Lee found himself still standing in the middle of the room even though Bauer dropped him off over an hour earlier. He couldn't believe this place. It looked like nothing from the outside, but on the inside, it was a direct replica of the Academy. The room was a small cubby with two bunks and a pair of desks. It was odd to be in a room that made him feel so young and yet he knew just how much he had grown up. The Cylons had taken away the last bit of innocence in his life.

He couldn't get his head in the game.

The only thought rumbling around in there was of Kara off with her husband. Right this moment, she was with Anders, a man she hadn't seen since before she left to find Lee. They were off having a momentous, fairytale reunion, and Lee was stuck staring at his past, a past he could never get back.

Gods, he hated that he had lost Kara because, for the first time in their lives, they were both rational.

He should never have left her that day on New Caprica. He should have listened to his heart and not his head. She would have gone back to Pegasus with him. He was almost sure of it. He loved her, and by the gods, that had to be fraking enough.

A soft knock pulled Lee away from his guilty thoughts. He waited a moment, hoping whoever it was would go away, but like everything else, nothing happened like he wanted it to. The door pushed open, and Lee turned in time to see Kara hesitantly step into the room, a small canvas bag in her hands.

Lee had no clue what to say. She wasn't supposed to be here. She was supposed to be halfway through fraking her husband into oblivion in the more adult chapter to her fairytale reunion. She was supposed to be assuring Sam that no matter if Lee was with her or not, she was still faithful to her marriage vows.

She wasn't supposed to be standing in front of him, looking so scared.

After a few moments of silence, Kara shut the door behind her and, dropping the bag, walked over to Lee. The look of concern was still on her face when she whispered, "Can I see it?"

Lee didn't have to ask what it was. He had known from the second she rescued him that she was going to ask to see it. It had been the secret lying between the two of them for months now, and she wanted the affirmation that it was still there.

Lee slipped his shirt over his head and tossed it to the floor. He let her look her fill of the tattoo emblazoned across his chest and arm. He wasn't surprised when a flare of desire hit the pit of his stomach and traveled through every inch of his body. It had been so long.

Kara stepped forward and reached out with her hand. Her fingers rang along the pattern, tracing it from one end to the other. Then her attentions moved on to the scratches scattered across his body. Lee didn't even think to wince. Somehow, when Kara touched the wounds, it didn't hurt one bit. Lee felt his heart speed up, and he knew that Kara noticed.

Smiling, she took a step back from him, putting a few safe inches between them. "We don't have a medic to patch you up anymore now that Cottle's been evacuated." She paused before giving him a brave smile and a rather familiar wink. "Good thing you have me though."

Lee paused a second before reaching out to touch her cheek. Kara couldn't help but shut her eyes and lean into his hand. He could see her biting her tongue and knew they were doing what they had always done. They were fighting this. Sighing, he dropped his hand. "Don't you have better things to do?"

"Not until the morning," Kara said.

Lee stared at her a moment before daring to add, "You don't have anyone to get back to?"

"Not until the morning," Kara repeated. Her eyes dropped down as she remembered how the conversation had gone.

"I don't understand, Kara. You risk your life to save this guy. He was stuck deeper inside the Cylon's territory than we had ever been, and yet you insisted someone go in. Then you get him back here and you refuse to let the medics look at him. Instead you have him whisked off to one of the rooms. Now you're telling me that you're not coming back until the morning."

The look she gave him was as stubborn as they came. "This is Lee, and he needs me. I have to go, Sam. I'm sorry."

"Let's get those wounds looked at," Kara said, pulling herself away from the already painful memory.

Lee nodded. "We should probably start with my wrist first. Leoben broke it during the first few days."

He watched Kara flinch at the use of the Cylon's name, but she recovered too quickly for him to ask what it was about. Her fingertips flitted over his swollen wrist before she let out a low sigh. "I'm not a miracle worker, Lee."

"You can't set a broken wrist," he said with a small nod. "I figured as much. I can take the pain."

"No, you can't," Kara insisted. "But I'm afraid that to set a wrist I need a clean and fresh break. This one has already started healing over."

"Break it again."

Kara's eyes went wide. He wasn't joking. "What?"

"Break it again. If you need a clean break, then do it."

"Lee, I cannot break your wrist. You'd pass out from the pain, and the way you've been going, you won't wake up for a week. I can't have you out that long."

"I won't pass out," Lee growled. "Now just do it before we both start to fraking over think this."

"Lee…"

"I know you can do this, Kara. If you remember, there was a small two week period when we first got to New Caprica that you were helping me with my first round transfers down to the surface. I make it a point to have medical reports on all the personnel under my command, even the temporary ones." Lee hissed as Kara's grip on his wrist tightened. "Frak, Kara!"

"I'm sorry," she said, wincing. Her fingers went back to the gentle grip she had before.

"Cottle sent me a copy of your med reports, and I wasn't going to read them. I threw them to the side." Lee sighed and hoped to the gods he wasn't fraking something up by telling her this. "Then you told me you were moving down to New Caprica with Anders. You left my office and me in a complete daze that day. I was sitting at my desk for over an hour before my eyes landed on the abandoned report. I don't know why I read it, but I'm glad I did."

"So you know about my childhood accidents?"

"If you want to call them that, yeah. So you see, Kara, I know you can set bones in your sleep. Why don't you-"

Lee's words cut off as he heard the bones in his wrist pull apart and then snap back into place. There was no relief to the pain. His ears were ringing with the sharp sting, but he still managed to hear Kara say she was sorry over and over again. It was like a mantra, the kind of thing he did when he was under too much pressure.

"Lee, are you still with me?"

