Lee's fingers ran through the blond hair of the woman curled up on his chest. It was less soft than he remembered, but then again it had been several months. It had grown a little more golden, too. Lee wondered if that was due to the new lights they had resorted to using in the hangar bay. His hands ran over her body, and he sighed. It felt good to feel her warmth against him, to know that he had put that slight pink blush there. It had been his name she cried out only minutes before, his name and no one else's.

"Who is she, Lee?"

Lee snapped away from his daydream and realized Shevon had slipped out of bed at some point. "What?"

"The woman you're thinking about, who is she?"

"There isn't a woman," Lee lied.

"There's always a woman." Shevon smiled at his reflection in the mirror. Every client always tried to tell her they had no real reason they were coming to see her. She would have thought by now word would have gotten out that the lie wasn't working anymore. "I've been in this business since the Fleet started running, Lee. It's been six months, and every single time, there's always been a woman."

Lee watched her brushing her hair and tried to think why this was so hard. Shevon was nice. She had listened to him and offered him a kind of comfort he really hadn't felt in a long time. The only problem was she was too damn perceptive. He didn't want to talk about the woman on his mind right now.

"It will do you good to get it out, Lee. It might get rid of those wrinkles on your forehead." Shevon chuckled when he glared at her. "They're cute wrinkles," she added as if that helped.

"There is a girl," Lee admitted. He hated having to admit the possibility that he came here for the pure purpose of using Shevon as a stand-in for the real woman he wanted in his bed.

"Some petite little blond thing, right?" Shevon guessed.

Lee wanted to laugh. She was blond but no one would ever call Kara petite. She packed too hard of a punch. That was one of the reasons he couldn't get her out of his head. She wasn't like any of the other women on Galactica.

"What's her name?"

"Do you really have to know that?"

"I don't see how it can hurt. It's not going to get you in trouble, Lee. You're confessing to the prostitute you've been paying to sleep with you for the past few weeks. I don't have anyone to run off and tell."

Lee nodded. She was right. He really shouldn't have this hard of a time talking about his problem. "Her name is…" The words caught in his throat. He couldn't do this, no matter how safe it was. Saying her name would make it real. "Her name is Gianne."

Shevon nodded, obviously not picking up on Lee's little shift. "Was she before or after the attacks?"

"Both," Lee replied because in a way she was. "I loved her, but I don't think she ever loved me."

"That's sad."

"It's the truth. She hid something from me that came back to bite her in the ass."

"Another man?"

Lee thought about telling Shevon to mind her own business for a moment but figured if there was anyone it was safe to talk about this stuff with, it was her. All Zak had been doing lately was giving him dirty looks every time they passed in the hall. Helo was completely on Kara's side. His father seemed to be all business now that he had two battlestars to keep track of. Dee was still calmly pressuring him into forgetting about Kara. There really was no one he could talk with. "Yeah, how'd you know?"

"It's always another man. So what did she do? Cheat on you with your brother or something?"

The thought of Kara with Zak made Lee laugh. There was no way his brother would be able to handle that spitfire even if Lee and Anders weren't in the picture. "She was engaged to be married to someone else, but she thought he was dead. It turned out he wasn't."

Shevon got up and slid into the bed next to him. "So she brushed you aside?"

"I wished it were that simple. She's left me hanging in limbo, wondering if I should move on or wait for her to realize how much I fraking love her. Gods, sometimes I see her and I just want to…"

"What?" Shevon prompted as Lee's voice trailed off.

"Frak her up against the wall, kiss her until she admits she loves me too, punch her face until she spits out blood." He could feel Shevon stiffen at his last words. "I'm sorry if that disgusts you."

"No, it just surprises me. You never seemed like a particularly violent man."

"It's only with her, and it's only been lately." Lee rubbed his face. "I have this horrible images in my head of getting revenge for the pain she's putting me through. I would never, ever do anything like that to her, but I still see it in my head all the same."

Shevon reached out to pull his hand away from his face. "That's a natural reaction to the world you live in. As long as it stays in your head, I don't think it's a problem."

Lee nodded. He had come to the same conclusion. "So that's my big, fraked-up secret reason for being here."

"I've heard worse," Shevon admitted.

"Like what?"

"I can't say. There's a little thing called client confidentiality, but I'll just say that some men can't keep those kinds of thoughts in their heads." Shevon reached out to run her hand across his cheek. "Do you want to hear my advice?"

