Kara sat in the bunkroom, staring at the man across from her. She still couldn't believe he had been there. He had waited seven months for her. "How's the team doing?" she asked.

A look flashed across Anders' face, and Kara knew exactly what he was thinking. There wasn't much of a team left, just Barclay, Hillard, Ten Point, and Fink. So much of her family hadn't been strong enough.

"They're adjusting," Anders said. "I have to say this place isn't like we imagined it."

"It's not all flowers and puppies," Kara agreed, "but it can be fraking amazing if you give it a chance."

They shifted back into comfortable silence as they both tried to get used to the fact that they were here, at this very point and time, together. Anders reached out to grab her hand and smiled. "We did it, Kara. We're alive."

"Just barely," Kara whispered, remembering the way the Cylons had had them pinned down.

"You scared me," Anders admitted.

Kara tried to ignore the way his thumb was caressing the top of her hand. "What do you mean?"

"When you forced me into that stupid pact, you scared the shit out of me."

"I wasn't going to let them take me again," Kara growled, hoping it sounded convincing. Everything would be better if Anders believed this all had to do with the Cylon farms. She did not want to explain how much of her decision was based on the fact that if the Cylons took her, she would be returning back to the Fleet as less of a woman. The toasters weren't going to hesitate like they did the first time. The damage would be permanent. "I would rather die than let those frakers take that away from me."

Anders stared at her a second before standing up and moving to the other side of the table. He sat down in the chair beside her. "You have changed so much, Kara. It's like you're a different person."

"I've been through a lot," Kara said, knowing that was the understatement of the century.

"I want to know everything, Kara, every little detail about how you've been living."

Kara nodded. She had expected this from him. She started to imagine all the things that had shaped her into the pilot she was today. She had fallen in love with her CAG despite multiple regulations. She had given herself the hope that he might love her back. She had pushed it all to the side to do her job. She had designed a mission that almost killed him and later accidentally shot him point blank.

She couldn't say anything of those things.

"I have a family here in the Fleet."

"You've replaced us?" Anders said, feigning shock and disgust.

"I couldn't replace the Bucks if I tried. There's not enough lousy, drunken brutes in this world." Kara bumped her shoulder up against his. "Seriously, though, I do have a family."

"Tell me about them."

Kara sighed. "You know Lee already."

"Your CAG?"

"He used to be my CAG. Now's he's commanding the other battlestar the Fleet has."

"I thought you said he was just your boss and nothing more."

Kara sighed. This was the part she had dreaded. "I lied to you. I thought it would be easier if you didn't know. Lee's been my best friend and wingman since I joined up with the military. A lot of the times, he was the only good thing I had going for me."

"I bet you were always afraid you'd frak it up," Anders said with a knowing smile. Kara's scowl gave him his answer. "Some things can never change."

Kara ignored his comments. She did not want to be talking about her own shortcomings right now. "The Admiral watches over me like I was his own daughter. I think he understands how much I mean to his son."

"His son?"

"Lee's the Admiral's son," Kara explained. Her face erupted into annoyance almost immediately. "I swear to the gods I told you that when we were on Caprica."

"Maybe you did. I must have forgotten," Anders said with a shrug. "It probably didn't seem important to me."

"Did you forget a lot of what I told you while I was there?"

Anders groaned and reached out to grab her hand again. He liked to have the contact with her. It reminded him of the way they were before the Cylon attacks. He used to be able to read Kara back then. "I'm sorry, Kara. There was just so much. Like I said before, your life has changed a lot more than mine has."

"I know," Kara sighed. "Where was I?"

"You were talking about the Adamas."

"Right. Zak has been my friend and confidante since the moment I stepped off the shuttle for my nugget training."

"Zak?"

"The Admiral's other son."

"Do you have any friends who don't have the last name Adama?"

