Every Stray Child

Part: 2
Rating: PG, maybe be PG-13 later on
paring: ensemble cast
Summary: Several years later someone from Felix's past shows up. This is a sequel to Training Wheels.
Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica and its characters are creations of Glen Larson and copywrited by Universal Studios. Stargate and its characters are creations of MGM. We make no money off this.

Chapter Two

Despite himself, Felix cringed. The Gemonese had always been too reactionary, and while he hadn't been comfortable with the Cylon rebel alliance, it had saved lives. Everything Helo had told Jack had made perfect sense. "Has he been told anything?"

"Just that we have a colonial specialist." Sam said softly.

"Karl is a good man. Sharon is a good woman, despite being a Cylon. She chose our side and that was a hard choice." Harder than he had ever thought considering what Helo was describing. He looked at Sam. "I want to talk to him, but it has been at least thirteen years." He knew from just looking in the mirror that he looked almost as he did when he had first been separated from the fleet. "We're not going to talk about my leg, ok? He might think I'm a Cylon, just because of how I look and if he knows I have both my legs, he definitely will think I'm a Cylon." Felix suspected that Helo would think he was a Cylon regardless, but of all the people in the fleet, Karl Agathon was the one person who wouldn't care.

It was still smart to not run into the room in shorts though.

"You're wearing pants," Sam said after a moment. "So I doubt it will come up." She gave his shoulder a friendly squeeze. "I don't think it'll be bad."

"All those kids." He recognized Hera, although she was a teenager, and Sharon didn't look any older but that was expected. Still, his loyalty was first to Stargate Command. "Has there been any decisions made already?" The children were half alien after all. That could be a problem.

"If the adults want work, we need more people in research," Sam said. "If they can handle it. something similar to your job." She smiled slightly as his relief. "The kids should blend it well enough."

"Has he been told anything?" They had assumed when he had first met them that he knew Tau'ri meant from Earth, and they hadn't known how the religion of the 12 Colonies had placed Earth as the 13th Colony. He had come to terms with what the Goa'uld were, and what it meant to his religious beliefs, but the revelation of Earth being real had been a bad moment for him. A real bad week of moments, really. Of course Helo would have more support. At the very least, the people in Stargate Command understood it was going to be a shock.

"Just that this is Stargate Command and that we're not going to kill his family."

"Ok." He would have to emphasize Karl and Sharon's tendency to be protective of each other and of their children. "What. what are we hoping to accomplish here? Karl's a pilot, a much better pilot than I will ever be, and so is Sharon. If they took their family and ran. It has to be extremely bad in the fleet." Although the truth was that things had never been great for the Agathon family. And. the fleet was still around. His people, no matter how frakked up, were still alive and he couldn't help but be glad.

"Our thinking," Sam said after a moment, her expression slightly amused, "is that the last guy we picked up from the Twelve Colonies of Kobol worked out really well so we'd like to see if the two new adults we've found could work out too. Since we're currently on the hook for taking care of them anyway."

"So Helo and Sharon need to know I'm here." And he needed to help them, even if it was awkward beyond belief. They had always been his friends and they had tried to help him when things had been..bad. He opened the small file. There were pictures and names for all of the kids Helo and Sharon had brought with them. In a way it hurt even to look at Helo. The man was still as handsome as he had been, but totally grey and Felix could see how hard the years had been. Technically he was forty-three and Karl was forty-five and he knew damn well that thanks to the Goa'uld, he looked perhaps thirty. And if he covered up the touch of grey in his short hair, he could still look mid twenties. Looking at Sharon, who still looked all of twenty-seven herself, he knew what Karl was going to think.

And the sooner he did it, the sooner they got past it. He tapped the glass so Jack would know he was going to come in. He took just a moment to straighten the fatigue uniform he was in. It was good, he realized suddenly, that he was in uniform, in the uniform of a captain of the United States Air Force. It would reassure Helo to know he was part of the organization.

