Unexpected Consequences

By Crystal Wimmer

Word Count:39,794
Date: 10/29/04
Series: Future
Rating: T
Category: Relationships
Pairing/Focus: Lee, Kara
Warnings:
Summary:
Spoilers/Disclaimers:

---

Chapter 1

Kara Thrace was in trouble. Really in trouble.

She gulped in another breath of oxygenated air, and used the wireless. “Galactica, this is Starbuck. I need to cut the mission short. Can you please get the CAG on the wireless to advise?” Kara waited in nauseous silence for the reply.

“Viper four-one-two, are you having a mechanical problem?” It was Dee’s voice. Great, they’d transferred her request up to CIC. She supposed they had to in order to contact Lee, but she still hated this going over the speakers. Unfortunately, she was too sick to care.

“Not mechanical. Pilot illness.”

“Starbuck, what’s your condition?”

That was Lee’s voice. Good. At least they were getting somewhere. The Galactica was just now coming back into visual range, and she still wasn’t sure if she’d make it. “Urgent,” she told him. “If you have another team ready, launch ‘em. I’m coming in.”

Kara held her breath, counted to ten, and released it through her teeth. It wasn’t helping, and there was no way to put her head between her knees in a Viper. Oh Lords, what was she going to do if she puked inside her helmet? The Viper cabin was pressurized, but not oxygenated. If she took off the helmet, she couldn’t breathe. If she left it on, she would probably aspirate. Neither boded well for her breathing in the near future.

“Viper four-one-four, report. Where are you, Pointer?” Lee asked.

“I’m right behind her,” Lieutenant Cummings answered.

“Good,” Lee said quickly. “Pointer, hold position while Starbuck comes in. We’ll have a new wing-leader out to you immediately.”

“Roger that. Thanks, CAG.”

Kara listened through a fuzzy spin as arrangements were made to replace her. She didn’t give a frak. If she could just get landed, and out of the damned Viper, she’d be so grateful that she’d kiss the Chief. The Galactica was getting close, although its image was shimmering in her field of vision. She would have given just about anything for an auto-landing about now, but the technology didn’t even exist for the Mach II Viper that she was flying.

“Starbuck, status report,” Lee demanded.

“Coming in,” she replied, her voice shaking. Images of Zak’s Viper slamming full speed into the wall of the flight deck and then careening across to the opposite wall in a flaming heap assaulted her. She didn’t want to die this way. Oh Lords, please not this way.

She hadn’t felt her best that morning. She hadn’t been sick, but neither had she really felt well. Chalking it up to waking alone for the first time in a couple of weeks – Lee had gotten up early to take care of paperwork before his shift – she had put on her uniform, skipped her morning run, and eaten a couple of pieces of toast for breakfast to settle her stomach. It hadn’t been this bad before the flight had started. She’d been a bit light-headed, yes, and maybe queasy during launch, but that wasn’t entirely uncommon. The G’s pulled during a launch were enough to upset anyone’s stomach.

She and Cummings had begun the routine patrol of the sector just as they normally did. Almost an hour into the four-hour patrol, Kara had realized that she was in trouble. Whether it was something she’d eaten or a virus that was slamming her out of nowhere, she was sick. It wasn’t just queasy or nauseous, but she was going to start throwing up. Period. The only question was when. Well, that and whether or not she’d live through it.

She was sweating like crazy as she approached the Galactica’s starboard landing bay. “Coming in on starboard side,” she said, her voice slurring, her head ringing. “Request permission to land.”

“Starbuck, this is Shooter. You have a clear deck. Proceed to land.”

Thank God for that much. She could see the landing pod before her, although she couldn’t really tell where the entrance was. She shook her head, but wound up dizzier rather than clearing it, and took a couple more deep breaths. Please, Lords, she thought. Please, don’t let me die this way. A death in combat I could handle, but not crashing into a hangar wall. Please.

“Starbuck, this is Shooter,” the voice said urgently. “Bring your nose up. Repeat, you are coming in too low. Bring it up, or abort landing.”

She should really answer, Kara thought as the pod came in and out of focus. Shooter sounded upset about something, although for the life of her she couldn’t figure out what. The pod was right… there. Wasn’t it? Why was it moving around so much?

“Starbuck, repeat, bring your nose up. Now. Kara, damn-it, listen to me!”

She shook her head again, feeling the burning sensation in the back of her throat that told her she wasn’t going to be able to keep the contents of her stomach in place for much longer. Gradually, she saw the brighter interior of the landing pod, the lights of the deck guiding her. She nudged up the nose of the Viper, groaning as the move set her stomach churning again. She swallowed a foul tasting belch, took one more deep breath, and eased the Viper onto the landing pad with more efficiency than finesse.

Once she felt the magnetic locks engage, she started fumbling with her helmet. Oxygen or no, she had to get that frakking thing off or she was going to choke. The lift that was carrying her up to the flight bay jolted her, but she wasn’t able to pay attention to it. Her stomach hurt, and her head was spinning, and vomiting wasn’t a matter of “if” but rather “now”.

Before the lift had locked or the canopy lifted, Kara finally got her helmet loose and half-way off before she started puking all over everything. She was beyond embarrassment as someone slid her canopy clear and reached in to grab her helmet and put it… somewhere. She braced one arm on the edge of the canopy frame, and stuck her forehead on her arm, and threw up until there was nothing left to lose. Even then, the dry heaves kept her shaking and sweating.

From somewhere, a cool cloth materialized on her neck, and another went to her forehead. She wanted to thank whoever the hell had the courtesy to help her out, but she couldn’t open her eyes for the dizziness. She had been sick before, but nothing like this, and never in a Viper.

It was several minutes more before the heaving stopped and Kara was able to see anything that was going on around her. When she started to become aware, the first thing that registered was the stench of her own vomit down the front of her flight suit. Lovely. The disgusting substance was also in her lap, on the floor of the Viper, and all over her controls. Tyrol was going to kill her, or worse yet he’d make her clean it up herself.

“Starbuck, are you okay?”

The voice was Cally’s, and Kara wanted to smack her. Did she look okay? She had a lap full of puke, she couldn’t lift her head, and she was still sweating. Oh Lords, this wasn’t over. The heaving started again, taking with it any chance for her to answer the Specialist and any hope of making some kind of a graceful exit.

What happened next Kara wasn’t sure about. She was lifted from the Viper by someone, which did nothing to settle her stomach. She wound up on a stretcher, turned on her side, while a medic quickly inserted an IV catheter into her arm. She felt the pain absently, more concerned about explaining this to Tyrol than anything. The man loved his birds, and he would neither tolerate nor understand her desecration of one.

And then everything was black for a while. Blessedly, warmly, fuzzily black. She felt herself touched, and moved, and she heard voices coming from every direction although not a single one made any sense. She threw up a few times more, but at least the pain of the retching had eased somewhat. She could feel it, but not entirely. It didn’t matter. Anything was better than the sickness that she had felt upon landing.

The commotion around her seemed to ebb and flow, increase and decrease, until she had no sense of where she was or what was happening. Finally, long after she’d thought she could stand no more, everything faded away into nothing, and Kara knew no more.

Lee Adama wasn’t a patient man. But he was a damned fine CAG, and he had the best trained crew that he’d ever worked with, so he stayed at his post despite the urgent need to scramble down to the flight deck and find out what the frak was going on with Kara.

It wasn’t unheard of for someone to get sick on patrol. It happened. Standard procedure was to report in, return to the Galactica, and report to Life Station for evaluation. It had happened once or twice, but it was by no means routine. For the person in question to be Kara was completely unbelievable. Kara didn’t get sick. Ever. She had a reputation for a cast-iron stomach, and it was well earned. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her sick, and having spent more than twenty-five years of his life knowing her, that was saying something. For her to be sick enough to cut a patrol short…

Standing on the CIC, Lee made sure that the replacement Viper was launched. He monitored communications between the deck crew – or at least what they said on short-wave – and watched the trajectory of the Viper they’d launched until it met up with Pointer and the two proceeded on the original patrol, albeit about ninety minutes behind schedule. A quick calculation showed that Pointer would have more than enough fuel to complete the routine patrol, and some left over just in case, regardless of his detour in accompanying Starbuck back to the Galactica.

As a CAG, there was nothing more for him to do. He would get a report eventually on her condition, and no urgent calls had been made up to the CIC regarding accident or infection that needed to be isolated, so he really didn’t even need to worry. But he did, because Kara wasn’t just his best pilot. She was also his friend, and roommate, and lover. And Kara was never sick.

His intense concentration on the screen before him was such that when he heard a voice behind him he nearly jumped.

“Go on down to the Life Station,” the Commander told him. “I’m sure they have her moved down there by now.”

Lee shook his head, then looked up at his father. “That’s not necessary. I’m sure if it’s anything serious…”

“Go,” Adama said clearly. “You may be able to wait, but I’d like to know that my pilot is in one piece. That landing didn’t sound like one of her best, and we both know what it would take to throw her that far off. Find out how she is, and report back to me.”

It was an order for which Lee was enormously grateful. The look in his father’s eyes told him that the elder man knew it. Yes, he was concerned, but a single call down to the Life Station would get the Commander whatever he needed. He didn’t have to send a runner, much less his CAG.

So Lee didn’t argue. “Yes, Sir,” he said quickly as he removed his headset and walked briskly from the CIC. The Life Station was a deck down, and he didn’t bother with the elevator. Taking a stairwell, Lee half-ran and half-slid using the railing for support in a practiced motion. He was out the door and down the corridor towards the Center before he could have managed to get on the elevator in the first place. A quick glance at his watch told him that she’d been on the Galactica for almost twenty minutes. It felt more like two or three hours.

When Lee had first come aboard the Galactica, he had resented being known as the Commander’s son. He hadn’t appreciated the rolled eyes and nervous crewmen that his heritage caused. But as he nodded quickly to the tech manning the entryway of Life Station, he was grateful that he had free run of the ship. He didn’t care if it was because of his father, his status as CAG, or his rank. He just wanted to find out what the hell was going on.

But neither rank, nor status, nor parentage got him past the doors into the emergency treatment center. “You’ll have to wait here,” he was told before he could say a word. “Doctor Salik will be out as soon as he knows what’s going on.”

Lee took a deep breath, and then another, and tried to calm his racing heart. She was fine. She’d landed, he’d heard over the wireless that she was sick and medics had been summoned, and that they were bringing her here. She was getting the best care. He didn’t know why he was so damned scared.

Only he was. He was scared because the woman behind those doors was nearly everything to him. She wasn’t just the childhood friend who shared his memories of growing up on a planet that no longer existed. She was more than his roommate, or friend, or co-worker. She was even more than his lover. She was… his lifeline. Kara kept him balanced, and focused, and sane. She was the one that let him have it when he was out of line, and supported him even when he screwed up. She forgave him when he was a pain in the ass, and she held him when nightmares woke him in the early hours of the morning. She listened to his complaints, and knew when to offer suggestions and when to remain silent. In the past three and a half years, Kara had become his world. That thought alone was enough to terrify him; the knowledge that she might be in danger was almost more than he could bear.

His wait wasn’t long, a fact for which he was very grateful. Only a few minutes after he’d arrived at the Life Station – perhaps half an hour after her less than ideal landing – Doctor Salik stepped out of the emergency suite and faced him with a calm demeanor. That was a good sign.

“She’s stable,” he said first. How many times had Lee heard those words from this man? It always seemed to be the first thing out of his mouth, however good or bad a situation was. Lee had to wonder what “unstable” might look like. “We’ve given her some fluids, and an injection to stop the vomiting. She’s sleeping now. We’ll know more when we get the test results back.”

“Any ideas?” Lee asked blindly. The doctor had to know more than he was saying. “Suspicions?”

The physician’s mouth quirked. “It could literally be anything from viral to bacterial infection, food poisoning, pregnancy, allergic reaction, appendicitis, gall bladder disease… do you really want me to go on?”

Lee closed his eyes as logic overruled his frustration and impatience. “No thanks,” he muttered.

“Good, because I’d rather get some history from you than play guessing games. I have name, age, weight, and occupation. Does she have any allergies, drug or otherwise?”

“Not that we know of,” Lee answered as he followed the doctor towards his office.

“Has she ever been pregnant?”

“No.”

“Has she shown any cold or flu symptoms recently?”

“You know I wouldn’t let her fly if she was sick,” Lee began, but the doctor’s look cut him off. He’d done just that. “No,” Lee said simply.

“Has she had any surgeries?”

“Tonsils when she as about ten,” Lee said. “Nothing else.”

“Is she sexually active?”

“Yes, but she gets the injection,” he said.

Salik nodded. “I know; I give it to her. Has she had any cycles since we began the injections?”

“No,” Lee said, fighting the blush that came with discussing anything personal, but especially so when Kara wasn’t even there. He felt like he was talking behind her back. And yet another part of him was pleased that Salik would ask him anything. He and Kara weren’t married, but Lee felt they were at least that close. They simply hadn’t signed the papers or said the words.

“Do you know her blood type?”

“O positive,” Lee answered.

“Okay,” the doctor said as he took a seat at his small desk and jotted down what Lee had told him. “That’s about all I can do for the moment. We’ll have the results of the tests back in the next few minutes. From there we’ll determine how to treat her. Aside from fluids and addressing isolated symptoms, there’s nothing more we can do without a diagnosis. You’re welcome to go back and see her, but the antiemetic has her asleep.”

“Anti-what?” Lee asked.

“The medication that stopped the vomiting.”

Lee nodded. “I’d like to see her. Do I need a note, or will they let me back?”

The doctor smiled at that. Lee didn’t feel much like smiling. The sarcasm had been automatic – the result of living with Kara and her humor – rather than being generated by any urge to be funny. “I think you’ll get back there,” the doctor said with a wink. “I’ll be back as soon as I know something.”

Lee nodded and thanked the physician, more reassured by his offhanded manner than his words, and then walked back down the hallway he’d just followed the doctor through. Once he was at the door, he expected an argument from the medic that had barred his way before. This time the man just smiled and gestured to the door. Lee didn’t hang around waiting for an engraved invitation. He went back into the emergency bay without a word.

Kara was there, lying on her side on a stretcher with straps across her body and rails on either side of her. She didn’t look like she planned on going anywhere. Her skin was pale, her features drawn, and her flight suit was gone. She was dressed in a hospital gown with a sheet wrapped around her from beneath, rather like a mummy. Under other circumstances, it would have been cute, but Lee was too worried to find any humor here.

Kara had her hand wrapped around the rail, as though to keep herself on her side. He gently covered that hand with his own, and wasn’t surprised when her eyes fluttered open at the touch. “Hey,” he said softly. “How you doing?”

“Better,” she told him in a whispered, hoarse voice.

“What happened?”

She shrugged her upper shoulder and closed her eyes. “Got sick,” she said simply.

“You never have done things half-way,” he said with a smirk. He lifted her hand, kissed it gently, then held it in both of his. Kara just closed her eyes and rested her forehead against Lee’s hands where they were holding her own. She was so tough, so strong, that sometimes he forgot just how fragile she could be. Grateful that he was with her, and still worried about what was wrong, Lee stood beside the stretcher in the quiet room and waited while Kara slept. He thought that he should probably call his father, but decided against it. He would wait until he knew something. Besides, now that he was here, he didn’t want to leave her.

Half an hour later, Doctor Salik returned to the room clutching a printout and wearing a concerned expression. Lee gripped Kara’s hand a little more tightly and waited for the doctor’s verdict.

Chapter 2

Kara watched as Doctor Salik approached. She was glad that Lee was with her for support, even if it was only moral. While the vomiting had stopped, the weakness remained and she hated it.

“I have your blood counts back,” the doctor told them as he consulted his reports. “Your iron is a little low, but nothing low enough to cause this. Lytes are a little off, but again not too far. Your HCG on the other hand is positive, which explains one hell of a lot.”

“Her what?” Lee asked in confusion. She felt the same way.

Looking Kara directly in the eye, he said the words that took her world out from under her. “You’re pregnant.”

The silence that settled in the room was louder than an explosion.

Pregnant. With child. Grounded.

“She’s had the injections,” Lee was telling the doctor, his voice shaking slightly and very quiet.

“As I told you before,” Doctor Salik countered, “I gave them to her. And before you ask, no, she hasn’t missed any, or been late, or received a contaminated batch. The injections are more than ninety-eight percent effective, but that still leaves a two percent failure rate.”

“It’s not possible,” she whispered. Her voice didn’t even sound like her own.

“I’d be happy to repeat the test, Lieutenant Thrace, but I don’t expect different results. Face it, Lieutenant: you’ve been beating the odds for as long as I’ve known you. This time, the odds you beat weren’t in your favor. I’m sorry.”

He was sorry. Her life was over, and he was sorry. Okay, maybe not her life, but definitely her career.

“I’ll leave the two of you alone,” Doctor Salik said as he turned to leave the room. “I’m sure you have a lot to talk about.”

She supposed they did, but she really didn’t feel up to it. Lee must have understood that, because he wasn’t saying anything either. His hands were still on hers, so she gave a squeeze to get his attention. His glance came down to hers, and she had no clue what was going on in his eyes. He didn’t look happy. He didn’t really look unhappy. He just looked… like she felt. Utterly bewildered.

“Is this the first time you’ve been sick?” he asked.

It was the last thing she’d expected. “Yeah,” she told him, her voice still hoarse from the illness, and weakness, and confusion and not sounding at all like her.

Silence reigned again. Lee broke it, speaking almost absently, looking at the door that Salik had used. “I wonder how long until I can take you home?”

“Pregnancy isn’t fatal,” she muttered, her voice sounding a little more like her own. “Now that they know what it is, they’ll probably kick me out.”

Lee nodded, but his mind seemed to be elsewhere. She couldn’t blame him. If she could get her own mind out of the room, she’d go. Quickly.

She’d been through a pregnancy scare once before in her life. But then she’d been a hell of a lot younger, and her fear hadn’t been for her job but rather for her home. After she had Zak had gotten carried away with teenage hormones and experimentation, she had been a few days late with her cycle. Those few days, until her body had straightened itself back out, had been terrifying. She’d been so young, and she had just known that the Adamas would hate her for being so careless. Oddly, it hadn’t occurred to her then that Zak had been as much at fault as she had been. She had just felt guilty, and angry, and absolutely confused. It had been a lot of years, but she remembered the feelings vividly. She was experiencing them again now, although the specific concerns were different. The helplessness was not.

“Are you okay?” Lee asked her.

Was she okay? Hell no. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Should I be?”

“We don’t get much of a choice,” he said simply.

They were quiet again, holding hands but not speaking, and Kara felt like they were about a million miles apart. Lee confirmed that a few moments later when he excused himself to go call his father and let him know she was okay. Only she wasn’t. She really wasn’t. She barely felt the kiss he pressed to her forehead before leaving her there.

Cassie came in immediately following Lee’s exit. “How are you doing?” she asked brightly. The tech had a terminally sunny personality. At the moment, it was almost enough to make Kara furious. Almost, but not quite. She settled for being annoyed.

“I’m great,” she muttered. “When can I get out of here?”

“As soon as you can keep down something solid,” Cassie told her, still cheerful. “Would you like to try something?”

“God, no,” Kara muttered.

“Somehow, I didn’t think so.” Cassie tossed another blanket over Kara. She hadn’t even realized that she’d been shaking, but she was. And she was cold. And she really didn’t want to be here.

“Thanks.”

“Not a problem. I wish I could do more.”

Kara watched the tech, relieved that she could see things moving without setting the whole room into motion. But she missed the comfortably drowsy feeling that she’d had after first getting the medicine that had calmed her sickness.

“You know, don’t you?” Kara asked the tech.

Cassie looked down at her as she checked the IV. “Yeah,” she admitted. “I ran the printouts for Doctor Salik. I won’t tell anyone, though. Patient confidentiality.”

“Everyone will know soon enough,” Kara thought aloud. “I’m off flight status immediately. Right?”

“Afraid so,” Cassie said. “The zero-G and high-G changes cause circulatory problems. It’s probably what made you so sick up there; well, that and the usual morning sickness. You’re lucky you made it back in.”

Kara suppressed the shiver that hit her as she remembered her panic in the Viper when she’d realized that she was going to be sick and couldn’t stop it. While she’d never actually known anyone to die from aspiration, she knew it was a possibility. At least, that was what they’d been taught from the earliest days of her flight training. “Yeah, I am.”

“It’s only a few months,” Cassie told her sympathetically. “And you get a pretty good package out of the deal. It will go quickly.”

“Yeah, I’ll go from pregnant to mother. That’s an improvement.” There was no humor in Kara’s voice, only pure sarcasm. She didn’t want to do this. She really didn’t want to do this.

“I know it’s a hard transition,” Cassie said as she patted Kara on the shoulder. “Give yourself some time with it. It’s not like you get a choice about it now.”

“This isn’t real,” Kara thought aloud. “This is a bad dream. It has to be a bad dream.”

“Talk to Lee about it,” Cassie advised. “Or if you want, when you’re feeling better I can come see you, or you can drop by my quarters. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to another woman.”

“Maybe,” Kara said quietly. “Thanks.”

Cassie gave her one last smile, checked the site where the IV entered her hand, and then silently left the room. Kara was left on her own, wondering how the hell her day had gone so badly wrong. When she’d crawled out of bed that morning, her worst concern had been Lee’s side of the bed being cold. Now she was worrying about motherhood, losing her commission, and definitely not being able to do the one thing in life that meant the most to her. It wasn’t that she didn’t want children, because someday she did, but right now she needed to fly, and she couldn’t do that while she was pregnant or nursing.

That thought brought her up short. Nursing. She was not the motherly type. Hell, she’d been nervous every damned time she’d had to hold little Aaron for Sharon or the Chief. She and Lee had watched him a few times, and she’d always been afraid that she’d drop him, or break him, or hurt him. She didn’t have a clue what to do with a baby. And nursing? She’d watched Sharon do it a few times, and it made her vaguely ill. Letting a baby do that just… well, it wasn’t something she was ready to think about.

