Lee turned the boards permanently over to Dee the first chance he had. Then he was sprinting down the corridors. He didn't care if it was behavior unbecoming of a battlestar commander. He just knew that those precious minutes he had left Kara alone could have done more damage than anyone imagined. He had to get to her.

"Kara?" he called the second the hatch had locked behind him. When there was no answer, he started frantically searching the rooms.

He found her huddled on the bathroom floor. Her arms were tucked around her head, and she was moving in a gentle rocking motion. Lee tried not to flinch at the flecks of blood on the broken mirror or the raw cuts on the knuckles of her hands.

"Kara, it's me." Lee kneeled down beside her. "I'm here."

"I can't get it to stop, Lee," she whispered. "He won't stop."

"I know. It's okay."

"It's not okay," Kara screamed, finally looking up at him. Her cheeks were stained with tears, and there were a few fresh scraps on her neck. Lee tried not to wince at the blood that had dried there. "It's not okay. I don't think I can do this. I… I can't do this."

"Do what?"

"Figure out why I'm supposed to hold on. There's no reason. He keeps telling me that. There's no reason. But then you keep telling me to fight this, that we'll figure it out. What if I don't want to figure out? What if I just want to die? That way I can be with him. I can apologize for what I did. Everything will be as it should have been. I can apologize."

"It sounds like you've thought this one out," Lee said. He gently placed his hand on one of her knees.

"I have. I would have done it by now except…" Her voice trailed out as her eyes went slightly vacant.

"Except?" Lee prodded.

"Except I'm not sure who I'm supposed to be apologizing to. Because if I kill myself and it's you, then there's no way I can say I'm sorry. I won't be with you anymore. But if it's him, then I finally did something right."

"Sam wouldn't want you to die, Kara."

"I know that. I do," she insisted. "It's just… he wouldn't… the things he said to me... my heart has never broken that hard."

"I'm sorry," Lee whispered.

Kara's eyes searched his face for a moment. "Am I going to keep murdering the people I love?"

Lee's heart broke in two. It finally hit him what was so wrong about this whole thing. Kara reminded him of a little, lost child. She wasn't the Fleet's best viper pilot trying to deal with the death of her husband. She wasn't a woman trying to understand why even if she made this relationship work a little better than the last, it still had to end. She had reverted back to that broken girl she had been so many years ago. "Kara, listen to me. Whatever happened on New Caprica was not your fault."

"You weren't there."

"I didn't have to be."

Kara's head tilted away as she tried to figure out what that meant. For just a second, Lee thought he may have actually gotten somewhere, but then her eyes went wide and she pulled back. He could hear her muttering under her breath. "No no no. This is wrong. This is all wrong. No. No. No."

"Calm down," Lee whispered, sliding his body a few inches towards her. "Tell me what's wrong."

"You're supposed to be dead. You died down there. I can see it in my head. I left you, and when I came back, he had you. He shot you. I held your fraking body in my arms as you took your last breath. You're not real. You can't be real."

"I'm real," Lee insisted. He reached out and grabbed her hand. "Do you feel that, Kara? I'm real."

Kara's face lit up in confusion. "This can't be…"

"It is. Whatever you're seeing in your head is wrong. I'm here, and I don't plan on going anywhere. Now you can either start telling me what is wrong or we can sit on this cold bathroom floor for the rest of the night. Either way, I'm not leaving you."

Kara pulled herself away from Lee and lowered her forehead to rest on her knees. Her hands came up to cradle the pounding inside her head. "I hate it. I hate that I can't just let it go, that I couldn't just let him make me happy. I hate that you won't go away. Things would be easier if you went away. I could think. Maybe the voice would stop. That would make him happy. He always wanted that. He wanted me to say goodbye to you. I fought him for so long and then I didn't, but I did. I never gave it up completely. He hated me for that. He thought he was always having to prove something. Maybe that was what he was trying to tell me. I just want you to go away. Go away!" Kara's mumblings had turned into screaming by the end.

Lee watched her for a moment before standing up. He smiled sadly one last time and stepped out into his private quarters.

