Lee looked down at his plate for the fifteenth time that minute and groaned to see it still halfway full. This glop the mess hall was calling lunch was getting worse. In the beginning, he swore he could force it down within ten minutes. Now he had already been sitting at the table for half an hour and he was nowhere near done.

"Okay, you're not deluded at all," he hissed to himself as he started to eat again.

As much as he blamed it on the horrid Battlestar food, he knew his lack of appetite had nothing to do with that. Like most of his other problems, this one was caused by a certain blond spitfire who didn't seem to have the time of day for him anymore.

He wasn't sure if it was his fault she was avoiding him or not. All he knew was he missed Kara like crazy. She had become a staple in his life, and he hadn't even realized it.

It wasn't even the big things he missed about not having her around. It was all those fraking small things that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find in anyone else.

Kara always managed to throw a taunt at him in the middle of briefings just at the moment that he started feeling like he really wasn't the one who should be the leading the Air Group. She always popped up on his four a.m. runs when the silence was starting to kill him. She knew what to say to make him understand what made his father tick. Some days, her smirk was the only thing that could make him smile.

And he wasn't even going to start thinking about the way she chose to prance around in one of those little towels just at the moment when he thought that life had sucked away any sort of sexual appetite he might have had.

Add it all up, and his life didn't really look all that good anymore.

"Frak, Lee!" he muttered. "What did you do to piss her off?"

He was running through the last time he spoke with her, that day in the gym when he couldn't bring himself to push her hands away, when a tray slammed onto the table next to him.

"You look like the world just ended again, Lee," Kara said, sliding onto the bench next to him.

"Maybe it has," he snapped back.

"How wonderfully pessimistic of you."

Lee tried to keep scowling, but the way she was beaming at him made it impossible. He pushed a few more bits off his tray and into his mouth. His appetite was already starting to return.

"So how are the Picon recruits shaping up?" Kara asked, picking up her sandwich and taking a massive bite.

"Not bad. I think they might actually be better than some of the pilots originally stationed on this hunk of junk."

"No way they're better than Galactica's finest!" Kara objected, a piece of wayward lettuce flying out of her mouth. She smiled widely at Lee, mouth still shoved full of chewed sandwich, when she caught his disgusted look.

He shook his head. "You are so fraking gross."

"You love it," she snickered.

Lee set down his fork but kept his eyes glued to the table in front of him. "I miss it."

Kara's hands froze halfway up to take another bite, and the tiny voice in her head began to scold her. Her eyes had immediately found Lee when she stepped into the mess. Everyone around him was talking and joking like normal, and he was just sitting by a table, stiff as a lump and looking twice as sad. She had known it would be a mistake to sit with him, but she just couldn't stop herself.

Anders had been commissioned by the President to help some of the Cloud Nine workers set up a pyramid court which meant he was off-ship most days. It had given Kara a little more freedom in what she chose to do, but she still knew better than to do this.

She had stuck to the promise she made Anders ten days earlier. When she wasn't on shift or busy doing Fleet work, she tried to spend time with him. In fact, she was doing so well that Helo had actually accused them of being an old married couple the other night. She had found it amusing at the time, but the comment had slowly started to bug her. When had she decided to let herself be so tied down?

Shrugging that thought to the side, Kara focused on how happy Anders was. He knew she was trying. The other night, Dee invited her to play triad with Spitshooter and Gaeta, two of the easiest marks on the ship. She had almost agreed when Lee passed by them with a quick comment that she should get herself dealt into their game before it was all filled up. Knowing she would have to sit across a table from Lee and still keep him at arm's length was too much for her. She had told Dee no and settled in for yet another night of playing solitaire while Anders finished up wherever the President currently had him working.

If Kara didn't know better, she would swear the President was trying to kill her relationship with Anders. Roslin had him working almost as relentlessly as Kara and Lee. Anders seemed to pick up a million or so odd jobs around the Fleet that no one had ever had the time to complete. As much as Kara was happy he was finding his place amongst them, she was kind of ticked off. It was hard to repair a relationship when the two people involved were never on the same ship.

"I don't understand you."

Lee's voice pulled her away from her unsettling thoughts. "What?"

"First you sit down and practically maul that damn sandwich. Now you've barely even taken a bit in the last five minutes." Lee shook his head. "And before you shove my face in it, I don't want to know where you found stuff to make a fresh sandwich."

