1. Possibility: Babies

This will be a series of stand-alone stories which deal with the choices that the characters on Battlestar Galactica have made throughout the mini-series and first season (I'll be posted in as much of the order of the season as I can). I want to explore what would have happened/changed if things had gone differently. Some of the stories will be angst, some will be shippy, some will be funny. There will be different pairings throughout. Don't feel like you have to check out each one to understand the others. All I ask is that if it intrigues you, then give it a try. Hope you enjoy reading the stories as much as I enjoyed writing them!

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There are pivotal moments in one's life where if you take the wrong path everything may change. Those changes may be for the good or for the bad. The possibilties are endless.

* * *

Commander William Adama stared at the paper in front of him. The President had mentioned to him once that repopulating the human race was one of her main priorities, but he really hadn't thought she'd be stupid enough to try to do that now. They were in the middle of a war, and she wanted to institute her first government program. And not just any program.

"Did you get this?" Colonel Tigh said, barging into the Commander's private quarters with a paper waving in his hand. He didn't care that he might be interrupting William Adama's thoughts. "We all have to go in for genetic testing."

"The President wants to match up the best DNA to use in her repopulation program."

"Repopulation program, my ass! She wants to make test tube babies. It's unnatural."

Adama recognized the familiar irrateness in his friend's voice and demeanor. He had to move forward carefully. "I'm not agreeing with her, Saul. I'm just saying that there might not be anything we can do."

"It's not like you to accept defeat so easily. You obviously do not agree with her decision. Why aren't you telling her that she's making a stupid mistake?"

Adama walked over to his desk and took a seat. "I choose my battles. This is one that is not worth fighting. She has promised me that the testing will not impact the way I run this Fleet. And repopulation will be an issue for us at some point. We may as well deal with it now."

Tigh nodded and sat down in the chair next to the Commander's work area. "I still don't have to like it, do I?"

"No. But you do have to get tested," Adama added, trying to keep his smirk as small as he could.

* * *

Lee Adama stared at the pilots sitting in front of him in the Ready Room. He had no idea how he was going to do his job in this particular instance. He was pretty sure that he was about to step into areas that no CAG had ever ventured in before. 

Taking a deep breath, he hoped for the best and began to speak. "Normally I would be giving you pilots a small talk on the state of our Fleet and who was doing what patrols. However, there's something that's taking precedence to that today. The President has decided to institute a new program which should affect most of you."

Lee grabbed a stack of papers and handed them to one of the more veteran pilots who was sitting in the first row. "These are the acceptance forms for the President's new repopulation program. Anyone who does not want to take part in it should not sign. It's purely voluntary, but the more involved, the less traumatic it should be."

"I don't understand," Boomer said, looking down at the paper in her hand. "Wouldn't repopulation involve the grounding of all women pilots in the Fleet?"

"The President is proposing a program in which… in which…" Apollo cleared his throat and tried again. "In which the eggs of the women in the fleet are harvested so that the baby is developed in a lab. The most flight time it should take out of the schedule is a few days. Everyone read over the details of the program on the paper. If there are any questions, come see me sometime in the next few days." Lee gave them a small nod of dismissal and was pleased when they began to get up and exit the room. He really didn't want to field their questions at that exact moment. It was bad enough he had to talk to Boomer about her eggs being harvested. He didn't want to get into the specifics about the male's part of the program.

He shifted the papers around on the podium in front of him until he thought every pilot was gone. Only then did he allow himself a sigh of relief and a brief moment of rest. His head rested on the cool surface of the podium as he concentrated solely on breathing in and out. The role of CAG definitely hadn't been this hard before. (take out 'had it?')

"Something the matter, Captain?"

Gods. Her voice was the last one in the universe he wanted to be hearing right now. He found himself wishing to the Lords of Kobol that they would just make her disappear. When he still felt her presence in front of him seconds later, he knew he wasn't that lucky. "I thought you were scheduled for patrol, Kara" he said without lifting his head.

Starbuck laughed and began to walk to the front of the ready room. "I was. Heard you were going to have a big meeting. Figured you had scheduled me for patrol specifically so I wouldn't be here. Now that I've witnessed your discomfort, I can see why."

She sat down in the front row and, after Lee finally lifted his head to look at her, patted the seat next to where she sat. "Tell Dr. Starbuck what's on your mind."

"You're loving this, aren't you?" Lee hissed. Contrary to his angry tone, he did walk from behind the podium and take the seat next to the one she had offered. Knowing her tendency to tease and annoy, a little space between them might be the best option in order to keep both of them out of the brig.

Meanwhile, Kara watched him put the distance between them with a smile on her face. They had been apart for two years with barely any contact, but they had already slipped back into their old routine. It was comforting and confusing at the same time. Things had stayed the same between them, but they were still so different. They weren't two kids struggling to make it at the Academy anymore. She gave him a once over. No, he was definitely not a kid.

"I'm happy that I don't have to be taken out of the cockpit to do my duty for the Fleet," she said, finally answering with a brutally unexpected honesty.

Lee stared up at the ceiling. "So you don't object to the means that the President is using to start the repopulation?"

"No. Do you?"

"I don't know." He let out a big sigh. "It's just… well…I never imagined it being like this."

Kara kicked her legs up onto the empty seat between them "Imagined what?"

"Having children," Lee said before he could stop himself. When she started to laugh, he shot her a dirty look. "What's so funny?"

"Need I remind you that you are a man, Lee Adama. This repopulation should be easy for you. Give you a cup, a private room, and one dirty thought and you're done."

He groaned. "That was gross. Even for you."

"Glad to know I've surpassed myself. But seriously, I don't understand what your problem is."

Lee shook his head. "I'm not telling you. You'll only laugh more."

She knew he was upset even if he couldn't admit it. Knowing that it was probably a stupid, emotional thing to do and completely uncharacteristic of Starbuck the pilot, Kara the friend found herself grasping his hand in hers. She wasn't surprised to feel him stiff slightly and give her a weird look before letting himself relax in the comfort of her physical touch.

Sometimes she got these weird bursts where she just needed to have some sort of contact with Lee. She had a nagging suspicion it had something to do with caring about how he felt. It was strange for her to care. At least this far out in the open where people could see.

It was also strange for her to give him a reassuring smile, but that's what Kara found herself doing along with holding his hand. The things being friends with Lee Adama compelled her to do. It would be downright fascinating if it wasn't so annoying.

"Honestly, Lee, I can tell you're upset about something. Tell me before you decide to implode from all that fraking repression."

Kara could practically feel him letting go of the last few defensive walls right before he started speaking. "I just imagined that when I would have children, it would be in the normal ways. If this program works, I might not even know the woman who is the mother of my children. I imagined making children out of love, not necessity." Lee paused, looking over at her. "You're not laughing."

She shrugged her shoulders. "It's not funny."

Lee smirked at her, not believing his ears. "I think we may actually be relating to one another on a personal level. Maybe we really are friends."

"And maybe you can convince the future mother of your children to give a big frak you to the President's artificial reproduction idea. Hey, if she realizes that you're the guy she gets matched with, I doubt she would mind having to do it the old-fashioned way. Let me see. How did the girls in Hangar Bay C put it? The call sign of a god with a body and voice to match."

His cheeks reddened slightly. They never really discussed the fact that most of the Fleet privately, and all too often rather publicly, lusted after the Commander's son. It embarrassed Lee and made Kara uncomfortable. He had no idea why she was bringing it up now.

"Seriously, though," Kara said, finally releasing his hand and standing up. "Talk to the woman you get matched with. She might be willing to negotiate. Word on the street is the CAG is a great catch."

"I hate gossip," he said, punctuating it with an overly dramatic eye roll.

"All I'm saying is that you might be surprised what a woman would be willing to give up if she knew she had your attention." She sent a small wink his way before walking off, presumably to fly that CAP she was already late for.

"I don't know what to do with you, Kara Thrace," he whispered as the hatch shut. He rested his head in his hands again. He probably had a good thirty seconds of alone time in front of him before someone would come and find him in order to tell him the next crisis he had to solve. He wanted to use it wisely.

* * *

Dee offered her arm to Dr. Baltar and his needle. "Is this going to take long?" 

"No," Gaius said, injecting the serum into her arm. "Are you feeling ill, Specialist?"

"Let me see. The doctor just shot me up to my ass with drugs in order to insert a rather painful looking tool into my abdomen to extract eggs in order to repopulate the human race. I'm not feeling good, that's for sure."

"Duly noted." He would have to remember that those drugs the good doctor in sick bay was handing out made the women both agitated and took away all sense of protocol and respect that the military had instilled in them. He held a piece of cotton to where the needle had been, trying to give her a smile that she wouldn't interpret as reason to hit him. "This drug should knock out the drugs that have already been given you. You should be able to go through your shift at CIC just fine. After that's done, I recommend at least eight hours sleep."

"You're not an actual physician kind of doctor, are you?" Dee asked, narrowing her eyes.

"No. I'm more of a scientific, brainy kind of doctor."

"Then don't be handing out medical advice." Dee gave him one more mean look before taking her arm back and walking out the hatch.

She made it down half the corridor before things started going dizzy, and she was forced to lean up against the cold, metal wall. Obviously, the drugs must take a few minutes to kick in. Dr. Baltar probably would have told her that if she hadn't just stormed out on him.

After a moment, Dee decided the whole dizziness thing would be okay as long as she could just lean on the walls for as much time as it took without anyone noticing her. No one could discover that she was hurting right now.

Dee didn't want to mention to her superiors that they had made a mistake on the schedule. Commander Adama and Colonel Tigh were already too stressed about the President's new program and what it meant for the Fleet. She didn't want to bring up a problem as trivial as their putting her on the schedule for a shift only a few hours after undergoing the operation.

"Dee?"

She opened her eyes a crack to focus on the figure standing in front of her. "I thought you had work to do with the President, Billy."

"I did. I do." He reached out to grab her arm as she started to sway away from the wall. "The President mentioned that your name was on the list of those women going through their operations today. When she saw that I didn't already know and figured you obviously didn't want me to know, she let me have a day off. Something about a woman not wanting to admit weakness but eventually it will come around to haunt me if I wasn't there for you. I didn't really understand. It was a good thing that the President understood because it looks like you do need me."

"I don't need you," she said, poking him hard in the chest with her finger. It took all her energy, but she wasn't going to let him keep her from her shift. Commander Adama needed her on call.

"Well, no, you don't need me specifically. But you need someone to get you back to your bunk safely."

"I'm not going to my bunk. I'm going to CIC. I have a shift in a few hours. I figured that it might take me that long to get there."

"But you just had an operation. I don't see how you could possibly have a shift."

"Dr. Baltar gave me some drug stimulant. In a few minutes, I'll be fine." Contrary to her words, Dee could feel herself getting worse. If she didn't get out of the hallway, she might just collapse completely in front of hundreds of witnesses. Or maybe there were only a few people around. She really couldn't tell. The room was spinning too fast.

No saying another word, Billy kept hold of her arm and started down the corridor. Each step they took she leaned on him more. It scared him to see such a strong woman in such obvious disarray. Especially when that woman was Dee.

"Billy," she whispered, breaking the silence as they turned a corner. "I lied to you."

"Did you?" he said with a smirk. It was strange to hear her voice without the usual defenses fighting her every emotion. She was usually so matter-of-the-fact all the time. The openly vulnerable tone she was whispering to him in right now was something completely foreign.

Again, Billy felt himself becoming a little more afraid. Maybe the President's new program was not the best choice for the Fleet right now. "So what did you lie to me about, Dee?"

"I do need you," she said with a half-drugged smile.

"You're not going to be happy you said that to me in the morning." He shook his head and continued leading her to the bunkroom, concentrating only on getting them through the next step. He didn't want to think about whether his boss had made a mistake and whether that mistake was going to permanently hurt the woman he loved.

* * *

Lee sat holding his best friend's hand as she lay in one of the beds in sickbay. It was eerie to see her so quiet. This was the woman who never held back her words no matter how hurtful they would sound. She didn't hesitate to use physical force if you refused to listen to her point. She was a spitfire in its most basic definition. 

And now she was silent.

The doctor said that the operation went as normal as could be expected, but Lee still couldn't help but be worried that something was wrong since she wasn't waking up. He had insisted that he be allowed to wait right outside the make-shift "operating" room while Kara had her eggs harvested. He wanted to be as close as possible in case anything happened.

Plus, Kara had some issues with the ideas of bearing children. He really wasn't sure what they were, but they were issues none the same. And as much as she joked about the ridiculous notion of a woman like her having children, he knew that deep down she wanted them the same as any other woman. Not to mention the small fact of how real a possibility they had been for her at one time.

She meant a lot to the Fleet, and they couldn't risk losing her to neither her own self-destructive tendencies nor a complication from a surgery that didn't really have to be done. The Fleet needed her.

Lee stared down at his fingers laced in hers and shook his head. The words sounded almost as stupid in his head as they would have if he had said them out loud. He wasn't here because the Fleet needed her. For now, the Fleet had plenty of good pilots who could keep them alive and moving.

No. He was here because he had a selfish need to make sure that she was safe.

Her whole world had dropped out two years before everyone else's. He knew the loss of their civilization would hit her hard because she was more vulnerable. She already knew what the others were just now experiencing. Which was why he felt the need to be right next to her when she woke up. She had come to lean on the Adama family, and neither he nor his father minded the responsibility of not letting her fall.

Lee stared down at her silent face. No, he didn't mind it at all.

Kara began to stir at that moment for the first time, shifting in bed and squeezing his hand instinctively. He was grateful from the short reprieve from the direction his thoughts were heading.

"What the hell are you doing here, sir?" she said, finally opening her eyes and staring at him.

His heart soared at her all-too familiar sleepy smile, even if it was drug induced this time. "I happened to be off-shift for today. I figured you might want to see a familiar face when you woke up." He didn't want to mention to her that, as the person in charge of schedules, he had made sure he wouldn't have to be in the air when she went through this whole ordeal. He didn't want to mention that he had purposefully made sure that someone else was handling his duties so that he could spend his off-hours in the sick bay without having to worry about his other pilots.

For whatever reason, she didn't question him even though he knew she saw right through the things he was purposefully leaving out. Kara inched her way up so that she was sitting with her legs dangling off the edge of the hospital bed. "So, how did my hypothetical children come out?"

"The doctor said that it was the easiest operation he's done so far. It seems like your eggs didn't want to be pregnant almost as much as you did."

She laughed while trying to stand up and failing miserably. Lee slid his arm under hers immediately, supporting most of her weight with his. He knew she must be pretty heavily drugged when she didn't protest.

"Are these your pants?" she said, squinting down at her bottom half. "How the hell did I end up in your pants?"

He found himself laughing harder than he had in days. No matter what the situation was, Kara always seemed to find some way to observe the oddest, most obscure things. Of course she would notice immediately that she was wearing his clothes. Deciding that she had already been through enough that day, he let her comment about being in his pants slid by without teasing and went with giving her an honest answer. "Yeah. The doctor said that your sweats were too tight. They were going to rub the stitches from the incision. So I gave up my spare pair."

"Anything for a good cause?" she teased.

"Yeah." Lee looked over at the mess of people scurrying all over the sick bay. "The doctor said if you wanted, I could move you back to the pilots' bunkroom when you woke up. They're really busy here with all the women of the Fleet having to come in."

"I don't see why I have to go to the bunkroom. I could do some good down in the Hanger doing repairs."

"Well, it seems that the drugs they give you are going to keep you pretty out of it for at least twenty-four hours. So the bunkroom is your only option, Lieutenant."

"I can get there myself," she insisted. Prickling at his casual use of rank, she tried to push away from him.

"Sure you can," he answered, pulling her tighter against his side as they started shuffling towards the door. "While we're here and having such heartfelt discussion between us, Kara, I might as well get the obligatory scolding out for the stunt you pulled earlier on shift. You risked yourself and your ship in order to do what?"

She rolled her eyes. She couldn't believe Lee was bringing this up when she was in so much pain after her operation. Then again, it showed just how much he knew her that he wasn't changing his normal behavior. She would probably be even angrier if he just let her off-the-wall behavior from her earlier flight slide by without comment.

It was official. He knew her too well.

"I told the deck crew that it was imperative that I know my ship could handle a 360 degree turn. I might need that knowledge someday when I'm facing down a Cylon."

"But did you have to do it in front of the Nuggets while loudly screaming over the comms 'Oh my gods. I'm going to die'?" He ruffled her hair with his hand as they turned the corner away from sick bay. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that one day one of your stunts is going to get you killed?"

"Almost every day, sir," she said, giving him a mocking salute. "But then I proceed to tell them what my mother always told me when she did some trademark crazy Thrace move. Never pay the reaper with love only."

Lee thought that over for a moment before nodding. "It makes sense. And I don't think you have anything to worry about. There's a lot more pent-up inside you other than love. It's rather fascinating."

"Glad to be of service to our CAG," she joked before noticeably concentrating on walking.

He figured now was as good a time as any to ask her the question that had been running through his mind since he first heard about this new program. It seemed like her defensives were down at the moment, and there was a good chance that she would remember none of this when she woke up later on. Which would probably save him a gaping wound to his ego and a black eye. "Kara, I don't know how you are getting through this."

"What do you mean?"

"Your mind has to be on Zak every second you think about this program."

"You mean the fact that I should be married with maybe my own naturally-made bun in the oven by now?" She shook her head. "Never crossed my mind."

"Bull shit. How are you doing with that?"

"I'm getting by. Some days are better than others. I've come to accept what my life would have been if he was still alive and what it is now that he isn't. It's not so bad really. I'm surviving." Her arm noticeably tightened where it lay around his waist. "Luckily I still have people to look after me in this world."

"I'm sorry I couldn't be there for you for the past few years."

"Don't start getting sappy on me, Lee. I don't have the patience to put up with it right now."

He smiled and gave her a small nod before they continued on. They hadn't make it very far before he noticed her beginning to stumble. The doctor had been right when he warned Lee that the effects of the drugs might be erratic. She had gone from comatose to coherent to belligerent to joking to stumbling in a matter of minutes. Maybe he should have gotten the actual move from sick bay to bunkroom approved by the doctor instead of just doing it. She might not be ready to move.

He probably should have thought of that before they hit the main corridor.

"Lee," she said softly, stopping to look up at him.

"What's wrong?"

"Promise me that you won't hold what I'm about to do against me." He gave her a confused look, but when she continued to look at him intently, he nodded.

She seemed satisfied with his response because the next thing he knew she had fainted dead away into his arms. Sighing and shaking his head, he slid one of his arms around her waist and the other under her legs, lifting her up. Only Kara would make sure he agreed not to tease her for something as uncontrollable as fainting.

For her sake, Lee hoped that there wouldn't be many people walking the corridors between here and the bunkroom. He might not tease her, but he couldn't make that promise for the rest of Galactica. She would never live down needing the CAG to carry her to bed, repopulation program or no repopulation program

"Good afternoon, sir."

