Lee couldn't get it out of his head. It had all happened so fast. One minute, he and Anders were arguing about whether they were lost. The next, there were gunshots and he was being dragged into the trees for cover. He had been shouting Kara's name as he realized she wasn't with them. It took three men to keep him from going back to find her.

He knew his emotions were taking over at that point, so he did the only thing he could. He told the others to go on without him. Helo could fly whatever ship they found back to the high school. Lee made it clear that he was going to go back to where they had been ambushed. He wasn't leaving this planet without Kara.

It didn't surprise him when Anders passed his own authority off to one of his teammates. The man loved Kara. He was going to want to find her, too

The only problem was his sense of duty couldn't just let him drop everything and run. There were details to iron out before he went traipsing through the wilds of Caprica.

It took the resistance a whole day to figure out how the plan needed to be altered now that Anders and Lee weren't going to be a part of it. Every second he spent debating brought Lee a step closer to losing it. He had to get out there and find her. It took all his strength not to kill the million people who kept telling him he was being stupid. They said Kara was dead and he and Anders shouldn't risk themselves for a ghost. Lee desperately wanted to point out that a week earlier they were all ghosts, too.

Somehow Helo picked up on the tension inside Lee and told him to get the frak out of here. Helo insisted he could handle the last few tweaks to the plan while Lee and Anders went on their rescue mission. That was all Lee needed to hear.

The first mile or so was filled with Anders trying his best to make casual chatter. He asked how life was like in the military, whether Lee felt he had missed out on something by going to War College, and just how happy was he that he still had family in this world. When Lee's responses consisted mostly of short nods and long glares, Anders got the message and shut up.

They trudged through the woods in silence as Lee did his best to remember the courses he had been forced to take on tracking. He wasn't sure if they were even going the right way, but he couldn't stop. Kara had looked so completely lost that morning when she and Helo joined the group. It had broken his heart because he knew exactly how that felt. It seemed these days he was pretty lost, too.

"There's something I need to ask you."

Anders' words caused Lee to stumble a little, but he quickly recovered. He turned around to see the pyramid captain had stopped and was looking at him rather searchingly. "What?"

"What does Kara mean to you?"

His words carried a weight to them that Lee didn't even know was possible. He cursed himself for thinking he could leave out how much he cared for Kara out from the story of where they had been the past two months. He thought Anders wouldn't pick up on it, which was completely stupid. These days, he and Kara were radiating tension. Anyone with half a brain could figure that out.

Lee realized that Anders was patiently waiting for an answer. There was a lot hanging on whatever he said next. He could admit how much he had grown to love Kara and how in some way they had healed each other's scars. He could tell Anders that he was the CAG and she was just a girl who had a knack for flying and become his wingman. He was doing his job, and that was all. Then he could finally let himself break down and mourn the loss of her. At the moment she was physically and emotionally gone, and Lee had the nagging suspicion that no matter how hard they looked, he couldn't change that.

"She's my best pilot," Lee said calmly.

Anders stared at him a moment before nodding. "Good." He brushed past Lee and started walking in the same direction they were heading before.

Lee sighed. To an outsider, that would sound like nothing. To anyone who served with them on Galactica, those four words meant everything. Anders was better off not knowing.

"Here's what I don't understand. From the little Kara's told me about you this past week, it sounds like you were a friend to her when she started training to be a pilot. Yet you've barely spoken to her unless it had something to do with how you're getting off Caprica. Kara said you were just focusing on the mission, but it just seems odd to me."

"There are thousands of people out there right now whose only hope is Kara and I returning with the artifact we gave you for safe keeping. Does it really seem appropriate to be joking around with her right now?"

Anders shook his head. "You're right. I'm sorry."

"No problem," Lee said. He took the lead again as the trail shifted to the right. Anders seemed like a smart guy. It was really odd that he kept buying the bullshit Lee was feeding him. It wasn't even particularly good bullshit.

A tiny voice in the back of Lee's head suggested that maybe Anders didn't want to know what was really going on. Maybe ignorance was easier for him right now.

Lee wished he could be that ignorant or at the very least that oblivious. Sadly, the gods had blessed him with an uncanny sense of reality from the day he was born. That wasn't such a big deal when you're ten and realize your best friend is in it for the cookies your mother makes. When you're twenty-eight and Commander of the Air Group with a lead pilot you're fraking who forgot to mention she was engaged, it was a big deal.

This time, it had taken seven days for reality to kick in. It did, though, and the missing pieces finally clicked into place. Those fraking pieces ripped his heart in two as he stood on the empty pyramid court that very morning and watched the sun rise on a planet that was no longer his home.

The part that hurt the most was realizing Kara hadn't lied the first time they met. She said she wasn't looking for a faceless frak that day on the Rising Star. She was looking for a specific face, one that would remind her of what she lost.

It didn't take a moron to notice the similarities in appearance between Lee and Anders. To an average passerby, it wasn't apparent, but if they were side by side, anyone could tell. Same hair cut, same build, same pissed off look when Kara said something stupid.

She had been looking to squint her eyes that night on the Rising Star so she could frak her fiancé one last time.

Lee hated that.

He hated the fact that he couldn't change it even more.

He hated that he couldn't fight for her. Why would she want someone who had just been a replacement?

He hated that he had lost without there ever really being a war.

He hated the way he could still taste her skin, feel her touch as her fingertips skimmed his chest, hear her soft moans in his ears, see the desire flare in her eyes. She was haunting him and probably would for as long as he was alive.

Lee caught movement out of the corner of his eye and pulled Anders behind a dirt mound. It seemed they had reached the end of their search.

"What's your problem?" Anders hissed, though he didn't move to get up.

"There's a Boomer model over there. Wherever we were heading, I think we're there."

"What do you propose now?"

"We wait for an opening and then we go in."

"She might not even be there," Anders pointed out.

"But what if she is? Can you really live with yourself knowing that you could have saved her but you didn't want to risk it being a mistake?" Lee knew he couldn't. If Anders didn't want to do this, that was okay. He could do it by himself.

"What is this place?" Anders said, peeking over the mound.

"Looks like some kind of base, but I don't see anything military. There's no Raiders and definitely no Centurions. We would hear them."

Anders relaxed against the ground. They had a while before they could make a move. Lee kept scanning the area, trying to figure out the path they would need to take and the spots to avoid.

"Why are you doing this if the mission is so important to you?"

Anders words made Lee wince. Maybe the pyramid captain was a little more observant than Lee gave him credit for. "She's my best…" Lee found himself hesitating. If he said Kara was his best pilot again, Anders would probably pick up on the fact that the phrase meant a little more than just what was on the surface. "Kara's my best friend. I can't leave without her."

Lee could see Anders narrowing his eyes. He was going to ask more questions that Lee really didn't want to answer. "I'm not fraking waiting," Lee hissed, glancing over the mound one last time. "I'm going in. If I die, I die. At least this mess will be over."

Anders only paused a few seconds before following. Kara was his girl, after all. He would rather die than see her hurt.