Her last bit of control went flying out the window as Helo sucker punched her in the gut. "Bastard," Kara wheezed as she tried to pull herself to her feet despite the shooting pains running through her whole body.

"Come on, Kara! If you can't keep up, just tell me!" Helo taunted.

Gritting her teeth, Kara lashed out in anger and wasn't surprised when Helo dodged every punch. She would have been disappointed in her punch's ineffectiveness if only it hadn't been a diversion that left Helo open for a well aimed kick to the back of the knees.

"Frak," Helo hissed as he hit the ground.

"The big man falls hard," Kara said, pushing him onto his stomach with her foot. "Just remember you were the one that started the fighting dirty."

"My mistake," Helo laughed. He pulled himself to his feet. "I should have known better."

"You should have," she agreed, pulling herself back into an opening stance. It only took Helo a couple seconds rest before he was launching another round of punches at her face.

The fast pace they had been fighting at combined with the snappy pattern of banter had been keeping Kara distracted for well over an hour. It was good, considering there was a pilot briefing that afternoon. Since returning to the Fleet two weeks earlier, what had once been one of many things she hated most about being a pilot had skyrocketed to the thing she hated most in all facets of her life. She was still avoiding the real reason why those briefings had become so painful.

Helo's fist connected hard with her jaw, and Kara felt her knees bow out from the pain. "You're distracted," he goaded.

"No, I'm not," she hissed. Her hand went up to feel her lip and came away with blood on it. "Frak, Karl! You split my lip!"

"You split mine about ten minutes ago," he countered.

"I didn't realize you'd be this bitter about losing the position of prettiest pilot," she growled.

"Get off your ass, Thrace."

Kara was about to push herself off the ground and show Helo a whole new level of pain when something out of the corner of her eye caught her attention.

Lee was leaning against a punching bag, his face contorted in pain. Kara's eyes shifted to his hands. They were clutching the bag tightly, and despite the tape he had wrapped around them, she could see them shaking. He was in pain. Kara pulled herself to her feet and flung her gloves to the floor before jogging over to where he stood. She ignored Helo's insulted cry as she abandoned him without a word.

Kara touched Lee's shoulder lightly. "Is the gunshot wound still bothering you?"

"I'm fine," he hissed through his gritted teeth.

"Liar," she whispered. She used her hand to turn his body away from the punching bag. "I thought Doc Cottle cleared you."

"He said that the wound might heal a little stranger than normal because it took so long to have it treated," Lee explained.

Kara nodded before pushing Lee's tanks up. His hands came out to immediately push them back down. "Kara, we're in the middle of the fraking gym."

"I want to see it," she insisted, moving her hands up his stomach until the tanks no longer obscured her view of his body. There was a small puckering of skin where the wound was healing over, but there hadn't been enough time for the bruises to heal. Purple and black slashed across Lee's stomach, and Kara felt herself flinch at the notion of how much pain it must cause Lee to take one single breath, let alone what it felt like to try to move.

"Lee…" she whispered, her eyes looking up to meet his. "You never told me it was this bad."

"It's not that bad," he insisted.

"There's no way Cottle cleared you," she pointed out. She felt Lee shiver as she moved her fingers lightly across the bruises. Her mind wouldn't let her read anything into that, no matter how much her heart screamed.

"I'm not back on flight rotation," Lee admitted after a moment of silence. "I'm only doing the CIC and maintenance part of my job as pilot."

"You've been implying that you were flight cleared. There's no way you should be in the gym if the Doc hasn't cleared you for any of the physically demanding parts of being CAG," she hissed.

Lee stared at her. "I didn't want anyone to know. It's better if they keep imagining me as the impenetrable Commander of the Air Group. They need to have people they can look up to and idolize."

Kara cocked her eyebrow at him. "Idolize? I think you're starting to take your call sign a little too seriously, Apollo."

"I'm the one that everyone expects to lead them into battle, Kara. I can't appear weak."

The truth to his words hit her, and she lowered her eyes. She had never thought of it that way, but now that he mentioned it, the Air Group would take a big morale hit if their CAG was kept out of the air for too long. Kara's finger absentmindedly started tracing the bruises again.

This time Lee didn't shiver.

His hand came up to stop hers, but he didn't push her hand away. It suddenly occurred to Kara that at no point in their conversation had he made a move to step away from her. Lee had pointed out the inappropriateness of her actions in their current location, but after the warning, he had done nothing to stop her.

She couldn't help but wonder if she wasn't trying to read more into this than was actually there. Was she that desperate to try to stop the confusion that had set up shop in her brain since Picon?

"Lee," she started, raising her eyes to met his.

Kara watched Lee's gaze drift to rest on something over her shoulder. "Not now, Kara."