He opened the door to the interrogation room. Jack grinned at him and pointed. "See? Our colonial expert is here."

"Hi Karl. It's been a while." He felt like an idiot. He wanted to hug Karl. It had been so long since he'd seen anyone he knew and Karl had been his friend since high school.

Karl stood up, the shock plain on his face. "How…how are you here, Felix?"

For a moment Felix hesitated. Finally he said, "It's a pretty long story. It's good to see you."

Suddenly Karl stepped forward and grabbed him in a hug. A hug that he didn't hesitate to return. He could feel Karl shaking, even though he could also feel the strength in the man's arms. "Thank the gods you're alive," Karl murmured. "We thought…we thought you died when you went through that force field.. Is this where you've been all this time?"

After a moment, Felix pulled back. "No. I've only been here for about three and half years, but this is a good place. No one is going to harm your family." He could feel his own voice shaking. "It's so good to see you, Karl, to know you're alive."

"How." Karl shook his head. "We couldn't figure out what you did. We couldn't come after you."

"You have no idea how lucky it was that you didn't." Felix said it sincerely, and he meant it. That was one resentment he had let go of a long time ago. It had only taken him mere days to understand that if anyone had followed him, they would have ended up dead. Or worse. And Karl looked guilty, shocked, and frightened all at the same time. He gripped Karl's arm and gently steered him to a chair, realizing suddenly that it was a move he had actually learned from Karl. Helo had always been the first to spot if he had become unsteady on the prosthetic leg, and had mastered the unobtrusive touch of support.

"General Hammond is going to try to look for your fleet," O'Neill said as Karl sat down. "But the way you folks do jumps. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack." He seemed almost amused at how Helo just waved it off and stared at Felix. Felix wasn't as amused. He knew what was coming.

"When did you find out?" Helo asked. His hands were shaking just a little. "I mean. You know I'm ok about it. I mean. " He eyed Jack suddenly as if he realized he might have misspoke. Felix knew Jack wouldn't get the sudden tension Karl was showing.

"I know you'd be ok with it," Felix said softly, "And I know why you think it. But I am not a Cylon. There's a really different explanation for why I don't look that much older." He looked at O'Neill, who nodded. "There's a lot going on here that you might not be aware of, but I have told General O'Neill about the Cylons."

Helo gaped at him. "Are you sure? We still haven't found the last model but..." After a moment he seemed to shake it off. "I'll. I'll trust you on this. I don't really have a choice but if you're not a Cylon, how are you looking like this. And if this isn't where you've been for the last thirteen years, then where have you been?"

Felix glanced quickly at Jack and then back to Helo. "The short version," he said quietly, "is that the rings open wormholes between two points. I ended up on a planet called Andelia and it was being ruled by an alien who spent ten years alternating between torturing me and using alien technology to keep me perfectly healthy and basically the same age."

"The alien is called a Goa'uld," Jack added helpfully. "Nasty things with nasty tech. We sort of have this little war going on.."

"Aliens." Helo thought about it for a long moment. Then he grinned wryly. "I can top that. Kara Thrace had a baby. With Sam."

"Did he rape her?" Because tattoos of marriage aside, once Kara had found out Sam Anders was a Cylon, she had always physically recoiled from her husband. Not that the marriage had lasted much past the horrific aftermath of finding the false Earth.

Karl actually grinned. "Oh come on. No. Once things just turned into a daily grind. He really started drinking, and Kara never was one to say no to ambrosia, and every once in a while they'd have sex. And about seven years ago.. She got pregnant and even if the baby is half Cylon, you still can't have an abortion."

"Why not?" Jack asked suddenly, his expression curious.

"Before the holocaust, it was legal in most colonies," Felix said quickly, "but with such a dramatic drop in population, people need to have babies if the species was going to survive." He turned his attention back to Karl, sensing that there was a punch line of some sort coming. "So did she kill the baby?"

