"How's she doing?" Helo asked, stepping into the classroom they had assigned as a make-shift sickbay.
"She's alive," Anders said from his position at the end of her bed.
"Sorry it took me so long to get that Raider," Helo said. He glanced at where Lee leaned against the wall. "Their security was tougher to crack than the Academy's Flight Evals."
Lee chuckled. He knew exactly what Helo meant. "It's okay. As long as you brought one back with you, I think we're fine."
Helo paused before asking the question at the front of his mind. "So she really is okay?" Lee looked down at the floor, so Helo turned his attention back to Anders. "What happened?"
"I'm not sure yet. She hasn't really woken up since we got back. I think she's sleeping off the trauma of what she was put through." Anders smiled down at Kara. "She always crashed after the more physical games. It was her thing."
The room filled with silence as all three men listened to the steady breathing coming from Kara's bed. Something so simple shouldn't be so comforting.
Helo knew he should focus on telling the two men about the next move the group came up with, but it was hard to tear his attention away from Kara. He had known her for a total of eleven days, twelve if you counted the morning after all those years earlier. Somehow, he had gotten attached to her in that short amount of time. "She's tough. She'll pull through," Helo whispered mostly to himself.
"Can I have a moment alone with her?" Lee blurted out.
Anders shot him a curious look. Lee hadn't spoken since they saved Kara. He barely even looked at her. Now he wanted time alone with her. Anders' mind went back to what Lee had said when they were trying to figure out if they were searching for her in vain. She was his best friend. "Come find me if she wakes up," Anders said, getting to his feet. He motioned for Helo, and together, they left Kara alone with Lee.
Lee let himself lean against the wall for a moment before finally looking at Kara. She was so helpless, laying there in that bed. That was what he couldn't take. It wasn't the fact that she had been hurt or that she had seemed so glad to know he was alive. It was the fact that she was so fragile. He couldn't take knowing that.
He sat down on her bed, and his thigh rubbed against her side. She stirred for a moment before settling against the touch. He knew that he was sitting a lot closer than Anders had dared. "You don't know how much you worried me, Kara," he whispered. His hand came out to brush a stray hair out of her eyes. "I thought I had lost you."
His hand was trembling as it came to rest on her cheek. "Can't you feel how scared I still am? I know you're back. You're safe. But I can't seem to get myself to relax."
Lee let out a deep breath. "You know, I've been talking to the gods a lot lately. Sometimes I ask them to turn back time so I could talk you out of coming to Caprica. Then I would never have known about Anders. Even though it seems wrong, I never would have wanted to know. You could have kept that secret, and one day just slipped that ring off your finger. I never would have asked."
There was a commotion in the hallway, and Lee waited for it to pass before continuing. "I prayed to the gods that they would give me the strength to turn my heart away from you. I'm not really strong like you, Kara. I couldn't lose someone I loved and still go on without a word." He let out a long sigh. "I don't know what the gods were thinking when they put the two of us together. We're really not that good for each other."
Lee could imagine that if Kara was awake, she would be chuckling. The memory of that sound was enough to keep him talking. "And yet we were really good together, in the air and out. You know you gave me a reason to shift my focus away from why the gods hadn't let me die in the attacks. You made me wonder for what reason the gods needed me to be alive. For the first time in a long while, I felt like I had a purpose."
Lee leaned down to kiss her forehead lightly. The fact that she didn't stir in pain meant the world to him. He hadn't forgotten how to be gentle with her. "Thank you for that. I don't know how you knew that was what I needed to keep surviving, but thank you."
There was another sound coming from out in the hallway, and this time it sounded important. "I don't have much time, Kara. I can't even believe they gave me this little bit. I haven't done a whole lot to earn their trust. Mostly I think it's because of you that they haven't thrown me to the Cylons. You have a lot of weight with these people."
Lee stared at her a moment. "I just wanted you to know that I love you." He didn't know where the words came from or why they chose this moment to appear, but there they were. He pulled her hand up to his lips and, after giving her a quick kiss, smiled. "Do you hear me, Kara? I love you."
His jaw dropped as Kara stirred against his touch. Her eyes blinked open as she tried to figure out where she was.
Kara was pretty sure she had just heard someone say they loved her. She clenched her eyes before opening them back up. Whatever that doc had her on, it was the good stuff. She was in a complete daze. There was a slight profile, though, and if she didn't know better, she would swear it was Lee, sitting by her bedside with her hand tucked in his. That didn't make any sense because why would Lee say he loved her after everything she put him through?
She wondered if they had her on some kind of hallucinogen.
Her eyes were drifting shut once more when she heard it again. "I love you." The distant memories of the past week clicked in her head, and she smiled. This felt familiar.
