When they did land, Lee jumped out of his Viper and began to head towards the Raptor, but he was stopped by a few pilots that desperately needed to talk to him. When he was finished with them he quickly grabbed a word with Tyrol and then finally made his way over to Kara.

"Hey" she smiled.

"Hey," Lee smiled back kissing her quickly, "look I have to go on shift so you go and get yourself checked out and I'll see you and Ali when I get back ok?"

Kara nodded and hobbled off to sick bay, as Lee got in another Viper and quickly launched, but not before Kara noticed him wince as he lent back in his seat. Kara sat in sick bay for hours, much to her disapproval.

"Come on. It's only a sprained ankle what's taking so long!" she shouted to no one in particular.

"Sorry it took so long, it's been quite busy in here" one of the nurses apologized quickly. She bandaged up Kara's ankle and then let her go as there really was nothing else that they could do and Kara could obviously walk on it. Kara looked at the time and realized that she had been in sick bay for almost 6 hours, she hobbled as quickly as she could towards Lee's office, hoping that she would find him there.

On her way there she turned a corner and came face to face with a group of nuggets. Normally she would have ignored them, but as she walked passed she heard one of them say something she couldn't leave alone.

"Yeah I mean it's not like he really cares about us, the only reason he got the job is cause his dad's the Commander."

Kara turned quickly and hissed, "He did not get the job because of his Dad, he's a damn good pilot and I won't hear anyone say otherwise. In fact there is only one person in the fleet that can beat him in the air and that's me, and when he's on form he can even give me a run for my credits. Though lately making sure that you get your beauty sleep so you don't frak up the Vipers or yourselves has meant he hasn't been on form for a while."

"With all due respect sir, I don't think he gives a frak out any of us, all he does is stick himself in the same rota positions so that he can get his own beauty sleep." another nugget sneered.

"Well I don't know where you got that idea from. He does care, in fact he knows the name of every pilot in the fleet, can tell you at anyone time whether they are injured or not and how serious the injury is, and he can tell you every pilot who has died while he's been CAG and how they died. I don't think someone who doesn't care would know all of that." Kara said inches away from the nuggets face.

"errm..." the nugget stammered.

"And I'll tell you why he always has the same shift. So that he can do his job, everyday before crawling into bed at 2 in the morning to get up for his shift at 4. However long he stays up though he can never seem to get everything he has to get done done, cause he's to busy trying to sort out your little squabbles and problems. It's no wonder that he doesn't fly on top form anymore."

"Well maybe he shouldn't fly if he can't fly up to scratch" the nugget said though not with quite as much conviction as before.

"You've got a nerve," Kara hissed louder, " none of you could fly half as well as he does, even when he's only had 2 hours sleep. So I suggest you should show him some more respect, cause L..." but she stopped as just at that moment Lee walked around the corner.

"I thought my ears were burning, so what's going on?" he asked.

"Nothing sir just a minor disagreement." the nugget stammered, backing away from Kara.

However Kara seemed to have completely forgotten the nuggets all together, "What are you doing here? I thought you'd be headed to the bunk room by now" she asked concern etched on her face.

"No, one of the pilots knocked himself out and won't be flying for the next few days, so I ended up taking over his shift. I've some paper work to do so I probably won't be back tonight, can you tell Ali I'm sorry? I was supposed to take her somewhere... I can't even remember where, but I didn't have time." Lee explained.

"Lee you should have got someone else to do it, it's obvious your shattered. You can't keep dong this to yourself, you'll end up burning out." she was right, the black bags under his eyes and his disheveled appearance made it easy to see that he hadn't slept for days and didn't have much left in him.

"Coming from you" Lee laughed.

"Yeah I know I work to hard, but at least I complain about being tired and do something about it when it gets too much."she almost shouted getting angry with him, but she calmed down slightly and quietly added, "Come and tell Ali your sorry yourself, and then get some sleep, you need it."

Lee just shook his head, "I can't I've got to write a report for tomorrow and I need to sort out... something for one of the pilots."

Kara just sighed, "Alright but when you've done that you get yourself to bed ok!"

Lee nodded slowly and then began to work his way down the corridor again. Kara turned back to the nuggets.

"You see what I mean" she whispered.

"Yeah," they all said sounding quite lost and confused.

"Alright, go on get out of here, and don't tell anyone... he doesn't want people to know, he's..." but she didn't finish. She had spotted Lee stumble and sit down hard on a crate that luckily was pushed against the wall.

Ushering the nuggets away she quickly walked up to Lee.

"Come on I'm taking you to the bunk room" she stated matter of factly.

"No Kara I really have things to do" Lee complained.