And what would Lee think about this? Was he going to blame her? He knew she’d had the shots; he’d even come with her a couple of times because they wouldn’t let her leave without someone to keep an eye on her for the first few hours. She’d thought it was stupid, but she’d loved the company so she hadn’t worried about it. She hadn’t worried about anything, and now look where it had gotten her.

She was pregnant, and it wasn’t just a fleeting concern or a temporary problem. It was for real; the proof was in her blood. She was going to have a baby. Oh Lords, what was she going to do? Suddenly she wondered if crashing into the hangar might not have been the easier option.

Lee stood outside the door to Life station for more than five minutes trying to catch his breath. Pregnant. Kara was pregnant. How the hell had that happened?

Well he knew how it had happened, but the question remained, why? They had done all the right things, had taken the right precautions. No, they weren’t married, but they were committed and monogamous and in love. If they’d been doing anything really wrong, wouldn’t someone have said something? Was this a punishment? Even his father had sanctioned the relationship, and weren’t parents supposed to be conservative about these things

His father. Oh, that was going to be a fun discussion. “Gee Dad, I knocked up your best pilot. Sorry about that.” Yeah, that was going to go over well.

But he had to tell his father something. He had to report back. What had begun as an excuse to get down here and find out if Kara was okay had suddenly become a mine field that he didn’t want to cross. He couldn’t tell his father the truth, at least not without Kara being with him. That wasn’t fair to her. But he had to tell his father something. He also couldn’t go back to work. Aside from the fact that his mind wouldn’t be there, he had a feeling that Kara might need him. For what he had no clue; he’d obviously done enough.

Which didn’t explain his absence from her side at the moment.

He needed a while to process all this. Their lives had changed with a single unplanned blood test, and there was no going back. But he wasn’t sure how to go forward. After taking another couple of deep breaths to get himself together, he decided that standing against a wall wasn’t going to do him any good.

The nearest phone was in a recessed alcove at the end of the hallway. Lee walked the short distance, clueless as to what he would say when he got there. Picking up the corded phone, he punched in the code for CIC and waited. He kept the call brief, telling his father that it wasn’t serious, he needed to take her back to their room, and that he would shuffle the schedule to get someone up to CIC in his place. His father told him not to worry, that Lieutenant Gaeta had already taken his place at the screens, and not to bother reporting back for the rest of the day. In all, it was the best he could hope for. No questions, no suspicions, and no reason for him to feel guilty. But he did.

He felt guilty because he hadn’t told his father the whole truth. He was guilty because he hadn’t stayed in the room with Kara when she must be feeling as awful as he was. He felt guilty because something he had done was responsible for taking Kara out of the cockpit. She loved to fly more than anything, and this would ground her for months… or more. But most of all, he felt guilty because a part of him wasn’t unhappy, and he felt like he should be. For her sake, he should be.

He and Kara had talked about having children, but it had all been in the abstract, unforeseeable future. Lee had known that he wanted children. Someday. And even though this was the last time that he would have voluntarily chosen, he couldn’t deny that there was something… special about knowing that Kara and he had created a life. It hadn’t been planned, and it wasn’t convenient, but he couldn’t say that he hated the idea of having a child. What he hated was what it was going to do to Kara.

He loved her. More than anything in what was left of the world, he really loved her. He wanted her to be happy. This would make her miserable. However much he might think a child was a good idea, and no matter that they had no choice in the matter at this point, he couldn’t be entirely happy when Kara was going to hate every moment of it. Hell, she was in the Life Station because of the pregnancy; her condition couldn’t be a good thing.

A glance at his watch told him that he’d been out in the hallway for more than fifteen minutes. Given that the call to his father had taken only two or three, he really wasn’t justified in wasting any more time way from her. He’d gotten her into this mess, and he needed to be with her now. So why was it so damned hard to walk back through that door?

Taking a deep breath and bracing himself, Lee walked back down the corridor to the room to the Life Station. He eased himself in quietly, keeping an eye out for anyone who might be watching. He had no clue why he was sneaking around. Damn it, he hadn’t done anything wrong!

Kara’s eyes were closed, and she was still lying on her side. Her hand was wrapped back around the railing, whether to keep herself in position or to provide mental security he couldn’t be sure. To him she looked… fragile. He wanted to take her hand. He wanted to say something – anything – to make it better. But there was nothing that could take this away. And if he wasn’t sure he’d want to even if he could, then that was his own problem.

She must have sensed his presence, because after a few moments her eyes opened and she gave him a half-hearted smile. “Welcome back.”

“Sorry I took so long,” he told her. He wished he could explain himself, but he didn’t even understand it.

“That’s okay. I’d be out of here too if I wasn’t strapped down.”

He smiled at that. At least she had a little of her sense of humor back. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m not throwing up,” she acknowledged. “But I think I’d rather have the flu.”

“Yeah.” What was he supposed to say to that? Gently he reached forward and placed his hand over hers on the rail.

She had nice hands. They weren’t tiny, but they weren’t all that big either. She kept the nails clipped short, and she didn’t bother to paint them. She never had, even back when that kind of thing had been common. She had a few calluses on her palms from working on the planes, but her hands weren’t rough. They were good hands. He had to wonder if they’d be as good for managing babies as they were for flying Vipers.

“Are you okay?” she asked him.

He thought about lying. With her, there was just no point. “Yeah, I am. Now that I know you’re okay, at least. You gave me a pretty good scare.”

“That isn’t what I meant,” she told him.

He’d known that. He just didn’t want to go there. “I’m okay, Kara. I know this isn’t what we’d planned, but… I’m okay with it. I’m sorry it’s going to ground you, and I know it isn’t what you wanted, but…”

“But you wouldn’t mind a baby?”

“A part of you and a part of me,” he said with consideration. “No, I don’t mind. I guess that isn’t what you want to hear.”

“It’s honest,” she allowed. “What about your dad? Did you tell him?”

“I told him it was nothing serious,” Lee said with a shrug. “He said I could stay until tomorrow’s shift. Gaeta’s covering the screens.”

“That much is good,” she admitted.

“What can I do?” he asked, not liking the defeat that had crept into her tone. He knew part of it had to be the illness, but he was sure some of it was her own feelings about the news. She was losing what meant the most to her. As jealous as he might be that he wasn’t the center of her world, he could definitely understand her first love. She’d been born to fly. He loved to do it, and had worked hard to become good at it, but he’d never had the natural need to be in space the way that Kara did. He couldn’t exactly understand it, but he could definitely appreciate it, and he wanted to make this better for her.

“Get me out of here,” she asked, and her huge eyes met his with something just short of desperation. “I hate this place.”

“I’ll talk to Salik,” he said softly. “Maybe I can work something out as long as I’m with you. It’s not like we live that far away.”

“I want to be in my own bed,” she added.

“I’ll do my best. I’ll even have Dad call down if I have to.”

“Thanks.”

Her eyes had closed, and she’d curled up as much as the narrow bed would allow. She had her head resting on their hands. He hated taking his hands away, because it seemed like the only link they had at the moment, but he couldn’t do anything here. And they needed to talk. That was another thing he didn’t really want to do here. He also needed to do some juggling of the rosters, because she wasn’t going to be in the air in the near future. That paperwork wasn’t here either. Reluctantly, he removed his hand from hers, turned his back, and walked from the room to try to bargain with the doctor. He hoped that he didn’t have to use his father, though. That might involve explanations that he wasn’t ready to make; not alone, and not yet.

It was surprisingly easy. The doctor initially said that he wanted her keeping food down first, but Lee had reminded him how stubborn Kara could be. They had settled on Lee’s taking her back to their room and making sure that she took some tablets to keep the nausea within reason. It wasn’t until the physician assured him that the medication wouldn’t harm the baby that his heart turned over. Somehow that consideration made it feel a lot more real to him.

Moving Kara was the hardest of the problems. She refused to go on a gurney, and she was still too wobbly to walk. He had settled on carrying her, and she had protested the entire way. It would have been funny if he’d thought about it, but at the moment there wasn’t much humor in anything. Kara was miserable, he was uncertain about everything, and they just wanted to get back into some semblance of privacy so that they could get themselves back together. At least, that’s what Lee needed. He hoped that Kara felt the same way. He wasn’t willing to ask.

Once he had her in the room, and settled, and finally sleeping, he was finally able to sit down at the desk and start fighting with the roster. It was a struggle, but after a couple of hours he had Kara’s shifts filled in and was ready to start notifying the affected pilots with his changes. The bad part was that they were going to want to know why they were pulling extra shifts, and to answer that he was going to have to tell them about Kara. He couldn’t do that until they’d talked to his father. And they couldn’t talk to him until they’d talked it out themselves. And that wouldn’t happen until she was awake.

With a sigh, Lee leaned back in the chair and watched Kara sleep. He couldn’t even sort out everything that he was feeling. He didn’t know if he wanted to. He just wanted… He wanted it all to be okay, and he didn’t know for sure that it would be. And if it all felt more than a little melodramatic, he didn’t want to dwell on it. It was his life. He could angst over it if he wanted to.

Chapter 3

While lying on the deck beneath a spacecraft wasn’t her favorite thing to do, Kara had to admit that it was better than lying in a bed. She would still rather be in a Viper, but given the trouble she’d had on her last patrol combined with throwing up twice this morning, she’d decided that maybe Lee had a point about pregnant pilots not flying.

That didn’t mean she had to like it.

In the three days that had passed since her infamous last patrol, Kara had gone around in circles about what she was going to do. As she’d reminded Lee, it wasn’t as though they had unlimited options. Still, at some point they were going to have to let others know exactly what was going on. Only four people knew at that moment – herself, Lee, Cassie, and Salik – and thankfully all were pretty good at keeping their traps shut. It gave her time to think without being bombarded with well-meaning but annoying friends.

Besides, if she and Lee couldn’t talk about it between themselves, then they certainly didn’t need to talk about it to anyone else.

But it was still there, and it wasn’t going away. Lee had the adjusted roster completed for the next month, but Tigh had only seen the next week and her absence from the cockpit was easily justified by a routine viral illness. They hadn’t exactly said that, but the statement that her illness wasn’t serious combined with her symptoms seemed to suggest it. They simply weren’t correcting the misjudgment of the situation.

Kara had gone back on duty the day before with nothing settled regarding the situation. Well, nothing that was in their power to settle. What she and Lee needed to decide was just how they were going to tell his father, when or whether they’d move out of his office and into a larger family quarters, and possibly whether or not to make their relationship “legal”. None were subjects that Kara really wanted to deal with.

She respected William Adama more than anyone she’d ever known, and that did include Lee. Not that she didn’t love him, but the younger Adama wasn’t always as right as he thought he was, and he had his blind spots. Hell, that was part of the reason she loved him. But the Commander always seemed to know the right thing to do in any situation. He always thought of others first. He never made a move without considering every possible consequence. He was a strategist, a tactician, and a wonderful advisor. But he also knew when to listen, when to break rules that weren’t doing what they were intended to do, and when to follow the rulebook like the Ancient Scrolls. He just… knew. And because he was also her personal savior, having rescued her from a childhood that would have either been ended quickly or landed her in jail, then she could admit that his actions contributed to the pedestal she’d put him on. He wasn’t God, but he was damned close in her eyes. He had saved her life, and had given her what she needed most when she needed it. Later he’d given her a purpose, and confidence, and his faith. And now she was giving him… what? Embarrassment? Disappointment? One less pilot to defend his fleet? She didn’t even want to know. She didn’t want to look in his eyes and see that she’d failed when all she wanted was to give him back some of what he’d given her, or justify some of the faith he’d always shown in her.

And despite the precautions they’d taken, the end result of her being pregnant made Kara feel that she and Lee had somehow been irresponsible. She didn’t know what else they could have done – except the obvious choice of keeping their hands off one another – but she felt there must have been something.

“How’s it coming?” Lee asked as he knelt down to look at her beneath the Viper.

Kara closed her eyes in resignation. While Lee had been very accommodating in the last couple of days, he’d let her know this morning that they needed to talk. She agreed, but that didn’t mean she was ready for it.

“It’s coming,” she answered evasively.

“How much longer?”

There wasn’t a polite way to avoid that question. So Kara did what she did best; she took the offensive. “I’ll have it done within the hour,” she told him. “Do you want to meet for lunch? I can bring something back to the room.”

She stared at the undercarriage of the Viper, deliberately avoiding looking to the side where her gaze might encounter one of Lee’s boots, or worse yet his face. She wasn’t ready for this. The time she had to wait for his answer didn’t make her any more ready, either.

“Sounds good,” he finally said. “But I’ll bring lunch. I’ll probably have more time. I’ll finish up with the launching team and meet you back at the room. Unless you want me to walk you?”

Kara rolled her eyes. He’d been so damned careful with her that she was ready to strangle him. She wasn’t going to break. “I know how to walk, thanks,” she remarked, and went back to work on the Viper.

Lee didn’t answer, but she didn’t expect him to. They had learned to read when the other wasn’t in the mood for productive conversation. Kara hoped he would attribute it to her concentration on her work, but she was afraid that he knew her better than that. He knew her far too well.

If she hadn’t known that already, she’d have figured it out in the last two days. Lee had mostly left her alone, seeming to realize that she needed time to get things straight in her head. He hadn’t pushed, hadn’t made suggestions she wasn’t ready for, and when they had lain down at night he had held her as though he was afraid she might disappear. She hadn’t minded the closeness, and it had been a hell of a lot easier to just let him hold on than to try to hold herself together alone. In a way, it had been a return to the years when they’d just slept next to one another, keeping close for warmth and companionship with no romantic or sexual overtones to get in the way. She had needed that kind of comfort for the last couple of nights. She had needed to know that he was still the same man who had always understood her, and had never asked for more than she was willing to give. There was a lot to be said for comfort.

Not that she didn’t miss the physical side of the relationship. She hadn’t gotten pregnant from cuddling. She could count on one hand the number of nights in the last six months that they’d shared a bed and not shared… more. Lee had a strong sex drive, and she didn’t mind it. She had figured that they had a lot of time to make up for, and in many ways their relationship was still new. It was kind of like a honeymoon, only without the marriage.

That was part of the problem. Or at least, it might be.

Neither of them had ever really felt that a piece of paper was important to a relationship. The two of them had just been a set, and when that progressed from friends to lovers the transition has been as gradual and natural as it was possible for it to be. They’d hit their snags, but neither had felt that they needed to go before a priest in order to be together. Kara still didn’t feel it was necessary, but the situation was more complicated if they were to have a child. How would the kid feel about his parents not being married? How would the rest of the crew look on the Commander’s son having illegitimate kids? Lords, she had so many more questions than she had answers.

She finished up her work on the wiring that had been periodically shorting out in the Viper, and then began putting the heat-resistant casing back over the wires. She wasn’t rushing, but she was doing her best not to linger. If she had to have a discussion with Lee, she’d rather get it over with. That was one reason she had been glad he’d picked lunch time; there was only so much they could say in an hour.

Her walk back to their room was likewise somewhere between rushed and not. She didn’t want to do this, and her reluctance kept her pace down, but she also knew it was something she couldn’t avoid. Once she got to the room, she found Lee half way through his sandwich, seated in the middle of the bed. He looked for all the world like he was having a picnic with his lunch sitting on a cloth before him instead of like he was preparing for one of the most significant discussions of his life.

“You made it,” he commented between bites.

She didn’t answer the implied question. Why bother? She couldn’t explain her reluctance. She didn’t even understand it. “Let’s get it done,” she muttered as she took a seat on the bed. She pulled her legs up to rest her chin on her knees and watch her lover eat. He didn’t appear to be in any more of a hurry now than she was.

He watched her for a few moments, finishing his last few bites of sandwich as he did so, and then he got up to put the cloth in the bag by the door to go out to the hamper later. When he turned back to look at her, he didn’t bother to sit back down. “Not hungry?”

“I don’t feel like throwing up again,” she told him.

“Sick?”

She shook her head, touched by the concerned expression and tempted to take the excuse he was offering. He wouldn’t push this if she didn’t feel well. “Just… nerves,” she admitted.

He let out a compressed breath and met her eyes. He didn’t beat around the bush, but instead went straight to the problem. “Salik’s report goes to my dad tomorrow morning,” he said simply. “I don’t think he should read this on a report.”

She nodded. She agreed.

Looking away from her, Lee sighed. “You don’t make this easy,” he said with a frown. “Kara we don’t have a lot of options, but we have more than most. You’re the best fighter in the fleet, and if we ask I think Salik may be able to get you clearance to… stop the pregnancy.”

He still wasn’t looking at her. That was good, because she could only imagine what she must look like. End the pregnancy? Aside from being illegal, it was… she didn’t even know what. It went against every belief she held. She might not be devout in her observance of her faith, but it was there all the same. She had fallen back on it more than once, and one of the foundations of that faith was that all life had meaning. She might not have asked to create one, but this tiny life was her responsibility. She couldn’t just… end it. It wasn’t a mistake that could be erased.

“No,” she said firmly. Whatever Lee wanted, she couldn’t go along with this solution. She didn’t think he could get it cleared anyway – not with human life at such a priority in the fleet – but even if he could she wouldn’t accept it.

Lee looked at her for just a moment, then crossed the room in two strides and took her face in his hands. He looked at her for a long moment, as though he were searching for something. He looked so intense. He must have found what he needed, because with a look of relief he leaned towards her and joined his lips to hers in a hard kiss. It took her a moment to get past the intensity and find the emotion beneath, but once she did she was able to enjoy just having him close to her again. She hadn’t realized just how far apart from him she’d felt until he’d brought them back together.

Lee kissed her. And kissed her. And when he felt like he wanted to lift his head, he kissed her some more. There weren’t words for what he was feeling, so it was all he had to give.

Lords, he’d been afraid to even suggest such a thing, but knowing Kara as he did he hadn’t been entirely sure she could survive a few months out of the sky. He had hoped, but he hadn’t been sure. This just wasn’t ground they’d covered before, and he was caught between what he wanted and what he thought she would want; between his beliefs and what he thought hers were. For all they knew about one another, there were some things they hadn’t broached. This was a subject that they hadn’t managed to cover, and it was hard to do when it hit so close to his heart.

Finally, he raised his head and met her eyes again. He saw an understanding there that he hadn’t expect, and an agreement as well. “I had to ask,” he explained.

She smiled at him. It was the first smile he’d seen since all this had begun. “I didn’t plan this,” she told him softly. “But did you really think I could…? Lee, it’s your baby.”

He closed his eyes as her words knocked the wind out of him. His baby. Not just a pregnancy, but a child they had created. Until she had said the words, he hadn’t thought she realized it. He hadn’t realized how much it meant to him that she understood. “So, how do you think we should explain this to my father?” he asked as he returned her smile.

“Carefully?” she suggested.

“Very,” he agreed. As he sat down next to her he took a chance and pulled her into his arms. When she didn’t resist, another of the fears he’d held was released. This was still Kara. She didn’t hate him for this, even though a part of him felt that she had a right to do just that.

“How mad do you think he’ll be?” she asked softly.

He tightened his hold on her, enjoying the way that her arms had gone around him and her head was resting on his shoulder. “I don’t think he will be,” Lee said thoughtfully. “He’s all for the continuation of the race. I don’t think he’ll mind a grandchild.”

Kara was quiet for a moment. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. I was just thinking that I’m out of the air.”

“It’s not like you’re useless,” Lee told her as he reluctantly pulled back. He wanted to hold her, and it seemed to soothe something inside him that she was allowing it, but he needed to see her face. “Kara, you are the best pilot we have, but we can also use that in other capacities. You can still train pilots in the simulator, and you’re as good at putting pieces of Vipers back together as any of Tyrol’s crew. And pregnancy isn’t permanent, either. After the baby’s born, we’ll go from there. You’ll fly again, just… not for awhile.”

“I know,” she said on a sigh. “But, you know what it feels like to be grounded, even for a short time.”

Lee’s hand went instinctively to his leg, where a Cylon blaster had taken out a large furrow of skin and muscle. It had been a long recovery, and he’d been grounded for the better part of a year. While he’d never had to search for work – CAG duties included enough paperwork to keep him busy for twice the hours he had to dedicate to them – he hadn’t felt that he’d been doing his job. He really didn’t need to fly at all, but he wanted to and because he made the schedules he had the option. “Yeah, I do,” he agreed. “But life went on without it, even when I wasn’t sure I’d get to do it again. You’ll get through this.”

“But what if…?”

“What?”

“What if I don’t want to fly afterwards?” she asked softly. “Sharon could have gone back on the rosters months ago, but she wants to stay on the Galactica. She’s not… the same as she was.”

Lee nodded. “She’s a mother,” he reasoned. “She wants to stay close to her son.”

“She’s a good mom,” Kara said softly, and then she turned wide, troubled eyes towards him. “Do you think I’ll be good at it?”

He had to smile. Kara could do anything she put her mind to. “I think you’ll be great at it.”

She shook her head. “Lee, I don’t even remember my mother. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to do this.”

He almost made it the joke he believed it was, but there was something serious in her eyes that told him she wasn’t just being silly. She really was worried. “You remember my mom,” he told her even as he reached for her hand. “Maybe I’m a little bit questionable, but I think she did a pretty good job with you and Zak.”

Kara shook her head. “I’m not great with kids, but I guess I could manage one. But children don’t come out walking and talking. It’s the baby part that worries me. I don’t know how to take care of one; what to do or not to do. Lee, I might hurt it.”

Squeezing her hands gently, he finally recognized what he saw in her eyes. It hadn’t registered before, because it wasn’t an expression she often showed. Kara was afraid. She had certainly been afraid before, but thankfully not when Lee was there to see it. It boggled his mind even as it tugged at his heart. “So, we make sure that before you have the baby we get you some… training. We have a couple of daycare centers aboard, so you can visit there and learn the basics. There’s plenty of babies there to feed and hold.” He smiled widely as he looked into her uncertain face. “And change,” he added.

“We’ll make that your job,” she said dryly.

“Maybe.”

She sat there looking at him, not saying anything, but at least the fear had receded from her expression. She was thinking now, rather than panicking. It reassured him, because his Kara had always been practical and reasoning, even if she tended to react to situations emotionally before her logic kicked in. She was settling down. Until the relief hit him, he hadn’t realized how worried he had been.