He looked up to see Billy steering a rather tired looking Dee towards him in the hall. Lee gave him a small nod as he remembered that Dee's name had been right below Kara's on the list of operations for that day. Recognizing a kindred spirit when he saw one, Lee whispered, "The things we do for the women of this ship."

When Billy gave him a smile and a nod, Lee understood his assumption had been right. This was a man who recognized how scary it was to be unable to alleviate the pain the women were subjecting themselves just to allow their race to continue existing. Billy understood how ridiculous it was, having to stand off to the side while everyone around him was in pain.

Billy slowly brought Dee to a stop next to Starbuck and Apollo. "Are your father and Lieutenant Gaeta in CIC?" he asked.

"I think so."

"Good. I'm going to drop Dee off in her bunk and then I need to make sure someone can cover her shift."

"A wise idea." Lee readjusted Kara in his arms. Strangely enough, she was a lot lighter than he expected. Sometimes he forgot that she was a girl. As Billy began to walk away in the direction he had been previously headed, Lee called out to him. "Could you not mention to anyone that you saw me and the Lieutenant like this? The less amount of talk, the better."

Billy nodded. "No problem. Let Lieutenant Thrace know that the President appreciates her sacrifice."

Lee gave him a funny look before shaking his head. "That sounds slightly mechanical. Starbuck would go berserk if I say that to her. Personally, I'm starting to get tired of being on the receiving end of her fists when the Commander or the President says the wrong thing."

"That's the point, isn't it? Making her go berserk? Isn't that part of your job as the CAG?" Billy said with a smirk as Dee let out a small groan. He pulled her in closer to his body, wondering if maybe it wouldn't be easier to pick her up just as Apollo had done to Starbuck. "If that's not the route you want to go, however, let her know that the President understands her pain. She had me pencil in a little free time this evening when she found out Starbuck's operation was today. I think she plans on visiting."

"Not if Starbuck doesn't wake up," Lee joked, readjusting the fallen woman in his arms. "Carry on, Billy. And make sure that my father knows about Dee's condition. They're pretty close. He'll understand if she can't fill her shift, and he'll probably help you find a suitable replacement."

"Thank you, Captain."

Lee nodded and started walking down the corridor again. He looked down at his best friend in his arms.

Vulnerable. It was a strange look for Kara. He would have to thank the President someday for letting him see this side of her.

* * *

Boomer made her way down to the hanger bay, trying to figure out why she couldn't recall where she had been a few minutes earlier. These blackouts she had been the past few days were getting worse. Before it would just be a few seconds here and there. Now it was hour-long periods. Sometimes she was pretty sure that she missed whole nights. 

She didn't want to think about this right now. Her operation was scheduled for an hour, and she really wanted to see the Chief before she went under the knife. There were already horror stories circulating about how awful the recovery process was and how doped up each women was while trying to get back on her feet. She needed a little reassurance before she went through the same thing.

Pushing it from her mind for the moment, her eyes locked with Starbuck's as the other pilot made her way down the corridor at a lightning fast speed. It seemed like the recovery time for the operation went by quickly in some cases. "Something I should know about, Starbuck?" she called.

Starbuck skidded to a halt and gave her probably the wickedest smile she had ever seen a person have. "Rumor's going around that the CAG has to do his part for the repopulation program today. I can't let an opportunity like this go to waste."

Sharon laughed. "Hasn't he earned a small reprieve from your constant torment? I personally saw him carry your comatose ass all the way across half of Galactica to your bunkroom three days ago. Give the man a break."

"On any other day!" she called behind her, already on the move again.

Boomer shook her head and kept on walking. Starbuck seemed to have recovered just fine. Maybe it wouldn't be as bad as they made it out to be.

* * *

Laura Roslin stared down at the envelope in her hand. The day had finally come. The results of the genetic prediction testing she had assigned Dr. Baltar to do were complete. 

"Aren't you going to open it, sir?" Billy asked, gesturing at the envelope. He had just confirmed that every envelope had been delivered to its proper recipient. Now all they had to do was wait for acceptance by the various pairs, and they could begin to create the next generation.

"Madame President?" he said softly when she didn't respond. "Are you all right?"

"Do you think this was a silly idea?" she asked, finally looking over at her aide.

"The program?"

"The random matching." She looked down at the still-sealed envelope. "It is an extremely awkward situation to have to speak to someone you barely know about having children with them because you are genetically compatible."

"I don't think you'll have a problem if that's what is worrying you," Billy said, taking a seat in the chair on the other side of the desk she was sitting at.

"And why is that?"

"You're the President. Any man would be happy to be the father to the children of the woman who saved the human race. It would practically be the highest honor one could have."

"That was very sweet of you to say, Billy, but I don't think it's going to be that easy." She slipped back into the silence, still contemplating the envelope in hand.

Deciding that silence was not what they needed right now, Billy chose to answer her previous question. "I don't think the random matching was a bad idea, anyway. I think it allows for the pilots and the civilians to keep the stress level of the situation to a minimum. They won't have to worry about asking people to be their partner. Instead, the name is given to them, and they only have to be sure that their match is still fine within the parameters of the repopulation program."

"That was my original reasoning. I'm less confident now that it's actually time." She gave him a small shrug before letting out a tiny laugh. "I guess if I want people to go along with this program, I should get on board myself, right?" The President took a deep breath and ripped open the envelope. She slipped the paper out and began to read. "Oh."

"Something wrong with your results?" Billy asked.

"No. I'm just surprised." She smiled at him. "So, did you really mean what you said about it being an honor to be matched with me?"

"Yes," he said hesitantly, not sure where she was heading with this train of thought.

She slid the paper across the desk, resting it in front of him so that he could read what it said.

His face whitened as he scanned down to the words he was looking for.

Best Genetic Match: William Keikeya

* * *

Dee stood in front of Captain Adama, shuffling back from one foot to the next. She had been waiting forever to talk with Apollo. But now that she was finally by herself in his office with all other problems solved, she couldn't find the words she needed.

"Is there something you needed, Dee?" Apollo asked, looking up from his paperwork to notice she hadn't left with the rest of the CIC crew when his short, informal briefing had ended. "Is this about your test results?"

"Yes, sir," she said, biting her lip.

His face lost a little bit of his color, and she saw him begin to get nervous as he set the papers aside. "Were you matched with me?"

"I don't know, sir. Was I?"

"You don't know?" he said. "How can you not know?"

"I never got my results." Now it was her turn to question him. "And, if you don't mind my asking, how can you not know if I was matched with you? I saw Billy hand you your envelope in CIC earlier, Captain."

"I haven't opened it, Dee." He took a deep breath and motioned for her to take a seat in the chair next to him. "To be honest, I'm scared to see who they've put me with."

"Was it Starbuck's comment at the Triad game last night? Because you know, sir, I'm sure that whoever you get matched with is not going to… what phrase did she use?"

"Jump my bones," he said, shaking his head.

"Right. I'm sure there won't be any bone jumping, sir. Your father runs a tight ship."

Lee's eyes went wide at the mention of his father, and for some reason, Dee thought it had nothing to do with her little comment about the way the Old Man ran his Battlestar. She watched as he picked up the phone, hitting a familiar series of numbers.

Dee waited patiently as he had a quick conversation with the person on the other end. When he hung up the phone and turned to look at her, she finally asked, "Did I say something wrong, sir?"

"No, nothing like that Dee. I just remembered my father wanted to talk with me earlier but I was too busy with that damn paperwork to make time. He really hates it when I don't return his calls. I learned that the hard way when I was going through war school on Picon." He gave her a small smile. "He wasn't mad this time, though. Turns out that he only wanted to ask me to get some alone time to talk with you."

"He did?"

"It seems like you picked the wrong Adama to accuse, Dualla. You weren't matched up with me. You were matched up with my father."

Dee tried in vain to keep her mouth from dropping open.

"That's why you didn't receive your results," Lee continued to explain. "My father had asked the Doctor to send his results along with whomever he matched straight to him. He wanted to keep the situation a secret as much as he could, due to his being the Commander and all."

"Oh."

Lee couldn't help but laugh. "Dee, it's not the end of your world. No one has to even know that you were matched up with my father. Just pretend you're Kara. If someone asks you, tell them you're not sharing and they can go frak themselves."

Dee laughed lightly. "Did she actually say that?"

"Yes. She said it to me about twenty minutes before we had this briefing. I'm not sure why she wouldn't share. At the time, I thought it might be because she had been matched with my father."

"She still hasn't looked to see who they matched her with. I know that for a fact. She was talking to Boomer about it in the mess hall earlier. Maybe she's scared for the same reasons you are. I have to get back to my post. There's a six hour shift waiting for me there." Dee stood up and walked to the door. "Thank you, Lee, for being so nice."

He waved her compliment off as she left his office. His eyes fell on the brown envelope sitting on the edge of his desk. "Can an envelope stare?" he pondered out loud. He glared for a moment more before returning to the mound of paperwork.

* * *

Gaius Baltar did his best to sneak through the corridors of Galactica. It seemed since these stupid results the President had made him tabulate were handed out, everyone on the ship wanted to speak with him. Lieutenant Gaeta wanted to know if the one name given to them on their sheet was their only option. It seemed that he was slightly intimidated by being matched up with the rather attractive Ensign Davis. Crashdown wanted to know how the hell he was supposed to tell Specialist Cally that he had been matched with her considering the girl hated his guts. Chief Tyrol wanted to know if it was possible to get another person's match changed. He didn't like the idea of his secret girlfriend making children with another guy. 

"If only he knew who she got matched up with," Six taunted as she suddenly appeared at his side.

Baltar sent her a glare, forgetting that he wasn't supposed to acknowledge her presence when he was in public.

"Are you still pouting because you didn't get matched up with Lieutenant Thrace? Because being a genetic match does not mean she'll let you into her bed."

"What makes you think that I need this reproduction program to get Lieutenant Thrace into my bed?"

"Gaius. You haven't been the smoothest man since you came on board Galactica." She leered at him. "Think positively, though. At least that trait won't be passed on to your children."

"What do you mean by that?" he hissed at her. As a few Marines passed him in the hall, he gave them a smile and then turned back to her for the answer to the question.

"I'm just saying that you won't have to worry about having children with the woman you got matched with. God has taken care of that for you."

He gave her a weird look before pulling the hatch to his office open. There was a woman standing at attention in the middle of the room, waiting for him. "Lieutenant Valerii, I was expecting you."

"Of course you were," she said, rolling her eyes. "Don't you think you could have given me a heads up that I was matched with you considering you were doing the matching?"

"Now that would be giving you an unfair advantage," he scolded. "One thing the President has taught me is that it is extremely important to be fair."

Boomer rolled her eyes. His tone always sounded so slimy. "I just wanted to let you know that as much as I find this weird, I'm not going to object to the program. You may proceed, Dr. Baltar."

He nodded and tried not to flinch as Six sat down on his lap. She leaned back into him, wiggling herself a little just to rile him up in the most painful way, and whispered in his ear, "I don't think her objections matter. She can't have children."

"I don't know how that's possible," he answered before remembering that he wasn't alone with Six. He smiled innocently at Boomer. "I was sure you would object to knowing I was your partner, Lieutenant."

"To be frank, you might be annoying as hell, sir, but your brains will be a nice asset to any children I have. Even though this whole thing is really way too creepy for my liking. "

"Doesn't matter what she likes. She won't have children," Six sang in his ear. "She's not capable. Her system won't let her."

"System?" he said, standing up and sending Six flying into the table.

"What?" Boomer asked.

"I was just thinking that you treat this system rather poorly by taking such an unemotional stance on it. It's the repopulation of our race, dear Boomer." He hoped she didn't see through his constant backtracking and covering up. When she rolled her eyes at him, he had to desperately hold back the sigh of relief.

"Whatever. I have work to attend to. Take this as my acceptance of our match and do what has to be done."

Gaius nodded, waiting until she was out of the room, before turning back to his fictional partner. "Are you trying to tell me she's a…"

"Cylon. Yes. Very much so." Six let out a little laugh. "I'll just leave you to mourn the loss of your hypothetical children, Gaius. At least the one's you might have had with her. Remember. For there to be children, there must be love. It is the way of God."

He just stared into space, not even acknowledging her sudden disappearance. What was he supposed to do now that he knew one of Galactica's pilots, a woman in a position of quite a lot of power when he thought about it, was a machine? And what exactly did the Cylons think they would gain by giving him this knowledge? And why was Six constantly fraking with his head?

"And how the frak am I supposed to explain why she can't get pregnant without damaging my manhood?" he cried out even though he knew his blond Cylon was not listening anymore.

* * *

Crashdown stared at where Cally was working intently on repairing damages to one of the Fleet's Vipers. He wasn't sure how he was going to talk to her about what was on his mind. He wasn't even sure if he would get a chance to talk to her before she started throwing the insults his way.

It turned out he didn't have to worry about how to start the conversation.

"Are you just going to stand there or are you going to say something?" she asked without pausing in her repairs.

"I was just wondering if you had had a moment to look at your results from the President's new program."

"Yeah, I did."

He rolled his eyes as the sounds of her tinkering did not pause. She wasn't giving him any sort of break with this one. Typical Cally. "And?"

"And I read it and now I'm working my shift just like the Chief assigned me to do two weeks ago. Life doesn't revolve around a stupid piece of paper, sir."

"Gods damnit, Cally. I know you don't like me, but do you really have to make it this hard to talk to you?"

She rolled out from underneath the plane to stare up at him with what was probably the meanest look he had ever seen. "I have no idea what you're talking about, sir. What the hell am I supposed to make easy on you?"

"I thought you said you read your results."

"I did. They matched me up with some guy name Thomas Stone. I think he might be a civilian on one of the ships from Caprica. I don't have time right now to hunt him down."

Crashdown chuckled to himself. She honestly didn't know the mess she was in. This should be fun. "Come on," he said with a smirk. He offered her a hand, and she took it, allowing him to pull her to her feet. When she tried to pull her hand away, he held on tight.

"What the hell are you doing, Crash?" she said, scrunching up her nose at him in confusion.

He smiled at her, pulling her hand up to his lips and placing a kiss on the top of her hand. "Hello. My name is Thomas Stone, and I will be the father of your children."

He watched her process his words and smiled as she started to blush when she realized the mistake she had made. "I can't believe you never bothered to learn my real name, Cally. I am a person outside of the cockpit, too, contrary to what you must obviously think."

"I know. I'm sorry. It's just that, well, no one every calls you by your first name. What would it look like if I started prying into what it was? People already know that we're not friends."

"And why aren't we friends?"

"I couldn't say without you throwing me into hack, sir."

He finally let go of her hand and took a seat on the utility ladder currently leaning against the Viper. "So, now that you know it's me you've been matched to, what are your thoughts?"

She gave him a quick once over before snickering. "Well, at least I know our children won't be short on cockiness or good looks." Shaking her head at him, she lay back down and wheeled herself under the plane.

He watched her at work for a few minutes, unsure of what to say. "I think I might stop having to think of you as an innocent little girl," he finally admitted with a laugh.

"I think you should, considering my new role as the mother of your offspring" came the reply from under the plane. "And just so you know, I don't hate you. I might not like you all that much, but I don't hate you."

"Good enough for me," he said, pushing off the ladder. He kicked her lightly on the leg as a goodbye and went back to his work. That was a lot simpler than he would have thought. Now he just had to deal with the Chief finding out that he was the one set to "defile" his precious protégé.

* * *

Kara knocked lightly on the door to the CAG's office. She had put this off for the few days since the matchings had come out. If she had to do this, she was pretty sure that she would need some downtime. That meant waiting until she had an off shift and she knew Lee was scheduled to work with his mounds of paperwork. Her free of commitments, him too busy to really pay attention. That was how it had to be.

She figured now was as good as time as ever. Sighing, she knocked as commandingly as she could.

"Come in," his voice bellowed. When she opened the hatch door, he continued without looking up. "This had better be good. I'm really busy."

"I thought the CAG always had time for one of his pilots if they were in need," she scolded, shutting the door behind her.

"Kara, I'm not in the mood."

"Mood for what?" she asked innocently.

"I have a lot of work to do and not enough time to do it in. If there's something you want, just come out and say it."

"I just wanted to know if you had talked with the person you got matched with."

He could hear the nerves in her voice, which made him slightly confused. "No, I haven't found the time."

"That's right. You're really busy with all the work. Mounds and mounds of paperwork logging countless important things that will turn out to be not so important down the road."

"Right," he said, giving her a funny look. "Is there something bothering you? You're acting really strange."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You're the one acting strange, Lee."

"Just because I haven't talked to the woman I'm matched with, you think I'm acting strange?"

"Well, yes."

Lee set down his pen and leaned back in his chair. "Things have gotten so frakked up since the President decided to start this stupid repopulation thing. We're on the run for our lives and all anyone can seem to talk about is who they are matched up with. No one seems to understand that we won't be safe until we find somewhere to settle that the Cylons don't know of. Then there's the small fact that I still have the same amount of work, and the world is still in danger. I have to deal with all my pilots being emotionally stressed about this damn population program and now they want to talk with me about it, too!"

"Come on, Lee. Let the people have a little distraction." She made her way over to stand next to him, placing her hand on his shoulder as she rifled through the papers spread across his desk. Maybe she could help him with all this paperwork somehow. She wasn't an expert, but she could count canisters of coffee with the best of them.

Kara's eyes caught on a dusty brown envelope. She snatched it up before Lee could realize what she was doing and grab it instead. "Levi William Adama! You said that you had already looked at who you were matched with." She waved the unopened envelope in front of his face.

"So I didn't have time. Give it back, Starbuck!" Lee made an attempt to grab the envelope back from her, but Kara dodged out of the way just in time.

"It all makes sense now. You've been too scared to figure out who you need to have a once-in-a-lifetime talk with. You're still upset because you won't know the mother of your child personally. I mean, I get it. I really do. But come on, Lee! Not talking to her because you're offended that you won't know her?"

"Well, the odds are I won't. In case you haven't noticed, I have quite a few things going against me. I'm new to this Fleet. I'm the Commander's son. I'm the CAG. And my best friend is the scariest pilot left in this world."

"Aw. You woo me with your words, Captain."

"What I'm trying to say is most people try to avoid me. They wouldn't be too pleased that they have to be the potential mother of my babies."

"Again I point out the fact that half the Fleet, mostly the female half but there are a few males, who have been actively trying to get your attention. Not that you seem to notice when someone of the opposite sex is trying to show their interest."

"You are such a bull shitter, Thrace."

She threw the envelope at him. "Open your damn mail. I have it on high authority that the woman you got matched with isn't going to object."

"You know who I got?"

"Yeah. We had a little chat." He could see her pause as she thought something over. Before he could ask her what the matter was, she gave him a small, mischievous smile. "And she also mentioned that she might not be against having a few the old-fashioned way someday."