"I'm not taking no for an answer. I'm sure Adama will understand if the report's late, when I explain to him, and that pilot can wait another couple of hours for whatever it is." she said, having already begun to steer him down the corridor towards the bunk room. Lee soon seemed to give up and just let her get on with it, he really didn't have the energy to fight with her.

As soon as Kara and Lee got through the hatch, Lee was jumped on by Ali, making him stumble and have to catch himself on one of the bunks so as not to fall over.

"Hey sweety I'm sorry about this afternoon, I..."

"It's ok Daddy," Ali interrupted, "you can just take me tomorrow" she stated simply.

"Yeah, I'll take you tomorrow," Lee laughed.

"Meanwhile you can tell me a bedtime story," the girl cried while climbing up to her rack.

"Alright, go on move over," Lee sighed.

Kara stopped Lee briefly looking concerned, "I'll be ok," Lee whispered.

He clambered up onto the top bunk and sat down at Ali's feet. Kara smiled as she sat and listened to Lee telling a story about the great Twin Phantom, who was a superhero character from a comic book that everyone read when they were little, but Ali didn't know that and seemed encapsulated in the story. Kara smiled as Lee described one of the fights between the Twin Phantom and his evil nemesis the greaseman, remembering that it was one of the first stories in the series, she listened for a while as it was one of her favorite stories, but she was also listening for when he stopped as she didn't want him to catch her listening, After about 10 minutes the story seemed to drift away, Kara sneaked out of the bunk room quickly, after all she was supposed to be looking into getting what the pilot wanted, it was part of the deal with Lee to get him to get some sleep.

Kara managed to get the pilot what they wanted and explained to Adama exactly why Lee hadn't handed in his report yet. It had taken her a few hours and she went back to the bunk room after having also managed to trade Lee's CAP shift with another pilot who hadn't had a shift for another 27 hours. Leaving Lee with a whole day to catch up on his paper work and take Ali where he was supposed to take her, as well as this Kara had the day off because of her ankle and so planned to keep an eye on him to make sure he didn't push himself too hard. She entered the bunk room and was surprised to find Lee climbing down from Ali's rack.

"Did she wake up?" Kara whispered concerned.

"No I fell asleep." Lee grumbled rubbing his neck.

"What's up stiff neck?" Kara asked laughing slightly.

Lee nodded, but ended up grimacing and rubbing his neck again, as he slumped down to sit on the edge of their rack. Kara climbed onto the rack, knelt behind him and began to rub his neck and shoulders. As she was working her way down his shoulders and onto his back she heard him hiss through his teeth, it was only then that she noticed the blood on his tanks.

"Lee what happened to your back?"

"What?... oh I think I knocked off the scabs when I jumped down that hole."

"Why haven't you been to see Cottle?"

"Cause they've been busy and don't need some stupid thing like knocked off scabs."

"Lee this isn't something stupid, it's still bleeding."

"What? I thought it had stopped... oh frak" he said twisting to try and look at his back.

"Alright take your tanks off I'll be back with some water and a flannel, I'll try and clean it up" Kara said as she got up and walked out the hatch towards the head. Lee started taking his tanks off but found that some of the wounds had healed onto his tanks so every time he pulled at them another scab ripped off. When Kara got back he only had it half way up his back and was biting his lip trying to get the rest off. He took a deep breath, grabbed the bottom of his tanks and yanked them over his head, muffling a scream as he did. He threw the tanks in the corner and lay down on the rack on his stomach. Kara sat down next to him and began to try and clean the blood off, while also trying to stop the bleeding, as Lee grabbed the pillow in front of him and gripped it, until his knuckles started going white.

Kara lent forwards as she heard him stifle a gasp for the hundredth time and gently kissed the back of his neck, "It's alright Lee I've almost finished, just hold on a bit longer."

She had just finished and was about to help him sit up again when the hatch opened and a group of pilots walked in, Kara hadn't noticed the time and so the last shift had just finished. The pilots froze in the hatch and stared at Lee and Kara.

"Oh my God" one of them gasped as they noticed Lee's back.

"Sir are you alright?" another one asked.

"Yeah... Yeah I'm fine," Lee said quickly, sitting up and turning towards the pilots so they couldn't see his back, "Just do what you were going to do, but try not to wake the kid."

There was a chorus of "Yes sirs" and they all milled around quietly getting ready to hit the showers or their racks. As they were doing this Kara got up and pulled some clean tanks out of Lee's locker and threw them at him, hoping that they would act as some kind of protection for the cuts on his back. She then pulled off her jacket and sweats and climbed in the rack next to him. They both lay down on their sides and soon Kara felt Lee relax as he fell asleep.