Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters; I'm only borrowing them for a while.

This story is set post Home (part 2) but is AU and is built on a scenario where Lee didn't just walk away after telling Kara that he loved her. However, everything is not going according to the "happy ever after" plan! Spoilers up to and including Resurrection Ship. Hope you enjoy.

Opposites Attract

Chapter 1

Lee could hear the sounds of merriment coming from the rec room before he even got there. Her distinctive laugh echoed down the corridor, mixed with the deeper laughs of her male companions. He stood silently in the hatch way and watched, a feeling of anger rising in his chest.

Kara was perched on Helo's lap, one hand clasping his neck as the other tried to grab the cigar he was holding just out of her reach.

"Give it to me you bastard!"

"Why should I? It's mine."

"Give it to me!" She stretched up a bit further but Helo just laughed even more and moved her quarry further out of her reach.

"No, you know that you can't have it."

"I won't smoke it; I just want a sniff. Please, Helo, pretty please; just a little sniff for your bestest, bestest friend who doesn't mind in the slightest that you're frakking a toaster."

A disgruntled "tsk" from the hatch way made them both turn in unison. Helo was slightly embarrassed to be found with Kara sitting on his lap by the CAG, but he couldn't exactly tip her on to the floor to stand and salute. He went for the polite question instead.

"Is there something we can do for you Captain?"

"Not you Helo, I know you're off duty, but I was under the impression that Lieutenant Thrace was on shift and was supposed to be completing the evaluations on the new recruits." He glared at Kara.

"Don't sweat it Apollo. The reports will be on your desk by the end of the shift," she replied nonchalantly, her gaze never leaving his.

He stared back at her for a few moments then turned sharply and strode away.

"What's up with the CAG?" asked Hotdog when he was out of hearing range.

"Oh, just ignore Captain Grumpy, I'll deal with him later," she replied lightly, but the laughter had died from her face and her eyes took on a steely glint.

"Can you let me know when you're gonna deal with him?" asked Helo.

"Why?"

"Well your last fight was such a humdinger that I was thinking of making some money by selling tickets for this one, and having a little book on the side on who would throw the first punch," he replied, a shit-eating grin splitting his face. She laughed and cuffed him on the shoulder.

"You should know that I always throw the first punch. I'd better go and get it over with now before you can drum up an audience." She climbed off his lap, picked up her pile of paperwork and strolled out of the rec room in the direction Lee had taken.

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When she reached his office, Lee was slamming reports onto the ever increasing pile on his desk with unnecessary violence. She shut the hatch and then went over and dumped her reports on top of the others.

"There are your frakking reports, Lee. I'd already finished them." He glanced at them, squinting at her scrawled writing.

"I don't call that finished. I have to be able to read them, lieutenant." She stood back and glared at him, hands on hips and eyes flashing with anger.

"What is your problem, Lee?"

"I'm not the one with the problem, lieutenant."

"Will you just cut the rank crap? It's just you and me in a locked room. I'm your wife, Lee; I don't expect to be addressed like I'm some naughty school child."

"When we're both on duty, I have to treat you as our working relationship demands and that means that you need to do the same. I can't have you undermining my authority just because we have a personal relationship, Kara." She looked at him incredulously.

"Gods Lee, if you shoved that stick any further up your ass you'd be coughing splinters. Have you any idea how pompous you sound?"

"Its not pomposity; it's just a fact of life. You have to treat me like the CAG when we're working and that means you call me sir or Captain or Apollo and you treat me with respect."

"When have I shown any disrespect?"

"Huh? Where should I start? What about yesterday on the flight deck?"

"You were being a jerk, Lee and it was a joke; you know, one of those funny moments we used to share together before we started frakking."

"Before we were frakking…..is that all this is to you? I'm just a good frak?"

"Who said you were any good?"

"You….you…you're unbelievable! Why don't you just completely crush my manhood while you're at it." She took a deep breath and let out a loud sigh.

"Look Lee, I'm frustrated and I'm miserable and I don't know what to do about it except lash out at you. Forget I said that, of course you're a good frak, the best." She ran her hand up and down his arm and took another deep, steadying breath then looked at him seriously. "It's not working is it?"

"What's not working?"

"This!" She waived her hand between them in frustration. "You, me, marriage. It's not working, Lee."

He was thrown by her sudden change to this very touchy subject.