Lee's eyes went wide.

She paused at the door on her way out. "Come find me later tonight. We can go on one of our midnight runs."

"As long as I'm not buried in paperwork," he pointed out.

"Or in that special talk with the mother of your children." She let out another laugh as his face froze up in fear once more. "Open it," she said before leaving the room and shutting the hatch behind her.

He sat there for a few minutes after she left, still wondering if it wouldn't be better if he just pretended like he had never received his match. Maybe everyone would forget and he could just do his job as CAG in peace.

Still, what Kara had said made him rather curious as to whose name was on that paper.

He closed his eyes for a moment before taking a deep breath and sliding his finger along the seal of the envelope. There was a lone white paper inside with its corners chopped off, just like he had expected. It was funny how this little piece of paper could hold such a weight to it.

"You have been matched using specific genetic procedures. Blah blah blah. The test results don't guarantee positive repopulation results. Blah blah blah. Acceptance of this match is required before the program can move on. Highest probability of success is with--" His voice cut off as he read the name on the paper. "Frak me," he whispered, staring down at it.

If it wasn't there right in front of his eyes in black and white, he would never have believed it.

Lieutenant Kara Thrace.

* * *

Dee sat in silence next to Billy in the mess hall. They had purposefully been avoiding the topic of their repopulation matches since he had handed them out. The unknown was like an invisible wall between them. It didn't help that both were dying to know who the other's match was, but neither one really wanted to get in to the specifics of their own.

In her case, Dee was pretty sure it was a security risk to tell him even though Billy had a right to know.

Even though she wanted him to know.

"Billy," she started out hesitantly. "We need to talk about this."

"You heard," he said, turning completely white. "Oh gods. I really thought I had kept it a secret. I didn't want you to find out about it this way."

"What the frak are you talking about? Of course I found out this way. It's my children we're talking about."

"Your children? How can they be your children? You're not my match."

"Of course I'm not your match. Wouldn't things be a lot easier if I was?"

Billy gave her his trademark smile that was so sweet half the time she wondered if he had even seen a difficult day in his life. But then the reality kicked in. Of course he had seen difficult days.

He continued to smile at her as he said, "Yes, things would be easier if you were. Gods, I wish you were."

They lapsed back into silence, neither one feeling any better about what they had just said and both feeling just as confused as when they started. Finally, deciding she couldn't take any more of this, Dee felt herself blurt out her thoughts. "I would tell you who I am matched with Billy, but he asked me to keep it a secret for security's sake."

"That's such a line, Dee. You and I both know there's no security risk in making your match public knowledge."

She arched her eyebrow at him. "Oh really? Then why don't you tell me who you have?"

Billy moved his mouth as if he was going to answer but, at the last moment, clamped it shut. "I can't. It's not safe."

"But I thought there was no security risk."

"There isn't. I just don't think it's best to be broadcasting around the Fleet that my boss…" His voice trailed off as he realized what he had just told her.

Dee could see his eyes go wide and his face immediately blush. If she hadn't been so shocked, she might have dwelled on how cute of a reaction it was. "You got matched with the President?" she said, grinning widely, her mouth agape. "This is too funny."

"What's so funny about it? These were tests of genetic similarities. They have nothing to do with anything else."

"You're acting like you think I'm under the impression this means you love President Roslin?" Dee shook her head. "You are such a silly boy sometimes, Billy. And you don't know a thing about women."

"Then why did you laugh?"

"I just had the thought that maybe Dr. Baltar's equipment picked up on your hero envy," Dee said, chuckling softly to herself once more. "It made me laugh."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Why are you suddenly so happy with me?"

"Two reasons. One, I really thought you had gotten matched with Starbuck. Billy, she would have eaten you alive."

"Why would you think I was matched with Lieutenant Thrace?"

"Well, she's been refusing to tell anyone who she got. You and she were the only two who hadn't been upfront with me about the program. It's only natural to think that meant you two were matched together."

"You thought she was afraid to tell you that she had gotten your boyfriend as the potential father of her children?"

"It makes sense."

"Yes, it does." Billy's forehead crinkled slightly as he got lost in thought. "Maybe things would have been easier if I had gotten her."

"In ways it would have been."

"But that's really a question for another time." He looked up at her and smiled. "Why don't you tell me your second reason?"

"You have to promise this stays between you and I. I haven't told anyone else. Not even President Roslin."

"I'm not a gossip, Dee. You can tell me anything, and I'll keep it secret."

Dee shook her head at him and chuckled once more. Leaning over the table towards him, she whispered, "I hate to break it to you, Keikeya, but you're not the only one to be matched with your boss."

"You and Commander Adama?" Billy looked just as surprised at her news as she had been when she heard his.

"Yeah. It might have been a little hero envy on my tests, too." She stood up and tossed the leftovers from her rather dull-tasting meal into a trash compacter nearby. "I don't know why everyone's making a big deal out of this whole thing. We don't even have to interact with the people we're matched with. It says clearly on the consent forms each person must sign before the samples we gave are brought together that the father relinquishes all control over his offspring unless the mother wants him in her children's lives."

"It also goes vice versa," Billy pointed out. "If the mother doesn't want or doesn't have time to take care of her children, the father can take over control."

"The only problem I foresee is how a woman is supposed to raise her children if she's still trying to save the human race from the Cylons. Does your boss have an answer for that?"

"I don't know. There's a lot she hasn't thought through concerning this program, but I think her choice to institute it was smart. We needed a temporary distraction, and that's what this is doing. No one's been brought down to sick bay for an 'accidental shooting' since the President made her announcement."

Dee nodded. They had all begun to get sick of the thinly veiled suicide attempts that had been occurring among the civilians and military personnel. "A distraction is nice," she admitted, slipping her hand into Billy's. "So we're okay?"

"We're fine," he said, squeezing her hand as they walked out of the mess hall. "We're about to make the most influential babies of the next generation, but you and I are just fine."

* * *

Crashdown leaned against the wall of the ammunition locker, taking a breather. He had been dodging the Chief for over an hour now, and it was getting old. This was the only time in a week in which he would get some downtime, and he was spending it hiding in whatever small, secluded space he could find. That was just the kind of luck he had had since the world had been turned on end.

He had no idea who had told the Chief that he was trying to convince Cally to have children the natural way, but whoever it was, they were dead. Wiping his hands over his eyes, he shook his head. Actually if it was who he suspected, he probably wouldn't do a damn thing. She scared him too much.

Even through the cover of his hands, Crashdown's eyes caught on a movement at the end of the locker. He immediately recognized he had company. "Is that you, Hot Dog?"

"Yes, sir," the young Viper pilot said, standing up and giving a salute.

"At ease. What the hell are you doing lounging in here?"

"I could ask the same of you, sir."

Immediately sensing an ally, Crashdown let down his guard, took a deep breath, and sat on a bench near the other pilot. "This reproduction program is wrecking havoc all over the ship. So, who'd you get matched with?"

Hot Dog shook his head.

"That bad, huh?"

"Sergeant Hadrian," Hot Dog supplied quietly.

"Ouch. You have to copulate with that mean she-bitch?" Crashdown realized that he probably shouldn't be letting Hot Dog onto his personal feelings for the newly appointed Inquisitor of the Fleet, but he figured the kid might need to know he was not alone in his dislike of her.

"Hadrian keeps trying to tell me that since she doesn't have to be in the air, she doesn't mind repopulating outside the lab. Naturally. Multiple times." Hot Dog let out a large shudder.

"Ah. Now I understand. Well, you have my blessing to stay in this locker for the rest of your life if that's the case."

Hot Dog smiled. "If you don't mind my asking, sir, why are you in here? Rumor has it you were matched with Crewman Specialist Cally. In my book, that makes you an incredibly lucky man. Brains and beauty, that gives you something nice to pass on to your children."

"I hadn't thought about it that way, Hot Dog, but yeah, I guess you're right." Crashdown took a break to rub his eyes, effectively reminding himself that he should be getting some solid rack time. "I'm not hiding from Cally, though. I'm hiding from the Chief. Someone told him that I was trying to seduce his little protégé into my bed. I'll give you one guess who."

"I don't need it," Hot Dog said, laughing. "This has Starbuck written all over it."

"If that woman isn't causing havoc on Galactica, it isn't a normal day."

The door to the ammunition locker flew open. Crashdown immediately threw himself behind a rack of small electrical charges, but Hot Dog wasn't as quick on the uptake. Luckily he didn't have to be. It wasn't the person he had been avoiding who entered the locker.

"Have you seen Crashdown, Hot Dog?" The Chief asked bluntly.

"No, sir. Why are you looking for him? Raptor pilots aren't usually your responsibility unless they've done damage to your ships. Last I heard, Crashdown was twenty days accident-free."

"I have to talk to him about his behavior with my crew, not with my equipment."

"The whole Cally thing?"

"Yes, the whole Cally thing. Does anything stay a secret on this ship?"

"No, sir." Hot Dog took a deep breath and stood up. "I just want you to know, sir, that you should probably listen to what Crashdown has to say before you resort to pounding the idiot out of him. I don't think he would proposition Cally like people are saying he did. I mean, it's common knowledge that she's not exactly fond of him. He wouldn't waste his time and energy with something as hopeless as that."

"Are you sure you haven't seen Crashdown? You seem awfully defensive." The Chief gave him a glaring look when he didn't answer. It practically screamed that he knew Hot Dog was lying.

Hot Dog wasn't sure where the courage came from, but somehow he managed to shake his head back and forth a few times in denial.

After he sent him one last glare, the Chief exited the locker as quickly as he came. No matter what Hot Dog said to him, he was a man on a mission. and that couldn't be changed. Crashdown really had no hope at all of getting out of this one.

"Thanks for the save," Crashdown said, coming out from behind the rack. "I should probably get a move on it. He might come back."

"No problem. Just do me a favor and send Sgt. Hadrian in the wrong direction a few times today when you see her."

"Stupid frakkin' repopulation program," Crashdown muttered, giving Hot Dog a wave before taking a quick look down the corridor and running as fast as he could in the opposite direction of the Chief.

* * *

It was midnight, and he still hadn't found her. Kara was pacing back and forth from one side of the hallway to the next. This was the corridor she had been meeting him in the past couple nights when they had gone on their run. Insomnia had always hit them both at the same time ever since she could remember. If he was coming, he would be waiting for her here.

The part that hurt the most was Kara knew that Lee wouldn't be here. She had slowly been beginning to suspect that maybe the two of them weren't as close as they once were. The Lee she knew would show up no matter what just to be sure that she was doing all right. The Lee she knew cared about her no matter what fraked up thing she had done to hurt him or make him uncomfortable around her.

She groaned. She had the most screwed up thoughts sometimes. They got especially interesting when she was under large amounts of stress.

Her thoughts were definitely interesting of late. They had been taking the thought of Lee down a road that she would have preferred not to go.

For years, she had always imagined the idea of having little Adamas running all over the home she made on Caprica or Picon. They had always born a striking resemblance to Zak and his father. She never admitted that she desperately wanted kids to prove her mother hadn't damaged her permanently. She hadn't even told Zak. In fact, she avoided all mention of children.

Lately, the thought of children had been popping up again at the most ridiculous times. When she was in the cockpit or in the head's showers. When she was eating the worst excuse for food in the mess or when she was listening to Dr. Baltar ramble on about his latest project over a hand of triad.

The only shift in these little fantasies was the face of her children. They now were mirror images of Lee and his mother, Caroline. It unnerved her that it had been so easy to transfer these fantasies from one brother to the next.

It shouldn't have been that easy.

Kara punched the wall as her thoughts went back to Lee and she was reminded of his continued absence from their run. Maybe she had pushed it with the "old-fashioned way" comment at the end of their talk earlier. It probably scared Lee to death to figure out that his best friend since the Academy wouldn't mind going a few rounds with him in the bedroom. Half the time it scared her to death, and she was the one having all the feelings.

Yeah, she had definitely pushed it too far.

Or maybe Lee hadn't even read his matching yet. Maybe he was still being stubborn and didn't know what hell he was putting her through.

Sighing, Kara felt herself give up that last strand of hope. She started to jog along the corridor slowly. If the gods were listening, running should help to clear her mind of both Lee and this frakkin' baby program.

"Starbuck! Wait up!"

She stopped in her tracks as her heart skipped a beat or two. He had shown up after all, it seemed. She wasn't sure if that made her happy or sad. Or angry. Or scared to death.

She couldn't bring herself to turn around and look at him, choosing instead just to stand in place and let him come to her. His footsteps rang through the empty corridors, and she stood waiting until they slowed completely.

"Leaving without me?" he teased, bumping her shoulder lightly with his. "I was only a few minutes late."

"Sorry. Just wanted to get a head start on kicking your ass, sir."

"This isn't a competition."

She shook her head and took off in a dead sprint, yelling back. "Frak yeah, it is!" It had always been easier to run from her problems than stare them in the face. Especially when that face was Lee Adama.

It took Lee half the corridor to catch up, and in that time, Kara decided he definitely hadn't opened his envelope yet. There was no way he would be running alongside her if he had. In fact, he would probably be actively avoiding her if he had put two and two together.

Lee watched her out of the corner of his eye as they ran. It was amazing how they could run completely in sync even though they had opposite body types. Everyone at the Academy had called them two halves of the same whole.

And now his other half wanted to sleep with him.

He couldn't hide the smirk on his face and just hoped she wouldn't notice. He had no idea what had possessed her to tell him that. She knew full well he would understand what her comments meant when he saw he had been matched with her. And yet she had still made them. He had no idea what that said about her.

Frak. He had no idea what that said about him.

Kara bumped into him lightly, ripping him away from his thoughts. "Watch where you're going. You almost took out a nugget."

"They would have survived."

"Yeah, but you would have been really pissed off when you had to take the shift the nugget couldn't fill since he was in sick bay. Running into you when you're going full steam is like hitting a brick wall. I speak from experience."

"Nuggets shouldn't be out at this time of night," Lee pointed out.

"Why don't you go back and scold him, Mr. CAG?"

Kara was smiling at him openly again. This façade that he didn't know she was going to be the mother of his children was going to be hard to keep up if she kept looking at him like that. He had earned the right to string her along a little, though. You couldn't be best friends with a girl like Kara without suffering just a little bit from it every single day. His mind flashed to a week earlier when he was doing his part for the reproduction program. He still had to come up with a way to pay her back for that one.

Not now, though. He had more important things to focus on. Like how much her sudden openness was unsettling him. She had been closed off for so long that it was hard to adjust to this new Kara. He wasn't sure he knew how.

Slipping back into his thoughts as their rhythm evened out, Lee found himself wishing he could say he had loved his best friend since the moment he met her. That there had been some secret kind of true love in which he pinned away for her silently while she tried to work her feelings out for him by dating every guy she met. The truth was Lee spent his time studying silently so that he wouldn't flunk out of school and she dated every guy she met because that was the kind of girl she was.

And on top of that, the truth was, for the first year of their friendship, she both pissed him off and annoyed the crap out of him while continually surprising him, keeping him on his toes, and making him laugh. It had almost been a relief when she started making googly eyes at his little brother. It took the pressure off him to decide whether the rumors of their love affair were actually based on some level of truth.

That had all changed when he saw her break down after his brother's funeral. She had openly cried in front of him, something he had never seen her do with anyone. He could still remember staying up that whole night, holding her in his arms as she sobbed. Sleep hadn't been an option that night. If he fell asleep, he couldn't be sure she would make it through to the morning.

It was the one moment in his life that he really wondered if Kara would be able to handle the pressure of the life they had both chosen to lead when they entered the military.

It was the first and only moment in his life that he truly felt inadequate.

But most importantly, it was the moment he had first begun to love her for the crazy woman she was.

There were things he had never told her. Things he thought he could never tell her. Now, all of the sudden, he felt like he could and should. Like maybe she would actually want to hear what he had to say.

Lee knew Kara was suffering not knowing what he felt about her little confession. It would be so much easier if he explained to her that on those long, cold lonely nights on some random Battlestar or in the cold cockpit of a Viper in space, thoughts of her were what kept him going. He had imagined the one perfect day when he could speed in from outer space to tell her that he loved her and wanted to have a family. That there wasn't really another woman in the whole universe that fit him like she did.

"What the frak are you thinking about, Lee?" the woman in question said, interrupting his thoughts.

He noticed she was only panting slightly. She always could keep up with him. "You actually, Kara," he said with a smile. "Just admiring your running form."

He felt the trademark glare coming at him even before she turned. Later, he decided that was what set him over the top. Checking to make sure that the corridor was empty, he grabbed her hand, yanking her out of the running stride and into his arms. He practically groaned from the rightness of it.

"You have no idea what that look does to me," he said before crushing his lips into hers, knowing he was being more brutal than he had intended. She always seemed to bring out the primitive side of him.

Lee knew he had taken her by surprise when she didn't immediately belt him or respond in any way. He used that small window of free time to push their bodies back against the wall, never breaking contact with her lips. He pinned her hard against the cool surface and placed his hands on opposite sides of her head.

Pulling back a moment, he gave her a chance to catch her breath while he enjoyed their current position. Her body pressed into his in all the right places, exactly as he had imagined it would. He found himself wondering if maybe they really were two halves of a whole.

"What the frak--" she started to yell before having her senses assaulted once more with his lips. His hands came down off of the wall to touch her neck and slowly work down to her forearms before going right back up. She shivered slightly at the gentle movement, and Lee smiled even as he continued to kiss her as thoroughly as possible.

Accepting what was probably just a brief moment of weakness on his part, Kara dug her hands into his back, feeling the tightness of his muscles, and held on for dear life. His arms reached down to grab her hips, and she felt herself being picked up off the floor while his mouth continued to wreck havoc on her whole body one nerve cell at a time.

It was a completely masculine move of possession and claiming. The kind of thing she would usually give a man hell for. But with Lee, it didn't matter. It just felt good.

Kara could feel herself getting excited by the concept of Lee acting so masculine. It was no wonder her natural response was to wrap her legs around him while shamelessly grounding her body into his. It was a low blow, she knew. It was also the only thing she could think of to keep this moment going. She was willing to play dirty to get what she wanted, especially in this situation.

Lee realized he was losing control already, and he had only just started. Sighing slightly, he pulled back, setting her gently back onto the ground and nipped her bottom lip gently. There was a passion behind their kiss that had caught him off guard. He honestly thought that he would kiss her and she would slap him straight across the face the second he gave her an inch of opportunity. When she didn't, he got carried away.

And now that there was distance between them, Lee finally realized there was no way he could go back to what they were before. Not after a kiss like that.

Kara had given him an opening. He had taken it. And now she was going to take it all back. He couldn't live if she did.

That scared him more than anything else he had encountered in his life. This was the point of no return.

