Their affair had always had a hint of sordidness to it, but it was only when Lee whispered how much he loved her that Kara truly understood the sin they were committing.

Kara felt her thoughts drifting away from the flight schedules in front of her. The CAPs were just a formality these days so it wasn't like it mattered if they were balanced and fair.

A lot of things no longer mattered. Life had changed with the appearance of New Caprica. Kara found herself hesitating to follow the crowds down to the surface. There was a wariness to trusting the Cylons wouldn't find them, and that nagging feeling just wouldn't go away. So she continued on, doing the only thing she knew, here in the skies. The only shift was she began expanding her duties to include both Galactica and Pegasus. She took on the workload of CAG for both ships, and yet she still found herself with too much time on her hands. The skies became lonelier than ever.

Kara let out a deep sigh. She had never thought her life would come to something so exhaustingly boring.

"Is something wrong, Captain?"

Kara looked up from her report at the man sitting across from her. Lee looked just as bored as she did. "Nothing," she lied.

They both returned to their work for a few minutes, but Kara couldn't say she was surprised when Lee started talking again. Just recently she found herself realizing how much he hated silence.

"My father said that you asked for an off-shift tonight."

Kara nodded and kept her eyes firmly locked on the papers in front of her.

"Are you going down to the surface?"

Kara nodded again and tried to wait out the silence, hoping he would get uncomfortable and move on to another topic. She wasn't that lucky.

"How are things down on New Caprica?"

"Good. The construction of the city is coming along nicely," Kara offered.

Lee nodded and let his eyes hold hers until it was too much. His gaze shifted down to his papers, and Kara found herself openly staring at him for the first time in a long while. He looked exhausted and yet full of impatience. Kara couldn't help but notice that Lee looked like a soldier who had had his war taken away from him. He had no purpose these days, just like the rest of us.

Lee shifted to look at her again, and Kara felt her heart freeze at the notion that the topic of her off-shift had still not been dropped. "What are you going to do down on the surface?"

"I'm… I'm going to visit some of the retired pilots. Racetrack, Showboat, Duck. They miss their queen of triad." Kara hoped the teasing tone of her words hid the fact that they were a complete lie. Both she and Lee knew why she was going down to the surface, and it had nothing to do with her old friends.

Kara had no clue why she felt the need to hide her relationship with Anders from Lee. When she had first brought the ex-pyramid player to the Fleet, they did anything but hide how enamored they were of each other.

But the captivation wore off. The relationship stayed, yet Kara found herself flaunting it a little less. She was happy, but so were many others. With the discovery of New Caprica, everyone was making the push of settling down to a happy life. People were getting married at every turn, finding joy in places they had long given up.

"Say…" Lee cleared his throat as the words caught in his throat. "Say hello to them from me."

Kara lowered her eyes with a nod. He knew.

It wasn't like Lee was going to hate her for what she was trying to do. She had been searching for what was right for so long. Really, she figured it went back to when she was little, trying to survive under her mother's "watchful" eye. She wanted to find that niche were everything just clicked together.

It kept avoiding her.

She was happy with Anders to the point of knowing it was love. She was settled in her job even if it had shifted into something so different than what she thought it would be. She had family and friends to finally support her, people whose respect she had earned with blood and tears and a common bond of survival.

Yet there was a hint of wrong to the situation. Something wasn't right. She was hiding how often she was meeting Anders. Every time she had to sneak away for a night, she told Lee a lie.

More often, those lies were spreading to the Old Man, too, which was absurd. William Adama had never condemned her for wanting to be happy with Anders. He had even told her he approved. Granted, it was a reluctant approval and took a few months for him to give, but it was an approval in the end.

She knew neither the Old Man nor Lee would hate her for being with Anders, and yet she lied.

Kara looked up at the man sitting across from her, and for just a brief second, she felt the urge to apologize for being unfaithful. Lee's eyes met hers, and he nodded, completely oblivious to how dangerous her thoughts were right now. Kara felt the need to apologize sweep away. It was ridiculous. They weren't in a relationship like she and Anders were. She wasn't cheating on Lee by going to see her boyfriend.

She pushed the thoughts from her head and worked on the last few lines of the flight schedule. It was due to be signed by both Lee and his father before she could go on her trip to New Caprica. Anders would be mad if she fed him the same excuse about flight schedules that she always used when she was late. It was odd how mostly Sam understood her so well, but sometimes, usually when it had something to do with Lee or her job as CAG, he didn't understand her at all.

They were still working out the kinks in their relationship even after all this time. It was one of the things that told Kara she might be doing this right for once. Nothing that was good in her life came easy.

Kara shut the folder on the completed flight schedule and took a deep breath. She just might make it down to the city on time.

"You'll be back tomorrow, right?"

Lee's voice reminded her of when she was five and would ask her father if he was going to come home after his tour of shows were over. Every time, she had to say goodbye, she was afraid it would be the last time she saw her father. She was afraid he would wake up and realize she was a horrible little girl just like her mother always said. He wouldn't want to put up with her anymore, and he would leave her alone.

Lee's voice shook with that open fear, and Kara felt her heart clench with the knowledge that she had put that there.

"Yeah, I'll be back." Kara stood up and walked around the table. She let herself give into the urge to run her hand along Lee's back as she passed him. They barely touched these days.

Lee would run those words of promise through his head for weeks when he found himself creating flight schedules and fielding complaints of personality problems between pilots. He would remember how he believed she was telling the truth as his father tried to explain why it had happened. Those four words were all he had as one day stretched into seven which stretched into thirty which was when he lost count.

Kara never returned.

She got married.

Kara felt his arms reaching around to hold her body close. The sheets were warm beneath them. The stubble on his chin scratched her shoulder as he shifted in his sleep, and Kara shut her eyes.

This was more than love. It was her whole reason of being. It was what got her up in the morning after she remembered what her life had become.

Every morning, she got out of bed and had to look the man she loved in the face, knowing that she was happy and yet not. She was tired of doing this, tired of lying, of looking for reasons why this was neither right nor wrong. She was tired of searching for what was right and finding the answer when it was too late.

This was killing her.

Their affair had always had a hint of sordidness to it, but it was only when Lee whispered how much he loved her that Kara truly understood the sin they were committing.

This was both right and wrong, and it killed Kara a little more each day.

It had taken her so long to realize she had been mistaken all those years she was searching for love. Since she was little, all she wanted was to love and be loved in return. She had finally found it only to realize she needed more.

She needed something more than love.

And that was why she knew she was not going to give up the man whose arms she was currently curled up in, a man with a wedding ring similar to hers but different in the most important way.

Let the gods damn them for the pain this would cause one day. She was done trying to please anyone but herself.