CHAPTER TWO

And Lee was back, kissing me deeper now. We began to pull at our clothes. I enjoyed pulling roughly at the shinny brass buttons on his uniform. I took a strange pleasure knowing that I was disheveling the perfectly tidy Captain Lee Adama.

But it was only fair, since I could feel him pulling just as urgently at my own coat, reaching for my tanks and pulling them quickly over my head. I laughed gently against his neck at the combination of our enthusiasm.

Then we were on the sand, our naked bodies shinning under the bright, bright moon. I was on top of him and we were doing what I had imagined for three long years. And he was perfect for me. I knew it with all certainty then as our bodies burned into the sand. We were a perfect match.

His eyes found mine. I found the same astonishment I felt reflected in the bottomless pool of blue. He kissed me gently, soothingly, sealing the deed we had just done.

I pulled away slowly, rolling over to lay beside him with a little amazed laugh. "Well, that makes things more complicated," I sighed, as we both stared up at the stars we'd been traveling through days before.

"Yeah…"

I was honestly lost for words. I really hadn't thought tonight would end like this. I never thought he would call me out on all this or that we would make such good use of the space I hoped would one day be my bedroom.

"What are we gonna do?"

He looked over at me incredulously. "What are we gonna do?" he echoed blankly, sitting up a little and leaning over me. "We accept it," he answered with all confidence, "Tomorrow I tell Dee, you tell Sam." There was no mention of who would tell the Admiral, who saw us both as his children and might very well view this as emotional incest.

"Just like that." I said, dumbfounded by the simplicity of his plan.

"Just like that." He affirmed.

"I don't know…" I whispered, shaking my head.

"Yeah, we tell them how we feel." His voice was growing in intensity and fervor. "We shout it to the skies!"

I laughed. "Yeah right."

"What, you don't believe me? You don't think I will?" Now this was a challenge and I knew Lee well enough to know that now he wouldn't back down.

I shook my head and laughed. He kissed me once for luck, another little promise tucked between his lips, then stood, butt naked, to shout up at the skies. I could help but laugh at the absurdity of everything.

"MY NAME IS LEE ADAMA AND I LOVE KARA THRACE!" he yelled out to the woods, up to the skies and beyond. I exploded into fits of laughter. I still couldn't believe this. It was surreal.

Lee Adama loves me.

"What?" he turned at my laughing, smiling at my obvious embarrassment. "It's not like anyone will hear. We're in your cabin in the forest, right?"

I laughed again, but somehow I knew he was right. This was our night and our forest. Nothing and no one could take that away.

"I LOVE KARA THRACE," he screamed again, "AND I DON'T CARE WHO FRAKKING KNOWS!" He laughed and I laughed like little children stealing sweets from the exhilarating feeling of living life without being caught.

"You're crazy," I giggled, "Get down."

"Oh come on!" he scoffed, "I'm not going to stop until you get up and do it too."

"I… can't," I said self-consciously, looking between him and our celestial audience. I was never one for grand gestures. Well, except for the time I came back for Anders on Caprica to save his life. But that was a whole other love story, and not one I particularly longed to remember.

Lee seemed to expect my timidity, but he wasn't bluffing. "Alright, here I go again," he inhaled theatrically, and "LEE ADAMA--"

"Okay, okay!" I cut him off, rising from the sand to stand naked beside him. I jumped up and down a little, rubbing my arms for warmth. It felt like I was back in flight school, the first time I'd flown solo in a Raptor. My heart was beating overtime. I was nervous and excited; a little scared, but confident that this was right. I belonged here beside Lee, at least for tonight.

"KA— " I cut myself off with a laugh, gently shaking away my self-consciousness with a twitch of my head. "KARA THRACE LOVES LEE ADAMA!"

I felt like a tattling schoolgirl back on Caprica, yelling little secrets to the heavens. But it felt good to say it too. I love Lee Adama. Plain. Straightforward. Painfully true.

I turned around into his arms and he held me gently. We kissed softly. Once. Twice. Then I just stared at him, memorizing every feature.

After that we lay back down and made love on the sand once more. Cheesy as it sounds, I have to say "made love" because for the first time in my life "frakked" really wasn't the right word. This was different, what Lee and I had. Different from anything else I'd ever felt before.

Afterwards I lay in his arms as he whispered how he loved me, how I was beautiful, perfect, how he had and always would want me. After a while he drifted off to sleep and I lay there, listening to his breathing slow. But I couldn't join him. I just daydreamed, lost in thought, staring at the sky.

While I never considered myself devout in a religious sense, there are some things I have to believe. I have to believe, for instance, that the people I've loved and lost are out there somewhere; my classmates and co-workers from Caprica, my long gone artist father, even my bitch of a mother. And if they were all out there I knew Zack had to be too.

I didn't want to think about him right then, but I didn't really have a choice. Even in death he wasn't far from me. How could he be? I was lying snug in his brother's arms.

Oh, Zack. What would he think if he could see us now? Would he forgive me for loving Lee, his only brother and truest friend?

Zack had meant so much to me once upon a time. I had planned our entire lives together, sentimental sap that I secretly was. Sure I'd tried to hide it. I'd been a wise-ass even back in the day when Zack was just one of my nuggets. I'd though I was jaded and cynical then. I'd thought I understood the world.

I was wrong.

What I felt with Zack was new to me. The first time he surprised me with a kiss when we were alone after flight training I'd laughed. Who was this quiet, joking kid who thought he could seduce his flight instructor?

