Yeah, she knew now, it had been suicidal. She had taken far too many risks and had gotten lucky her first trip back. A laser had been trained on her the whole time she was in that shopping mall. The only thing that saved her was that the woman who had Rene in her sights, didn't know how to fly a viper. Starbuck was right to be angry. Rene couldn't make that part of this better. She had risked her life, and that of the baby. The trips down the launch tube alone weren't doing the baby any favors. She could feel the flutter of movement each launch. Starbuck was right, and Rene was pretty sure telling him so wasn't going to make it any better.

So, she watched Starbuck and waited hoping to catch him in the corridor when he was done, and had cooled off in the turbo. Maybe then she could take him back to their quarters and she could show him with her body what she felt about him, talk in the language that usually helped him to understand her. She couldn't think of any other way to make this better. She tried to think of more to say, a better way to word it. She was lost in thought when Starbuck suddenly flung the ball viciously against the barrier that separated the gallery to the court. She jumped at the viciousness of the throw when he shouted to her.

"I know you're there! So, are you going to come down here and talk to me or are you just going to hide in the dark?"

She knew she had to face this. She uncurled herself from the seat and took the lift down to his level, listening to Starbuck rebounding the ball against the four walls. She tried to let the fear wash over her and leave her body as she opened the door to the court and stepped in. She instantly regretted it. The room felt too much like a cage, like Dante's chambers, like the brig. In a moment of instinctual fear, she backed into the wall. Anger still radiated off of Starbuck's body that she could read almost like a tylium leak. She hadn't figured out what to say, so she waited for him to speak first. He just looked at her with those ice blue eyes of his as he bounced the ball back and forth from hand to hand. He did this about a dozen times before he started speaking.

"What hurts the most is I thought you and I were past some of this. I thought, you and all the rest of the family were past some of this. I thought you trusted me."

"I do," she said softly.

"But not enough to tell me what you had been up to. Not enough to ask me to come along. You just assumed that I would be mad and that would be it, am I right?"

"Yeah," she said softly looking away.

He kept bouncing the ball, letting it absorb his ire as he spoke. "I get that you do things because you don't want me mad, and I was okay with that I guess. Knew it came with the territory of all you've been through. But what I didn't expect is that you'd outright deceive me. It makes me wonder what else you've lied about."

"I'm not fracking Jake." She flinched as Starbuck launched the ball at the wall near her head.

"This isn't about Jake! This is about you and me and if you can't trust me to not beat you when I'm mad, then this isn't going to work! I get mad, everyone gets mad Rene. It doesn't mean I'm going to hurt you! That's not who I am!"

She felt herself tremble at the intensity of his words, and the truth of them. She was afraid still that he might take a swing at her, or worse, he might just walk away. She swallowed down her fear, looked back to him as he continued to speak.

"Yeah, I'm mad, but mostly I'm hurt that you didn't even give me the chance to be mad. You made the decision for me that I would be angry. You already decided I would stop you or hurt you or…or" he tapped at the side of his head with a finger, "or whatever is going on up in that head of yours, meanwhile you are laughing and talking with me like nothing is wrong!"

She winced at his words as if he had hit her. It didn't escape Starbuck's notice as he stepped away, turning away from her, ripping his helmet from his head and slapping it in his hand against his own thigh in frustration. She heard him sigh and she tried to dredge up some courage like the kind she had had with Dante.

"I'm sorry. You're right. I wasn't really thinking this through."

It was her turn to watch Starbuck wince. "Don't!" He shouted to the far side of the court before taking another labored and long breath before turning back to her. She noticed that he had made a point of moving a bit farther from her. She wondered if that should scare her or make her feel better.

"Don't just agree with me. Because I'm not sure any more if you know what you are agreeing to or if you just agree to everything so I won't be mad. Do you even want to be with me, or is it just something you agree to?"

The words cut deep. She swallowed and tried to blink back the tears. She didn't know how to reply, and therefore didn't.

Starbuck sighed again and asked softly, "Why do you want to seal with me? Is it just because I want you to? Or do you really want to be with me because you love me? Because, it sure doesn't feel that way right now…" His voice broke and he halted his words, struggling for composure.

She swiped at her eye that had suddenly begun watering. She tried to speak, but her throat had closed up, she tried again. "I want to be with you. I do."

Starbuck looked over his shoulder at her, staring deep into her eyes before nodding and looking away. "Then help me to understand why you didn't trust me with this. Help me to understand why you risked your life, why you went as far away from me as you could!"

She opened her mouth to speak, and shut it. She thought for a moment of what to say, how to say it. Starbuck lost his patience and he spun back to face her.

"No! Don't craft me a lie. Don't try to find some different way to deceive me. Explain to me what you were thinking. Why did you even jump to Caprica in the first place? For Sagan's sake, Rene, what the frack were you thinking? You are so desperate to not seal with me that you tried suicide?"

Exasperated she barked out, "NO! That's not why!" She sighed and tried to will the words to come. How could she make him understand?

