Two hours later, Kara collapsed on top of him in a sweaty, gasping, delirious daze. She kissed his collarbone, letting her lips brush over his throat and jaw before traveling up to his mouth. She pulled back to look at him, giggling breathily as he tucked the fallen hair back behind her ears. She laid down next to him and settled into the hollow of his arm. She heard him moan in exhausted arousal and looked up at the ceiling breathing in short, staccato breaths.

"Well," She said matter-of-factly. "That was a new development."

She felt the laughter reverberate through him as she turned to rest her cheek against his bare chest. "Wasn't new, Kara." He exhaled, still trying to get his breathing under control.

She lifted her chin and placed it up close to his neck as she kissed his Adam's apple. "You're telling me that we've been having sex all along and I just didn't know it?" She teased.

His fingers skated up her spine. "No. If we had been having sex, you definitely would have known it."

"Humility is such a mortal virtue. Figures that you wouldn't have any, Apollo." She leisurely let her fingers crawl up his chest.

"What we just did was so wrong." He said in a blatantly obvious mock-serious tone.

"Oh, I'm sorry." She said as he grabbed her hand and brought it up to kiss her fingers. "Did it offend your deep sense of propriety and incredibly-ingrained prudishness, Sir?"

"No." He mumbled as his tongue swept against the length of her finger. "I just wanted to be on top."

She quickly pulled her finger away and moved to look down on his face that was now split by a wide, anticipatory grin. "Not a chance in hell. Floor's too cold."

"That's why I made sure that the clothes were underneath us." His hand clenched on her hip. "I'm always considerate."

"Has anybody knocked on the door?" She inquired, nodding to the hatch.

"Don't know." He uttered fervently, running his hands up her ribcage.

"You don't know?" She asked in amazement.

"I was a little preoccupied." He replied, nuzzling her neck.

"I noticed." She chuckled. "Very focused, very attentive, and I don't know what Angela was whining about, I happened to like the freakishly obsessive-compulsive even number thing."

"Thank you." He whispered as his lips traveled up to her cheek. "And that thing that you did? With the ear…….you know? Where you……." He let his tongue circle the shell of her ear, earning an appreciative groan from her before he bit the lobe.

"So, you liked that, did you?"

He laughed softly into her hair. "It would take about five hours to catalog all the things that you did that I liked." He breathed deep. "And we don't have five hours."

"Speaking of which, what time is it?"

"It's—." He looked at his wrist but found it bare. "Hey, where's my watch?"

"I think you took it off." She giggled. "Or flung it off I should say."

"Yeah, I was pretty frantic to remove every barrier." He gleamed at her.

"And you thought your watch was a barrier?" She teased.

"Anything that keeps any inch of my skin from touching any inch of yours has no place on our bodies." He confirmed.

Kara sat up and turned the digital clock on his desk to face them. "It's 03:45, I need to be in the ready room in two hours to get ready for a 06:00 training seminar." She looked back at him. "When are you on?"

"I'm on now." He replied as he sat up beside her.

She snorted in shock. "You mean to tell me that you just frakked a junior officer, in your office, during duty hours?"

"Uh-huh." He smirked, running his hands up her back.

"Well, Captain Adama, I may just have to report you for that."

"Your name would be on the report as the other guilty party." He pointed out.

"Yeah, but they expect it from me. If they found out you did it; that would cause quite a stir." She leaned in to kiss him.

"Frak!" He clutched his head in his hands.

"Well, if you insist." She smiled as she ran her hands down his torso. "But you'll have to make it quick."

He grabbed her hands to stop their journey. "I'm supposed to counsel a new pilot in the conference room at 04:00." He told her apologetically.

"You have a meeting in the middle of the night?" She questioned skeptically.

"It's not the middle of the night for him, or me. We're both on duty."

"Well, it's a good thing you remembered. This would be quite difficult to explain when he came to your office looking for you after you stood him up." She reached for her bra and slipped it over her head. "Door's locked, it'd take us a while to answer it when he knocked because we'd be busy putting on our clothes, and he'd notice that we were both in here………. even a wet-behind-the-ears rookie would start to ask questions." She finished as she put on her shirt. "Uh, you're on my pants." She pointed beneath him as she smiled and placed a soft kiss on his cheek. "Time to get dressed, CAG."

Two minutes later, they both had on all of their clothes. "And you still haven't seen my watch?" He asked looking around the room.

"Nope. We found the big items. The little ones will turn up eventually." She smoothed a crinkle in the fabric of his jacket.