"What makes you say that? I think we're doing OK."

"Gods you're dense. We don't have fun with each other anymore Lee. We don't even talk, we just fight. That's all our marriage is about: it's just frakking and fighting."

"Well I'm sorry that I can't be as much fun as your friend Helo, but I have responsibilities that I can't just drop every time you fancy a bit of down time. Things are in a bit of a mess around the fleet in case you haven't noticed," he responded, grumpily.

"See that's just what I'm talking about. You're so busy, yet every time I spend time with my friends who happen to be other men you turn into this jealous freak."

"I'm not jealous!"

"Like hell you aren't! What about just now? You could've easily come into the rec room, made some light remark to let me know that you wanted those reports and that you didn't like to see me sitting on Helo's lap but no, you have to go all huffy and piss on everyone's parade."

"Well excuse me if I don't like the sight of my wife fawning over some other man," he shouted at her.

"I wasn't fawning and you've got a screw loose if you're jealous of Helo: he's in love with a toaster for frak sake."

"I don't care who he's in love with. You're my wife now Kara, you can't just carry on like you did before." The volume of their voices had been rising steadily to the point where they were now both shouting whilst standing toe to toe. If Helo had gathered an audience outside then they were getting value for their money.

"Yes, I'm your wife and don't I know it. I'm constantly trying to come up to your expectations of what the woman who holds that hallowed position should be like. You've put some fictitious version of me on a hopelessly high pedestal that no real woman could ever hope to reach. Well I can't take it anymore Lee. I've tried as hard as I can, but I told you not to try and change me, to change who I was, when you asked me to marry you. You said that you wanted me just the way I was, but that's not been good enough for you, has it Lee?"

"Don't be silly Kara, of course you're good enough, but marriage is about compromise. I'm not trying to change you, I'm not asking that you undergo some radical personality makeover, I'm just asking that you consider my feelings as well as your own."

"And what exactly have you compromised on to fit in with my feelings, Lee?"

"I compromise all the time. I put up with this kind of shit when I've got a hundred other things that I should be doing. If you think you've been so great at it, then tell me exactly what you've done." he yelled.

"I'm having this frakking baby for you aren't I!" she screamed back at him.

"Wait, did you just call our child 'this frakking baby'. That's callous even for you.I thoughtyou wanted the baby."

"No, no, yes, I don't know. I probably will later on, but right now all it is to me is no vipers and almost constant nausea. You knew that I didn't want to do this now. I needed time to get used to being a wife and to come to terms with some things in my past before we started a family, but you still pressured me into it."

"I never pushed you to get pregnant."

"No, you just gave me that look of resignation when I said that I didn't want to have a baby, and then you'd get this look of dejection on your face every month when I got my period. For a man who keeps most of his emotions hidden you can give pretty clear signals when you want to. So I just gave in and let myself get pregnant. I thought that if I gave you the child you so obviously wanted it might help things." He looked at her incredulously.

"I can't believe that you thought you could use a baby as a pawn in our marriage. How could you think that it would help if you really didn't want it? Why didn't you talk to me and tell me how you felt?"

"Because you don't listen to me, Lee. You just hear what you want to hear and see the worst in everything I do. Well I'm sick of it. You say that I don't respect you; well you can't expect your wife to show you respect if you don't show her any in return!"

"Of course I respect you! Oh this is so frakked up it's not funny. The Gods help this child if it's inherited your personality traits" he spat at her, his confusion at where this arguement was going making him lash out at her with vicious words. He should have known that she would give as good as she got.

"That works both ways, moron: it's in serious trouble if it's got yours instead. Although with that jealous streak I'm surprised that you're not accusing me of getting pregnant by some other man, and may be I should have! Then at least the poor thing wouldn't turn out to be an anally-retentive, emotionally-stunted freak!" She yelled right in his face.

"That's low, even for you Kara."

"Yeah, well you're the one who's made me sink this far down."

He turned abruptly to leave.

"Where are you going? We're not done here."

"Yes we are, because if I don't leave now this is gonna turn violent and I won't let you lower my self-respect to the point where I'm prepared to hit a pregnant woman!" She picked up the nearest object, which just happened to be the weighty tome of the military code of conduct, and hurled it at him. It caught him on the shoulder as he stepped through the hatch and clattered to the floor, startling the people in the corridor outside.

"Well just don't expect me to be here when you come back!"

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