His eyes sparkled with both that fear and excitement as he looked down at her confused and vulnerable face. It seemed like he had done just as much of a number on her as she had on him. He had risked so much. He might as well go the rest of the way.

Kissing her lightly on the nose, he took another long look at her face, unconsciously biting his lip. "I think that I would miss you even if we had never met," he admitted after staring at her rather vulnerable looking eyes for a moment.

Taking it all in, she placed her hands on his chest to brace herself and whispered softly, "You opened your envelope, didn't you? That's what this is all about."

Leave it to Kara to make the obvious statement. "I opened my envelope."

She reached up hesitantly to touch his cheek and gasped softly as he leaned into her hand. What was happening between them was so unexpected that it was almost surreal. For a brief moment, the lines between reality and fantasy blurred.

"Lee," she sighed. "What the frak are we doing?"

"Living," he answered simply. "Listen. I don't know what this is. I don't know what we're doing. All I know is that it feels right."

Lee paused, knowing that this was it. This was the moment where everything changed.

He paused and then he went for broke.

"I love you, Kara," he said, reaching in to steal a quick kiss. It took all of his willpower to pull away from Kara's lips. They had been beyond the soft suppleness he had always imagined. Somehow he knew they would be. "I want you to know that I would have chosen you on my own even if this stupid repopulation program hadn't already done it for me. You would be the one I would want to be the mother of my children."

"Damn it," she swore, pulling away from him. She punched him lightly on the arm. "You were not supposed to be this nice about it. I don't know how to handle nice."

"Really?" he said with a laugh. "What did you expect me to do?"

She hid her face in her hands for a moment before peeking out between her fingers. When she saw that he was just looking at her with that understanding Lee type of look, she sighed and dropped her guard. "I expected you to laugh in my face at the idea of me as a mother. I expected you to point out that I couldn't be your best friend and the mother of your children. I expected a big frak you for being stupid enough to screw up what we've had together."

Lee pulled her back in close to him, forcing her to rest her head up against his chest. Sometimes he felt like smothering was the only way to get her to use what little brain she had left. For some reason, he found that as endearing as it was frustrating. "None of those options make any sense at all, Kara."

"They did to me at the time." She felt his lips touch the top of her head lightly. It was a very intimate gesture from a man who usually kept such tight control over things like that. The significance of the gesture actually made her want to cry. Lee was really fraking with her on every possible level, it seemed, if crying was an option. She both loved and hated him for it.

Kara also loved and hated that arrogant smile plastered on his face at the moment. It was time to do her job and wipe that look right off. She narrowed her eyes at him. "When are you scheduled for a shift next?"

"I have about nine hours before I have to show up on the bridge in CIC."

Smirking, she hopped into the air, happy to feel his arms catch her, and wrapped her legs securely around his waist. "Well, then, I suggest you take me back to the CAG's office, and we can get started on the whole repopulation thing." She snickered as his jaw dropped. "Don't tell me my words actually took you by surprise."

"This better not be another easy frak to you."

Kara kissed him lightly on the mouth and wiggled her eyebrows at him suggestively. "Nothing about this is going to be easy."

Lee snickered. There had been plenty of rumors circulating the Fleet that told him she was not the kind of girl who wanted a man who took his time in the sack. It would be interesting to know if they were the truth or if they had only been started by Starbuck herself because she was bored one day. Because he planned to have her both ways and weigh the differences in how she responded.

And so be it if he had to keep alternating from one until the other until he was sure. It was a burden he was quite willing to bear.

Judging by the way her hands were already working their way farther and farther south, he doubted she would mind his little experiment. "I hate to switch subjects so abruptly," he said with a laugh, "especially because we both know how much I like to talk about your sexual escapades of yore. I just want to point out that when a man tells a woman he loves her like I did a few minutes ago, usually he gets a response immediately. It's just an observation."

"Gods, Lee. You are so easy to annoy." She shook her head and rolled her eyes. He was about to start teasing her some more when he saw her face sober. "But I love you anyways."

He shifted her body slightly on his until she rested comfortably against him. Her hands rested lightly together behind his neck. "See? That wasn't so hard to say."

"So, I take it I can tell Dr. Baltar that we're willing to give the go ahead on our match?" she said with a smile.

"That's a definite yes. Try to let him down easy, though."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I think the kind doctor has been trying to come up with ways to get you in his bed since he met you, Kara. He's not going to like hearing that he has no chance in hell at doing that anymore." Lee's face erupted into what Kara had dubbed the worry face. "He does have no chance in hell, right?"

"You are ridiculous," she said, ruffling his hair. He didn't respond nor retaliate, choosing to stare at her intently instead. "What?"

"This feels right," he said, finally breaking into a lazy grin.

"All right, Captain. If you don't get us to your office soon, we might just give some random passerbys a nice show." Backing her words up with action, she started to pull at the ends of his standard issue tanks and reach her hands underneath.

He let go of his hold on her almost immediately, and it was all she could do not to fall on her ass. It looked like no matter how strange he was acting with her, his sense of propriety was still present.

Damn. She would have to work on that.

"I bet that you could probably outrun me on this one," he said, even though he had already started jogging back down the way they had come.

She laughed and surged forward to try to catch up with him. Even if she didn't run fast enough, she knew he would eventually slow down for her. Their relationship didn't work unless they were on the same level.

As she ran beside Lee, Kara finally understood why the President was willing to take so much heat and criticism for instituting the repopulation program at this exact moment. Roslin understood a key concept of their current situation. The Fleet was in a bad way, and hope was not a thing easily given out by anyone.

President Roslin was giving them both hope and the promise of a future by making sure that their legacy would continue on, even if they did not. They could risk their lives for the Fleet, knowing that a part of them was safe. And, if it came down to it, they would have a reason to bring themselves home.

For her, having Lee was reason enough. It had always been that way.

Now, the idea of starting a family with him was way beyond any hope or expectation she had. For the first time in her life, though, she felt like she deserved it.

She wondered just how fast she could run.

* * *

William Adama stared down at the papers in front of him, detailing all matches the President's program had created. Colonel Tigh had come to him a few hours earlier wanting to know why he had never received an envelope even though he had followed Adama's order to go in for testing. Adama had quickly told his friend something must have come up in the tests to disqualify him from admittance into the program.

He knew that he could never tell the man he considered a best friend what he had done. He could never tell anyone what he had done. Altering official documents of the government was an offense that could send even him to hack. Plus, he didn't want to deal with the fallout if anyone found out.

Sighing, he grabbed a pen to correct the last evidence of his small act of defiance. He erased the name written next to Tigh's and penciled it in next to his son's.

Someday he would tell Lee and get the proper thank you that he deserved.

Someday, but not too soon.


	2. Full Colors: Part One

Lee Adama stared at the papers spread all over the desk in front of him. He had looked through each and every one at least twenty times in the past hour. He had read them back to front, top to bottom, and every other way imaginable. He had tried to think conventionally and then push it out of the box. But no matter what he did, every single one of those papers told him the same damn thing.

He had no way to help her.

Groaning, he picked up one of the papers from the top. Giving up was not an option.

"Working hard, Lee?"

Lee felt himself stiffen as the saccharine sweet tone of Ellen Tigh echoed through his office. "I'm trying to, ma'am," he said without looking up.

"Now, Lee. Let's stop with this whole ma'am business. It's Ellen." He gave a small nod in her direction before turning back to look at the papers. "Doing more work for that little baby program of Laura Roslin's?"

"First off, there's nothing little about the repopulation of our race. The program the President has instituted is extremely important. It also relieves the daily demands that are put on each and every person in this Fleet. It's a distraction and a necessity."

"If you say so," Ellen said with a light laugh as she stepped farther into the CAG's office. She leaned in over his desk and picked up a sheet of paper. "The known weak points on the humano-Cylon models?" She picked up another paper. "The standard water transference protocols? What do this have to do with repopulation?"

"Nothing," Lee said, standing up to grab the papers out of her hand. He really didn't have time for this right now. "They're information we need to resolve the _Aerilon Sacrifice_ problem."

"Oh, is that still going on?"

Lee narrowed his eyes and shook his head up and down in a small, stiff nod. "Yes, that is still going on."

"What has it been? Two months now that those poor people have been held hostage?"

"The citizens on that small transport freighter and the people that Galactica sent have been on their for seventy-one days," Lee corrected, the tension evident in his voice. "But I really don't have time to talk about that. What is it I can do for you?"

Her eyes roamed over his body without shame in an unintentional answer to his question. Lee suddenly felt uncomfortable with the fact that he had unbuttoned his dress gray jacket, but there was also some comfort in knowing that he hadn't completely taken it off. The women was shameless. Ellen continued to blatantly stare at him a moment longer before letting out a amused laugh. "I know what you're thinking. What would bring the wife of the XO all the way down to the CAG's office?"

"Exactly what I was thinking."

"Come on! I have known you practically from the day you were born."

Lee sent her a funny look but didn't comment. Somehow it fit that Ellen Tigh wouldn't even remember her husband hadn't known Bill Adama that well until Lee was almost two. And even then, William Adama was never really home all that much.

"I don't understand why you keep treating me like such a stranger, Lee. I've been trying for weeks to catch you when you had some free time. I'd like to know what you'd been up to these past few years."

Lee held up the papers in his hand while trying his best not to roll his eyes or glare at the mess of a woman standing in front of him. "I'm sorry. I have a lot to be doing. A flight schedule needs to be done, and someone has to come up with a solution to this crisis."

"Fine. I'll get to the point." For a second, Lee actually thought she was going to tell him something that mattered. But then she let out that annoying little trill of a laugh and he knew better. "You would not believe what I found out from my husband the other day. He was speaking with your father about the baby… excuse me… repopulation program, and William let it slip that he had tampered with the results a little bit."

"What?" Lee said, setting down the papers in his hand and turned to stare at her. He had to have heard her wrong.

"Oh yes. The mighty William Adama couldn't let things stand as they were with my husband, it seems. I guess he thought his match gave Saul too much power."

Lee let out a breath of relief and sat back down behind his desk. For a second there, he had actually thought she was going to tell him that his father tampered with his results because he had been matched with the woman in front of him. Instead this was another step in her insane quest to put her husband above all others in terms of the chain of power. "I don't see what would have compelled my father to do that."

"Well, I know your father has that silly fondness for that young pilot who was supposed to be married to your younger brother by now. What's her name?"

"Kara Thrace," Lee said, gritting his teeth.

"Yes. Kara. Turns out she was matched up with my husband and William didn't like that. I don't really understand the problem. Any fool could see that she has power in this Fleet. It would be a smart union on both parties."

Lee smirked at her power-hungry nature and the way it clouded her vision. "Then you've never see how much your husband and Lieutenant Thrace dislike each other."

"Right," Ellen said, turning to sit herself squarely on the desk. Lee watched her look turn almost predatory as she crossed her legs and smiled down at him. "When Saul told me this, there was one thing that didn't add up. If Kara was the person he was matched with, how did she end up with you instead? And that begs the question of who was your original match, Lee?"

Lee felt Ellen's foot gently running up the side of his calf and his mind flashed back to that 'family' dinner they had had a few months back. His mind suddenly couldn't quite grasp if he had ever heard who she had been matched with. He wasn't even sure she had been matched. Was she even a part of the program? A woman like her would want to participate just to see if it could elevate her status in the Fleet. Plus, if it gave her a shot at getting her paws on any number of men in the Fleet, she wouldn't turn that down.

No, Ellen Tigh would be a part of this.

His face went pale as he realized just who she had been paired up with.

"I see you put it together, tiger," she said in a low tone. Lee could feel her foot slowly moving its way up his thigh. "So, here's what I was thinking. Since that whole mess with the _Aerilon Sacrifice_, I figured you wouldn't object to me asking Dr. Baltar to go through with the original match."

Lee had never understood what it meant when people said they saw red. He could never imagine being so angry that you couldn't even make out shapes anymore. All you saw was a great, big expanse of red.

Suddenly, he knew what it mean to be that angry. He felt it deep inside.

Throwing away any amount of tact and discretion he had had, Lee seized her foot and pushed it away so roughly that Ellen found herself grasping the desk so as not to fall off. "Get out of my office now."

Her eyes widened in surprise, but he didn't wait to hear her response. "I don't have time for your middle-aged hormonal desire to prove that you can still get younger men to want you. In case you haven't noticed, there's a crisis in the Fleet. There is a tactile team from Galactica and one hundred citizens out there who have been taken hostage by some humano-Cylon model that we didn't even know about. And the mother of my children, mistake or not, is stuck out there with them. I'm not wasting time on you when she needs me."

Ellen stood up slowly and walked out of the room without another word, leaving behind the vague hints at her feelings of superiority to everyone and everything. Lee sighed and lay his head down on his desk. Pissing off the XO's wife wasn't exactly what he needed right now.

"Something wrong, Captain?"

Lee looked up to see Crashdown hanging in the open doorway of his office. "You could say that."

"The _Aerilon Sacrifice_?"

"And then some," he said, standing up and shrugging off his jacket. The office was getting hotter with each minute he couldn't find a solution to the biggest problem in his life.

"Do you want me to come back?" Crashdown asked, already halfway out the door.

"No," Lee yelled, stopping the Raptor ECO in his tracks. "Come back in. I could use something to take my mind off of the total lack of solution to this problem. And something tells me with the rumors I've been hearing, you are coming to me with a distraction."

Crashdown chuckled and sat down in the chair facing Lee's desk. "Is it really that bad?"

"Rumors circulate fast on this ship. And you've been acting really strange for a while now."

"Well, you know I've been having problems with the Chief for the past few months or so."

"Because of Cally," Lee said, shaking his head.

"Right. I always knew the Chief thought of her as a daughter, but I never realized it was that bad."

"I know what you mean. Every day I thank the gods that I'm my father's son. Because if I wasn't, he would have hunted me down for being the man to defile his 'daughter' in this repopulation program." Lee paused and scrunched up his nose. "Why does my relationship with Kara suddenly ring of inappropriate relations between siblings?"

Crashdown shook his head. "I really doesn't. I think you two have a free pass when it comes to keeping your relationship from sounding creepy. The way Cally talks wistfully about it, you two were made for each other."

"You've been talking to Cally about Starbuck and I?"

"I've been talking to Cally about a lot of things," Crashdown replied, clearing his throat and sitting up in the chair. "That's why I came to you."

"To talk about talking to Cally?"

"Right. You see, I figured you were the expert on this ship about getting a difficult woman to come clean about how she feels."

Lee got up out of his seat, walked around to the front of the desk, and took a seat on the edge. "All right. Start from the beginning, Crashdown, and I'll see what I can do."

"I presume you know that the Chief has been actively hunting me down from the moment he found out I was Cally's match."

"Partially thanks to my better half," Lee said with a laugh.

"I wish I had the chance to pay her back for that someday." Crashdown froze as he realized what he had just implied. "Oh gods, Lee. I'm sorry."

"It's okay. You'll have the chance soon. That's a promise."

Crashdown nodded and kept on with his story. "Anyway, Hot Dog knew that I was having a little trouble, and he decided to help me out. Stuck his neck out to try to convince the Chief that he should talk with Cally before killing me. I don't know what she said to him, but the Chief actually apologized to me the next day."

"Looks like you owe Hot Dog one," Lee pointed out.

"Already paid him back." Crashdown tilted his head down and bit his lip while chuckling. "That lucky bastard should owe me for what I did."

"Explain."

"Hot Dog and I have been storage locker buddies for the past few months. I've been hiding from the Chief, and he's been hiding from Sergeant Hadrian, his match for the President's program."

"Oh no," Lee said, laughing and hiding his face behind his hand.

"Exactly. I figured since he helped me iron out the problem with my match, I'd help him with his. So I had a little talk with the good Dr. Baltar. Made him see the error he had made in the genetic match probabilities. Made him see that it was in the best interest of his health to try to fix his mistake."

"So that's why Baltar runs the other way every time you enter the room?"

"I guess I scared him a little too much."

"So how good of a deal did you pull to shift the balance to Hot Dog owing you?"

"Well, he got matched with Racetrack. Enough said."

Lee nodded. It was common knowledge that Racetrack was maybe the second most lusted after woman on board the Galactica. He didn't feel ashamed to admit that considering he was currently madly in love with the one woman who was lusted after more than any other. "So what does this have to do with Cally?"

"Well, the Chief has stopped trying to kill me, so things have settled down. I guess I thought that with the forbidden part of our relationship gone, my urge to talk with Cally all the time would die down. But it hasn't. In fact, now that I can talk to her whenever and wherever I can…"

"You want to even more." Lee shook his head. "I did not see this one coming."

"Neither did I."

"With all the different people being matched up, I figured people would start developing attachments to one another. I knew something permanent might come out of a few of the matches."

"But you didn't think it would be Cally and me?" Lee shrugged. "So, what do I do, Captain? I need your advice on this one."

"I find that just telling her what you feel helps."

"You want me to go up to Cally and tell her that I would like her to be more than just the mother of my children? No disrespect, sir, but she'll punch me in the face."

"I find that having a good sense of when the punch is coming and being able to just take one to the face is usually a good start. I had at least ten black eyes before Starbuck could figure out why I kept letting her hit me." Lee's eyes began to sting as the memories started coming to the surface. He tried to push it out of the way and covered with a smirk. "And sometimes, if she really gets you good, you can hit back. Not all the time, mind you! But sometimes."

"You think Cally will actually hit me?"

"If she likes you, then yeah, probably. But just don't let her leave without making her understand what you're trying to tell her. That's really all you can do, Lieutenant."

"And that worked for you?"

"Like a charm," Lee said, standing up. "Now I really should get back to work. I need to do something about this jaw. Without Kara around, I can actually chew without pain. It's not something I'd like to get used to."

Crashdown nodded and left Lee alone to his piles of research and reconnaissance information.


	3. Full Colors: Part Two

Boomer paced back and forth across the laboratory of Dr. Gaius Baltar as she unconsciously rung her hands together. "I don't understand. You said it just didn't work?"

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant. That's what I was told. Our repopulation match just didn't work."

"I don't understand. I mean, you would think they would give some explanation as to why it didn't work? Was it me? Was it you?"

Six slinked up behind Gaius and laughed lightly in his ear. "Just tell her that machines can't copulate. "

"I can't do that," Gaius whispered.

"What?" Boomer said, turning to look at him.

"I was simply saying that I couldn't ask Doctor Cottle that. I mean, isn't it better not to know which one of us was at fault?"

Boomer shot him a look before starting the pacing again. Gaius watched helplessly as Six walked from his side and began to pace along with her. "This isn't about pride, Doctor. This is about knowing whether or not we have the ability to naturally have babies one day."

"Don't take that as an invitation," Six warned him teasingly. "She means with that young man who keeps the junk you call Vipers in the air."

"I know she's talking about the Chief."

Boomer turned to look at him in horror. "Could you not just blurt that out? The fraternization policies are still in place."

