Chapters 1 and 2, Chapters 3 and 4, Chapters 5 and 6, Chapters 7 and 8
Chapter 7
Boomer counted everything a victory, even when the representative of Threes had to add another chair to the twelve already filled, now that another Four had joined the individualized ‘rebels’. Cavil still hadn’t made a move, and that was another win.
Now that they were all seated, though, there was something out of place. Shelley had taken a seat as well, but she should have had to find another one.
“Where’s Caprica?” Boomer asked.
The rebels sat upright, as if only just realizing how they’d forgotten their first Six representative. Boomer looked to the others, though, and saw Cavil looking undisturbed.
“She was on the planet last, right?” Zak asked. “But she should have been back for the meeting.”
“She was insane.” Cavil gave them all a flat look. “She killed a Three down on the planet and withdrew all our forces. You can imagine our shock, but boxing her copy was the only safe option.”
Boomer sat stunned. The other Sixes stared at each other for a second, but had no words either. All around the table, a grave silence had fallen.
“Box her?” Zak finally blurted out. “You can’t do that.”
“Murder is a sin against God.” Cavil’s repetition of their rhetoric came with a raised eyebrow.
“It’s not the same,” protested Shelley with a frown. “No one would have died.”
“And what about a vote?” Zak said.
But Cavil didn’t even look flustered. “It was a matter of safety, how more clear do I have to be? There was no time, there was no other choice.”
Boomer had to swallow to keep from reckless words, but the rest of the meeting fell on flat ears. Boomer didn’t know what boxing looked like, but somehow all she could see was Cavil standing in front of her with Cally’s enraged eyes, ending her life. Caprica was gone. And if there had ever been a doubt in her mind that the Cylons were humanity’s children, it would have been lost with this.
They couldn’t keep pretending anymore. Denial was not an option, now that they’d lost one of their own.
After the meeting ended, the other Cylons left on their own, separate, but the rebels left in a vague group. Boomer knew the feeling, needing to be near someone who could understand just what this meant. The Fours and the Twos looked confused, but Boomer died a little when she saw Shelley clinging tightly to Natalie’s hand, white-knuckled.
“I’m going to unbox her,” Zak said, looking straight at Boomer with a sharply set jaw. “That look in Cavil’s eye...”
Boomer blinked. She hadn’t considered anything other than that Caprica had been lost. “You think he lied to us?”
“I’m not taking any chances,” Zak spat. “Ever since we made our position clear, he... I don’t care if we’re supposed to live by his decision, and maybe that’s the human in me that I still remember, but I don’t care. I have to know for myself. I have to make up my own mind.”
Boomer’s breath came in shaky, but she nodded.
“That’s justice,” Zak said under his breath.
Thinking of all they were trying to accomplish, Boomer couldn’t disagree with him. Maybe they were still handicapped by mistaken ideas of what Cylon meant.
***
The post-rescue briefing was something that Kara had never imagined hearing. Helo and Anders went loose quickly, making almost-flippant remarks to each other and to Lee that had Kendra frowning silently. Lee glanced to Kara, though, and she knew he could figure out half of it. They were glad to be alive. They could hardly believe it themselves. Something of that tension needed to come out.
The information was good too, and there was no lack of it. When Anders got caught in gestures, Helo cleared the table to use props describe exactly what the Cylon plans had been on the planet. Lee frowned as he watched, but Kara could see the reasoning behind it.
“What’s weird, though, is that it didn’t stay consistent,” Anders said, leaning back against the couch with a furrowed brow.
Helo made a humming noise. “It got more erratic, yeah, the longer things went.”
“Are they trying to learn from us, maybe?” Lee asked.
Anders and Helo glanced at each other. “They’re toasters, who knows what they can learn,” Anders said.
Lee tapped his finger on the table. “Major Shaw, I need you to go relay this to Galactica, and let them know the situation.”
Kendra stood with a tight salute, and Kara wondered if she missed the quick look Lee tossed to Kara. But she left, the hatch closed behind her, and Lee sat back with a sigh.
“So nobody knows, I’m guessing,” Helo opened quietly. “Judging from what happened on the deck.” The resistance leaders had relayed all the Cylon identities they’d known, but they hadn’t needed hints to avoid mentioning Zak.
Lee nodded.
“We never saw another copy of him.” Anders voice was low, not quite without emotion. “So I don’t think anyone else will talk.”
Kara didn’t know what to do with the silence that followed, and the way something felt unfinished.
“About the strategy,” Anders said, leaning over his knees and staring at the table. “Honestly, I don’t know what to think anymore.” Lee looked straight to him, and Anders glanced back as he continued, taking a deep breath. “When I found out about your brother...well, Kara probably told you, but it didn’t exactly brighten my day.”
Kara’s right hand clenched for a second, but it unclenched when she met Anders’ eyes and saw something new there.
“But what he said before we killed him, about not meaning to do it—it hit me again later.”
Helo sat up and nodded.
“I didn’t tell you everything when she was around,” Anders said, meaning Kendra. “One of our bombing runs didn’t go well a little while back, and I got trapped under rubble with...well, they’re the models they call Three and Six.” Anders’ eyebrows rose and fell. “They were arguing.”
Kara’s heart didn’t skip a beat, but her gut was telling her that this was important. She just had no idea how or why.
“The Six said they couldn’t just destroy humanity now,” Anders kept relating, slowly as if it was a hard memory. “That it had been a sin, and they were trying to fix it. She—killed the other one, the Three. Then gave me a gun and told me to run free.” He sat back with a long sigh.
Kara swallowed. “They were playing you?”
Helo gave her a cautious look. “Then so was Zak, since he acted like he was on our side. And that seemed like too long a separation between times to keep up a ploy.”
Kara’s eyes went to Lee’s, and she felt a moment of surprise to see conflict there.
“Boomer said she never meant to shoot my father,” Lee murmured.
But that was taking it just a little too far, and in the shock Kara blurted out her instinctual thought . “And I prayed for Leoben’s soul, but what does that mean?”
“That it’s too damned complicated.” Anders sat still, not looking at anything. When no one had any answer, he leaned forward again. “And not my responsibility anymore. Thank you, Kara—and you too, Commander.” He nodded to both Kara and Lee.
“Call me Lee,” Lee said, offering out his hand for Anders to shake as he stood, Helo following.
“It’s good to be back home, in a sense,” Helo said to Kara as he passed by, and she nudged his arm with her hand. They could always talk later.
The hatch closed behind the two men, and Kara breathed out and looked down at her hands. Too damn complicated indeed.
“You prayed for Leoben’s soul?” Lee’s question came quick and curious.
Kara looked at him. “Yeah, well, Anders was right.”
“How is it complicated, when it comes down to it?” Lee asked, though it seemed like he was asking the universe more than her. “They destroyed our worlds!”
“We’ve destroyed our own, Lee.”
His eyes shaded for a second, and she could almost see the reflection of the Olympic Carrier in them.
The problem with what they knew of the Cylons now was, humans didn’t all make the same decisions either. It was why there was a justice system. But this...this didn’t make any sense yet.
***
“This is wrong,” Leoben protested again.
But this time, Boomer was sick of the explanations. “Shut up. We aren’t the unified race that was planned, but that’s a good thing.”
It almost looked like Zak was fiddling with the resurrection tub, but then with a jolt, the goo started to glow and there was a hum of life to it. He glanced up with tight eyes, and with a gulp, Boomer handed over Caprica’s resurrection chip that they’d managed to steal.
For all his protests, Leoben stayed as the body sprang to life when Caprica was plugged back in. “You’ll be fine, it’s only us,” Zak said quietly, and Leoben reluctantly came to the other side as Caprica shuddered in the slippery goo.
“He killed me,” she breathed out.
Boomer glanced at Zak—somehow she’d been afraid that he was right.
“Cavil killed me,” Caprica said. “Because I did it to a Three, but he meant it permanently with me. All we were doing was helping the humans escape the planet, but he couldn’t take it.”
Leoben helped her to a bathrobe as she climbed out of the tub, nerves twitching with her worry and frustration.
“What did you do?” Boomer asked.
“I was trying to convince the Three, since she was in charge of the planet’s baseship,” Caprica said, wiping the goo off her face with quick movements. “But before anything could happen, the humans blew up our building. We were crushed in the rubble with their leader, Anders, like Zak mentioned. She was trying to kill him, said that she’d do anything to prevent our plan from working. I had to kill her. But she must have told Cavil.”
At the word Anders, Zak hadn’t held back a quick look to Boomer. She could feel her eyes wide, wondering how that might work if the other Cylon ever remembered his identity.
“What is it?” Caprica asked suspiciously.
