He is in the chair, the uncomfortable one, one hand folded in the other at his lap. She faces him in her chair, one arm flung over the back. She appears languid, but he knows better. He prefers her in the chair rather than walking around which she sometimes does, especially behind him where he can't see. She has been wearing her hair down the last few times, and it softens her . He has to watch that kind of thinking. Like thinking about the future. He doesn't want to think about his recent excursion for fear that somehow it will show on his face or the way he holds his hands. There is altogether too much fear. It's all right, if it doesn't get the best of him. That's the thing.
They have been like this for some minutes.
"Have you been outside this room?" She isn't looking at him when she asks. She is wiping at something non-existent on her skirt. Don't lie; she knows the answer.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Why?"
"You didn't say I shouldn't, and the Centurion left." Terrible thudding inside; he has to learn to control that. Breathe.
"But you knew. How far did you go?"
"The end of the hall."
"You heard us."
"Yes, ma'am. I heard voices. I didn't hear much of what was said. I didn't see anything . . . because of the Centurion."
"And . . . ."
He looks at his hands, takes a deep breath, bites his lip. Had stopped doing that before Academy, had trained himself to stop, now he's doing it again. "Will you tell me why she's here? Is she a prisoner? Is she all right?"
Ma'am leans forward, places her hand over his. "What will you do for me, Lee Adama?"
He blinks into her blue eyes. Her face softens even more. She smiles so very calmly; her fingers caress his hand and glide down his fingers. Oh gods. Even this, she wants. Is it possible . . . can he. There has been no thought, no need, nothing in all this time. Gone with his health, his . . . sanity. Gods.
She is gazing intently into his face. "Do you find me so repulsive, or is it merely hate for what has been done?"
"Yes . . . no. I'm not sure . . . . I . . . ." He grasps at, then rubs his thighs. "What I feel, it's all distanced, mostly - hate, anger . . . desire. Isn't that what you wanted?"
"Distanced is not the same as gone."
He refolds his hands.
She stands and walks to his right, trailing her hand up his arm. Stands close behind, kneads shoulders and neck, circles fingers over his scalp. He is tense at first, but she knows how to do this, to release the knots and relax the nerve endings. She is as good at giving pleasure as she is at rendering pain. When his eyes finally close, his head lolls back, she reaches down the front of his shirt and kisses beneath his ear. His lips part, eyes flash open and she is already there, lips on his, then away.
She sits.
His chest rises and falls, mouth a thin line, eyes blue ice.
"Not so distant," she says, then crosses her legs. "Kara Thrace is not a prisoner. I believe she is in good health."
He hasn't moved because she is waiting for some kind of reaction, any kind. He takes a deep breath and straightens.
"Tell me what you feel," she says.
"Relief."
"What else. Just before."
"You know."
She catches his eyes, a tiny crease between hers.
"Anger," he says.
"Because . . ."
"Manipulation, deceit . . . ."
"Did I cause you pain?"
"No, ma'am."
They sit quietly while he looks at his hands, rubs one thumb over the other.
"Ego," he says. Looks up. "I have a question."
"Ask."
"In my place, everything else the same, you would have reacted differently." He forms it as a statement, not a question. She isn't human, after all, and doesn't have all the attendant emotions. He watches, and can see she is taking him seriously. She is setting up the scenario in her mind, and he remembers the Six on Pegasus. Realizes he has never once thought of that earlier, never compared their situations. In many ways, particularly now, hers was more barbaric. She had reacted very much like a human would have.
"It is difficult to put myself in your place. There are so many variables. For example, they would never allow one person alone with me. If I were weaker, that would change my ego perception. It is also possible I would welcome the advances of the other person, even my enemy, as a future escape possibility. Depending upon the person, it might even be an island of pleasure within a sea of pain and unhappiness. I see the attempted manipulation, accept it and turn it to my advantage, if possible. If I have no power, if there is nothing to be done, anger can be useful when it is controlled. The same is true of ego, as long as you are aware of it and are in control rather than let it control you."
"I see." He says it before he thinks; it's his father speaking: "Sometimes you have to let go of control." And adds his own voice. "That's when you're human, when you live to the fullest."
"Is that love?"
"Yes. There were times I didn't now that. But it is."
"Is that how you love Kara Thrace?"
"I learned how to love her that way."
"She is carrying Sam Anders's child."
Ma'am is watching him intently. There are times he fills like an experiment, a bug, under a microscope. Maybe he should surprise her and smile. He surprises himself by doing exactly that.
"Kara. Pregnant. Now that, I could never imagine."
"You are happy about it?"
"Of course. I expect she is too, or will be, once she's over the shock."
"I confess, I expected a different reaction."
He glances at her, sits back, crosses an ankle over his knee, laying his hands there. "Yes, well, at one time you would have gotten it. I lost her though, really lost her when she died, or whatever that was. It changed everything. Now I can love her without having her. That's real love, or at least a special kind of love, I think. When you want the other person's happiness, regardless of your own. Actually it works out, because I'm happy if she's happy."
"Do you think of Niki the same way?"
He looks down, brushes a thumb against his pants. "I hope she had a happy life. She deserved it if anyone did."
"Have you ever considered how much alike they are?"
"Oh, they're very different."
"Are they?"
He and Niki never fought like that. Not exactly; it was friendlier. They certainly never hit one another; not to really hurt, anyway. Kara has such a dirty mouth - Niki never . . . of course, they were a lot younger, and she . . . . Pyramid v. slackball, and running. A little impulsive, fearless. Give no quarter. Wanted to be a pilot. It wasn't her mother, it was her father. Dear Zeus in heaven.
