Kara managed to step into the briefing a few seconds before it was supposed to start. Treating the cuts and bruises on her knuckles had taken longer than she would have liked, but that's what happened when she let herself lose control.

Lee had given her a little smile and shook his head as she settled into one of the chairs in the back row. She would even go as far as to say he looked slightly surprised she had shown up at all. True, she was starting to be notorious for coming up with last-minute reasons why she couldn't make briefings, but excuses had been running dry the past couple of days.

Kara closed her eyes, listening to the lilt of Lee's voice as he rattled off the pilot assignments for the next week, and gave in to the reason why she hated these briefings so much. She let go of her self-control and let the rational voice in her head whisper irrational things to her.

"He appreciates you… understands you better than any other person you've ever known."

Lee had proven that to be true time and time again. He knew the difference between her pure fits of anger and the times she used anger to hide what she was struggling with inside. He knew that most of the time it was the second option that made her lash out.

Lee knew the value of silence when it came to being with her. Most times they were together, they barely even spoke. They simply felt the comfort of each other's presence and that was enough to make fears fade away.

Kara heard Lee chuckle at something Racetrack said, and the sound made her blood stir. He had always had a laugh that made her think things she shouldn't.

"You knew if you ever got him to lose control and stake a claim, he would take you to higher places than you'd ever been. You've seen him in the showers. A man with a body like that has to have some sort of god given talent when it came to that special place between the sheets."

Kara knew better then to let her thoughts go down that road. That road would only lead to a cold shower and lonely night with only her own fingers to give her release. She was trying so hard not to think about what fraking Lee would entail that her next thought caught her completely off guard.

"Nobody would ever love you better than that man."

The pain and guilt grew inside of her. She couldn't lie to herself. Loving Lee and having him love her back would probably be the most satisfying thing that could ever happen to her.

But she would never get to experience that.

It wasn't in the cards the gods had dealt her.

"He loved you once. You can make him love you again whether the gods approve or not."

Anders loved her, and the gods approved of that. Kara knew that she shouldn't be thinking about Lee when she had a man who cared about her so much. She should be focusing on using this time to come up with some way to make Anders believe she wanted to fix whatever had broken between them. He had been right when he said she wasn't trying.

"Starbuck? Are you even listening?"

Lee's teasing use of her call sign snapped her to attention. "I'm sorry, sir," she said, clearing her throat. "The gentle tone of your voice must have lulled me right to sleep. I had a hell of a workout earlier."

"So I hear," Lee said, raising his brow at her in an almost challenge.

Obviously he had heard about her argument with Anders and her subsequent knock-down, drag-out flight with Helo.

"I was simply saying that I'm pulling you down to half the shifts you normally have this week. I need to have those Picon recruits in the air by next rotation. After that, we should have weeded out any other appropriate recruits from the rest of the holocaust survivors. Hughes will be stepping up to help with the training as soon as you clear him. Something tells me the pressure's becoming too much for you if a light workout is making you that tired."

"Understood," Kara said. She gave him a small salute and waited until the other pilots had turned back to look at the front of the room before flicking him off.

Lee's eyes flashed as he tried to hold the laughter in. She hadn't done something as purposefully stupid as telling her superior officer where he could shove it since she sucker punched the XO before the attacks. It was nice to see her go back to the old Kara he knew.

The meeting broke up a few minutes later, but Kara couldn't tear herself away from Lee. She watched as he spoke with whomever had questions about their rotation assignments. It had always fascinated Kara to watch Lee do his job while the others were around. It was a facet of him she hadn't been able to witness before the attacks forced him to take on the CAG position. She never would have guessed it would be this intoxicating.

By the time she realized she was staring, the last pilots had all cleared off. Lee gave her a small smile as he gathers up the last of his papers and left the room, stopping only a moment to touch the picture hanging by the door.

This time it wasn't the voice inside her head that whispered to her. It was her heart.

If Lee would only give her one clue as to whether he still loved her like he did when she was Zak's…

Sighing, Kara shut her eyes and let herself escape into a daydream. She would start adhering to the promise she made to Anders in the morning. For now, she wanted one last night of avoidance.

She wanted one last night of imagining what it would be like if things in her life finally made sense.