"You'd think, but no. Sharon dangled some raw meat and alcohol in front of her, and we took the baby from her." He shrugged. "I'm kidding but only a little. She didn't want the baby and there weren't a lot of volunteers to take a half cylon, half Kara baby.."

Felix fumbled with one of the pictures that was already in the small file. "The little blonde giIrl. I wondered how you two managed to get a blonde kid." Looking at the photo he could suddenly see it and it was like being kicked in the stomach over and over. "Kara had a baby."

Helo's eyes twinkled. "The best part? She named that baby after you. That is Felicia Lee."

"Why would she name a baby after me?" She had been a little nicer to him after he'd lost his leg, that was true, even going so far as pop an ensign nugget in the jaw for calling him "stump" during a card game, but they hadn't been warm friends.

"I did ask her, once. She said a half cylon kid was already going to be messed up so she should at least be named after the one guy in the fleet who never frakked her over even though she said you had every right to." Helo leaned back in his chair. "She also said it would piss off Sam. Because of your leg, and because he thought he killed you when he pushed you into the ring."

"What?" Felix was taken back. "I thought. I thought I lost my balance." The truth was that he didn't remember it that well, which was an irony. He had lost his leg and they had found what they thought was Earth just a week later. His leg, the stump of what had been left, had been hurting so badly, he'd taken a secret morfa shot before he had struggled into a flight suit and gone to the surface of the burnt world. The Admiral had asked him, not ordered, and he had understood the distinction, that the old man was allowing him to back out of a mission because of his wound. He had barely been conscious, the drug kept him from screaming in pain but it also made his memory of the incident hazy.

Karl smiled sadly. "You were leaning on the crutches you had pretty hard. You seemed like you had gotten some pain meds but you were examining the ring and you got it to spin and glow and… Sam slipped and pushed you forward and you went into the force field. And then the ring shut down." Helo shrugged. "I know he is never going to make your list of favorite people, but he fell apart after that. He thought he'd killed you, we all did, to be honest. And with his being a Cylon on top of everything. He just drank himself into a stupor and never really sobered up."

"You're right, I'm not overwhelmed with sympathy," Felix said after a long moment. He still had nightmares about his leg, and he still had nightmares over the time with Iblis. Pushing him into the ring had likely been an accident, but shooting him hadn't been, and Sam Anders hadn't even been able to look him in the eye on the Raptor ride down to the planet. "But frankly, I don't remember it very well because I was on painkillers and what I remember best is what happened after, when I was captured by the Goa'uld who were on the other side of the ring." He didn't want to discuss it with Karl, not then. Because it was awful, to begin with, and it would just make the man feel bad. More importantly, it wasn't what they had Karl "Helo" Agathon in the briefing room for. O'Neill knew his story, but the general wanted Agathon's. And so did he. He gestured to O'Neill. "I've told the people here in Stargate Command everything I remember about the fleet, but obviously everything I knew is out of date." He gestured to the uniform he was wearing. "The people here took me in, and I can promise you, your family is safe here."

Helo nodded. "Honestly, Felix, things went to hell almost as soon as you disappeared. We went back and the Admiral decided. That you were dead and that we weren't going to waste any more time with the ring since we didn't have anyone other than Dr. Baltar who could figure it out and he refused. And then." Helo looked at him, his expression suddenly worried.

"It's been close to fourteen years at this point," Felix found himself saying, although he could sense Helo was trying to find a way to gently break some bad news. "Just knowing some of you are still alive means a lot but I'm not unrealistic enough to think that everyone I knew is still alive."

After a moment, Helo nodded, although he didn't look happy with what he was about to say. "Your boyfriend, Louis."

"Your boyfriend?" Jack asked, his expression amused. Felix rolled his eyes at the man.

"I was more into men when I was younger, Jack, and I've explained that." To Helo he added, "People here are like Sagiterrons about sex. If it's not a man with a woman, they get all uptight." Which made some of the Tau'ri's entertainment almost quaintly hilarious at times.