“Anders is one of the Final Four,” Leoben said quietly.
Caprica just stared at them and swallowed.
“And Cavil also said today that there was a lead on the planet,” Leoben continued.
“You think he was tracking them?” Caprica asked, worried. “The resistance? If—if he knew about the Final Four, it seems like something he would do.”
Boomer knew exactly what she meant.
“There’s a meeting in an hour that Cavil doesn’t know about,” Zak said quickly. “We need to talk there, if Cavil really does have a way to find the Fleet.”
It was the longest hour that Boomer had ever known, helping Caprica and talking themselves in circles about the problem. Finally they weren’t the only ones, and all the familiar faces were around the room.
“This needs to stop,” said a dark-haired Six named Kaelyn once Caprica had told her story again. “If he’s killing us, then he’s no different from the humans, so why do we need to follow him?”
“He has the Fours, the Fives, and the Ones, and most of the Threes,” Boomer pointed out with a sigh. “That’s enough to destroy the Fleet, even if we don’t help.”
“Then we need to make it to the Fleet before he does,” Zak said.
“How?” asked Natalie, frowning. “The Ones control everything right now.”
It only took Caprica a moment to answer, slowly and smoothly. “Maybe we need to realize that some of our brethren are the enemy to peace.”
Boomer looked at her, and with a twinge she realized that now they were the resistance against the Cylons.
“Kill the others?” Shelley asked, aghast.
“It’ll only last until they resurrect,” Leoben said, as most of the group sat up a little straighter.
“If we do it all at once, there may be enough time,” Natalie said with a quick nod.
“This is madness,” Shelley said.
Some of them looked to her, others just looked out straight, but Boomer didn’t see one look that wasn’t hard.
“It’s our death or theirs,” Zak finally voiced something. “If what the Hybrid said is true, nothing matters for us if the humans die. That’s all we need to know.”
Boomer felt her spine straighten, and her hands clasped tightly around nothing. It was a decision. After all the time and worry and talk, it actually meant something. She just wished it felt a little more comfortable.
***
There had been a brief service after Roslin died, but it had been more religious than anything, the loss of a dying leader that didn’t yet spell the end to hope. But Kara wasn’t surprised when neither of the Adamas showed. Neither was she surprised that now, finally, a funeral was being held. It was more personal, and Kara had dealt with that grief already. She held the Pegasus bridge with Kendra while Lee attended, and she hadn’t seen him since it was over.
He was back on the ship, though, and now she was on her way to his quarters, frustration with this malcontent crew burning through her veins. His “Come in” when she knocked was nondescript, and she came in with a recommendation on the tip of her tongue—only to have Narcho and his insubordination knocked out of her head by the sight of Lee halfway through a bottle.
“Yes, Kara?” he asked without looking up.
“Lee?” she asked back.
A moment of silence hung before he said anything. “There was never a funeral for my mother. I watched my father grieve today for someone else, and I realized we never...”
Kara’s heart twisted, but not for him, not with the ugly things lying in her past that his words managed to touch. Forgetting that alcohol might not be the best thing for them to indulge in together, she reached down and whipped the bottle and an empty glass from the table, drinking down two shots’ worth of the sharp liquid before she’d walked two steps away.
“What, Kara?” Lee demanded from behind her. “Did that offend you somehow?”
Her tongue rolled over in her mouth as she turned briefly, words coming out before she could know why. “The fact that you forgot about your mother means something, Lee. It means guilt is unnecessary.”
“And that means?” Lee pushed, standing up, face taut with a war of emotions.
Every nerve in Kara’s body wanted to push back, but she knew him too well now. “It’s not a good time,” she muttered, and started walking for the door.
He crossed the room in a few steps, cutting her short, placing his hand against the wall to block her way with his arm. “Kara, you’re not being yourself,” he managed to say without slurring.
The memories were threatening to come back into her consciousness, and all Kara could do was stare at his jaw and not move. Gods, they could break each other over this.
“You’ve never mentioned your mother,” Lee realized out loud.
Kara’s reflexive breath almost hurt with its sharpness, and she had a fierce need to push past him. But he grabbed her shoulder.
“Kara, Kara please.”
“Please what?” she snapped at him, meeting his eyes finally. “I had a shitty childhood, okay, and I chose not to attend my mother’s funeral and I don’t regret it.” There wasn’t much of a reaction in his eyes, so Kara didn’t know why she kept talking, throat hurting with the pressure of emotion. “I don’t regret it, I don’t, okay? And so I don’t understand what you’re feeling.”
She couldn’t breathe when Lee leaned in and kissed her slowly, but she breathed out tremblingly at his slight desperation. Not the same emotion she felt, but too much.
“Lee, I can’t do a comfort frak right now,” she whispered, eyes already threatening to sting as she shook her head.
He met her eyes, grief and understanding mingling there. “I don’t think I could handle one,” he admitted.
A half-hearted laugh escaped Kara before she could hold it in. She pursed her lips, trying to hold back the rest of the emotion running rough-shod through her, battling against years of repression. “Today was not a good day,” she said shortly.
“No...” Lee breathed in deeply, eyes glancing back at the large couch. “Can we sit?”
Simple words, but they hit home. “Yeah,” Kara said. Her steps weren’t even very reluctant as they walked away from the door.
“What were you going to report?” Lee asked as he took a seat with an exhale of exhaustion.
“Narcho’s causing trouble and I wanted you to transfer his dumb ass to Galactica,” Kara said, not needing to pause.
Lee snorted. “Didn’t lose your focus I see.”
“After how he got on my nerves?” Kara didn’t need to look at Lee as she leaned back into the couch, mouth firm. “No frakking way.”
“Do I get on your nerves like that?”
It caught Kara off guard and she just turned to stare at him. The curiosity in his eyes was almost naive, and the ridiculousness of it must have translated to her look. Just before it fully dawned on him, she broke down and giggle-snorted.
“Dumb question?” Lee asked, choking back a laugh and resting back against the couch.
“Mm,” Kara confirmed. She breathed out, rested her head for a moment on his shoulder. “You think too much.”
His arm draped over her shoulder and they just sat, breathing. Whatever emotion was left in Kara, and she didn’t bother to categorize it, made her find his hand with hers and give a small tight squeeze. The way his breath caught for a second, only to join hers in sharing the bit of silence again—it made her think that maybe he finally understood that what they had meant something even if it never changed.
Chapter 8
“Our father” Caprica prayed, kneeling in the circle of rebel Cylons, no beginning and no end.
Zak sat among them, but for all his effort he couldn’t find anything in himself but emptiness.
“Guide our path,” Leoben continued with the benediction.
Zak squeezed his eyes shut, gulping down air, trying to cling once more to the Hybrid’s words. Kara and Lee entwined, and faith and justice for them all. Sometimes he was certain she’d said it in words just that clear.
“Keep us safe,” Boomer prayed reluctantly.
Fire and air, that was the metaphor she’d used. Kara, the fire of faith, and Lee, the wind of justice. Fire and air could each bring destruction upon the other if they faced each other, yet working together they could overcome all opposition. Zak had to think it meant that faith and justice might overcome every obstacle for him and his people on their journey to...home...whatever that meant. Peace, he hoped. The Hybrid’s words had never sounded like war.
“And let us see the journey’s end when it comes,” said Natalie, finishing the prayer with determination as well as hope.
Then Zak remembered that hope was just another manifestation of faith, and even in his cautious and still-cracked heart the Hybrid’s words could give him wings to fly. He had faith that Kara and Lee could help save the Cylon race.
“Amen,” he said quietly. He knelt with the Cylons who had dared to rebel, who had dared to think that there was something they needed from humanity, something that perhaps was already mirrored in themselves. It was the closest place he’d belonged.
He’d keep on hoping as they went forward with their task.
***
Kara stopped worrying about what Lee would say each time they frakked. Ever since his near-death, so much had been left to the language of his eyes, and Kara could read that at her own pace. She could frak him until they didn’t feel separate, rocking together, breathing together, fitting so close that they felt like a single person. And she went on hoping that he’d keep fearing words enough that some day she might be able to say them first.
They still kept things nominally secret among the Pegasus crew, keeping up the look of innocence and ignoring anything that might be a rumor. But when Kara snuggled against Lee’s chest in a post-orgasm daze, fingertips running absently over the contours of his body, she had to think that they weren’t really trying anymore. Maybe they weren’t afraid of the consequences. They’d dared luck just long enough for luck to win out for them.
Even if Kara still couldn’t put into words why Lee pulled her in like a gravity well, torquing her path to lie alongside his even as she pulled him closer to her—well, the ‘why’ didn’t matter as much as the ‘what then’. They seemed to have the latter down by instinct now.