“When are we going to tell your dad?” she asked.

“We’d better do it tonight,” he said thoughtfully. “I think he’s off at eighteen hundred. We’re off an hour after that, so how about we meet here and then go see him together.”

“Great, something to look forward to,” she said bitterly.

“I could tell him myself,” Lee offered. “But I’d really rather we did this together. I mean, we did the rest together.”

“We did that,” she admitted, and he saw part of a smile slip through.

He reached up to tuck long blond bangs back behind her ear. She never seemed to find time to get her hair cut. It didn’t get really long, but it was always in her face before she got around to having someone trim it for her. He loved it. He loved her. “At least we had a good time,” he said with a wink.

“No argument there,” she agreed.

He wanted to hold her again, or maybe kiss her, but he knew that the way he was feeling now he wouldn’t be able to stop at that. A soft and gentle Kara wasn’t something he got to see very often, and it did something to him that he didn’t understand. He loved her independence, but a part of him still wanted for her to need him just a little. When she did, it squeezed his heart almost painfully. It was a hell of a feeling; he wanted her to need him, but it worried him when she did.

“You need to eat,” he finally told her as he looked away and took his hand back. She was too potent this way, and he didn’t know if he could resist temptation much longer. “It’ll be a long shift with a growling stomach.”

“I’m not hungry,” she complained.

Lee stood up and walked over to the desk, grabbing the cloth-wrapped sandwich he had left there earlier and handing it to her. “If you can keep it down, you need to eat,” he said again. “You’re eating for two now,” he added with a smile that he couldn’t contain.

He was almost fast enough to avoid the pillow she threw at him. Almost. As it was, the pillow hit him in the back as he tried to get out the door. He was half-way down the main Galactica corridor before he finally stopped laughing.

Chapter 4

Kara was fairly sure that if she had had the opportunity, she would have chosen to do anything else in the world rather than what she was planning to do. She might as well have been going in front of a firing squad as preparing to speak to a man whom she’d known for nearly as long as she could remember. She would have preferred the squad, she decided, to the uncertainty of how he would respond.

“Ready?” Lee asked as he prepared to knock on his father’s door.

“No,” she answered honestly. “But do it anyway.”

Shaking his head, he did. The wait wasn’t long. Rather than calling them in as he usually did, William Adama opened the door and stood there looking at them for a moment with a strange expression. She expected him to invite them in, but instead he simply asked, “What’s wrong?”

Her jaw dropped. Lee laughed, albeit very tensely. And Kara finally let herself relax a bit. After all, it wasn’t like he’d disown his only living son. Would he? She decided abruptly that perhaps relaxation wasn’t the right way to go.

“Nothing,” Lee said with a shrug. He gave her a sideways glance, and then faced his father. “Everything?”

“Come in,” William invited.

Kara’s stomach rolled over as he ushered them into his room and gestured to the bed. Lee waited until she’d sat down before he joined her, and they both wound up facing the eldest Adama as he took the single chair in the room. She hoped that Lee had some clue as to what he was going to say, because she couldn’t have spoken if her life had depended on it.

“So, are you getting married or having a baby?” the Commander asked simply.

“Damn,” Lee said in clear amazement. Kara felt the same way, but she wasn’t getting any words out. She wasn’t even forming coherent thoughts. Lords, how did he do that?

The Commander laughed. “Well, it isn’t often that the two of you show up at my door together,” he explained, although neither she nor Lee had voiced the question. “If it was related to duty, you would have come to me in CIC, and if it wasn’t involving both of you, I doubt you’d come together.” He looked at them a moment more, and with his amusement, Kara felt the knot in her stomach loosen considerably. “So which is it?”

Lee didn’t answer. Kara waited, looking from one man to the other and getting progressively more annoyed with the both of them.

“I’m pregnant,” she finally said, more to break the silence than to answer the question which was still hanging in the air as though visible.

Adama’s smile, which hadn’t faltered even in the long silence, widened even more. Kara searched his expression for the condemnation she’d been expecting, but she didn’t find it. If anything, there was real excitement in his eyes. “When are you due?” he asked.

Kara looked at Lee, who was staring at her as though she had grown antlers, and finally smiled herself. “I have no idea,” she admitted.

“Doctor Salik didn’t do much more than the test after she got sick,” Lee explained. “He’d already drawn some blood, so I guess he had what he needed from that. Did he say anything about coming back?” Lee asked, and this question was directed at her.

“Not specifically,” she told them. “He said to check with Cassie when I was feeling better, but I haven’t been back down to Life Station.”

“I suggest you do that,” the Commander said. “If I’m going to be a grandfather, I’d like to know the details.”

Lee had finally relaxed enough to smile, and while Kara felt a world better she was still confused. “You’re not mad?” she asked Adama with more than a touch of wonder.

“Why would I be?” he asked.

Kara stared. How far off base had she been?

“It’s not as though I didn’t know,” he told her softly. “Or at least have some idea, although it’s not something I like to dwell on. I can’t say that I expected it, but I’m not upset about it.”

Kara felt as though a weight had been lifted from her. When Lee’s hand slid into hers, she knew that he was feeling the same relief.

“I take it you’re off the flight roster?” the Commander asked, glancing over at Lee when Kara didn’t immediately answer.

“Yes, Sir,” Lee said. “And I’m sure you’ll see her name on Salik’s report in the morning. He warned me that he had to report all pregnancies.”

“So, are you in the bays or on paperwork patrol?”

Kara smiled at the question. “So far I’m in the bays. There’s always more than enough to get done on the planes.”

“And as you get bigger?” he asked with a smile.

“I hadn’t thought about that,” Lee said with concern. “You won’t be able to slide around under Vipers indefinitely.”

“Oh no you don’t,” she said with a glare at Lee. “You are not pawning your paperwork off on me. I’m not CAG, and it’s not my job.”

“Well, if I’m pulling your flights,” Lee began to argue.

“Not in this lifetime!” she declared. “I hate paperwork.”

“And I don’t?” he asked.

“It’s your job.”

“I assign the jobs!”

Before Kara could get worked up into any significant irritation, William Adama began laughing. Lee looked over at his father, and then joined him. After a moment more, Kara gave in and laughed about it herself.

“At the very least you sound married,” the older man said as he wiped away tears of mirth.

But the comment brought Kara up short. “That’s not something we’ve talked about,” she admitted.

“We’ve only known for a couple of days,” Lee explained.

“You’ve been living together for a year,” Adama remarked, but there was no real accusation in his voice. “Let me know what you decide.”

“We didn’t…” Kara began.

Lee cut her off. “We will, Dad. Right now we’re just taking it a step at a time.”

“That’s the best way,” William agreed.

The discussion moved on to other things, but Kara’s mind never entirely left the expression on William Adama’s face when he’d mentioned how long she and Lee had lived together. They hadn’t been lovers all that time, but nonetheless they had been a couple for most of it. She had thought about it more often since finding out about the pregnancy, but only then did it really register what people might think. She told herself that it didn’t matter, but she wasn’t sure if she was trying to justify it in her mind for others, or to herself.

It had been a good evening.

Lee now lay beside Kara on their bed. She’d just gotten out of the shower, and her body was still moist and just a little chilled. As usual, she’d dived under the covers and snuggled in close to get warm. Unlike their usual routine, neither was tired enough to sleep. As far as work had gone, the day had been pure routine. And while Lee had been more than a little worried about talking to his father, the resulting conversation had left him more excited than fatigued. Just as it had been when he and Kara had become involved, his father’s blessing had meant a lot. No, it hadn’t been a deciding factor, but knowing that his father approved was important to him.

Absently, Lee trailed his hand up Kara’s bare leg, past regulation military issue underpants and up beneath her undershirt. His hand rested on the warmth of her stomach, just below her navel. She didn’t feel any different. He’d had his hands on her a thousand times, and her body felt no larger, no softer, no… different.

“What?” she asked softly as her hand covered his on her stomach.

“Just… thinking.”

“About?” she prompted.

He smiled. “You. Me. The baby that’s in there,” he said quietly. “Can you… feel it?”

She gave him a smile. “All I feel is you tickling me,” she replied. “No, it doesn’t feel any different. I think that’s one reason it doesn’t seem real yet.”

“Maybe.” Lying beside her, he stroked her stomach gently, then moved his hand to bend down and place a gentle kiss where it had been. “Do think it’s a boy or girl?

Kara seemed to consider that. “I hope it’s a boy,” she finally said. “I don’t think I’d know what to do with a girl.”

“You were a girl,” he reminded her.

“Only by birth,” she told him with a smack to his arm. “Your folks raised me the same way they raised you and Zak. I was just another boy.”

With a grin up at her, Lee trailed his hand further up beneath her shirt, stroking one breast. “You were definitely not another boy,” he told her with a wink. “You turned out just as female as anyone ever was.”

“Cute,” she remarked, but her hand had gone to cover his. “How about you? Boy or girl?”

Lee considered. When he had thought of children, albeit in some distant future that had included not only Kara but a planet, and home, and a yard with trees to climb, Lee had always pictured little mini-Karas; Blond hair, hazel eyes, and a penchant for getting into trouble. Now that he thought about it, he really didn’t know much about girls either. Boys would certainly be easier to understand and relate to, but there was something seductive about the thought of more Karas in the world. “It doesn’t matter,” he said softly. “But a girl wouldn’t be so bad. We’d figure it out.”

“Maybe,” she allowed. “I guess we get what we get. Wonder how soon Salik will be able to figure out which it is?”

“Do you want to know?”

She shrugged, her fingers threading through his where they remained on her chest. “I think I do. I want to be as prepared as I can be. I’m going to get enough surprises along the way. Why, don’t you?”

“I guess,” he said. “It’ll make picking a name easier.”

“A name,” she said thoughtfully. “That’s going to be fun.”

“Sharon and the Chief fought over names for weeks,” he told her. “It got pretty nasty there for a while.”

“We’ll probably do the same thing,” she admitted.

“Maybe. But, if it’s a boy…”

“What?”

He shook his head. He hadn’t meant to say anything. In fact, the thought had been pure passing fancy, and he hadn’t even realized he’d spoken until she’d gotten an intent look as she watched him. “Nothing.”

“Not nothing,” she corrected. “Spill it. I know that expression. It’s your ‘I’m afraid she’s gonna be mad so I’m not going to say it’ expression, and it won’t fly. If it’s a boy, what?”

He took a deep breath and let it out before bringing his eyes back to hers. “Zak might be a nice name,” he finally said. “If it doesn’t bother you. But if it does…”

“I think Zak would be a great name,” she interrupted. “It’s okay to remember him, Lee, and I think that would be a great way. He deserves to be remembered.”

Lee nodded, then laid his head on the pillow as he continued to stroke Kara’s body. He wasn’t really thinking as he did it, but instead was just enjoying the soft skin and warm resilience of her flesh.

“Do you think your dad would be okay with Iilya as a girl’s name?” Kara asked quietly.

Lee smiled. “I think he’d love it,” he admitted.

“That was too easy,” she muttered. “Tyrol and Sharon snapped at each other for a month before they settled on names.”

“We have a more common past,” Lee reasoned. “The same people were important to both of us. I guess that makes it easier.”

At some point during the discussion, Kara had joined him in the gentle petting and playing that they’d always enjoyed. Some nights it led to making love, and others it just served as pure entertainment on both sides. Lee wasn’t sure which way tonight would go, but it didn’t matter.

He’d been reluctant to suggest anything in the past couple of days. Aside from Kara’s frequent illnesses, he still held on to the feeling that this was what had gotten them into their situation in the first place. While no one seemed to have a problem with it, he was still a lot more traditional in many ways than he’d thought. He’d been taught that things were supposed to occur in order: love, marriage, and then baby. He had never been one to get things out of order so badly before.

“Kara?”

“Hmm?” she answered, her hands doing a bit more exploring than he was able to ignore. Apparently, if she was holding him responsible for her current physical state, she wasn’t holding it against him.

But he didn’t have a clue how to ask what he wanted to. He wasn’t even sure if he should. In general, when things were going well, it wasn’t a good idea to rock the boat. This might be the equivalent of a tidal wave, and he didn’t know if he should even be thinking in that direction.

“What?” she prompted, her hand coming to a stop about four inches above where he really would have liked it to be. He’d gotten himself into this. He supposed he might as well follow through.

He leaned up on one elbow so that he could face her, eye to eye. He watched her expression for a moment, just a little confused but not upset, and he tried to will her to understand his next words. It wasn’t sensible, but then neither was the suggestion. “Marry me.”

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected as a reaction. He would have liked for her to throw her arms around him and squeal her delight. That wasn’t Kara, but it was a nice thought. He would have settled for a simple ‘yes’ or even a desire to think about it, which seemed more in keeping with her personality. He was half afraid she’d slap him, although why he had no idea. Instead, she merely looked at him. Minutes dragged by, and her expression was completely unreadable, as though time had come to a halt and he was the only one still living in real-time. For a moment, he even thought that maybe he hadn’t said anything. He’d heard the words, hadn’t he? Had she?

“Why?”

Of all the reactions, her simple question asked after so many minutes of silence threw him off balance. “Why?”

“That’s what I asked. Why?”

He shrugged. “The usual reasons, I guess. I love you. We’re good together.”

“And I’m pregnant,” she concluded.

“I’m not asking because of that,” he explained. “Or in spite of it. I just… I don’t know. Maybe I want to make this legal. I won’t deny that I’d like my child to have my name, but that’s not why I asked.”

“Fair enough,” she agreed, in a tone that was far too reasonable for the emotions that were beginning to course through him. “Then, why now?”

He took a deep breath, let it out explosively, and scooted back from her. “Hell if I know,” he muttered. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“So don’t get mad because I’m taking a minute to catch up,” she warned him, and at least there was something besides the damned logic that he’d heard before. “You’ve always said the piece of paper didn’t matter. I’m just asking what changed? If it’s not the baby, then what?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, rolling onto his back and crossing his arms reflexively. He should have known this was a really bad idea. But he hadn’t planned it; it had just slipped out.

“Lee, don’t get mad. Hell, I didn’t even answer yet.”

“I noticed,” he ground out. “Forget I asked.”

Kara was silent again, but now she was on the opposite side of the narrow bed, and that was a telling thing as there wasn’t much space to choose from. He was surprised how much it hurt. No, he hadn’t really expected her to jump into his arms – he had hoped, but not expected it – but neither had he expected her to analyze his motives. And it stung that she would, and it bothered him that she still hadn’t answered, although at least she hadn’t told him ‘no’ outright, and he supposed he should be glad for that. But he wasn’t. He had just asked her to marry him, to live with him forever and raise children and all the rest, and she wanted to know why? Well hell, if she couldn’t figure it out after being together this long, then there was no point in trying to explain it to her.

“So you’re taking it back?” she asked softly. There was something in her voice that bothered him, but he was a little too involved in feeling miserable to care.

“I don’t care either way,” he lied. “Take it or leave it or ignore it. Do whatever the hell you want; you will anyway.”

He knew he wasn’t giving her a chance. Frak, he was being absolutely petulant, even if he didn’t seem to be able to stop it. He knew he wasn’t being fair, or rational, or anything else that he normally was. But the bottom line was that at this moment Kara had all the control over their future, and he hated being helpless. Normally he felt that they were on equal footing, but at the moment she was way ahead and he’d put himself out there and he was just… dangling. It was as though he was at the end of a rope, and she was standing there with a knife and he didn’t know whether or not she might use it.

“Lee, look at me.”

He thought about turning his back to continue his pout, but he knew she’d just get out of bed to come face him, and then she’d be cold and he’d feel guilty, and there just wasn’t a point. He turned and faced her, certain that every fear was clear for her to see. He hadn’t felt this vulnerable since… hell, he’d never felt like this.

“I didn’t say no,” she told him softly. “I just… I don’t want you to ask because you feel obligated. The baby will have your name either way; it’s yours. You don’t have to… we don’t have to do this because of the baby.”

“It’s not about the baby, okay?” he reiterated.

“Then why now?”

“Because now is when I thought about it,” he said in exasperation. “And it sounded like a good idea at the time.

Kara reached forward and laid her hand along his cheek, stroking his lower lip with her thumb. “I love you,” she told him gently.

And that helped. A lot. “I love you, too.”

“But I can’t answer you,” she told him, and he could have sworn her eyes looked awfully moist. “Lee, I’ve been engaged before, and it didn’t turn out happily ever after.”

“So this is about Zak,” he decided, wondering if his brother’s shadow would ever lift from their relationship.

“No,” she corrected. “It’s about me. When I told him yes, my reasons were… not what they should have been. You deserve better than that. So, I need some time to think. I’m sorry if that’s the wrong thing to say, but I don’t want to mess this up by saying the first thing that pops into my head, or saying what I think you want to hear without considering what it means.”

It still stung. Not just the delay – although he’d expected it – but the reference to his brother. He never liked to be reminded that Zak had had her first, if for no other reason than it made him feel utterly stupid. The concept was childish, but it hit him at odd moments like this one. He had been the big brother. He was the one that was supposed to lead the way. Instead, he felt like he was following far behind on what had become one of the most important things in his life.

“Fine,” he told her. “Let me know when you decide something.”

He closed his eyes, his arms still crossed over his chest, doing his best to ignore Kara and his own hurting heart. Why the hell had he even brought it up? He should have known she wouldn’t understand. Hell, he didn’t even understand what had pushed the words out almost involuntarily.

“Lee?”

He took another breath, let it out, and opened his eyes to face her. “What?”

“Are you too mad to hold me?” she asked, and her voice seemed painfully soft. He went from angry to guilty in the blink of an eye, disgusted with himself and her and every other damned thing he could think of.

“Come here,” he said, opening his arms. She scooted over and wrapped her arms firmly around his body, resting her head on his chest. They lay that way for a moment before his arms tightened around her, and he let out a sigh. “I’m sorry.”

“Me, too.”

He felt her arms squeeze, and he tightened his grip. “I love you,” he said, and he didn’t know if he was saying it for her benefit or his.

“Me too,” she said again.

And for the moment, it was enough.

Chapter 5

During the next week, it wasn’t easy for Kara to forget the conversation that had started so wonderfully and wound up so very uncomfortable. Despite how far they’d come together, her loving Zak was still a barrier between herself and Lee. No, it wasn’t insurmountable, but it was there. When she least expected it, she was reminded that life wasn’t easy.

Thankfully Lee hadn’t again brought up the subject of marriage. Ironically, she wasn’t opposed to being married; she believed in marriage. She just couldn’t go through what she had when she’d lost Zak. Not again. Logically, she was well aware that being engaged to Lee wouldn’t make him mean any more or any less to her than he did now, but logic wasn’t what was guiding her. Emotion reminded her that an engagement could end in pain and loss. She couldn’t lose Lee. She didn’t think she’d survive it. She preferred to keep their relationship both unofficial and safe. If it didn’t make sense to anyone but her, then she’d have to live with it. She just wished that it hadn’t hurt Lee so much.

And he was hurt. Nothing she could say would change that. She could see it in his eyes when he looked at her, and she felt it in his embrace. He was angry, too. He didn’t touch her unless she specifically asked, which she had done more in the last week than she ever had in memory. She couldn’t even really get mad back, because when she asked he did just want she requested. She was hoping that he would get over her sidestepping an answer, and to some extent she supposed he had, but the distance was still there.

In any case she didn’t have a lot of time to think about it. Staying busy wasn’t an issue. While she was fairly sure his father had been joking about the matter, Lee had managed to shuffle over half of his paperwork in her direction. She wasn’t enjoying it. But it was easier than crawling up under Raptors and welding new parts. Repairs she could manage, but building from scratch was out of her league and she knew it.

So her days had been spent divided between the desk up in CIC and the flight deck. Unlike Lee, she preferred not to use the isolated desk in their room. They still hadn’t made public the fact that she was pregnant, but Kara was sure that there were those with their suspicions. A visit to Cassie in the Life Station had set her up with an appointment the following week to find out just when she was due and make sure that all her blood was still as it should be. Kara hadn’t decided if she was going to take Lee with her or not. She supposed she should, but in his present mood she wasn’t all that relaxed having him around. On the other hand, he really had a right to be there and she wasn’t much more relaxed when he was not around. She had no clue what to do about it.

At the moment, the only thing she was managing was to mess up the performance evaluation roster. They were no longer evaluating on the same schedule that they had used in peacetime, but performance ratings still had to be issued to maintain some type of quality control. No one liked the evaluator duties, and they liked even less to be evaluated themselves, but she had to assign someone. Still, coordinating that roster with the flight roster, and the repair roster, and still making sure that everyone had time to rest and eat… Well, it was getting on her nerves.

And the computers she was using to coordinate it all were up on the second level of CIC consoles. That meant that Tigh was roaming around below her, and she was damned sure that Adama had told him about the baby. There was just something in his look that was… suspicious. Kara didn’t trust it.

“Everything balancing out?” Dee asked her as the dark-haired woman stood to take some paperwork from her own station.

“Not even close,” Kara grumbled. “No wonder Lee passed this off to me.”

Dee laughed at that. “He gripes about it, too,” she admitted. “I offered to do that for him if he’d relay reports for a few hours. He decided that he’d rather do paperwork. I can offer you the same…”

“Hell, no,” Kara said with a smirk. “All the salutes would make me nuts.”

“Then quit complaining,” Dee advised.

“Right.”

“Have you eaten?” Dee asked. “Or are you meeting Lee?”

“He’s on patrol,” Kara said. “He won’t be back until late.”

“Argument?” she asked. Leave it to a married woman to come up with that assumption out of nowhere.

Kara shook her head. “Not exactly. Just… a difference of opinion. Anyway, he’s covering his shift and mine, so he just stuck them back-to-back. He likes the long flights, so it wasn’t a big deal.”

“You want to stretch your legs?” Dee asked. “After I drop these off I’m going to grab lunch.”

Kara thought for a moment. It had not been one of her better mornings, so she could probably use something to eat. “Okay. Let me finish here, and I’ll meet you on the way out.”

