Kara sat on the window ledge of her once Scriptures classroom, now bedroom and tried to remember to breathe as the sun came up on Caprica. She had been living in this school for a week while they figured out how to get off planet. These people, her team, were unbelievable, and it killed her how proud she was of them. They had risked their lives time and again the past few days to go on recon missions to figure out if the plan could work. She had already mourned Jo-Man and Grip Key in the small amount of time she had been here. Life was so delicate on this planet.

It took a lot to pull away from the window. This was the only place she really felt human anymore.

There were things to do, though, discussions to be had, ships to steal, people's lives to frak up.

The hallway was deserted. No one really came down to her end. The Resistance was scared to death of their teammate who had changed so much in her time away. Anders was pissed off because she still refused to bunk up with him. The Cylon kept to herself, probably just thankful that no one had killed her now that they knew. And Lee… like everything else, she just didn't know anything when it came to Lee.

She heard voices coming from the other end of the school and suddenly seeing these people that she was going to have abandon was too much. She pushed open the door to the gym as she walked past and slipped inside. She had never been here before. This was where they stockpiled the anti-radiation meds and the rest of the supplies.

"Good morning, Starbuck. Or should I call you Lieutenant? Or maybe Kara?"

Kara smiled despite herself. She had only known this man for seven days, but he had a way of making her forget the screwed-up situation she had put herself in. "Hi, Helo."

"Come sit with me. Relax before the big mission to abandon the good people of Caprica."

Kara walked over to where he sat on the bleachers, and her eyes went wide. "Is that a bottle of ambrosia? You're drinking on op day?"

"I had a little something to help the nerves. From what I hear, you used to do it all the time before a game."

"Frak yeah!" Kara said, throwing herself down next to him. "Pour me one."

"Out of all of us, you probably deserve it," Helo said softly as he tipped the bottle into the lone glass.

Kara threw back the shot and slammed the glass down. "What the frak is that supposed to mean?"

"You have a situation here that might actually be worse than the one I've living in."

"Something worse than having a pregnant Cylon as a personal piece of luggage you have to carry around?" Helo's kind smile turned sour, and Kara winced. "I'm sorry. That was rude of me."

Helo shook his head. "No. It just means you need another shot."

Kara didn't answer. She just pushed the glass a few inches closer to Helo and banged the bleacher wood for more. He didn't hesitate. She winced as this second shot hit a little closer to home than the first before turning to smile at Helo. "You know I remember you," she smirked.

Helo laughed. "I was wondering."

"That was one fraking wild night."

"Well, your victory against Virgon was a sight to see." Helo shook his head. "I've never met a girl who could hit every single bar on the strip and then stay up all night…"

"Fraking," Kara said with a laugh. "You can say it, you know. Every one of my teammates knows the way I was before I fell for Anders. They called me the team slut, out of love of course."

Helo laughed before nodding in agreement. "You seemed way too into it. It was unhealthy."

"I always had a thing for flyboys." Kara winced as her words came out a little too sad and tortured.

"Yeah, I can tell." Helo sighed. "I see the way he looks at you."

"He doesn't look at me," Kara insisted. "At least he hasn't looked at me since we found your resistance group."

"He does. You just don't want to see it."

"I can't see it," Kara hissed. "Don't you get that? At this point in time, it cannot be happening."

"Your logic is fascinating in its complete lack of sense."

Kara let out a deep breath and leaned back in the bleachers. "Do you have some time, Helo?"

"I have all the time in this nuclear sinkhole of a world."

Kara smirked. "Good. It's going to take that long. Things with Anders and I were always complicated. The captain dating his star player? Not really cool with the owners even though the fans ate it up. Things with Lee and I? Pretty much twice as complicated."

Helo shook his head. "Regs?"

"Fraking regs and then some." They sat in silence, Kara kicking her legs in the air and Helo just staring off into space. It was calming but not really what she needed right now. She needed to get this out. "Anders and I hated each other from the moment we met. We're too similar for our own good."

"Isn't it the similarities that pull you together in the end?"

