Kara walked into the break room and, seeing Lee in full concentration mode with the flight schedules, leaned in to blow gently against the back of his neck.

Kara walked into the break room and, seeing Lee in full concentration mode with the flight schedules, leaned in to blow gently against the back of his neck. She felt him stiffen, but he didn't move. Moving would call attention to them, and as much as Kara loved attention, she didn't want it right now.

The corner of Lee's mouth quirked up into the start of a smile as she slid into the chair next to him. Her hand ran along his shoulders until she was playing with the small hairs at the back of his neck.

She had always been the type of girl to fall in love fast and out of love even quicker. It suited her in many ways.

It was always the same. She found a man she wanted. She toyed with him, teasing and laughing and flirting, until he was hers. She had her fill and then she moved on.

Kara felt Lee relax back against the motions of her hand on his neck and knew it was happening again. She was falling in love again, and there was nothing she could do about it. Never in a million years would she have expected it to be with Lee, but she couldn't change it now.

Her heart always did have a mind of its own.

Kara leaned into the table and started reading the flight schedules in front of Lee. He was doing pretty good, coming up with new ways to merge the two battlestars together into one seamless Fleet. Not that he still wasn't making mistakes. She grabbed the pen out of Lee's hand and switched Racetrack out of the same CAP slot as Sunshine. Racetrack had had a particularly nasty triad loss to Sunshine, and it was quite possible any interaction between the two would cause a fist fight when they hit the ground. "This is better."

"Thanks." Because she was leaning in to write, Lee's voice was a gravelly whisper in her ear. Kara fought to hold back the shiver.

It had been so long since a guy could affect her without even trying. She had prided herself on the defenses she built when Zak died. Somehow, it made sense that it was his brother that blew it all away.

She had thought she was being smart, keeping her herself locked down. There was a lot of hurt inside her, and it was just easy to keep it inside. The Old Man didn't need it, not with what was happening with his eldest son. Her fellow pilots didn't care. They had their own problems. So she just pushed it down, figuring when things got easier, she'd deal with it.

Things didn't get easier so to some degree she was still keeping herself in check. Helo had even begun to tease her that she was losing her Starbuck flare. That was before the attacks happened. Now, he kept pointing out glimpses of Starbuck. Kara felt herself coming back to life. She just wasn't ready to tell Karl that it was because of Lee.

Kara felt Lee's hand move to lay palm up on her thigh. She tried to keep the smile to herself as she slid her hand into his. Together, they kept up the façade of flight schedules.

She knew why she had been so closed off. She had let herself love Zak openly, and when he died, he took that with her. She was never scared of love before she lost Zak. She was never scared of being hurt.

Kara had made the decision that she would only fall in love again if she had the promise that the man she loved would not hurt her. She was tired of being hurt.

"I'm tired."

Kara turned her attention back to Lee and saw he was telling the truth. There were bags under his eyes so large they probably could have taken out a base star on their own. "I can finish them if you like," she offered.

Lee shook his head and stood up. "No, I'll get to them." He leaned over her shoulder to push the papers into a pile just like she expected him to. Lee was nothing if not neat.

Then, he surprised her. She felt his hands slid away from the table to make themselves at home on her shoulders. He gave them a quick squeeze and then leaned down to whisper in her ear. "So what do you say, Captain? Are you in the mood for a nap?"

Kara twisted to smile at him. There was a huge chance that she could get hurt pretty bad in this one. It was unfortunate that she didn't care. "A nap sounds like heaven, sir."