One week later, Lee was being discharged from sickbay and he still had not seen one inch of Kara. Every morning he woke up thinking this was the day she would find time to see how he was doing. Every night he had to hide his disappointment when she still had not come. He was so fraking frustrated with himself right now.

Then again, it wasn't like there was nothing else to keep him occupied. Dee spent every second of her time off shift at his side. Lee figured she was probably just scared that he would give up his will to live again. Her worries weren't completely unfounded.

Honestly, the only thing really keeping him going right now was the fact that Kara didn't hate him after what he did to her in that break room. He had been too ashamed to even look at her the next day, but she just marched right up to his table in the mess and sat down across from him. She asked him if his hangover was kicking his ass like hers was, and the rest was history. They shifted right back to the way they were before Caprica.

He thought their friendship was repairing itself. She hadn't stopped by sickbay to see him, though, so maybe he was wrong.

His father and Zak were down here almost as much as Dee was, and their conversations helped keep his focus off Kara. William Adama kept him up to speed on how his pilots were faring, and Zak kept him up to speed on who his pilots were fraking. It was a good combination, and Lee didn't feel that out of the loop, being chained to a bed in sickbay.

Layne Ishay walked into his room and smiled. "Happy to be getting out of here, sir?"

Lee smirked and finished buttoning up his pants. She had caught him in the middle of changing out of that ridiculously small hospital gown. "You have no idea. I'm actually looking forward to sleeping in that little hole they call a bunk."

Ishay smiled. "Maybe you have the flu and it's making you delirious."

Lee swatted away her hand as she went to feel his forehead. "You are not keeping me here, you evil woman!"

"Understood, Captain," Ishay said, giving him a mock salute with her free hand.

Lee's eyes immediately fell to the piece of clothing Ishay was clutching in her other hand. "What's that?"

"This was left for you the other day," she said, holding it out for him. "Before you ask, I don't know by whom. I figure it was just one of your pilots. They seem rather charmed by their CAG, and I guess they wanted you to be comfortable, though gods know why they waited until you were leaving to bring this."

Lee unfolded the dark gray material, and his heart froze. This was his sweatshirt from Atlantia. He had lost it over five months earlier. "You said someone brought this?"

Ishay nodded. "It was just waiting on that chair by your bed. I figured someone came to give it to you and just left it when they found you sleeping."

Lee fingered the material and held it up to his face. He couldn't believe someone had found this and actually had the decency to return it to him. His brow furrowed as his nose caught a familiar scent.

"Is something wrong?" Ishay asked, catching the shift in Lee.

He shook his head. "No. I just thought… it's stupid. Never mind."

Ishay gave him a small nod, picking his chart up off the end of his bed. "I'll let you finish changing into the clothes your brother brought you and then someone just needs to come to pick you up and you'll be free to go."

Lee waited to lean back in the bed until the curtain was shut. His hands came up to rub his face. He had to be fraking losing it to think he smelled Kara on this sweatshirt. It had been missing for too fraking long to still hold the memory of her scent.

"Up and at 'em, big brother," Zak said, pushing back the curtain.

Seeing a few of the female sickbay workers turn their way, Lee quickly grabbed his tanks from off the table and pulled them on. He did not feel like being ogled right now. "Don't you fraking knock?"

"It's a curtain. Knocking is a little hard to do."

"What do you want, Zak?"

"I've been assigned the honor of being your official escort back to the bunkroom seeing as how Dee is both on duty and half your weight. If you collapsed, you'd probably crush that poor little girl."

Lee smirked. Zak had a point, even though he made it by identifying one of the qualities Lee liked best about Dee. She was small. She need protection. That was something he hadn't felt in a long time, since before Kara and the end of the world. It was what made him say yes when Dee originally suggested they spend their downtime on Cloud Nine together a few weeks ago. Granted, the downtime quickly shifted to simply be a convenient moment for him to let Dee down gently, but it was still a good suggestion.

The wound on his shoulder started stinging as Lee began to move, reminding him that in the end his presence on Cloud Nine had been anything but a good thing. "So, has anything new been happening on my ship?"

