"Does he honestly think I'm going to follow those stupid rules?" Jake grumbled as he slid himself down the corridor wall, finding the key pad for her quarters by feel and opening the door.

Still shaking her head at Starbuck's parting quip, she turned to her friend. "I thought I'd have to fight him to let you stay here, so yeah, maybe you could…what the Son of Sagan?" Her words turned from friendly teasing to curses as she got a look at her quarters. The place had been trashed, not that she and Starbuck owned much, but what they did have was tossed everywhere, even the table and chairs overturned. On the wall above their bed, scrawled in red across the scene of the swirling sunset of Caprica were the words, "Give us what we want or next time someone dies!"

"Those mother frakers! I was just here a couple of centaurs ago!" she said as she frantically thought back to when she had left the quarters with Dixon. She'd been distracted, not only worrying about Jake, but her own conversation with Dixon about Iblis had her mind reeling with possibilities. Speeding up their move to the Zakar opened up even more as Apollo and Starbuck claimed they had dealt with the man before. It gave her a lot to think about. She had been trying to remember all the way back to secondary school and that one teacher who had taught only ancient Colonial myths claiming it might be historical rather than fantastical. In some of those stories mere mortals challenged gods. Most of those stories ended tragically, but in some the hero actually won. Figuring she'd already had plenty of tragedy in her life, the gods could let her win just to balance out the scales. With all that running through her mind, could she have forgotten to lock the door? No, she had always been cautious, no matter what was going on she would have locked it.

Leaning down to pick up one of the sofa cushions, Jake tilted too far, catching himself with a hand to one of the overturned chairs.

"Jake, stop. I'll do it. Here," she righted one of the chairs guiding him into it. "Those mother frakers."

"Starbuck's Colonial. He was supposed to— " Jake's voice trailed off as he winced. "It's Keenan all over again. Dammit, I liked Starbuck!"

Rene went to work setting things back in order, starting with the sofa as she asked, "What was he supposed to do, keep us safe? The whole damn fleet was supposed to do that! I am tired of this felgercarb." She picked up an empty paint can, cursing that they'd used her art supplies and didn't even have the decency to clean the brush which was now ruined, caked with dried paint. "Mother frakers."

"Yeah, the fleet, but especially him. He's supposed to have the connections and," Jake shrugged, "it's not too late to be with Gage."

Rene spun on him, almost throwing the paint can at him, but the bruises just beginning to fade had her shifting her aim, hurling the can at the wall, spreading more red paint across the swirling skies, before she turned back on him. "That's not how it works! You don't get to decide who I'm going to be with and besides, I want to be with Starbuck. I like him!"

.

"Be honest, you love him," Jake said softly, his eyes held a hint of sadness before he shrugged looking away, "but you loved Gage too, or so you said."

"This is different," she said feeling another shiver down to her bones. "It's just…" she hesitated and Jake leapt in the gap.

"So the fraking is good? I thought maybe it was all just hype."

She wished she still had the paint can to hurl at him. "It's not about that. It's different!"

"So the fraking is bad? Then maybe you and me could…"

She didn't let him finish the sentence, "I sealed with him! We are not fraking again, get that through your thick skull."

"So you do love him, some stupid pretty boy Colonial. You have gone insane." Jake stated as if he knew everything.

"It's different. He's not stupid, he's kind and caring and…" she tried to explain but Jake scoffed.

"Still a pretty boy Colonial. Gage is all those things and has some pull with command. I'm just saying."

Rene shook her head looking away, ashamed suddenly at her past actions, especially in the golden light of Starbuck and his sincere intentions. "It's different. Starbuck doesn't want anything from me. He…he doesn't tell me what to do and he…he just wants the best for everyone and he'll do anything he can to make it happen. He doesn't care if he gets anything out of it. And the worse part, I think he'd do all that even if I did nothing but smile at him. He," she paused, struck dumb by the realization that she'd never known that kind of love before. Even Jake expected something from her. Nothing was free in life, that's what she had thought until she met Starbuck. He'd changed everything she thought she knew about love.

Jake shrugged. "I like him too, but he's going to wind up dead just like Keenan.

"No he's not! He's Starbuck. He has friends and…."

Snorting in derision, Jake interrupted her. "They came at us, more than six. They knew where we were going and how we were getting there, and until a centaur before we left, we didn't even know where we were going!"

