Good Company by olaf47 

Sweet Lords of Kobol. This is the cutest, funniest, sexiest, awesomest thing I've read in a long time.

In defiance of the laws of nature, Lee Adama's unlikely combination of adorkable/hot increases tenfold when he's stoned. Kara is hilarious (the cake and the action figure, haha!). They are so good together.

Alternate Route by daybreak777

Frak frakking shit. Frak.

This is a large amount of steamy with a healthy sprinkling of feelings and cuteness thrown in for good measure. And because it's Daybreak, it's well-written as hell. I just wish reading it didn't make me so frakking sad.

Why did they even bother with "The Oath" if everything was going to immediately start sucking even harder directly afterwards? Just remembering how fantastic Kara and Lee were together in this episode hurts. They were so real and themselves and together again, and it was only for the shortest time. She saves his life. They kiss. She finds him a gun and they kick ass. They share a look when Daddy and Mommy start making out. She falls for his tricks and he mocks her. 

RDM rips my heart out of my chest.

(Why do I care so godsdamned much?) 

At the Battle, With Faithful Arrows by daygloparker

Sad. Desperate. Angry. Comforting. Safe. Scared. Fraaaaak, I miss these pilots.

I love the way this was written.

Rapunzel by innibis

This is my favorite of Innibis's "Frakked-Up Fairy Tale" series.

Lee as Rapunzel is so delicious. He makes a wonderful damsel and it's almost scary how well he fits as the character who has been trapped in a tower and raised on a diet of idealism and almost no human contact. I imagine he's the blushingest Lee that ever was (which is saying a lot). The banter is really well-written and so in-character, especially Kara's wry humor. The few little lines stolen directly from the series are nice touches, as well.

There's absolutely nothing not awesome about this. 

Epilogue by zefire2

I never trust happy endings and by the time 4.5 rolled around I didn't even want one for Kara and Lee. A lot of the fix-it fics didn't do anything for me, but I really like this one.

In case you were wondering how that could be, it's because I read it so the mountain lion got Lee and he's dead, but doesn't know it. I don't know if the author intended it this way, or if she even intended the ambiguity, but it's the only way I can accept Kara coming back to him like this.

A CAG's Work is Never Done by Jason Thompson

A while back, when I was super frustrated with Kara and Lee, I discovered I had this weird weakness... Lee + Anyone. What can I say? Sometimes I hate the guy, but he is hot as the frakking sun, especially when he's being a hardass CAG.

Bonus points for Kara and Lee being friends.

Ordinary Light by whatimages

Whoa.

I'd never read this before today, and it really touched me. It's not the ending I would have chosen for them by the end, but it's exactly what I think could have happened if the first Earth hadn't turned out to be a wasteland. It's hard to forget about everything that happened post-Dead Earth—that's kind of when everything started to go irreparably wonky and even I couldn't recognize my show anymore—but way back then, Kara and Lee could have really made it. "Sometimes a Great Notion" was the end of Pilots, I think. Dee's suicide killed something in Lee, too, and finding her own corpse was (understandably) what tore it for Kara. They just weren't themselves after that, and who could blame them? How do you trust love when the women in your life keep offing themselves? How do you trust anything at all when you don't even know what you are?

It's nice to read this rewrite where our pilots are still a little sensitive and wary of each other, but are truly, honestly working at being together. They're doing their jobs and being normal human beings and they're so, so in love. True, it's been done before, but there's a palpable sadness in the writing that echoes my own lingering sadness concerning these two. I'm sad that they didn't get this ending, and I'm sad that it had to end at all. There is a feeling of reluctance, or not wanting to let go, and I don't know if this is the writer's emotion over the show coming through, or if she made a conscious effort to write Apollo and Starbuck's bittersweet feelings of leaving Galactica behind to begin a new life on Earth. Whichever it is, it doesn't really matter to me, because the effect is stunning. I think it suits both perspectives, and maybe it's that shared feeling that makes the emotion so successful.

Aerilon Girls Are Easy by flowrs4ophelia

The premise of this AU is a familiar one: the Cylons never attacked and Lee and Kara haven't seen each other since their not-so-nice parting in the brig. We jump back and forth in time between meaningful moments in Kara and Lee's past as we see how their story unfolds once they meet again in the present, and the characters are there and they're so real they're practically three-dimensional. The action and the dialogue are superbly written. This is one of those tales that comes alive because of how deep and intricately woven and vivid it is. What makes this stand out as one of the most entertaining, emotional, and satisfying fanfiction reads out there, is in the details. Literally. So much is revealed about Kara and Lee's relationship through memories, symbols, and actions that hold meaning only for each other, and it makes this an absolute joy to read, even though the overall mood is bittersweet.

