When he woke up she was gone, but the water in his bathroom was running, and she came out as soon as he sat up.

"Hey. I used your toothbrush again. I would offer to go get you another one, but I thought that the first step to becoming a pilot should probably involve you learning to not be such a nancy boy."

Ah, thought Lee, so we're done with the comforting, then. But he couldn't help but smile at her. He thought this was probably her way of letting him know that she thought he could take it… becoming a pilot, yesterday's events, everything. It was good to know that she believed in him, at least.

Besides, she hadn't brushed her hair yet, and it was sticking up in a messy blond halo around her head. It would have been almost impossible not to smile at that.

He joined her on her morning run, and he was almost able to keep up. He knew he had some serious physical training to do over the summer, but at least he wasn't starting from sedentary, thanks to Kara and her pyramid games.

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She went back to her own room to shower, and he to his, and then they met up an hour later to go to the mess hall. Breakfast was almost over, and he'd thought that the hall would be mostly empty, but he'd forgotten than everyone else had gone out partying last night. They were probably all running late and nursing hangovers to boot.

Given the hangovers, he hadn't expected anyone to pay much attention to him. Instead, everyone turned when he and Kara walked in and sat down. He was greeted with silence and wary respect, and he recalled that the only time anyone had ever seen him in the sims had been with Kara, off-screen, and that last time had ended in a fight, a sure sign than he'd done something to upset her. And everyone knew nothing upset Kara Thrace more than losing.

Kara was greeted with enthusiastic congratulations on her assignment, and a few calls of "Hey, where were you last night?" mostly coming from Karl and his friends.

She winked at them and slung an arm around him. "I was sleeping my way to the top."

Lee choked on his orange juice, and she hit him on the back cheerfully. He didn't say anything though, because though he hadn't at all thought that this should be part of the plan, she knew these people. They probably didn't believe her—it was pretty obvious that she was joking, and his reaction had probably sealed the deal—but if she thought for some reason that this was going to help him fit in, well then, he wasn't going to stop her. Also, he'd heard that sometimes, if people said something enough, it became true for them. He wasn't at all adverse to that happening in Kara and his case.

In fact, he was kind of wondering how he was going to survive the summer without her. She'd told him a few weeks ago that she was spending the summer on Sagittaron. He'd almost gotten into a fight with her about it, but they were still too fragile at that point for him to push her, so he'd backed down. She was going to participate in a combat training and wilderness survival course that probably would have gotten her in trouble if any of her instructors found out about it. Sagittaron had quite a few courses like that: not military-sanctioned, and a bit on the rough side, from what Lee had heard. But they would teach her things that the Academy wouldn't, and unlike him, Kara was obviously made to be a soldier.

Up until yesterday, he had been planning to spend an utterly uneventful summer with his mother and Zak. Now he was planning on a lot of push-ups and pull-ups, and a lot of humiliating losses to Zak in the arcade sim programs near their house. Zak would be thrilled, which was something at least. Lee himself was less than excited.

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When he said goodbye to Kara, he tried not to make a big deal out of it, but she didn't seem to want to go along with his charade.

"I'll see you soon, Kara. Try not to die on Sagittaron."

"You're coming back next year, right?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't I be?" He'd never even considered not coming back. The Academy was the best institution for what he wanted to do, and all the others would require money that his mother didn't have and his father wouldn't give him. Besides, if he quit, his father would win.

"Just, if you change your mind… well. Nevermind." Kara was almost never tentative, but for some reason he seemed to be bringing it out in her lately.

"No, what?"

She bit her lip and looked away, which meant that she was serious. "Write me? If you're not coming back, that is. Mail comes once or twice a month to the training camp."

"Okay. But Kara, I'm not leaving."

"Just in case. I want to know."

"Well, alright."

"Alright. Looking forward to not hearing from you." That seemed more like the normal, brash Kara that he saw so often, but then she ruined it again by pulling him into a hug that left his ribs protesting. Her head fit perfectly into the crook of his neck and shoulder, and he didn't want to let go.

There were a lot of things he didn't want to do this summer, but hopefully none of them would be quite as hard as watching her walk out of the dorms, Sagittaron-bound.