"Officially," Gaius corrected. "It's only a matter of time before they're dropped. Everyone seems to be taking these genetic matches a little seriously. It's as if the gods graced the choices themselves."

"Or god," Six corrected with a wicked smile.

"You're behind this?" Gaius said, looking at where she stood over Boomer's shoulder.

"Huh?"

"Um… you are behind me on this one, are you not, Lieutenant Valerii? We should not inquire anymore into how our match failed."

"Well, you think it's a bad idea, and you probably know better than I do." Boomer turned and rubbed her head, a grimace plastered on her face.

Gaius shot a look in Six's direction before walking to stand beside Boomer. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. It's just a headache. I've been getting them for a while."

"Her programming is taking over," Six said with a nonchalant shrug. "It happens time to time when we need her."

"I think you should get some rest," Gaius said, placing his hand on Boomer's shoulder and guiding her to the hatchway. "Take a few well-deserved hours in your bunk."

Boomer nodded quickly before pausing to look at him intently. "If the failure of the match was my fault, then I'm sorry, Doc."

"It's all right. I never really wanted children anyway," he said.

She gave him a small smile before walking out into the traffic of the corridor.

"That was awful compassionate of you, Gaius. A very human emotion."

"She doesn't know she's a Cylon. That means she's not aware this is the life she was picked for." Gaius turned to look at the doorway. "Something tells me that she's going to have some awfully bad times ahead of her. A little compassion now is not that ridiculous a thing to give."

Six walked over to stand in front of him and shook her head. "Very human, indeed."


	4. Full Colors: Part Three

Dee stood outside the door to the CAG's office with her hand held up to knock. She had been in this position for the better part of two minutes. When deciding it was time to talk to Lee, she hadn't realized it would be this hard to take the first step.

"You have to actually knock to get the go ahead to go in" whispered a soft voice in her ear.

She jumped and turned to throw up a quick salute. "I didn't realize you weren't in your office, Captain."

"You wouldn't have been hesitant to knock if you knew I wasn't in there?" Lee asked, slipping past her to key the combination into the lock pad by the door. "What do you have to tell me that has you so nervous, Specialist?"

Dee shook her head at his use of rank. He knew that calling her Specialist made her mad. But he had been doing it for years.

It was amazing that no one on Galactica had ever thought to wonder why she and the CAG had such an easy-going relationship. No one had thought to actually pay attention to the two of them.

Maybe if they had, they might have picked up on the fact that Dualla and Lee had known each other for years. Then again, no one knew that Dee had served on the Battlestar Atlantia before being transferred to Commander Adama's crew about a year and a half ago. They wouldn't know that Dee had had a little relationship consisting of shameless flirting with the son of the great William Adama. They wouldn't know there had been a rather interesting conversation between the two of them about what exactly the fraternization policy meant when it came to the military intelligence staff and the pilots.

Nothing had come of it, and it had all happened years ago. Now all anyone would notice is the ease that existed between the two of them. And, to be quite frank, Dee really didn't expect anyone to notice anything about Lee and her with Starbuck around. That woman managed to unintentionally keep all attention on herself for almost every hour of every day.

"Lee, we have to talk."

She could see Lee stiffen at her casual use of his first name. They had taken such trouble to make sure no one on Galactica picked up on their previous relationship. The memory of Lee's reaction when he found out she was dating the President's assistant suddenly came to mind. His reaction had been so like him. A gentlemen to the end.

Lee had called her to his office towards the end of her shift that day. He had been quick to let her know that he had no intention of ever letting Billy know about what had gone on between them. In fact, he suggested that she start increasing the frequency she referred to him in her usual cold manner. More calling him 'sir' or 'Captain' and less showing of her concern for his strained relationship with his father.

It was typical Lee behavior, putting others' needs before his.

"Come inside, Dee," he said, pulling her back to the present. He was holding the hatch door open for her and waiting expectantly.

"Sorry, sir," she said, moving forward into the room.

When the hatch had clicked shut behind both of them, Lee turned to her. "What's wrong? Is it something with Kara? Is there news?"

"No," Dee said, shaking her head. "I just wanted to talk to you about something that I've been meaning to for quite a while now. You see, there's this thing. I've been wondering if maybe it was bothering you-"

Lee held up his hand to interrupt. "Is this about the President's program?"

"Yes," Dee said, letting out the breath she had been holding in. "How did you know?"

"Because everything I've been doing for months that didn't involve the situation on the _Aerilon Sacrifice_ involves that fraking baby program. It's turned this Fleet into a bunch of insecure teenagers."

Dee shot him a glare. "I'll have you know, Lee Adama, the only reason I came here to talk to you is because I'm trying to be a grown-up about all of this."

"Uh oh," Lee said, shaking his head. "Why do I get the feeling that I'm in trouble?"

"You're not in trouble. I just wanted to ask you how you felt about… well… about your father and I."

"Are you two in love?" Lee deadpanned.

Dee's mouth hung open. "No, we are not. Where did you get that idea? Do not tell me it's circulating Galactica."

"No. It just seems to be the new craze. People keep falling in love with the match partners."

"Are you talking about you and Starbuck?" Dee asked, taking a seat in one of the chairs.

"Not exactly considering she wasn't my match," Lee said absentmindedly. When he realized what he has said, he smacked his hand against his forehead and grimaced. "Would it be hard for you to just forget I said that?"

"No. Please explain to me now before I beat it out of you."

Lee turned to see the look of glee on Dee's face. She was radiating and he hadn't even told her who his real match was yet. That would probably make her die of amusement. "My father fixed the results. I wasn't originally matched with Kara."

"That crafty old man," Dee said with a laugh. "Well, do tell. Who were you and Starbuck matched with?"

"Starbuck was matched with Tigh." Lee took a deep breath and continued, "And I was matched with his wife."

"That Cylon wannabe?"

He was right. It looked like Dee was going to keel over from delight at the news. "Yes. Normally, I would object to someone's tampering with official government dealings, but in this case, I really think it was the better. It saved Starbuck from having to see what a mix between her and the XO would look like."

"And it saved you from getting sexually assaulted by Ellen Tigh."

"Exactly." Lee sat down in the chair behind his desk and kicked his feet up onto it. "We got off topic, though. Why did you come to talk with me, Dee?"

"I just wanted to make sure that you were okay with the Old Man and I giving our go ahead to Dr. Baltar and Doc Cottle for this repopulation program. Because, I mean, I thought that maybe with Zak and everything you might be a little uncomfortable."

"With having a baby brother or sister?" Lee shook his head. "Never. In fact, I'm looking forward to it. And if Zak were still alive, he would be just as elated. You're a good woman, Annie." She smiled at the use of a nickname she hadn't heard in years. "And it would be my honor to have your child as a sibling."

"You're too good to be true sometimes, Lee," she said, smiling at him.

"Don't I know it. Kara continually abuses that fact."

Dee stood up out of her chair and walked over to sit on the desk. She placed her hand lightly on his knee. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm doing fine today. There's been a lot of distractions." Lee glanced over at the papers on the desk. "And Gaeta finally got me that information on the weaknesses of the humano-Cylons."

"You're not planning to do something stupid like sneak away to take on that toaster by yourself, are you?"

Lee shrugged. "It's crossed my mind. But then I think about everything that could go wrong. I can't risk Kara's life like that. For now, I know she's alive over there on the _Sacrifice_."

Dee reached out to take his hand. "She's strong, Lee. She's not going to let some toaster posing as a human be the one to take her out."

"I know. I just…" His words faded off for a moment as he stared down at his hands. "I've gotten used to having her here with me." He looked up into Dee's eyes. "I don't know what I'd do if she wasn't there anymore."

"She's going to be fine."

"I just wish she was home."

"We all do."

The two old friends sat hand in hand for a moment, just enjoying the small peaceful silence between them.

Like all other peaceful moments on the Galactica, though, it was almost immediately interrupted by something. In this instance it was the phone.

"You should get that," Dee said, letting go of his hand and standing up. "It might be important."

Lee nodded and picked up the phone.

Dee watched as his face turned from surprise to worry to anger to joy and finally to complete shock. He didn't talk much to whomever was on the other end. He just reacted. She heard him thank someone before setting the receiver down.

When he didn't turn to tell her what had happened but just continued to stare at the telephone on his desk, she touched his shoulder lightly. "Lee?"

He twisted to look at her, and she noticed that there were tears pooling in his eyes. "She's home, Dee. Kara's home."


	5. Full Colors: Part Four

Kara Thrace stared out the small side window of the Raptor she was on. She had dreamed about this moment every hour of every day since she had been gone from Galactica. And now that it had come, she found herself scared to death of what it meant.

Things had happened while she was gone. It was supposed to be a standard transfer of water from one ship to the other. The typical thing that Marines oversaw if only they had enough people to properly do those kinds of things. So she had taken the small downtime that this assignment offered and suited up to be a Marine for the day.

No one knew there was a Cylon agent on board the _Aerilon Sacrifice_. No one knew that the thing would make a small slip-up in something he said and that she would be the one to pick up on it. No one knew that for the first time in her life, Kara would hesitate. No one knew that for the first time in her life she had something good enough to keep her from acting recklessly and without thought.

The hangar deck clicked into place as the Raptor finished raising up out of the flight tunnel. This was it.

Show time.

"How are you feeling, Starbuck?"

Kara turned to look at Racetrack and gave her a smile. "Happy to be home." She prayed that Racetrack wouldn't ask her anything else. She didn't know how long she could keep this ruse up.

People came into focus as the exit ramp slowly began to lower. Kara didn't notice any of them. She only had eyes for the one man standing front and center. He looked nervous. She had no idea why. There was no reason for him to be nervous.

Just her. She should be nervous.

Cursing, she realized her hand had gone down to unconsciously hold her stomach. She would need to stop that once she set foot off this Raptor. Someone would notice.

The ramp connected with the hangar deck with a loud bang, and Kara urged her feet to take the first step back to normality. This was what she had wanted. She wanted to return to this.

Lee didn't waste time in waiting for her to come to him. Before she could take more than that first hard step, he was up the ramp and to her side. Sliding his hands around her waist, he pulled her into his embrace. Her name fell like a whisper off his lips as he slid his face into her hair.

"Lee," she said, sensing the first glimmers of that old familiar feeling coming back. She let her hands wrap around him. "Oh gods. Lee."

He pulled back to hold her head in his hands. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," she said, sniffling slightly to hold the tears back. "I've been through worse."

"You don't have to be brave, Kara. It's only me that can hear you."

"We are surrounded by half the deck crew," she said with a smirk.

"I didn't notice." He rested his forehead against hers and let out a small sigh. "Gods. I wish that I could kiss you right now."

"You can't. Not while the Fleet is still pretending the fraternization policy is in place. We've already gone too far." She tried to pull back from him, but his grip only tightened.

"I don't give two fraks about some stupid, out-dated policy. I'm not letting you go."

His hands moved down to hold her sides roughly in a fight to stop her from squirming away. There was a sharp shooting pain in her left side as his hand got a little too close to the fresh wound. She felt herself wince before she could realize what she was doing.

"Kara? Are you hurt?" Lee made a move to pull up her tanks, but she quickly batted his hand away.

Kara took a step back and placed her hands on her hips to prevent him from trying to take a look again. She couldn't let him take another look. "Don't. It's just the normal battle wounds. I was held hostage by a Cylon on a broken-down ship for seventy days, you know."

She saw him flinch at the harshness of her words before his jaw hardened and he gave her a rather intense look. It made her want to both take a step back and to go running into his arms. Instead she just stood in place and ducked her head down, ready for the harsh words to start flowing.

"Actually you were gone for seventy-one days if you count today. And if you want to be extremely precise, you've been gone seventy-one days, nine hours, and fifty-two minutes."

"You were counting?" she whispered. She balled her hands into fists as she continued to fight the urge to close the distance between them.

His eyes lowered for a moment before he took a breath and looked back up at her. "Of course I was."

Kara could feel her eyes begin to well up with tears again. This was what she thought she couldn't handle.

The shooting pains in her stomach that came and went without rhyme or reason. Those she could handle. The trauma of being holed up in a small cell for weeks on end. That she could handle. The knowledge that she could never truly let anyone know what had gone down on the _Aerilon Sacrifice_. She could handle. The looks, the stares, the silent questions. Could handle. The need to constantly act like nothing is wrong. The desire to just go back to the way things were even though she knew she couldn't. The emotional upheaval. The physical pain. The constant confusion. The complete lack of understanding.

Kara could handle it all.

But there was the one thing that she could not.

It hurt so much to admit it, but it was Lee that she wouldn't be able to handle now that she was back. It was his gentleness, his unconditional caring. It was the core of his very being that she had grown to need so much. It was the way he looked at her like he had died a little each day that they had been apart. The way he had cradled her head in his hands and smiled. The knowledge she had only had to take one step off the Raider and he was there to support her. The simple fact that she could see his eyes were as full of tears as hers were.

His love was the only thing that she couldn't handle.

Pulling that thought to the front of her mind in order to make herself strong enough to do what had to be done, she turned from him and took her second hesitant step back out onto Galactica. Her eyes met with the rest of the people who had come down to see her return to the ship she called home as she shuffled past them. Cally was there with Crashdown standing next to her. Boomer was standing next to the Chief and shaking her head with a laugh. Her nuggets were all smiling at her proudly. Dee was standing at the back of the hangar, talking on the wireless headset she had been given. She spared a moment to give Kara a supportive smile.

Kara's eyes caught on the Commander's for a moment, and he gave her a small nod of recognition from where he stood talking to Gaeta. She was about to shuffle out the hangar door and down the corridor to the bunkroom where she knew that the pilots would leave her alone for a few minutes when she heard someone calling her name.

Turning back, she saw that Lee was only a few steps behind her.

"Before you go anywhere, I want you to go see Doc Cottle, Starbuck. Normal battle wounds or not, you need to be checked out."

"I'm not going to medical."

Lee gritted his teeth as he stopped in front of her. "Excuse me for not being clear. It was not a request, Lieutenant. It was an order from your CAG."

She narrowed her eyes and gave him a short salute. "Yes, sir."

His eyes flickered with what she immediately recognized as pain before he gave her a small nod and stepped back. Turning she pushed back the tears once again and began to limp her way to a place she did not want to be.


	6. Full Colors: Part Five

The pain was starting to intensify as Kara sat patiently on one of the sickbay beds. Honestly, if it hadn't been for that small fact, she probably would have ignored Lee's little command to come down here. But the way her mind worked, she knew that she wouldn't be able to survive another day without some sort of pain killer.

"Lieutenant Thrace. Good to have you on board again."

She slid off the bed to stand up as Doc Cottle shuffled into her little corner. "I don't want to beat around the bush, Doc. We both know where I've been. I'm sure you have a small idea of what I've been through. But what it comes down to is I'm in pain. A lot of pain."

He took notice of the strain in her voice and set down the small clipboard he had been carrying. "Okay."

"But before we do this, I just want you to know if anything that goes on this room is going to filter outside, then I'm not sticking around. Pain or no pain, I'm gone."

"If it impedes your ability to fly or your safety in any way, I have to report it to the Commander, Lieutenant."

"I know that. This won't impede me in any way that concerns anyone's safety." Sighing, she pulled up the edges of her tanks a few inches and showed him her stomach.

Doc Cottle's eyes went wide as he stepped in to look closer. He reached out to guide her down onto the bed. When she was settled, he carefully prodded the marks on her stomach with his hands. She hissed in pain but did not object. "This looks like you've been through an operation."

"I have been," Kara said.

"What happened?"

"I don't know, sir. A lot of my time on board the _Sacrifice_ is a blur. At one point, the Cylon in charge got the better of me. He knocked me out and when I came to, those marks were there. My best guess is that I was out for a few days."

"And you have no idea what they would have done to you?"

Kara shook her head. "Not a clue."

She watched as Doc Cottle took a step back and picked up his clipboard. "I'm not sure how much you know of human anatomy, Starbuck, but with the placement of the scar-"

"I know," she said. The tears held in so tight were beginning to sting her eyes again. "I know what it might mean."

"I'm going to have to do some tests to see."

"I have to know."

"I will do what I can."

"Doc? Just do the scans on my stomach. Don't go digging into my history."

Doc Cottle stared at where one of the Fleet's strongest women sat, staring at her hands. She looked battered and as close to broken as one could get. His mind suddenly recalled rumors of past trauma in Kara Thrace's childhood. Stories that told the listener what made Starbuck the way she was. He knew what she was asking when she told him not to dig too deep.

Kara looked up, the tears shining in her eyes. "Please."

Doc Cottle gave her a slight nod of understanding before leaving her alone to her thoughts and the sharp pains brought about by both a scar long ago and one that was completely fresh.


	7. Full Colors: Part Six

Kara Thrace walked silently behind her mother as they shuffled through the streets of Caprica City. It was the middle of the workday so the streets were packed with vendors and businessmen. The flashes of movement were soothing and gave Kara something else to think about besides where she and her mother were heading.

A man smiled over at her from across the street as they stopped to wait for the traffic to allow them to cross. Kara averted her eyes, but it wasn't quick enough. She felt her mother's icy grip on her arm as she was yanked over into an alley.

"What do you think you're doing? Haven't you learned your lesson?" Julia Thrace hissed as she slammed her daughter up against the bricks of the building. "But then I guess a little whore like you never really stops, do you?"

Kara flinched at the words as they cut into her. Her mother had been calling her that and many other things since she was old enough to understand what they meant. It was just another part of her day. But that didn't mean they no longer hurt.

"Keep your eyes to yourself or you're going to end up in this same damn situation again," Julia said, letting go of her grip on her daughter. "And next time I won't bring you to Caprica City. I'll just beat you until it's gone."

Kara nodded and began to follow her mom silently through the streets again. She could not wait until she was old enough to apply for a place at the Academy on Picon. Then she would be free.

Her hand unconsciously held her stomach. It was almost as if she could feel the change inside her already. It was holding her back, and she knew it. Regardless of how much Kara knew she should be fighting her mother on this, a little piece of her was glad that the decision had been taken out of her hands. She couldn't be held back. She had to get off this planet.

A few minutes of shuffling to keep up with her mother later, Kara found herself standing in front of the tall skyscraper that was Caprica's prime medical facility. People were shuffling all around her and bumping her slightly as she suddenly found it hard to move. Julia Thrace stopped halfway up the stairs of the building when she realized her daughter was no longer with her. "Come on, Kara," she hissed.

"I don't want to do this," Kara said, shaking her head and taking a small step back.

Her mother gave her a sweet smile, and that was when Kara knew she was really in trouble. Julia went back down the steps and stood beside her daughter. "You are not going to disgrace me by having a child when you are only sixteen. I've tried for years to fix whatever was wrong with you. I tried to beat out that ridiculous notion you had of following in your father's footsteps."

