his cheeks flushed pink. "What she reveals may be important to the President."

"Then she'll tell the President, later." Lee said.

"Come on, Billy." Dee wrapped her fingers around the young man's forearm and dragged him with her to the back where they'd be out of earshot.

Lee pitched the raptor and rolled slightly left and out of the corner of his eye, saw Jessica gripped her arm rests tightly at the shift of the plane.

"Okay, so talk to me." Lee instructed.

Jessica took a deep breath and blew it out in one long push then scowled at him. "I don't know why you want me to talk about this. You're just gonna laugh at me."

"Most likely, but I wanna hear it anyway." Lee insisted with a small lift of the corner of his mouth. "Come on, Talbot. Spill your guts...again." He risked a glance at her and nearly laughed. Her pretty green eyes were narrow slits of irritation.

"Don't be funny. When people with no sense of humour try to be funny, it's very disconcerting." Jessica snapped. Then she sighed in resignation when he didn't respond to her little dig. "Fine, but you asked for it." She warned. "Lately, I've sort of, maybe, been having visnbitoo." She muffled the last bit of her sentence with her hand over her mouth.

"I'm sorry but could you repeat that last part?" Lee asked angling his head closer to hers. He knew he was being a teasing ass but one didn't have a lot of chances for fun what with the world going to pot.

"Visions. Okay? Visions. Annoying, hot, terrifying visions." Jessica ground out through clenched teeth.

"About me?" He pressed, feeling his lower body stir as he imagined what exactly she meant by 'hot'.

"No. About Keikeya back there." Jessica jerked her thumb towards Billy.

"Yeah?" Billy asked, hearing his name mentioned but not much else with their whispering.

"I see no papers being pushed, Billy." Lee tossed back after sparing a glance at the speed monitor and slowing down slightly to give Jessica more time to keep her mind off their flying.

"Yes, about you." She confirmed, blushing.

"I see." He said, biting his cheek. "Sounds interesting. And in these visions..."

"We're married. Knots are tied. Balls and chains. The whole kit and kaboodle. The reason I know what your mom's wedding ring says is because you're going to give it to me. There. Happy?" Jessica asked and Lee was surprised to see her eyes glistening.

The idea of being married to him makes her cry. Figures, Lee thought sourly.

"You don't want to be married to me either!" Jessica burst, having picked up on his offended ego. "We're supposed to have a daughter. She's gonna fight in the last Cyon war. That's when it all finally ends. She's gonna help us be victorious. Now go ahead, laugh your ass off like I know you're dying to." Jessica crossed her arms over her chest.

Lee held his breath until he was sure he could prove her wrong."Jess, look, I know you take these...visions..." He nearly choked on the hokey word. "very seriously-"

"Don't worry, I have no intention of forcing you to marry me to fulfill some prophecy. I have no intention of marrying anyone. Ever. Especially not an emotional frak-wit like yourself."

"Ouch." Lee jerked, offended.

"Sorry. These visions are more like...well, guidelines really, I think. In the end, it all comes down to choices. So I'll just choose not to marry you and we can forget the whole thing. Deal?"

The idea irked him for some reason that he didn't dare investigate further.

"Wait, are you thinking that you actually want to marry me?" Jessica asked him, green eyes wide. Her voice was low and slightly breathless and filling Lee's head with a few hot visions of his own. He imagined her on her back, her body warm and wet, wrapped around his while that voice whispered delicious things in his ears.

Privy to the sexual turn his thoughts had taken, Jessica blushed bright red and Lee quickly tore his eyes away from hers and looked ahead through the dark vastness ahead of them.

"So that's what I was yelling about in CIC. I was hopped up on stims and I apologize if I embarrassed you. Now can we please not talk about this anymore?" Jessica pleaded.

Lee bit off the next question he would have asked but Jessica answered it reluctantly. Have you ever been wrong?

"No." Jessica replied out loud, her voice trembling. When Lee risked a glance, her eyes were looking at him with something between fear and hope and Lee found himself with the same feeling deep inside his chest.

"I'd make a lousy husband." Lee said out loud, for his own benefit as well as hers.

"No, you wouldn't." Jessica assured him and he saw a small smile struggle to remain hidden.

"Trust me, Jess. You wouldn't want to be shackled to me. I fit up here in the sky, in my viper, blowing Cylons out of the sky. Domesticity is not my thing and as for any kids, well, my dad was hardly around so it's not like I'd be any good at that either." Better at killing than living. He thought.

Jessica shivered in her seat. "Have you ever heard of Cassandra?" She suddenly asked.

Lee frowned. He was indeed familiar with that particular story and had run the legend over in his head a few times since Jessica Talbot had become a part of their lives. "The confuser of men." He said with a snort at how appropriate it was that the woman in the legend was prophetess. "Yeah, I know the story. She spurned Apollo so he cursed her. Nobody believed a word out of her mouth."

"You believe me." Jessica stated. "That's something I guess. But that's where the similarities end though."

"Cause we're both agreed the idea of us getting married is a joke?" Lee asked deciding it was best to set the ground rules early.

He wasn't sure if he heard her next words correctly cause her voice was lowered as to be almost inaudible.

"Cause I won't spurn Apollo."

A.N:

stargirl: Slightly gross was what I was going for. (laughs) Glad you're enjoying the story so far. Hope you enjoyed this one too

Mae: (Apollo muse rubs his spanked little tushie and grumbles how he always tries to satisfy everybody and only gets abuse) (pets poor Apollo muse who knows how much I love him)(laughs) Hope you enjoyed this story and trust me, my love little Apollo muse works very hard.

BS: Thank you for your lovely words! I highly reccommend you watch the show. Jessica is my own creation but the other characters are all from the show and it's highly inspiring. The best sci-fi show out there. Four a.m? (hands you some coffee) I'm flattered! Yep, all the little snippets and visions in Jessica's mind is all stuff that will be coming up in future books. I honestly have no idea how many books are gonna be in this series. Probably over 10 as I tend to write long epic yarns. (laughs) But I do promise that Jessica and Lee will be getting together waaaaayyyyy before book 10! I have the answers to all your questions but I dare not spoil you. (smiles) NEVER apologize for long reviews! I love long reviews and my Apollo muse lives on them! Thanks so much for taking the time to read this and I hope that you enjoyed this chapter too!

EvenstarNoVa: Sorry for the long wait between chapters, that's the hazards of straddling more than one story at a time. (laughs) Mmmmm, straddling...Apollo...sorry, got distracted there for a moment. (winks) I'm glad you like it enough to re-read the previous chapters! Believe me, I wish I could just clap my hands and have the whole story spew out onto the screen and not have to type it up. (laughs) Thanks so much for your kind words! As for when Jessica and Lee get down to it...well, do you really wanna know? (laughs) Soon though, I promise. Not in this book though, how's that? (evil grin) Probably Book 4. Though there will be plenty of sensual moments between them before that. Hope you enjoy this chapter too!