Lee's hands were stained with blood as Kara stumbled with him down the dirt roads of New Caprica City, and he whispered, "I have to believe there's something better out there for us than this life."


Lee's hands were stained with blood as Kara stumbled with him down the dirt roads of New Caprica City, and he whispered, "I have to believe there's something better out there for us than this life."

"We live the lives the gods have chosen for us," Kara whispered, slipping her hand into his. She didn't seem to mind that they were far from clean.

"Do you think the gods chose this for us?"

Kara shut her eyes as the reality of the situation bore into her heart. She was running… stumbling… for her life down the streets of a city she had never really wanted to live in with a man she had never thought she would see again. He had been shot in the shoulder damn close to where her own bullet had made its mark and was currently trying to do his best to pretend like he wasn't in pain because that's what she needed right now. Her husband was long dead, one of the first victims of the occupation, and the only man she had ever called father had been forced to leave her behind when she couldn't make it to a rescue ship in time. His son chose to stay behind until she could be found. "They know what they're doing," she said softly.

Lee's grip on her hand tightened, and he pulled her into an abandoned tent a few seconds before the clinking armor of a Centurion rang through the streets. They waited patiently side by side until the machine had passed. Then it was back to running. Lee promised her he would find a way off this planet, and she believed him. That was enough to keep him fighting for at least the rest of this life if not the next.

"I don't think I can believe the gods wanted the Cylons to rise up and attempt to exterminate their parents," Lee said after a mile or so of painful hobbling down the road. "Things that awful can't be connected to the same beings that gave me the people and things I love so much."

They returned to silence until Lee stumbled over his own feet. Kara decided the pain must be getting to him. She slid her arm underneath his and took on as much of his weight as she could. Her knee was twisted a week back and taking on a grown man's weight hurt quite a bit, but this was Lee. She would tough her way through this for Lee.

The hope that they were going to find an out-of-the-box way to survive was slowly dwindling with each step.

"Sometimes I used to lay in my bunk and wonder what the gods really intended our lives to be."

Lee's words broke her focus, and they stumbled to a stop. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"If the gods didn't want the holocaust to happen, then they intended different destinies for each and every one of us. Sometimes at night when I couldn't sleep, I would imagine what those destinies were."

"And?"

"You were a painter."

Kara raised her eyebrows. She didn't even know that Lee was aware of her love of art. "Really?"

"You tweaked your knee about six years after you were stationed on Galactica for the first time. My father encouraged you to take a little time off before you threw yourself into a military desk job. You took his advice and ended up painting. Your work would catch the eye of some famous art critic like Modi or Socatto, and from that point on, you were set for life. You moved to the wilds of Tauron for a bit to get creative inspiration, but you moved to Picon when the loneliness got to be too much."

"Do you fit into my destiny anywhere?" Kara asked.

Lee smiled. "We have dinner every second Saturday. It's a tradition."

Kara closed her eyes for a second and tried to imagine the picture Lee just painted for her. Her deep sigh echoed off the abandoned city, and she was smiling when she opened her eyes again. "I like my destiny."

"It took me a long while to figure out," Lee admitted.

Kara slid her arm under Lee's again and started pulling them forward. "What about yourself?"

Lee shook his head. "I could never think up one for myself. Everything I imagined just didn't seem right."

They returned to silence as they left the dusty roads of the city and entered the forest. Lee could tell something was on Kara's mind, but he had learned years ago that it was better not to ask.

"You're a single father."

Lee's heart froze at Kara's words, and his mind flashed back to that day in Caprica City with Gianne. He had told Kara about it after the destruction of the Blackbird, but he really hadn't thought she'd remember.

"Your daughter's mother was ex-military. You met her on your first assignment as CAG of a battlestar and fell in love immediately. You married her after three weeks and were blissfully happy for over a year until she contracted cancer shortly after giving birth to your child. You were left alone to raise her and at first you were scared to death, but you had help. You became a good father just like I always knew you would be."

Lee shook his head. "You have a wild imagination, Kara."

"I'm not finished yet," she pointed out. "Your daughter would grow up to be the best pilot the Academy and War College ever graduated. She would take the whole Fleet by storm and eventually she would go on to become President of the Twelve Colonies. At her inauguration , she would step up to that podium and thank her father for sacrificing so much to raise her the right way. She… that one child you never knew you wanted… would be your greatest achievement in life."

"And do you fit into my destiny anywhere?" Lee teased.

"We have dinner every second Saturday," Kara said with a wink, "and sometimes on Friday you show up at my studio to surprise me with lunch."

Lee pointed to the hollowed out shell of a Viper that was in the distance. It must have crash landed during the initial attack on New Caprica. Kara aimed their stumble in that direction. "I like my destiny, too," he said after they reached their destination.

Kara leaned their tired bodies against the fighter ship and tried to get her breath back. They were almost to their breaking point, and they didn't have a plan. She reached over to feel out the bullet wound in Lee's shoulder. It had stayed relatively clean considering their surroundings, and Kara figured she had a few more hours before he started losing too much blood.

"Where's a good pain medication when you need it?" Lee asked, grimacing as Kara tried to wrap his shoulder again.

Kara looked over the cuts on his forehead before stepping back a few feet and sitting down in the grass. They could stumble all over this planet for the rest of their lives, but it wasn't going to get them anywhere. They needed to start thinking. An explosion rang out in the distance, and Kara smiled. "Looks like they found my little going away present."

Lee laid down on the ground next to her, staring up at the sky. It was rather peaceful, considering. "It doesn't even look like anything's happened up there. Cloud Nine didn't get obliterated. The Galactica and Pegasus didn't patrol for months, and they sure as frak didn't fight to within an inch of their lives to push the Cylons away. It's just blue skies and little white clouds. It's slightly depressing."

"Yeah," Kara agreed, moving to lay in the grass beside him. "That one looks like a toaster."

"Boomer or D'anna?" Lee asked.

"The tall, leggy blond one," Kara shot back.

"Ah. A good choice if I do say so myself."

The stillness returned to the air around them, and Kara mustered up the courage to keep talking. "Are you scared?"

"No," Lee replied. It surprised him to realize he wasn't lying. He wasn't really scared. "I guess I lost my fear a long time ago when things really went to hell. Now I'm just living each moment as best I can."

"I'm not scared, either," Kara admitted. She reached her hand out to grasp his, and Lee realized that he couldn't remember if the blood staining her skin was his own or if it was hers or if it was from one of those human-metal mother frakers. The lines were blurring.

"What about the Old Man?" Kara asked quietly.

Lee looked up into the sky where he could just begin to make out the silhouette of a Raptor as it got closer to the planetside. Looks like they weren't going to have to run much farther. "My father's destiny never changes. To fight until his last breath and never give up hope."

Beside him, Kara smiled.