Lee made pleasant snuffling noises just after sex, eyes half closed and body limp, not clingy but just there. Kara could get up right away and go back to work, tension pleasantly gone, but she had gotten into a habit of waiting to see if he’d fall asleep first. That he could do it, comfortably, securely, stirred her heart in the same manner that his smile did.
The phone rang, though, and stopped everything. Lee sat up to grab the receiver, nudging Kara from her use of him as a pillow, and he cleared his throat.
“CIC calling,” he said after a second.
Kara murmured non-distinctly, and watched him as he got dressed to leave. He sighed as he opened the door, and Kara breathed out and reached for her own clothes. Back to work it was.
But when she’d squashed her hair back into a less just-got-frakked appearance, and had waited an appropriate amount of time to follow without being immediately suspicious, it didn’t look routine in CIC. Frowns and tension threaded among everyone.
“What was it?” she asked, drawing close to Lee by the table.
When he stared at her, the shock in his eyes drove everything else out. “Communications are frakked right now because...we found a habitable planet,” he said in barely more than a whisper.
Kara just stared back at him with a suddenly dry mouth.
***
“We’ve lost the signal,” a Five said, glancing up from the datafont.
Cavil and Natalie both looked at him at the same time, but Zak took a second longer, having lost track of just what the Doral might mean. It had been taking so long for the homing-device the humans had unwittingly brought back with Anders to give them enough data that he’d forgotten it might actually succeed.
“They may have discovered it,” Cavil said, lips twisting in annoyance. “We’ll have to fill in the final jump coordinate with a guess, take the entire fleet.”
Zak suddenly realized that the rebels might have taken too long. “What are you going to do?” Natalie asked Cavil.
He looked at her like she was a mindless child. “Our fleet is all gathered. This is our chance to wipe out the humans if we jump in without raiders first. It’s a guess, yes, but if we succeed, then—” He ended it just short, not needing to say the rest.
Natalie’s eyes barely caught Zak’s before she responded sharply. “You can’t do this without a vote!”
Cavil had already nodded to the Doral to leave the room, and was moving towards the datafont. “This plan has taken almost a year too long already,” he said, almost snarling. “I’m not stopping now for a little democracy.”
But just as Zak’s hands clenched and he was about to do something desperate, a shot rang out and he jerked his spine straight. Cavil fell to the ground without a final word, a bright red hole in his forehead. Natalie stood, jaw tight, smoking gun in her hand.
“What?” The word came tumbling from Zak’s lips before his brain could catch up.
“That was the plan,” Natalie said, breathing out as she put the gun at her hip again. The room was charged with more than shock.
“I know,” Zak said, thinking of all the things he said he’d be willing to do. He had to shake his head loose as he walked with her up to the datafont. “But now what? The ship is crawling with—”
“Centurions,” Natalie said, with only a slight gulp of air to show that now that it was happening, the plan seemed too hasty. “However they’re programmed, it’s probably to help Cavil. We’ll need to release them if we are going to do this without disaster. Remind them of who ordered the programming in the first place, and they should be on our side.”
“Did you think of this already?” Zak demanded, staring at the Six leader over the red glow of the goo.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure—”
“It’s all we have left,” she snapped at him. Then, staring him in the eye. “We are so close to falling short now. You have to believe hard or get out of the way. Please.” Then, breathing in and adding almost as an afterthought, “And freeing the Centurions is the right thing to do in any case.”
Zak knew she was right. Cylon problems meant Cylon methods, and he wasn’t unprepared, just— He nodded.
“Get Caprica, tell her everything’s going down now,” Natalie breathed out. “We’re taking the Cylon fleet.”
Thinking mostly of the humans they were at this moment ready to save, Zak spread the word. There would be no permanent end, but if all went well, permanent change nonetheless. It wasn’t like there was ever a bad time for that.
***
“It’s just not an ideal world,” Lee said, a mere couple hours after the planet had been discovered and the fleet had jumped in. He could scarcely believe that he had to make the argument, that this was being looked at by some as more than a pit-stop.
“But, but the signal blocking,” Baltar protested, waving his hand. He wasn’t the only one who was grateful to the disrupting cloud about the world.
Yet Lee had to agree with his father when the Admiral spoke. “The Cylons have more than one way to find us, Mr. President.”
There was a shuffling around the table of the other members, of Sarah the Gemenon religious leader and of Kara and Kendra and Tigh, all there for the discussion of the issue.
“What if they do?” Baltar demanded before anyone could say anything else. “What if the Cylons do find us again? There are ships upon ships full of people out there...are they thinking of safety? No. They just want a place to rest.”
“That is what Earth is for,” broke in Sarah with a sharply wrinkled brow.
Kara was the one who frowned at that. “Earth’s not a magical place,” she said derisively.
“Exactly,” Baltar followed, ignoring Kara’s discomfort at the man counting her on his side. “If the Cylons could track us to this place, where DRADIS doesn’t work, then what place couldn’t they track us to? But if they can’t—if, if they need DRADIS—then this world is uniquely protected.”
“Wait.” Lee had to raise his hand, ask the question before they circled dangerously near to this rabbit hole. “Are you suggesting we settle here? So the Cylons, when they come, can just nuke us again?”
Baltar stared at him, grasping for words.
It was Kara’s voice that came out of left field to stun him. “Lee, can you even imagine a situation where the Cylons don't come back?” The question was an argument more than a curiosity.
And when Lee looked at her, saw in her eyes that she wanted to believe, he knew that he didn’t even have that much. “No.”
A few minutes later, Adama sent the parties away to their ships to think it over again and reconvene at a later point. They had time, so it seemed.
***
“The Hybrids are screaming,” Shelley whispered, standing at Boomer’s side as the baseship shook. Her long fingers clenched tightly into fists, arms desperately straight at her sides.
Boomer was still having a hard time catching her breath as they finally did it, finally eliminated the ‘enemy’ from the plan as the Ones and Fours and Fives and Threes protested. But Shelley’s words were so pointed that she looked to her. “You listen to them?”
The softest of the Sixes nodded. “Leoben taught me.” Then, with a shaky breath, “They weren’t ready for this. I don’t know if we are either.”
“But you said yes to the plan,” Boomer said. The ship lurched with a dull boom, as if mimicking her emotions, and Boomer wished for a second that she could see out a window. She didn’t dare look through the datafont; it would be too overwhelming.
Shelley’s lips pursed. “I believe we need the humans alive at any cost...but this could go so very wrong.” Her last words came out soft, whispery.
“The Sixes have it,” Boomer said. She hesitantly reached out a hand to take Shelley’s. “They’ll make it work.”
***
Zak watched a non-rebel baseship explode, and despite everything his hand trembled in the datafont beneath the cool goo. He’d just killed some of his people. No worse than what he’d done on Caprica, and no more permanent, what with the proximity to the resurrection hub. But it felt so much worse.
Then no sound came through the communication. He stared at Natalie across the control center.
“We have control of all the ships remaining.” He could recognize Caprica even over the radio, and could feel for the slight waver in her voice.
Natalie’s breath seemed to catch before she could answer. “The resurrection hub will be crowded for a while, but not forever.” Her eyes shone with the magnitude of this first success.
“So we do...?” Zak asked.
“Exactly?” Natalie asked back, briefly unsure.
“We need to negotiate with the humans,” Caprica’s firm voice settled the question. “They need to know that we don’t want them killed.”
“Though another Cylon fleet does want that,” Natalie answered. Then, as if by just looking at Zak her protest grew legs, she continued. “And we won’t even get that far in our explanation before they would destroy us, too, and we’d resurrect surrounded by our none-too-happy brothers.” The last words fell flat and hard from her lips. “Or no, they’ll just jump away, disappear, and it’ll be the same result.”
Zak thought of the fleet, remembered how they’d found them in the first place. “Can we contact the Final Four somehow?”
“Not before they wake,” Leoben said as he walked in. “And as far as we know, only death brings awakening.”
Silence held over the radio.
Zak looked around at his people, both feet over the line, looking for the next one they had to cross. They needed to get to the fleet, and the way Natalie looked to him as if he might have an answer made him realize that she wasn’t all wrong. “Then there’s only one option,” he said, curling his fingers in on themselves.
Leoben met his eyes. “They’ll kill you again,” he said, recognizing Zak’s intention faster than the rest.
But Zak could pull the memory back and look at it from a safe distance, and he glanced around at them all. “Kara couldn’t kill me herself the last time. She’ll hesitate. Long enough for me to surrender. And Lee and my father—” Childhood memories, stolen and heartbreaking as they were, came flooding ready to use. “They won’t,” he said shortly.
