A new diaper and a feeding later, Kara walked out of the nursery with Billy in her arms.

"So, do you want to help Mommy find a frame for your picture? Huh?" She asked, lightly bouncing Billy in her arms.

Her son gave her a gummy smile before he leaned his head down and proceeded to drool all over her shoulder.

"Hey!" Kara exclaimed in mock anger. "We talked about this before and you promised me you wouldn't do that again."

Billy just looked at her with those blue eyes of his. Gods, how was she ever going to discipline this kid when he got older? He was every bit the charmer the older Adama men were, and would probably grow up to be just as oblivious to it as they were.

"You're going to be the death of me, you know that, right?"

Her baby paid her no mind and turned his attention elsewhere.

"Huh? What are you looking at? The pictures on the wall?" Kara asked in a sing-song voice.

They moved closer to the many framed photos that hung on the wall of their upstairs hallway.

"Look, there's Grandma and Grandpa at Daddy's graduation from law school…and here's Mommy and Daddy looking liked wet rats. And see Daddy holding Hera upside down?"

Kara was pointing at one of her favorite photos. It had been taken in the months after the Colonials had begun permanently settling on Earth and showed Kara and Lee soaking wet, covered in mud and grass. But despite their sorry state, the two of them were laughing hard. Kara was holding onto Lee for support as he half held her up with one arm and held Hera Agathon upside down with the other.

Kara remembered once telling the Old Man that Billy must take after his father because he rarely, if ever, fussed and often just quietly observed the world with his big blue eyes. The Old Man started laughing so hard that it took a whack on the back from Laura to get his guffaws down to chuckles. According to him (once he had calmed down enough to speak), Lee had been a mischievous little terror until Zak was born, when something seemed to click in the boy's head and he turned into the stick in the mud everyone knew. And Zak, despite Lee's best efforts reign in his brother, had been even worse.

She'd smiled when she heard that about her husband. She could see the playful side of him hiding just beneath the surface. She'd tried for years to get it out and achieved some modicum of success, but it wasn't until they had found Earth and the constant threat of death had disappeared that Lee began to cut loose more openly and have fun without becoming self-conscious.

0000000000

It was a beautiful sunny day, with clear blue skies and not a cloud in sight. A perfect day for flying.

Or a barbeque.

The Agathons had called together their new neighbors and former members of Galactica's crew who lived nearby to celebrate their moving in to their brand new house.

Kara stood on the Agathons' back porch, sipping at a glass of orange juice (after years of water and moonshine, she couldn't get enough of the fresh stuff), taking in a sight that many thought would never again be possible.

The weather was hot, the music was loud, and the beer was plentiful as people walked, talked, and played indoors and out.

Children ran around screaming, with parents occasionally admonishing them to be careful.

Helo manned the grill, partially obscured by billowing smoke, wearing an apron that said "World's Greatest Dad". Someone, probably Sharon, had taken a marker and moved the apostrophe so that it now read "Worlds' Greatest Dad".

Kara watched with a smile as Lee not-so-quietly argued with Sharon over the pros and cons of buying a new oven, with Lee the amateur chef extolling the virtues of propane while Sharon wavered on keeping their old electric oven.

It made Kara happy to see that Lee had finally gotten over his prejudice against Sharon and that they had become friends, but it also occasionally saddened her to know of the circumstances under which the friendship had been forged.

Lee rarely talked about how he had been in the aftermath of her "death" and before he rescued her, and Sharon, out of respect for Lee, wouldn't tell Kara anything. She tried asking Helo, but he would only tell her that Lee had all but shut himself off and that it was Sharon-having known extreme loss herself-who first reached out to Lee and helped him reintegrate into the crew.

She stood there, lost in her thoughts for a moment, before snapping back to reality and realizing that it had been a very long moment.

Kara saw Lee lying on his back in the grass with Hera beside him. She didn't know exactly what they were doing, but she could see that Lee was pointing towards the sky and talking and smiling while Hera was practically rolling on the ground laughing.

Then the little girl suddenly jumped up and ran over to the Old Man, who was sitting under a tree with Laura, and whispered something in his ear. At his nod, she gave out a huge laugh and ran off to play with the other children.

Kara walked over to where Lee was soaking up the sun with his eyes closed and lied down next to him.

"Hey, Kara."

"How did you know it was me?"

Lee smirked, his eyes still closed. "Your hygiene leaves a lot to be desired."

Laughing, she lightly punched him in the arm.

"Ow!"

"So…what were you talking to Hera about?"

Lee turned to look at Kara, the half-smile that always mystified her on his face. "Just about the time my friends and I tried to fly a homemade hang glider."

Kara laughed in disbelief.

Lee continued: "It was high school. And we thought we had everything figured out. The design looked good and we were going to fly it into a lake just in case anything went wrong mid-flight."

"And?" Kara couldn't wait to hear what went wrong.

"Well…" Lee said teasingly.

"C'mon, Lee." Kara said, nudging him with her elbow. "Don't leave me hanging like this."

"Let's just say that we didn't factor in my tripping while running down the pier and ignored the fact that it was nearly winter so the water was freezing."

Once Kara's laughter had died down, they lay in companionable silence and stared at the sky for a few minutes. Then Kara heard Lee let out an almost inaudible sigh. She rolled onto her side to face him.

"You miss it, don't you?"

Lee turned his head to look at her. "Miss what?"

"Being in the sky." She said it as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

He looked almost wistful as he looked back up.

"Sometimes. But then I remember what we had to do every time we got into our cockpits. And when the stakes got higher after you…" Lee suddenly went silent and sat up.

Kara sat up beside Lee and put an arm around his shoulders, leaning in close to reassure him that she was there. She could feel him trembling from the memories.

"Hey," she whispered into his ear. "You're not allowed to feel bad anymore. You hear me?"

Lee nodded slightly.

"Because," Kara continued. "That overrated bright and shiny future? Well we've got it right here, and I'm going to make sure that you and I are going to do every gods damned clichéd thing there is to do, because I'm not about to let this go."

Lee turned his head so that they were nose to nose. "I love you," he said. "You know that, right?"

"Yeah," Kara whispered back, chuckling quietly. "I know."

She was about to lean in for a kiss when a throat was loudly cleared behind them and they froze.

"What are they doing, Daddy?" came the giggling voice of Hera.

"They're being icky, sweetie," Helo replied. "And what do we do to icky things?"

"We wash them!" Hera shouted gleefully.

It was then that Kara and Lee turned their heads to see that Hera was standing there with a garden hose pointed straight at them.

"Now, Sharon!"