He raised his hands as if in surrender, shrugging.

Speaking further was harder for her than lifting a cylon centurion. "I want to seal with you, I do, but it feels like I have to seal with the whole fracking fleet! It's the event of the yahren for Sagan's sake. I can't walk down that aisle while the IFB films it and not have the right dress and hair and….frack you dated some damn pretty women and I'm not one of them…" Once uncorked, the words bubbled out, all the stress of the idea of the sealing ceremony that seemed to have gone out of control. "The Commander there, and well hades, EVERYONE. I just…I just needed a dress and I swear to you, that's why I went in the first place. That's all and, I didn't think too much about the danger. YES," she held up her hand to stop him from interrupting. "Yes, I figured out how dangerous it was once I landed on Caprica, but frack, I was there and committed so I…" she shook her head knowing that's not all he was asking about.

There were moments when their age difference didn't matter, and moments when it became an issue larger than a Cylon baseship. The IFB and their cameras had been one of those moments. The IFB had been curious about Rene the moment she showed up on Starbuck's arm to the games, and the attention had unnerved her. Starbuck had gotten used to it over the yahrens, and was old enough to realize how silly it all was. He didn't care what the civilians of the fleet thought about it all. Besides, he was the golden boy. Rene didn't have his charmed personality or his yahrens of experience, and she had never had this much attention focused on her, well at least not positive attention. Attention was a bad thing. Dante had given her more attention than anyone should ever have.

He tried to take a few more deep breaths and lower his voice before he replied. "I don't want to seal with the whole fleet, I just want to seal with you. I don't care about all that felgercarb. We can do away with it all. I want to be sealed. I don't care how."

Rene groaned at his words and turned away shaking her head. "But you do, I know you do. You get to be the star and…"

He yelled, "DON'T DO THAT! Don't decide for me what I want or don't want!"

She flinched and Starbuck turned away, running his hand through his hair and sighing trying to calm down. He took several deep breaths and then slowly turned back to her. "Rene, I don't care about all that, I don't. We could just get sealed in the Commander's office and be done with it. You seem to think that I want to be the center of attention, that I need some huge party with a cast of hundreds. I'm just a humble orphan from Umbra who made good after the destruction by being in the right place at the right time. They turned me into some hero that they wanted and needed to discover. I'm no different than the rest of my friends. Sagan sakes, I just want to be part of a family, to make you happy. I want it to be the way you want it to be, but you….you won't tell me what you want so I feel like I am playing triad in a dark court here. And Jake, he knows, doesn't he? And hades I'm trying not to be jealous, because I know you're both past that, but when you do things like this, when you trust him, but won't trust me…" he shook his head and looked away.

She was slow and hesitant, speaking softly. "I knew you'd be mad and once I found the message, I knew I had to go back and then at some point, I guess I was in too deep to tell you. I just…" she wiped at her eyes again, but couldn't seem to stop the flow of tears.

"Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? What if you didn't make it back? You'd leave us, you'd leave me just wondering what the hell happened, and no way to get to you!" He couldn't help but to shout. "Don't you care about us, about our child? I've lost people too, Rene. My family, my life on Caprica, friends …. To lose you and the baby…I don't think I could get past that…" Rene's impassive face left him wanting to shake her, to slap her until he got some emotion from her. "Yeah, I know. That still doesn't compare to what you've been through. I get that, but don't make me the bad guy in this!" She still said nothing, her face devoid of emotion. He turned to head for the door, knowing he was too frustrated to talk to her, not rationally.

He didn't make it far as Rene cried out, "I'm sorry! Don't leave me!" She crumpled to the floor, hugging her knees and curling up into herself, sobbing hysterically, screaming again, 'I'm sorry! Don't go…don't…I can't…" She curled up as small as she could, trying to protect herself, her sobs hitching as she hyperventilated in her panic.

He'd been warned to expect mood swings. She was young and pregnant and had been through a lot. He tried to remind himself of this daily, but so far, she'd been managing pretty well. Obviously, she'd been handling it incredibly well if she could arrange covert missions under the Colonial Fleet's collective nose. For a brief moment, he wondered if this was all an act of hers.

But her flinching as he stepped toward her was no act. At his movement, she had tried to stop the sobs, to move away from him and her hands came up to protect herself as she scramble backwards on her hands and knees. He froze, remembering the words of her therapy counsellor: "She expects abuse and may be confused at not receiving it." He wasn't going to hurt her, and it hurt that she thought he might.

Starbuck took a deep breath and kneeled down. His anger didn't matter. She was here. She hadn't been marooned on Caprica, and she had told him the truth about what was going on. Yes, she'd been forced to do it, but Boomer or Jake could have just told him. And if she was going to put her faith in anyone before him, normally he would have been glad it had been Boomer. Instead of having a meltdown, as Starbuck was inclined to do, Boomer would have examined the facts and made a call that in reflection he should have supported. Maybe he was just as guilty of labile emotions where Rene was involved. After all, even if it had involved a measure of coercion, Rene had actually initiated the conversation, albeit a little on the late side. She was trying; the least he could do was to listen.

