He kept bumping shoulders with her on their way to hack, which probably meant that he was walking too close, but she didn't seem to mind, so he kept it up.

------------------------------

When they got to the cell area, the guards handed Lee some paperwork to fill out, and a rather large part of him started to panic. He felt like a little kid who'd been caught fighting and given detention, and he didn't start it, it wasn't fair, now his parents were going to…

And then he remembered that he did start it, actually, and this was the least he deserved, and from what he had gathered during his father's visit, his dad would probably be pleased to hear that Lee had done something hack-worthy. Though he hadn't, really. He'd basically invited himself along for the ride, because there was no way he was going to let Kara out of his sight. Not until he knew that they were okay again.

His plan was foiled though, because Kara apparently didn't need to fill out paperwork. In fact, she didn't seem to need any guidance at all. She walked into the holding area, and the guard on duty greeted her with a jovial, "Hey Kara, little early for you isn't it?" She returned, "Hey Horace, sorry you got stuck on the weekend shift," and Lee began to have terrible suspicions about what Kara got up to after hours, when he and all other sane history majors were either studying or safely asleep.

He knew that she got thrown in hack every once in awhile. And he'd heard about her wild triad games, and personally experienced her famed ability to drink everyone else under the table. He just hadn't thought that she would be on a first-name basis with the hack guards.

He decided that that was okay though, because her wild nights of debauchery and mayhem meant that she was able to persuade the guard to let them share a cell. Then he had a terrible moment where guards letting two people share conjured up the phrase 'conjugal visit.' Half of him was trying very hard not to run away with that thought, and the other half was busy deciding that no matter what perks it got them, he still very much disapproved of Kara's nocturnal adventures.

His mind was whirling, had been since the moment he hit her, and he must have mumbled that bit about conjugal visits out loud, because when he looked up Kara was trying to hold back laughter.

"Lee," she informed him, sniggering a bit, "there's something very, very wrong with you."

"You bring it out in me!" he accused, and he was right, she did. She brought a lot out in him, this infuriating, impulsive woman, sitting next to him in a dingy cell, hair shining like a beacon as she tipped her head, stopped holding back, and laughed at him outright.

She was right too, he thought ruefully, there was something wrong with him. He was sitting in hack, being laughed at, and something was loosening inside him, something that had been wound too tight ever since the night his father left. He felt better than he had in a long time.

"You'll never understand her," said a hysterical little voice in his head, "she's dangerous and unpredictable, you're way too wrapped up in her, she's probably sleeping with Horace the hack guard!" But most of him was too busy reveling in her laughter to listen—something about it was infectious. His chuckle was rusty at first, and a little on the hysterical side as well, but once he started it was hard to stop.

----------------------------------

By the time he managed to get himself back under control, Kara had sprawled next to him, half collapsed against the wall. She was still catching her breath, her elbow was digging into his ribs, and she was watching him as if she were trying to decide something. Then she nodded once, and all the hesitance went out of her gaze, and he wondered if he would ever be able to truly tell what was going on in that head of hers.

"You hit me," she informed him. Her tone was even, as if she were talking about the weather or discussing the latest pyramid standings, but it dried up the last of his laughter anyway.

"I'm sorry," he said miserably, both because he was, and because he'd just decided that, no, he probably never would be totally able to read her. The woman just didn't operate the way most people did.

"'S Alright." She said, "Didn't hurt. You hit like a girl. You really should work on that."

"Okay…," he ventured, because he couldn't think of what else to say, and had no idea where this conversation was headed. Somehow it always seemed to be uncharted territory with Kara, and usually that was invigorating, but right now he just felt lost.

"Besides," she continued, "Being sorry doesn't help anything. What we need around here is less being sorry and more making things right. You hit me, and got me thrown into hack, so now that I'm here, you have to entertain me." Her little speech was accompanied by an uncertain smile, and he couldn't figure out whether she was offering reassurance or looking for it herself. He thought maybe it was a little bit of both.

More importantly, he wasn't sure how exactly she'd gotten from icily polite to the "let's forget it" phase so very quickly. And he needed to know. Or at the very least needed her to know what he was thinking. And if bringing up that night at the bar caused her to reject him and decide to go back to being distant, well then, he'd probably cry, but at least she and Horace the guard would be the only witnesses. It was better than not having this out now, and getting into another, similar situation later, and having her pull away again. He didn't think he could handle something like this twice.

"Look, Kara, I'll… ummm.. entertain you later, I promise, but I really do need to apologize first."

"It's okay! No apology necessary!" She was looking a little hunted, and Lee was a genius, having somehow engineered a situation where she physically had no escape, and had to sit and hear him out.

"It is necessary. I need you to believe that I'm sorry. That I was way out of line, with what I said about your father. I… I used what I suspected about your past to hurt you, and it was cruel of me. And I'm not going to do it again."

"Of course you are!" She was looking at him as if he were an idiot, but there was something in her expression that reminded him of a little girl, angry and unsure, "That's what people do, Lee! They hurt each other. And then they say they're sorry, and that they won't do it again, but they always do!"

The urge to apologize suddenly got about ten times stronger, as Lee began to suspect that her childhood was much, much worse than he'd thought. He reigned it in though, because that wasn't what Kara needed right now. And she was probably right: he couldn't promise not to hurt her again. "I'm going to try not to be an ass. And when I fail and am anyway, I'm going to feel really, really bad."

"Are you going to lock me up and subject me to something like this every time that happens?" She was exasperated, but she also looked reassured, and that was more important.

"Yeah, probably."

"Promise me that you're going to try really hard no to do it, then."

"I promise."

"Okay?"

"Okay."

She leaned back, looking smug and shyly pleased all at once. "Now you have to entertain me. We're in here for at least another 12 hours."