He looked around the baseship that was supposed to be his home, and saw no one protesting. No one was any less desperate than he for this to work. It had been his idea to start with, and he had to have the courage to see it through. “I’ll go in first,” he said, taking a deep breath, “and you follow.”
“We have to finish this before the resurrection is complete,” Leoben said with a nod, a deep look into Zak’s eyes.
“Then let’s get you a Heavy Raider,” said Natalie, over the radio so they all could hear. “And those incomplete coordinates.”
Zak wasn’t sure he knew exactly what he was doing as he walked out of the room, but Leoben put a hand to his back and Natalie to his shoulder, and he hoped their faith and their logic wasn’t just a Cylon construct. There had to be some humanity driving all this.
***
Kara rubbed at her eyes, staring at the table in the middle of Pegasus’ CIC.
“We won’t settle,” Lee sighed. “The vote will never carry, if it even gets that far. And there will be riots, I know.”
“People want to get to Earth,” Kara said, momentarily playing the devil’s advocate. As if there was such a thing in a frakked up situation like this.
“And the people who went down and touched solid ground?” Lee raised an eyebrow as he asked the mostly-rhetorical question. “The ones whose reports have spread through the Fleet? Maybe that’ll have more weight than prophecy, even if ones have come true so far.”
Kara didn’t meet his eyes, her pen resting on the paper in front of her without moving, biting the inside of her lip. If he wanted her to agree with him, he’d picked the wrong vocabulary.
“What?” Lee asked after a few more seconds.
“Prophecies come with signs,” she said. “Signs like a random Raptor check leading us to the one planet that might keep us safe from the Cylons.”
“You don’t believe...”
Kara shook her head, raising her eyes to meet him. She couldn’t quite explain it. “Maybe we were meant to be here for something, though. Not settling, but—”
They were quiet enough to keep the conversation almost private, as the other people around the control center did their work still.
“Sir, there’s something on the fuzzy DRADIS,” Hoshi said after a second, looking back over his shoulder.
Lee stood bolt upright.
“It looks like—gods, it looks like the Cylons,” the communications officer gasped out.
“What?” Lee turned in shock. “Does the fleet have the emergency coordinates?” he asked, sharp on the tail of the news.
“No sir,” Hoshi said with a frown.
“Godsdamnit,” Kara swore, and hit the table, but it was barely audible above the rush of fear and the talking that came with it around the room. “There’s landing parties still on the planet anyway.”
“How did they find us?” Lee breathed out, as the officers took battle-stations without needing to be told.
“And I can’t block their transmission,” Hoshi said, almost frantic. “Something’s coming through.”
The radio crackled, and Kara looked up out of habit.
“Finally, I get—” The young male voice didn’t sound formal enough. “I need to speak with Kara Thrace or...or Commander Adama.”
Kara felt all the blood in her body drop to her toes, her fingers tightening around the edge of the table. Lee's own fingers shook as he reached for the button, needing to respond, but knowing just as well as she did that it was Zak. He might not be sure he believed it, but they could both be sure that the Admiral wouldn’t.
“This is Commander Adama,” he managed with admirable composure.
“Lee?” The voice ripped through Kara’s heart in a single tear, breaking through her attempts at healing and forgetfulness.
“What the hell is this?” Lee demanded back, as the bridge officers all looked confused.
Gods, it was Zak, it was Zak and the Cylons, and the day had finally come.
“Sir, the Vipers have located the Cylon ship,” Hoshi said. “Should they shoot?”
If they’d thought, it might have seemed incongruous, but Kara and Lee didn’t get that far. “No!” they snapped at once.
“Lee, the baseships should be here now, but if you’ll look you’ll see that all of the weapons ports are closed. No raiders. We’re not attacking.”
“It’s true, sir, there’s almost a whole fleet,” Hoshi broke in.
“We...” Zak continued, sounding, horribly, exactly like he always had. “We’ve broken from the rest of the Cylons, me and some of the other models. There’s only a few hours before the others come to destroy all of us as well as you, so we want to come aboard your ship, unarmed, to talk about surrender.”
“Sur-surrender?” Kara’s eyes were fixed on Lee as he kept finding words, disoriented as they were. Her face felt too tight, but Lee at least could stammer enough to keep the conversation going.
“Yes,” Zak said simply. “Please. Nothing is as it seems.”
“Sir, if we’re going to shoot we need to do it now,” Hoshi broke in again. “Should we?”
For a long second Lee clenched his fist and stared at the table, and Kara didn’t have an answer for him. Then, not surprising Kara—“No,” he said.
Swallowing, Kara stepped a little closer.
“This is what Anders told us about,” Lee said under his breath as Hoshi, wide-eyes, conveyed the Commander’s message without question.
“We have to listen,” Kara finally managed to say, voice hoarse now that she used it. “Listen first before we do anything.” The faith deep in her was rising up, and she could feel it shining in her eyes as she looked at him—the irrational but overwhelming faith that had followed her from childhood and only now seemed to have a purpose.
He looked like he had enough skepticism for the both of them, but something more than faith was pushing him, and that would be all that mattered.
While the crew around him looked incredulous, Lee grabbed the receiver in an almost-firm grip and spoke out to the Cylons that were somehow meant to meet them here. “Take your ship into Pegasus’ bay, slowly, no tricks.” Then, off the radio, he ordered Hoshi to send the not-shooting orders across the ship.
“Lee, what happened to Dad?” Zak’s voice continued.
Kara had to swallow hard at how familiar the voice sounded.
“He’s Admiral now, and he doesn’t know you exist.” Kara couldn't protest Lee's harshness. “We’ll talk later.”
“Sir?” Kendra finally entered the CIC. “What are you doing?”
“Not destroying an opportunity.” He gave his XO a straight look, even as he held back so much. “We’ll shoot at the first sign of trouble.”
If Kara had ever been grateful for anything, it was that Cain’s ingrained fear in her crew was serving them well now. They’d need that frightened loyalty.
“Sir, there’s a lot of chatter in the Fleet, and Galactica is on the line.”
Lee looked to Kara first. She nodded slightly, knowing what they both had to do.
“Major Shaw, inform Galactica of the facts,” Lee said shortly. “A Cylon has surrendered itself into our custody and the CAG and I will start questioning immediately.”
Kendra saluted sharply and that was that.
Heart pounding, Kara walked with Lee out of the CIC, and he didn’t need to tell her because it was written all over his body in tension—this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.
***
Zak raised his hands as he stepped out of the Raptor onto the hangar deck of Pegasus. The armed marines didn’t astonish him, of course, but he exhaled as soon as he was not immediately shot. Lee wasn't there yet; they were waiting for his orders. Commander Lee.
This was it. The entire mission that he and Cylonity had adopted was resting on this meeting. Tension wrenched his gut as he saw the figures coming from far off. Finally more than just impressions, the Hybrid's exact words rang in his head: the lack of a shot is more peace than the moment.
His eyes were wide open, nothing left to lose but this and everything clear because of that fact. He knew, then, what she’d meant. All he needed was to stay alive. Keep the shots lacking.
There was no shock on either Kara or Lee’s faces as they stepped up to where he stood, Lee in Commander's pins and Kara—an XO? CAG? She looked like she belonged here. Zak stood, hands still up. Please let her be right, he whispered in his mind.
No one moved. Nothing more than stares even happened. Zak could hear his pulse racing, could sense the adrenaline in his sharpened sight and other senses.
“So—explain why I won't regret not shooting you now,” Lee said after a minute’s pause.
The fresh rush of faith from the Hybrid’s words made Zak feel almost articulate again. “Because I know you, and I know you'll want peace more than revenge for something you don't understand. We're here to give up, Lee.” The plan whirled through his head, the plan to set aside everything that made the Cylons who they'd been before: to ask forgiveness, to go to Earth, to escape war forever. These two people who he'd loved, they were the proclaimed key to this destiny. All he needed was for them to listen once, and everything would follow.
Lee stood for a long while and said nothing. Kara didn't move, and he knew that if he met her eyes they would be just slightly off. The way she stood by Lee, Zak knew just how close they’d become, another confirmation if he needed one of the Hybrid’s accuracy. And he’d need them both to stand against the world—just them, though. He could tell he wouldn’t need more allies.
“So start explaining,” Lee said at last, mouth twisted. “Start explaining everything before my father gets here, because unless you can find a way to sound not crazy, that's when this'll all fall apart.”
Zak could almost have laughed at his genuineness. The tension around his heart loosened for a second as Lee, a human, was talking to him, a Cylon, and he could tell it wasn’t a trick. No shot fired. It had worked. Thank god, or the Hybrid, or wherever the prophecy had come from—this truce was just the beginning.
