I'm sorry I haven't updated this. But in my defense I forgot.

Day Three

He was extremely grateful that his face was free of pen marks when he woke up (because it's the first thing he checked. River smirked at him from her station, not looking in his direction as he scowled at a spot near her ear when he recalled what she drew on him and how grossly accurate it was.); he was also pleasantly surprised at the lack of boot marks on his person. Meaning River didn't know he kissed her in her sleep.

He started around her whenever she moved anyway, just in case she wanted to do the kicking of his ass while he was awake to enjoy it. She looked too amused by that when all she did was hand him a thermos of coffee and bagged cereal.

"There've been some funny signals being picked up on the readout." She said after sitting back down at her station. Sam forwent being weird for a moment and grabed the said readout, scanning it quickly. With a frown he read it again, more slowly.

"This is…"

"Right?"

"What the hell?" he mused out loud, turning to his monitors. They picked up nothing. "How is something that big and uncharted not showing up on the screens?"

"Some kind of Cylon technology?" River and Sam looked at each other seriously.

And burst out laughing.

"What the hell would Cylon's be doing in the middle of nowhere?"

River gave him a look. "It's space, Sasquatch. Everywhere is the middle of nowhere."

Sam ignored her and flipped a few switches to adjust his readings. Something blipped on the screen for a moment before it disappeared. Sam frowned at the screen it had been on and tried to bring it back, turning dials carefully.

"Sam."

Sam hummed in response, not looking up from his screens. River said his name again, more urgently this time. He flicked his eyes over to her. "What?"

"Power down the ship," she said seriously. Sam straightened. "Power down the ship, Sam."

He leaned back in his chair, looking where she was looking and felt horror seize up inside him. He sat up quickly, his forehead nearly smashing against the LED light overhead in his rush to get the ship down as fast as possible. The buzz of the ship died around them, the lights cutting off completely. In the darkness Sam stood up and moved his way over to River, sitting in the chair next to her and leaning forward to see above them. River place her hand next to his on the console as she joined him in staring up at the Cylon baseship above them.

"Why didn't the scanners pick this up?" whispered Sam. His heart was pounding so hard in his ears that he wasn't sure that River couldn't hear it.

Her fingers twitched against his in response.

.

It took an hour for the Cylons to move out of scanning range before Sam felt comfortable enough to turn their ship back on. How they managed to get away alive, he didn't know. They were close enough to look like a ship, not just a pile of debris.

"We need to report to the Galactica," said Sam, adding a return course into the FTL.

"Don't bother." He froze in his movements, waiting for River to continue. "It's too late. The best we can do is to send back a wave and hope they receive it in time. Hopefully we can cut off the Colonial before it reaches Caprica and get them back under the protection of Galactica—"

"You are insane."

River stopped mid-sentence, her mouth still open to continue. Sam had spoken quietly, his eyes focused on his hands as they worked. He was continuing their course, just like she wanted. She didn't look at him, but the tension in the ship increased uncomfortably. He'd touched a nerve he shouldn't have, probably the only thing he could have called her that would have been worse would've been freak or witch. He noticed a tremor in her shoulders, but refused to look at her. He continued to do his duty, counting off a jump that would bring them closer to Caprica and pretended she had a cold in their room temperature, completely hygienic spacecraft. He refused to feel bad. Refused.

They didn't speak again that day.