He took measured breaths as he let her work through her emotions, allowing her to try to calm down. She stared at him with eyes wide and seeing something else, not him, as she panted short frantic breaths. He only gave her a few centons, coached her to take normal breaths instead of hitching sobs before he called her name softly, "Rene." He didn't try to move towards her, even though at the moment he wanted to scoop her up in his arms, to try to explain in a better way how he wasn't angry, just confused and scared and hurt. But curled up on the floor of the triad court before him was a wounded girl, and he had to go slow. He could be angry later when this passed.

"Rene," he tried again, slowly reaching out a hand. She flinched away and mumbled a sorry to a new flood of tears.

He tried to wait patiently as she struggled to get her tears and her panic under control. He spoke softly, told her to breathe, before he tried to speak to her again.

"Rene," he smiled at her hoping it reassured her, "I'm not mad anymore. I was, you know I was, but I would never hurt you. You scared me."

She looked up from her knees puzzled. "Why? You didn't even know until today."

He reached out his hand, held it beckoning her to take it. She stared at it for a good centon before she slowly extended hers and he held it lightly.

He lowered his voice, spoke slow and soft, like Dr. Dixon said to. "I've never done this before and I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm afraid you're going to just walk away from me like so many others have in my life." He watched her wipe at her eyes as she processed his words. "So, hearing that you are …" he took a deep breath to brace himself to state something he found completely incredible, "flying all the way back to Caprica, well it makes me worried that I'll lose you. I mean, we haven't even talked about the sealing other than to decide where. I had no idea you thought it was going to be …well…big. I had thought just you and me and some close friends. And now you have me worried we won't be sealing at all."

She looked at him with those deep pools of blue and shook her head.

"So, you could at least let me down easy, not just run away on me." Starbuck had meant it as a sarcastic joke.

"No!" She gripped his hand tight, as fresh tears spilled. "I want to be with you. I want to seal with you." The rest of her words became lost in her sobs. Starbuck had heard what he wanted to hear and her tears broke his heart. "Come here." He gently pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her as he pulled her into his lap to let her cry it out. He stroked her hair as she mumbled into his chest, "I'm sorry. Please don't leave me."

"Oh, sweet lady, I believe it was you that left me. Shhh, we'll work this out. I don't want all that felgercarb. I just want you, alright."

He felt her nod into his chest. "Hey, how about we just, you and me and the Commander, we just do this. No one has to know until afterwards."

She started to speak with a "But Starbuck," but he cut her off.

"And if we decide we want to have a party later, then we do that. But it doesn't have to be anything you don't want. I just want you. The rest of the fleet can go frack themselves for all I care." He was relieved when she chuckled and then sighed.

"But I have the dress," she mumbled into his chest pads.

"So, you wear it just for me. Rene, I just want what you want. What do you want? You're going to have to tell me because I'm danged if I can figure it out."

She shook her head and sighed again. He pulled back and looked her in the eye, reaching to brush her hair out of her face. "Seriously Rene, I get that you and Jake are close. I know I can't compete with that friendship and I don't need to anymore, but if I were to ask him, he would know. The only way I can know is to ask you." He paused as she studied him silently. "Oh, I guess I could just go ask him, but it's going to get cumbersome using him as our personal languatron," he joked. "Rene, you have to tell me what you want, what you need from me. I don't want you just to follow along with whatever I want. We won't last long that way as I'm pretty flighty, or so Apollo tells me. Talk to me….please…"

She shrugged and he tried not to react to her old instinctual habit from before the Galactica. "I guess I thought there would be soil under my feet for our ceremony, not metal decking."

"Well, I think we could make that happen, you and me and…Adama will kill me if he doesn't get to officiate."

"I want him to, just not sure how we get him off the Galactica and," she sighed heavily and the spark of joy that was beginning to glow faded. "I have to tell him about what I've been doing and get those people off Caprica. I don't know how to do that. I was hoping you could help with that, please?"

He found he would agree to almost anything to get her to smile again. "Oh, I think I have an idea for that. But you have to promise me, and mean it, that you don't go back without me. If you are going to get lost on Caprica, I want to be there. You are mine. And it looks like I now have a ring to prove I'm yours. Promise me." He wove his hand into hers, pulled it to his heart. "That's all I ask, Rene. You can do anything you want, but just let me be there. Where you go, I go."

"I promise." He pulled her back to him and held her for a long while, until both of them began to shift their position on the hard floor of the court. He disentangled himself from her, and reached for her hand. He asked her to wait while he cleaned up and then the two of them headed to where they always seemed to agree, back to their quarters. They had plans to make.

He waited until they were back in their quarters, until he had his arms around her again, before he asked for the details. "So, what was it like on Caprica? How many survivors?" If only he had started their conversation that way in the mess hall.