He took a deep breath and prepared to tell them everything, for this was the first step toward the new beginning.
The End
Chapter 7
Boomer counted everything a victory, even when the representative of Threes had to add another chair to the twelve already filled, now that another Four had joined the individualized ‘rebels’. Cavil still hadn’t made a move, and that was another win.
Now that they were all seated, though, there was something out of place. Shelley had taken a seat as well, but she should have had to find another one.
“Where’s Caprica?” Boomer asked.
The rebels sat upright, as if only just realizing how they’d forgotten their first Six representative. Boomer looked to the others, though, and saw Cavil looking undisturbed.
“She was on the planet last, right?” Zak asked. “But she should have been back for the meeting.”
“She was insane.” Cavil gave them all a flat look. “She killed a Three down on the planet and withdrew all our forces. You can imagine our shock, but boxing her copy was the only safe option.”
Boomer sat stunned. The other Sixes stared at each other for a second, but had no words either. All around the table, a grave silence had fallen.
“Box her?” Zak finally blurted out. “You can’t do that.”
“Murder is a sin against God.” Cavil’s repetition of their rhetoric came with a raised eyebrow.
“It’s not the same,” protested Shelley with a frown. “No one would have died.”
“And what about a vote?” Zak said.
But Cavil didn’t even look flustered. “It was a matter of safety, how more clear do I have to be? There was no time, there was no other choice.”
Boomer had to swallow to keep from reckless words, but the rest of the meeting fell on flat ears. Boomer didn’t know what boxing looked like, but somehow all she could see was Cavil standing in front of her with Cally’s enraged eyes, ending her life. Caprica was gone. And if there had ever been a doubt in her mind that the Cylons were humanity’s children, it would have been lost with this.
They couldn’t keep pretending anymore. Denial was not an option, now that they’d lost one of their own.
After the meeting ended, the other Cylons left on their own, separate, but the rebels left in a vague group. Boomer knew the feeling, needing to be near someone who could understand just what this meant. The Fours and the Twos looked confused, but Boomer died a little when she saw Shelley clinging tightly to Natalie’s hand, white-knuckled.
“I’m going to unbox her,” Zak said, looking straight at Boomer with a sharply set jaw. “That look in Cavil’s eye...”
Boomer blinked. She hadn’t considered anything other than that Caprica had been lost. “You think he lied to us?”
“I’m not taking any chances,” Zak spat. “Ever since we made our position clear, he... I don’t care if we’re supposed to live by his decision, and maybe that’s the human in me that I still remember, but I don’t care. I have to know for myself. I have to make up my own mind.”
Boomer’s breath came in shaky, but she nodded.
“That’s justice,” Zak said under his breath.
Thinking of all they were trying to accomplish, Boomer couldn’t disagree with him. Maybe they were still handicapped by mistaken ideas of what Cylon meant.
***
The post-rescue briefing was something that Kara had never imagined hearing. Helo and Anders went loose quickly, making almost-flippant remarks to each other and to Lee that had Kendra frowning silently. Lee glanced to Kara, though, and she knew he could figure out half of it. They were glad to be alive. They could hardly believe it themselves. Something of that tension needed to come out.
The information was good too, and there was no lack of it. When Anders got caught in gestures, Helo cleared the table to use props describe exactly what the Cylon plans had been on the planet. Lee frowned as he watched, but Kara could see the reasoning behind it.
“What’s weird, though, is that it didn’t stay consistent,” Anders said, leaning back against the couch with a furrowed brow.
Helo made a humming noise. “It got more erratic, yeah, the longer things went.”
“Are they trying to learn from us, maybe?” Lee asked.
Anders and Helo glanced at each other. “They’re toasters, who knows what they can learn,” Anders said.
Lee tapped his finger on the table. “Major Shaw, I need you to go relay this to Galactica, and let them know the situation.”
Kendra stood with a tight salute, and Kara wondered if she missed the quick look Lee tossed to Kara. But she left, the hatch closed behind her, and Lee sat back with a sigh.
“So nobody knows, I’m guessing,” Helo opened quietly. “Judging from what happened on the deck.” The resistance leaders had relayed all the Cylon identities they’d known, but they hadn’t needed hints to avoid mentioning Zak.
Lee nodded.
“We never saw another copy of him.” Anders voice was low, not quite without emotion. “So I don’t think anyone else will talk.”
Kara didn’t know what to do with the silence that followed, and the way something felt unfinished.
“About the strategy,” Anders said, leaning over his knees and staring at the table. “Honestly, I don’t know what to think anymore.” Lee looked straight to him, and Anders glanced back as he continued, taking a deep breath. “When I found out about your brother...well, Kara probably told you, but it didn’t exactly brighten my day.”
Kara’s right hand clenched for a second, but it unclenched when she met Anders’ eyes and saw something new there.
“But what he said before we killed him, about not meaning to do it—it hit me again later.”
Helo sat up and nodded.
“I didn’t tell you everything when she was around,” Anders said, meaning Kendra. “One of our bombing runs didn’t go well a little while back, and I got trapped under rubble with...well, they’re the models they call Three and Six.” Anders’ eyebrows rose and fell. “They were arguing.”
Kara’s heart didn’t skip a beat, but her gut was telling her that this was important. She just had no idea how or why.
“The Six said they couldn’t just destroy humanity now,” Anders kept relating, slowly as if it was a hard memory. “That it had been a sin, and they were trying to fix it. She—killed the other one, the Three. Then gave me a gun and told me to run free.” He sat back with a long sigh.
Kara swallowed. “They were playing you?”
Helo gave her a cautious look. “Then so was Zak, since he acted like he was on our side. And that seemed like too long a separation between times to keep up a ploy.”
Kara’s eyes went to Lee’s, and she felt a moment of surprise to see conflict there.
“Boomer said she never meant to shoot my father,” Lee murmured.
But that was taking it just a little too far, and in the shock Kara blurted out her instinctual thought . “And I prayed for Leoben’s soul, but what does that mean?”
“That it’s too damned complicated.” Anders sat still, not looking at anything. When no one had any answer, he leaned forward again. “And not my responsibility anymore. Thank you, Kara—and you too, Commander.” He nodded to both Kara and Lee.
“Call me Lee,” Lee said, offering out his hand for Anders to shake as he stood, Helo following.
“It’s good to be back home, in a sense,” Helo said to Kara as he passed by, and she nudged his arm with her hand. They could always talk later.
The hatch closed behind the two men, and Kara breathed out and looked down at her hands. Too damn complicated indeed.
“You prayed for Leoben’s soul?” Lee’s question came quick and curious.
Kara looked at him. “Yeah, well, Anders was right.”
“How is it complicated, when it comes down to it?” Lee asked, though it seemed like he was asking the universe more than her. “They destroyed our worlds!”
“We’ve destroyed our own, Lee.”
His eyes shaded for a second, and she could almost see the reflection of the Olympic Carrier in them.
The problem with what they knew of the Cylons now was, humans didn’t all make the same decisions either. It was why there was a justice system. But this...this didn’t make any sense yet.
***
“This is wrong,” Leoben protested again.
But this time, Boomer was sick of the explanations. “Shut up. We aren’t the unified race that was planned, but that’s a good thing.”
It almost looked like Zak was fiddling with the resurrection tub, but then with a jolt, the goo started to glow and there was a hum of life to it. He glanced up with tight eyes, and with a gulp, Boomer handed over Caprica’s resurrection chip that they’d managed to steal.
For all his protests, Leoben stayed as the body sprang to life when Caprica was plugged back in. “You’ll be fine, it’s only us,” Zak said quietly, and Leoben reluctantly came to the other side as Caprica shuddered in the slippery goo.
“He killed me,” she breathed out.
Boomer glanced at Zak—somehow she’d been afraid that he was right.
“Cavil killed me,” Caprica said. “Because I did it to a Three, but he meant it permanently with me. All we were doing was helping the humans escape the planet, but he couldn’t take it.”
Leoben helped her to a bathrobe as she climbed out of the tub, nerves twitching with her worry and frustration.
“What did you do?” Boomer asked.
“I was trying to convince the Three, since she was in charge of the planet’s baseship,” Caprica said, wiping the goo off her face with quick movements. “But before anything could happen, the humans blew up our building. We were crushed in the rubble with their leader, Anders, like Zak mentioned. She was trying to kill him, said that she’d do anything to prevent our plan from working. I had to kill her. But she must have told Cavil.”
At the word Anders, Zak hadn’t held back a quick look to Boomer. She could feel her eyes wide, wondering how that might work if the other Cylon ever remembered his identity.
“What is it?” Caprica asked suspiciously.
“Anders is one of the Final Four,” Leoben said quietly.