Kara and Lee's secret code word was the first clue I got that this was going to be a memorable story, but I didn't know it was going to be one of my forever favorites until I read the part where Kara and Lee find out about Zak's accident. The carefree giddiness of their shopping trip and their ease with one another was so brilliantly and feelingly crushed by the phone call, and Lee's anguish and Kara's numbness are written in a way that is at once completely emotional and completely objective.

When they meet again they try to act like it's totally normal and nothing has changed and it hasn't been years since they were friends, but they're both just festering with guilt. The scene in the bar and the scene at his place and the flashback scene where he almost tells her are rife with anxiety and tension and I love how their simultaneous need to be both damned and absolved by the other comes out like this dance. He hints at The Thing, she flat-out confesses but makes sure he doesn't take her seriously, he hints a little more, and hints a little more, until she can't take it and explodes. In that moment, I completely understood Kara, because looking at Lee and seeing him blame himself while he reaches for her is like a knife in her heart, and the only way she can be punished for putting that pain on him is by making him hate her, because that would hurt more than anything.

This is almost more than I could ever ask for in a fic. It's tragic and honest and also just happens to be one of the best-written stories out there. I particularly appreciate how open-ended this is. We don't know what Lee decided to do with his life and we don't know where Kara ended up. We don't even know if Adama ever forgave her. I don't think Kara and Lee could ever be tied up nicely with a bow, so having the ending be anything but is about as worthy a finale as can be.

Off the Beaten Path by lint138

I've been looking for this one for two weeks, because it so perfectly satisfies what I want to see for Kara and Lee just now.

1. I want to see the love, because no matter what, I think you have to be pretty frakking blind to say that Kara and Lee didn't have an ounce of love between them. In fact, I kind of think they had so much love that it made it impossible for them to be together. They just loved each other in too many ways and some of them contradicted the others. This story totally captures that complicated, crazy, intense love they had that was always roiling beneath the surface. They could never really keep the love out of their eyes and I can practically smell the wood of the bar and the stale beer and the cigarette smoke that's permeating the air as the Kara and Lee in this fic just gaze at each other, it's so real.

A thousand years ago, before all our hears were broken by "Daybreak," there was a thread where some genius wrote that the "I missed you," "I missed you too," was one of the greatest, most powerful declarations of love in any television show, ever. I wholeheartedly agree, and the mirror scene Lint wrote here doesn't lack any of that power. It's perfectly preserved and just as heart-wrenchingly tragic, just in a different time and place.

2. I want Kara and Lee to behave like human beings, not like stereotypes or mystic-purpose-having angels or society-dooming dumbasses. One of the things that made the Miniseries and Season 1 so amazing was how real and raw and human the characters were. As time went on, I think the show lost a lot of that rawness (though it did come back from time to time, like in the New Caprica arc (Tigh blew my mind with every second of screentime he had) and maybe a little bit during "The Oath") and the characters got a little too plastic. Here, Kara and Lee are just two regular people, living their unremarkable lives and going about their unremarkable business, when those damned cycles throw them back together. They react like two regular people, and share a drink and reminisce a bit, and nothing crazy involving mandalas or explosions or even wild bathroom sex happens. They're just two regular people sharing a moment out of time before going back to real life.

3. I want it to be a little sad, because I'm just like that. Also, I've come to a place in my Kara/Lee shipping where I really and truly believe they were no good for each other. I don't think they could have ever gotten past Zak, and in some ways I wouldn't have wanted them to. Maybe I could have handled it before we found out about the tabletop almost-frak, but for them to do that and then get together years later... I think I would question their conscience. I don't think Kara ever had a time in her life where she was fully dealing with all of the baggage she was carrying, and I think a lot of her baggage was of the type to make her incredibly, fantastically unsuited for being in a relationship. I think she truly cared for Lee in a phenomenal and profound way, but I don't think she was ever in a place where she was psychologically able to reconcile her love for him with all of the feelings of guilt and inadequacy and distrust she was carrying around. Lee had his own problems, and since I get Lee a lot less than I get Kara, I really can't nail down what his deal was as succinctly as I can with Kara. I think Lee had a bit of a pattern with being hurt by and then deliberately hurting the people he loved the most in his life. He really was a serious grudge-holder (he learned from the best) and he was largely incapable of dealing with his emotions honestly. They might have worked things out if they could have talked, but they were both so weighted down with phobias and mental blocks and misplaced survival instinct that they were probably never completely honest with each other. They never dealt with their collective problems rationally because they weren't even capable of dealing with their personal problems rationally.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, I heart fic where Kara and Lee aren't together. Hello, Off the Beaten Path.