“Five minutes?”

“Sounds good,” Kara agreed.

While Dee was doing her few errands, Kara closed up the program she was using and saved it to her clipboard. She didn’t mind the inconvenience that not having a network caused, but there were times that she felt it would be easier to just keep everything on one computer instead of carrying some and leaving the rest. But CIC needed a record of everything, so each of their boards had to be hooked up manually and downloaded periodically. It was just one of those things that she did without really considering it.

She felt a twinge in her side as she stood, and winced as she felt a tug in her lower abdomen. That was weird, she thought. Not painful, but just… strange. She dismissed the feeling as she walked down the steps to the first deck of CIC and met Dee at the door.

They chatted a bit as they walked to the Dining Hall. Once there, each of them ordered a sandwich and waited while it was prepared. Kara much preferred this to the synthetic nutritional supplements that they’d eaten for the first months of their journey. Once at the table, she and Dee were soon joined by Sharon and Julie, who were two of the Raptor pilots that remained in Blue Squadron even though they chose not to fly any longer. Lee hadn’t had the heart to relegate them out to flight control permanently; they were part of the squadron, even if they weren’t actively flying. Sharon stayed on the Galactica because she had a toddler to care for, and Julie simply had lost her liking for the Raptors after one electrical malfunction too many. They were still important members of the team, though. Sharon managed the repair rosters on the Raptors and Vipers, and Julie helped out in the launch bays and in traffic control. It wasn’t always easy to coordinate launches and landings so that someone was always in the air, and yet none of the spacecraft connected, but so far they’d managed to avoid space collisions with their military craft. Some of the civilian ships hadn’t been so fortunate.

While they were eating, the subject came up of Kara’s recent grounding. “When is Lee going to put you back in the air?” Sharon asked between mouthfuls of sandwich.

“It’ll be awhile,” Kara said evasively. She and Lee hadn’t really discussed telling others, so she wasn’t sure just what to say.

“Tyrol still mad about you puking in his plane?” Sharon asked with a wink. Once they’d gotten past the imminent danger of asphyxiation, most of the crew had found it pretty funny that the almighty Starbuck had lost her cookies over a flight.

“Not exactly,” Kara admitted, deciding that she might as well get it over with. “I’m just out of the cockpit for awhile.”

“You get into trouble?” Julie asked with concern. “How long are you grounded for?”

“Nine months, definitely,” Kara said sheepishly. “After that, we’ll take it as it comes.”

The table was silent for just a moment as the implication of her statement settled in, and then squeals of congratulations and a hundred questions started coming her way. Truthfully, Kara didn’t mind. It was good to see someone excited about the situation, even if it wasn’t her. Lee had started out that way, but the whole marriage discussion seemed to have tempered his enthusiasm for just about everything. It was nice to have someone happy for her, even if it was just casual friends.

“I have a ton of things you can use,” Sharon was saying. “Baby things aren’t too easy to come by, so I tucked them away when Aaron grew out of them.”

“That would be great,” Kara admitted, only now realizing just how many things they would need to acquire for the new arrival.

“Will you fly afterwards?” Dee asked.

“Yes,” Kara answered quickly.

“I couldn’t do it,” Sharon admitted sheepishly. “I’m scared to death to leave the baby. I guess that’s just me.”

“I can understand it,” Kara said. “I just can imagine how I’ll feel. Well,” she admitted honestly, “Maybe I can’t, but it’s still pretty new.”

None of them seemed to think she was the least bit selfish or out of line because she was needing time to get used to the idea of motherhood. They weren’t condemning or attacking her. It was kind of nice actually, because they seemed to have some of the same concerns without her fear added in. It made her feel a little less selfish.

They talked through most of lunch, then Dee and Julie headed back to work. While Sharon and Kara were clearing the table, her friend asked the one question that Kara had been dreading. “How’s Lee taking it?”

Kara shrugged. “Okay at first. Now… I don’t know.”

“Getting nervous?” Sharon asked with a wink. “You play, you pay.”

“No,” Kara admitted. “He was okay with the baby. He is okay with it, but…” She took a deep breath before continuing. Most of her heart-to-heart conversations had been with Lee, so it was hard to open up to anyone else. Checking to be sure that they weren’t within earshot of anyone she knew, she told Sharon, “He asked me to marry him.”

Sharon’s eyes widened in surprise and… delight. “Oh, Kara that’s wonderful! Are you going to do it before the baby’s born, or wait until afterwards so you can have some time to plan it?”

“I didn’t say yes,” Kara corrected softly. Sharon’s face fell, and it might have been funny if it hadn’t reminded Kara of the way Lee had looked. She hastened to add, “I didn’t say no, I just… I don’t know. It’s all happening so fast. I can’t even sort it all out.”

“Is that why you two are never in the same place at the same time, now?” Sharon asked.

“I think… I guess I hurt his feelings or something. Lords, it isn’t even about him. I tried to explain that, but he just shut down.”

Sharon smiled sadly. “Men do that,” she said wisely. “But it’s usually our fault. We know what we’re thinking, but they can’t read our minds. And they think… differently. You need to sit him down and just talk to him. Let him know you love him. You do love him, right?” Sharon asked with concern.

At that, Kara did smile. “Yeah, I do.”

Sharon’s smile returned. “So tell him, and then keep telling him until it gets through that thick male skull. And remember, they’re fragile. Those tough-guys don’t have a clue how soft their hearts are, and they bruise really easily. I’ve sure bruised Tyrol more than his fair share, and usually when I least intended it.”

“Like when?”

“Like… over the baby’s name. He wanted Aaron, and just threw it out there. I kinda shrugged it off because it seemed pretty silly. He didn’t tell me it was his dad’s name, and I didn’t think to ask why he’d suggested it, so I couldn’t figure out why the hell he didn’t speak to me for a week.” She shook her head with a smile. “Marriage is an adventure. But you know that.”

“I’m not married.” Kara argued.

Sharon shook her head and her smile faded. “Yeah, you are. You just don’t have the paper and you haven’t had a priest give approval. Everything you do and everything you say, it’s all just what you’d do if you had a ring on your finger. It’s not different, Kara. Not at all.”

“It feels different,” Kara argued. “Marriage just seems so… permanent.”

“And a baby isn’t?”

“That isn’t what I mean,” Kara said. “I want it to be permanent. I can’t ever imagine being without him.”

“And that’s what you need to tell him,” Sharon told her pointedly.

“I already have.”

Sharon shook her head in exasperation. “Then do it again, and again, and again until he gets it straight. Kara, he feels the same way. It’s so damned obvious that it’s almost comical. He literally lights up when you’re around, or even when you’re not and someone just mentions you. Men just don’t know how to say that so that we understand it. Or maybe they do,” she corrected. “He asked you to marry him. Isn’t that telling you?”

“I didn’t say no,” Kara reiterated in frustration.

“You didn’t have to,” Sharon explained. “You didn’t say yes.”

Lee checked the minimal instrumentation in the Viper and mentally compared it to the stars around him. By necessity, Vipers carried little in the way of scanning devices. It was one reason that a Raptor usually accompanied squadrons. The pilots could worry about the fighting, while the Raptor kept back out of the way and made sure that the Viper pilot knew what was where. That was how they’d all been trained.

But at the moment, the Galactica was in possession of nearly forty Vipers and only six Raptors. Between the fuel issues and the lack of replacement parts, their Raptors were reserved for times when jumping was necessary. For routine patrols, they had to use Vipers. Unfortunately, using them for long distance reconnaissance was a time-consuming solution at best. Long patrols were three and a half hours out, turn, and four hours back. By the time a pilot made it back for a shower and some sleep, he was ready to drop over.

But here Lee was. It wasn’t his patrol. Hell, technically it wasn’t supposed to be a long patrol. But his shift had backed up to one that Kara had been scheduled for, so he’d added the four-hour flights together and was making a solo distance search of the area surrounding the Galactica. To make matters worse, he was doing it without a wingman, which he would have forbidden anyone else to do. But at the time he’d been angry, and getting as far from the Galactica as humanly possible had seemed to be a damned fine idea.

Now, four hours into the patrol, he really wished he’d found another way to deal with being mad at her. If he was mad. Hell, he didn’t know what he was. How was he supposed to feel when the woman he was in love with – the woman who was having his child – didn’t want to marry him? She had been perfectly willing to marry Zak, but she wouldn’t marry him. What was wrong with that picture?

Lee didn’t often think about his brother in relation to Kara anymore. They had used to be almost one in his head – Kara and Zak, Zak and Kara. Probably because they had never been seen apart off duty. The funny part – the really hysterical part – was that Lee had not been able to understand what it the world Zak had seen in Kara. Sure, she’d been a pilot, and a damned fine one at that. And yes, she’d been attractive, but no more or less than any other girl that was common around the Academy. And yeah, she’d been fun, but again no more than anyone else. In fact, she’d been a little too much fun for Lee’s tastes. She’d been more interested in having a good time than getting work done, and the only time she’d been really serious had been in the seat of a Viper. He had liked Kara, and had respected her on duty, but he hadn’t understood what the younger man had seen in her to have him head-over-heels.

Now, Lee knew. He knew how much life was in those huge eyes that were never the same color twice. He knew how much humor was in her, and how she could bring his spirits back up after even the longest mission, the worst news, or the hardest task. He knew how soft she was, and warm, and sweet. He knew how perfectly she fit him, physically and mentally and even professionally. He knew her. And for some reason, it was that knowing that bothered him when he thought about Kara and his brother as a couple. Again, it wasn’t something he did often, but unfortunately it was on his mind now.

Lee could remember when Zak had told him that he had planned to propose. Lee had laughed it off, thinking that Kara would never say yes. Kara? Married? She had been the most independent person he had ever known. Even when she was with Zak – and at the time they’d been nearly inseparable – she had kept a wall around herself. It had always amazed Lee how she did it. Zak had been closer to her than anyone, and yet even he never seemed to get too close. Lee had actually been worried about his younger brother’s feelings when Zak had shown him the ring and told what he was scheming. Lee had only hoped that Kara broke his heart… gently.

The next morning, Zak had been smiling from ear to ear, Kara had been shy for the first time in Lee’s memory, and on her left hand there had been the small but obvious diamond ring that Zak had shown him. She’d said yes. She hadn’t thought about it, or questioned it… she had just said yes. Then, for the next six months, she and Zak had been even more inseparable than they’d been before.

Gradually, Lee had gotten used to the idea of having Kara as a sister. It wasn’t too far off from what he’d grown up with, although he had still shaken his head at Zak’s choice. To Lee, Kara had been one of the guys. You didn’t marry one of the guys. And you certainly didn’t have sex with one! That hadn’t really been a path that Lee let his mind drift down often. It had been pretty easy to avoid. While Zak had kept his hands on Kara most of the time, she hadn’t really returned the gestures. Lee had thought she’d been just naturally reserved, but now that he considered it, he realized that there might have been more to it.

Come to think of it, Kara was usually the first to initiate contact between Lee and herself now. She was always reaching for his hand, putting an arm around him, and lately even asking for hugs. Verbally. Had she changed that much? Or had there been a message then that he had been missing? Maybe she had just grown up. Most likely, she had just done the same thing that Lee had, and had realized that life was too short to spend it alone.

But wasn’t that what she was saying if she didn’t want to marry him? He had thought that her pregnancy just might nudge her in his direction, but it hadn’t happened. Not exactly. And yet neither had it really pushed her away; not if he was honest with himself. He had done that. He had pushed because for the first time in recent memory, they hadn’t been thinking the same thing at the same time with regards to their relationship. He had gotten used to staying in sync with her in the past few months, and had developed the illusion that maybe their disagreements were in the past. And while it seemed almost childish to him now, at the time had had been suffering from both surprise and a seriously bruised ego. After nearly five hours on a patrol with no one to talk to and nothing to think of beyond his present situation, her rejection didn’t seem quite so permanent. That or he was getting used to it. Either way it was probably a good thing.

Lee checked the chronometer on the display and saw that he was only an hour from the Galactica. He had been wandering around in his own mind for hours. Where had the time gone? He was right on schedule, both by the instruments and the stars, so the time must have been right. It worried him slightly that he’d been so absorbed in his own thoughts for so long. He’d been essentially on autopilot, and that wasn’t procedure for a solo flight. It wasn’t really procedure for any flight. He needed to get his head out of his ass, or he was going to get himself into trouble.

Half an hour later, he began to get some voice traffic between the fleet ships. The sporadic chatter after hours of silence was a relief. He never really felt cut-off in his Viper, but there was a certain amount of isolation that was inevitable. He could admit to relief that he was nearing the fleet. And if it also meant that he’d be seeing Kara soon, then he didn’t mind that either.

They had parted on fairly good terms that morning, all things considered. He’d gotten up early, gone for a run, and showered. But he was still dressing when she had gotten up. He had given her a quick kiss, and then Lee had taken off out of the room like a shot. Warm and soft from sleep, Kara was damned tempting, and it had been too long since they had done much more than cuddle. He supposed that was as much his fault as anything, but it didn’t change the fact that her sleepy smile had a predictable effect on his anatomy, and he hadn’t wanted to spend eight hours uncomfortable in a Viper.

He was regretting his haste now. Would it have been so hard to have just held her for a minute before he’d left? Did she miss that as much as he did? Probably, given that she was asking for him now and she’d never done that before. Then again, he’d usually been so close that she hadn’t had reason. Either it was that, or they were simply so far apart mentally on the one issue – marriage – that she didn’t trust him to be with her on anything else. That thought worried him. He wanted to be there for her. He wanted her to be there for him. How in hell had it all gotten so messed up?

“Galactica, this is Viper four-one-nine, requesting approach on port landing bay.”

He waited a moment for acknowledgement. “Viper four-one-nine, this is Shooter. Welcome back. Anything we need to know prior to landing?”

“Negative,” Lee answered. “Quadrant is clear.”

“Excellent. Prepare for landing on port bay. You are cleared to land.”

With an unconscious smile, Lee maneuvered his Viper into the bay and set her down on the deck. He was shutting down systems even as the magnetic locks engaged and began to take him down into the ship. By the red glow of flashing lights, Lee cut off engines and popped the seal on his helmet. By the time the light level was normal, he had his helmet off and was releasing his cockpit so that he could pass his helmet out and grab the electronic clipboard that he needed to download his mission data and complete the remainder of his reports.

He was tired, and his back ached from being in the same position for eight hours, but he was a lot more interested in finding Kara than he was finishing his paperwork. If he had taken the time to worry about it, he might have been surprised with his distraction. He was normally far more worried about mission follow-up, and it wasn’t like him to rush through post-mission procedures, just as it hadn’t been like him to zone-out during a long patrol. But at the moment he needed to see a friendly face, and maybe this evening it would be him that was asking for the hug. Whatever happened, he knew it was time that he and Kara came to some sort of an understanding, because when his personal life started affecting his work he knew he needed to reevaluate.

Chapter 6

Kara was lying on their bed and staring at the ceiling when Lee came in. She turned her head sideways to see him, gave a small smile, and waited on his reaction before greeting him. She never knew quite what he was thinking these days, but Sharon had had a point. If she never got through Lee’s thick skull the fact that she loved him, she wouldn’t be able to get her life back on track.

“Hey,” he said, returning her smile and then pulling the hatch closed behind him. “You okay?”

“Tired,” she admitted. “You?”

“The same. Good flight, though,” he added. “No problems.”

“I’m glad.”

Lee walked over to his desk, pulled out the chair, and sat down to begin removing his boots.

“Did you eat?” she asked, sitting up on the edge of the bed.

“Not hungry,” he replied. “How about you?”

“Late lunch,” she answered.

Silence stretched between them for several moments while Lee removed his boots. Kara knew she had to say something to end it – make some overture to bridge the gap between them – but she didn’t have a clue where to start. When his boots were off, he popped buckle on his flight suit and unzipped it. She watched as he shrugged out of the top half of the suit, leaving the bottom in place while he reached around and shifted through some papers on the desk.

“Lee?” she finally said.

“Hmm?” He looked up.

“How long are you going to be mad?”

At least that stopped him. He dropped the papers, turned around to meet her eyes, and let out a long sigh. “I’m not mad,” he said. When she raised her eyebrows in a combination of denial and challenge, he clarified himself. “I’m not mad now.”

“But you were.” It wasn’t a question.

“I…” He seemed to be in thought for a minute, then he stood up and walked the few steps to the bed. He sat down next to her and took her hand in his. It was the first time he’d touched her in a week for more than a second at a time without being asked. The gesture nearly brought tears to her eyes. “I didn’t understand,” he said simply. “I still don’t, but I love you. And sometimes loving you means taking everything, even the things we don’t agree on. So I’m sorry I made such an issue out of it. You have a right to say no. I may not like it, but I should at least respect it without acting like a three-year-old.”

“I didn’t say no,” she told him softly.

“You may as well have.”

She shook her head. “You don’t understand.”

“That’s what I told you,” he said with a soft smile. “And I won’t say it doesn’t bother me a little, but I’ll deal with it.”

“What part is bothering you?” she asked in frustration. “Talk to me.”

“Why you…” He stopped, shaking his head. “It’s not important.”

“Obviously it is,” she corrected. “Lee, I know you wanted me to say yes, and I can see why you’d be upset if I’d said no, but I didn’t say anything. I just needed some time.”

“So I’ll wait,” he said with resignation.

“Why is that a problem?” she asked in annoyance. “It’s a huge decision, Lee. It’s the rest of our lives. I don’t think it’s something we should jump into. It’s not something we should do just because I’m pregnant, and it’s not something to take lightly. I can’t see how taking a few days to be sure is such a big deal when we’re talking about the next… fifty years, or whatever.”

Lee’s eyes closed, he took a breath and let it out slowly. At least he was trying to stay calm. That was something, but she didn’t know what it was that was upsetting him. Her logic seemed rock-solid to her.

“You didn’t make Zak wait,” he told her quietly. Very quietly; just barely a whisper. She wondered if he even had meant for her to hear it, because as soon as he’d said it he lowered his head and stared at the floor.

Oh Lords. Zak. Was that what this was about? “Lee?”

“Why was it so easy for you to say yes to him?” he asked carefully. “And then not say yes to me.”

“It was easy,” she admitted. “I was impetuous. I was in love, and he was so excited, and I wasn’t even really thinking about the future, or children, or anything else. I was just… so relieved that he wanted me.”

“What?”

Kara hadn’t wanted to go into this. There was a lot about her relationship with Zak that they hadn’t discussed. Part of the reason was that it was deeply personal to her – all she had left of Zak – and the rest was that she didn’t think he’d want to hear it. “I loved him, Lee. But… I don’t even really think I knew what loving was back then. I just knew I didn’t want to lose him, and if I’d said no he wouldn’t have waited. I know he wouldn’t have. He didn’t have it in him.”

“And you knew I’d wait?” he asked. The confusion was there in his voice, and there was pain there as well. She didn’t know if it was because of her, or because they were discussing his brother. Talking about Zak in the past tense was never easy.

“I loved Zak,” she said again. “I loved him as much as I knew how to do. And at the time that seemed so… big. It was exciting and fun and easy. And Lee, he was a big part of me. When I lost him, a part of me died too, and I didn’t know if I’d make it through that.”

“I know,” he said. And he did. She knew he did.

“But what you and I have… Lee, it makes what I felt then seem so small. I don’t even have words for what I feel for you. I tell you I love you – and I do – but, Lords it’s so much more than that. And sometimes I think about what I lost when Zak died, and how much of me he took with him. And Lee, if… If I lost you, there wouldn’t be anything left of me. Does that make any sense? It’s like… you’re everything to me, and that scares the hell out of me.”

Lee looked up at her, and what she saw in his eyes wasn’t exactly understanding, but it was damned close. “I need you,” he said gently. “That’s why I asked. Not because I wanted to make an issue of it, or because of the baby, or because it was the thing to do. I asked because I need you with me, and I wanted to make that official.”

“You’ve got me with you,” she told him, and frak he was going to make her cry. She took a breath and tried to keep her emotions in check long enough to get through this. His blue eyes were clear and sad, and they seemed to look right into her heart. She wanted to give him everything, but he already had it and he didn’t even know it.

“I know it’s just words,” he told her, and he looked away again even as his hands tightened around hers. “But… I want to say them, and I want you to. And that’s probably stupid, but it’s how I feel. And yes, I want to do it before our baby’s born, and if that’s selfish, then I’m sorry about that, but it’s the truth.”

How did she answer that? Why was it so hard? She looked at him a moment more, seeing honesty and something just this side of desperation. Completely at a loss for words, and not really even knowing if there were words for what she was feeling, she leaned forward and kissed him. He let go of her hand to thread his fingers through her hair and hold her head in place, and he kissed her back with the same near-panic she had seen in his eyes. Lords, she thought. He was as scared as she was; she could feel it. So she put her arms around him and held on tight, letting the kiss say what she didn’t know how to. She felt like it was a cop-out, but it was all she had. She needed to show him… something.

Several moments later, Lee pulled back. He kissed her again, gently, then took a breath. “I love you,” he whispered.

She smiled, and damn-it there were tears on her cheeks. What was the matter with her? “I love you too,” she choked out.

“And that’s enough,” he concluded.

“For now,” she requested. “Later… I don’t know. I’m having enough trouble picturing myself as a mother. Being a wife too… it’s too much right now. I’m sorry that I feel that way, but I can’t lie to you.”

“And I’m sorry,” he said, his fingers moving to tuck her hair behind one ear before his palm rested against her cheek.

“I missed you,” she said with a sniffle, wishing he’d look away long enough for her to find something to wipe her nose with.

“I missed you, too” he told her.

“Show me?” she asked softly, and then she held her breath.

Lee smiled. Wide and honest and with a gentleness that touched her to her core. “Absolutely. But I need a shower,” he admitted. She nodded, but then his grin turned roguish. “How about you coming with me?”

“While I still fit?” she asked with a wink.

His grin softened, as did his eyes. “It’ll be worth it,” he told her with a glance down at the middle of her body. She was going to try to come up with a snappy comeback, but before she could he’d reached down and placed his palm over her stomach. “It’s still hard to believe,” he said. “Every once in a while I kind of forget, and then when it hits me…”

“I know,” she agreed. “I’m still not used to it.”

