Lee watched Kara wake up slowly. She looked confused at first as to where she was, but then her eyes fell on him. The smile that flooded her face made his heart soar. "Hey."

"Hey," she said, snuggling into his side a little closer.

"How are you feeling?" he said. He brushed the hairs out of her face and gave the top of her head a small kiss.

"I'm fraking sore," she teased. "You are insatiable, sir."

Lee laughed. She was right. They had definitely pushed the envelope as to just how much sex you could have in one night. They probably got two, maybe three, hours sleep the whole night, and yet he felt truly rested for the first time since the Cylons attacked. "We should probably get dressed before the pilots start coming back."

"We have time."

Lee groaned as he felt Kara's hands working their way south on his body. He had no idea how he could still be responding to her touch like this. She was kissing her way down his body, and it was becoming incredibly apparent to Lee that he had a few more rounds left in him. Thanks the gods because he didn't have it in his heart to make her stop.

A knock on the hatch made Kara pause just as she was about to take him into her mouth. Lee shot out of bed on instinct and grabbed his sweatpants. At some point in the night, he had left Kara sleeping in her bunk to go grab some clothes to change into in the morning. He didn't fancy walking through the corridors of Galactica in his dress uniform with that freshly fraked glow all over him. It wasn't proper for a CAG. Now he was really glad he had done so.

Kara had just pulled a t-shirt over her head when the hatch slid open. She cursed. Hadn't they locked that the night before?

"Lieutenant Thrace, Lieutenant Findley told me I could find you h-" President Roslin's voice cut off as she took in the sight before her. Kara was sitting up in her bunk, looking quite disheveled, and her military advisor was standing in the middle of the room in only his sweatpants. She was at a loss for words.

"President Roslin, I can explain."

Kara cut him off. "She doesn't need an explanation, Lee. She has eyes."

Lee gave her a sharp glare before turning back to the woman at the hatch. "As I was saying-"

Roslin held up her hand to cut him off. "Lieutenant Thrace is right. I do have eyes." Roslin stepped into the room, shutting the hatch behind her. "Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but what I'm seeing here is against military regulations, is it not?"

"Yes, sir," Lee said, picking his tanks up off the table and sliding them onto his body.

"Okay, just checking." Roslin took a deep breath. She had no idea when she came over to Galactica that this was going to be what she found. "Lieutenant Thrace, I came over here to ask you for a rather difficult favor."

Kara straightened up in the bunk. "Whatever you need, Madam President."

Roslin sighed and looked over at Lee. "This seemed a lot easier a few minutes ago when I didn't know about your relationship with the Captain, and I mean that in more ways than one." Roslin cleared her throat and turned back to Kara. "I need you to go on a mission for me, but it's going to have to stay off the books."

"I shouldn't be hearing this," Lee declared. He made a move towards the hatch, but Kara's hand came out to grab him. He ended up sitting next to her in the bunk.

"You are not going anywhere, flyboy." Kara saw the President's eyebrow arch in curiosity, and she suddenly realized why Lee had always scolded her for calling him that name. It did seem kind of inappropriate.

"Now that it's been established that it would be easier without you here and that you're not allowed to leave, Captain Apollo, I'm going to ask you to let Lieutenant Thrace make her own decision." Roslin smiled at the young man she had started thinking of as a son before turning to the young woman he obviously cared so much about. "Lieutenant Thrace… Kara. The hope of the Fleet lies in us finding Earth. We need your help in figuring out the right direction."

"My father knows the way," Lee insisted.

"Lee, she asked you to be quiet," Kara reminded him. "Continue, Madam President."

"There has been a slight miscommunication as to how much we know about the location of Earth. We need the Arrow of Apollo to figure out the map to the thirteenth colony."

"The Arrow of Apollo?" Kara racked her brain to figure out where she had heard of that before. The memory of her second grade field trip suddenly popped into her head. "But that's back on Caprica!"

"Precisely," Roslin confirmed. "That's what makes this favor so difficult. I want you to take the Heavy Raider back to Caprica and retrieve the Arrow for me."

"There is no way my father endorsed th-"

Kara clamped her hand over Lee's mouth, effectively cutting him off. "Madam President, you want me to take an enemy ship into enemy territory to get a thin piece of metal in some nuclear-ravaged museum, but I can't let my Commander or any of my friends know?"

"That was the plan," Roslin said, shifting uncomfortably.

"That's insane."

"It's the only option we have left. Commander Adama has no idea the direction we need to take to reach Earth. He told me so himself. At the time it wasn't an issue because we were fighting day to day. Now that we've shown the Cylons that we're not just going to lay there and die, it is imperative that we have a future to work towards. We need that Arrow if we want to make that hope a reality. You are the one person in this Fleet that knows Caprica and has the ability to fly that Heavy Raider. I didn't have any other option but to come to you, Lieutenant." Roslin's gaze shifted to Lee for the hundredth time. It really would have been a lot easier to convince Lieutenant Thrace to do this if he wasn't here. "I'll give you a few hours to think it over. I only ask that you don't speak of this to anyone, regardless of your decision."