Kara's hands unconsciously closed together at the mention of her father. Her mother didn't know it, but sometimes when she wasn't home, Kara still sat down at the old piano to play. Julia would be surprised if she ever found out. She had thought slamming the piano key cover down on Kara's fingers when she was six would fix any silly notion Kara might have had at playing.

She didn't know how strong-willed a daughter she had created, though.

Kara was ripped back to the current moment when her mother reached back and slapped her across the face. "You pay attention to me when I'm speaking, you little shit. This is all your fault. You were enough of a slut to get yourself into this trouble, and I am not going to let you frak up my life. We are going inside and you are having this done."

Kara ducked her head and did her best to bite her tongue. It wouldn't be right to correct her mom's blind assumptions. To tell her that it hadn't been some boy from school who had gotten her in trouble. That instead it had been Julia's latest boyfriend who had forced himself on Kara during the middle of the night. To explain that it wasn't her desire to ever go through that again. To go through the pain of having your mouth covered by a stranger's hand in order to muffle the screams. To feel the discomfort of someone forcing their way into your body.

The one thing Kara and Julia Thrace both seemed to correctly understand about the situation was Kara did not want this baby.

She hadn't asked for it. There wasn't room in her life for it.

Kara let her mother tug her into the building as her mind shifted to the one hope she had out of what was to come. In the bottom of her heart, she had a hope that maybe something would go wrong with the abortion. Maybe a tool would slip and it would end up ruining her chances of ever conceiving again. Then she wouldn't have to worry about the possibility that she might one day turn into her mother. That was her worst fear, the one that crept into her head when she was in bed at night and the world was silent.

As the elevator rose to the clinic on the fifty-third floor, Kara allowed herself to touch her stomach one last time. There was a life inside of her. She would be lying if she said she didn't feel a little bit excited by that idea despite the way it had gotten there. No matter how it was conceived or how much pain she went through, it was still a life. Inside of her.

And as much as she wanted to deny it, it felt right.


	8. Full Colors: Part Seven

Ellen Tigh sat at the desk in her husband's quarters and watched the man she had married in his current passed out position on his bed. She had given him plenty of ambrosia and plenty of reason to want to drink it all as quickly as possible. He never turned the opportunity down. That was the part she couldn't understand. Why would a man who had so much to gain from being sober want to live in a constant state of haze?

Sighing, she picked up the phone and requested a line to one of the other ships in the Fleet.

"This is Tom Zarek. Make it quick."

"It didn't work."

"Excuse me?"

"I tried to put a divide in between Artemis and her twin."

Ellen could hear the man on the other end pause before asking, "And how is this relevant to me, Ellen?"

"Don't be flip with me, Tom. We both know you're starving for power in this Fleet. And the only way to do that is to bring either Adama or Roslin down. The way to Adama is easily your the first step. Roslin would be the next."

"And if Adama were to fall right now, that leaves your husband in a rather interesting position. Convenient."

"We can help each other, Tom."

She could hear him think it over a moment before replying to her offer. "Very well put but I still don't see what this all has to do with the two twin gods this Fleet worships."

"Don't tell me you haven't picked up on it? They are the heart of this Fleet. And they are the heart of William Adama. If their lives are in turmoil, he becomes distracted, preoccupied with fixing whatever's wrong."

"How do you know that?"

"I've known William for years. We've never really gotten along." She let out a small laugh. "He would do anything to keep me out of his life and the lives of his children. He went as far as to tamper with Roslin's precious little baby program just to keep me from getting close to Lee. He's scared. And he's not thinking. A little push and he might lose it all together."

"I'll take that into consideration."

Ellen rolled her eyes as the line cut off. Tom Zarek was a fool if he chose to ignore the obvious benefits of working alongside her. They both had agendas, and for the moment, they were working towards the same goal.

There was a light knock on the XO's door which caused Ellen to jump slightly. "You're early," she muttered to herself as she stood up and walked over to open the hatch.

The blond woman at the door scowled at her briefly before pushing into the room. "You failed."

"This is not easy. Anyway, I'm working on another option," Ellen said, clicking the hatchway closed. "And it's very bold of you to come here and talk of such things when you know my husband is only two feet away."

"If he remembers my being here, just tell him that Shelly Godfrey was here to speak to him of her continued suspicions that Gaius Baltar is a Cylon. If you did your job and gave him enough drink, he'll believe the explanation without question." Six shook her head and sat down on the desk. "But let's not worry about that unless we have to, okay? For now, let's dwell on your high level of incompetence."

"It is impossible to drive a nail between Adama and Thrace."

"Are you saying they are invincible? Untouchable like their pathetic little gods that they believe in so blindly?"

"No. I'm not saying that. I just think that the way to drive them apart would be easier if we approached them from their precious humanity. If we used their own kind to weaken them."

"Tom Zarek is not the way. He does not have the strength."

"We have no other option."

"God has another plan for them. You would do well to understand that and stay out of the way before it's too late."

Ellen's face erupted in confusion at the blond Cylon's words. "What other plan? I know of no other plan."

"You are not the favored child of our god, Ten."

"And you are?"

"I am in his favor, but I am not favored. That honor falls on the third model. He has done his part for the Fleet."

"There are no third models in the Fleet," Ellen protested.

"There was one copy deeply hidden. And he sacrificed his life to do what had to be done."

"He altered her?"

"According to the way things must go, she can now no longer play a role in stopping us." Six stood up and her mouth crept slowly in a unnerving smile. "The end of humanity is finally within our reach."

Ellen Tigh watched the hatch door click shut and turned to stare at where her husband still lay, passed out. She would never understand humans.


	9. Full Colors: Part Eight

Kara sat in sickbay, absent-mindedly playing with the silver ring on her left hand. It had been there for as long as she could remember. She could still remember the words Zak had said to her that day so long ago when he reached over her body in bed to pull it out of the nightstand drawer. She had balked at the idea of marrying him, but in the end, she couldn't deny him what he wanted so greatly.

She also couldn't forget the look of hurt on his face when she told him she didn't want children. He had been holding her in his arms when he had started lightly running his fingers across her belly. And she had abruptly told him that she was never going to be a mother. By choice.

Zak had tried to be understanding and accept her decision. He had told her that she might change her mind someday and even if she didn't, he would respect the choice she had made. He had been hurt, but typical to his Adama nature, he pushed that to the side in order to make her happy. He would have contently loved her for his whole life if things had gone differently. And maybe she would have changed her mind in time.

Memories of things that had never had time to happen faded away as her mind turned to things that were still possible. She had found out that Lee was taking his turn at flying CAP during the hours she was waiting for her test results to come back. He had no idea what was going on. If he knew, he would be here beside her side regardless of if she wanted him to be or not.

It was that damned Adama nature again.

That was why she knew the results of the tests Doc Cottle was running would be so important.

Because Lee had picked up on the things her mother had done to her throughout her childhood. He knew how emphatically she did not want to have children. She did not want to give herself the opportunity to turn into her mother.

And that's also where Lee differed from Zak. That's where the problem began.

Somehow, without her having to say it, Lee knew that she wanted to be a mother. He would fight her tooth and nail until she would admit to, too.

The irony wasn't lost on her. It was the brother of the man she thought she was going to spend the rest of her life with who was the one who really understood her.

"Lieutenant Thrace."

She looked up at where Doc Cottle stood in front of her. Smiling bravely, she stood up. "Lay it on me, Doc."

"Maybe you should sit back down."

"That bad?" she joked, even though she did lower herself back down onto the hospital bed.

"Who did this to you, Lieutenant?"

"I told you I don't know. I was knocked out. I woke up and it was done."

"But you seem to have some idea of what they did to you. How?"

Kara's eyes shifted away from the doctor and rested once more on her hands. "They talked of reproduction and its importance if the human race was going to survive. They spoke to me of my past. Of things I have told no one. And then they told me how my future had shifted. How it had changed." The frustration that had been on the brink of erupting for hours finally got the better of her. "You know what. Frak this, Doc. I'm tired of waxing the touchy feely crap. Tell me what you know."

"All right, Starbuck. The Cylons operated on you. They took out at least one of your ovaries and the other has been damaged. I can't promise that you that your body will fix the damage that has been done to it naturally. And I can only assure you that right now the Fleet has none of the supplies I would need to fix it myself."

She turned to look at the doctor. "What does that mean?"

"It means there's a high chance you will never have children."

Kara bit her lip and nodded. "That's what I figured."

"There's more."

She shook her head as she felt the tears begin to fall down. "I don't want to hear it."

"What?"

"I said I don't want to hear it."

Doc Cottle ignored her and kept talking. "The samples I took from your blood and the ones from your exam indicated that you were pre-"

"I told you to only do the scans of my abdomen," she screamed loudly, standing up and bringing her face close to his. "I told you not dig around."

"Lieutenant. Calm yourself." When she didn't move, he tried again. "Kara. Avoidance is not the way to deal with this."

His words hit her hard. She stumbled back until the back of her thighs hit the bed. Doc Cottle stepped forward to lightly place his hands on her shoulders and push her into a seated position. "You obviously already knew about the baby."

The tears began to fall rapidly down her cheek as she looked up at him. "You cannot tell Lee about this. You can't." He went to object, but the way she grasped his wrists roughly made him pause. "You can't."

Slowly, he nodded. "I won't. You made me promise to not reveal anything I found unless it posed a threat to someone's safety. I made that promise, and if you still want me to keep it, I will."

"Thank you," she said, letting go of his wrists to wipe the tears away. "I assume that I am cleared to fly my Viper, sir?"

"Yes. Whatever was done to you has healed over. The pain was simply resulting from the stress in your body combined with the fact that you had no downtime to recover. Pain killers should keep the sting at bay. They might make it worse at firs, but in a few days, you shouldn't even need them."

"Thank you." She stood up and walked to the door before pausing to look back at him. "Doc?"

"I won't tell the Captain."

She gave him a small nod and stepped out the door. There were a few things she had to do. The grief would just have to wait.


	10. Full Colors: Part Nine

Crashdown leaned up against the Viper and watched Cally working her darnedest to make it flight capable. Watching her work was like poetry in motion, he decided. It was a wonder that she didn't always have an audience.

"Are you going to keep standing there, staring at me, or are you going to say hello, Crash?"

"Didn't know you saw me."

"I smelled you."

He rolled his eyes. "I know, I know. I smell like I haven't showered in days. You think you guys could get a new joke to throw at me. I'm a pilot. I sweat when I'm in that damned flight suit. Get used to it."

Her laugh carried out from under the Viper. "No. You don't smell like sweat. More like citrus and ginger."

"Really?" he said, walking over and taking a seat next to her underbelly roller.

"Smells pretty damn good in fact," she said, looking over at him. She stared at him a moment longer before wheeling out to sit up fully. He handed her a piece of cloth to wipe the oil off her hands. "Thanks. So what do I owe the pleasure, Crash?"

"I wanted to talk to you about something."

She waited a moment for him to continue. When he didn't, she prodded, "And that would be?"

"Well, I was wondering since the Chief isn't trying to kill me anymore if you actually still might want to spend time with me sometime. I mean, I know you're not the type of girl I usually talk to. But I really think it wouldn't be that big a deal if we were seen together outside the hangar bay. And I'm sure that no one will find it that weird that I'm with you all things considering. So what do you think?"

Cally scrunched up her nose. She couldn't figure out what the frak Crashdown was trying to get at. All she knew was with every word he said, he was pissing her off more and more. "Let me get this straight. You're trying to tell me that in normal circumstances, I'm not the kind of girl you would speak to. But because the world has ended and you really don't have any other option, you think it would be fine if you still gave me the honor of being seen with you."

Crashdown's eyes widened as he saw her gritting her teeth in anger. "I think that came out wrong."

"I think so," she said standing up.

"Cally, wait." He stood up to look her eye-to-eye. "I'm trying to tell you that having you as the mother of my children isn't that upsetting."

She narrowed her eyes at him, and he was too busy noticing the cute way she crinkled her forehead when she was angry to pick up on her fist coming towards him. He did notice it at the last second and probably could have blocked the punch easily. But Apollo's advice suddenly resonated in his mind.

Suddenly, Crashdown understood what Lee had meant. Having this woman in front of him cause him pain was a lot better than being with anyone else who might cause him pleasure.

And that was when her fist connected with his face.

"Ow," he said, shaking his head. He had been right to think a punch from Cally would hurt like hell. He reached his hand up to feel his lip and realized that it had been split wide open.

"You just took my punch," she said, staring at him in astonishment.

"Yeah, I know."

"You could have blocked that but you didn't."

"Right."

"Why?"

"Because it's what a guy does when he likes a girl," Crashdown said absentmindedly as he looked at the blood on his fingers. When he realized what he had said, he froze and looked up at her in horror.

Cally was just standing there, staring at him with her head slightly cocked to the side. After a moment, she stepped forward and lightly reached out to touch his lip. "You should really have this looked at, Lieutenant." She gave him a small smile before stepping away to return to her repairs.

Crashdown watched her go back to work and silently reminded himself to thank Captain Adama for his good advice.


	11. Full Colors: Part Ten

Kara stared down at the papers in front of her. It had taken a lot of work to get herself on board Colonial One and to get this documentation into her hands. For starters, she had to convince Racetrack to fly her off of Galactica without letting the CAG know. That had been a chore and a half. Thank gods the old sources of blackmail hadn't been destroyed during her absence.

She moved the pen forward to sign her name when her hand spasmed. Gasping, she let go of the pen and immediately started rubbing her fingers. The old injury her mother had inflicted upon her hadn't acted up in over three months. She had no idea why it was doing so now.

Biting down on her lip, Kara tried to ignore the pain as she picked the pen up once more.

"I would think about what you're doing before you sign that, Lieutenant."

Kara turned to look at where the President stood beside her. "I thought you were on a presidential visit to _Cloud 9_, sir."

"It was canceled earlier today because of the resolution of the _Aerilon Sacrifice_ crisis. I thought it wise to stay where I could be constant contact with the Commander should he need me."

"Very smart of you." Kara hardened her jaw and gave the President a large smile. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to-"

"Make a big mistake," Roslin said, pulling the paper out of Kara's hand. "Signing over the rights to the children you've created in the repopulation program. That is a mighty big step considering Captain Apollo was one of the enthusiastic would-be fathers I have ever seen in my life. And enthusiasm like that only comes from the notion that the woman you love is going to raise the child alongside you."

"Permission to speak off record, sir?"

"Permission granted, Lieutenant."

"You have no idea what the frak you're talking about."

Roslin took a deep breath and sighed. "I see. Well, maybe you could enlighten me."

"I am not fit to be a mother, Madam President. It's just not in the cards for me. I spent months trying to forget that, but it just won't work. So I'm doing the only rational thing and stopping this mess before it can start."

Kara did her best to look the President in the eye as Laura Roslin weighed her words. She silently prayed that the President would not press her for more details. She neither wanted to get into details about why she was not fit to be a mother nor did she want to have to admit to the real reasons she wanted to sign the paper in front of her.

Lee Adama was the type of man who desperately wanted children. He was that guy you knew who when you saw him for the first time the only thing that came to mind was perfection. But then you saw him with a child in his arms and you knew you were witnessing heaven on earth. Being a father came almost as natural to Lee as his insane duty and commitment to loyalty.

Ironically, his loyalty would be the thing to deny him the chance of any children. He loved Kara, and no matter what happened, he would not leave her. If he ever found out what the Cylons had done to her, he would simply tell her it didn't matter.

It would be a lie.

It mattered. He wanted children more than anything in the world.

And by loving him and being herself, she had taken that away.

Leaving the only chance he had at being a father with the babies already created.

"There is more to this than you are telling me, Lieutenant." Roslin held her gaze for a moment longer before placing the paper back onto the table. "But I will not stand in your way."

"Thank you, sir."

"I just want to remind you that signing that paper instates a change that you cannot turn back. Once the mother has given up rights to her children, she cannot get them back unless the father grants her access." Roslin let out a small laugh as she shook her head.

"Is there something you find funny about this?" Kara asked.

"This whole conversation is rather humorous when you take into consideration the man we are speaking of. Lee Adama is the last person in the Fleet who would deny you access to your children, Kara. He would do everything in his power to make sure you were a part of their life."

"Maybe I don't want to be a part of their life."

"He will be crushed to hear that." Roslin picked up the pen off the desk and handed it to Kara. "But again, the decision is yours."

Kara watched Roslin make her way out of the conference room, presumably returning to her presidential duties. She thought that the conversation was over until Roslin leaned back in through the open doorway.

"I hope you know that he won't let you go that easily, Lieutenant," she said before disappearing for good.

Kara stared at the empty doorway and let out a deep breath. "That's what I'm afraid of."

Hoping the President didn't mind having one of the repopulation contracts a little soiled with tears, she leaned in and signed her name on the document.


	12. Full Colors: Part Eleven

Straightening the jacket of her dress uniform, Kara took a deep breath and knocked as firm as she could on the door in front of her. Even as she heard the Commander's voice yell for her to enter, she realized she still had no clue why she had been summoned. It was odd, knowing that you did something wrong but not knowing what exactly that was.

"Lieutenant, I'm pleased that you could join us."

Kara was about to scold the old man for using rank when there was no one around to know otherwise when she realized that the Commander was actually not alone. Doc Cottle was sitting in one of the chairs in front of the Old Man's desk. Her heart froze as she realized what this was all about. The Doc had lied to her. He had taken her test results straight to Adama the second she left sickbay.

"I can explain," she said, her eyes darting away from the doctor and back to Adama.

"No, Kara. I think it is I who have to explain." Adama gestured for her to take a seat. "You see, I called Doc Cottle in here for his advice on a decision I made a few months ago that might impact you negatively. At the time, it seemed in my best judgment to keep you out of the loop, but I'm starting to realize I've been selfish."

Kara lowered herself into the seat and stared intently at the man in front of her. "I don't understand, sir."

"I'm going to be blunt with you. I switched your repopulation match when I saw that you were compatible with Colonel Tigh. I did it partially because I knew that there was no way you would agree to the project if he was your partner." Adama took a deep breath. "But to be completely honest, I also did it for Lee's sake."

"Lee's sake?"

"For starters, he had been matched up with Ellen Tigh, and I couldn't let that power hungry harpy get her claws into him. She thinks that I haven't noticed the way she looks at him, but I have." Adama shook his head in disgust before turning back to look at Kara intently. "But mostly I know how much my son loves you. I mean, I've never seen anyone look at you the way that he does, Kara. And I know because of that, he would have hesitated in accepting the results of the program if you were not the one he was matched with. Lee has desperately wanted children since he was little, but I think his desire has shifted to wanting children only if it could be with you, Kara."

Kara bit down as hard as she could on her lip and dug her fingernails into her palm. She would not cry in front of the Old Man. If Doc Cottle hadn't told him that fact that she couldn't have Lee's children naturally, then she wasn't about to let William Adama know because she couldn't hold the tears in. Plus, the longer she could keep this to herself, the easier it would be to convince Lee that something had naturally gone wrong in their relationship when she finally found the courage to set him free.