Both feet on the floor. Head in hand. Sits up. "You've studied therapy discs or something, haven't you."
"I have studied many things in preparation for my role. None of them tell me what I am trying to learn from you."
"What is that, exactly."
"What is love. What it means to be human."
"People have been trying to write about love for centuries. Love, being human, are states of being. You have to experience them to know what they are. Besides, you've done something to me. Removed part of me, what made me who I was. Maybe I'm not human enough now."
"Now you are being petulant."
"Yes, I suppose I am. I might be a lot worse than petulant, considering. If you wanted to know about love, you certainly went about it in a strange manner."
"You would have spoken to me of it, or anything else, before?"
"I doubt it."
"Of course you wouldn't. You were too much the soldier, even out of uniform. Too much an Adama, your father's son."
"Why me?"
"Your father is Admiral Adama. We know your history and your family's; you are close to Kara Thrace. Many reasons."
"He won't risk the fleet for me."
"Ah. But he will risk a good deal else; he already has."
"What do you mean?"
"When did you know you were in love with Niki, when it was no longer just friendship?"
He looks at her. A nerve beneath his cheek jumps. He sees her longest finger hover over the bracelet, and he thinks of refusing just to make her push it, to have some kind of control here, even if just for the moment.
She moves her hand away. "Please. I was afraid I had come to enjoy this, at one time. But I don't any longer. You . . . ." She stands, turns and leaves.
He waits in the chair for her to return. He doesn't trust this. It's something new. She has never left without an answer to a question before, and she is probably trying to trick him, although he doesn't know to what purpose. She has never lied, yet she admitted to a fear. Is she lying now? He could follow deceit upon deceit and get nowhere. His only course is to believe she still tells the truth. Why should she lie now? She still has all the power. Only something changed in that last moment before she left. The tone of her voice, the way she said please . . . as though she really meant it.
D'Anna had told Kara they had jumped because the ship needed to complete repairs away from the destruction of the Resurrection Ship and away from Galactica, because they didn't trust Adama. She understood that, because Kara didn't trust them, either. She worried about the repaired battlestar arriving back at the fleet before Galactica, but there was nothing she could do about it.
She sits here on the floor, ankles crossed, listening to the Hybrid. Some of what she says sounds like repairs. If she listens long enough, she might be able to understand some of the rest. There has been meaning there before; there could very well be meaning again, something important, something to make sense out of all this.
Sam walks into the room. "I wake up, and you're gone."
"I couldn't sleep."
"When was the last time you did?"
"Don't know. I can't."
"You think this will help you to sleep?"
Her mouth pulls a little. She sighs. "Maybe I'll learn something, Sam. It's all there is; it's better than nothing."
He collapses his big body down next to her, folds his arms over his knees.
She turns her head. "What are you doing?"
"Maybe I'll learn something, too."
It is a weird sort of celebration. Galactica has returned from a successful mission, only their new "allies" have disappeared. Adama took it as a good sign that they hadn't returned before him and destroyed the fleet.
The President joins him in his quarters immediately upon his return.
She dismisses Tory and approaches him for a hug. She doesn't remember when they started doing this, sometime after New Caprica. After each had understood how much they had missed one another. "You look tired," she says.
"I am tired," he smiles. They sit together on the sofa. "However, you are looking good."
"It's the wig. Don't expect it to last. Cottle says it's time for me to move my office over here. He doesn't want me shuttling back and forth all the time. I must admit, it does seem a waste of time and is a bit wearying. I always think I will get so much reading done in the process, but never seem to."
"I've had the space ready, whenever you need it."
"Now is a good time. While everyone's focused on the demise of the Resurrection Hub. Do you think they'll be back?"
"I think our new allies are as wary of this alliance as we are. They need us. They were nearly destroyed by the other Cylons once already. I don't think they can go it alone. Especially not now. We've got some of those Final Five with us, and they want them back safe."
"We can't turn them over, Bill. Once we know who they are, having them with us helps to guarantee our safety."
"I know. We have to play this by ear, one careful step at a time. We both hold cards, only our side doesn't know where our cards are."
She reaches for his hand. "There is a small chance we might."
"What have you got going on, Madam President?" He grins, and no longer looks quite so tired.
"Oh, something. A possibility, if we are patient and lucky."
"This is the last time we meet like this," says Colonel Tigh.
"But you got her free?" Tory is agitated, even angry. She is the one who caused them to be here. She had to know what had happened with D'Anna and the Resurrection Hub. First hand, not all the rumors that were going around with all the celebrating and the drinking. She had signalled Tigh, nearly made a fuss in CIC until he came. Then ran and found Tyrol; she always knew where he was - either on his new job or in his quarters with his kid.
"They," Tigh says, "they unboxed her, or whatever. She's with them on the basestar and has probably told them who we are by now."
"Shit," she says, "what do we do?"
"I'm thinking of telling the admiral," says Tigh. "I probably should've done it before, right away, as soon as I knew."
"And get airlocked?" She practically shrieks.
"Shh!" Tyrol grabs at her arm. She jerks away. "They won't airlock us," he says. "They need us now."
"What do you mean?" She holds her arm.
"There's three of us, right? And the Cylons have Lee, Kara and Sam. Think about it."
"You think that's what it'll come down to?" says Tigh. "I don't want that. I'm not going over to join those Cylons. I'm a colonial officer, and that's the way I'll die. Frak that."
"Yeah," says Tyrol. "Yeah." He is looking off somewhere, lips parted.
Tory glances at the two of them, rolls her eyes and turns away.
"Get back to your posts," says Tigh, "before anyone notices we're all gone. Only he leaves first, and the two stand there, looking at one another from the corners of their eyes.
