The young CIC page handed her a piece of paper signed by William Adama without a word. It requested her presence in his office as soon as she finished her mandatory maintenance shift. Kara might be slightly new to this whole military thing, but she wasn't stupid. She knew this couldn't be a good thing.

As she made her way through the halls of Galactica, she tried to think if there was anything she had done wrong. She hadn't opened her mouth at the wrong time. She hadn't forgotten all those stupid military regulations and protocols. She hadn't even been sent to the brig yet. There was absolutely nothing she could have done to deserve this.

Taking a deep breath, she knocked softly on the door, waited a second, and then pushed the hatch open. "Commander Adama, you asked to see me?"

Adama set down the papers in his hands and turned to look at her. "It's Kara, isn't it?"

"Kara Thrace, sir."

He motioned to one of the chairs in front of his desk. "Sit down please."

Kara let out a deep breath and did as he asked. She should not be this scared of an old man. She had done nothing wrong. Well, if you didn't count the fact that she had this irrational lust for his son, then she had done nothing wrong.

"I know you probably think I asked you here just so I could met another one of our new pilots, but I have to admit there's more to it than that." Adama stared at her a moment before continuing, "I wanted to meet the woman my son seems to be so enthralled with."

Kara hadn't thought it was physically possible to be even more scared. She was wrong. How had Commander Adama heard about what went on between her and Lee in their little encounter on the Rising Star? What the frak was she going to say to explain this when the thought of his son pressing her up against the Rising Star's bar still made her hot as hell? She hated how the memory of that night had laid down the base for this wonderfully fraked up relationship she had with her CAG that was based purely on physical need. That was something she did not need while she was trying to be successful at this new career.

"I just received Apollo's request this morning."

Kara snapped back to the present. "Excuse me?"

"Captain Adama put in a request for the next Viper that becomes free to be assigned to you." Adama's face cracked into a smile for the first time since she stepped into the office. "Can you please explain to me why my son thinks you're a good enough pilot that you don't need the full nugget training?"

Kara could feel the tension leave her body in a wave as she realized the Commander had no idea about the slightly unprofessional relationship she and Lee had almost embarked upon. "I'm no sure what you mean."

"We only assign Vipers to pilots who are ready to take on their fair share of the burden we now carry. If your CAG put in this request, it means that he expects you to be at that level sometime in the next few weeks. You've been a nugget for not even a full week. I was curious what you did to get this far."

For one briefly stupid second, Kara thought about telling the Commander she had openly offered to frak his son. Then she realized not even she was stupid enough to say that out loud. "My mother used to be military, sir. Captain Adama seems to think that gives me an edge over his other students."

Adama looked down at a paper on his desk and nodded. "It says he evaluated your flying techniques as well above what should be expected. I've been in CIC a few times when the CAG had your group up in the air. I don't mean to sound rude, but I saw nothing to prove this."

Kara nodded. "You wouldn't have seen anything extraordinary out of me during those times, sir. Apollo's been evaluating me on our spare time."

"So that's why he made that insane request for extra air time."

"He was nice enough to push me through training so that I wouldn't be wasting anyone's time."

"We need as many pilots in the air as we can," Adama explained. "That's the real reason he's pushing you."

Kara wasn't sure how to take that. He seemed rather determined to make what Lee was doing as unemotional and detached as he could. It was completely at odds with everything Apollo had said to her. Lee had stressed that he was doing this because of how much her flying impressed him. According to him, this was all about her flying ability and nothing about needing more bodies in the cockpits.

"I'm not sure I approve."

Adama's words pulled her back to the present for the second time in only a few minutes. "Of what?"

"My son seems to have an interest in you that I'm not sure is healthy. When I first heard about Apollo's unscheduled cockpit time this morning, I checked the launch logs. He's been taking you out every single day when he's supposed to have rack time."

"I told him it was a bad idea, sir, but he said that it didn't matter. He said he doesn't sleep for more than half the rack time he's given." Kara stared at Adama as the Old Man's face filled with confusion. Could he really have no idea that his son was having trouble sleeping? There was so much riding on Lee's shoulders right now that even a lesser man would be losing sleep over it. How could a father not realize that?

"I'm afraid that it goes beyond losing sleep, Miss Thrace. The XO tells me that you two have been spending a lot of time together."

"Well, we go on the training runs every day, and I guess I do seem him a lot in the pilots' break room and around the corridors. Why? Is that a problem, sir?"

"There are regulations," Adama said shortly.

"I know, sir. I don't believe I'm breaking any of them by seeing the CAG in a social setting such as a triad game or a professional setting such as a training run."

"That's how it is now, but things can change."

Kara shifted in her seat. "Sir, I have been told ad nauseam about the regulations as a part of the CAG's training program. Just because I was a civilian before the Cylons attacked doesn't mean I'm any less aware of the rules the military have to follow. Your son has a job to do, and so do I, sir."