"Kara? Are you all right?"

She nodded quickly and opened her mouth, praying that her voice held strong, when Doc Cottle raised his hand to interject. "If I might take over here, Commander." He turned to Kara. "Commander Adama called me in here because he realized that if you and Captain Adama weren't perfect genetic matches, the likelihood of your part in the repopulation program succeeding might be diminished."

"Is it, Doc?"

Cottle held her eyes for a moment and then jerked his head up and down once. "Yes. Because of the genetic difference, the two of you are the least likely to produce successful offspring with the samples you gave us. I'm sorry."

The words hit home.

That was it then. There went her last chance of every being able to have children with Lee.

The fear washed over her as she realized that she had lost all rights to cling to the man she loved. She had nothing to offer him anymore. And there was no reason to keep herself from pushing him away. It was what she had to do. It was what she felt must be done if she truly loved him.

"Thank you for telling me, sir," she said to Adama, trying her best to smile brightly. "I can be prepared now if that's what happens." She forced out a laugh. "I guess I was always right. I'm just not cut out to be a mother."

"Lieutenant," Doc Cottle started.

"It's okay," she said firmly, holding his eyes. "I'll be fine, Doc."

She gave both men a smile as she excused herself. The Old Man's voice made her stop a few steps from the door. "I'm sorry for causing you strife, but please don't let this development worry you, Kara. It's not the end of the world, by any means."

"No, sir," she said with a small nod before stepping out of the hatch. In her mind, she desperately wanted to scream that it might not be the end of the world at large, but it was most definitely the end of her happiness. It was the end of her world.

Her mind was so caught up on keeping her tongue in check that she didn't notice the person standing outside the hatchway until his hand was firmly grasping her arm and yanking her down the corridor.

"Ow, Lee," she hissed, trying to pull away. "You're hurting me."

He glared at her a moment before continuing to pull her down the corridor. His grip didn't loosen. Her arm would probably bruise by morning.

Kara felt a strange feeling of fear creep up as Lee displayed a side of his personality she hadn't seen in years. His temper was not something to be trifled with, but she had thought he had gotten control of it years earlier. He had worked so hard to keep it in check that she had no idea what could have caused this outbreak all of the sudden.

They reached the pilots' bunkroom in record time, and Lee yanked open the hatch with his free hand and pushed her into the room. Slamming the door behind him, he pressed in a code to lock the room. She was about to ask him what the frak he thought he was doing when he caught her eyes again and the fear overtook her voice.

Lee glared at her for a moment, almost as if he were waiting for her to yell at him, before brushing past her to pick something up off the table in the middle of the room. Turning, he held it out. "Read this."

Kara tried her best to ignore how much her hand was shaking as she took the paper from him. "Yes, sir," she spit out sarcastically, the fear starting to transform into anger.

He glared at her. "Don't start giving me shit, Kara. I want you to read that to me out loud, and then I want you to tell me why."

She gave him a confused look before beginning to read the first line. "I, Lieutenant Kara Thrace, relinquish all parental rights I have to the potential offspring from the Colonial Fleet's repopulation pro-" She glanced up at Lee for a moment, and the open, raw emotion in his eyes made her words falter.

"Keep going."

Kara suddenly realized just how difficult explaining this to him would be.

"Keep going," he insisted for a second time.

"No," she said, holding the paper out for him to take back.

"Fine then. If you think you've read enough, then you can start explaining why Dee was waiting for me the second my Viper had docked in the hangar bay. She said that Billy sent this document over to her and asked if she could inquire whether I knew anything about it."

The air fell silent between them as Kara debated how she could explain to him why she had relinquished her rights to their potential children. She had to do it without telling him that this whole thing was because she didn't feel whole anymore. She knew that she was going to have to tell him at least part of the truth if he was ever going to let her release him.

The weight of Lee's eyes bearing into her got to be too much as he patiently waited for her answer. She was going to have to give him something soon if she didn't want to break down completely in front of his eyes.

Kara turned in to face the bunk Lee had flung her against and placed her hands gently on the ladder. She had no idea where to start. And she had no idea if this would even work. "I thought it was the right thing to do after what happened to me."

"This is about what went down on the _Aerilon Sacrifice_ then."

Her hand reached up to rest on her side at the mention of the ship she had spent so much time on. She could feel the heat from her scar all the way through the layers of clothing. "The Cylons aren't what we think they are. They aren't concerned with hurting and killing us. They want to understand us. They want to know what makes us hate and what makes us love. They want to understand what makes us tick." Her stomach cramped a little bit at the memories. Wincing she turned to look at where Lee stood.

It was at that moment that she realized how stupid she had been to think she could lie to him. This was Lee. She loved him, respected him, enough to bare her wound for him to see. "It wasn't just a normal battle scar that you saw earlier."

When he just stared at her with hard, unfeeling eyes, she turned back to face the bunk. "They knew of the President's repopulation program, and they wanted to understand why humans thought having children was so important. I don't know why-" Her voice caught in her throat for a moment as the events replayed in her mind with stunning clarity. "I got sloppy. That's what it all comes down to. I was trying to protect the civilians from the Cylon agent onboard, and I got sloppy. They caught me. I didn't understand why they even wanted me at the time."

Kara tried to push the emotion back down inside her. It wouldn't help her tell her story. It would just rouse his sympathy, and she couldn't go through with it if he started being supportive and gentle. Lee deserved to hear it from her without interruption. "They knocked me out, and I woke up to find myself in the small medical facility on the ship. I had been out for days. There was a scar on my stomach. I didn't know what it was. And then the door opened and there were two men staring down at me. Both were familiar. It took me a few minutes to figure it out, though Things were so out of focus at first. The man who explained to me where the scar came from was the doctor who operated on me, someone I had only seen through whatever drugged haze I had been in. He didn't have to tell me that he was a Cylon. I just knew."

She sighed and pushed on. "The second man was the Cylon who goes by the name Leoben Conoy."

The memory of the known Cylon made her shiver. The picture of his face in her mind was making it hard to hold back the rest of the truth from Lee. She had intended to just tell him that the Cylons were interested in how the human reproduced and so they did tests on her. It was close enough to the truth for him to believe it.

But now that she was standing in front of him, now that she could feel his eyes on her, she didn't want to lie. She wanted to tell him how hard it had been to hear the Cylons talk about her as if she was their most important weapon. Leoben had been the closest thing she had to an ally on the _Sacrifice_, and suddenly she felt the need to explain that to the man currently staring at her back.

"He told me that this all has happened before and it will happen again. He said that it doesn't matter the roles we play, interrogator or prisoner. It doesn't matter because the players change but the story remains the same. He was being gentle with me, simply standing back and trying to make me understand. It was like I had an ally in that model. He was familiar."

Kara shut her eyes for a moment to push the image of Leoben's kind face out of her mind. It had all been a lie in the end. "I don't know what I did to change that caring he showed me, but one day, his look turned cold. I have never seen someone look at me with such hatred as he did."

Trying to hold back the tears became harder and harder each second she tried to talk. She really wanted to get through this and get away from Lee before she let her emotions show. So, as a last resort, Kara bit down on her lip to the point of drawing blood. The pain usually helped her concentrate on keeping herself in check.

"He told me that I had changed the story, though. Each time the world had gone through this cycle, I had never once been happy. And that by my being happy, I could break the chain and end the cycle. Humanity finally had the option to be free. He looked at me with such a cold compassion, if that makes any sort of sense. He said that was why they did to me what they did. They had to because this was the defining cycle. There will be no more."

Figuring she had already said too much to try to pull away from him, Kara dragged the back of her hand across her face, pushing the tears away. It was time to put the final nail in the coffin and admit what that scar on her stomach was really about. "They took my happiness from me in the most brutal sense, Lee. They reached deep inside and took out a part of me. They took away my future and dredged up the horrors of my past. I can never dream of being a mother again. Gods. It's what I've always wanted and I never even told anyone."

The last part slipped out before Kara could catch herself. She had never admitted out loud that she wanted children. That every night since she was a little girl, she had dreamed about how hard she would work at getting it right. In all her life, it had never seemed possible.

All her life up until a few months ago, that is.

At that point, she realized that the only reason it had never seemed possible was because she hadn't figured Lee into the equation. Here was a man who she knew she could rely on to keep her from screwing things up. Just by being there with her, he could insure that she was nothing like her own mother.

And now all hope that he could save her was gone. How could he keep her from heading down that path of self-destruction now that her possibilities were limited? Why would he want to?

Kara jumped slightly when she was torn from thoughts by his hand grasping her arm to physically turn her to face him. He stared at her, and she suddenly realized that she had been wrong before. He hadn't been angry. The look in his eyes wasn't cold and unfeeling. It was actually quite the opposite.

The problem, like always, had been that he felt too much. She could see that all the hardness he had been displaying was simply his way of keeping himself from reaching out to her. Lee knew that doing so would only cause her to pull back even farther. So he just stood there, so concerned for her that he was on the point of total breakdown. He had been resisting the urge to touch her, to hold her, this whole time.

Until now.

"I knew," he said, pushing back a piece of hair that had fallen from her behind her ear. "I always knew."

"Lee, I can't do this," she whispered, turning her eyes away from his. She could feel herself bordering on the edge of total meltdown as all the emotions she had been holding back intensified by a simple gesture like his touch of her hair.

"I want to see what they did to you," he replied, ignoring her attempts to push him away with her words.

Lee kept his eyes locked with her as he brought his hands up to slowly peel her jacket off one button at a time without saying a word. Kara could feel the light pressure of his fingertips on her skin. It reminded her of the private moments of intimacy they had found together as their relationship developed in the past few months. The intimacy had always been the part that scared her.

Frankly, she was beyond scared right now. She was terrified.

Still refusing to take his eyes off of her, Lee gradually pushed the sides of her jacket apart until it slid off her shoulders. It fell to the ground with a soft thump.

Kara let out a tense breath as his hands slid down to the bottom edges of her tanks and pulled them up a few inches. Lee finally dropped his gaze from hers, and she could feel his fingers trace the scar on her stomach. She had expected him to want to see it with his own eyes and feel it with his own hands.

It caught her by surprise, however, when he suddenly dropped to his knees. She looked down at the top of his head as he leaned in to touch the small reddened skin with just a brush of his lips. Her hands reached out to cradle his head before she could stop herself.

Lee nuzzled her stomach lightly, letting out a sigh. "I wish I could do something to fix the hurt," he whispered. "I wish I could save you from this pain."

His words of comfort and protection were what finally sent her over the edge. She felt the tears sting as they fell violently from her eyes. It was all too much. She ached with the knowledge of what could have been.

But she was slowly dying inch by inch because of the knowledge of what almost was. The realization that if all this had not happened, Lee would now be kissing her stomach in a gesture of love for the life nestled deep inside here. The life that they had created together and whose absence hurt her somewhere deep inside.

She let go of his head with a small cry of pain and stepped away. "It's too much. I told you that I can't take it. It's too much. It's too much."

Lee looked at her with concern from his seat on the cold metal of Galactica's floor as she emphatically shook her head and kept muttering the same words over and over. The sudden vulnerability inside of her was beginning to scare him. "It's all right, Kara."

"No, it's not all right, Lee. It's so fraking far from all right that it hurts," she yelled through the tears. "You don't understand. You can't understand."

"Then explain it to me. I want to understand." When she shook her head and turned away, he got up off the floor and walked over to grab her face, roughly turning it towards his. "Don't shut me out, Kara. I deserve more than that."

"I can't. I can't. I can't." She mumbled those words over and over as Lee watched every single piece inside of her crumble. She was shutting down in front of his eyes, and there was nothing he could do about it.

When Kara's legs finally gave out, Lee took her weight into his arms and gently crumbled with her to the ground. He pulled her in tightly to his body and whispered soothingly into her ear whatever words came to mind. It was something he had known Zak to do when Kara woke up from one of her nightmares. She struggled a little at first but finally gave in to the comfort he was offering.

When, after a few moments, her crying had become less violent, Lee reached his hand up to push the hair out of her eyes and gave her a gentle kiss. "Please let me in, Kara."

She shook her head, and he could already feel her pulling away again. The small reprieve he had earned was quickly fading. The fear that something had inside of her had broken and he wouldn't be able to fix it came rushing back.

"You can do this."

"This is my burden to bear, Lee. Why can't you just leave it at that?"

"Why do you insist on hiding your pain from me? Why is it so important for you to do this on your own?" he asked softly. "I hate to break this to you, but I am not going anywhere no matter what you've done or what's been done to you. I might be scared, but I'm not going to run away to avoid the pain. I am here. I am staying." He tightened his hold on her. "And most importantly, I am yours. Try to push me away as much as you want, but it won't change the fact that I cannot live without you."

His words caught on something inside of her, and she felt the tears start anew. This time she couldn't keep the sobs inside, and she let the cries fall from her lips as her body began to shake. "I love you too much, Lee. I can't put you through this. You mean to much to me. You don't deserve this." The words on her lips had already begun to fade as the emotion became too much for her. All Lee could make out was a whisper of love between sobs.

"Kara, if you love me, you will not try to bear whatever burden you have alone. I want to carry the pain with you. I want to help you."

The tears were still falling from her eyes, but he could see something breaking inside of her as the volume of the cries died down. Some sort of resolve that had been at the source of her stubbornness melted away, and he could feel her opening up.

"I was pregnant," she said softly. "I don't know how. Maybe the anti-conception meds I took before the war started wore off. Maybe it was the gods' will, but when the Cylons got to me, I was pregnant with your child. I didn't even know. They only told me after it was too late. After the baby was gone. I didn't know, Lee. I swear I didn't know. And all of the sudden there was a hole inside me. As if a piece of me had been broken off. And I didn't know until it was too late to fix it. I screamed. It was so cruel. I didn't know why. What I had done to deserve it. I didn't know. I didn't know." She burrowed her body as far into him as she could, and even though he knew she was just hiding from his eyes, he still held on as tight as he could as her sobs echoed in his ears.

Her confession suddenly made everything come into focus. Her pain. Her desire to keep this from him. To protect him. The reason why she fought so hard to keep him away.

It all made sense.

And it all hurt him like nothing ever had.

Kara had had a life inside of her when the Cylons had performed that operation. The machines had known it. Had felt the happiness growing inside of her. And they couldn't accept it so they took it all away.

Inside, Lee could already feel himself begin to mourn for their child that never could be as he felt his eyes begin to sting with tears. He did his best to push those feelings to the side, knowing he would have time to mourn later when the woman currently in his arms was ready to share the pain. Later he would take care of the pain of losing a child and the sudden feeling of emptiness that accompanied it. When she was stronger, she would need him to give her a reason to be happy.

Right now, he just wanted to take care of her and give her a reason to keep living.

Because the Cylons were wrong if they thought that was all it took to break Kara Thrace. She was stronger than they could even comprehend. Somehow she was going to make it through this, and he wasn't going to let her push him away until he was sure she would be all right.

He tried to turn off the emotional side of his brain and just focus on the things he knew. Kara had come off her traumatic months on the _Aerilon Sacrifice_ and had been immediately sent to Doc Cottle by his own request. From there he could only imagine that she had been juggled from one briefing to the next. Somewhere she had found the time to take a shuttle to Colonial One and sign that contract relinquishing the rights to her potential children. And then, upon return to Galactica, she had immediately been bombarded with a request to see the Commander. During all of that, she had had no time to relax or to sleep off some of the tension of being a prisoner of war. There had been no time to try to get back the feeling of normalcy she had been denied for too long.

She desperately needed to heal, and Lee was determined to help that process begin. He wasn't sure how. All he knew is it was going to have to be one small step at a time. The simple things first.

Scooping her into his arms, he stood up and set her on the nearest bed, placing a kiss lightly on the top of her head before pulling away. It hurt him slightly when she barely reacted to the touch of his lips on her head. "Stay right here for a moment. I'll be back," he whispered.

She didn't respond with more than a half nod. He had seen many pilots go through the same thing under the stressful conditions they lived in. Everyone had a point when things got too tough to handle so the body and mind just stopped. With Kara, it was simple. The enormity of what she had been put through must have finally struck her, and it seemed her body and her mind just hadn't been able to handle it.

He couldn't figure out why the fact that this was Kara sitting in front of him, completely broken, scared him more than anything. She had always been fragile. But he hadn't expected her to close off this much.

Now all Lee could do now was hope somewhere inside she understood what he was saying to her and believed him when he promised to return. Chancing one last glance back at where she sat on the bed too exhausted to move, he unlocked the door and stepped into the corridor. He immediately glanced around for a familiar face until his eyes landed on Crashdown, who was talking with a young recruit.

"Crashdown, may I have a word?" Lee said as he made his way down the corridor to stand.

Lee could see Crashdown's eyes open wide as he got closer and the young ECO could register the pain that was obviously written all over his face. Even though hiding your emotions and your pain was a major part of being a good CAG, Lee knew he couldn't hide what he had just gone through even if he tried. He didn't have the energy any more.

Just as Lee knew he would, Crashdown did not comment on it. He simply nodded to Lee and told the young pilot he was speaking to that they would continue their conversation at a later time.

When they were finally alone, Lee cleared his throat and tried to pull himself together to do what had to be done. "I need you to do me a favor."

"Anything after all that help you gave me with Cally."

"I need this corridor clear of all personnel for the next hour or so."

"That's going to be hard, sir, but I'll see what I can do."

"Get it done." Lee knew that his tone was a little harsh, but he didn't have time to be subtle.

Crashdown seemed a little surprised as he spit out a quick, "Yes, sir."

"And go find Dee. I think she's off shift right now so one of the break rooms would be your best bet. Tell her the CAG needs her to fix up something in Bunkroom F like we did when Bayou lost his wife."

"Bayou?"

"She'll understand what it means, Crashdown. Don't worry."

"Okay. I'll clear the corridor and then go find Dee." Crashdown paused, and Lee could see a hint of worry cross his face. "Is everything all right?"

"That's what I'm working to figure out," Lee said, giving Crashdown a nod before jogging back to the bunkroom hatch.

Kara was in the same exact position he had left her, staring off into empty space. She had been through so much in the past few months, and the damage to her was drastically worse than anything he could ever have dreamed up. If there was any question about whether the Cylons were justified in what they were doing, this would put an end to it. Destroying a woman like Kara Thrace, so fragile and yet so strong, was unforgivable.

Lee jogged over to Kara's locker, pulled a few things off of one of the shelves, and shoved them into a bag. As a last minute thought, he walked over to his own locker and picked up two pairs of his sweatpants to throw on top.

Then, without a word, he crossed to where she sat and grasped her hand in order to pull her to her feet. She stood up without protest almost as if she wasn't really aware of what was happening. It scared him slightly to see her in this state, but he knew there was nothing he could do to change it that he wasn't already doing. Kara was still staring around blankly as he led her into the now empty corridor and down a few feet to the head.

