This story really came out of no where... It started as a oneshot, I had this scene in my head that I just couldn't get rid of so I wrote it down, and then this whole story started evolving around that one scene...

All this is just a warning to tell you that I have abseloutly no idea where this story is going or even if it's going anywhere... it's all a big mystery to me.

Disclaimer: Don't own them, just leasing and luckily for me it was a bargain, because otherwise I wouldn't be able to afoord it!

Set after "Scrifice"

Lee/Dee, Lee/Kara pairing

The sight of them made her sick to her stomach. She knew the rationality behind it, she knew she let things go this far, that it was more than partly her fault things happened the way they did… she didn't expect them to go any different…

Not after what she did.

I mean, really, how many men do you know that would be ok with you shooting them? How many men do you know who would just forgive that kind of betrayal? She nearly killed him. So what did she expect?

But she had to admit to herself that blaming it all on the shooting was just her, taking the easy way out again. Cause if she had to be honest it all started long before that night. It started when he first came to Galactica, it was there when she came back from Caprica, it was there that night when she almost frakked him and then told him she was still hung up on Andres… she pushed him away… and now he was gone.

She could handle him being gone. That wasn't her problem. She had a lot of people walk out of her life over the years one way or the other. She was used to it by now.

What she couldn't handle was watching them… the two of them… the hottest item on Galactica's menu since sliced bread… the hottest new gossip in town. The CAG and the com expert… The green eyed beauty from CIC and the hard bodied hunk from the flight deck… Lee and Dee… even their names rhymed.

It was all so perfect it made her want to vomit.

She didn't blame him, she didn't blame her. The world was on the verge of extinction, they were both beautiful, attractive people, they had a lot in common, they were both going through some bad stuff. Dee was still recovering from Billy's death, Apollo was still working on issues resulting from his own two near death experiences - they supported each other, they helped each other get through it. It was logical and natural that they would end up together.

She couldn't bare to watch them, but for months - that was all she did. Watch them from afar. She and Lee barely talked anymore, partly because she felt he didn't need her anymore now that he had Dee, partly because she just couldn't bring herself to look him in the eye after what she did to him. She tried to keep her distance, to avoid them, but as big as Galactica was it was still pretty tight quarters, and avoiding someone completely when you had to work side by side with them every day wasn't really an option.

"At least now, people would stop assumingme and Apolloare secretly frakking each other" she thought to herself bitterly.

She ended up volunteering for extra shifts, as always finding her solace in the sky, just her and the machine under her. The rest of the time she spent in her bunk, pretending to sleep, or read, or whatever. The break room was off limits - that's where the two of them would be together most of the time - which meant no more triad games with the nuggets, no more wild nights drinking with the boys. If people noticed her sudden withdrawal they didn't mention it - probably chalking it up to one of her famous moods.

And then, after a few months it stopped. The two of them were no longer seen together all over the ship. They stopped taking leaves together and going to cloud 9 for some R&R. The rumor mill said that they broke up, but she still saw the looks her gave her when he thought no one was looking. She was looking.

She groaned when the buzzard on her alarm went off, shaking her out of her thoughts. She volunteered for another assignment today. They were short on Raptor pilots and since she was one of the few pilots qualified on both Vipers and Raptors she volunteered to take the extra shift.

She quickly put on her flight suit and hurried down to the hanger bay. The Chief was there as always and he greeted her with an apprehensive smile.

"A little assignment change Starbuck" he handed her the flight schedule "one of the ships in the fleet, the Callisto, is reporting some mechanical difficulties and we have to send someone to do the repairs. You'll have to play Taxi and shuttle them over"

She frowned at him, something about the way her said it made all the alarms go off in her head "Ok… what are you not telling me here chief?"

"Well…" he suddenly found his own feet very interesting, obviously uncomfortable about the entire situation "The problem is with the com system so we have to send a com specialist…"

"Hey chief! So who do you have to give me a ride to the Callisto?" she suddenly heard a familiar voice behind her and stifled a sigh the lords of kobol must be frakking with me!>

She turned around and there she was… Dee… the Com specialist "That would be me!" she answered with a tight smile instead of the chief and watched with somewhat enjoyment as the look on Dee's face changed to apprehension almost immediately "Don't worry, I'll do my best to get you there in one piece"

She went through the familiar motions of pre-flight, checking her fuel and oxygen levels, getting the ok for take off from CIC… Dee was sitting in the back in complete silence the entire time, but she could feel the girl's eyes burning a hole in her back. Gods she wanted this flight to be over with so badly!

"This is Raptor 7 en route to Callisto" she reported as soon as she cleared Galactica's flight deck "have a nice day!" she added, trying not to sound sarcastic even though that was what she truly meant.

The first few minutes of the flight were uneventful as she navigated her way through the fleet's ships her eyes fixed on the ship that was their target. The silence was uncomfortable and the tension in the small cabin could be cut by a knife - but she preferred it that way. Because the other option was talking - and really, what was there to say.

Suddenly she felt a tremor in the steering stick, it wasn't much but she felt it and all of the sudden she had that feeling in her stomach, that feeling that came to her as second nature and told her that something was wrong with the plane.

She quickly got on the radio "Galactica actual, I'm having a problem here…" before she could even complete her sentence the Raptor started pivoting, she pulled on the stick hard, attempting to stabilize it but the frakking machine simply over-compensated and went into a spiraling loop. She barely managed to get the Raptor under control when she saw a blue light come to life on the dashboard.

"What the hell is going on?" Dee yelled from the back and Starbuck suddenly remembered that she had a passenger on board

"Not now!" she screamed back and got back on the radio with Galactica "Galactica actual this is Raptor 7 I'm having mechanical difficulties here. Can you here me?"

On board the Galactica Admiral Adama rushed over to the horn and picked it up "We're here Starbuck…"

Starbuck tried switching on and off several buttons on her dashboard as she spoke "Sir. My FTL drive just started booting all on it's own, I have almost no navigation abilities and it seems like this frakking machine is about to do an FTL jump!"

"Jump where?" Admiral Adama said worriedly signaling to Lt. Gaeta to start working his magic and get some kind of trace on Starbuck's raptor

"I have no frakking idea!" Starbuck nearly screamed.

Suddenly the Raptor plunged forward, going into a dangerous dive and barely avoiding crashing into the side of a passenger carrier that was in its way. A second later the familiar blue light engulfed the plane and the next thing she knew she was staring at nothing but open sky.

As soon as the jump was over the Raptor was shook by a small explosion that sent Starbuck headfirst into the consol in front of her, hitting her head so hard she saw stars for a moment. She felt blood running down into her left eye and reached her hand up in pain to cover the gash that formed on her forehead. A second later the Raptor powered down and switched to emergency power and the cabin was flooded with red light.

"What the hell just happened?" Dee said quietly, removing her seatbelt and stepping to the cockpit to take a look outside the window "Where are we?"

"I don't know… but it looks like you and I are going to be stuck here for a while…"