I tried to ignore him. When that failed I tried to punish him for his lack of a professional attitude. But I couldn't manage that either. I found him cute, endearing and surprisingly… seductive. Then we started dating on the sly and it felt ridiculous, yet somehow thrilling too. I was surprised to realize one day that he was the only person who really made me laugh. The only person I could truly love.

Then he proposed. He wanted me, battered, beaten Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, for the rest of his frakking life. He wanted me. And I wanted him.

Yes, the first time he introduced me to his brother we all got a little tipsy and I may have kissed Lee. But I was drunk then. I was just being my stupid crazy self. I didn't know Lee then. I didn't love him.

I pushed him from my mind the next morning and remembered that I loved Zack. I loved him and I wanted him.

I wanted him and three kids- two sons and one kick-ass daughter. I wanted a house not too far from Caprica City where I could be a fighter pilot and Zack could work on a battlestar. Even in my dream world I knew Zack wasn't fit for flying. He just never had the hunting instinct necessary to love living in the cockpit of a Raptor.

In my mind our kids were all punks, but full of Zack's good intentions. Our daughter had my blond hair, but everything else about her was softer then me. I wanted her to know how to defend herself but never need to.

We were beautiful in my dreams- Zack and I and our family with blue eyes and mischievous grins.

Zack was just finishing flight school, and the wedding was two months away, when I realized I was pregnant. It just made it that much easier for me to check yes when I knew the answer was know. I let him pass when I knew he wasn't ready because I always though that I could prevent him from flying. I knew he'd only taken the class to please his father. I thought I could convince him to plant his feet firmly on the ground.

I could be the creature of flight and adventure who loved space. He would find other pleasures away from peril.

I didn't tell him about our kid. I wanted to keep it my secret for a little while longer. Then I never got the chance to tell him. Three weeks after we'd gotten his wings he crashed during a routine flight.

I had a miscarriage a month later, right around the day that would have been our wedding. I told no one. I said I had the flu and took a week off. No one blamed me. They could all see I'd been broken. I cried for three days, went on a five mile run each morning and beat up two brutes at a bar the day before I returned to work. As far as the world was concerned, good ol' Starbuck was back.

But after that I felt empty. Before I'd met Zack I was a scared little girl who hid behind a grim façade. Afterwards I held an ache in my heart and the pit of my stomach vast enough to swallow Picese and Geminan whole.

When I was trapped at the breeding farm back on real Caprica that frakked up Cylon "doctor" told me it was common for kids from abused families to not want children of their own. I wanted to shred him into strips with my bare hands. He didn't know about my past and how I'd suffered. He knew nothing about the empty crater inside me that the death of my loved ones created. No one knew my past pain.

And sure, my mother was a psycho bitch who frakked me up after my father left, but that just made me want to prove her wrong. I knew I could be better than her. I could have loved and been loved with Zack at my side. Together we would have created children raised in love and lead a real life.

But now… how could I feel about my future now, lying with Lee in my New Caprican "house"? He'd said he loved me in an "always-have, always-will" kind of way. He was ready to sacrifice a lot so we could be together.

Lee had lived through a lot of shit in his day, but not like I had. Lee had some issues after Zack died with his career and his father. But his life and his problems were nothing compared to mine. From my abused childhood to my heartbreaking first love to my bad attitude and serious drinking problem I was frakked up.

Lee thought he loved me now. He'd bought into the illusion. I knew lying there on New Caprica that I was just an empty shell. I didn't deserve Lee who, for all his hard-knock life, was still infinitely more innocent and deserving.

It had been wrong of me to bring him here to my "house". It had been wrong to indulge in our shared fantasy. It had been wrong to believe that by loving him I could be a better person and forget my life with Zack.

Lee was Zack's brother and even though I loved each of them in separate ways, allowing myself to be with Lee and to taint him too would be like spitting on Zack's grave.

I loved Lee with every part of my heart that wasn't already numb. But I knew we could never be together. He was perfect for me, but I would ruin him. It was my eternal curse. I like to think that if Zack had lived and the Cylons had never come that would have changed. With him, I tell myself, I could have stopped being a user in every sense of the word and become someone worthy of a family's affection and devotion.

I'll never know if that's true. It's all a big "what if" and always will be. But I did know that it was too late now. Too late for me and Lee.

THAT was why I left. All of that – my childhood, Zack, the baby, the past that never leaves me and my true feelings for Lee, was too much for me to suppress.

I stood up and dressed silently in the predawn light. I took a minute to memorize every sleeping inch of Lee. I looked at his bare feet with their crooked toes. I stared at his strong thighs and remembered how it felt to lie between them. I watched his muscled chest move up and down with each breath and thought about how it had felt to run my fingers though the hair that covered it. I looked at his closed eyelids and watched the gentle movement of his eyes hidden beneath them. I smiled at his smile, the one that even sleep could not erase.

He would hate me for this. He'd offered himself all or nothing. I couldn't handle all so I was choosing nothing. Leaving him here to wake alone was a start, but there was a lot more I needed to do to drive him away permanently.

I had to push him into Dee's arms once and for all. So what if she was too gentle? She'd conform to his will and with her he could live a quiet, peaceful life. He could be happy- and despite all evidence to the contrary, that was really what I craved. I would always love him, but I was fine with him hating me. So long as he was happy with someone else, I was happy. He and Dee would be all right.

And I always had Anders. Once again, I would make him a piece in my puzzle and he'd have no idea. I could afford to tie myself to Anders. I could handle his all. He could love me forever and I could turn him into a puppet because he'd let me.

It was cruel, but a lesser of two evils in my mind. I guess that was the true sign of who I loved more.