After walking her to the empty showers, he let go of her hands to push off his flight suit and threw it to the ground. His boots followed soon after. Giving her what he hoped was a gentle smile, he took a step towards her in order to reach out to grasp the hems of her tanks. When she flinched slightly, he stopped immediately. "It's just me, Kara. You know you can trust me. You need to take a shower and wash off whatever's hurting you. It will feel good, I promise."

Her eyes lost their vacant haze for a moment as she turned to look at him. She had been lost in thought, remembering how it felt to lose a child. The pain from the day eleven years ago was as fresh as the pain she was feeling this very day. The grief was so familiar it was tearing her up inside. "I'm scared," she whispered.

Lee reached out and touched her cheek with the back of his hand. "I know. I am, too."

"I don't want to be a burden to you."

"You could never be," he whispered, kissing her lightly on the lips before pulling back to smile. "I love you too much."

Kara bit her lip, and he could see the tears beginning to form again in her eyes. Silently, he thanked the gods. Tears and crying were much better than this self-imposed shutdown of mind and body.

Lee's hands reached forward again, and this time, as he pulled the tanks off of her body, she didn't flinch. He took that as permission to continue and gently slipped her pants down. Lifting each foot up, he pulled them off and threw them into a pile with the other discarded clothes. Reaching behind her body, he turned on the water and waited for it to heat up as much as it could. He saw Kara modestly cover up her body while they waited and took that as a good sign. She was coherent enough to sense that there should be some awkwardness to this even if it was just the two of them.

Still praying to the gods that they help Kara through this, Lee pushed them back into the water together regardless of the fact that he was still partially clothed. He didn't care right now about whether his clothes got wet. That wasn't what was important.

At this exact moment and like every other moment in his life for what seemed like an eternity, it was Kara who was more important to him than anything else in the world.

With a methodical sweetness, he worked soap into her hair and slowly began to wash away the layer of dirt that had piled up. He heard her moan sweetly as his fingers massaged her scalp. Her shoulders lost a little of their tension with each passing second. He could feel her come alive under his touch.

Moving on to her body, he turned her to face him as he lathered the soap onto her skin. She shivered slightly in his arms. "Too cold?"

She faintly shook her head no, and he went back to his mission to wash away as much of the pain as he could.

He was aware this whole act of being able to take care of this strong woman he had admired for so long should be something that seemed awkward. But his love for her had taken him to places he had never dreamed of. This was just another to be added to the list. It felt right to be able to support her when there was no one else she felt she could rely on.

Lee pushed the water control off with his hand when he was finished and reached outside the stall to grab a towel. He tenderly dried her off as she stood perfectly still in front of him. Her eyes watched his every move as he worked his way over her body. He considered that yet another improvement from the blank stare he had gotten only minutes earlier.

When Kara was dry, Lee grabbed the bag he had packed off the nearby counter where he had dropped it. He held out a bra and pair of underwear, and he was pleased to have her grab them from his hands to put on. When she was done, he took out a clean tank and slid it over her body. Her hair became disheveled as her head came through the hole in the tank.

Unable to resist, he pushed her hair behind her ears and placed a small kiss on the end of her nose. He was rewarded with a small smile.

Lee pulled the pair of sweatpants out of the bag and handed them to her. She made a move to put them on before pausing to hold them up to her nose. "These smell like you," she said quietly.

He smiled and took them out of her hand. "That's because they are mine."

The look of understanding spread across her face. Somehow Lee had known that at this exact moment having something that was his so close to her would be a comfort. She suddenly felt like crying all over again. What she had done to deserve a man like Lee Adama, she would never know.

Picking her up, Lee set Kara on the counter and slid first one leg of the sweatpants and then the other onto her body. She stood up and allowed him to pull them the rest of the way up. After pulling the drawstrings tight, his hands lingered on her stomach where the evidence of the Cylons' work was blazing clear.

"You need rest," he whispered, tearing his eyes away from the scar.

Kara gave him a timid nod and allowed herself to be led down the hall. He pushed open the hatch to one of the unused bunkrooms and was relieved to see that Dee had understood his request.

When he and Dee had served on the Atlantia together, the CAG, Stephen "Bayou" DuPris, had lost his wife to a shipping accident. She had been a pilot on board one of the colonial freighters, and there had been some mix-up in communication as the ship was docking. Bayou's best friend on the Battlestar had asked Dualla and Lee to help her give the CAG some alone time away from the memories of his wife. Together, the three of them had ferreted out an empty bunkroom and had moved the CAG's bedding to the new location.

Dee had remembered all that. In addition to getting the heat turned on in this unused part of the ship, she had brought the sheets and pillows off of Kara's bed. Lee carefully laid the woman in his care onto the bunk prepared for her.

Kara looked over at where Lee stood. "You're not leaving me, are you?"

"No," he said, smiling at her. Without another word, he peeled the wet clothes off of his body and grabbed the other pair of sweatpants he had shoved into the bag. After slipping them on, he rested the length of his body against hers and tried to push some of the tension out of his body.

"Lee," Kara whispered as he rested his arm across her midsection and drew out lazy patterns with his fingertips.

"Don't talk, Kara. Just rest. You can go back to being strong and protective of me in the morning."

He heard her agree with a gentle sigh as her breath began to slow down. His grip tightened around her as she let go of the last bit of control she had.

Just when he thought she had fallen asleep, though, he heard her softly whisper, "I love you."

Staring at the back of her head, Lee began to wonder how they could possibly make it through this newest of obstacles. And then he found himself wondering how they could possibly not.


	13. Full Colors: Part Twelve

Billy Keikeya had searched Galactica for an hour before he found the President standing in front of the glass wall in sickbay. His search had actually been rather entertaining. He had the privilege of accidentally stumbling upon Cally and Crashdown violating the fraternization policy under a Viper. He had had a nice discussion with the Chief about how the President thought he was supposed to go about doing his job now that one of his crew was going to be the mother of his children. Billy had thought it rather funny to watch the Chief and Selix tiptoe around each other while trying to fix a Viper. And then there was the scuttlebutt circulating every corridor about where Starbuck was. She had mysteriously disappeared and no one had seen or heard from her in hours.

Sighing, Billy started crossing the floor of sickbay. Life on the Galactica was never dull. Not for a moment. He stood a few feet back from the President and watcher her as she was stared intently at several technicians who were rushing back and forth. He should have known she would be here.

"Do you think this was the right decision?" she asked him after a moment.

"Excuse me?" Billy stepped up to stand beside her.

She smiled at him out of the corner of her eye. "The repopulation program. Do you think it was the right decision?"

"I thought you had gotten over your doubts, sir."

"About the process, yes. But the actual program?" Roslin turned to look at her young assistant. "It seems so ridiculous. If this works, there will be young children running all over the Fleet. In that sense, it will be good. The continuation of humanity is a necessity. But a lot of the matches have chosen to maintain their parental rights. It doesn't matter for all those who are the civilian ships…"

It suddenly dawned on Billy what the President was hinting at. "But for those serving on Galactica, it won't be so easy."

"These people are in charge of keeping us all safe. They shouldn't have the distraction of children, lovely as it may be. I can't imagine why I thought to include the military in this program."

"It gave them distraction for a little while, sir. That was your goal."

Roslin shook her head as she turned back to stare through the window. "We can't let these children be a distraction any more. The people on Galactica still need to put their lives on the line to keep us safe. They have to be committed enough out there to die for what's right. It's a harsh reality, but most of the children of these fine people will never know their parents. And I'm the one who sentenced them to that."

"There are a lot of children in the Fleet who lost their parents in the Cylon Holocaust. This is no different. And there are plenty of civilians who will step up to care for the children without parents. Things will work out, Madam President. There's no other option."

"That's a very bleak thought," the President said with a small laugh.

"It's reality. And in terms of you worrying about the spatial logistics of when the children arrive, this ship was running on a skeleton crew when the Cylons attacked. There are hundreds of rooms that have been sealed off because there weren't people to fill them. Bunkrooms can house a majority of the children. Civilians who have no jobs in the Fleet can be brought on board Galactica to watch over them. The children can be partitioned off from the dangerous parts of the ship to keep them safe. And having them on board the strongest ship in the Fleet will insure that there is a next generation for us to leave behind."

Roslin gave him a suspicious look. "You've been thinking about this a lot, haven't you?"

"I figured you might start having doubts, sir. I wanted to be prepared."

"Well done."

Billy noted the lines of exhaustion that were beginning to show on her face before she turned back to watch the scene that was unfolding in front of them. "It's been hard for you to wait these ten weeks for the first results."

"It's been impossibly hard, Billy. So much is riding on this." She turned to give Billy a bright smile. "But imagine how much we stand to gain if this crazy repopulation idea of mine works. If even one child is created…" Her voice faded off as she continued to stare at the doctors in front of her.

"Do you think it will work then?" he asked hesitantly.

"I'm praying to the gods. Because you're right. We need this more than anything right now."

The President and her assistant returned to a comfortable silence, watching the doctors walk from one test area to another. Soon they would know if all this stress and worry was going to pay off. Soon.


	14. Full Colors: Part Thirteen

Kara yawned as she felt herself slowly drift out of sleep. There was something cuddled up against her back, and she recognized the familiar warmth immediately. In the back of her still sleepy mind, she wondered how Lee had managed to get into bed with her without letting any of his pilots notice.

She felt his hand tighten around her as she twisted to face him. He had a habit of watching her sleep so she wasn't surprised to see him smiling at her once she had turned.

Gods. Lee always looked so perfect in the morning. Smiling she desperately wished that it could be like this everyday. She would give almost anything to wake up with this kind of comfort at hand.

Kara was about to give into the temptation of letting herself drift back to sleep in his arms when a spring in the mattress pushed on her side, sending pain howling through her body. She winced, and she could feel Lee's hold on her body tighten even more if that was possible.

"It hurts," she whispered even as the pain was softening.

"I know. It's going to hurt for a while. But I'm here."

Her eyes flew open as the reality of where the pain had come from suddenly hit her. She shouldn't be here. She shouldn't be letting him get so close. She had to get away.

"Lee," she said, panic beginning to set in as she shrugged against his hold.

"Stop it, Kara," he said firmly.

"No." She put her hands on his chest and pushed as hard as she could. When that failed, she started kicking. She connected with his shin and heard him grunt in pain. Lee's hold on her didn't weaken. "Let me go!" she screamed.

"You are going to hurt yourself even more if you don't stop," Lee said, pushing his body on top of hers while trying to be mindful of her fresh wound. The weight of his legs kept her feet from doing anymore damage, and her arms were effectively pinned together against his chest. "Good morning, sunshine," he said with a laugh.

"Please, Lee. Just get off of me."

She could feel his eyes on her face as his expression turned serious. Then, after a moment of hesitation, he seemed to accept defeat and pulled himself off of her. Much to her dismay, though, he simply shifted back down beside her and draped his arm around her stomach. "Did you get that all out of your system? Because I'm not going to wake up every morning for the rest of our lives to a fight like that."

"Then maybe you need to find a new sleeping companion," Kara said, staring up at the top of the bunk.

Lee's hand reached out to turn her face to look at him. "I am only going to say this once, and I hope it will be enough. I am not going anywhere. You can push and you can yell. Hell, you can even kick. I could use a few new bruises to add to my collection. The point is none of that matters. I am not going anywhere."

"Well, I don't want you here," she spit out in anger.

"Tough shit, Kara. Because I'm here and I'm staying." Her expression filled with even more anger, but Lee chose to ignore it. "I'm not going to lie to you to you, and I'm not going to censor my words."

"Please don't," she said, tongue in cheek. He was really pissing her off by putting up such a ridiculous, irrational fight.

"I've dreamt of being a father all my life. But sometimes dreams can't come true. It's a fact of life."

Lee watched her face soften at his candid words before she wet her lips and started talking. "It can still happen for you, Lee. That's what I've been trying to tell you. Just because I can't get pregnant doesn't mean you can't have kids."

Lee sighed. He really couldn't do this lying in bed beside her. It just wasn't possible. So he pushed himself up to sit on the edge of the bed. He patted the mattress softly next to him. "Come here."

Sighing, Kara admitted defeat for the moment. She wasn't going to be able to get him to leave her side at the moment, but she could still fight to make him see that he had to let go if he wanted to move on with his life. She tucked her legs beneath her body and moved down to the edge of the bed beside him. Without saying a word, he slipped his hand on top of hers, and they let the silence stretch between them.

"Do you remember that story you told me about your life ambition when you were twelve? You wanted to be the next pianist in the Caprica Grand Orchestra. You dreamed of being up on the stage and having the audience applaud your skill." Lee paused and turned to look at her. "And then you turned thirteen and you discovered what it felt like to fly. All dreams of being a professional musician went out the door because of the way you felt when your uncle took you into the cockpit of his rusted-out freighter."

Kara smiled at the memory. The forces of space had tugged at her insides and seemed to soothe all the wounds her mother had caused her. It was like flying was the key to healing her piece by piece. She still held tight to that notion to this day.

Even if she had to give up everything she loved, including the man currently holding her hand, she still had flying. That was the only comforting thought the Cylons had left her with.

"You see, you had this dream of being a musician since you were little, but then all of the sudden something rose up to take its place in your heart." Lee squeezed her hand gently. "That's what this is. I'll never deny how much I want to have children. It's been my dream. But you see, I have a bigger dream that's taken its place. I would rather spend one hundred years without children than have to spend one day without you, Kara."

He smiled at her. "There are times when you're going to make me so angry I'm really going to regret how much I love you. You annoy the frak out of me all the time, Kara. But that's what makes this so real. But it doesn't matter because the idea of living without you scares me to death. I don't know who I would be if I didn't have you."

Lee felt her head rest softly on his shoulder. She didn't say a word. She didn't really have to. "Besides, it's about time that you had someone in your life who isn't going to let you run away at the first sign of trouble. You deserve that."

After a moment, she sniffled softly and intertwined her fingers with his. "I don't deserve a man like you."

"You have me all the same," he said, reaching his free hand up to gently push the tears out of her eyes.

"I don't think I'm ever going to stop crying," she said with a small laugh.

"You will," Lee said firmly. He leaned down to brush his lips across the top of her head. "I know you've been through a lot, Kara, and I still wish there was some way for me to take away some of the pain."

"You already have," she whispered.

"Good. I want you to know that we're going to do everything in our power to try to fix whatever the Cylons did to you. But until then I want you to look on the bright side. You've loved flying since you were a little girl, and no matter what the Cylons did, they could not take that away from you." He felt her head nod slightly against his shoulder. "And now that you've come home, you have me, and I'm not going anywhere."

"So you've said numerous times."

Laughing, Lee stood up off the bunk and held out his hand. "What say you and I make our way down to the mess hall? You must be starving by now."

Kara could see the strength and determination in his eyes, and suddenly she realized he had been right. This burden wasn't hers to bear alone, and having him with her was going to help dull the pain. Together, they can grieve for the things they have lost and focus on the things they still have. Smiling, she took the hand he offered. Lee pushed open the hatchway door and led her out into the corridor.

"So what's happened on the Galactica since I've been gone?" she asked as they walked hand in hand.

"The XO's wife tried to seduce me again."

"No way," Kara said with a grin. "That woman doesn't take no for an answer. So what did she do?"

Lee was about to answer her question when Hot Dog came barreling around the corner towards them. "Apollo! Starbuck! The Commander wants to see you down in sickbay now."

"Do you know what this is about?" Lee asked the young pilot.

"I have no clue, sir. The Old Man wasn't specific. He just told me to find you as soon as I could." Hot Dog glanced down at where Kara was holding her side. "Are you all right, sir?"

"Just your normal battle wounds, kid," she said, showing her usual brash smile. "I'll be back on rotation to torment you in no time."

Hot Dog smiled and gave them a quick salute before running off in the direction he came.

"I guess we should get down to sickbay," Lee said. "Though I have no idea why my father wants to see us there."

"It probably has something to do with the tests Doc Cottle was running on me earlier. Or it has something to do with that damn repopulation program. Your father switched our test results, in case you didn't know."

"Oh, I knew," Lee said, shaking his head. "Ellen Tigh managed to tell me during her seduction attempt."

Kara didn't protest as Lee helped her slowly descend the stairs to sickbay. She had left her pain killers in the pocket of the pants Lee had stripped off her earlier, and the last dose was beginning to wear off. Since she was already going to be down in sickbay, maybe she could convince Doc Cottle to show her some sympathy.

"I'm going to have to do something about Ellen Tigh, you know," Kara said idly as they entered sickbay through the main doors. "I wonder if you could neuter a human being."

"Maybe she's a toaster," Lee suggested. "Then you could just shoot her and be done with it."

Their conversation died out as they took notice of William Adama. He was standing at the far end of sickbay surrounded by a herd of people. The President and Billy were there along with Colonel Tigh and the entire Quorum of Twelve. Doc Cottle was standing a few steps back, smoking one of his cigars.

"You wanted to see us, sir," Kara said, still holding tightly to Lee's hands as they stopped in front of the large group of people.

"President?" Adama said, indicating she should step in with the explanation.

"We wanted you two to be the first to know that our repopulation program was a success." She took a step back and gestured for them to take a look through the large glass window. "Meet the first soul of our next generation."

Together, Kara and Lee looked down at a small monitor attached to one of the growth pods the medical team on Galactica had created. Kara gasped as she saw movement on the screen. She was actually staring at a life developing in front of her. "This is amazing," she whispered. She looked up at Lee and was surprised to see tears forming in his eyes. "What is it?"

"Look, Kara," he said, pointing down.

It was at that moment that she noticed the small sticker attached to the growth pod. "I don't understand," she said, turning to look at the Commander and then at Doc Cottle.

Commander Adama stepped forward to place his hand on her shoulder. "There was only one successful pregnancy out of all the tests this first time, Kara." He turned to smile at his son. "And that was yours."

Kara turned to look back at the monitor. "That's our child?"

"Yes, it is, Lieutenant Thrace," President Roslin said with a light laugh.

Kara gave her a smile before turning to look at the man beside her. "Lee. That's our baby."

The weight of her words was only really felt by a few people in the room, but the significance of the one child was understood by all.

Lee pulled Kara in tightly against him and pressed his lips lightly to hers for a brief moment. "I told you everything would be fine."

"I love you," Kara whispered before turning back to stare at the lines on the monitor as they showed the small heartbeat of the growing child resting inside the pod.

Suddenly, deep inside her, she finally realized the truth that had eluded her for so long. The Cylons were never going to win. They had played their last card, and it didn't change a thing. The machines said that this was the last cycle they would be put through, and for the first time, that brought Kara relief instead of fear. Because she knew something the Cylons didn't know.

It was the end of the world, but she was sitting there with full colors in her hand.

END


End file.