"How do I look?" He grinned.

"Like you just had the best sex of your life."

His face grew puzzled. "Why would that be? The best sex of my life happened when I was twenty." He laughed and grasped her hand before she smacked his shoulder. "I'm joking." He whispered as he pulled her to him. "You have to know I'm joking. Surely you must have noticed. My eyes have never rolled into the back of my head quite that far before."

"Hmmm." She whimpered. "Leave now. Or I'll make you late for sure."

He nodded and kissed her on the forehead before walking out of the room.

Kara waited a good five minutes before leaving as well. As she closed the hatch behind her, she noticed Helo walking down the hall in her direction. He stopped in mid-stride when he saw her and then when he continued, it was slowly and with a knowing smile on his face.

"Starbuck?" He smirked. "You, uh, have a 'late night meeting' with the CAG?"

"It's 04:00, Karl. Shouldn't you be asleep?" She replied in annoyance.

"I'm not on duty until 15:00, I've got plenty of time to sleep." He nodded to the door before grinning widely at her. "So, I take it you and Apollo have worked out your problems? Or is that red mark on your neck actually a bruise?"

She grew irritated. "Okay, you need to stop right now. Do you really want to compare and contrast sexual partners? Because I have a feeling I'd win."

"I won't say another word." He held up his hands in defeat.

"You better not. If anybody else finds out about this, I'm coming after you, and I don't think that you would find that pleasant."

"Nobody will hear anything from me, but they might figure it out. You…….."

"What?" She asked concerned.

He smiled slightly. "You look different, Kara."

"I can't possibly look all that different from the last time I saw you." She looked down to her feet and then back up her own body.

"You'd be surprised what a few hours will do." He shrugged and walked on.

Kara had gone back to her bunk and slept for an hour and a half. She woke up happy and refreshed despite the small amount of rest and the ache that lingered in her whole body. She took a long, hot shower and dressed for the day. She walked down the hall, desperately trying to smother the small smile that had been plastered on her face since she had left Lee's office. She had nearly accomplished it too, until she saw him walking down the hall coming towards her. As he walked past her, he gave her a small nod and a meaningful wink.

She walked into the briefing room and all the trainees came to attention. She quickly put them at ease and stood at the podium. She had a nervous habit of gripping the sides and drumming her fingers against it, today was no different.

Only this time, she noticed that there was no metallic clink as she did it. She looked down at her thumb and noticed that there was no ring.

She nearly choked out a sob, but fortified herself before anyone noticed. Her heart sunk to the pit of her stomach, she had to fight to breathe.

"Hey, Lt. Thrace? I was wondering if we could go over the negative-G pushover thing again." A trainee asked. "I'm having a hard time."

She found her voice to speak, but it was soft. "We need to take a break."

One trainee chuckled in disbelief. "We just got here."

"Who's the frakking instructor here?" She snapped back as she started to exit the room. "I'm instructing you to amuse yourselves for twenty minutes."

She walked down the hallway in a numb stupor. 'The ring, the ring, I took off the frakking ring! How the hell could I do that? Just take off the ring? Why don't I just remove an arm, too?'

That ring hadn't been off of her hand in well over three years……………

"I got you something." Zak had said as he placed it in front of her.

"What is it?" She asked shaking the small box.

"Gods, Kara. Please tell me that you're not one of those people who asks what something is when all they have to do is open the box."

She opened it and set it back down on the table. "It's nice." She said quietly.

"I noticed that you don't ever wear jewelry."

She laughed sarcastically. "Yeah. Well, I used to wear one side of a heart necklace that my BFF gave me, but the little bitch asked for it back when she got pissed at me because we wore the same pink dress to the Winter Dance. I've been heartbroken ever since."

He laughed as she nervously traced the band that was still sitting in the box. "We've only been together for three weeks, Zak. I don't think that you should be giving me rings."

"It's not an engagement ring, Kara." He teased as he pulled the ring out of the box. "Look, it's too big to fit on that finger. It goes on your thumb."

"Who'd wear a ring on their thumb? I don't know anybody that does that."

"You're not 'anybody', Thrace. Besides, you need to wear something shiny that will distract people from the enchantment of your eyes." He took her hand and slipped it on. "See? Plain silver band, not a gemstone on it or lacy pattern engraved in it. It's simple, beautiful. Just like you."

She smiled sweetly at him as she leaned across the table to kiss him. "I really like it."