Lee gave her a quick nod. It couldn't hurt.

"In the end, it will only stop hurting if you know you've fought for what you wanted. If you do everything you can, then you can be content with however it turns out. You can't sit back and let things happen to you."

"How did you get so wise?" Lee asked, lifting his arms so she could settle in against him.

"I wasn't always a single mom, struggling to make money to pay for her daughter's meds. I had a life and a love once."

"What happened to him?" Lee asked.

Shevon tensed up and for a moment Lee actually thought he might learn something about this woman he had been seeing. "This isn't about me, Lee."

They laid together in silence, both lost in their own memories. Lee knew that Shevon should have kicked him out of her quarters the second their 'transaction' was through, but it seemed like she always struck up a conversation with him as she got dressed. He knew she wanted him to think she did it as a favor to her clients, kind of like a little added therapy for free.

Lee wasn't stupid. She was lonely on this stupid ship. She must have seen something in Lee that felt familiar because he was the only one who got to see Paya. He knew that for a fact. That meant he wasn't just another customer to Shevon.

"She must be a really special girl," Shevon whispered against his skin. "To have someone like you willing to wait for her…"

For a second, Lee had no idea what she was talking about. Then he remembered. "Yeah, she's special."

Shevon raised her head to look at his face. She had never seen a man quite this deep. He was practically drowning. A wave of sadness wrenched at her heart. Lee Adama was a good man. He deserved to have everything and anything he wanted. Shevon knew that wasn't her, but there wasn't much else she had to give.

Lee continued to stare off into space, and Shevon could tell he was wrestling with demons that weren't going to vanquish themselves anytime soon. He was slipping away from her. There was only one thing she knew to cure that. She slid her robe off her shoulders and threw it to the floor before moving to straddle his body.

"What are you doing?" Lee asked. Normally this was the time where he'd say he had to go and she suggested he spent the night and then he said no, it's okay and they exchanged money and he promised to come back with a toy for Paya and she said he didn't have to. She never did this.

"Giving you a gift," Shevon whispered, sinking herself down on him. "It's your lucky day, flyboy."

She felt him stiffen against her, though for what reason she had no idea. Then it was all a blur. It was like something snapped in him. He was usually so damn gentle with her, like she was going to break. This time it was hard and rough. He was fighting to consume her.

He didn't last for very long. Then again he lasted a lot longer than other men when the sex was that intense. Shevon had had a feeling Lee Adama was special in a lot of surprising ways. It was too bad she couldn't keep him.

Lee pulled away from her touch and reached to pick his pants up off the floor. "Don't you want to stay the night?" Shevon asked.

"It wouldn't be wise. Nothing would be wise."

Shevon pulled a sheet around her naked body and watched Lee get dressed. "You're going to end this, aren't you?"

Lee buttoned his pants and turned to smile at her. "I love her, Shevon."

"I know that now."

"I wish…"

Shevon pushed herself up off the bed and walked to stand beside him, sheet tucked tight around her body. "You don't have to say a word, Lee. I understand." She leaned down to pick his pack up off the floor. Together they walked to the door to her quarters. "So what are you going to do now, Lee?"

"I don't know," he said, taking his pack from her. He gave her a quick kiss before pulling away.

"Good. It's better if you don't," Shevon said with a smile.

"I'm going to look in and you from time to time. Is that all right?"

Shevon nodded. "As long as you don't expect me to pay you," she joked.

Lee hesitated a second before asking the question they had both known was coming, "Will you let me take you and Paya back to Galactica? I can find a place for you there."

"A military Battlestar is no place for us, Lee. Besides I don't think you want the embarrassment of having to explain to Gianne how you met us."

It took Lee a second to remember what she was talking about. "It would serve her right."

Shevon shook her head. "You are going to have to let go of that aggression, Lee, if you want to stay sane."

"I know," he whispered. He reached out to touch her cheek. "Are you going to be okay?"

"I'll be fine, Lee. Stop worrying."

"It's what I do," Lee said. He held her gaze for a moment longer before walking out into the hallway. He could feel Shevon watching him, but he never turned back to see for sure. They both knew he would check up on her, but he would never come back to see her. They had been playing with fire enough as it was. They couldn't chance it anymore.