Her voice snapped him back into the presence. He looked down at his wrist to see a large bandage wrapped securely around it. She must have reached down into her bag at some point. The pain was still there. "I'm here," he said. He had no clue why his voice sounded so weak.

"Frak me," Kara muttered. She reached into her pocket and held her hand out for Lee.

Lee looked at the pill in her palm for a moment before his brow furrowed. "What is that?"

"It's for the pain. We're low on meds so I didn't want to give it to you unless it was necessary."

'I don't need it," Lee insisted. "I can deal with the pain."

"That might be the truth, but would you take it for me?"

Lee narrowed his eyes even as the fingers of his good hand came out to grab the pill. "Why do you want me to take this? It's not poison or anything."

Kara rolled her eyes. "You've got to be fraking kidding me. I just reset your broken wrist without giving you pain meds, and you're still focused enough to wonder if I'm trying to put you to sleep."

"Wouldn't put it past you," Lee laughed. He chomped down on the pill, spilling its contents down his throat.

"My reasons are selfish," Kara said as she kneeled down to look through her bag. "I just got my best friend back, and I want him to be able to focus enough to tell me what happened to him." She straightened up and gestured at the bed. "Sit."

Lee complied without one word of protest. He felt Kara's hand run across his tattooed arm before she settled into the bunk behind him. He smelled the alcohol before he felt it sting the welts and lacerations on his back. "It looks worse than it is," he reassured her.

"I know."

Lee turned to grab Kara's hand and stop her movements. "How?"

"How what?"

"How do you know it looks worse than it is? Two seconds ago when you saw my wounds, you were on the verge of crying, and now you're all 'yeah it does look worse than it is'." Lee narrowed his eyes. "So how?"

Kara relaxed but let Lee keep his hold on her hands. "I told you the Cylons had me. I just wasn't specific."

"It was Leoben, wasn't it?"

Kara nodded. "He kept wanting to know if I was ready to fulfill my destiny. He got mad after the first couple days of me telling him he can frak off in every sense of the word."

"He started hurting you." It was less of a question, more of a statement. Lee didn't need her to say the words. He already knew.

Kara pulled her hands from his and started cleaning the wounds on his chest. "He wanted information and so did I. So I put up with his bullshit for as long as I could. It was something I'm used to so it didn't even hurt that much in the end. I bit back the pain and waited for the right moment. I would die before I let those Cylons use me as one of their pawns."

Lee watched her hands as they gently swept the alcohol-soaked cloth across his skin. "I'm so sorry."

"For what?" Kara asked, still focused on her work.

"I would have come for you. If I had known, I would have moved heaven and earth just to get to you."

Kara paused and, after a moment, smiled up at him. "Don't you think I know that? It took me two weeks to realize that you had no way of knowing the Cylons had me. That's why I stayed so long. Once my head cleared and I figured that out, I broke free. Leoben had a soft spot for me so security was less than optimal."

"If he was so fraking fascinated with you, you'd think he'd know better," Lee joked. His eyes scanned her face as she concentrated, and once again he find himself thinking about just how much her hairstyle suited this newer, more inviting Kara. Now that he wasn't chained up in a Cylon holding cell, he could get a good look at it. It was three inches long in the front but almost as short as his in the back, the kind of hairstyle he saw on the cover of Caprican Life before the attacks but with a more homemade flair. He would never have thought to put that style on Kara, but it worked. "I really do like your hair."

Kara bit her lip, and Lee could tell she was trying not to smile. She had always had a hard time taking compliments from him. He never really figured out why that was. She loved it when everyone else told her what a good pilot she was.

It was something unique to their relationship, though. Lee was the only one who could make her uncomfortable with a few nice words.

He reached out to brush his fingers against the jagged ends of her hair and was surprised when she leaned into his touch just a little bit. The smile slid off his face rather quickly as her hands moved on to clean out the gash on his temple. He hadn't realized it was that deep. "Frak."

"I'm sorry. I know it hurts."

Lee watched Kara's nose crinkle as she focused on finishing the job as soon as possible and resisted the urge to lean in the few inches between them in order to kiss the tip. "It really doesn't hurt that much."

"No matter," Kara said, putting down the cloth, "I'm all done."

"Great," Lee said, even though he knew they both could hear the dishonesty in his tone. "Thanks for this, Kara. Having someone I trust do this made it a lot easier."

"No problem."

Kara stood up from the bunk. Lee was about to ask her if he'd see her in the morning when she shrugged off her jacket and started unbuttoning her pants. "What are you doing?"

"Lay down, Lee," Kara said.

Lee watched her kick the pants across the room before she slid into the bunk next to him and forced his body flush against the mattress. She curled up against his side so quickly that Lee wondered if she was running on instinct alone. "Kara?"

"I said I didn't have to go back to the harsh, cruel world until the morning, Lee. I meant it."

Lee moved his good arm around her as she pulled the blanket up around their bodies. His hand fell on the exposed skin between her tanks and underwear, and Lee's brow furrowed as he tried to figure out what was so wrong about it. After a moment, it came to him. Her skin which had been so smooth the last time they had seen each other was no longer that way.

Kara's fingers came up to rest on his lips before he could ask her the question on the tip of his tongue. "My scars match your scars, Lee. It's always been that way."

Lee nodded, and moving his hand up, began to trace the marks of her tattoo just like she had been doing earlier. She was right about one thing. It was soothing somehow to know that the mark was still there underneath all the bullshit and pain they were living with. There were still a million questions to be asked, but he wasn't about to let himself ask even one. Kara was on the verge of falling asleep in his arms. He wouldn't frak that up for the world.