Shaking her head, she tried to deny it could happen, but Jake was right. The Rats were careful. They knew people were out to get them, and it still had happened. The astrums could have easily killed Jake. And Starbuck wasn't careful. Worse than that, he thought everyone was his buddy. Plus now with the possibility of the enemy finding them again, Starbuck would be focused on the distant danger, missing what was right in front of him.

"I cannot go through that again," but she mumbled the words to herself. Despite some memories being hard to dredge up since Caprica, every single detail of Keenan's death was still in her head. She knew he was dead when she checked her chrono and realized he was a couple of centaurs late getting back from patrol. She had waited another centaur before going by and checking the duty office, and then the command center, hoping she was wrong. Other than the end of the Colonies, it was one of the longest centaurs of her life.

"What was the worst part?" That's what Dixon would have asked if she brought the subject up. While many might think it was not having a body to bury, or wondering if he had simply crashed on a planet somewhere and was out there still alive, lost and alone, that wasn't what haunted her dreams. It was that first centaur when she knew he was gone, and prayed that he wasn't. She had argued with herself that she was wrong. It was the horrific debate between the truth and the hope.

It had taken two days before they listed him as dead. His wing mate had a story of a raiders swooping out of nowhere that got the drop on them, but he wouldn't verify that it was the enemy that shot Keenan down. She had even suggested to Crius that maybe that was what happened, but she knew the truth. He'd been eliminated by one of Dante's lackeys. The proof came when Agenor found her just a couple of sectons after Keenan's death, stating, "Well now that problem is solved, you can go back to solving my problems." She had given up hope of finding love after that.

Love had other plans, getting the drop on her when she wasn't really looking for it. Sure, she was hoping to seduce a Galactica warrior so she could get in good and bring them into her plans, but she hadn't planned to fall in love. It just hurt too much when they were gone.

When Starbuck dropped to a knee in that room on the Rising Star, pulling out a ring and making his impulsive proposal, her hesitation hadn't been at the speed of their relationship or the fact that there were many plans she had in motion in the hopes of saving her friends and her children's lives, not to mention the two hundred thousand people in the fleet. No, it had been only one life she was worried about, Starbuck's. He was a pilot and she had sworn never again, certainly not with a viper jockey. In that moment when Starbuck handed her that ring, a moment that been pretty amazing under those silken sheets just a micron before, she saw how this would end. There were only two options for Starbuck, a fiery explosion as she flew beside him when a Cylon got luckier than the luckiest man alive, or he would be lost somewhere out there on a recon mission. As he smiled up at her and the ring twinkled in the light, she saw the lights of the landing bay as she paced waiting for a warrior that wouldn't return.

She thought she'd be alone in that pacing, but having gotten to know the man and his extended family, at least when the possible demise of Starbuck came, she now knew she'd have company. When he was declared dead, there would be a hero's funeral and his stories would live on. He would want it that way.

But the threat scrawled on her wall opened up a third option, and maybe a fourth. Either they got to him, in which case the whole fleet would come down on whoever it was with the full force of their Colonial Creed for killing the decorated hero warrior of the centaur, or Starbuck got to them and died trying, a murderer in the fleet's eyes. She had just begun to hear stories about the Ortega incident as some called it. They had locked Starbuck up accused of the crime, just like a Rat. If Starbuck got involved in all this, his old friends and the fleet wouldn't think he was heroic. They'd think he had sunk to the level of the Rats and was just another delinquent, destined to screw up. That would be even worse than the pacing in a bay waiting on a viper that wouldn't return.

Knowing Starbuck as she did now, it wasn't hard to imagine what it might have been like for him in those centaurs before he was facing a tribunal and being encourage to plead self defense. Despite his insouciant demeanor, Starbuck was deeply respectful of the uniform he wore. It's why he was seldom out of it and looked oddly uncomfortable in civilian clothes. He actually believed with his whole heart in the Colonial Creed. While he might roll his eyes at all the decorum and protocol, he ate it up when it was directed his way.

While in that cell, it wouldn't be his future imprisonment that was on his mind. He could deal with that. No, it was the loss of respect and the loss of the uniform. That's why he couldn't just plead the charge down. He actually had a personal creed much like the Colonial Creed that all the yahrens in orphanages and gambling halls hadn't been beaten out of him. It had hardened it like tempered tylium.