Kara thought about it for a minute. There was Helo, but Anders already knew about him. She spent some of her downtime in the maintenance bay with Cally and the Chief, but she really didn't talk to them a lot when they were in the other parts of the ship. Hot Dog and Kat entered the Fleet alongside her, but the difference in flying ability always drove a nail between them. She had pilots she played triad with and pilots she drank with. None of those people, besides Helo, were truly her friend. "I guess I like to keep things simple."

The bunkroom fell into silence for a moment before Anders muttered, "I still can't believe you're a pilot."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kara hissed.

"Well, you were always a little to cocky and stubborn to play by anyone's rules but your own."

"You would know, wouldn't you?"

"I was your Captain, Kara, and the man you took home with you at the end of the night. I know you better than anyone else."

It took all of Kara's might not to add 'until now'. "Well, I am a pilot. More than that, I'm the CAG here on Galactica."

"You took over Apollo's position?"

The fact that Anders still wouldn't refer to Lee by his first name didn't get past Kara. She figured it was better that way so she didn't correct him. "I told you I was good."

"There's no way they actually put you in command of anything. You're about as bad of a leader as they come."

"Frak you, Sam," Kara said, yanking her hand away from him.

"It's the truth," Anders insisted, leaning in to smile at her.

Kara had to fight the urge to smack that stupid grin right off his face. She hated the fact that Anders seemed to have absolutely no confidence in her abilities. "One of my plans earned the Fleet enough tylium to last us three years. Another one of my plans led to the destruction of a Cylon Resurrection ship, meaning that when the toasters die out here in space, they're dead for good. I have flown a ship made completely from scrap metal and parts. I have trained two generations of new pilots. I led a squadron of twenty Raptors all the way back to Caprica to save your sorry ass. So don't tell me that I'm a bad leader."

Anders kept the smile on his face as he pulled her chair closer to him. "You're right, Kara. I'm being an idiot." He reached out to push a stray hair behind her ear. "Forgive me?"

"No," Kara said defiantly, shrugging out of his grasp. She walked over to lean against the ladder by her bunk.

Anders threw his hands up in the air. "What the frak do I have to do to make you stop acting pissy?"

"Maybe you should actually show some interest in what my life's become. I've been trying to tell you that I'm not the girl you know anymore for over an hour now."

"Your point is hitting home," Anders insisted. "What I don't understand is why this new girl in front of me refuses to let herself be touched for more than a few seconds."

"What are you talking about?"

"You've barely let me touch you since you brought me onboard this ship. Barclay and Fink have been teasing me about how loud you were going to be when we finally got reunited. They remember all the times in the visiting group quarters after our games." Anders smirked. "You were always a screamer, Kara."

Kara could feel the heat traveling to her cheeks. "I don't think it's appropriate for me to say frak you to my duties just to have some reunion sex with you, Sam. I have a job to do."

Anders shook his head in disbelief. "You're right. You are a completely different person, Kara. I'm starting to think if I met you in a bar today, I wouldn't even look twice."

Kara narrowed her eyes. "If that's supposed to make me want to frak you, then you're losing your skill, Anders."

"I'm just saying. You've gotten rather frigid, Kara."

This time Kara didn't bother to say frak you to him. She just leaned over the table and slapped him across the face. He looked stunned for a second before he smiled at her. "There's the Kara I know."

Kara sank down into one of the chairs in front of the table. The realization of what was in front of her finally hit home. "Gods, were we always this fraked up, Sam?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Look at us. We're fighting like children when we should be focusing on the fact that we're both alive and safe."

"We always fought."

"It wasn't healthy," Kara said sadly. "I think I realized that after I thought you were gone. What we had wasn't a healthy relationship. Frak, in the beginning, we based it on whether we won a game or not."

"That was in the beginning, Kara. All relationships start on strange footing."

Kara shook her head. "Not all relationships."

"Are you trying to tell me something, Kara?"

"I wish you could have seen this coming," Kara whispered, mostly to herself. "I wish you could understand where I'm coming from."