“We’ll get there,” he promised.

“So, you gonna wash my back?” she asked, trying to divert the intensity of his expression.

His grin was almost devious. “I’ll wash every inch of you if you’ll give me a chance,” he told her.

“Mmm, then it’ll be my turn,” she replied, her eyes travelling from his blue eyes down to the socks on his feet, and not missing much territory in between.

He didn’t speak then, but he did stand up and tug her with him. The next hour was spent laughing and joking in a tiny shower stall, where for the first time in her life Kara forgot that the water wasn’t hot enough. She was plenty warm with Lee beside her, and around her, and in her. Afterwards they dried one another off and spent another hour loving one another in the bed before they were both too tired to do any more. When they were finally ready for sleep, Kara didn’t have to ask for him to hold her. He was already there, his arms holding her tightly, his legs tangled with hers, and his palm resting just below her navel. As she drifted into a contented sleep, her last thought was that this was how it should be. And maybe, if she could figure out how to do it, this was how it could always be.

It took Lee a moment to realize what had awoken him. He was alone. When he’d fallen asleep, he’d had himself wrapped tightly around Kara, her warm body fitting him perfectly and the tension that had existed between them finally dissolved. They might not have resolved all of their differences – he still wanted her to marry him, and she still wasn’t ready – but he had been able to realize that they had time.

At first, Lee thought it was merely her absence that had roused him from a deep sleep, but the sound that intruded on his half-waking state put an end to that thought. Kara was sick. Very sick. Again.

More than a little groggy, he stood up and walked towards the sounds of retching that were coming from the small bathroom. He’d always heard of morning sickness, but for Kara it seemed to be more “whenever” sickness. Sometimes morning, sometimes evening, and sometimes the middle of the night. Regardless of their speaking terms in the last week, he’d sat by her side more than once through this. He would be more than a little happy when this stage of pregnancy passed, for both of their sakes.

“Kara?”

All that answered was the sound of more sickness. He turned up the light in the bedroom, rather than the one in the bathroom, and then went in to get a washrag wet. He found her in the dim light that came through the bathroom door, and when she was between bouts he wiped her face with the cool cloth and offered her a drink of water. She declined, and was sick once more. Lee sat down beside her where she had knelt on the floor of the bathroom to hug the toilet, and he put an arm around her shoulders. He couldn’t really do a thing for her and he knew it, but at least he could be there. It seemed callous to sleep in a warm bed while she was on the floor throwing up.

She had been down to dry heaves for quite a while before her retching stopped. When he was relatively sure that she was finished, he rinsed out the washrag again, wiped her face, and offered her the glass of water. This time she took it, rinsed out her mouth, and gave the glass back. Once he had stood up and set the glass back on the sink, he reached his hand down to her.

She didn’t take it. In fact, she seemed to be holding on to the toilet just to remain upright. “Kara?”

“It hurts,” she told him softly.

“What does?” he asked anxiously, kneeling down at her side.

“Stomach,” she told him. She had one arm over the toilet for support, and the other wrapped around her stomach. He didn’t know why he hadn’t noticed that before. “Is it from the vomiting?” he asked.

“I don’t know. But that definitely made it worse.”

He didn’t know what to do. Was it just soreness from an abused digestive tract? Was something wrong with the baby? The pregnancy seemed to make even the simplest things more complicated. “Should I call Doctor Salik?” he asked.

She shook her head. “It isn’t bad if I don’t move,” she said.

“You can’t sleep on the floor,” he said reasonably. “I need to get you into bed. Can you walk, or should I carry you?”

“I don’t know,” she said again, and now she sounded scared.

“Kara, is it the baby?” he asked, trying to keep the fear out of his voice.

“I don’t know,” she answered.

Okay. He could handle this. The first thing was to get her comfortable, and then they could evaluate from there. He put one arm around her back and slid his other beneath her knees. The curled-up position she was in made lifting her easier even as the size of the bathroom made negotiating the space more difficult. Somehow he maneuvered her through the door and to the bed. Once he had her there, he just sat down, electing to hold her for a moment. He told himself that it was because he needed to regain his balance, but it was a pretty flimsy lie. She had him worried, and it was a hell of a lot easier for him to keep himself together when he had his arms around her.

So he held her. She stayed pretty much in a ball, not moving and not speaking. After several minutes, he couldn’t remain silent any longer. “Better or worse?”

“Better,” she said. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make a big deal out of nothing.”

“I’m not sure it’s nothing,” he told her. “I think we need to call Salik.”

She shook her head. “Maybe in the morning. Lee, I’m tired. I don’t want to spend the night on a stupid cot in Life Station just so he can tell me that I’ve been throwing up and I’m pregnant. Everyone’s sick when they’re pregnant. Don’t you remember what Sharon was like?”

Lee didn’t say anything. Yes, he remembered a lot of days when Sharon had been tired from a rough night, and he’d pulled her from the schedule more than once because she hadn’t felt well, but Sharon had never complained of pain. On the other hand, he could remember the last time he’d eaten something that hadn’t quite settled, and at the time Lee had thrown up until he thought his stomach would burst. If Kara hadn’t been pregnant, he probably wouldn’t have even been worried. But she was, and so he had to be.

“Still hurting?” he asked her.

She murmured a negative, but didn’t really answer. She was half asleep now, despite the light that was still on at full force. They never turned it all the way off – Kara hated to be in the dark – but they at least turned it down low for sleep. Lee held her just a moment more, not even sure why, and then gently transferred her to the bed. She was still curled up, and he couldn’t decide if it was because she just liked to sleep that way or because she was still hurting. Either could be the case. He turned down the light, then got into bed behind her. He put one of his arms over her and around her body, and pulled her as close as he dared. When she seemed to snuggle back into him, he relaxed a little bit. Surely she couldn’t be in any danger if she could sleep. Could she? More than a little worried, and yet telling himself he was overreacting, Lee let himself drift into an uneasy sleep.

When morning came, and with it a buzzing alarm and lingering fatigue, Lee was pleased to note that Kara seemed better. She was still moving cautiously as she got up to brush her teeth, and once more she declined their morning run. Lately he’d been going without her, but today he decided to stay close. He was worried, and he knew her. Unless he made her go to Life Station, she would blow off the night before and not bother to check with the doctor about anything.

They got ready for the day in a relaxed and comfortable silence, bumping into one another in the close quarters, apologizing with a smile when necessary. It was a normal routine for them, although they usually went through it after running several laps of the Galactica. When they were both dressed, Lee faced her and took both her hands in his to be sure that he had her attention. “We’re going to see Salik,” he told her firmly.

“Why?” she asked, and he wanted to smack her for the honest confusion in her voice. Didn’t she remember what she’d felt like the night before?

“Because you were hurting last night, and you’re still moving carefully. I want to know what’s wrong.”

“What’s wrong is that I threw up for half the night,” she informed him. “I’m just a little sore.”

“Fine, then it won’t take too long for him to confirm that.”

“Lee, we have to get to work.”

“I’m off,” he informed her. “Long patrol yesterday, remember?”

“I’m not,” she countered. “You’ve stuck me with enough paperwork to last a week.”

“Fine, then after we see the doctor, I’ll help you catch up.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “I’m fine. Lee, there’s nothing wrong.”

“As I said, then it won’t take long to get this done. Kara, I’m not dropping it. Maybe you can ignore last night, but you scared the hell out of me. I need to know that you’re okay.”

She rolled her eyes again, but at the very least she had stopped arguing. “Fine,” she muttered. “Then will you leave me alone?”

“Not a chance,” he said honestly. “But I’ll take you to breakfast.”

The look she gave him said that she wasn’t happy with the situation, but he didn’t really care. He had bad feeling about the night before, and he wouldn’t feel any better until a doctor had told him that Kara was fine.

Chapter 7

She felt like a pincushion.

Kara Thrace lay on the cot in Life Station and thought of the thousand things she’d rather be doing than having needles stuck in her arm. Lee was standing over to the side of cot, watching quietly. He hadn’t said much since he’d pushed her through the hatch into the Station and ordered her to talk to the doctor. If she hadn’t loved him so much for it she might have hit him. She hadn’t hit him in a long time; it would have felt good.

But instead she’d spoken to the tech on duty, and wished desperately that it had been Cassie. If she had to give her moans and groans to someone, she would have preferred that it was a friend rather than a stranger. Kara had been taken to the back of the empty bay where she was told to lay down on a stretcher and wait. Even as Lee had settled into a seat next to her he hadn’t said a word. The tech had come back moments later and had taken four tubes of blood out of her arm, leaving the plastic catheter from the needle in her arm, sticking some tubing on it, and taping it in place. At least Kara thought that meant she wouldn’t get stuck again; they could use the hole they’d already made. She knew he was worried, but she still felt like he was making a big deal out of nothing. And if her stomach still felt sore, then she tried not to think about it. She hated being sick.

If she was honest with herself, she was terrified that something was wrong. She had nothing more than her illness to guide her suspicions, but to her something felt… off. She wanted very much to be wrong, and coming to the doctor seemed to give a validity to her worries that she wasn’t prepared to deal with.

“Good morning,” Doctor Salik said as he walked through the bay and towards her. He wasn’t looking up, but instead was looking at the clipboard he carried. “Although from what I heard it wasn’t a good night.”

She gave a shrug and leaned up on one elbow. She didn’t want to take whatever he was going to say lying down – figuratively or literally. “I was a little sick. It happens quite a bit, and you said that was normal.”

“Occasional sickness is normal. How often are you throwing up?”

She thought about it, but didn’t get a chance to answer. “At least twice a day,” Lee said from behind her. “Sometimes just once, but usually she throws up until there’s nothing left.”

“And then I feel fine afterwards,” she added hastily, not at all pleased with Lee’s speaking for her. Damn it, she could take care of herself. And if she hadn’t felt that way last night, then she’d just get over it.

“You’ve lost almost five pounds,” the doctor commented with a raised eyebrow. “Are you keeping anything down?”

“Yes,” she answered. Frak. Kara had known when the tech had asked her to stand on the scale that she was going to be in trouble.

“Not much,” Lee added.

Salik smiled and shook his head.

Kara failed to see the humor in the situation. “You can go,” she told Lee pointedly. “The doctor’s here, and I’m sure he won’t let me run away.”

“I’ll stay,” Lee informed her.

“Actually, you’ll have a seat outside,” Salik corrected, and there was only a trace of his grin now. “I need to do an examination, and I don’t want you giving a critique. Go on out, and let Rebecca know that I’ll need some help.”

Kara was amused for the first time that morning. Lee had been put in his place, and she felt a rather vindictive pleasure that someone had the power to tell him off, even if it had been both reasonable and appropriate. But then Lee leaned over and kissed her gently on the forehead before standing to leave the room, and she couldn’t even stay aggravated with him. He was just worried. How could she fault him for the same feelings that were plaguing her?

“Now,” Salik said as Lee left the room. “Where are you hurting, and how much?”

She didn’t want to do this, but now that she was here she decided honesty was her best approach. “Right here,” she said, pointing to her lower abdomen. “Mostly on the right. And it doesn’t hurt exactly, but it feels… I don’t know. Achy?”

“You tell me,” he said as he gestured for her to lie on her back. She did so, and without removing her clothes he placed firm pressure over the sore area with his fingers. She couldn’t hold back a small gasp. “Sounds like more than an ache,” he said with some concern. “And I don’t like some of your blood tests. You’re dehydrated, although not dangerously so, and also anemic. Why haven’t you been in to get checked?”

“I have an appointment day-after-tomorrow,” she told him.

He raised one eyebrow but didn’t comment. “How about here?” he asked as he pressed again, this time towards her left side. There was still pain, but nothing like the other side.

“Not bad,” she said, and then turned her head as she heard the squeak of a rolling cart and saw the tech she’d met earlier coming in with more supplies than she liked the look of. Aside from gloves and the instruments she was familiar with from her annual exams, there were a lot of other things there that she didn’t want to know anything about.

“I’ll need everything off from the waist down,” Salik told Kara. “I’ll have to do an exam. It will be a lot like your annual, so it’s nothing to worry about. It will give me an idea of the size and position of the uterus, we’ll find any tender spots and try to figure out what they are, and we’ll get your initial cultures ready for the lab.”

“Cultures?” Kara asked as she accepted the sheet the tech was holding out to her. She released her belt and lifted her hips to push her pants down, grateful that she’d put on running shoes rather than her regulation boots; they were easy to kick off. When her lower body was unclothed and the sheet was over her, she did her best to relax on the table. She hated these exams, and she always had. There were just some places that a doctor’s hands didn’t belong.

“We’ll swab the cervix,” he told her. “Find out if there’s any infection there that might be a problem during pregnancy or delivery. That’s most of it.”

“Oh,” she said, but she still couldn’t relax.

She didn’t enjoy the next few minutes at all. True to his word, the doctor looked at her, in her, and did a few things that were frankly painful. The worst had involved one hand inside and one outside with her body squished between. It had been all she could do not to come up off the table. He had asked her where the pain was on a scale of one to ten. She had placed it around twenty-five. Even after he had finished and had pulled her sheet back up, she could still feel the echoes of the sharp pain he’d caused.

Next, he pulled over a device she’d seen before. He ran it over her lower abdomen, watching the screen on it with all his attention. He muttered a few things to the tech, and she noted them on a clipboard, but he didn’t say anything she could really understand. In fact, she noted that the doctor was much quieter than he usually was. Normally Salik was good for a joke or comment to lighten a situation. She had noticed it even when she’d been very badly hurt. His silence now worried her more than the concerned expression on his face. She kept reminding herself not to worry – that he would tell her if anything was wrong – but she wasn’t feeling any better.

“Okay, Becka. Thanks. I have what I need.” The doctor looked at Kara and spoke gently. Very gently. “Do you want to have Captain Adama in here while we talk about this?”

Fear seemed to settle onto her like a blanket. She nodded, because she couldn’t get any words out, and the doctor told the tech to send Lee in. Kara swallowed a couple of times, but the knot in her throat wouldn’t go away. When Lee seemed to materialize at her side, she reached for a hand and held on. She hadn’t even seen him walk in.

“What is it?” Lee asked, but his question was directed at the doctor, not her. His hand was a solid warmth in hers, reminding her that she wasn’t alone in this… whatever it was.

“In general, the exam went well,” the doctor told them. “But there are a few things that are concerning me. The first is your weight loss,” he told Kara with a pointed look. “I’m going to have a tech put in an IV to get some fluids in you. That’s the first step. My second concern is some swelling in the right ovary. That might be an infection, or it may just be a reaction to the normal pregnancy hormones combined with the residual hormones from the contraceptive injection. We’ll have to watch it either way, and I’ll be giving you an antibiotic just to be on the safe side. Any questions so far?”

Kara looked over at Lee, and he shook his head. She did the same. “Not so far,” Kara told Salik. “What else?”

“My exam showed a small amount of bleeding from the cervix. Have you had any spotting, Lieutenant Thrace?”

She shook her head at that.

“Then for now I’ll hope that it was from the examination itself. It’s not uncommon, but given the other symptoms you’ve had, I’m concerned that this might be the early stages of a miscarriage. Given that you’ve had no bleeding, I’m going to allow you to go back to work and resume normal activities when you feel you’re able. Use your judgement, and if you have any cramping or bleeding, you call me immediately. Understood?”

Both Lee and Kara nodded in unison.

“Finally, I need to tell you that there are no guarantees with pregnancy, especially this early on. From your uterine size, I’d say you’re somewhere between six and eight weeks along, and that’s a very tenuous time for a pregnancy. The next few weeks will be critical, and if there is anything wrong with the baby itself, it’s very likely that you may miscarry. I’m not saying that will happen, but I think it’s better if you’re prepared for the possibility.”

“Is the baby okay so far?” Kara asked softly.

“It’s too early to find a heartbeat or to safely run a check on chromosomal development. Keep in mind, many women lose pregnancies this early without ever knowing they were pregnant. Had it not been for your incident in the Viper, you wouldn’t know yourself that you were pregnant, and chances are we’d be treating you for the flu or checking for appendicits. Knowing about the baby this early is a mixed blessing; it gives us a heads-up for trouble, but there are times when ignorance is easier. Aside from watching you closely, keeping you hydrated, and making sure you aren’t doing anything strenuous… there’s really not a lot we can do except wait.”

Kara couldn’t think of anything more to say. She looked up at Lee, and his face echoed the same concern that she was feeling. It seemed that just as they were becoming used to the possibility of parenthood, losing the baby was a very real possibility. Kara hadn’t realized just how attached she’d become to the tiny life within her until she had faced the thought of losing it.

“Is there any danger to Kara?” Lee asked the doctor.

“Not immediately,” Salik told them. “If there’s any bleeding at all, or pain more severe than what you’ve experienced so far, then you need to call me. Don’t wait, don’t try to walk, and as difficult as it is don’t worry. We can be cautious, but nature is pretty good at knowing what’s right for both you and the baby. If the pregnancy continues for the next few weeks, most likely everything will be fine. But if it doesn’t, the chances are very high that there’s a good reason for your body terminating it. Conception is a true miracle; so many things must happen in just the right way that it’s amazing the human race has survived. Far more conceptions end spontaneously than develop into babies. It’s not a comforting thought, but it’s the truth.”

Lee carefully escorted Kara into their room and towards the bed. She sat down quietly, scooting back so that she could lift her legs and rest her back against the wall at the head of the bed. He closed the door behind them and just watched her for a moment. She had been far too quiet in the last few hours.

He had sat with her while the tech had hooked up an IV and had given her several bags of fluid. She hadn’t spoken during the small meal she’d eaten in Life Station – a meal she’d had to keep down before the doctor would release her. She hadn’t spoken on the walk back to their room. He didn’t know what she was thinking, but Lee knew that he needed to find out. Silence between them had never been a good thing.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, taking a seat on the edge of the bed.

She shook her head, but didn’t speak.

“Kara, I need you to talk to me.”

“I’m not hurting,” she said, but her voice was monotone and not at all like her. “And I’m not sick. I’m okay.” She let out a laugh that was completely humorless. “I’ve been saying that a lot, haven’t I? ‘I’m okay.’ Hell, I don’t know what I am; even the doctor doesn’t know.”

“So don’t tell my about what you’re body is doing,” he said softly. “Let me know what you’re thinking.”

She shook her head again. “Lee, I just don’t know,” she admitted. “There’s a big part of me that wonders if it wouldn’t be better if this… if we didn’t have a baby right now. And I hate that, and it’s awful, but I can’t help wondering if maybe it would be better.”

“That’s fair,” he said, trying not to let the words wound him. He had known she wanted to wait before considering children. It really didn’t surprise him that being offered the possibility of a way out could be a relief. It would put her back on flight status, and it would get things back to normal.

“But even though it would be easier,” she said softly. “I’m kind of used to the idea of having it. It would mean a lot of changes, but other couples manage to do it. And it’s not like we’re all that young, or that we have forever to do this. If we want children – more than one anyway – we really don’t have all that long to wait before we’d need to start. So maybe having it would be best.” She shook her head, confusion clear in her expression. “Lee, I don’t even know what I want,” she admitted. “And that’s probably best, because we don’t have a real choice one way or the other. But I hate the not knowing. If everything was fine, or if we knew it was over – Lords, either one would be better than this waiting.”

He let out a deep sigh. “I know that. But like you said, we don’t get a choice.” He thought a moment, then moved up onto the bed to sit next to her and draw her into his embrace. She came willingly, clinging just a little, letting him know that she had needed this as much as he had.

He wanted the baby. As selfish as it might be, he was already attached to the idea of being a father. It surprised him, because they’d never set out to do this, but the feeling was strong just the same. He wanted this baby. He wanted to see Kara round and waddling, and he wanted to see his child born, and he wanted to hold it, and name it, and raise it. It had very little to do with his age or Kara’s, but everything to do with wanting to see what the two of them together had made. He didn’t want it to end; not this way.

“What about you?” she asked, smoothing her cheek against his chest to move the hair out of her face. “If you could decide what would happen…?”

He debated telling her the truth. She might be more comforted if he was less certain, but he didn’t want to lie to her. “I want the baby,” he admitted.

Kara nodded, but didn’t otherwise respond. He wanted so much to know what she was thinking, and feeling. Her next words caught him off guard. “I don’t want to tell your dad,” she said softly.

“Hmm?”

“We don’t know anything,” she explained. “Salik says it can go either way. If everything’s fine, this will worry him for nothing, and if we lose the baby then he’ll know it soon enough. I don’t think we should tell him.”

Lee nodded. It made sense. “What about telling other people?” he asked. “Do we want to wait until we know more before we start letting people know you’re pregnant?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she admitted reluctantly. “I’ve already told a couple of people. Sharon and Dee know, and Julie too. By now half of CIC and the deck probably know why I’m on light duty.” She took a deep breath before continuing, and he could hear that her voice was close to breaking. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I didn’t know anything would go wrong. I thought…”

“Shh,” he whispered, kissing her lightly on the forehead. “You couldn’t have known. And everything may be fine. We just have to wait and see.”

She nodded. “What about work?” she asked.

“Not this week,” he told her. “We’ll make up something to keep you in bed for a day or two, just to be safe. You’re tired, and the rest certainly won’t hurt.”

“Salik didn’t say I had to rest,” she argued.

“Salik doesn’t know how little sleep you’ve had in the last week,” Lee reminded her. “You’re going to be tired enough that you start making mistakes, and until we know more your mind won’t be on what you’re doing anyway. You’re due for a break. Besides, I make the schedules, and as long as they clear Tigh you don’t get a choice in the matter.”

“Thanks a lot,” she muttered, but he was sure that he heard relief in her tone.

“If everything stays the same, I’ll put you back up in CIC next week. By then we should have some idea of how this is going to go.

“Lee?”

He tightened his arms around her, giving a gentle squeeze. He didn’t know if she needed it, or if he did. “What?”

“I love you.”

He smiled at that. “I love you, too.”