His life wasn't all that different from the Rats, and yet, he had turned out drastically different. She wondered once again when was the first time she had compromised her values in order to try to fit in or make things easier. Was it when she was on the streets and one by one all her resolutions faded in the face of the cold and the hunger? Or was it sooner, the various families she lived with who expected her to behave a certain way, and she tried to comply until she couldn't cover up anymore what she was, just an angry broken kid?

Starbuck had been stronger and she had been weak. He had taken that creed and added more to it, determined to protect everyone he knew, and even those he didn't. Rene had made a similar vow to protect those she loved, but for her that sometimes meant compromising other parts of her values and herself to make that happen. Often it meant having to concede defeat and narrow her circle of friends. Not Starbuck. He not only stood his ground, he found a way to include everyone and making them his allies.

Jake read her thoughts. "You say he has friends? He is lucky, maybe if it's only one or two of them he'll be okay, but that's not how they play, you know that."

She spun away from Jake, surveying the mess around them, before looking to the message on the wall. "Frak. Starbuck liked that picture," she mumbled before turning back to Jake. "He doesn't find out about this. I'll clean it up."

Jake cocked his head, his silent way of asking why.

"I created this mess, I will clean it up. But he can't know. He won't like how I handle this."

"You didn't start this. They did. You should tell him. There are things he could do, or at least watch his back."

She shook her head violently, "No. This isn't about him, and that's how Keenan got himself killed. Had he just stayed out of it," she shook her head again at the memory of the fight between Keenan and Agenor. Keenan had been bloody. He'd won, but just barely. "No," she said again, "I need to handle this, resolve this forever."

"How would that be?" Jake asked, but he didn't need to. The reply was their old phrase, often uttered across the comline as they launched into a battle, Gage sometimes intoning it from command, "How do we deal with the enemy?" and their reply, "Sneaky like a rat."

Getting the sofa back together was easy and she had Jake stretched out on it, zonked out on pain pills he insisted on washing down with ambrosia, not a good combination, but he probably needed the drink more than the drugs and if left alone, he might have taken the whole bottle, of both. The rest of the quarters had been put back together, and she was working on painting over the wall when Starbuck came back sooner than she had expected. Thank the lords she had covered the message in red first with the boring gray paint. There had been no salvaging the sky, the astrums had stolen all of her paints except for the colonial issue battlestar gray.

"What are you doing? I liked that one," Starbuck said when he entered.

"We're moving soon, aren't we?" she replied.

"Yeah, but whoever takes the quarters might have liked it. Couldn't you have started with that one?" He pointed to one she had painted showing a fiery explosion. He set down the bundle he had in his hands of clothes and the few gifts they had received at the sealing. "How is he?"

"Sleeping. I think he's still seeing double, but he's coherent at least. I'm glad you're back, I haven't had a chance to tell anyone." She had meant the move, but Starbuck misread her intentions.

"Good, that news was confidential. Not even the squadrons know," he said, talking about what was obviously forefront on his mind, defending the fleet from enemies within and without. Rene wondered briefly if he might agree with her plans for Pallus and his cronies if she phrased it as defending the fleet, but then she dismissed the idea. He had enough on his plate with the Cylons and fighting them is what he did best.

"I meant the move," she said, putting the brush down and wiping the paint from her hands before stepping towards him with a kiss. "Welcome home husband. How was your day?" she asked teasing him. The little bit of seduction worked to get him off the topic, but that wasn't the only reason for it. Having spent most of her time with him the last few cycles and finding out that when alone, Starbuck didn't change like some men did, dropping their pleasant public masks and becoming someone else, not necessarily someone nice. Starbuck had stayed the man she knew, and she had missed him and his optimism.

She loved the grin that spread from his lips to his beautiful blue eyes as he pulled her close. "I've had better, like yesterday when I was in the luxurious honeymoon suite. Speaking of honeymoon, think we can kick him out for a centaur or two after dinner?"

"I don't see why not," she said, letting Starbuck wrap his arms around her. "Nik can babysit."

Lords she loved the feel of his arms, but she would miss those lips of his most when he was gone. "He's lucky," she thought, "maybe some of that luck will spread to me and I'll go before he does." She flinched as the baby kicked hard at the thought, hard enough for Starbuck to feel it.

"Was that the baby?" he asked. She nodded and he kneeled down, planting a kiss on her belly. "Hello there. Do you want some attention too? I can't wait to meet you." He rubbed his hand over her stomach as he looked up at her. "Just four more sectars, right?"