Anders went to get up out of his chair, but Kara had him sitting back down with a small shake of her head. "Please don't tell me you're doing this now."

"I made a promise to get you off Caprica. I held to that. I never promised you anything more." Kara shrugged. "Love is a gamble, Sam, and sometimes you have to lose to win."

"Nice little analogy. Now could you tell me what the frak you're doing?"

Kara reached out to take his hand. "You are a part of the reason I'm who I am today. You gave me a lot in the short time we had together, Sam, and I will never stop thanking you for that, but we both know what this really was."

"What was this?" Anders said, pulling his hand away from her.

"A publicity stunt," Kara said. The words hurt as much coming out as she knew they hurt for him to hear. That they were the truth only helped slightly. "You and I had been dating a year and we were losing our advantage in the playoffs. The fans were pissed. We had to give them something to keep the bodies in the stands."

Anders shook his head. "So that's all it was? A captain and the star player putting on a show to sell tickets?"

"The engagement? Yes. The relationship? No. I love you, Sam. You will always be that guy that wouldn't quit pounding away at my defenses until I realized I was worth something, but we both know whatever we had wasn't going to last. One of us was going to get bored." Kara gave him a smile. "We were party people back then, Sam, living for whatever life could give us in the moment. I've changed. So have you. The people we are today have separate paths to take. Even if it hurts, it's the truth."

"You're really doing this?" Anders said. A nervous laugh of disbelief fell off his lips.

"I'm so sorry," Kara whispered. She looked down at her hands. "I just can't do this to you, Sam. I can't pretend anymore."

"It's him. You love him, don't you?"

Kara refused to play dumb. That would just make both her and Anders look like asses. She wasn't going to ask him whomever could he possible be referring to, and she wasn't going to lie. "I can't live without him."

Anders nodded. "You know, I could tell there was something between you from the second we found you on Caprica. I was just too deluded to let myself admit it."

"I'm sorry," Kara repeated.

"You have no reason to apologize, Kara. You can't help what your heart decides." Anders smiled at her. "You've earned the right to happy. If that means ending whatever this was, that's what it means."

"See? This is just another reason why I don't deserve a man like you," Kara said, pushing away the tears with the tips of her fingers. She hated that crying was becoming her gut reaction to every single serious conversation she had. They stared at each other for a moment, simply getting used to the idea that this thing they had between them was going to end for good the second one of them looked away.

Anders broke first. He looked down at her hands and, after a slight hesitation, took her left one into his. "I loved you with all my heart, Kara, and I would have wanted to marry you. You're right, though. The engagement happened too quickly for me to even think of arguing that it wasn't the P.R. managers planting the seeds of marriage into our heads." He slipped the silver ring off her thumb and smiled. "I can't believe you wore it all this time."

"In the beginning, it was a reminder to me that I worth something. Then, after Caprica, it reminded me that I had made a promise. I was coming back to get you the first second I could manage it."

"And you did."

"And I'm going to regret it for the rest of my unnaturally short life," Kara teased.

Anders tossed her ring up into the air and caught it. "We always did find the most unique ways of annoying each other."

"That's not going to stop," Kara said, her voice suddenly full of resolve. "I'm not going to disappear because our engagement is over."

"I would hope not. You're the only person I know in this whole fraking Fleet." Kara let out a laugh, and Anders reached across the table for a bottle of ambrosia. "Drink?"

Kara thought about how much trouble alcohol had gotten her into the past few weeks as she tried to deal with her problems. "I can't."

"Why the frak not?"

"I have responsibilities now. I have flight schedules to write, and then I need to be up in the air for the mid shift today. There's just not enough time."

Anders shook his head. This new, responsible, adult-size Kara was going to take some getting used to. "Well, then will you sit here and watch me drink? There's a lot I still don't know about this place that you love so much."

Kara nodded and leaned back in her chair. The flight schedules could wait. For now, she just missed her friend.