"So he handed it to me and said: 'Here. I wanted to get you something because of, um………'" Lt. Anderson took on a stuttering, nervous imitation of her new beau. "'Because of, ya know, what we just did? Because of…….ya know. Just because.'" She rolled her eyes as she sat at a table in the mess hall, conveying the story to three other women.

"What did he give you?" Racetrack asked curiously.

"DEODERANT." Anderson hissed. "Son of a bitch gave me deodorant."

"Oooooh." Kat added. "That had to burn."

"What?" Starbuck interjected as she looked up from the papers that were strewn across the table in front of her. "I think it's sweet."

"Starbuck!" Anderson nearly shouted in disbelief. "Less than twelve hours after I sleep with this guy for the first time, he gives me something that you put on so that you don't smell. How am I not supposed to be insulted by that?"

"Maybe he didn't mean it like that." Starbuck told her defensively. "Maybe he wasn't saying that you smelled, maybe he was just giving you something that is going to be a very prized item in about six months when everybody starts running out. I know Stingray; I don't think he has it in him to be as mean and insensitive as you think he was being."

"So as a grand, intimate gesture he gives me personal hygiene products?" Anderson laughed in irritation. "I mean, it wasn't even women's deodorant."

"Well what do you want?" Racetrack asked. "Flowers, candy, jewelry? You live on a battlestar, Susan. Those things were hard to come by even before the end of the world."

"Maybe I just wanted something a little less mundane." Anderson pouted. "I wanted him to go to a little trouble."

"Well, have you tried to get anybody to hand over toiletries lately?" Starbuck snorted. "It's like pulling teeth. Besides, flowers and candy are so impersonal, and any guy could walk into any store and pick out jewelry for any girl. Even one he hasn't met yet. I used to know some guys who'd buy jewelry just keep it on hand," Starbuck winked. "Ya know? In case they got lucky."

"So you're saying that I should be happy that instead of something romantic………he got me something practical?"

"Yeah." Starbuck confirmed as she wrote something across a page that she'd been reading. "Something that you could use."

"Um, I'm not so sure about that, Starbuck." Kat said. "Once for my mother's birthday, my father gave her a vacuum cleaner. Because he 'thought she could use it'. She didn't speak to him for three days, and he slept on the couch for a week."

"I'm not talking about something that he wanted her to have so that she could be the perfect little wife. But maybe if your mother had been complaining for weeks about how she hated to use a broom and dustpan." Starbuck pointed at Anderson with her pen. "Or maybe if Stingray listened last week as you were complaining about how you'd soon be running out of the perfume your dad gave you for your last birthday." She paused as she thought for a second. "There's a context for everything. The best gifts are the ones that you get because the person that gives them to you knows you so well, and sees that you're in need of something, and wants to make your life a little easier. Maybe the giver wasn't even trying to be sentimental or romantic, but saw something and thought of you………because you're always in the back of his mind."

"Huh." Anderson smiled. "I'd never thought about it that way. Maybe he did give it to me to be sweet."

"Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Stingray's just a total tool." Starbuck shrugged. "You never know with guys." Anderson laughed and shook her head. "Well ladies, it's been lovely." Starbuck smiled as she rose from the table and gathered up the papers she'd been looking over. "But I have things to do."

As Starbuck walked away, Kat called back to her. "Uh, Lieutenant?" Starbuck turned around to face her. "You left one of your papers."

Starbuck sighed. "Gods, I have got to get more organized. I'm leaving paperwork everywhere." She said as she walked back to claim the errant report. "Do you have any idea what it's like to tell the Old Man and his compulsively put-together son that you don't have the information that they want because you may have left it somewhere between deck 3 and deck 5?" The others at the table all chuckled at her inefficiency as she rolled her eyes in self-deprecation. "See you guys later."

Six hours later Starbuck walked into the bunkroom in an anger-fueled trance. She had just spent a whole shift in CIC. Stupid Colonel Tigh. Stupid Geata. Stupid people expecting miracles that nobody alive could perform. She was tired, very, very tired. And all that she wanted to do was crawl into her rack and sleep for about ten thousand years. She looked over to Lee's bunk and saw that he was laying on his back, looking up at some papers in his hands.

"Hey." He smiled at her slightly. "How was your shift?"

"Don't want to talk about it." She gruffed.

"That good, huh?"

"Exactly what part of 'Don't want to talk about it' do you not grasp?" She hissed.

He chuckled lowly. "Shutting up now."

"Thank you, I apprec—." She pulled back the curtain of her bunk and saw that there was a folder resting on her bed, a red string tied around it in a bow. "What the frak is this?" She screamed at him as she picked up the folder. "No! No frakking way, Lee. You are not giving me anymore paperwork! If you try and give me one more report or roster or flight log today I'm just gonna beat you across the head with it until you're bleeding profusely from the paper cuts on your face."

"Kara, calm down." He said soothingly.

"Don't tell me to calm down, Adama! And what, you think I'll find it cute when you pawn more work off on me as long as you tie a red bow around it? Well, frak you!" She shouted as she took off the red string and shook it in his face. She then opened up the folder and calmed down a little. "Hey, there's nothing in here."

"Yeah." Lee chuckled at her again. "I'm not giving you more paperwork. I'm giving you the folder."

"You're giving me the folder?" She asked in disbelief.

"Uh-huh." He smirked.

"Why?" She whispered.

"Maybe because you've been orphaning poor little documents all over this ship for weeks. Maybe because I'm sick of people coming to me at all hours, shoving a paper in my face and saying 'Here, Starbuck left this somewhere'. And maybe because I see how you've been making yourself crazy trying to remember where you left the papers you lost."

"So you're helping me get organized?" She giggled.

"Most of the time I find your whole 'living on the fringe of civilized society' thing endearing, but disorganization is a cardinal sin in my book." He saw her staring at him with her mouth hanging wide open. "Why are you looking at me like I've grown a third eye?"

"No. No, it's just………I've never had anybody give me a folder before."

"It's not just any folder, Thrace. Here—." He took the folder from her hands and opened it. "See? It's got two compartments. I thought you could label them. One could say: Things that actually have to get done. And the other could say: Things that Apollo is just being really anal about." He laughed as he handed it back to her.

"So you just gave me this because you thought I needed it." She stated in amazement.

"Yeah, I noticed that you were having a hard time keeping everything straight, and I thought you could use something to make your life easier."

"Uh-huh. Hey, Lee?" She scratched her head. "Have you spoken to anyone this afternoon? Racetrack or Kat or Susan Anderson?"

"No." He answered simply as he laid back down on his bunk and returned to his reading. "I've been on CAP for the last six hours."

She looked at the folder and traced the edges tenderly. "When did you get this for me?"

"This morning." He looked over at her and saw how she was staring in awe at what he had given her. "Hey, Kara? It's not that big a deal. I only had to go through a few boxes in the back of my office to find it."

"No. Yeah, you're right. No big deal." She laughed as she stood smiling down at him. "I can really use this. Thanks for the office supplies, Apollo."

-finis

Merry Christmas, everybody.