She nodded. She'd lost track, but knew she was somewhere in the fifth sectar, maybe almost the sixth. She guessed it all depended on when she got pregnant, and that was a blurry subject she didn't want to discuss. "They don't arrive right on the due date you know." She realized Starbuck had kept better track than she had, but this was his first. Her fourth, no third she reminded herself. It didn't count if they didn't live just a few sectars.

He caught the sad thought that had crossed her mind as she thought about Keenan's baby. "You okay?" he asked standing back up and taking her in his arms again. Lords. they felt good after the frak fest of a day she'd had.

"Just thinking about your list of chores. How is that coming along?" She shifted the topic and the fact that he let her, told her more about the situation than his words.

"Long range recon has launched. Will be a while before they have anything to report. Meeting with the Commander tomorrow to talk about Apollo's ideas and Boomer got in all the transfer requests. We should talk about Jake, he's still in training with the Life Center here. He may want to stay."

She narrowed her eyes, almost said something, but then decided not to. With the progress the two had made in getting along, it might be better if Jake explained to Starbuck how that wasn't going to happen.

Starbuck wasn't an idiot. He read her look and added, "Or maybe he can finish up on the Zakar. I heard they are short staffed and the doctor there is the one from before. You guys liked that guy, right?"

Rene couldn't repress the shiver that shook her violently. Starbuck tightened his grip on her. "Wrong. Another transfer, got it. Who do you suggest?"

"Anyone but him. I just don't know about this Starbuck, I mean— "

He cut her off. "Apollo knows it's your way or we stay here. He is on our side, plus he's got an idea and when he latches on to one, well, he's like a daggit, doesn't let go. That's how I wound up on the Cylon base ship."

"Okay, I trust you," she conceded. Maybe it was the recent image of her pacing a landing bay waiting to declare her husband dead that had her setting aside her doubts and believing in Starbuck's plan. That had probably been what Cassiopeia had done the whole time Starbuck was on the base ship, paced the landing bay. Cassie had gotten lucky and he'd come back whole with not even a scratch. Maybe Rene could get lucky too?

Starbuck could make this work. He was that good, gold clusters to prove it. He could get the Zakar cleaned up and running with a decent crew, and she could help with that by eliminating a few of the borays along the way. She wasn't stupid enough to think they could remove all of the evil people from the fleet, but she wasn't worried about the fleet. With the Zakar they could go somewhere, anywhere, and still have all the necessities they needed.

Starbuck continued running down his list, "Cain's training starts at the end of this secton in a few cycles. Oh, and I found out about your new duty section. You didn't tell me you're a viper tech. Is there anything you can't do? With all of Copper squadron's skills, we could form our own fleet."

Accepting the compliment, and liking his thinking, she replied, "I'm not. I'm a pilot. That's just where they shove us when we can't fly, mostly because we just can't stay away from vipers. In my case, I can't stay away from viper pilots, no matter how stupid it is to date them."

"Oh, we are well beyond dating," he said kissing her deeply before suddenly pulling away. "I forgot. I've been meaning to ask, so why isn't Jason joining Cain for the pilot training?"

"Because he already knows how to fly, silly," she said.

"What? Then why isn't he in a squadron, or in uniform? He's not of age, but. . ." baffled, he had stopped speaking, looking to her for answers.

"Like you said, he's underage, and you have to remember, our training was just how to launch and shoot. Landing wasn't even a module we covered until we had done the other two. Not everyone is cut out to be a pilot."

"But with more training he could…Dante never gave you guys aptitude tests did he?" Starbuck started to put together the dots to complete the puzzle.

"Nope. Everyone flies. It's our only line of defense. And if you suck, they put you somewhere else. Jason thinks he can do it, but— "

"She won't let him," Jake grumbled from the sofa, "and neither will I. He should stay a kid as long as he can. Could you two keep it down? You're making my head hurt. I thought the rule was you were supposed to knock when you entered a room?"

Starbuck rolled his eyes before replying, "It's MY quarters. I don't have to knock."

"It was your rule. I assumed it applied to all of us, but hey, I guess you can just walk in on Jake cleaning up and…" Rene teased him, liking the playful flash of annoyance that sparked in Starbuck's eyes.

"Lords, no. I'm not walking in on him, neither are you, but you can walk in on me anytime, like now. I've been dying for a turbo and we can talk in there, in privacy!" Starbuck said pulling her to the turbowash. "No need to knock. I'm locking the door!"