Title- The Redemption of Colonel Tigh

Work In Progress

Author- PTBvisiongrrl

Part- 1?

Date- 07/11/2006

Rating – R

Pairings/Characters- Lee/Kara (eventually), Tigh/Kara relationship (non-romantic!)

Word Count- 1309

Category- Short Story, for now- but let's see what everyone thinks!

Genre- Romance (eventually), Angst, Action, Drama

Archiving- The Fallout Shelter, All others please ask!

Warnings- i.e. death, language, violence, rape, torture, etc.

Spoilers- Season 2 through the rumors of Season 3

Disclaimers- Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…

Summary- Tigh comes out of the Cylon Occupation a better man, thanks to Kara Thrace.

The Redemption of Colonel Tigh

Most men would come out of months of Cylon torture broken. Not Saul Tigh. Eye missing, broken bones barely healed, bruises almost permanent, Tigh came back…

…more right than he had been in years.

Tigh had risen to the challenge of the Occupation. The moment the first frakkin' toaster had marched through New Caprica City, he knew his drinking days were done. He needed to be alert and prepared- no longer could they jump their battlestar to another location to escape. The toasters were here, and the humans had no way to leave or force them to go. He had no intention of sitting back and becoming some Cylon slave, nor letting the civilians settled on the planet becoming slaves. Especially the children. Gods, especially the children.

That had been the first time he had told the Cylons "No." They had wanted to take the children away, to teach them about the Cylon God and His plans for the Colonists. Not a parent himself anymore, Tigh still felt the echo of wrongness in his soul, the fear for those little souls. That was when Kara Thrace and Galen Tyrrol had visited his tent in the dead of night, after the Cylons had decreed that all children under the age of five were to be turned over in three days' time, after he and Ellen had had the last of many arguments over her survival instincts.

"Dammit, Saul, its not like their our kids," she had spat at him, slamming her glass of alcohol down hard enough to make the rest of the plates on the table jump. "There will be more. It will buy us time! Time is what we need!"

Tigh had finally, in the moments after she had callously given up the hope of humanity without a second thought, seen her clearly for what she was, devoid of his emotions. A woman broken by her past, allowing it to control her without her even realizing it. A woman who didn't know what she wanted out of life beyond a steady supply of oblivion- meaning alcohol and willing men. It had never mattered so much to him before, he himself being broken as well.

But that night, he had begun a slow healing.

For once, he stood up to her. The shock on her face would have been comical in another setting. "Get out, Ellen."

"What?" she snapped.

"Leave." He grabbed a small suitcase and began stuffing it with her clothes and other incidentals- perfume, makeup, lingerie. Things that he had never noticed were so out of place on the planet before this moment. His heart contracted, realizing what he was doing, what he was putting an end to- and that he should have done it years ago. Handing her the bag, he held the tent flap open for her. "Now."

Ellen pulled out an old trick quickly, tearing up and acting flustered and confused. "But why, Saul? And where should I go?"

"Go find the latest boy you've been frakking and move in there, for all I care." Saul sighed, his soul tired. "Any where but here. You are no longer welcome here."

The dead silence, the moment of open hatred in her eyes as she realized that he actually meant it, would be burned into his memory forever. It was a turning point. He knew that as badly as he had botched his command of Galactica during Bill's injury, as much contempt as the crew held for him, he was still a Colonial officer and had a duty to protect her citizens, the last remnants of their civilization. That duty was more important than his marriage to Ellen- more important, even, than his individual life.

In his mind, as he began to mechanically clean up the dinner dishes and gather the things left behind by Ellen into a pile, he ran through the list of Colonials planet-side, counting how many soldiers there were here from the Galactica that he felt could be trusted. It was short list.

Just then, Tyrrol and Thrace showed up with their proposal for saving the children. It was bold, though still more restrained than Thrace's usual hair-brained miracle plays, which he commented on. "Not your usual style, Starbuck," he stated, leaning back a little.

"There usually aren't children involved in my plans, sir." Starbuck stated in an even tone.

Tigh acknowledged her comment with a short nod. "And that is the main problem with this situation. Who is going to stay with the children? The Cylons are doing morning roll calls. If someone doesn't show up, they're gonna know. And if that person shows back up…they will want to know where he or she has been."

Tyrrol nodded. "Yes. We need a couple of soldiers to 'go rogue." Some who are willing to leave and never come back, until the Cylons are gone."

"Or we're rescued," Kara interjected.

Saul's mouth tightened. "The Old Man might not be able to pull that off, this time. We might be here for good."

"Lee still has the Pegasus, too, sir." Kara's voice sounded tight at the use of Lee's name. "We have a chance."

"So we double-play it. Plan as if we have no help, and hope like hell that some shows up. We'll try to communicate with the ships, come up with an evacuation plan that could be implemented if needed…" The three of them looked at each other in turn. There was no need to address the danger of the situation. It was more than a part of their no-longer jobs. It was a part of them, even Tigh.

Rising, Tigh leaned over the maps on his table, the lists of children's names that Galen and Kara had brought with them. He wondered, and could not help but ask, "Why bring this to me? Why not do this on your own?"

Galen shot Kara a look, which she missed as she began speaking. "Permission to speak freely, sir?"

That line usually ended with her in the brig. Tigh narrowed his eyes. "Permission granted."

"The Old Man always kept you around, and he wouldn't do that if there wasn't something worth it beneath the drunkenness, sir. We've also noticed that you haven't been drinking since the Cylons got here, and we frankly couldn't pull off this big an operation by ourselves. My reputation notwithstanding," Kara added with a smirk.

"And if I hadn't agreed to help?" he crossed his arms.

Kara's smirk got bigger. "Once you knew the plan, if you wouldn't help, I was going to make sure that you couldn't tell anyone else."

Tigh actually barked out a sharp laugh. "And you would have enjoyed that, too, wouldn't you Starbuck?"

Tyrrol relaxed a bit, but not entirely, still ready to step between the two if he had to do so to prevent bloodshed or unnecessary attention. The two stared at each other, neither one backing down. Tigh spoke again first. "We'll start in the morning. Go get some rack time."

And that is how he, together with Kara (his distaste for her thick in his throat at times) and Tyrrol, had come to lead the resistance for past three months. They had secretly blown up supply points and farms, successfully hiding at least half the children in the surrounding forests, and killing as many Cylons as possible, until today. Until the Cylons had taken him along with an injured Kara Thrace. He had been defending her against them to his last conscious thought. Whether he liked her or not didn't matter; she was a fellow soldier, and you didn't abandon or leave a man behind. She had been injured in the attack, a flash-bang nearly beneath her causing what he assumed was a concussion. At least so he had hoped, until the gleaming centurions were on them. Then he hoped, for her sake, that it was more than that.

He hoped that she was dead.