That Much She Knew

She couldn't stay. That much she knew.

In the last hour he had managed to turn her entire life upside down. During that hour everything she had once been so sure of was in question. But the hour was over.

And she couldn't stay. That much she knew.

She looked over at him as he lay beside her. She could still see the sheen of sweat as it clung to his skin. And though she had trained herselfnot tocare about such things, she let a tiny glimmer of pride seep in that she was the one that had caused it.

Still, this wasn't what she should be doing. That much she knew.

"I gotta go." She said resoundly, sitting up in the bed.

"Why?" He whispered looking straight at her eyes.

She felt her body hum again at the intensity of his gaze and quickly turned her head away as she stood up and looked for her discarded clothes. "Because I have shift."

"You have shift in three hours, and nobody's gonna be in this room for another two." He whispered almost pleadingly, looking up at her from his place on the bed.

_Damn._ He had planned this out enough to know her schedule, enough to know the vacancy timetable of the room. He had _wanted _this. This wasn't just a spontaneous thing…..this wasn't just something that they had fallen into. _Damn._ She wished it was, that would be easier to explain away.

This was getting out of hand. That much she knew.

"I gotta go." She recited her mantra again as she put on her shirt. She was on auto-pilot. She had to be. If her brain wasn't shut off then she would say all the things that she really felt.

And that couldn't happen. That much she knew.

"You don't have anywhere else to be." He stated firmly, matter-of-factly.

"That doesn't matter." She breathed as she buckled her pants. "I just can't be _here_."

He sighed heavily in exasperation and in, she feared, not a little rejection. "So this was just a frak?"

Her back was turned to him and she clenched her eyes shut. Should she tell him the truth? Or should she do what was right and lie to him? She went with the second option. "What else would it be?"

"So why don't you stay?" He rasped. "What difference would it make if we 'just frak' again?"

_Son of a frakking bitch._ He didn't care. He didn't care that she had basically just told him that he was just an easy frak. He would take her any way he could get her.

_Son of a frakking bitch._ _Don't do that, Lee. Hit me. Scream at me. Call me a slut. That at least I know how to respond to. Don't just accept me for what I am. Change me, make me better. Please._

He didn't care that it seemed in his mind that she had just used him. He didn't care.

Or maybe he just knew the truth.

All those years, all that energy used to create a shell, a wall that would hide the honesty of her bare soul……..

Maybe he saw through it as clearly as if it had been made of cellophane. That was a gift, a skill that no one else possessed. She had to reward that with a least a flicker of the honesty she tried so hard to hide.

"Because if I stay, it won't be 'just a frak'." She whispered, turning back to him, willing him to understand. "If I stay, it will be more. And that can't happen. That much I know."

"It's already happened. Damage is done, Kara." He sighed sultrily still looking at her in mild reverence. "This stopped being 'just a frak' the moment I touched you, and you know it. I felt your heart pound against my palm; I felt your body tremble beneath me. That doesn't happen if it's 'just a frak'. You and I have had enough of those to feel the difference…….and I know you did. I know you felt it."

"Lee!" She pleaded with him, as she fell backwards to lean against the wall. "Stop. Please stop."

"Why won't you……….why won't you just let this happen?" He nearly screamed at her before lowering his voice again. "Why won't you just let this be?"

He hadn't moved from his place on the bed. She was standing there, fully clothed, unwilling to expose herself to him any further, and he was still on the bed, vulnerably laid out before her with nothing but a sheet covering the lower half of him. She could still see the marks that she had left on his body. And she prayed that those marks would stay with him long after she had left.

"Because," She whispered, terrified, disheartened. "Everything is gone………._everything _is gone and yet we're still trying to cling to what once was as if it could somehow save us. But it can't, because it's all _gone_. It's all fallen to ruin, it's all turned to ash and all we have left now is this intense drive to keep going, to survive……… and I think that is the only way that we'll make it; if that is the only thing that we have."

He sat up and turned and placed his feet on the floor off the side of the bed. He grabbed her wrist. "What happens when it's not all we have? What happens when we're done _surviving_? What happens when we have to start living? What happens when we have to start living for something more than just still breathing at the end of the day?" He pulled her wrist to his mouth and brushed his lips over her pulse. "You're right, Kara. Everything we had before has turned to ash, so we have to rebuild. There has to be a foundation. We have to start over again…….we have to rebuild with something more profound than just a series of moments that we grabbed when we had the chance. Why won't you let it be this?"

She was amazed at how quickly it happened. How quickly all the blood in her veins, all the air in her lungs was replaced by Lee Adama.

She reached out to trace his jaw and smiled at him, resolved. "You know I hate it when you bring logic into our arguments, it throws my whole world off balance."

He placed his hands on her hips and pulled her to him.She didn't back away. He looked up at her, his eyes full of hope. "So you'll stay?"

And she would. That much she knew.

-finis


End file.
