Chapter 37
(Kara's POV)

As much as I enjoyed having the opportunity to shoot those raiders out of the sky I can't help but to feel a pang of regret as I am confronted with the realization that my first CAP was cut short by their arrival. Sure, I understand that, seeing how they had found us, we had no choice but to jump away and that given that vipers have no FTL capabilities we had to land in order to do so but damn it, after being grounded for what felt like ages I just wanted to stay out there for a little --or maybe a lot-- longer.

I'm still thinking about that as I reluctantly take off my helmet and climb down from my cockpit, leaving behind the familiar comfort of my viper and forcing myself to rejoin the noisy little world that is the hangar deck. I must have taken longer than I thought to gather my courage because by the time I'm done Lee is already there, waiting for me.

"Walk with me," he tells me, catching me totally off guard.

I follow him rather reluctantly to a supply closet, growing more and more perplexed by the minute. Whatever this is about it is pretty apparent that he doesn't want any witnesses and that particular thought is far from reassuring. It means that he wants to 'talk' and the truth is that in these past couple of weeks I've grown to dread those talks.

"I'm sorry," he says once he is sure we are alone.

"What?!" I ask, wondering what the frak is going on here. Honestly, there should be a rule against people just coming out and saying something like that out of nowhere... especially because as of right now I don't have a frakking clue as to what the hell it is that Lee is apologizing for in the first place.

"You heard me."

"Yes, I heard you, I just don't understand," I say, still trying to figure out what's going on, trying to figure out where we stand and not wanting to make a bigger mess out of this.

"It's just that... look, I messed up, okay?"

"Care to run that by me again?"

"Listen, this is hard enough already but I... I'm sorry."

"I got that part already," I growl, though I think I'm finally beginning to understand where this is going... of course, I also know that there's something like a ninety percent chance that I'm reading this whole thing wrong, but then again that is half the 'fun'.

"I shouldn't have freaked... no, that's not it. I had a right to freak but I shouldn't have gotten mad at you. I mean, sure, I still wish you would have trusted me enough to tell me about it but I guess I can understand why you didn't."

"It was none of your frakking business," I snap.

"No, it wasn't but damn it, Kara, you are my best friend and I wasn't exactly expecting to be blind-sided by something like that either!" he exclaims and for the first time in what feels like ages I think I can actually understand where he is coming from. After all, if our positions had been reversed, if someone had actually hurt Lee, I would probably have wanted to break something too --preferably someone-- and if that hadn't been an option I would almost certainly have ended up taking my frustrations out on the nearest target --probably him-- so the truth is that I don't think I would have handled it much better.

Yes, having Lee hovering over me has been annoying as hell but I guess in his own twisted way he was just trying to show me that he cares... now all I have to do is get him to stop trying.

"I haven't changed, Lee," I whisper.

"No, you haven't," he admits, looking at me.

"So?"

"So."

"Right," I say and he just bursts out laughing, not that I blame him. I have to admit that as far as conversations go, ours do have a tendency to leave something to be desired. I mean, let's face it, we are both far better at understanding what we aren't saying than at making sense out of the words that actually do make it out of each other's mouths.

"I still want to understand," he warns me after a few seconds of silence.

"I know you do, just, not now, okay?" I say hoping that he'll understand.

"Fair enough, but soon?"

"Soon," I promise, knowing that there's no way Lee is going to let this go, not completely, but feeling for the first time in what seems like forever that in the end we are going to be just fine. Sure, we still have a very long way to go to be back to anything remotely resembling normal --there's no question about that-- but at least now we are in the same book so how hard can it be for the two of us to actually make it to the same frakking page?