Kara nodded. That was something she could easily agree to.

The second the hatch shut, she turned to Lee. "I think I'm going to do it."

"No, you're not," Lee insisted.

Kara wondered when the serious tone had soaked back into his voice. She had been enjoying carefree Lee, the one that didn't see anything wrong with laughing, smiling, and fraking her body until she wanted to die from ecstasy. She had liked that Lee. "You can't stop me from doing this, Lee."

"Kara, the President has no right to come in here and command your desertion because you know that's what my father will see it as. You will be a deserter and you will be tried as such if you make it back." Lee's eyes widened as he realized what he had just said.

"You don't think I can do it." The small hint of pain in her voice told Lee that he had hurt her without even realizing it.

"This is serious, Kara. What President Roslin is asking you to do goes beyond dangerous."

"I can handle it."

"I'm not sure about that," Lee hissed. "It's a lot different when you're face to face with them."

"I can't believe you! Was all that shit you told me about being a good pilot, the best you've ever seen, only a way to get in my pants?"

Lee rolled his eyes. "Kara, you know it wasn't."

"Oh, that's right. Because I had to practically seduce you into my bed to get you to even think about breaking those regulations!"

"Kara, stop," Lee insisted.

"No, I will not stop. I am going back to Caprica, Lee. It's the right thing to do. The President was correct. These people need hope. They need a future. I'm the one best suited to give them that. Sacrificing my flight career isn't that big of a deal in the long run if I can pull this off."

"You are not sacrificing anything."

The meaning behind his words was clear, but somehow Kara refused to hear the fear in his voice. Instead she focused on why the fear was there. "So now you're certain I won't die doing this? Make up your mind, Adama!"

The silence filled the tense room before Lee reached out across the bed. "You're really serious about this?"

Kara stared down at where his hand rested on top of hers and nodded. She couldn't meet his eyes. "Yeah, I'm serious."

"Then I'm coming with you."

Her eyes lit up in surprise as her head tilted up to look him. He was serious. "I don't understand."

"You're not going to Caprica without me, Kara. I can't trust you to stay alive if I'm not there to make sure of it."

"But you just told me that going to Caprica means deserting the Fleet? You'd be tried alongside me."

"I understand that." Lee reached out to brush her fingers across his lips before leaning in to give her a chaste kiss. "And I'm coming with you."

Kara could feel her heart speed up. What he was offering her at this moment meant more to her than anything that had happened between them in the past twenty-four hours. She was scared to death of going to Caprica, and just knowing she wouldn't alone meant the world to her. "I should be trying to talk you out of this," she insisted even though she was already relaxing into his arms.

"You couldn't do it even if you tried," Lee whispered.

"Your father is going to hate me for this."

"No, he's not. In fact, I think he has a bit of a crush on you."

Kara smacked Lee's chest. "That's not funny!"

Lee shut his eyes and focused on the feeling of having Kara so close to him. He didn't know how long it would be until they could be like this again. Her hands were playing with the hairs on the back of his neck, and he was surprised at how ordinary this felt. Too bad it had to end. "We need to get going," he whispered.

Kara raised her head to look at him. "We have somewhere to go?"

"We should go talk to the President and let her know the fallout of her secret mission is going to be twice as bad as she thought. Then we need to get on that Raider and get out of here. It would be smart to be gone by the time the rest of the crew get back from Cloud Nine."

Lee watched Kara think over what he was suggesting and then, nodding, she pulled herself away from him. "Thank you for this, Lee."

"I'm your CAG. It's my job to keep you from being dead."

Kara knew it was a lot more than that, but she also knew whatever they had was too raw and new to be analyzing right now. She didn't want to make a misstep and ruin it. She made her way across the bunkroom in silence. If Lee said they needed to move, then they needed to move. "Kara?" She turned away from her locker to see Lee still staring at her. "We can do this together."

"You think so?" she said with a smirk.

"We're Apollo and Starbuck. We've practically legends."

Kara chuckled as she pulled her flight suit out. Apollo and Starbuck did have a certain ring of accomplishment to it. Apollo and Starbuck could do anything they put their mind to it. That's why it was Kara and Lee she was worried about. Because it wasn't Apollo following her to Cylon-infested Caprica. It was Lee. It wasn't Starbuck who was worried she was ruining her wingman's life by letting him do something so stupid. It was Kara.

Sighing, she shut her locker door and began to get dressed. Apollo and Starbuck were just going to have to watch out for Kara and Lee.