I'm not so far gone that I'm unaccepting of anything less than total heartbreak, so I'm okay with the little bit of a "to be continued..." vibe this has, but I prefer to think it really did end here. I can't deny canon—I've tried and it won't work—so I need that bittersweet, chest-aching, sick-making feeling right now. I want to feel like Lee (bastard) felt in that meadow the second time Kara left him.

P.S.– I know I said I wouldn't do anything to taint your belief, but I didn't know how to write this rec without being totally honest about how I feel regarding Kara and Lee. I guess I'm still grieving their relationship and the passing of Battlestar altogether, and this is just how I'm dealing with it right now. Sorry.

I know! These aren't Kara/Lee and they're not even BSG, but I was so ticked at everything Kara/Lee last week that I gave shipping Barney/Robin a test drive (it didn't take and I don't even watch that show, but I love what I know about Barney Stinson and my love for Neil Patrick Harris grows exponentially every time I see him in anything). There are some similarities between Barney and Robin and Kara and Lee, mainly the way that both couples have always had a great friendship dynamic with a hint of sexual tension to it. I guess I'm a sucker for that whole Emma friends-who-fall-in-love thing. I dig how Barney and Robin aren't all schmoopy and there's next to no angst, at least not on the holocaust/murderous robots/dying and mysterious rebirth/dooming of civilization as they knew it scale. Anyway, these two stories are by far the best works from that fandom and, in my opinion, worth reading even if you don't follow the show.

'A' Game by svilleficrecs
Sex as only Kate Andrews can write it. I love the moment they both envision ravaging each other in the puddle of scotch. If you're like me and are totally stupid for all things Kate Andrews, you can't miss this. She is magical.

Metal Heart by the_spin
Awesome because of the secret sex element and that "We're just friends who had a one-night stand. We're just friends with benefits. We're just friends who don't sleep with other people. We're just... totally in love." thing that I have a big stupid weakness for.

Fugue and Variations by wisteria_

I won't taint your belief in Kara and Lee by talking about how I feel about them now, but suffice it to say that I am totally grooving on fics where they're not together at all or one of them dies or goes crazy or finally says, "yeah, I love you, but we're never going to get over the past so we should probably forget about being together," and then they just go on without each other. Wisteria kills me with the projection thing, and it's all so much more satisfyingly bittersweet because I can see this fitting into how things actually ended. I feel Kara's fatigue so deeply here, and I can totally understand why she'd want to poof away from it all.

Five Times Kara Thrace Killed Sam Anders by lyssie

As sad as all of these make me for Kara, especially the one where she lets him die on New Caprica, I love each and every one. I've been thinking of these stories a lot lately, almost every time I notice that there are about five times as many Kara/Anders fics being uploaded as there are Kara/Lee fics.

Puke.

I love remixes because they almost always result in genius. For one thing, it's usually only the best fics that are remixed, and the remix always makes the story richer, more multi-faceted, more dimensional.

It's weird to me that, though I've been such a Kara person lately and The Reasons is from Kara's point of view, I actually find myself liking the remix better. Lee has not been my favorite character of late, but I'm impressed by Fahye's comprehensive portrayal of him. She doesn't make him perfect, but she doesn't judge him for his flaws. I'm so appreciative of this honest picture of Lee, I've actually been able to get over my anger and just accept him for who he is.

The Reasons by daphnaea
Oh, Kara! My girl is so brilliant here, struggling with Lee's suicidal tendencies. The parts in italics are so Kara, the real woman, that it hurts. I love her when she's puzzling out what to write to Lee and then beating herself up for actually giving him the letter. I think this fic captures the softer side of Starbuck, in a way. I love her here, thinking about how to keep Lee going without smothering him. I like how her hesitance comes across, her worry over Lee and her conflict over wanting him to be okay but not wanting to be selfish. She errs on the side of caution and ends up losing him for a while (lucky for her he can never stay away for long) and it all seems very natural and very Kara.