"Sam," she whispered, wanting to let him know she heard before she drifted out.
Lee watched her smile, and it shook him to the core. Of course she would think it was her fiancé. Whatever had made her so happy to see him on that farm was just a fluke. She didn't love him. She probably never had. He was a replacement.
Who needed a replacement when the real thing was right there for the taking?
Kara had made her choice. He wasn't going to stick around to let her rub his nose in it.
Setting her hand gently back at her side, Lee got to his feet. He made it all the way to the door before pausing. He wanted one last look at her. This was the woman who had stolen his heart. She had fixed what broke inside of him when Gianne lost her baby. He wasn't strong enough to admit he had been wrong back then, not even to himself. The idea of a family had haunted him for years. He wanted it so badly and yet he didn't want to risk doing to his children what his father had done to him and Zak.
Lee fought the urge to go back to her side and shake her until she realized it was him at her bedside. Instead, he stepped out into the corridor. Anders was waiting. Lee knew he would be. "She asked for you," Lee said, trying to keep the anger and hurt to himself. He felt like he succeeded.
"Helo told me that as soon as Kara can move, you'll want to get out of here."
"It's for the best," Lee said. "We can't chance another one of us being taken by the Cylons."
Anders nodded and took his leave of Lee. He knew the Viper pilot was talking about Kara. They couldn't chance the Cylons getting their claws on her again. She wouldn't make it through another round.
Lee walked down the hallway and tried to busy himself with rewiring the Heavy Raider. Guts that seemed to have no purpose needed to be yanked out if the ship was going to hold four passengers. Helo joined him halfway through the process, not even saying a word. He just stood to the side until Lee started asking him to do this or that.
Together, the two pilots got lost in their work, forgetting about time and circumstances completely. They had a lengthy job ahead of them.
"This place still smells like crap." Lee wheeled himself out from under the control panel to stare at Kara. "I've been awake for an hour now," she volunteered before he could ask.
"Where's Anders?"
"I've said my goodbye." Something in her face shifted, and Lee couldn't bear to look at her anymore. He was afraid of what he might see.
"I think I've found the four basic controls without you this time," Lee redirected.
"Good. I don't think I could physically help you out with this one, what with my traumatic operations."
Helo watched the two Viper pilots separately smirk and wondered when he had missed something. Kara's comment didn't seem funny at all. Of course she couldn't help out physically. She could barely walk, let alone bend over to fuss with the controls.
"I have to say this might be the best example of macho bullshit I've seen since my pyramid days." Kara turned her attention to the Raptor ECO. "Boomer's waiting outside the ship. She said she's been there for a few hours now. You two are such stupid frakers. You have a Cylon out there willing to help, but you still have to try to rewire this ship on your own. If this thing blows up before I'm safely back on Galactica, I am not going to be happy."
"It's not going to blow up," Lee insisted. He swore lightly as his grip on a particular piece of flesh faltered.
Kara bent down beside him and reached her hand under the panel. "I've got it."
Helo shook his head. He thought she had said she wasn't physically capable of helping.
"How soon before we leave?" Kara asked.
"An hour, maybe less," Lee replied.
Kara pulled her hand back as Lee took control of the situation under the panel again. "I told him we would come back."
"We will," Lee insisted. "If not for your sake, then at least for humanity's sake. We cannot leave people to die."
Kara wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean, but she was happy nonetheless. They were on the same page when it came to this resistance. They couldn't be left behind for the Cylons to annihilate whenever the machines grew bored of playing the game. "Tell me what to do, Captain," Kara said.
"I could really use one of your stories," Lee said honestly. "I need something to keep my mind off of how far we still have to go and how little time we have to do it in."
Kara sighed and leaned back against a part of the ship that was more metal, less flesh. This felt normal. She had told Lee a million of her pyramid stories, and there were still a million more she wanted to share with him. "How about the one where I managed to score the winning goal against Leonis while I was flipped upside down over my defender's back?"
Lee let out a small laugh. "I've heard that one before."
"I can pick a different one."
"No," Lee said quickly. "I'd like to hear it again." There was a small drop of silence before he added, "Plus Helo hasn't heard it."
"Is it that good?" Helo asked.
"All my stories are good," Kara said with a laugh.
For the next hour, all three pilots forgot what they were doing. They forgot that they were heading home to tell everyone that one of their fellow pilots was a machine. They forgot that Kara was still engaged to marry a man they were leaving for dead as soon as this ship was operational. They forgot there was a Cylon calmly waiting for the moment her child might be delivered into a world that was intent on making her their salvation.
They were just three pilots, doing what they did best.