Chapter 5
(Lee's POV)

I look at Kara in that bed and I can't keep a shiver from running down my spine. I almost lost her today, that is the thought that keeps running through my mind and all of a sudden a year of anger and resentment is peeled away and I am forced to confront the fact that I still love her and chances are that I always will.

Sure, there is a lot I still don't understand about what happened here but when all is said and done the truth is that I don't even want to contemplate what my life would be like without her. Hell, this past year gave me a taste of that and --now that I'm finally being honest with myself-- I can honestly say that it wasn't fun.

The problem is that fixing this mess is not going to be easy. In fact I'm not even sure whether or not there's going to be a way for me to dig myself out of the hole I dug myself into... or rather a way for us to dig ourselves out of it, because while seeing Kara in that bed makes me want to forgive all her sins, the truth is that we dug that hole together and, to make matters worse, I suspect that even if we were to manage to dig ourselves out of it, others are bound to end up getting buried in the process.

After all, that's the way it always is when Kara is involved... but that can wait. Right now we have other priorities, like trying to figure out what caused her to do what she did in the first place. That should be our main concern, especially if we want her to make it past this point... unfortunately we still don't have a clue about that one, not really.

Earlier today --or was it yesterday?-- I wanted to kill her. At the time I was so angry that I was literally volunteering to open an airlock for her, not realizing how close to the edge she already was and that is something I can't quite get out of my mind. Were there any warning signs there that I just failed to recognize? Probably. Kara has always been reckless and that may have kept me from seeing how bad things really were, but the truth is that --as brutal as our most recent argument may have been-- it was no worse than countless others we've had before.

When we go at each other we don't pull our punches, it is as simple as that... or at least it was because that is something that is going to change now, especially considering the odds the doc mentioned.

Twenty percent... those would be her chances if we were to leave her to her own devices. That is nowhere near acceptable and, as if those odds weren't bad enough, the doc's 'best bet' is fifty percent but even that 'ideal' fifty percent is a conditional one, one that requires us to regain her trust. That is not exactly reassuring, especially not considering how big an 'if' that really is. Gaining Kara's trust has never been easy but I suspect that regaining it is bound to be all but impossible. She has no reason to trust us now, not considering how we turned on her.

That means that if we want to keep her alive we are likely to find ourselves with more than one battle in our hands. We are going to have to figure out what brought her to this point but we are also going to have to come up with some sort of strategy going forward... and in order to do that we are going to have to start thinking with our heads. Of course, in my case that is going to be easier said than done because, when it comes to Kara, I am all too aware of the fact that my heart does have a tendency to tell my mind to take a hike.

The problem is that, to make matters worse, it's not just the two of us that are having a hard time getting back into the rhythm of things, nowhere near it. Right now we are all still struggling to get reacquainted with each other. The crew is divided into the ones who settled on New Caprica and the ones who stayed on board the Galactica and the Pegasus, and even those who stayed with the battlestars are divided between what used to be the crews of the Galactica and the Pegasus, to say nothing of the fact that, in the aftermath of the Pegasus's destruction we found ourselves with two of pretty much everything so a number of us have been demoted --like me-- though in my case I consider that to be a blessing. I freely admit that I feel far more comfortable as CAG than I ever did as a commander.

Besides, being the CAG gives me the freedom to rearrange my own shifts in a way that allows me to make Kara a priority.

Right now we have more pilots than vipers anyway and that means that, if need be, I can take myself off the rotation for as long as it takes without putting an undue burden on anyone else as a result. As for the paperwork, well I can take care of that here in sickbay just as easily as I can anywhere else. In addition to that we have at least half a dozen people who can be trusted to take over the CIC for short periods of time and that in turn means that --barring an emergency that actually requires his direct input-- even my father will probably be in a position to get away for a couple of hours a day.

That's a start but I'm not sure whether or not it's going to be enough. Cottle said something about a suicide watch, though he also hinted at the fact that he doesn't really have the resources or the staff to maintain something like that for more than a couple of days and that means that the rest of us are going to have to step up to the plate here. The problem is that no matter how hard we try, the three of us --or even four if we were to count Cottle-- probably won't be anywhere near enough to pull it off either and that means we are going to need some reinforcements here.

Sure, I know that there's no way we can keep what happened a secret. In fact I am all but certain that the news is already all over the ship --and that is something we, and especially Kara, are going to have to deal with eventually-- but trying to figure out which names should be added to the list of ' Starbuck's friends' is not going to be easy. The truth is that things are different now and I don't think the way things were is going to be much of a reference in that regard. For instance, she used to be very close to Helo but I suspect that that is no longer the case. Hell, from what I've heard she's developed a new fondness for Tigh out of all people and that is going to take some getting used to!

I mean, talk about an irony! When I first came on board she was in hack for, as she put it, 'hitting a superior asshole' and now the two of them are drinking buddies?

I am still trying to wrap my mind around that particular concept when my father walks in and I know it's time for me to say goodbye. Sure, the idea of asking for a few more minutes with her is incredibly tempting but I know Cottle would have my hide if I were to try it so I decide to play it safe and I reluctantly get up.

There's nothing I can do here, not really, and right now I have a flight schedule to rewrite.