Her eyebrows shot up. She had not pegged this Raptor pilot as a philosophical kind of guy, but there it was, right before her eyes. "We were hopped up on adrenaline after this match against Leonis, and it happened. We fraked. The next game, we won so we fraked again. We won and we fraked. We fraked and we won. One day we didn't win. Anders and I didn't frak after that. We still slept together but without that win, it was no longer fraking. It was something more." Helo waited for her to continue, knowing now was not the time to laugh or ask questions. "He was the first man I ever took to my bed that showed me one ounce of caring. We lost that first game against the Panthers. It wasn't a particularly upsetting loss considering we already had secured our spot in the playoffs. Yet it broke my heart when my last shot was blocked. It took me a long time to admit that had something to do with Anders. I thought he wouldn't want me if we stopped winning. I was wrong."

Helo tried to ignore the tear that slowly ran down Kara's cheek. "He talked about you all the time. He had this insane notion that you were out there somewhere alive. I kept telling him that was impossible. It had been so long since the attack. Whatever ship you were on would have run out of supplies within a week. But the son of a bitch stuck to his guns. He kept saying you don't know my girl."

"His girl," Kara repeated, almost as if she was trying the words on for size. "I cried for him. Every night for twenty-five days, he was the last thought on my mind as I drifted to sleep. I prayed for his soul."

"What changed?"

"Excuse me?"

"You said for twenty-five days. The Cylons attacked us two months ago. What made you stop praying?"

A look flashed across her face, and Helo was surprised to realize it was guilt. Kara quickly covered it up with a sort of stubborn pride as she bit down on her lip. "I never stopped praying. He just stopped being the last thought on my mind."

"Kara, you moved on with your life. It's what any rational person would have done."

"No, it's not!" Kara yelled, her anger coming from nowhere. "Don't you get that? Anders was on this planet struggling for his life every single second, and he never lost hope in me. I was on a ship running from the Cylons, only fighting a handful of times, and I wrote him off. Immediately, I figured he couldn't have survived. I lost faith."

Helo reached out to rest his hand on top of hers. "Everyone loses faith."

Kara looked out the high windows of the gym. The sun was already a few inches above the horizon line. She could just imagine everyone waiting outside for her to join the team going into that base. She wasn't done talking, though. Being with Helo was helping her for some reason. If nothing else, she deserved a few moments to voice her thoughts. "Apollo came out of nowhere, Karl. He was just some guy I met in a bar." Kara smiled at the memory. "And then I found out who he really was."

"Your CAG?"

"Yeah, he was my boss. He pushed me harder than anyone's ever done before. He saw something in me and he wasn't going to let up until I saw it, too. Lee gave me a reason to keep on fighting even before things got complicated."

"But things did get complicated?" Kara didn't have to answer him. The tears pooling in her eyes told their own story.

"What I have with Anders is safe. He's there for me no matter what. That's the way it's always been." Kara sighed. "What I have with Lee is dangerous. It shakes me to the core. I go to bed and he's the last thing on my mind. I wake up and it's him that I want to see."

"Even now? For the past week, it's been him?" Kara's eyes broke with Helo's, and she stared at the ground. That was answer enough. "There's nothing you can do about this now, Kara. We're going to get a ship and we're leaving this planet. The only thing you can do is leave Anders with a little hope. Give him reason to keep fighting and then when we return to Caprica, you can let him know what you've chosen."

Kara nodded. She knew he was right. She couldn't let Anders know what was going on. Above all things, she was not going to lose faith in him again. "We need to go."

Helo smiled and, after getting to his feet, offered his hand to help her up. Kara took it, and she figured they were both a little surprised when she moved to link her arm with his. This is what she needed right now, physical contact without the fear that she was going to lost control. She hadn't touched Lee or Anders in four days now, and she knew they both noticed.

"Sometimes I wonder if I have the strength to leave him," Kara said sadly.

"Who?" Helo asked.

Kara smirked. "That's really the question, isn't it? Who?"

They walked down the corridor, both lost in their own thoughts. As they neared the main hall, Kara pulled Helo to a stop. "Thank you," she whispered before pulling him into a hug. She could already see the group waiting out in the courtyard over his shoulder.

"Anytime, Kara."

"You know if you have problems with your love Cylon…" Her voice trailed off.

"…you don't want to fraking hear about them," Helo finished.

Kara chuckled. "Yeah, you're right. I really don't."

They stepped out into the sunlight, arm in arm once more. The smile on Kara's face lasted for the first four steps. She figured that meant she was making progress.