A Sunny Day In Tartarus (The Nameless Things Remix) by mercurial_wit
This fic will exercise each and every one of your emotions

I laughed over Lee's, "it seems that there is still something for which he hasn’t been forgiven," confusion (Duh, you numbskull! She wrote you a letter to keep you from killing yourself and you never responded!). I love how the author was able to capture this facet of Lee's character without seeming judgmental. Lee being confused about why Kara is holding a grudge when all he can remember is the last time she frakked up and that he's forgiven her is the absolute essence of Clueless Lee.

I fumed over the way he sees Kara's skittish attempts at repairing their friendship as somehow feeble or inadequate, and brushing it off as just being the way she was raised. Another spot-on portrait, this time of Condescending Lee.

I got a little nauseated imagining him in a closet with Dee. That will never be okay (but a spot of Lee cheating with Kara might make it slightly better).

It made me sad to think of Lee being afraid to fly.

It made me sigh a little bit and fall in love with Lee Adama all over again, with all the moments where he isn't being vindictive or self-righteous or hurtful. This fic is all about how deeply Lee's feelings for Kara have seeped into every aspect of his life. He doesn't see how there's any way he can possibly have her after she made her feelings perfectly clear the last time they almost had sex, so he simply tries to find a way to live his life without being able to love her. It's gotten to a point where he almost doesn't notice it anymore, like it's an old injury he's adjusted his habits around until it seems like second nature.

I had to cheer when he finally gets back in a Viper and accidentally spills the beans about how much Kara's letter meant to him.

I couldn't help but fall in love with Fahye over the last line. Total genius.

Water by fried_flamingo

This is another really good, poetic post-Caprica fic. I don't agree that Kara ever waited to be rescued, either literally or metaphorically, but I think most of the way Lee and Kara are characterized here is really nice and insightful. I like the short snippets of thought we get from each of them and the switching viewpoint, it breaks things up nicely and shows off their different voices. The thing I like the best about this is the theme of drifting. Kara and Lee both drifted at multiple times in the series (Lee especially), and I like the idea of them being each other's anchor. This seems like an essential truth of Battlestar Galactica: Kara and Lee were the most themselves, and the most sure of who they were when they were with each other, regardless of whether they chose to admit it. A main reason that I liked them in the first place, and a main reason why the finale seems so false to me.

Surprised by Joy by technosage

Continuing with the Kobol theme, this time with sex. Really great sex.

Delos by whatimages

I've been needing substance (not smut) lately, as I work on getting over my issues with Lee and Kara as a couple. I like this because it's not about plot, it's about feelings and impressions and dreams. I can understand Lee here, because he doesn't understand it all, either, and he doesn't act like he does. I like how it brings back that feeling of being on Kobol, that feeling of rain and dirt and history all around you, and this show growing like one of the green things on the planet of the Gods—so full of hope and promise—back when the Cylons had a plan.

Full Circle by workerbee73

What I like about Song of the Open Road, Second Time Around, and now Full Circle, is that they don't fix the finale, they just explain it in a way that makes it actually seem okay. I can believe that RDM left things purposefully vague just to get people riled up (seriously, wouldn't you be kind of proud of yourself if something you created was still being discussed and dissected months afterwards), but the way these ladies tell the story is what really happened behind the scenes. It makes me so proud of this fandom that we can come up with an explanation for the World's Worst Finale that makes it seem like one of the best ever.

I'm so, so honored that Bee took this tiny seed of an idea that I casually mentioned and turned it into this wonderful work of art. I've said a lot in comments and I don't want to be completely redundant, but I have to state my reasons for loving this story. Part of it is for Kara, who I think could never forgive herself for her part in Zak's death until she felt she was forgiven by Zak himself. Her confession to him was the catharsis she needed to finally move forward, and the first scene that had me really tearing up. It's also notable because, here, Lee is finally able to step out of his brother's shadow and know that Kara really loved him. I think Lee spent most of his life feeling forgotten or passed over, and being the first in anyone's heart, let alone Kara's, is something he doubted he could have.