"Felix and I dated in high school," Helo offered. "It's not that big of a deal."

"Really?" Jack winked at him. "Does Janet know about all of your boyfriends? You know she might be a little worried about your high school boyfriend being back in the picture."

"I'm married now," Helo said quizzically.

"It's different on Caprica, Jack," Felix said patiently. He knew, to a point, that Jack was just teasing, but sometimes the people in Stargate Command just didn't understand how different humans raised on other worlds were. "In the colonies, it's not unusual for boys and girls to have their first sexual relationships with same sex partners. Karl and I dated when we were in our teens. We both moved on, and that's very typical. I'm not typical in that I preferred men as an adult but you really need to remember that it's not unusual for men and women to have same sex partners in the colonies. Louis and I were dating." It hurt because he could already sense that he was about to get bad news, and because Louis had always been a regret of his. Louis had been a damned good friend and lover, and if he had desperately needed someone to hold onto, Louis had as well and more than once, especially when things had turned better, Felix had wondered how Louis had fared.

"Louis was angry," Helo said carefully. "He was angry that you had gotten hurt and that no one seemed to care, and he was really angry that you got left behind." The older man hesitated. "He was mad that Sam wasn't punished at all. He didn't think the Admiral was bothered by what happened to you." Helo paused. "The Admiral was, Felix, he was devastated. He didn't punish Sam because it had been an accident. and because of the alliance. We just. We thought you had died."

"It's all right, Karl. You don't have to apologize." Karl was battling shock, he could see it on the man's face, and it wasn't the time for recriminations especially when he knew in his heart that there was nothing his friends could have done. "Did Louis die?"

"He got…he led a mutiny. He got with Tom Zarek and Zarek twisted everything and…Louis blamed the Cylons and Zarek fed on that. and a lot of people died. Including Louis. The Admiral was going to execute him but he got one of the guards guns and they shot him. And he died. Along with a lot of other people… There were mass executions of people who followed Zarek." Helo paused. "That's how the Gemonese gained control. Louis mostly had the Sagiterrons helping him and you know how people could be."

It was worse than he expected but he could see how it happened. "Poor Louis. I can't imagine what he went through." Louis had always been the passionate one. As much as he knew that he had never been as in love as Louis had been, at least not until he met Janet, it hurt to know that Louis had died trying to avenge him.

"It got worse," Helo said sadly. He and Tom Zarek took over for about three days… They killed the Quorum, Gauis Baltar, a lot of the people who were following Baltar….A lot of the Cylon allies were killed and then…. Zarek had the Quorem shot and Louis shot him and then…. I still think Admiral Adama would have spared him… we all thought he was crazy but he was firing when he rushed the marines…"

Felix blinked back tears. Louis had been as close to a spouse as he had come before he had found Janet. And Gauis… Gauis had been a friend once, and a man who had been sadly a fool despite his intellect. He had always hoped that Louis had moved on. "It's ok," he found himself saying. "It's been thirteen years… I didn't expect a lot of good news."

Karl nodded and took his hand. "Aside from the people who took over the CIC, we never found out exactly who was in the mutiny and who wasn't and that made things worse as time went on. Colonel Tigh…. shot himself about a year later. He never recovered after the world with the gate and the mutiny. Lee was President for a little while… he and Dualla had a couple kids and then she… she died after the second baby. Some sort of infection… Ishay tried to save her but there wasn't enough medicine…." He waited until Felix nodded, "Everyone knew that it was really the Admiral running the show and a couple years ago the people demanded elections and the Gemonese gained power… and they hate Cylon and no one really understood how much…. It was Lee and the Admiral who helped us take the Raptor…."

Felix nodded but it was just to keep Karl going. He was too lost in thought. Wondering was one thing… but knowing that he'd never see his friends again. Friends like Louis and Dee who had sat by his side during the worst moments. Even Baltar. It hurt. The only saving grace to the situation was that at least some of the people were still alive.

TBC…