"Promise me you'll wear it" He kissed her back. "Even if you chuck me to the curb three days from now, I want you to have it."

"I'll wear it. I'll never take it off."

Had she really been in such a gods damn hurry to frak Zak's brother that she had followed his lead and discarded everything that touched her body except for him?

She had to lean against the wall as she stood outside Lee's office. When she opened the door, she was beyond relieved that she didn't find him in there. She spent the next five minutes tearing the room apart. She found his watch underneath a bookshelf and put it back on his desk.

'I hadn't thought about Zak in six hours. I'd never gone longer than three hours before.'

As she crawled around on her hands and knees looking for the ring, she found something else. Both sets of their dogtags resting on the floor in the corner of the room.

She picked them both off the floor and held hers in her fingers. Her one dogtag. Her heart froze. Where had she left the other one? 'Oh, yeah. In the hand of a man that she left behind in a nuclear wasteland.' She slipped the chain back over her head.

She heard her own breath escaping in sobs and she sunk to the floor. She settled into the corner and as she pulled her knees up to her chest, she felt something hard underneath her, digging into her skin. She reached down and pulled out the ring. She slipped it back on her thumb and buried her face in her hands.

'My gods, what kind of horrible person am I?'

She went back to training and spoke in straightforward, monotone phrases. She flew CAP and never uttered a word besides "affirmative", "negative", "copy" and "understood". She walked down the hall like a tranquilized woman and never even heard Racetrack and Cally when they asked her to join them in the mess hall. She just grabbed a bottle of water and walked back to his office. She sat there until she heard the hatch open.

"Hey." He smiled widely at her. "This is a pleasant surprise."

She smiled back faintly. "Did you sleep?"

"I was exhausted, haven't slept so well in months. So thanks for that." He chuckled as he put the papers in his hand on the desk and sat down. "Hey! It's my watch." He said as he picked it up.

"Yeah." She replied quietly.

"Where'd you find it?" He asked off-handedly.

"It was under a bookshelf." She said numbly. "We threw it across the room and it fell under a bookshelf." She repeated in a tortured voice. "We threw it without thinking, without caring where it would land." Her voice quivered. "Without knowing if it would break on impact against the floor."

His eyes lifted up from the papers and he looked at her, concern etched on his face. "Kara, what's wrong?"

"We weren't thinking at all." Her gaze stayed locked on a random spot on the wall. "Not about the past, not about the future. Just the present."

He grew nervous, terrified and resigned all at the same time. "And what's wrong with that? The past is dead. And who knows if we'll even have a future." He let out a deep sigh. "You're backing out of this, aren't you?"

She looked back at him, a single tear falling out the corner of her eye. "I don't think I can do this."

His eyes silently pleaded with her. "I can't believe I have to tell you this, but……….you don't think, you just do it."

She sucked in a harsh breath. "Then I just can't do this."

He looked at her for quite a while, his face expressionless. "I thought that I couldn't do it either. You remember what I said last night about the Chief's booze making you see things that you didn't notice before? Well, a week ago, after I said your name while I was kissing Dualla, I left feeling confused and disgusted with myself. I went and got some of the Chief's stuff and tried to drink myself into oblivion, but all it did was make me see how I can't not do this."

"So basically you're saying that you got drunk and then you wanted to sleep with me?"

He jerked at her remark and his face distorted. "No, Kara. That isn't what I'm saying! And you know—."

"You know what? That isn't where I wanted this to go. I'm not trying to place any blame here, or tell you that what we've been feeling isn't real. I'm just tying to tell you what I already told you: that I can't do this."

He chuckled ruefully. "Why am I not surprised?"

"That's not fair, Lee." She covered her eyes with her hands.

He stood up from his chair. "None of this is fair, Kara!"

She snapped. "I know that!" She paused a moment and her voice got very low as she looked at him again. "I know that, Lee. All of this is so unfair. Because if we were back on the colonies, if we didn't have this past between us, if we were different people……… If I had met you in a bar, or a park, or a waiting room; I'd want to leave with you. I'd talk to you for five minutes and know that I wanted to be with you forever." She sobbed once and then drew in another breath, her voice growing steadier. "But we're not back on the colonies, we do have a past between us, and we aren't different people."

"And you can't let us be together with all those things in the way." He finished for her.

She nodded. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It doesn't matter." The bitterness evident in his voice as he walked to the door. "How did I know you'd find a way to ruin this?"

She spoke quietly as he opened the hatch. "Because I'm a screw up, Lee. Try and keep that in mind."

TBC