I never imagined Kara and Lee's afterlife story being told from Zak's point of view, but now that I've read it I can't imagine it any other way. Zak is one of my favorite characters and the fact that he's the only one in the whole show who never made any hurtful or selfish decisions makes me want to see him loved and protected and happy, which this fic totally accomplishes. He's at peace with his life and the workings of the universe, he's so understanding about Kara and Lee, and he's the kindest and most patient guide to Kara as she learns how to live her afterlife to the fullest. Best of all, he finally gets his brother back.

Second Time Around by somewhereapart

This does for Kara what Song of the Open Road did for Lee.

One of the things that killed me the most about the finale is that it left Kara's story in a place that made it totally possible for my worst fear for her to come true: That she was, after all, kind of just nothing, and there wouldn't be time for her to find peace in the afterlife because, when her journey was over, she would just cease to exist. As much as I wanted to know that Lee was okay, I wanted to know that Kara would be okay a thousand, billion times more. I can breathe a sigh of relief at the end of this story, because not only do we know that she poofed away to be happy, and with Zak, but we also know that leaving Lee wasn't the easiest thing she ever did.

 

The Reality and Immortality of Things (Part II) (Part III) (Part IV) by wisteria_

I've been thinking a lot about the finale again. I think it's partially because of Cosette's "Unpopular Opinions" post from last week and partially because of the impending drop of the 4.5 DVDs. It was all brought up again today in Bee's "Anonymeme," so I've officially got the finale on my mind. I'm still not happy about it, but nothing is really going to change that. Something I am thankful for, though, is that the awfulness of the finale spawned so many beautiful fics. Think about it, what would we be reading if Kara and Lee had ended up together? Scads and scads of babyfic. That may be pleasing to the palates of some, but not this girl. I prefer some good old fashioned drama, which is why I'm constantly thanking the gods (metaphorically) for Alanna.

Leave it to her to write a remix of something as fabulous as Song of the Open Road, and do it so thoroughly that the result is this work that is both a lovely homage to the original and a masterpiece in its own right. I like how she manages to make this such a Kara piece, even though much of what it deals with is Kara and Lee's life together. We get to see her really growing and changing, making connections with people and delving into her own psyche, all while learning to live in a relationship—which is hard for anyone even when they aren't a resurrected war hero who has survived two of her partners and is now trying to stay committed to her once-jilted, widowered almost-brother-in-law.

Word of warning, though, this is not all happiness and domestic bliss. No other fic has ever made me cry as hard as The Reality and Immortality of Things. At that one part—you know, the really sad part—I just had to put my head down on my arm and sob. Seriously. I was impressed. Now, I'm a big fan of angst and death and sadness, which is one of the reasons I'm such a big fan of Wisteria's work. If you've read Song of the Open Road, there won't be any surprises, but it's always so much sadder when someone gets left behind.

Something else that I love about Wisteria's work is that it's always about the people. She doesn't deal in descriptions, she deals in emotions, and that is tough work. She writes thoughts and emotions the way some people write poetry: she makes the hardest thing look easy because the flow is so smooth and natural. We can feel Kara as she restrains herself from giving in to the pull of the wind, as she grasps the depth of her love for Lee, as she deals with the passage of time and the evidence of her questionable mortality. I love her when she accepts as much friendship from Kacey as she is willing to give, keeping the shadows of their past to herself. I love her when she builds her temple and engraves it with the names of her friends and finally lets the wind take her.

Song of the Open Road by elly427

Sometimes Lee can annoy the shit out of me, but not when he's like this. This gorgeous, soaring, transcendent story of Lee on Earth is one of the most loving portraits of him ever done. I don't think even Jamie Bamber could love Lee more than Elly does though this fic.

It's really shocking how fantastic I believe this is, as one of my rules about Lee is that he's only not boring when he's around Kara, but getting inside his head like this as he lives out all the rest of his days is just... it's indescribable. It feels so real, as if this were the life story of an actual living person. He's mostly alone, as you might expect he'd choose to be after all the trouble people had made for him in the past, but finally recognizes his need for human contact. He grows and learns and changes, but he's still Lee. He's still really sentimental and he's still really, really in love with Kara. He carries all his ghosts with him, but I think he ends up finding peace with them. He watches the children of the fleet grow and have children of their own, he sees how quickly the sacrifices he and Kara and Kat and Racetrack made during the war are forgotten and how short a time it takes for people to move on.

Really, this is a man's life, and it's all set down here in stunningly beautiful language. The grizzled peace of Whitman seems to run through it all, and I can almost imagine myself existing in the lush, verdant landscape of Lee's Delphi. Magnificent.