I'm so, so, so sorry for the incredibly long delay. Thank you to everyone who is still interested in reading this. Please go back and read the previous parts if you've forgotten what this is all about.

Title: Chasm and Flood, Part 6?

Author: abelard

Rating: T

Spoilers: Mentions of stuff through S2, pure spec on my part

Summary: Lee loses Kara, and finds her again. Speculation on why the Cylons keep telling Starbuck she has a "special destiny." LeeKara, of course.

Feedback: Please!

Archive: Yes, just let me know.

Disclaimers: Not mine, etc.

Part 6

"I've decided that we're not going to tell the Fleet that we've found Starbuck," says Lee, and he starts walking again, and so does Helo.

"Because...," Helo begins, but it's not a question. Lee can tell that Helo grasps the decision perfectly well, and just wants to hear Apollo say it aloud.

"Because you know better than anyone," Lee says, "what they'll do to her if they find out she's a Cylon."

Helo pauses, floored – although he'd been after the admission all along – that Lee has said it aloud. Lee stops when he notices Helo isn't walking beside him. There is a boulder by the side of the road, and Helo sits on it. Lee stands beside him. They look out onto the starlit fields that surrounded the village where they've found Kara's...reincarnation.

Ten, maybe twelve minutes later, Helo speaks again.

"It explains some things," he says.

Lee asks, "Like what?"

"Her talent for killing Cylons. She knew how they move, how they, how they think, by instinct. And that raider she figured out to operate even when she was oxygen-starved...it explains that, too."

Lee sighs and tilted his head back, looked at the half-dark moon. "I thought about that. Yeah, it explains some things."

"But Starbuck...?" asks Helo, still dumbstruck. "I mean, of all the people...for Starbuck to turn out to be a...?"

"Don't say it," Lee says quickly. "We're never going to use that word again, not here, and especially not in front of her. Clear?"

Helo hears the command in the Major's voice. "Clear," Helo responds. He agrees with the order not just because he's a good soldier, but because he recognizes the resolve in Lee's tone, his stance. Helo is all too familiar with that feeling of denial, and defiance. "Look," Helo says, "I understand."

Lee looks at Helo as if he's been caught in something. Helo shakes his head, remembers that Apollo and Starbuck were – nothing to each other. They'd never had a relationship. Helo had never heard either one say they had any affection for each other beyond what was strictly appropriate. In fact, there were times that Apollo and Starbuck famously disavowed any feeling for each other at all.

But these past two weeks, Helo spent hours in the CAG's company watching Apollo take long swims in streams of alcohol. And Helo came to understand that there was a deep current of emotion between his dead friend, Kara, and the Admiral's son, and he doesn't quite get how he missed it before. Of course, for months, he's been caught up in his own drama of Cylon love, so maybe he was just blind to the true nature of Starbuck and Apollo's non-relationship. Anyway, the fact that he himself is in love with is a Cylon is exactly why he understands the Major's situation now.

Lee is still looking surprised and guilty and Helo wants to put him at rest. "I understand how you feel. Better than probably anyone else could. I want you to know, I won't interfere and I won't tell the Fleet."

"Thanks, Helo," Lee says, his head dropping. From relief, or shame, or just plain exhaustion, Helo can't tell.

"But you need to think, now. You need to decide how this is going to go. I care about Kara a lot. She's my friend. And I don't care about her any less knowing what she is. But we can't take her back to Galactica. You know that."

"I do," Lee answers, nodding. He seems so certain, so confident. Helo can't figure out what Apollo has to be confident about.

"So, you're going to be all right with it?" Helo asks. "When we have to leave her behind?' Helo doesn't want to have to say goodbye to Kara again; Gods, it would be so great, so great to have Starbuck back on the ship, to spar with and confide in and drink with. All the friends Helo made before Kara are dead now. He would love to have her back. But...

"I'm not leaving her behind," says Lee, with surety.

Helo swallows, squints up at Apollo's resolute face. "What?"

"You're going back to Galactica without me. I'm staying here."

Helo's asleep in one of the cots that Kara set up in the back room, and Lee is hauling the other cot in his arms, trying to be as silent as possible as he moves into the front room, where Kara is asleep. He sets the cot down beside her mattress, but his foot catches on something and the cot makes a short slamming sound as it hits the floor.

"Wha – What is it?" Kara asks, a little bit frightened but too sleepy to be too alarmed.

Lee smiles and remembers how hard it is for Starbuck to wake from a deep sleep. She only ever slept lightly when they were on high alert, when the Cylons were coming every 33 minutes and no one slept anyway, or when they were on Kobol and nervous at every noise in the forest. Every other time someone tried to shake Starbuck awake...Gods help them.

Lee smiles even wider when he realizes, I don't have to remember anymore. She's not a memory.

"Sorry," Lee whispers. "I, um." He doesn't have a good explanation, one that'll sound totally reasonable. He goes with the truth, which is completely unreasonable. "I can't sleep in the next room. I thought, if I could sleep here, where I can look at you..." That's as far as Lee's thoughts go. He just can't rest unless he can lay his eyes on her. He wants to look at her for a night and a day and maybe another night before he closes his eyes again.

Kara frowns, confused, and blinks, still half-asleep, and murmurs, "Sure. Okay."

Lee thinks she probably thinks he's crazy, and thinks briefly of all the years it's been the other way around with them.

"Sorry," Lee says again and lies down on the cot, drawing the wool blanket up around his bare shoulders.

"You're handsome," Kara says suddenly.

Lee gasps in shock. She's never said that before. Lee has always hoped she found him good-looking, and to hear that she does is... Lee shuts down the thought, ashamed of his vanity and his pleasure at her remark. Before he can say anything, Kara speaks again.

"Were we...I mean, what were we before..." Kara huffs, frustrated. "What am I to you?" she asks.

Lee laughs. What is she to him? It's the question that has dogged him like a snarling, raging, hungry beast since the moment they met.

"What's so funny?" Kara asks, defensive.

"Nothing, I mean..."

"I didn't mean to insult you by implying..." She huffs again, this time in anger, and turns around, facing away from him.

Lee reaches out a hand but can't reach her. His turn to be frustrated now. Touching her will only scare her, though, so he drops his hand back to his cot and says, "It's not that. Believe me. It's just that, our relationship, I mean, what we are to each other, is a long, long story. Rest tonight. I'll tell you about us tomorrow."

After a moment, Kara turns back around, seemingly placated. "Okay," she says, and she's obviously tired from the day, too tired to demand answers now. "Can't you just give me the short answer for now?" she asks, her lids coming down over her hazel-green eyes.

Lee stares at her face and says, low and quiet, "You're the person that I can never, ever have."

Whether she's really asleep or not, she doesn't respond to that.