"There's a betting pool going to see how long it will be before Kat and Hot Dog frak. It's up to fifty cubits."

"You people are sick," Lee said, getting to his feet. He did his best not to wince.

"You should have seen the size of the pool for you and Kara By the way, a good older brother would have helped me out with that one."

Lee stared at his brother for a moment before curiosity got the better of him. He had had a feeling there was a pool. There was one for every single thing happening on this ship. He just hadn't know his brother had been in on it. "What day did you pick?"

"I had the fraking day after Colonial Day," Zak growled. "I swear to the gods, couldn't you have kept it in your pants for just a few hours longer?"

"Have you looked at Kara lately?" Lee joked.

"A valid point," Zak agreed. "All right, I'll forgive you for killing my one chance at making my fortune and retiring from the service."

"Anything else happening on Galactica?"

"No. Kara's been doing pretty good. None of your pilots have died."

"Why would she be killing my pilots?"

"Didn't anyone tell you?" When Lee shook his head no, Zak couldn't help but chuckle. This was too good. "Kara's been holding down the position of CAG for Galactica. Seeing as how she was the CAG on Pegasus for those few days, she was the only one even moderately qualified."

"Starbuck's been CAG the whole time I've been in sickbay and no one told me?"

"I guess we were all afraid you'd overreact and then you'd be stuck in this place even longer."

Lee didn't know how to respond to that so he just stayed silent and tried to push it from his mind. The two brothers continued down the corridor in silence. Lee could tell his brother had been dying to ask him something since the second he showed up in sickbay, but true to form, Zak was struggling to find a way to bridge the topic. "You can just ask me," Lee pointed out.

Zak's ears turned red, letting Lee know he was spot on. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Your ears say different," Lee laughed.

His hands came up to automatically rub the red tips, and Zak sighed. "Fine, you win. I was just wondering about Dee."

"What about Dee?"

"What are you doing, Lee? Seriously, what the frak are you doing?"

Lee thought about it for a moment. He had been ready to let Dee go a week earlier, but that was before he found out Kara didn't even care enough to come see him in sickbay. For the past day or so, he had been wondering if maybe Shevon was wrong. How can you fight for a woman who so obviously doesn't want you? That was why he made the hardest decision of his life only a few hours earlier.

This thing with Kara had to end.

"I'm trying to be happy with a woman who-"

"-isn't the woman you love?" Zak finished.

"I was going to say with a woman who makes me forget how crappy my life is."

"Yeah, that's a good basis for a relationship," Zak said, rolling his eyes. "She makes me forget that number one on my agenda today was to kill myself. Woo hoo."

"Don't mock me," Lee growled.

"I'm not. I just wanted to figure out when exactly my brother got so fraked up that he stopped fighting for what he wanted. The Lee I know wouldn't rest until he got Kara to admit that she loved him. The Lee I know would lock her in an equipment closet with himself and refuse to let her out until she got her head on straight."

"The Lee you know doesn't exist anymore, Zak. The world ended, and I had to change."

"You didn't change because of what happened to the Colonies," Zak insisted. "So cut the crap."

Lee pushed open the hatch to the senior officers' quarters. "What do you want me to say, Zak? I love her so much it hurts, but it's not going to happen. She would have told me by now if she was going to fight for what we have. I have to move on before the pain causes me to do things I can't take back. I don't want to have to fix another mess."

"That's really fraked up, Lee, even for you," Zak said.

"Well, you need to get on the ball, Zak. I'm pretty damn fraked up these days."

Zak let out a sigh. "Will you do something for me?"

"As long as it doesn't involve breaking colonial law," Lee agreed.

"Just think about what you're doing. Are you going to be happy settling for Dee when you know you'd be with Kara if she gave you even the slimmest glimmer of a chance? Ten years from now, are you going to regret not fighting?" Zak gave his brother one last knowing look before pushing away from the hatchway and walking down the corridor.

Lee sighed and looked down at the sweatshirt in his hand. He really hated how his brother could make his head hurt with only a few words and a knowing look.