The phone in Lee's office rang, causing him to jump. He had been far too engrossed in the last of his paperwork. Checking the time, he let out a long sigh before picking up the receiver. "Commander Adama."
"Commander. Captain Thrace is here."
Lee smiled. He had requested her presence a few days earlier, but he hadn't thought it would be this easy to actually get her here. "Tell her I'm coming out."
"Sir?"
"The paperwork can wait, Cally, and I told you a long time ago you can call me Lee."
"Yes, sir."
Lee smiled as he hung up the receiver. He slid his jacket off the back of his chair. It only took him three seconds to make it to the door, and it took Kara less time than that to fling herself in his arms. "Hey, kid," he whispered in her ear. "I missed you."
Kara pulled back to smile at him. "You know I'm busy, Commander. There's a lot to do."
Lee smirked. "How are the negotiations going?"
"I think these people are willing to accept Laura as their leader so we should be making the smooth transition into colonization any day now. But forget that for now. Why'd you call me away from what your father calls the most important job anyone can be given?"
Lee held out his hand. "Take a ride with me?"
Her mouth turned up in a wide smile, and Kara slid her hand into his. Lee nodded at Cally. Judging by her smile, she knew that he was going to be out of his office for the rest of the day.
Kara and Lee walked hand in hand out to the carport without saying a word. Walking over to one of his office transports, he held the door open for her before running around to the other side. By the time he got there, she had leaned across the car to push the driver's side door open for him.
As they drove down roads of stones and dirt, Lee let himself think back on the past five years. It had taken two of those to bring Kara back to the same level she had once been at. There was so much pain and guilt to sort through. The Cylons had fraked with her mind in a way that to this day Lee still had trouble comprehending.
In the end, though, Lee pulled her out of it. He had been telling the truth when he said he wasn't going anywhere, and the second Kara accepted that, she started getting better. Reality became clearer until one day Kara came to terms with how her husband died.
The car hit a particularly nasty bump in the road, and Kara let out a loud laugh. Lee smiled over at her. She had always loved the bumpy rides.
"I still can't believe this is Earth," Kara whispered.
Lee turned to see her staring out the window and smiled. "I can't believe it either."
He wasn't sure what he had been expecting all those years they were searching for first the Lagoon Nebula and then the thirteenth colony, but it wasn't this. Earth was not the advanced civilization of his dreams. Instead, the Fleet had found a planet that knew the consequences of war a little too well.
The planet looked like it was freshly created. The plant life was bordering on out of control, and it took the Fleet days to realize that underneath all the brush were half-torn buildings, hollowed out by years of non-use. Weeks later when they finally encountered life, they found out why.
Long ago, the planet had split into rival societies as a necessity when differences became too much. Eventually humanity turned to war to solve these differences. What occurred was a full nuclear onslaught, a concept Lee wished he was less familiar with. When the smoke cleared, the survivors banded together. They went to the areas least hit and stayed underground for generations. The world rebuilt itself.
The story felt familiar to Lee the second he heard it. He told his father as much, and he let William Adama assume he was talking about the destruction of the Twelve Colonies. He didn't have it in his heart to admit the history of Earth's rebirth was almost identical to Kara's struggle the past five years.
To this day, no one knew how bad it had been. No one knew just how many times he came to losing her.
Kara turned to look at Lee as the car came to a stop in the middle of nowhere. "Where are we?"
Lee only gave her a smile before sliding out the door. He waited at the hood of the car until she joined him. "Do you remember where we were a year ago today?"
A lazy grin grew on Kara's face. "We had just found the survivors on Earth a few weeks earlier. Our lives were in complete chaos, but you still found the time to find me a cake among the last of our supplies."
"Do you remember the promise I made when we figured out the cake was complete crap?"
"You said that next year you would do better."
"Happy birthday, Kara." Lee took Kara's hand and started dragging her up a small dirt path. He knew the moment they reached the top because Kara's hand fell from his. He turned to see it held up to her mouth as she tried desperately to keep herself from crying.
They stood on top of a hill that faced a small house made of glass and wood. Kara's eyes ran over the lines of the deck circling the house before she twisted to see what was in the valley in front of her. This time she couldn't hold the gasp in. The glass house overlooked a large lake that was currently moving with the wind, and Kara felt a familiar chord being struck inside of her. This little piece of Earth was an exact replica of the Caprican hillsides.
"I figured out rather quickly that Earth was going to be everything we ever dreamed of, Kara. I knew it would take more than that to convince you, though."
Kara tore her eyes away from the lakeside to look at him. "What is this?"
"I built you a house."
"This is mine?"
"Happy birthday," Lee reported.
"But how did you… what… wh… a house?"
"You need a home, Kara. The order came through yesterday from my father and the President. We're settling down here permanently. Our fight is over." Lee sighed and looked over the lake. "It's close to where we've set up base so you shouldn't have a problem traveling back and forth. The architect I hired to help build this insisted that it will hold up during the winters so you have nothing to worry about. You can finally let go."
Lee watched Kara take a few steps forward. The breeze from off the lake blew through her hair. It had grown long over the past five years. She turned back to smile at him just as the light from the setting sun caught in her eyes. "Will you stay here with me?" she asked quietly.
Brief flashes of memory ran through Lee's head. Kara sitting on the floor of his bathroom, blood on her hands. Kara laying on his bed, laughing over a mistake on the flight schedule. Kara staring at him, the gun in her hand slowly raising up to her temple. Kara crying. Kara smiling.
Stepping forward, he nodded and took her outstretched hand. "For as long as you want me to."
Kara moved the few steps to settle into his arms. She leaned into the comfort he was offering her and whispered, "The Old Man is just going to love this."
Lee smirked, and slipping his hand into hers, lead her down the path to their new home.