"Anders had a few favors he called in. He managed to get some of the first crops when they were being harvested on the new farming ship yesterday." She held her sandwich out to him. "You want some?"

"I don't think Anders would appreciating you sharing with me."

"He doesn't have to know," Kara said, giving him a sly wink. She mentally slapped herself for saying the words she had been continuously repeating to herself since deciding to keep Lee company.

Lee stared at the food in her hand for a moment before leaning over and taking a bite. He let out a low moan of satisfaction.

Kara smiled to herself. It was nice to go back to her familiar role of the person who could put that mega-watt smile on Lee's face. "So how's the old stomach feeling?"

"It's still sore, but the bruises have gone down. I think it has something to do with a hothead pilot's advice for me to lay off the punching bags for a while." He playfully bumped her shoulder with his and smirked.

Kara smiled back at him. "I was only speaking from personal experience."

"Your knuckles healed up nicely," Lee pointed out.

Kara slowly set down the sandwich and pulled her hands under the table. "You noticed that?"

"My star pilot has her instruments of flight bandaged for over a week? Yeah, I noticed."

"Star pilot?" she said, nudging his thigh with hers. She quickly regretted the action as neither one of them moved away. The heat was already flaring up her body from having close contact with him. She was in definite trouble.

"Only because I'm not in the air," Lee whispered. When she turned to look at him, he gave her a wink.

"You know how much you're missed right?" She knew that was the wrong choice of words immediately. It sounded like she was telling him she missed him. True as that might be, it wasn't going to help her stay away from him. "The pilots, I mean. We all miss having our CAG around."

Kara felt Lee's hand shift to nudge against where hers rested on her thigh. He hooked his pinky around hers and let out a small sigh. "I know what you meant, Kara."

She scolded herself silently. Of course Lee would know she missed him. She had refused to leave his side only weeks ago when he had been in a coma. Gods. Why did that feel like it all happened years ago?

"Doc Cottle just cleared me for Raptor flight," Lee stated.

"Really? That's fantastic!" Kara said, giving him her brightest smile.

"My dad has me running some of the more sensitive restocking missions."

"You mean the ones that involve booze and stogies?"

"Those would be the ones. I'm going to be traveling around the Fleet all of tomorrow. I know you have an off shift and I would appreciate having a co-pilot with me just in case." Lee chided himself for playing up the pity angle. "I just thought you might enjoy a break."

He glanced at Kara out of the corner of his eyes and was surprised to see her looking rather conflicted. What did she have to be torn about?

Kara pulled her hand away from him to pinch the bridge of her nose. "I can't, Lee. I'm sorry."

"It's no big deal. I know it was short notice and all. You probably already have plans for your rare time off." Lee stood up and grabbed his tray. "I better get a move on it. I've been eating my lunch for over an hour. My father's probably ready to send the Marines to get me."

Kara nodded. "I'll see you around, Lee."

Lee stared at her for a moment before letting out a breath and shaking his head. "We both know that's not true."

She dropped her eyes down to her half-eaten sandwich as the shame began to take over. Maybe she wasn't being as subtle as she hoped with the avoidance. Then again, she had never really been able to fool Lee when it came to her inner workings. Somehow, he managed to be one of the few people who could get an accurate read on her all the time.

Being reminded of that made her vision start to blur as the tears formed. She hadn't realized it would feel this painful to say no to Lee and have him understand without hesitation. Things had been so much easier when she was just avoiding him at all costs. She had been stupid to let herself have this little moment with him. She should have known with a guy like Lee, he would find a way to make her miss him even more without trying.

A day alone with Lee sounded like heaven right about now, and it wasn't just because she was so tired of the daily sacrifices that were being asked of her. What made his proposition so inviting was the knowledge that if she went away with him, she could let everything go. He wouldn't expect her to be anything but herself, Kara Thrace. She wouldn't have to be the mighty Starbuck, goddess of the skies, or Lieutenant Thrace, the go-to girl of the Fleet. She wouldn't have to be the best pilot to almost fail out of Academy or the pyramid player who had such promise before she frakked up her knee.

None of that mattered to Lee. He had learned long ago to ignore her past and just focus on what she was today. With Lee, she didn't have to keep up protocol and regulations. She could just be.

Scolding herself for being so self-pitying, Kara rubbed the tears away with one hand and picked up the abandoned sandwich with the other. She couldn't let this go to waste no matter how sick to her stomach she felt. It was Anders' gift to her.