Kara stayed hunched over for a few seconds until she realized he had left. Her heart, which had been pounding out of control, stopped dead in its tracks. "No," she whispered. Her hands shook as she grabbed the counter and pulled herself to her feet. "No. No. No."

Lee was standing in the doorway to his office when she came stumbling into the room. Tears were streaming down her face. "Kara."

"Don't leave me. I didn't mean it, Lee. I promise. I…"

Kara collapsed at his feet, sobbing. Lee kneeled down immediately to gather her into his arms. "Kara, stop. You don't have to… just please stop." Kara sniffled and buried her face further into his chest. "I said I wasn't leaving you. I meant it. I just figured I would take the few seconds you gave me by kicking me out of your life to call down to the CIC and tell Dee I was going to be indisposed for quite a while. We're working this out, Kara."

"I'm scared," Kara whispered into him.

"I'm scared to, but it doesn't matter. We have to do this. I'm not going to let those stupid toasters win." Lee held her in silence until he could finally feel her shaking stop. It was only then that he pulled back to wipe the loose hair from her face. She looked so defenseless. "Are you-"

"You never really loved me. I always knew that. I wish I could have been what you needed."

Lee's face lit up in confusion. "Kara?"

"Those were the last words he said to me. I made him feel inadequate. That was my gift to him. He gave me unconditional love, and I gave him inadequacy."

"I don't think so." Kara's eyes flew up to meet his, and Lee smiled. "I saw the way Sam looked at you. You can't love a person as much as he did and feel inadequate. So just stop thinking like that right this minute."

"You don't get it, Lee."

"I get it more than I should, Kara. Trust me." Lee tightened his hold on her body. He didn't know what else to do.

"I hear those words. Every time I shut my eyes, I can see his face. Then it's your face, and I know that it didn't happen that way. You weren't there. I can't get my head to wrap around that, though, and I wake up scared. My mind takes a while to settle and when it does, I know what the dreams are trying to tell me. It's going to be the same. I'm going to do the same thing to you, too, Lee. I'm going to destroy you. I'm going to chip away at you until nothing's left. I can't stop it."

Lee's fingers dug into her skin as he gripped her arms and shook her slightly. It was the only bit of anger he let out, and it served the purpose of stopping the words coming out of her mouth. "Listen to me, Kara. You do not get to make this decision. The Cylons screwed with your head. They wanted you destroyed. Well, they got their wish. You're pretty fraked up right now." Lee took a deep breath. "But it doesn't have to stay that way. You can fight this, Kara. We can fight this. You just have to stop pushing me away and then pulling me back. You need to face the fact that you need me to help you get through this. You can't be the strong, cocky fighter pilot everyone expects you to be if you want to make it out of this one alive. So please, just let me in."

"I don't want to kill you, Lee."

"Seeing you like this is killing me," he insisted. "So if you really mean that, you'll stop focusing on me and start focusing on yourself."

Kara's hand shook as she slid her fingers up along his collarbone. Lee felt his heart drop out when he realized what she was doing. She was feeling for his pulse. Her light touch mingled with his heartbeat for a few precious seconds before her hand dropped back to lay in her lap. Lee felt her take a deep breath. "Can I… can I stay here with you?"

"For as long as you want, Kara."

"Okay."

Lee wished he knew what that meant. He wished he could take that one word and assume it meant the end of this problem. Kara had never been that simple, though. He had to ask. "Okay?"

Her answer came out as barely a whisper. "I don't want to be like this anymore."

Lee waited a moment before scooping her up into his arms and lifting her off the floor. He set her down on the bed and then retreated into the bathroom. He returned with a bowl of warm water and a cloth. Kara held her hands out to him, and he tried to be gentle as he cleaned off the blood. Without a word, he moved to the scratches on her neck and arm.

When he was done, he set the bowl on the floor and pulled back the covers on the bed. Kara slid inside the little cocoon without a word, and Lee only hesitated slightly before joining her. He wrapped his arms around her and held on until her breathing evened out.

He hoped to the gods he was enough for her.