Caprica just stared at them and swallowed.
“And Cavil also said today that there was a lead on the planet,” Leoben continued.
“You think he was tracking them?” Caprica asked, worried. “The resistance? If—if he knew about the Final Four, it seems like something he would do.”
Boomer knew exactly what she meant.
“There’s a meeting in an hour that Cavil doesn’t know about,” Zak said quickly. “We need to talk there, if Cavil really does have a way to find the Fleet.”
It was the longest hour that Boomer had ever known, helping Caprica and talking themselves in circles about the problem. Finally they weren’t the only ones, and all the familiar faces were around the room.
“This needs to stop,” said a dark-haired Six named Kaelyn once Caprica had told her story again. “If he’s killing us, then he’s no different from the humans, so why do we need to follow him?”
“He has the Fours, the Fives, and the Ones, and most of the Threes,” Boomer pointed out with a sigh. “That’s enough to destroy the Fleet, even if we don’t help.”
“Then we need to make it to the Fleet before he does,” Zak said.
“How?” asked Natalie, frowning. “The Ones control everything right now.”
It only took Caprica a moment to answer, slowly and smoothly. “Maybe we need to realize that some of our brethren are the enemy to peace.”
Boomer looked at her, and with a twinge she realized that now they were the resistance against the Cylons.
“Kill the others?” Shelley asked, aghast.
“It’ll only last until they resurrect,” Leoben said, as most of the group sat up a little straighter.
“If we do it all at once, there may be enough time,” Natalie said with a quick nod.
“This is madness,” Shelley said.
Some of them looked to her, others just looked out straight, but Boomer didn’t see one look that wasn’t hard.
“It’s our death or theirs,” Zak finally voiced something. “If what the Hybrid said is true, nothing matters for us if the humans die. That’s all we need to know.”
Boomer felt her spine straighten, and her hands clasped tightly around nothing. It was a decision. After all the time and worry and talk, it actually meant something. She just wished it felt a little more comfortable.
***
There had been a brief service after Roslin died, but it had been more religious than anything, the loss of a dying leader that didn’t yet spell the end to hope. But Kara wasn’t surprised when neither of the Adamas showed. Neither was she surprised that now, finally, a funeral was being held. It was more personal, and Kara had dealt with that grief already. She held the Pegasus bridge with Kendra while Lee attended, and she hadn’t seen him since it was over.
He was back on the ship, though, and now she was on her way to his quarters, frustration with this malcontent crew burning through her veins. His “Come in” when she knocked was nondescript, and she came in with a recommendation on the tip of her tongue—only to have Narcho and his insubordination knocked out of her head by the sight of Lee halfway through a bottle.
“Yes, Kara?” he asked without looking up.
“Lee?” she asked back.
A moment of silence hung before he said anything. “There was never a funeral for my mother. I watched my father grieve today for someone else, and I realized we never...”
Kara’s heart twisted, but not for him, not with the ugly things lying in her past that his words managed to touch. Forgetting that alcohol might not be the best thing for them to indulge in together, she reached down and whipped the bottle and an empty glass from the table, drinking down two shots’ worth of the sharp liquid before she’d walked two steps away.
“What, Kara?” Lee demanded from behind her. “Did that offend you somehow?”
Her tongue rolled over in her mouth as she turned briefly, words coming out before she could know why. “The fact that you forgot about your mother means something, Lee. It means guilt is unnecessary.”
“And that means?” Lee pushed, standing up, face taut with a war of emotions.
Every nerve in Kara’s body wanted to push back, but she knew him too well now. “It’s not a good time,” she muttered, and started walking for the door.
He crossed the room in a few steps, cutting her short, placing his hand against the wall to block her way with his arm. “Kara, you’re not being yourself,” he managed to say without slurring.
The memories were threatening to come back into her consciousness, and all Kara could do was stare at his jaw and not move. Gods, they could break each other over this.
“You’ve never mentioned your mother,” Lee realized out loud.
Kara’s reflexive breath almost hurt with its sharpness, and she had a fierce need to push past him. But he grabbed her shoulder.
“Kara, Kara please.”
“Please what?” she snapped at him, meeting his eyes finally. “I had a shitty childhood, okay, and I chose not to attend my mother’s funeral and I don’t regret it.” There wasn’t much of a reaction in his eyes, so Kara didn’t know why she kept talking, throat hurting with the pressure of emotion. “I don’t regret it, I don’t, okay? And so I don’t understand what you’re feeling.”
She couldn’t breathe when Lee leaned in and kissed her slowly, but she breathed out tremblingly at his slight desperation. Not the same emotion she felt, but too much.
“Lee, I can’t do a comfort frak right now,” she whispered, eyes already threatening to sting as she shook her head.
He met her eyes, grief and understanding mingling there. “I don’t think I could handle one,” he admitted.
A half-hearted laugh escaped Kara before she could hold it in. She pursed her lips, trying to hold back the rest of the emotion running rough-shod through her, battling against years of repression. “Today was not a good day,” she said shortly.
“No...” Lee breathed in deeply, eyes glancing back at the large couch. “Can we sit?”
Simple words, but they hit home. “Yeah,” Kara said. Her steps weren’t even very reluctant as they walked away from the door.
“What were you going to report?” Lee asked as he took a seat with an exhale of exhaustion.
“Narcho’s causing trouble and I wanted you to transfer his dumb ass to Galactica,” Kara said, not needing to pause.
Lee snorted. “Didn’t lose your focus I see.”
“After how he got on my nerves?” Kara didn’t need to look at Lee as she leaned back into the couch, mouth firm. “No frakking way.”
“Do I get on your nerves like that?”
It caught Kara off guard and she just turned to stare at him. The curiosity in his eyes was almost naive, and the ridiculousness of it must have translated to her look. Just before it fully dawned on him, she broke down and giggle-snorted.
“Dumb question?” Lee asked, choking back a laugh and resting back against the couch.
“Mm,” Kara confirmed. She breathed out, rested her head for a moment on his shoulder. “You think too much.”
His arm draped over her shoulder and they just sat, breathing. Whatever emotion was left in Kara, and she didn’t bother to categorize it, made her find his hand with hers and give a small tight squeeze. The way his breath caught for a second, only to join hers in sharing the bit of silence again—it made her think that maybe he finally understood that what they had meant something even if it never changed.
Chapter 8
“Our father” Caprica prayed, kneeling in the circle of rebel Cylons, no beginning and no end.
Zak sat among them, but for all his effort he couldn’t find anything in himself but emptiness.
“Guide our path,” Leoben continued with the benediction.
Zak squeezed his eyes shut, gulping down air, trying to cling once more to the Hybrid’s words. Kara and Lee entwined, and faith and justice for them all. Sometimes he was certain she’d said it in words just that clear.
“Keep us safe,” Boomer prayed reluctantly.
Fire and air, that was the metaphor she’d used. Kara, the fire of faith, and Lee, the wind of justice. Fire and air could each bring destruction upon the other if they faced each other, yet working together they could overcome all opposition. Zak had to think it meant that faith and justice might overcome every obstacle for him and his people on their journey to...home...whatever that meant. Peace, he hoped. The Hybrid’s words had never sounded like war.
“And let us see the journey’s end when it comes,” said Natalie, finishing the prayer with determination as well as hope.
Then Zak remembered that hope was just another manifestation of faith, and even in his cautious and still-cracked heart the Hybrid’s words could give him wings to fly. He had faith that Kara and Lee could help save the Cylon race.
“Amen,” he said quietly. He knelt with the Cylons who had dared to rebel, who had dared to think that there was something they needed from humanity, something that perhaps was already mirrored in themselves. It was the closest place he’d belonged.
He’d keep on hoping as they went forward with their task.
***
Kara stopped worrying about what Lee would say each time they frakked. Ever since his near-death, so much had been left to the language of his eyes, and Kara could read that at her own pace. She could frak him until they didn’t feel separate, rocking together, breathing together, fitting so close that they felt like a single person. And she went on hoping that he’d keep fearing words enough that some day she might be able to say them first.
They still kept things nominally secret among the Pegasus crew, keeping up the look of innocence and ignoring anything that might be a rumor. But when Kara snuggled against Lee’s chest in a post-orgasm daze, fingertips running absently over the contours of his body, she had to think that they weren’t really trying anymore. Maybe they weren’t afraid of the consequences. They’d dared luck just long enough for luck to win out for them.
Even if Kara still couldn’t put into words why Lee pulled her in like a gravity well, torquing her path to lie alongside his even as she pulled him closer to her—well, the ‘why’ didn’t matter as much as the ‘what then’. They seemed to have the latter down by instinct now.