Adama watched her for a moment before nodding. "It's not really you I'm worried about."

Kara waited for him to continue, and when he did, the words took her by surprise. "Did you have someone on the Colonies when we were attacked?" She could feel her heart freeze up along with the rest of her body.

Adama watched the young pilot's face pale and shook his head. "What am I saying? We all lost someone. I know this has been a hard transition for you considering your life was based in the Colonies a lot more than the rest of the personnel on this ship."

"Sir?" Kara said. For the thousandth time in this conversation, she really wasn't sure what point William Adama was trying to get across.

"We've all had to mourn the deaths of those we love. Anne, my wife, was on Picon visiting relatives. My sons' mother was at her home on Caprica. The XO's wife, Ellen, was paying a social call to the Security Director at the Picon capital. Lee lost all his friends on Atlantia, and my youngest son went through the same thing on Solaria. And then there was Gianne."

"Who's Gianne?" Kara asked after a slight hesitation. For some reason, she already knew she didn't want the answer.

"She was the young woman who was almost a member of my family."

Kara thought over all the times she had talked with Zak in the past week. He had never mentioned losing a girlfriend in the attacks. That little fraker had been flirting up a storm around her, and he had been engaged. Somehow, that fact made her furious even though she of all people had no right to be. "I can't believe Zak didn't tell me," she said, doing her best to bite back the anger.

The Commander let out a loud laugh that filled the room. Kara realized with a start that this was the first time Adama had seemed like a father and not a military leader. It was odd that it had taken him this long to let down his guard. It was almost as if he was out of practice.

"What's so funny, sir?' Kara asked.

"The fact that you think Zak's capable of committing to someone on a permanent basis," Adama said, still trying to control the chuckling resonating from deep inside. "I love my youngest son, but he's always been way too much of a free spirit to really settle down. I was actually talking about Lee."

"Lee had a…" Kara's voice cut off. She couldn't say it.

"Fiancée?" Adama finished. "Yes, he did. He was head over heels for Gianne since the moment he met her at War College. I think her death was what hurt him the most after the attacks. He resented not being on Atlantia where he could have at least tried to protect the planet she was on. Lee loved Gianne very much."

Kara nodded. It was all she could really do right now. Her mind was still trying to make sense of what she had just been told.

"That's why I was so worried when I heard about Lee paying such close attention to you. I don't want him to transfer his feelings of guilt. It's unfair to both of you."

"You think Lee is helping me out because of his dead fiancée?"

"Lee was very protective of Gianne, and it sounds close to the way he's been treating you."

"He hasn't been protective of me," Kara insisted. She had to bite her tongue to keep from saying anything else. Somehow telling the Commander that it was probably the other way around wouldn't help the situation. Adama would only start asking questions about why his son needed protection, and then Kara would be forced to point out how oblivious he was to the fact that as much as the pilots accepted Lee as a CAG, they were hesitant to call him one of their own. "He treats me the same as any of his other students."

"Good. Keep it that way."

Kara stood up. She knew when she was being dismissed. If she was being honest, she didn't really want to stick around anyway. There was a lot of information to sort through, and right now she really wasn't sure how she was supposed to take it. She barely looked at the people she passed in the corridors. Right now, she just wanted to lay down on her bunk and not think about the fact that Lee was hopelessly in love with a dead woman when he was halfway to fraking her on top of that bar.

She stopped in the middle of the hall as she saw the very man who was plaguing her every thought engaged in a rather intense conversation. He was with that infamous comms girl who sounded so scared every time she cleared Apollo's Viper for launch. Lee reached out to take the woman's hand in his, and Kara couldn't bring herself to watch anymore. She made a quick right and did her best not to start running. This was all too much.

What hurt the most was she knew she had no right to be reacting like this. She couldn't deny that she had formed some kind of physical connection with Lee. The fact that they wanted to rip each others' clothes off was evident to anyone who was around them for more than two minutes except for maybe the handful of people who didn't want to see. That didn't give her a right to be this jealous or hurt by the life the CAG had lived before the Cylons attacked. She was being ridiculous.

"Hey, Kara! Wait up!"

Zak's voice made her wince, but she quickly pushed it away. She turned to watch the young deckhand jog his way down the corridor, and suddenly she felt impulsive. There was really nothing holding her back from doing this. "Zak, why don't you just cut to the chase and ask me?"

"What?" Zak said.

Kara knew he was playing dumb, and she was pretty sure he knew she knew. "I don't like cowards, Adama. So just ask me."

Zak watched her for a second before nodding. "I have an off-shift tomorrow. Do you want to go to the Rising Star with me?"

"Get us a Raptor ride and I'm there," Kara said, giving him a wink before turning to walk down the corridor. She could feel his eyes on her body as she rounded the corner. To her credit, she managed to keep up the cocky façade until she rounded the corner. Only then did she pause to grab the wall as the weight of the past few minutes finally came upon her.

She had always hated her impulsivity.