“And I don’t want to lose the baby,” she said, her voice finally breaking. “I want him.”

A relief that Lee didn’t fully understand washed over him, even as his heart broke over the pain her admission caused. For her, it would have been easier if she hadn’t wanted the pregnancy to continue; the disappointment would have been less if things didn’t go the way he wanted. Now he knew that she was as emotionally invested in the baby as he was, and it wasn’t a comfortable place to be. Losing it would hurt more. And as Salik had told them, there was nothing they could do about it either way.

So Lee did what he could. He held Kara as she cried herself to sleep, and did his best not to do the same – either in the crying or the sleeping. He would do some shift juggling so that he could have duty in a couple of hours, because he would worry about her less if he knew that she was resting while he was gone. For the next couple of days, he’d try to be with her when she was awake, just in case anything went wrong. Intellectually, he knew that his presence didn’t really matter, but he didn’t think he’d have any luck getting that message into his heart. So until things were a little more certain, Kara was going to be stuck with him as a shadow.

Somehow, he didn’t really think she’d mind.

Chapter 8

The next few days were uneventful. Kara was relieved that Lee had managed to rearrange his schedule so that he was around during the days. While she didn’t like sleeping without him, it was easier than trying to occupy her time without his dry sense of humor and endless complaints about her luck with cards.

When she reached the end of the week without incident, he’d let her go back on light duty. That meant paperwork in CIC, but it was better than lying around all day. She had managed to get some rest, but in general she’d been bored despite Lee’s entertaining presence. Her first day back had been a little stressful. She had kept down very little breakfast and no lunch. If she hadn’t managed dinner, she was sure it would have been the end of her return to work. But keep it down she did, and by the next morning she had felt better. Her second day at work had gone better. She hadn’t been sick after breakfast, and only lunch had made a return visit. Dinner had stayed put, which had been a relief. Lying down after meals really did seem to keep them in place. It was a fact she intended to keep in mind.

This had been her third day back on light shifts, and Kara had made it through the day without getting sick at all. It was something she was very grateful for. She understood Lee’s continued fear, but she really did feel better. And she hated the Life Station with a passion that only one who had spent far too much time there could have. Granted, all that time hadn’t been as a patient, but that fact didn’t make her time spent there any more tolerable. Nonetheless, she gave Lee a daily report as to her nutritional status, and watched the worry in his eyes when she admitted to being sick. He’d made her promise that if she had done so today she would go back and see Doctor Salik.

As it stood, she’d managed the day quite well. She’d kept down three meals for the first time in almost a week, and if she’d been slightly nauseous at times, it didn’t really count without the throwing up. She wouldn’t lie to Lee, but she hadn’t made any promises regarding nausea – only actually getting sick.

So Kara was fairly proud of herself - as well as relieved - as she made her way back to the room she shared with Lee following her duty day. Her stomach wasn’t exactly back to normal, though. She’d had occasional cramping through the day in addition to the lingering soreness in her right side. Salik had told her not to worry so long as it didn’t get any worse, but she had to wonder how long it would last. It wasn’t exactly painful, but she definitely was noticing it. She had made a mental note to ask Doctor Salik about it when she had her next appointment.

It surprised her a little when she didn’t find Lee in their room. He had been pretty good about keeping their shifts opposite so that when she wasn’t watched by her co-workers she was watched instead by him. He had come by today to make sure she went to lunch, but he hadn’t said much then about what he was doing – only that he wasn’t tired so he had chosen to get a few things sone, and that if she needed him she could call the port landing bay. Tyrol would be able to find him. She didn’t know what the big mystery was, but it wasn’t the first time Lee had been working on something that he couldn’t talk about outside their room. He didn’t keep much from her, but neither did he talk about secure matters in the Dining Hall.

As she’d already eaten her dinner, Kara decided that a book and nap might be just what she needed while she waited on Lee. Once he was back, they might play some cards or just talk awhile. She didn’t feel up to managing the ready-room tonight, even for the company that might keep her busy. The work days were wearing her out, but she had been told that fatigue was normal. She wanted desperately to believe it.

Kara was out of her duty shirt and reaching for her book when the pain hit. It wasn’t severe – more an intensification of what she’d been feeling earlier that day – but it was more than just passing. She took a deep breath as she straightened up and pressed a hand to her lower abdomen. Discomfort was one thing, but true pain worried her. This meant that she should probably call Doctor Salik, and soon.

She was on her way to the phone when the illness hit her out of nowhere. One minute she was calmly standing there trying to decide whether or not she should go down to Life Station or call for help as Salik had requested, and the next she was diving for the bathroom in hopes that she wouldn’t have a mess to clean up. She made it, barely, but her pride over managing three meals was quickly displaced by the dread of all three returning at once. It turned out that the vomiting didn’t last long, but what it lacked in duration it made up for in intensity. She now had both arms wrapped around her as though to keep herself from splitting open.

That was how Lee found her. She was sitting on the bathroom floor, her head resting on the toilet seat, and both arms wrapped around herself as she tried to figure out how in hell she was going to get to the phone. Worries that Lee might worry about her being sick were quickly replaced by a grateful relief that he was there, his arms keeping her upright and his words sounding a lot more gentle than she thought they had a right to be.

“How long?” he asked her, his voice soft if not particularly calm.

“It just started,” she told him. “I swear, I was fine until I came in from dinner.”

“Will you be okay for a minute?”

She didn’t feel okay at all. “Yes,” she answered, and immediately wished that she hadn’t because his arms were gone and she wasn’t feeling all that steady. Rather than fall, she laid herself down on the bathroom floor, her head resting on the metal flooring.

“Salik’s on the way,” he told her when he returned only seconds later. She didn’t even have the strength to thank him.

The cramping was back, and it was bad. She held her breath against it, her body shaking with the effort. “Lee, this really hurts,” she finally got out between the sharp waves of agony. She was going to lose the baby. Oh Lords, Salik had warned her it could happen, but she had hoped so much that he was wrong. She wanted the baby – she wanted him – and there was nothing she could do to keep him.

“I know. The doctor’s on the way. I promise, he’ll be here in just a minute.” He didn’t try to lift her, but instead he sat down on the floor beside her and let her rest her face on his leg. It felt a hell of a lot better than resting her face against cold metal.

“I felt okay,” she told him, very near tears now, but whether from the pain or the fear she wasn’t sure. “And then…”

“Shhh,” he whispered, brushing her hair out of her face. “It’ll be okay.”

At the very least he wasn’t blaming her or reminding her that the doctor had said this could happen. He didn’t sound angry either – only worried – and she found that to be a relief. As she lay there, she even managed to convince herself that she might be feeling a little better. The pain wasn’t so intense now, and the nausea had eased. She was almost ready to tell that to Lee, but then the pain came back. She couldn’t stop the cry that time; it slipped out before she realized that she’d made a sound.

Then she only wanted the pain to stop. She curled herself into a ball to try to guard against it, her breath coming in short gasps. Oh, Lords, it hurt. It really hurt, and this time it wasn’t going away.

It felt like a lifetime later when Salik and his team arrived. What she noticed most about their arrival was that they needed her to unbend to get on their litter, and that she just couldn’t do it. Finally they managed to get her strapped in place on her side, and then the world started tilting. She was actually glad when the graying started around the edges of her vision, because she knew that it meant the pain would be easing soon.

The waiting was the worst, Lee decided.

Salik had brought her in, put in an IV, and promptly kicked Lee out of the room. The man had a habit of doing that, and Lee was beginning to take exception to it. As CAG, he was fairly used to being able to do what he wanted when he wanted and go where he pleased when he pleased. Having Kara’s physician ordering him out went a little ways beyond annoying him. Lee was even tempted to make a phone call to his father, but he didn’t want to worry him unless he had to.

Lee wasn’t sure what had gone in during the time he’d been exiled to the to the makeshift waiting area outside the main care bay. It had taken more than an hour for them to do whatever it was they had done, but Lee couldn’t complain about the results.

They had finally let him in about ten minutes ago. Kara was sleeping peacefully, and Salik had told him that she wasn’t in any imminent danger. Lee hadn’t asked about the baby. He had been afraid to. So Lee had wound up sitting in an uncomfortable chair next to the bed that Kara was occupying in Life Station. Salik hadn’t been in yet, but Lee was fairly sure he knew what the doctor would have to say. From the way Kara had been doubled over in pain, the chances of the baby being okay seemed minimal. Still, Lee really didn’t want to hear it. He wasn’t ready to see his dream die.

Little changed over the next hour. Cassie came in once or twice with a pleasant smile to check on Kara, making notes on her clipboard as she did so. “She’s doing well,” the tech had assured him. Lee didn’t know what exactly that meant. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. But he was grateful for it just the same. If he had to lose the baby that they had both begun to want, at the very least he wouldn’t be losing Kara as well. As he’d held her on their bathroom floor, he hadn’t been so sure that she would recover at all.

“Still here?” Doctor Salik commented as he approached Kara’s bed from doorway across the bay. “She won’t be waking up anytime soon. We have enough medication in her that she’ll be out for at least a couple more hours. You should get out while you can.”

“I’ll stay,” Lee told him simply. He wasn’t leaving her. He couldn’t leave her.

“She’s going to be fine,” the doctor told him. “But she’s got a long road ahead of her. How badly do the two of you want this baby?”

Lee’s head snapped up so that he could meet the physician’s eyes. “Does it matter?” he asked apprehensively.

“Actually, it does,” the doctor told him, and he pulled up a chair to sit down across from Lee. “I can’t promise that this pregnancy will get any easier,” he said. “We have the uterine contractions stopped, but she’s still spotting slightly. I can’t tell you if that will get better or worse as the pregnancy progresses.”

“Why?” Lee asked. “Why was she hurting in the first place? Why is she bleeding?”

The doctor looked at Kara and sighed. “You know, medicine doesn’t always give us the answers. I wish that it did. My best guess is that she’s not maintaining a high enough fluid level to maintain a pregnancy. Sometimes it’s the simplest things that cause us the greatest difficulty. She’s keeping down some liquids, but it’s just not enough. When she becomes dehydrated, she gets sick. The sickness dehydrates her further. The cycle is what is causing the problem. So long as we keep an IV in her, and medicate her to reduce the vomiting, she seems to do pretty well. Now, if you’re asking me why she’s so sick when other women have no problem at all, well that I can’t answer. If you’re asking what we can do to keep things controlled, I have some ideas.”

“What do we need to do?” Lee asked.

“To begin with, until we can get her past this phase of pregnancy and determine if the pregnancy is even viable, we have to keep her hydrated. That means bed rest, an IV, anti-emetic medications, and possibly nutritional supplements as well. She can’t do anything that might make her sick. Period. Once we get to a point where we can get a good look at the baby – around twelve weeks or so – then we can find out if it’s been worth the effort. There are no guarantees with this course of treatment. She may still miscarry, or the infant’s development may be affected by either the medications or malnutrition. But quite honestly it’s the best I can offer you.”

“She’s going to hate that,” Lee said slowly, but she would hate losing this baby more. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her slow down to anything less than a dead run.”

Doctor Salik smiled, and it was the first true humor Lee had seen in him since “We’re looking at a minimum of six weeks of her remaining as still as possible. And even after that, I’m not sure the pregnancy will survive. But if we can get her to that point, we’ll at least know if there’s anything worth trying to save.” The doctor looked over at Kara for a moment, and Lee could have sworn that he saw something more than a physician’s concern. “My gut feeling is that if we can just get her past this hurdle, the baby just might be okay. I don’t have anything to back that up with, though. In a couple of weeks, we can take a small biopsy of the placenta, culture it, and find out if we’re dealing with a structurally normal batch of chromosomes. The vast majority of miscarriages this early are because of genetic defect. Once we know where we stand, we can make a more educated guess as to whether or not we should even bother trying to save it.”

“Why can’t you do that now?” Lee asked.

“I could,” the doctor replied. “But the risk of the procedure terminating the pregnancy is drastically high this early. It’s not an acceptable risk if you really want to have this baby.”

“So we wait, keep her still, and treat the symptoms until we know if there’s a bigger cause for them?” Lee asked.

“Essentially.”

“It will have to be her decision,” Lee thought out loud. “But I think she’d be willing to try it.”

The doctor smiled. “I thought she would be. She’s a stubborn woman, but she knows when to listen to reason. Usually.”

Lee just smiled. He couldn’t argue with that logic. The doctor left him then, putting his chair back as he did so and leaving Lee with a lot to think about. He had his own ideas about how Kara would take the news, but he’d been wrong about her reactions before. Still, it was better news than he had feared. At the very least he wouldn’t have to tell her that the baby was gone.

“How is she.”

Lee didn’t even startle at the familiar gravelly voice. He should have known that word would have gotten back to his father. Patient confidentiality or not, the Commander was well informed as to what was happening with his crew. It wouldn’t have been hard for him to find out that something was wrong, and from there it was just a matter of asking the right questions.

“She’s resting,” Lee told his father.

“Has she been awake yet?”

Lee shook his head. His father’s hand on Lee’s shoulder was comforting, but knowing what he would soon have to tell Kara was not. “Did Salik tell you?” he asked as he looked up at his dad.

“About the baby?”

“Yeah.”

His father nodded. After seeing it, Lee turned his gaze back to Kara. “I don’t know how to tell her,” Lee finally said. “The doctor says she’ll have to stay in bed for the next few weeks. That will make her crazy. Hell, I don’t even know if she’ll be willing to do it.”

“You’d be surprised what a parent is willing to do for their child,” his father said with a soft smile. “How long will she sleep?”

Lee shrugged. “The drugs should have already worn off, except for the stuff that keeps her from throwing up. I think she’s just tired. She hasn’t been sleeping very well.”

“Which means that you haven’t been sleeping either,” the Commander determined.

Lee shrugged again.

“Are you okay?” Adama asked gently.

“I don’t know,” Lee answered. “I’m… I’m glad she’s alright,” he finally said. “But…”

“I know,” his father said softly, and he sounded like he did. “She’s not going to be easy to keep still. I can remember when your mother was pregnant with Zak, she had some trouble towards the last. She had to stay in bed for about a month. They pulled me off duty and sent me home to play nursemaid.” His smile turned wistful. “But it was worth all the complaints and whining. And by the time Zak was a month old, I think your mother would have liked to had laid down for a couple of weeks.”

“I remember that,” Lee said softly. “Not all of it, but I remember her being in bed. She used to read to me. I was only a couple of years old, but I think that’s just about the first thing I remember: the two of us lying in her bed and her reading from that ancient storybook.

“The one with all the pictures,” William said softly. “I still have it, you know. Somewhere. After the… After the accident your mother couldn’t bear to have it around, but she didn’t want to get rid of it. We compromised. I promised her she could have it back when she was ready. I suppose I should pass it on to you, now.”

Lee he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what he could say. He didn’t usually allow himself to think of the family he’d lost, but at the moment he could do no less. “Thank you,” he finally said.

His father nodded, then cleared his throat “Do you want me to stay with her for awhile so you can go get something to eat?”

“No,” Lee answered. “I don’t want to leave her.”

“Then do you need something? Coffee?”

Lee shook his head. He wished that he had more to offer his father. He really did appreciate the thought and the support, and even the memories. But for the moment he was more than a little worried. He didn’t have a clue how Kara would react to the doctor’s plan, and a part of him was terrified that she wouldn’t be willing to do it. If she chose not to, he really couldn’t fault the decision. After all, the odds were not in their favor. All they really had going for them was a doctor’s intuition and a lack of options.

“Would you like me to stay or go?” his father asked.

Lee thought about that for just a moment. As he did, a thought broke though the preoccupation that had filled him. His father was supposed to be on duty. Lee was supposed to be on duty. “Is my shift covered?” Lee asked with a concerned look at his dad. It hadn’t occurred to him before then that he was scheduled to work tonight.

“The rosters are up, and they can call Colonel Tigh with any questions. The patrols are all fairly routine at the moment, and Tyrol could run the place if we gave him the chance.”

Lee nodded. “Colonel Tigh’s in CIC?”

“He’ll stay as long as I ask him to,” the Commander said, answering Lee’s unspoken question.

He looked up at his father for a moment, knowing that if anyone understood what he was feeling it was probably this man. After all, he was a father, and for all their differences Lee had to admit that he’d been a damned good one. “I want you to stay,” Lee finally said.

His father didn’t say a word, but he nodded and walked across the room to get another chair. Placing it beside Lee’s, he settled in beside his son for however long the wait would be.

The wait wasn’t as long as Lee had feared it might be. Still, it was nearly two hours later when Kara began to stir. She shifted a few times before opening her eyes. He watched as she got her bearings, recognized the room, and then met his eyes. As though watching a bucket fill with water, he saw comprehension and memory fill her where only confusion had been before. By the time she spoke, he saw the fear coming into her expression.

“What happened?” she asked. He didn’t quibble over her direct approach. Kara had never been one to skirt around an issue.

“You could at least say good-morning,” he suggested. It was barely that, but he wanted to put this discussion off just a little longer.

“Lee?” Her voice was somewhere between groggy and afraid.

So much for putting anything off. “You’re in the Life Station,” he told her.

“I know that,” she said. “What happened.” She asked, and the hand that had been so limp before tightened almost painfully around his.

But it was hard to say. He’d seen her face when she’d faced the possibility of a year out of Vipers, and to confine her to bed seemed so much worse. How did he ask her to put literally her entire life on hold for an indefinite period of time? He knew he had to tell her; it was his responsibility to ask her. But the words just wouldn’t come.

He met his father’s eyes in a moment of silent understanding, and then he heard him speak. “Hey there,” the eldest Adama said with a soft smile. ”What do you hear?”

“Not much at the moment,” she as her eyes flashed to Lee’s and locked there.

His father had placed a hand on his shoulder again, and that seemed to give Lee the extra strength he needed to find the words. “The doctor says you’re going to be fine,” Lee told her, starting with what had been the most important to him.

Kara nodded, her hand squeezing and releasing his in a jerky manner. “What about the baby?” she asked in a broken voice.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” his father told him. The older man put one arm around Lee and gave him a brief hug, then bent down to kiss Kara on the forehead. “Call if you need anything,” he told them. Lee watched his father leave before turning his attention back to Kara. It was all he could do to face her.

“Did I lose the baby?” she asked in the same broken voice.

“Not yet,” he answered. “And maybe not at all. The doctor said the reason you were cramping is because you weren’t keeping down enough fluids. Once he got the IV going, you did just fine.” He waited for the relief to come into her eyes. It didn’t happen.

“What aren’t you telling me?” she asked. “Everything’s not fine, is it?”

“We don’t know,” he admitted. “Doctor Salik said he had a good feeling about it though. If we can just keep you hydrated, and still, then you should be able to carry the baby. He can’t promise, but that’s his professional opinion.”

“So why do you look like everything’s wrong?”

He sighed, and sat down on the edge of her bed just to get a little closer. “Kara, the doctor doesn’t want you moving around at all. That means staying in bed until we know for sure that the baby is doing okay, and medications to keep you from throwing up. You’ll probably have to keep the IV, too. You’ll have to do that until we can find out if the baby’s okay, or if something’s really wrong with him.”

“How long?”

“Six weeks until we know,” he admitted. “And after that, maybe until the baby’s born.” Lee brushed her bangs back out of her eyes, and finally met her gaze with all the love he had in him. “I know it’s a long time,” he told her. “But it’s the only chance of saving the pregnancy.”

“No work?”

He shook his head. “No walking around at all. No leaving the room. Hell, I’m not even sure if he’ll let you leave Life Station. He said you’d have to keep the IV, at least for a while.”

She looked away for a moment, her hand tightening as she took it all in. He could almost watch her mind processing the information. He remembered so vividly when she’d told him that it might have been easier if they weren’t parents now. She knew how he felt about it, but it was a lot to ask of her with very little promise behind it.

After a long pause, she looked back at him, and there were tears in her eyes. “But it’s a chance, right?”

Lee shrugged, trying not to impose his wishes on her. It was her body; it was her choice. “That’s what Salik told me.”

She nodded, and he watched a determined light come into her eyes. “Then that’s what we do,” she said firmly. And finally, as she looked up at him, he saw the first glimmer of a smile. “But you have to promise you’ll play cards with me,” she told him with a wink.

Lee began to laugh; what else could he do?

Chapter 9

Bored. That was the only word for it. Frakking bored. Kara was certain she was going to go completely insane because she was just that bored.

Her first week hadn’t been all that bad. After declaring that she was to lie still and rest, Salik had kept her confined to a hospital bed with enough medication put her in a sleepy stupor. She had literally slept for a week, only eating the rare bland food that appeared at her bedside and miraculously keeping it down. She went the entire week without throwing up once, and was only nauseous a couple of times. She still had occasional mild cramps, but at least the spotting had stopped. In fact, by the end of the week she’d almost forgotten what the big deal had been. She was fine. Didn’t it prove she was fine?

When Doctor Salik had begun to wean her off the medications, things got a little more interesting. She was a little sick, although she never really threw up. She was allowed a little more food and even managed to begin walking to the bathroom, which had been the highlight of her week. Granted, she’d been a bit dizzy from the inactivity and lack of food, but it had been worth it not to have to ask for the frakking bedpan every couple of hours. It had felt pretty good to be upright as well. If there were times when she almost wished that she could be knocked out again, they were few and far between. She had plenty of visitors – many who came bearing cards or books – and she had begun to have some hope that the baby just might make it through her illness.

Kara had dedicated herself to the pregnancy with a single-minded intensity that was the only way she knew how to do anything. Like taking on the entire Cylon empire, she had focused every thought and action towards making sure her child had his chance to live. She kept her spirits up, her thoughts positive, and her activity to a level that her doctor approved of. She was a very good girl, indeed.

After sixteen days in the Life Station, she was finally allowed to go home. Granted, she was rolled there on a gurney, but she was willing to take what she could get. At last she was in her own bed without being watched all day and all night, without being awoken to have her blood pressure or temperature taken, and without a constant stream of people to occupy her mind.