Lee made pleasant snuffling noises just after sex, eyes half closed and body limp, not clingy but just there. Kara could get up right away and go back to work, tension pleasantly gone, but she had gotten into a habit of waiting to see if he’d fall asleep first. That he could do it, comfortably, securely, stirred her heart in the same manner that his smile did.
The phone rang, though, and stopped everything. Lee sat up to grab the receiver, nudging Kara from her use of him as a pillow, and he cleared his throat.
“CIC calling,” he said after a second.
Kara murmured non-distinctly, and watched him as he got dressed to leave. He sighed as he opened the door, and Kara breathed out and reached for her own clothes. Back to work it was.
But when she’d squashed her hair back into a less just-got-frakked appearance, and had waited an appropriate amount of time to follow without being immediately suspicious, it didn’t look routine in CIC. Frowns and tension threaded among everyone.
“What was it?” she asked, drawing close to Lee by the table.
When he stared at her, the shock in his eyes drove everything else out. “Communications are frakked right now because...we found a habitable planet,” he said in barely more than a whisper.
Kara just stared back at him with a suddenly dry mouth.
***
“We’ve lost the signal,” a Five said, glancing up from the datafont.
Cavil and Natalie both looked at him at the same time, but Zak took a second longer, having lost track of just what the Doral might mean. It had been taking so long for the homing-device the humans had unwittingly brought back with Anders to give them enough data that he’d forgotten it might actually succeed.
“They may have discovered it,” Cavil said, lips twisting in annoyance. “We’ll have to fill in the final jump coordinate with a guess, take the entire fleet.”
Zak suddenly realized that the rebels might have taken too long. “What are you going to do?” Natalie asked Cavil.
He looked at her like she was a mindless child. “Our fleet is all gathered. This is our chance to wipe out the humans if we jump in without raiders first. It’s a guess, yes, but if we succeed, then—” He ended it just short, not needing to say the rest.
Natalie’s eyes barely caught Zak’s before she responded sharply. “You can’t do this without a vote!”
Cavil had already nodded to the Doral to leave the room, and was moving towards the datafont. “This plan has taken almost a year too long already,” he said, almost snarling. “I’m not stopping now for a little democracy.”
But just as Zak’s hands clenched and he was about to do something desperate, a shot rang out and he jerked his spine straight. Cavil fell to the ground without a final word, a bright red hole in his forehead. Natalie stood, jaw tight, smoking gun in her hand.
“What?” The word came tumbling from Zak’s lips before his brain could catch up.
“That was the plan,” Natalie said, breathing out as she put the gun at her hip again. The room was charged with more than shock.
“I know,” Zak said, thinking of all the things he said he’d be willing to do. He had to shake his head loose as he walked with her up to the datafont. “But now what? The ship is crawling with—”
“Centurions,” Natalie said, with only a slight gulp of air to show that now that it was happening, the plan seemed too hasty. “However they’re programmed, it’s probably to help Cavil. We’ll need to release them if we are going to do this without disaster. Remind them of who ordered the programming in the first place, and they should be on our side.”
“Did you think of this already?” Zak demanded, staring at the Six leader over the red glow of the goo.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure—”
“It’s all we have left,” she snapped at him. Then, staring him in the eye. “We are so close to falling short now. You have to believe hard or get out of the way. Please.” Then, breathing in and adding almost as an afterthought, “And freeing the Centurions is the right thing to do in any case.”
Zak knew she was right. Cylon problems meant Cylon methods, and he wasn’t unprepared, just— He nodded.
“Get Caprica, tell her everything’s going down now,” Natalie breathed out. “We’re taking the Cylon fleet.”
Thinking mostly of the humans they were at this moment ready to save, Zak spread the word. There would be no permanent end, but if all went well, permanent change nonetheless. It wasn’t like there was ever a bad time for that.
***
“It’s just not an ideal world,” Lee said, a mere couple hours after the planet had been discovered and the fleet had jumped in. He could scarcely believe that he had to make the argument, that this was being looked at by some as more than a pit-stop.
“But, but the signal blocking,” Baltar protested, waving his hand. He wasn’t the only one who was grateful to the disrupting cloud about the world.
Yet Lee had to agree with his father when the Admiral spoke. “The Cylons have more than one way to find us, Mr. President.”
There was a shuffling around the table of the other members, of Sarah the Gemenon religious leader and of Kara and Kendra and Tigh, all there for the discussion of the issue.
“What if they do?” Baltar demanded before anyone could say anything else. “What if the Cylons do find us again? There are ships upon ships full of people out there...are they thinking of safety? No. They just want a place to rest.”
“That is what Earth is for,” broke in Sarah with a sharply wrinkled brow.
Kara was the one who frowned at that. “Earth’s not a magical place,” she said derisively.
“Exactly,” Baltar followed, ignoring Kara’s discomfort at the man counting her on his side. “If the Cylons could track us to this place, where DRADIS doesn’t work, then what place couldn’t they track us to? But if they can’t—if, if they need DRADIS—then this world is uniquely protected.”
“Wait.” Lee had to raise his hand, ask the question before they circled dangerously near to this rabbit hole. “Are you suggesting we settle here? So the Cylons, when they come, can just nuke us again?”
Baltar stared at him, grasping for words.
It was Kara’s voice that came out of left field to stun him. “Lee, can you even imagine a situation where the Cylons don't come back?” The question was an argument more than a curiosity.
And when Lee looked at her, saw in her eyes that she wanted to believe, he knew that he didn’t even have that much. “No.”
A few minutes later, Adama sent the parties away to their ships to think it over again and reconvene at a later point. They had time, so it seemed.
***
“The Hybrids are screaming,” Shelley whispered, standing at Boomer’s side as the baseship shook. Her long fingers clenched tightly into fists, arms desperately straight at her sides.
Boomer was still having a hard time catching her breath as they finally did it, finally eliminated the ‘enemy’ from the plan as the Ones and Fours and Fives and Threes protested. But Shelley’s words were so pointed that she looked to her. “You listen to them?”
The softest of the Sixes nodded. “Leoben taught me.” Then, with a shaky breath, “They weren’t ready for this. I don’t know if we are either.”
“But you said yes to the plan,” Boomer said. The ship lurched with a dull boom, as if mimicking her emotions, and Boomer wished for a second that she could see out a window. She didn’t dare look through the datafont; it would be too overwhelming.
Shelley’s lips pursed. “I believe we need the humans alive at any cost...but this could go so very wrong.” Her last words came out soft, whispery.
“The Sixes have it,” Boomer said. She hesitantly reached out a hand to take Shelley’s. “They’ll make it work.”
***
Zak watched a non-rebel baseship explode, and despite everything his hand trembled in the datafont beneath the cool goo. He’d just killed some of his people. No worse than what he’d done on Caprica, and no more permanent, what with the proximity to the resurrection hub. But it felt so much worse.
Then no sound came through the communication. He stared at Natalie across the control center.
“We have control of all the ships remaining.” He could recognize Caprica even over the radio, and could feel for the slight waver in her voice.
Natalie’s breath seemed to catch before she could answer. “The resurrection hub will be crowded for a while, but not forever.” Her eyes shone with the magnitude of this first success.
“So we do...?” Zak asked.
“Exactly?” Natalie asked back, briefly unsure.
“We need to negotiate with the humans,” Caprica’s firm voice settled the question. “They need to know that we don’t want them killed.”
“Though another Cylon fleet does want that,” Natalie answered. Then, as if by just looking at Zak her protest grew legs, she continued. “And we won’t even get that far in our explanation before they would destroy us, too, and we’d resurrect surrounded by our none-too-happy brothers.” The last words fell flat and hard from her lips. “Or no, they’ll just jump away, disappear, and it’ll be the same result.”
Zak thought of the fleet, remembered how they’d found them in the first place. “Can we contact the Final Four somehow?”
“Not before they wake,” Leoben said as he walked in. “And as far as we know, only death brings awakening.”
Silence held over the radio.
Zak looked around at his people, both feet over the line, looking for the next one they had to cross. They needed to get to the fleet, and the way Natalie looked to him as if he might have an answer made him realize that she wasn’t all wrong. “Then there’s only one option,” he said, curling his fingers in on themselves.
Leoben met his eyes. “They’ll kill you again,” he said, recognizing Zak’s intention faster than the rest.
But Zak could pull the memory back and look at it from a safe distance, and he glanced around at them all. “Kara couldn’t kill me herself the last time. She’ll hesitate. Long enough for me to surrender. And Lee and my father—” Childhood memories, stolen and heartbreaking as they were, came flooding ready to use. “They won’t,” he said shortly.
