Title: Nature of Love

Summary: "She's falling hopelessly in love with him, and what's funny is that she doesn't mind all that much. She knows she's doomed, and at this point is just enjoying the ride." This is unabashedly fluffy. I admit it. Title (and lyrics snippet below) from the song "Jupiter" by Jewel.

This isn't the first time, or the second, or even the tenth. Lee shuts the hatch to their quarters, twists the lock, and crosses the room to where she's sitting on the table, waiting for him. He threads his hands through her hair and kisses her, and Kara idly thinks this time might be somewhere in the hundreds – not that she's counting. The whole crew has been betting on them frakking ever since Lee came to Galactica, so that part was surprising to exactly no one. What's shocked everybody, Kara included, is that they now seem to be in an actual relationship, and have been for weeks. It's something she never thought she'd want for herself again, but Lee is an Adama, and she knows all too well that Adama men will never be denied.

He's more persistent than she would have guessed, and more caring than she'd ever dreamed. He pulls her out of bed and into the shower in the mornings, holding her up under the spray when she's so tired she can barely stand. He schedules them on CAP together particularly so she can finish telling him what an idiot he is about one thing or another. On her birthday, a day she'd just as soon forget as celebrate, he leaves a single flower (from Cloud Nine, he later explains) pinned to a note that reads "IOU a box of cigars, a bottle of ambrosia, or one night of making out in your Viper. Pick one."

She's falling hopelessly in love with him, and what's funny is that she doesn't mind all that much. She knows she's doomed, and at this point is just enjoying the ride.

Lee's mouth slants against hers, firm and sure, but still gentle after all this time. She shuts her eyes tight; she's already memorized everything about his face. The patrician line of his nose, the curve of his jaw, the way his eyelashes fan across his cheek when he sleeps. The lines around his mouth when he's happy, truly happy, and smiling as if he doesn't have a care in the world. She knows this face, better than she knows her own. Still, she lets her fingers wander over his stubbled jaw as his kisses become deeper, hotter, more insistent.

Kara pulls back slightly, leaning her forehead against his. "You have to go," she laughs, breathless.

"What? That's crazy talk, Lieutenant," he says, leaning in again.

She shakes her head, pushes her hands against his shoulders. "You're supposed to be in CIC in three minutes, in case you've forgotten." His hands are resting on her thighs, his fingers playing with the hem of her shorts. It's maddeningly sexy, and frustrating; whenever he touches her, she has a hard time remembering her own name, much less anything else.

"It's just bureaucratic bullshit," he cajoles, pressing one kiss to her cheek and another to her lips. "No one's going to miss the CAG's input."

"They will once they realize you're skipping out to behave scandalously with one of your pilots."

Lee grins. "Oh, come on. We haven't even gotten to scandalous yet." His hands slide higher on her legs, his mouth tracing a path from her cheek to her jaw. She leans her head back, giving him access to her neck. He presses his mouth to the skin just over her pulse, which is going a mile a minute.

Kara hooks her feet around the back of his legs, pulling him closer to her. "Okay, Adama, but as much as I love you, good girls don't do scandalous things on tables."

"What did you just say?" he asks, lifting his head back up to look at her.

Oh, frak. "That you have a perfectly good rack three feet away?" she responds sweetly, hoping he'll take the bait.

"Not that part," he says, a knowing look in his eyes. "You said, 'as much as I love you.'"

"Oh, Lords," she groans, dropping her head down onto her shoulder.

"So. You love me, huh?" Lee asks cheerfully.

"Take it back. Hate you," Kara says, her voice muffled by the fabric of his shirt.

"I seem to remember something about no takebacks."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she grouses. He's going to be insufferable with this information, she just knows it. It's one thing to fall in love with a man like Lee. It's another thing entirely to actually let him in on the secret. She's been wanting to say it; it's on the tip of her tongue every morning, every night, every moment in between. But this was not how she planned it happening.

"Kara Thrace loves me," Lee says, and without looking, she knows he has a self-satisfied grin on his face. "You know, I could get used to this development."

She lifts her head up. "Let's not get sidetracked, here. What happened to scandalous?"

"Something more interesting came along."

Kara scoffs, rolls her eyes, and with one quick motion grabs the hem of her tank and pulls it over her head. Her smile widens as she takes in the look on his face. "That's what I thought," she said, leaning in to capture his mouth with hers.

His hands spread out over her midsection, his thumbs brushing against her ribcage, setting off butterflies in the pit of her stomach. For a girl who's always scoffed at the idea of needing to be protected, she's terrified at how safe she feels when he's holding her like this, kissing her like this. She never asks him to protect her, shield her from the rest of the world, but he does it anyway. And she couldn't love him for that more if she tried.

This time he's the one to pull away. His eyes dark and unreadable, he abruptly says, "I love you, you know."

She smiles. "I may have heard that rumor somewhere."

"Yeah," he says sheepishly, ducking his head to avoid looking at her. She laughs and kisses his forehead.

"I love you, too," she says quietly. "I don't know much about anything these days, but I do know that."

Lee looks back up at her. "So, what did we just decide, here?"

"I'm not sure," she answers honestly. "But," she says, locking her legs around his waist, "I do believe I was promised some scandalous behavior that someone has failed to deliver."

"Capital offense," he says mock-seriously, before wrapping his arms around her and scooping her up off the table.

"Remind me to send you to the brig later," Kara replies in the same playful tone of voice as he presses her back to the wall of lockers.

"After you've had your way with me, naturally."

"You know me too well."

end