She rolled her eyes. "Helo can wait."

"It's not that," he said, letting go of her hand and stepping away.

Kara turned around to see Anders come in through the open hatch. By the time she turned back, Lee had pulled his tanks down and was bending over to pick a towel up off the floor. He straightened up and smiled at her. "I'm running the briefing in an hour, Starbuck. Don't be late."

The wink he gave her threw Kara off just enough that she didn't remember Anders was there until he wrapped his arms around her. "You're jumpy," he said with a laugh.

"I thought you were Helo," she said, covering as best as she could. "We were sparring before, and I don't think we ever decided who was the winner. I keep expecting him to jump out of the woodwork any second now."

Anders raised his eyebrows and pointed over to the weight machines where Helo was currently bench pressing. "Oh," Kara said, biting her lip. "Would you believe I didn't know he was still here?"

"No, but I'll let it slide because you're so cute," Anders chuckled. "Now, about why I'm here."

"I was wondering," Kara said, twisting out of his arms. When he pouted at the distance that was suddenly between them, she shook her head. "I smell."

"I don't care," he said, reaching for her.

Kara took a step back. "I do." She smiled to cover up the awkwardness of her insistence. "So why are you here, Sam?"

"I'm finally done with all those meetings I've had with the President. It seems like I've finally gone over ever possible detail of what I learned on each of the twelve planets to her satisfaction."

"I still can't believe before we left for Geminon the President asked you to catalogue the status of each colony without telling anyone." Kara shook her head. "And the fact that you agreed without even knowing her authority baffles me."

"She figured after Boomer, I would be the least suspected candidate. Everyone wouldn't be guarded around the guy who went through the same thing they did. Plus she wanted someone who had no previous connection with her. An objective source, if you will."

"So the endless string of meetings are finally over?"

He reached out to grasp her hand and pulled it up to his lips, kissing it lightly "And I thought you might want to celebrate. Dinner? A little quiet time over on Cloud Nine? What do you say, Thrace?"

"I can't," she said, pulling her hand back.

Anders rolled his eyes. "Of course you can't."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. It means nothing," he said, throwing his hands in the air and beginning to make his way to the door.

"It means something," Kara exclaimed as she jogged a few steps to catch up with him.

Anders skidded to a stop. "It's just you've been like this since we got back to Galactica. First, you come up to me after your little heart-to-heart with Lee Adama and mumble something about potential regrets and that you want to give me another chance. I'm pretty damn excited considering I had run out of ideas on how to get my second chance with you. Then we get back to Galactica, and you can't even find one fraking second to spend time with me."

"We spent time together last night," she protested.

"We were playing triad with half the fraking Air Group. I want to be alone with you, Kara."

She bowed her head to look at her feet. "I'm sorry if I've been busy."

"You know, I'm starting to wonder if you really meant it when you said you wanted to make this work."

"I'm trying, Sam," Kara insisted, looking up at him. "I know it makes you mad, but it's hard to forget how insensitive you were before. It's taking me awhile."

"I can't wait around forever, Kara. You need to either start making time in your life for me or else I'll stop asking."

"I wish things were that simple, that I could just say okay and clear a few hours time in my schedule. Unfortunately, we are at war here, Sam, and you're dating one of the Fleet's best pilots. If the Cylons show up, they're going to want me in the air. If there's a mission to plan, they're going to want me to give my opinion. If there are nuggets to train, they're going to want me to put my seal of approval on the little frakers. I can't shrug away from my responsibilities just because I'm one of the lucky few to still have a personal life."

"I'm not asking you to stop doing what you love. I just wish you would consider spending your free time with me instead of Helo or the Commander." They both knew there was another person on the list of people Kara chose to spend her time with, but neither of them were going to say it out loud. That would involve actually looking the problem in the face, and they weren't ready for that quite yet.

"All right," she said, nodding. "I promise I'll try."

"Good," Anders said, giving her a smile. "So dinner?"

Kara bit her lip before shrugging. "I can't. There's a pilot briefing that I have to go to. It's not voluntary."

"Fine." Anders shook his head as he started making his way towards the hatch again. "But if I find out this is less about doing your duty as a pilot and more about the man who happens to run those pesky pilot briefings, I'm not going to be happy."

Kara's mouth dropped in outrage as he dropped out of sight. Sure, Anders was only acting like the cocky pyramid captain she had taken him to be those first few days on Caprica, but she had really thought he would have more respect for her than that. If she said she wanted to give this relationship a second chance, then she meant it. The fact that her decision on that matter had a lot to do with Lee wasn't something she was willing to dwell on right now.

"Helo!" she screamed as she picked her sparring gloves off the floor. "I'm feeling ready for round two, and I apologize for kicking your ass ahead of time."