He looked around the baseship that was supposed to be his home, and saw no one protesting. No one was any less desperate than he for this to work. It had been his idea to start with, and he had to have the courage to see it through. “I’ll go in first,” he said, taking a deep breath, “and you follow.”
“We have to finish this before the resurrection is complete,” Leoben said with a nod, a deep look into Zak’s eyes.
“Then let’s get you a Heavy Raider,” said Natalie, over the radio so they all could hear. “And those incomplete coordinates.”
Zak wasn’t sure he knew exactly what he was doing as he walked out of the room, but Leoben put a hand to his back and Natalie to his shoulder, and he hoped their faith and their logic wasn’t just a Cylon construct. There had to be some humanity driving all this.
***
Kara rubbed at her eyes, staring at the table in the middle of Pegasus’ CIC.
“We won’t settle,” Lee sighed. “The vote will never carry, if it even gets that far. And there will be riots, I know.”
“People want to get to Earth,” Kara said, momentarily playing the devil’s advocate. As if there was such a thing in a frakked up situation like this.
“And the people who went down and touched solid ground?” Lee raised an eyebrow as he asked the mostly-rhetorical question. “The ones whose reports have spread through the Fleet? Maybe that’ll have more weight than prophecy, even if ones have come true so far.”
Kara didn’t meet his eyes, her pen resting on the paper in front of her without moving, biting the inside of her lip. If he wanted her to agree with him, he’d picked the wrong vocabulary.
“What?” Lee asked after a few more seconds.
“Prophecies come with signs,” she said. “Signs like a random Raptor check leading us to the one planet that might keep us safe from the Cylons.”
“You don’t believe...”
Kara shook her head, raising her eyes to meet him. She couldn’t quite explain it. “Maybe we were meant to be here for something, though. Not settling, but—”
They were quiet enough to keep the conversation almost private, as the other people around the control center did their work still.
“Sir, there’s something on the fuzzy DRADIS,” Hoshi said after a second, looking back over his shoulder.
Lee stood bolt upright.
“It looks like—gods, it looks like the Cylons,” the communications officer gasped out.
“What?” Lee turned in shock. “Does the fleet have the emergency coordinates?” he asked, sharp on the tail of the news.
“No sir,” Hoshi said with a frown.
“Godsdamnit,” Kara swore, and hit the table, but it was barely audible above the rush of fear and the talking that came with it around the room. “There’s landing parties still on the planet anyway.”
“How did they find us?” Lee breathed out, as the officers took battle-stations without needing to be told.
“And I can’t block their transmission,” Hoshi said, almost frantic. “Something’s coming through.”
The radio crackled, and Kara looked up out of habit.
“Finally, I get—” The young male voice didn’t sound formal enough. “I need to speak with Kara Thrace or...or Commander Adama.”
Kara felt all the blood in her body drop to her toes, her fingers tightening around the edge of the table. Lee's own fingers shook as he reached for the button, needing to respond, but knowing just as well as she did that it was Zak. He might not be sure he believed it, but they could both be sure that the Admiral wouldn’t.
“This is Commander Adama,” he managed with admirable composure.
“Lee?” The voice ripped through Kara’s heart in a single tear, breaking through her attempts at healing and forgetfulness.
“What the hell is this?” Lee demanded back, as the bridge officers all looked confused.
Gods, it was Zak, it was Zak and the Cylons, and the day had finally come.
“Sir, the Vipers have located the Cylon ship,” Hoshi said. “Should they shoot?”
If they’d thought, it might have seemed incongruous, but Kara and Lee didn’t get that far. “No!” they snapped at once.
“Lee, the baseships should be here now, but if you’ll look you’ll see that all of the weapons ports are closed. No raiders. We’re not attacking.”
“It’s true, sir, there’s almost a whole fleet,” Hoshi broke in.
“We...” Zak continued, sounding, horribly, exactly like he always had. “We’ve broken from the rest of the Cylons, me and some of the other models. There’s only a few hours before the others come to destroy all of us as well as you, so we want to come aboard your ship, unarmed, to talk about surrender.”
“Sur-surrender?” Kara’s eyes were fixed on Lee as he kept finding words, disoriented as they were. Her face felt too tight, but Lee at least could stammer enough to keep the conversation going.
“Yes,” Zak said simply. “Please. Nothing is as it seems.”
“Sir, if we’re going to shoot we need to do it now,” Hoshi broke in again. “Should we?”
For a long second Lee clenched his fist and stared at the table, and Kara didn’t have an answer for him. Then, not surprising Kara—“No,” he said.
Swallowing, Kara stepped a little closer.
“This is what Anders told us about,” Lee said under his breath as Hoshi, wide-eyes, conveyed the Commander’s message without question.
“We have to listen,” Kara finally managed to say, voice hoarse now that she used it. “Listen first before we do anything.” The faith deep in her was rising up, and she could feel it shining in her eyes as she looked at him—the irrational but overwhelming faith that had followed her from childhood and only now seemed to have a purpose.
He looked like he had enough skepticism for the both of them, but something more than faith was pushing him, and that would be all that mattered.
While the crew around him looked incredulous, Lee grabbed the receiver in an almost-firm grip and spoke out to the Cylons that were somehow meant to meet them here. “Take your ship into Pegasus’ bay, slowly, no tricks.” Then, off the radio, he ordered Hoshi to send the not-shooting orders across the ship.
“Lee, what happened to Dad?” Zak’s voice continued.
Kara had to swallow hard at how familiar the voice sounded.
“He’s Admiral now, and he doesn’t know you exist.” Kara couldn't protest Lee's harshness. “We’ll talk later.”
“Sir?” Kendra finally entered the CIC. “What are you doing?”
“Not destroying an opportunity.” He gave his XO a straight look, even as he held back so much. “We’ll shoot at the first sign of trouble.”
If Kara had ever been grateful for anything, it was that Cain’s ingrained fear in her crew was serving them well now. They’d need that frightened loyalty.
“Sir, there’s a lot of chatter in the Fleet, and Galactica is on the line.”
Lee looked to Kara first. She nodded slightly, knowing what they both had to do.
“Major Shaw, inform Galactica of the facts,” Lee said shortly. “A Cylon has surrendered itself into our custody and the CAG and I will start questioning immediately.”
Kendra saluted sharply and that was that.
Heart pounding, Kara walked with Lee out of the CIC, and he didn’t need to tell her because it was written all over his body in tension—this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.
***
Zak raised his hands as he stepped out of the Raptor onto the hangar deck of Pegasus. The armed marines didn’t astonish him, of course, but he exhaled as soon as he was not immediately shot. Lee wasn't there yet; they were waiting for his orders. Commander Lee.
This was it. The entire mission that he and Cylonity had adopted was resting on this meeting. Tension wrenched his gut as he saw the figures coming from far off. Finally more than just impressions, the Hybrid's exact words rang in his head: the lack of a shot is more peace than the moment.
His eyes were wide open, nothing left to lose but this and everything clear because of that fact. He knew, then, what she’d meant. All he needed was to stay alive. Keep the shots lacking.
There was no shock on either Kara or Lee’s faces as they stepped up to where he stood, Lee in Commander's pins and Kara—an XO? CAG? She looked like she belonged here. Zak stood, hands still up. Please let her be right, he whispered in his mind.
No one moved. Nothing more than stares even happened. Zak could hear his pulse racing, could sense the adrenaline in his sharpened sight and other senses.
“So—explain why I won't regret not shooting you now,” Lee said after a minute’s pause.
The fresh rush of faith from the Hybrid’s words made Zak feel almost articulate again. “Because I know you, and I know you'll want peace more than revenge for something you don't understand. We're here to give up, Lee.” The plan whirled through his head, the plan to set aside everything that made the Cylons who they'd been before: to ask forgiveness, to go to Earth, to escape war forever. These two people who he'd loved, they were the proclaimed key to this destiny. All he needed was for them to listen once, and everything would follow.
Lee stood for a long while and said nothing. Kara didn't move, and he knew that if he met her eyes they would be just slightly off. The way she stood by Lee, Zak knew just how close they’d become, another confirmation if he needed one of the Hybrid’s accuracy. And he’d need them both to stand against the world—just them, though. He could tell he wouldn’t need more allies.
“So start explaining,” Lee said at last, mouth twisted. “Start explaining everything before my father gets here, because unless you can find a way to sound not crazy, that's when this'll all fall apart.”
Zak could almost have laughed at his genuineness. The tension around his heart loosened for a second as Lee, a human, was talking to him, a Cylon, and he could tell it wasn’t a trick. No shot fired. It had worked. Thank god, or the Hybrid, or wherever the prophecy had come from—this truce was just the beginning.
He took a deep breath and prepared to tell them everything, for this was the first step toward the new beginning.
The End
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