Kara wasn't sure how he managed it, but on the morning of her birthday, there was one red balloon sitting on her bunk when she came back from the head.

Kara wasn't sure how he managed it, but on the morning of her birthday, there was one red balloon sitting on her bunk when she came back from the head. Her hand fingered the string lightly, and she smiled.

"Whatcha got there, 'Buck?"

Kara turned to see Hot Dog slip into the bunkroom. She was about to yell at him to get out of the senior officers' quarters when she realized that would be a mistake. He had been promoted last week. She had no clue why she kept forgetting that.

Her hand came out to pull the string towards her. The balloon floated to the ceiling, and Kara tugged it down just before it hit the top. "A balloon," she said, knowing she looked like an idiot with this massive grin on her face.

"Balloons still exist?" Hot Dog asked as he threw himself on his bunk.

"No," Kara confirmed. She turned her attention away from her new bunkmate and back to her present. "How the frak did he do this?"

"Who's he?"

Kara rolled her eyes as Racetrack entered the room. It wasn't even shift change. Why the frak was everyone coming back now? "None of your business," she answered, tightening her hand around the string and making her way to the hatch.

"Starbuck has a secret admirer," Hot Dog teased.

"It's only secret if she doesn't know who it is, you idiot," Racetrack pointed out.

That was the last few words Kara heard as she stepped into the hallway. She wished she could stay and show them that only fools with a death wish tease Kara Thrace, but she had too much on her mind right now.

This balloon's very presence was improbable but not impossible. The impossible part came from Lee's selection of one single red balloon.

"You look very cute with that balloon."

Kara didn't jump when she heard Lee's voice in her ear. Somehow she knew he would find her.

"Thank you."

"For what?"

Kara rolled her eyes. "Let's not play this game, Lee."

"You're welcome."

Kara ignored the stares of people passing by. She knew that her standing in the corridor in sweats with a red balloon in her hand and the CAG at her side was rather strange, but she didn't care. If you couldn't do strange things on your birthday, when could you?

"Come with me," Lee said, motioning her to follow him.

The confusion didn't set in until Lee turned down the corridor leading to his father's office. "You guys don't have some sort of surprise party cooked up, do you?"

"You hate surprise parties," Lee reminded her.

"Which is why you've been trying to throw one for years."

"I figured I'd take a year off and just enjoy your paranoia." Lee punched in a code. and the hatch slid open. "Birthday girls first."

Kara stepped into the office and waited until the hatch shut and Lee brushed past her. He motioned for her to sit down and walked over to the opposite wall. Kara watched him slid a book off the shelf, and in a few seconds, he tossed it into her lap. "It took me months to make it happen, but that was the Old Man's birthday gift this year."

Kara ran her hand along the spine. This was a first edition of a classic Leonis fairytale. It was the story every child heard before bed when they were young, a tradition in all Twelve Colonies. Kara hadn't heard it until she got the flu circulating the Academy her first year. "It's nice, Lee."

Lee shook his head. "The book was just the icing on the cake. The present's inside."

Kara opened the book slowly, expecting to see the insides cut out in order to hide a bottle of moonshine. Instead she found a photograph of a young blonde girl. The little girl was sitting in the park, holding a red balloon and smiling like it was the best day in the history of the Twelve Colonies. "How did you get this?"

"I was the one who cleaned out Zak's apartment at the Academy after the funeral. You and my mother were both too distraught, and my father was already on a shuttle back to Galactica. I found it hidden in his school papers."

Kara ran her finger along the little girl's face. "It was my fifth birthday. All I wanted was to go to the park so when my mother left to go to the store, my dad and I snuck out of the house. He bought that red balloon off a street vendor." Kara paused, and Lee watched the smile slip off her face just a little bit. "He left me a week later."

"I'm sorry."

Kara shrugged. "There's nothing you can do." She closed the picture back into the book and laid it on the Commander's desk. Her hands returned to play with the string attached to the balloon. The air around her felt tense with the silence hanging between them. "Why do you take the picture?"

"There was something so different about that little girl in the picture that I couldn't let it go," Lee admitted, leaning against the desk.

"And how did it get here?"

"I was planning on giving it back to you at the decommissioning ceremony. After a while, it felt weird having it without you knowing. Plus, I figured that you might want the memory. Then the worlds ended, and I knew I had to give it to my father. We both know how much weight he's carrying on his shoulders."

"So that's why the red balloon," Kara observed.

"I figured we could all share the picture now that the Cylon attacks have started to dwindle."

"Share it?" Kara said, raising her eyebrow.

"All I'm asking for is any day I have to write that damn flight schedule. You and the Old Man can duke it out for the others."

Kara shook her head with a chuckle and got to her feet. "You're completely ridiculous sometimes, Lee."

Lee waited until she had reached the hatch before calling out her name. She turned back to him, and he saw the smile on her face for the first time. It mirrored the five-year-old smile currently tucked up in the book by his side. "Happy birthday, Kara."

"Thanks," Kara said.

Lee waited until she had disappeared out the hatch. Then he rushed across the office to stick his head out into the corridor. For the rest of his life, he would always remember the image before him.

Kara Thrace walking down the corridors of Galactica with a red balloon floating at her side.