That was when the boredom had started. Yes, she was in her room, but she couldn’t do a thing. Lee came by every couple of hours to walk her to the bathroom – or sent someone else to do it – but aside from that she was officially on her own. Visits from friends became a little more rare – okay, a lot more rare – and she’d read all the books that had been sent her way. She had played solitary pyramid until her cards were fraying, and she had watched every vid-program that Lee had been able to scrounge. She had been in one frakking bed or another for twenty-seven days now, and she was just plain bored.

A knock at her hatch was a welcome diversion as Kara tried to read the same book that she’d read the day before. “Come in,” she called out from her pillow-propped nest. “Please, come in!”

Sharon pulled the hatch open and stepped through, carrying Aaron on one hip. He was almost two now, and always into everything. He had Tyrol’s round face and Sharon’s dark eyes, his hair brown and straight and usually a mess. “Thought you might want some company,” Sharon told her as she pulled the hatch closed behind her.

“Lords, yes,” Kara agreed. “I swear I’m going to go frakking nuts in here.”

“Language,” Sharon said with raised eyebrows and a lecturing tone. “You’re going to have to get that mouth under control before this kid’s born, otherwise there’s no telling what trouble it’ll be in.”

“Right,” Kara said with a laugh. “I’d say I’ve got time.”

“You’d be surprised,” Sharon corrected with a wry tone. “They’re quick.”

“Down.”

The imperious order had come from the chubby boy in Sharon’s arms. She glanced at Kara in silent inquiry, and Kara nodded. Sharon set the boy down, and he promptly scrambled over to the bed, climbing up without any assistance to bounce on the mattress down towards Kara’s feet.

“Sorry,” Sharon said, moving to retrieve her son.

“Leave him,” Kara said with a smile. “It’s the most entertainment I’ve had all week. He won’t hurt me.”

Sharon didn’t look so sure, but neither did she remove the bouncing boy. Instead, she reached for the single chair at Lee’s desk and pulled it over to the bed to take a seat. “How are you feeling.”

“Bored,” Kara declared.

“It can’t be that bad,” Sharon argued. “I’d give anything for a week of uninterrupted sleep.”

“I had that almost a month ago,” Kara said grimly. “It’s the last three that have gotten ridiculous.”

“It’s necessary,” Sharon reminded her.

Kara sighed. “I know,” she admitted. “But sometimes it’s hard to remember why it’s so important. I really do feel okay now. I haven’t had any cramps in a week, and I’m not on any medicine to stop the nausea. I faithfully drink my eight glasses of water every day, and it’s all staying down. I just don’t see why I have to lay here.”

“Do you really want to take the chance of doing something too soon?”

“No,” Kara said softly. “That’s why I’m still here.”

“So quit complaining about it,” Sharon advised.

“One condition,” Kara suggested with a wink.

“What?”

“Tell me what the frak is going on,” Kara begged. “I feel like I’m living in a bubble!”

Sharon laughed, but she started talking. Over the next hour, Kara was brought up to date on the fleet situation, the latest gossip, and every other thing she could think to ask about. When Aaron stopped bouncing and began to get fussy, Sharon held and rocked him as he went to sleep, even as she went right on talking.

Kara watched as the little boy snuggled into his mother’s arms, nuzzling up against her chest. “He remembers, doesn’t he?” she asked.

Sharon looked up at the question. “Nursing? Yeah, probably. But I cut that off several months ago. He can eat from a plate and drink from a cup. When he’s sleepy he still looks for it though.”

“That has to be so weird,” Kara mused. “I mean, letting him… you know.”

Sharon shrugged one shoulder. “Some days I miss it,” she admitted. “It was a lot easier than trying to cut his food small enough or find something he likes to eat. It’s also not nearly as weird when you’re doing it as when you’re watching it.”

“How did you figure it out?” Kara asked with a touch of wonder. How was she ever going to be a good mom?

“I didn’t have to do much,” Sharon admitted. “One of the techs showed me how to hold him, and then he just did the rest. It really is pretty natural if you give it a chance. Besides, it’s not like we get a choice.”

“I guess that’s what’s bothering me,” Kara admitted. “Everyone tells me how natural parenting is, but it doesn’t feel that way. I mean, I want this over so I can go back to being a person instead of a patient, but I don’t know how I’ll figure out what to do next.”

“It really isn’t that hard,” Sharon reassured her. “You don’t think you’ll be able to figure it out, and sometimes you get a little lost, but the majority of it you just kind of… know. I can’t tell you how, because I’d sure never been around kids or even anyone who had them, but I just seemed to be able to figure it out.”

“I hope it’s that easy,” Kara said softly.

“Wait a minute,” Sharon said. “I never told you it was easy. I just said you’d know what to do when the time came.”

“Thanks,” Kara said dryly.

Sharon laughed, and then they talked some more. They were still chatting and Aaron was still sleeping when Lee showed up at the door with Kara’s dinner.

“Hey,” he said with a smile.

“Hi,” Sharon replied, turning slightly to see him. Then back to Kara she said, “I guess that’s my cue. Tyrol will be ready to eat, too. I’ll go get back to my room before I have to answer a thousand questions about why I didn’t get anything done today.”

“Sorry,” Kara said sheepishly.

“I’m not,” Sharon admitted. “I needed the break. Give me a call if you need anything, or even if you just need to talk.”

“Thanks, Boomer,” Kara said as Sharon headed for the hatch that Lee hadn’t yet closed.

“Any time, Starbuck,” Sharon replied, and then the hatch was shut behind her.

“Everything okay?” Lee asked as he grabbed the tray they’d rigged up with one hand and set it over Kara’s legs to make a table for her to eat from.

“No,” she grumbled. “I’m bored.”

“That’s not new,” he told her with a smile. “But you’re better, and that’s what’s important.”

“I know,” she muttered, and she couldn’t really argue with him about it.

“Salik met me on the way out of the Mess Hall,” Lee told her. “He wants to come by tomorrow and check you.”

“Great.” She didn’t really look forward to being poked and prodded by the doctor. He had come by the day before to take several vials of blood, and it had taken him three sticks to do it. The bruise still hurt. A sudden thought occurred to her. “Is this because of the blood tests?” she asked, more worried than she wanted to admit. He’d mentioned taking levels of something in her blood, but it hadn’t made much sense.

“Yeah,” Lee told her. “He thinks you may be far enough along now to hear a heartbeat. It’s not definite, but he wants to check.”

“What if he doesn’t?” she asked, hating the fear in her voice. She couldn’t stand the thought that the last few weeks might very well be for nothing.

“Then we try again in a week,” Lee said with a shrug. “He’ll be by around midday. I’m going to trade shifts with Evans so I can be here.”

Kara nodded, not sure if he wanted to be close if they heard it, or in case they didn’t. “Midday,” she repeated.

“Yeah.”

“You okay?” she asked him.

He shrugged. “That’s supposed to be my line,” he told her with what was clearly a forced smile.

“Lee?”

He closed his eyes. “I’m a little nervous,” he admitted. “The last month has been hard on you, but it’s all worth it if the baby’s okay.”

“And if he’s not?”

Lee looked at her for a moment. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

“I’ve done everything Salik told me,” Kara reassured him. “Everything should be fine. I’m not even sick any more. If something were wrong, I’d still be sick. Wouldn’t I?”

Lee nodded. “You’ve been feeling good,” he said. “That has to be a good sign. And if the blood tests weren’t good, Salik wouldn’t bother to try to listen. I’m sure he’d know if the baby… wasn’t doing well.”

Kara nodded and took a bite of her dinner. It was bland, but not horrible. She was supposed to stay away from anything that was high in fat, sugar, or spices that might upset her stomach. She took a second bite, mentally calculating just how many more it would take to finish the meal. She wasn’t hungry at all, but she was supposed to eat. So she would eat.

“Any good,” Lee asked as he watched her.

“What do you think?” she asked with a grimace.

“I think I love you.”

She looked up at that. He told her often, sometimes when it seemed to fit the moment and sometimes out of the blue. This was definitely not what she considered to be a moment inspiring loving declarations.

“I love you, too,” she told him. Then, after watching him a moment she asked, “But what’s the occasion.”

He smiled, but it was more shy than enthusiastic. “You’re putting up with so much,” he said. “And you’re so miserable. I just wish I could do something to make it easier.”

She smiled at that, and it was a lot more genuine than his. “You do,” she told him. “You’re here.”

He shrugged one shoulder. “It doesn’t seem like much.”

She smiled at him again. “You’d be surprised.”

It had been a damned long day, and it wasn’t even started. In retrospect, Lee thought he might have been better off if he had worked the morning. Sitting and waiting had him knotted up inside.

He had gotten up early, leaving Kara asleep in their bed, and had gone running. He had missed her terribly while doing it – running had always been her passion, and he’d only started because she’d liked the company – but he finished the run anyway because he’d come to need the physical release it provided him. He took a shower as quietly as he could manage, then wrapped a towel around his waist while he went for clothes. Kara’s whistle had caught him off guard; he’d thought she would still be sleeping.

“Nice view,” she had murmured from her place on the bed. “Could be nicer, of course. How about losing the towel?”

He had grinned, but had also kept the towel firmly in place. There had been a dozen restrictions placed on Kara when she’d left the Life Station. No sex had been one of them, along with no walking further than the bathroom and no getting upset about anything. The list went on, but those had been the things that had been the hardest to live with.

“What? No comments?”

With a sigh, he had realized that she wasn’t going to drop it. Neither was he, but that was another issue. “No point,” he had told her. “You’re making promises you can’t keep.”

“All I promise is to ogle generously,” she had told him with a wink.

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” she had asked, and he hadn’t had an answer for her beyond the fact that his body was a little more obvious about his feelings regarding its denial than he wanted it to be. Kara had been feeling bad enough about not being able to do anything. Letting her know that he was miserable about it – physically as well as emotionally – wouldn’t have served much of a purpose.

“I need to get dressed,” he had told her.

“You’re avoiding the issue.”

“Hell, yes,” he’d replied, beginning to get annoyed. “Damn-it Kara, you know what you do to me.”

“What?”

It had sounded like an honest question, almost innocent. Looking over at her he’d seen an insecurity that he wasn’t used to. Rolling his eyes, he had dropped the towel to reveal a body that had been denied for the last month, and yet had still been forced to remain in close proximity to what it so desperately needed and couldn’t take. Her eyes had widened, he’d seen that she had the idea, and he’d gone ahead and dressed. Then he had sat down next to her and grabbed a book, waiting for time for the Dining Hall to open so he could go get them both some breakfast. The day had barely begun, and already he wanted it over with.

“Sorry,” she said softly.

“Me too,” he answered, but he didn’t look up at her.

“You know, just because I can’t… I mean, you don’t have to stay miserable.”

That had caught his attention, and had amused him greatly. He had seen an opportunity for teasing that was too good to pass up. “Is that permission to go find an alternate?” he asked with a grin.

“Right,” she muttered. “If you want me to cut it off.”

He laughed at that. “No thanks. I’ll just keep it in my pants.”

That had made her sigh. “Lee, I’m serious.”

A glance at her face had shown him that she was, and while this was a discussion he didn’t want to have, he could see that he wasn’t going to get a choice. He put the book down and turned to face her. “Kara, I’m fine,” he said softly. “There’s nothing to be serious about. In fact, it’s a lot easier to manage if I’m not. I miss you – and you know that – but there’s not a hell of a lot we can do about it.”

“Yeah, there is,” she corrected.

He shook his head. “Not worth the risk.”

“The only risk is if I… Lee, I don’t have to get… excited for you to do it,” she said in a stumbling voice.

He reached over and kissed her on the forehead, which was not even the start of what he wanted to do, but all he would trust himself with. “It’s not much fun without you,” he told her.

She blushed, but she didn’t drop it. In fact, he saw a determined light come into her eyes that made him frankly nervous. “This is ridiculous,” she muttered. “If I can have your baby, I can certainly carry on a conversation about sex without sidestepping it.”

“So carry,” he invited. “What do you want to say?”

She took a deep breath, and he knew he was in for it. “I know we can’t have sex,” she told him. “But we did a lot of playing around before we got that far. You don’t have any restrictions, and there’s no law against me touching you. I mean, it might not be all I want, but at least it’s something. I miss you, and I miss being close to you.”

He couldn’t help but smile at that. “I miss you too,” he told her. “As I’m sure you can see. But it really isn’t all that much fun without you.”

“I’m right here,” she said, her voice exasperated.

“What I mean is that if I can’t touch back… it’s not the same. Yeah, we played around a lot before we actually started making love, but it was two-way. It’s really not worth the effort if I’m the only one having a good time.”

“What makes you think that you’d be the only one having a good time?” she asked.

He just raised his eyebrows, because the answer was obvious. He’d never been one to leave her behind in sex. They were partners in everything else, and to him that carried over into making love. He couldn’t say that he’d never gotten ahead of the game, but he had always gone back afterwards to make it up to her. Anything less seemed selfish to him. And besides, watching her come apart was very good for his ego.

“Lee, I love to touch you,” she said softly. “Think about it for a minute. If something were to happen where you couldn’t have sex, would you really want to stop touching me just because you couldn’t… finish.”

He did think about it. “No,” he admitted. “I’d love touching you regardless.”

“Holding you at night is the best part of my days,” she told him softly. “I get to put my arms around you, or be held by you, and for a little while everything’s okay. But I miss seeing your eyes glaze over and your body… I just miss it, Lee. And it’s something I can give you. You give me so much.”

He reached out a hand to stroke her cheek gently. “I love you,” he reminded her.

“And that is two-way,” she said with a smile. “Let me love you back.”

He couldn’t find a way to argue with that.

Lee looked at his watch for the third time in as many minutes.

“He’ll be here,” Kara told him with a grin. She was curled up on her side facing him, and she had one of his hands held between both of hers. She squeezed his fingers gently, placed a small kiss in his palm, and closed her eyes with a contented smile.

She had been a lot more relaxed since that morning, when she’d shown him that what was supposed improve his mood went a long way towards improving her disposition as well. He wouldn’t have thought a session of one-sided heavy petting would have done so much for her outlook, but he couldn’t deny the results. In truth, he felt a lot better as well, physically if not mentally.

The wait on Doctor Salik still had him tied up in knots. What they found out about the baby today would either be a huge relief or completely inconclusive. The baby was either doing well, or they would know nothing more than what they knew at the moment, which was very little.

The baby was growing. Even Lee could tell that much from Kara’s tummy. She wasn’t exactly showing, but he could feel a difference in the shape of her body, and in the slight bulge that he could feel below her navel. That reassured him, but it didn’t tell him if their baby was okay – only that he was there.

When Salik finally pounded on the door, Lee was wound so tightly that he could barely think.

“Come in,” Kara called out. Lee just sat there.

“Sorry I’m running late,” he told them as he placed a bag of gear at the foot of their bed. “I actually got caught up with a delivery. Our population has increased by one more.”

“Great,” Lee said, but his heart wasn’t in it. It was all he could do at the moment to breathe.

“Let’s go ahead and do this in reverse order,” the doctor said with a smile. “Instead of saving the best for last, let’s go ahead and see if we can hear anything. Okay?”

Lee nodded jerkily as Kara did the same. She might have been relaxed a moment ago, but as soon as she’d rolled onto her back for the doctor to examine her she’d become as tense as Lee was.

“Eating okay?” he asked her as he took out the small handheld device with the little screen.

“Fine,” she told him. “No vomiting, either.”

“Very good. Staying quiet?”

She nodded as he put something clear and gooey on her stomach. That was new. Normally he just waved the wand over her.

“This gel will help with picking up sound-waves,” he told them. “I can get a visual from the ultrasound, but it’s harder to pick up the heart than the body itself.” He looked up at them both. “Ready?”

They nodded in unison. Kara reached for Lee’s hand, and he held hers tightly while they waited. The doctor started as he had before, waving the unit over her lower abdomen like a wand, and then he turned it on its end and put the tip in the goo to roll that around as well.

At first, they heard a fairly slow and regular whooshing sound. Lee looked up hopefully, but the doctor still looked serious. “That’s Kara’s pulse,” he explained. “Good blood flow to the uterus.”

Lee looked at Kara and saw that her eyes were squeezed shut and she was very pale. She was scared to death. He gave another squeeze to her hand, then decided to hell with it. He leaned over and kissed her gently on the forehead, willing her to hang in there for just a little longer. He kept his cheek against hers as they waited for the verdict.

A faint, rapid whooshing was the next thing they heard. Lee watched as the doctor grinned broadly. “There we go,” he said with more than a little excitement.

“That’s it?” Lee asked anxiously. “His heartbeat?”

Kara’s eyes were open as well, and she was squeezing his hand hard enough that he would have bruises. He didn’t even mind.

“Or hers,” the doctor confirmed. “Too early to tell without taking a biopsy to culture. I can identify the head, limbs, and trunk but that’s about all. It’s still a tiny little thing.”

“Is he okay?” Kara asked tensely.

“I’s heart is fine,” the doctor said with a smile. “Solid rhythm and good rate. Hold on, and I’ll show you what it looks like.”

Salik tapped something into his clipboard, which he had just removed from the gear bag with his free hand. He turned his device over and laid it flat on Kara’s abdomen, and just held it there while he typed quickly with the other hand. When he was finished, he touched a button on the device and angled the screen towards the two of them. “This is the head,” he said as he indicated a curved gray line within the small screen. “And this is the trunk, one arm, and legs here. The other arm is tucked behind because of the angle it’s at, but that’s okay. And look here,” he gestured to tiny while marks towards the bottom of what he’d referred to as a leg. “Those are toes,” he told them with a wink. “And yes, I counted. There are ten of them.”

Lee didn’t remember much of the rest of Kara’s exam. He was too busy being caught in the wonder of having “seen” his child for the first time. The still frame that the doctor had showed them hadn’t been the same was watching him move, but Salik promised that on her next exam he’d bring a full ultrasound unit so that they could watch him wiggle around for a bit. Lee was in awe. It was really a baby, however small it was, and his heartbeat was strong and solid and faster than Lee could have imagined. He was alive, Lee realized. Kara had more than a pregnancy inside her; she had a baby there. A baby with fingers and toes and a heartbeat.

Kara had looked as stunned and relieved as he was. He could imagine how she must have felt. She had been miserable for a month, and at least now she could see why she had to be so still. They were going to have a baby – a real, living baby.

When the exam was over, Salik packed up his things and walked to the door. “This doesn’t mean the danger is over,” he cautioned. “But I won’t lie to you. This is a very good sign. We’ll wait another couple of weeks, and if everything stays stable we’ll get that biopsy if I still feel it’s necessary. If he’s kicking by then, we won’t bother. Either way, two more weeks and we should be able to look at lifting some of the activity restrictions. That doesn’t mean you’ll be allowed to go hop in a Viper or run laps around the Galactica,” he told Kara pointedly. “But you’ll be able to get up to eat, sit in a chair… that kind of thing.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Kara said with a genuine smile.

“Have a good day,” the doctor said as he left the room, closing the hatch behind him.

Lee looked at Kara for a long moment, then reached down and kissed her. Hard. He was so happy that he didn’t have a clue what to do with himself. Kara returned the kiss enthusiastically despite the smile she couldn’t seem to get rid of.

When Lee pulled back to look at her, he wasn’t surprised to see tears on her cheeks. Lords, he felt the same way. The relief was overwhelming.

“Lee?” she choked out.

“What?”

“Marry me?” she asked.

He felt his stomach drop. He thought of all the reasons he wanted her to be his wife, and all the reasons why this time in their lives was really too emotional to make big decisions. Then he thought of the pain he’d felt when he had asked her the same thing, and she hadn’t answered him. Finally, he thought of their baby: tiny, and real, and theirs.

“Two weeks,” he finally said.

“What?” Her confusion was clear, and he recognized the pain of the possible implied rejection in her voice. He’d been there.

“I want to tell you yes,” he explained, kissing her gently once more. “But right now I know neither one of us is in any condition to decide anything. I want you to be my wife; it’s what I’ve wanted for a long time. If you still want to marry me in two weeks, then we’ll get a ring and do it right. Fair?”

Kara was still for a long moment, and then she smiled. “Two weeks,” she echoed. “Maybe by then Salik will let me walk down an aisle.”

“If not, we’ll do it here,” Lee said softly. “Elosha has done more than one bedside ceremony.”

Kara shook her head at that.

“What?” he asked her.

“I want your dad to do it,” she told him quietly. “I think it’s his right.”

Lee nodded soberly. His father rarely did weddings, even though it was indeed one of the jobs he was qualified for. His reasoning was always that his own marriage hadn’t lasted, and that someone more fitting should be saying the sacred words. Lee couldn’t remember the last wedding his father had done, but for some reason he thought that this time his dad would make an exception.

“Two weeks,” Lee said again, and had to wonder what the hell he had been thinking when he hadn’t just told her yes.

Chapter 10

Kara had decided that waiting wasn’t so bad when you knew what you were waiting for – and when that something you were waiting for was worth it. For a woman who hadn’t wanted to be pregnant, much less to be a mother, she found herself looking forward to the visits that Salik made to her beside with his equipment, and to the glimpses she managed to get of their child.

Their child.

Lords, but Lee was getting excited. They had managed to almost keep their enthusiasm tempered by caution until Lee had felt the baby kick. From that moment, all bets had been off. Kara had never thought that anyone could be so absolutely silly about anything, but Lee was setting new records. If she hadn’t felt so much the same way, she wouldn’t have let him live it down. But a grown man carrying on conversations with her belly button had a certain sentimental appeal for her at this point, and she loved it. She loved him. And damn-it she loved the tiny little life that they’d made, even as she had no clue how she was going to raise him.

And yes, it was a him. Salik hadn’t been able to tell from the ultrasounds, but the small biopsy he had taken once they had reached a safe stage had shown a “structurally normal male”. They were having a son. Lee was so frakking proud of himself that he was barely tolerable. Again, if she hadn’t shared his feelings so closely she might have been annoyed.

If there was a downside to the situation it was that the two weeks Lee had requested more than two months ago had come and gone and she had yet to get the nerve up to ask him again. She was going to have to get it done. Finally, she had reached the twenty-four week point – the point at which Salik had relaxed his restrictions and allowed her to start acting like a human being again – and this baby was going to definitely, without a doubt, no-way-out-of-it be born. Even if she had him now, the Galactica had the support systems to keep him alive. It wouldn’t be easy, but the bottom line was that she and Lee were going to be parents.

If she didn’t say something quickly, they might just be unmarried parents, and that bothered her more than she like to admit. She understood why Lee hadn’t said anything more about marriage. She knew that a part of him was still slightly wounded from her doubts and fears earlier in the pregnancy, but she had shown him that she was ready. Hadn’t she?

Lee had taken to spending every non-working moment with her, either snuggling up to her while they watched a vid, or sitting next to her for a game of cards or a meal. He took her arm when they walked through the corridors of the Galactica, and he lavished more attention on her than she’d known he had for anything. But he hadn’t yet mentioned marriage. Not since she’d asked, and he’d told her to wait. She had waited. She was still waiting. And while she knew it was her turn – that she needed to bring it up again – she was scared stupid that he’d make her wait again. Or worse yet, that he wouldn’t.

She was clueless why she was afraid to marry Lee. She wanted it more than just about anything, and yet it terrified her on a level that was beyond conscious thought. What if something happened to him? What if he’d changed his mind, and he didn’t even want to marry her? What if something happened to the baby, and he didn’t want her anymore? The “ifs” were making her crazy, and the only way to alleviate her concerns would be to just take a deep breath and ask him. Again. She wished she knew why it was so frakking hard.

Chapter 10

“I do not like this,” Kara said through clenched teeth.

“A few more minutes,” Lee begged, wishing he could withdraw his hand, which had gone numb nearly an hour before. She was squeezing it with both of hers, and he was half-afraid it was going to come off. Lords, he was going to have bruises, but he wouldn’t be hurting as badly as she was now.

They had made it. Regardless of the frustration, and the irritation, and even their own doubts – they had made it. They were going to have a baby, and damned soon if Lee was any judge of things. Salik hadn’t said much, but neither was he looking concerned, so Lee decided that things must have been going along according to plan. At least Lee really hoped so; Kara looked positively pathetic.

She was propped with pillows on her bed, similar to the position she’d endured for the first four months of her pregnancy. The only difference really was the size of her belly and the expression on her face. Kara was hurting, and that was clear. She was taking it well, or at least as well as anyone could. If a few of the words she had spoken hadn’t been exactly… polite, well then it was no worse than what had been heard in the locker rooms at the Academy.

William Adama had told Lee how difficult this would be. It wasn’t that he hadn’t believed his father, but Lee had really thought that after all the difficulties in the pregnancy, something should come easy to Kara. It didn’t look like that was going to be the case. She had gone into labor over ten hours before, and she was still at it.

The pressure on his hand lessened for just a moment, and he squeezed her hand in return. It wasn’t meant to be a comforting gesture, but rather to restore some circulation before the next contraction hit. He wasn’t entirely successful, because as soon as she had eased her grip, she had tightened it again.

“No, no, no, no,” she was saying, her voice just over a whisper. “Not again; not another one.” Lee thought it might have been easier if she had just started screaming. I was certainly what he would have expected. Hell, it was likely what he would have done.

Looking at the monitor that Salik had brought from the Life Station, Lee could see what she meant. This contraction hadn’t even completely subsided before another had begun. Her breaks had been getting shorter, from minutes to seconds, and now they were nothing at all. He wondered how much more she could take.

As it turned out, she took quite a lot. After the contractions had become almost continuous, Kara had still had to lay there and do nothing more than fight the pain for another hour. Finally, after she had thrown up all over everything, the doctor had decided that she was ready to push. Both encouraged and relieved to see her doing something besides trying to relax through intense pain, Lee had taken up a position near the head of the bed to stay out of the doctor’s way.

Later he would think back that it had all happened so quickly, but at the time it seemed an eternity while Kara pushed and counted, muttered and cried. The baby’s head became visible almost immediately, but getting from there to having the baby in hand took considerably longer. Lee stopped looking at the clock at some point, mesmerized by the sight of his son emerging into the world.

Lords, he was ugly. That was the first thought Lee had when he saw the slightly blue, bloody, and entirely too still form slip from his wife and into Doctor Salik’s waiting hands. Lee felt more than a moment of panic as the doctor laid the baby on a towel and began rubbing him vigorously. Weren’t babies supposed to cry? Lee wondered. Weren’t they supposed to be red and squirmy?

“Is he okay?” Kara was asking quickly, urgently. “Lee, is he okay?”

Lee couldn’t speak. The baby didn’t look okay at all. He didn’t even look alive. His eyes were open, his body was blue, and aside from the movement caused by Salik’s vigorous rubbing the little body was still. Oh Lords, not this. After all they’d done, and sacrificed, the thought that anything could be wrong with this tiny scrap of life was enough to make Lee’s world drop out from beneath him.

Even as Lee started to go from worried to truly scared, little Zak Adama took a deep breath and screamed. Loud. Really loud, and really long. Lee let out the breath he’d been holding, finally smiling as he watched his son’s skin quickly go from a bluish tint, to purple, and finally to pink.

“Lee?”

He planted a quick kiss on Kara’s forehead, never taking his eyes from the baby. “He’s okay,” Lee told Kara. “He’s gorgeous.”

And he was. Now red, and wiggling, and his eyes were huge and blue and so very wide. He was screaming at the top of his lungs, and the volume was enough to give Lee pause. Would they be able to handle this little life? Would he always be this loud?

Salik used something to tie off the umbilical cord, and then clipped it with scissors before wrapping little Zak in a clean towel and handing him to Lee. The doctor hadn’t said a word during the entire process. Lee supposed it was all more than routine. He delivered from one to three babies on most days, in addition to all his other duties. The doctor was probably seeing yet another patient to care for, but Lee was watching a miracle happen.

It wasn’t the first miracle he’d seen in recent weeks. The look on Kara’s face when she had felt the baby kick for the first time had been amazing. He had never thought she could become so attached to something she hadn’t really wanted in the first place. Another sight that had struck him as unbelievable had been Kara in a dress for their wedding. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her in one before – not in all the years they’d known one another – but watching her waddle down the aisle in a borrowed maternity dress had become a favorite memory. It had been almost as miraculous as her becoming his wife.

Months back, he had told her to wait two weeks. Lee had wanted to be sure that she was emotionally ready to commit to him, rather than simply turning to him from some kind of obligation or fear. The weeks had come and gone, and she hadn’t mentioned it. Lee had been disappointed, but also grateful that he hadn’t jumped at her proposal. Clearly she hadn’t been ready. Or at least that was what he had thought.

When Kara had reached the eighth month of pregnancy – the time at which their baby’s birth would no longer be considered an emergency – Doctor Salik had allowed a very bored Kara to return to light duties. After her first day back at a desk, she had come to him, put her arms around him, and asked him, “Now that I’m allowed to walk, how about letting me walk down the aisle to you?”

He never had been able to tell her no.

So Kara had borrowed a dress, his father had produced the rings, and they had been married on the flight deck with all of their friends looking on. Visions of Kara in the pink dress, her hair pinned back and what passed for flowers in her hands and in her hair, often came to Lee when he least expected it. He had never asked her to be beautiful for him; she simply was. But seeing her dressed up had been a sight. She had laughingly told him to enjoy it, because it would never happen again, but he hadn’t cared. She was still the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen, even in grubby orange coveralls or a hospital gown. Especially in a hospital gown as she held their new son, whom Lee had just placed in her waiting arms.

Kara was intently digging through the towel for some reason, until she’d finally uncovered the baby’s arm. “What are you doing?” Lee asked in confusion.

“Counting fingers,” she muttered. “Sharon says you do it for luck.”

Lee laughed softly, nearly oblivious to the physician who was still between Kara’s legs taking care of things that Lee would rather not know about. “They’re all there,” he told her. “He’s perfect.”

“He is,” Kara said in wonder. He couldn’t fault her for the tears on her face; he’d been wiping away his own since he had seen the baby’s clear blue eyes.

“I take it you already have a name in mind,” the doctor called from where he was working.

“Zak Adama,” Kara said softly. “He even looks like him.”

“He does,” Lee agreed. “Except the eyes. Zak’s were brown, not blue.”

“He gets those from his daddy,” Kara told Lee with a wink, and then she turned her attention back to the baby who was nuzzling up against her as though seeking something. She ran a finger across his mouth, touching tiny pink lips and the little pink tongue that was moving all over the place.

“You’re going to need to feed him,” Lee said softly as he watched his son – wow, the thought amazed him, his son – search around for something to latch onto.

Kara looked up with an expression just short of panic. “I don’t know how,” she whispered.

“How hard can it be?” Lee asked, and then he reached behind her neck to release the tie on her gown, allowing one side to fall and expose her breast. “He’s already looking,” Lee reasoned. “So long as we point him in the right direction…”

Kara looked uncomfortable, and a little uncertain, but she held the baby closer to her. As Lee had suspected, the baby did most of the work. Truthfully, he’d gotten that hint from Chief Tyrol, who had told him more than one thing during the pregnancy that had saved Lee’s butt. Experience, it seemed, was a pretty good teacher. Little Zak clamped onto the offered nipple with an enthusiasm that Lee would have found comical if Kara hadn’t jumped in surprise.

“Hurt?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Weird,” she admitted. “Not painful, but it’ll definitely take some getting used to.”

“You’ll have plenty of time for that,” Salik told them as he finished whatever he had been doing and folded up the wet and bloody towels that had been placed beneath Kara to catch the worst of the mess. Beneath them was a plastic sheet, and a second layer of towels. By the time the doctor had pulled all the excess bedding away and pulled up her covers, the baby was already asleep. “I put in several stitches,” the doctor told them. “You’re going to be sore. No getting up without help; not even to the bathroom. Understood?”

Kara nodded, and Lee did the same.

“Good, then I’ll get out of here. I’ll send Cassie down in half an hour to check you both again, and then we’ll take him to Life Station to get him checked more thoroughly.”

“Do you have to?” Kara asked, and Lee heard pure panic in her voice.

“Your husband can come with him if you’re worried,” the doctor said. “But there are a number of tests I like to run to be sure the little guys are ready for the world. He’ll be okay for an hour or two, but then I’ll need to get some data.”

Lee nodded again, and watched as Kara clutched Zak closer to her. “I’ll go with him,” he assured her. “I won’t let them lose him.”

She gave him a tired, but good-natured glare as Salik left, and he couldn’t believe the relief that washed over him. He decided that it must be true about women forgetting the pain, because since she’d seen the baby she hadn’t complained once – not through the mess, the stitches, or even the nursing. She had just stared at the baby as though she couldn’t quite believe he was there. Lee knew the feeling.

“He’s so little,” she marveled, running a finger along the side of his face, smiling when his little mouth started sucking even though there was no longer anything in his mouth. “Do they dream when they’re this little?” she asked.

“No clue,” Lee admitted. “I’d guess he would. Not sure what he’d have to dream about, though.”

“Did you see how blue he was when he came out?” Kara asked. There was clear fear in her voice as she said it, and he saw her arms tighten on the baby once more.

“Doctor Salik didn’t seem worried,” Lee assured her. “And I’ll stay with him while the techs check him out.”

“You need to call your dad, too,” she added. “I know he’ll be wondering.”

Lee nodded. His father had wanted to be close by when the baby was born, but Kara had refused. She had said that a room full of people listening to her screams was not her idea of a good time. So everyone had stayed at work, and Salik had met them in their own room when her labor had gotten serious, rather than Lee taking Kara to Life Station. Thankfully there had been no complications, because Lee had liked having just the two of them present for the birth. Just as they had been with the baby’s conception, Lee and Kara had been a team for the birth. Granted, Kara had done most of the work, but the blue and gray areas on Lee’s hand showed that he would be a while healing from the birth himself.

So Lee had some errands to run, but he didn’t want to leave Kara to do it. He would have to call his father to come stay with her until he and the baby could get back from Life Station. Lee had no clue how long it would take. He needed to find something for Kara to eat, too, and himself for that matter. Reluctantly, he went to the phone by his desk and punched in the number for CIC. His father was working, having said that it would keep him from worrying too much. Lee knew that was a load of crap; his father worried about Kara nearly as much as Lee did himself.

“Command.” The voice was low and authoritative, and Lee had to smile. The Commander of a Battlestar answering his own telephone seemed to be fairly amusing.

“Hi, Grandpa,” Lee said with a smile.

William Adama’s laugh was soft but genuine. “You make me feel old,” he complained. “How is he?”

Lee thought about that. He was pink and perfect and as cute as anything or anyone Lee had ever seen. “Beautiful,” Lee answered. Then, with a glance at his wife, “Just like his mother.”

She rolled her eyes, but his father laughed again. “How did she do?”

“How do you think?” he asked. “I don’t think there’s anything she can’t do if she puts her mind to it.”

“Any problems?”

Lee shook his head, oblivious to the fact that his father couldn’t see him. “It just took forever,” Lee said. “Kara’s tired, I think.”

“And my grandson?”

Lee smiled again. “Already sleeping. The doc wants to take him to Life Station for a once over before long. Would you mind sitting with Kara. She’s fine – probably she’ll just sleep – but…”

“I’m on my way,” the Commander said. “I want to see that baby before Salik gets a hold of him.”

“Then I’ll see you in a few minutes,” Lee confirmed. “And, thanks.”

“It’s not a problem, Son.”

When Lee hung up, he looked over at Kara and wasn’t surprise to see that she was as near sleep as his son. His son. Would he ever get used to that? Somehow, he didn’t think so. He would have to ask his father.

“Kara, let me take him,” Lee said softly. She put her head up, alert for just a moment, but released the baby.

“Are you going?” she asked.

“Not for a bit,” he told her, carefully sitting on the edge of the bed to cradle his son in his arms. He was so tiny. Lee didn’t think he’d ever seen a baby so small. He had no idea how long he was or how much he weighed. Lee supposed Salik would give him that information. He hoped so; weren’t proud fathers supposed to brag about that sort of thing.

William Adama arrived moments later, wearing a huge smile as he greeted his son with a one-armed hug that was careful not to squish the baby between them.

“I forgot how little they were,” Lee’s father said softy, moving a corner of the towel away from the baby’s face to get a good look.

“Tell me about it,” Lee said.

Gesturing to Kara, the eldest Adama asked, “How is she?”

“The same,” Lee said softly, looking over at his sleeping wife. “She was really amazing.”

“Women are,” his father agreed. “All that stubborn in such a beautiful package.”

Lee smiled at that. Kara fit his father’s description exactly, both in the stubbornness that was as much a part of her as blond hair and hazel eyes, and in the beauty that was evident regardless of makeup or fancy clothes. Even dressed in an orange coverall with grease smeared all over her face, she was the most beautiful woman in the world to him.

The knock at the hatch was what Lee had been dreading. His father opened it to reveal Cassie standing there with a reluctant expression on her face, as though she knew how difficult it would be for him to leave his wife. “It’ll just take a moment,” she said with a smile. “I promise. You can hold him most of the time, too.”

His father gave him a little push, and Cassie led the way down the Galactica’s main corridor. There were more than a few people who glanced at the bundle in his arms with wide smiles and words of congratulations as Lee made the walk to Life Station. He didn’t stop to talk though; he wanted to get back to Kara.

Once in the Life Station, Cassie took the baby and weighed him, revealing a relatively small six pounds and four ounces, although Zak was tall at twenty-two inches. Next came identification criterion – footprints, handprints, and a retinal scan – and then a scan of his heart and lungs. Lee held his breath through each procedure, willing the results to be good. He had never been so worried about anything in his life. Much to his relief, his son was revealed to be perfectly normal, very healthy, and according to more than one of the techs, absolutely beautiful. Lee could have told them that.

The final step in the procedure was a warm bath for the infant. Lee held little Zak nervously in the pan of water while Cassie showed him how to wash all the tiny baby parts and keep his umbilical cord dry in the process. Lee did his best to remember all the details, but the tech assured him that they would be available to answer any questions that he or Kara thought of along the way. Little Zak was then diapered and wrapped in a clean and dry blanket. Less than an hour after coming into the Life Station, Lee walked back to his room with a clean and tidy baby sleeping in his arms. Cassie had said that the baby would need to eat again soon, and that if Kara had any trouble they were to contact the Life Station immediately.

Lee met a few more friends on his return trip, but they all seemed content to congratulate him and take a peek at the baby without expecting him to linger. He finally made it back to the room, and Lee was more than a little exhausted by the time he settled into the bed next to Kara.

“Everything go okay?” his father asked as Lee shifted the baby and tried to get comfortable.

“Fine. He’s perfect.”

“I could have told you that,” his father remarked. “Now can I take him?”

Lee smiled and passed the baby to his father, who held the tiny infant with a surprising ease and a silly smile. Lee relaxed back onto the pillows next to Kara, smiling softly as she moved towards him, cuddling close even in her sleep.

“I wasn’t around much when you were born,” William said softly. “I always seemed to be in one position or another that kept me shipboard. I missed so much with you. Your mother did most of it herself, so when she got pregnant with Zak she pretty much ordered me to take shore duty.” William smiled fondly at the memory. “I hated the duty, but I loved holding Zak. He was so tiny.”

“Does it get easier?” Lee asked.

His father shook his head. “Not really. Once they’re yours, you worry for the rest of your life. Not theirs,” he clarified. “But yours. You’ll always worry about him; every day of your life.”

“Thanks,” Lee said dryly.

“Just giving fair warning,” his father said with a wink. The baby was moving restlessly, his head turning slightly and his little tongue appearing and disappearing randomly. “He’s hungry,” William said.

Lee nodded, and took the baby back. Nudging Kara, he said, “Honey, wake up a minute.”

“Hmmm?”

“I’ll go now,” William said softly. “This is your time. Enjoy it.”

“Thanks,” he said honestly. “And thank you for staying with her.”

William smiled at that. “I never mind spending time with one of my favorite pilots,” he said gently. Walking around the bed, he placed a kiss on Kara’s forehead. “Congratulations, Mama,” he said gently.

“Thanks,” came her sleepy reply.

Once his father had left, Lee found himself faced with a fussing baby and a groggy wife. “Okay little guy,” he muttered in concern. “You figured this out by yourself before. Help us out again, will ya?”

Kara had dropped the gown on one side again, and took the baby when Lee handed him to her. “Hey, guy,” she said softly. “Quit that. I don’t have a clue what to do with a crying baby, so don’t even start.”

Thankfully, Zak found himself near a food source and latched on happily. Lee wondered if all babies were so brilliant, or if he and Kara had gotten lucky along the way. Lee stayed close as the baby ate, mostly because Kara was still half-asleep. Cassie knocked on the hatch and stuck her head in the door a few minutes later, then came in to check Kara’s blood pressure and press on her stomach, then checked to see how much Kara was still bleeding. Kara grunted and shifted away from the touch, but Cassie assured them that the discomfort was normal. Lee certainly hoped so.

“How long has he been nursing?” Cassie asked as she noted something on her clipboard.

Lee shrugged. “Ten minutes, maybe.”

“You’d better shift him. Here, let me…” She gently took the baby, turned him so that he was facing the opposite way, and helped Kara adjust her gown. This time when the baby latched on, Kara jumped.

“Ouch,” she muttered. “Take it easy, brat.”

“Watch the name calling,” Cassie said with a smile and a grin. “No more than fifteen minutes on each side, then shift. Got it?”

Kara nodded, but was too busy watching her baby now to look up. Cassie just shook her head, complimented them on such a lovely son, and finally left them alone.

Lee put his arm around Kara, barely able to believe that they were finally alone, or at least as alone as they were going to get. “How you doing?” he asked her.

“Sore,” she admitted. “But okay. I’m glad it’s over.”

Lee laughed. “I have the feeling it’s just starting,” he said carefully.

“Yeah, it is,” she said softly. “He really does look like Zak, doesn’t he?” she asked.

“He does.”

“And your dad, he was okay with the name?”

“He said he thought it would be perfect.”

Kara smiled, gently caressed her baby’s soft hair, and looked up at Lee. “Thank you,” she said softly.

“You did all the work,” he told her. “You stayed in bed, you followed orders, and Lords what you did to give birth to him!”

She shrugged. “Maybe it wasn’t so bad,” she admitted.

“So you might want to do this again?”

She glared at him, but she had a smile slipping through. “Not in the immediate future, no,” she muttered.

“Maybe someday?”

She laughed. “Lee, let’s get through the first day with this one, okay.”

“Fair,” he admitted.

Lee watched his wife and son for a moment more. He never would have expected Kara to want to be a mother, but watching her hold Zak was like watching her fly a Viper. She was just meant for it. “I love you,” he told her, then kissed her softly on the lips.

She kissed him back, and when he looked again she was smiling. “I love you too,” she said. “But I’m still not planning on having another one real soon.”

“I wouldn’t ask,” he said. And he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t go through the last few months all over again for anything – well, anything except the beautiful boy who she was holding. He watched her for a long time, and when both she and the baby dozed off, he adjusted her gown and made sure that little Zak was covered warmly. Then he settled his arm around the both of them and drew them close, content to rest with them. It had been a long day, and he was tired. They all were.

“Lee?”

“Hmm?” He looked up at her, surprised. He had thought she’d been sleeping.

“I really love him,” she said softly, her voice on the edge of sleep.

“I know, Kara,” he told her. “Me too.”

And with that, the family slept. In a couple of hours, they would be awoken by the tech again, checking on both Kara and Zak. An hour after that the baby would need to eat again. And only two hours after that, Kara would need to get up and walk to the restroom. But for the moment – this one precious moment – Lee just lay there and enjoyed his family.

Lee had never expected to fall in love with his best friend. He’d never expected to have a son, or to name that tiny boy after his brother. He’d never expected to see the pride on his father’s face, or the love in Kara’s eyes as she looked down at the baby. Lee had never expected any of it – any of it at all – when the world had crashed in around them nearly four years before. But out of the worst situations, a grain of goodness could usually be found. The greatest catastrophe known to man had produced unexpected consequences, and Lee Adama had never been happier.

The End J