A Flash Before the Eyes
by cliosmuse
Chapter 11
Apollo blinked. "Don't you know her at all?" It hung in the air, heavy. He tried to catch Kara's gaze, but her eyes were fixed intently on Leoben. "Kara?" A plea for clarification.
She looked back at him, studied him for several interminable moments, time ticking by. "Did you really think that, Lee? Did you really think I was a Cylon?"
Guilt washed over his face. He sank down to his knees in confusion; she mirrored his movement on the other side of the bars. "I –." He shook his head, his eyes on the floor. He ran a nervous hand through his hair (so much longer than it used to be, she thought). "I didn't know what to think. I just –. I'm… I'm so sorry." He looked into her eyes, pain in his, and then quickly looked down again. "Oh, gods, I should have known."
Her hand reached through the bars lightning-quick and grabbed his free hand. When he finally looked up, her face held none of what he expected. No disappointment, no distrust, no anger. No: rather, she looked confused; surprised; relieved; astonished, even. Her eyes sparkled slightly. "Lee." She shook him lightly. "Lee Adama, you thought I was a Cylon. And you still came here? The things you said, this morning –. You still meant them?"
He looked up at her. Took a moment to collect his thoughts. "I wasn't sure what to think last night. When I got back from the surface. And then I spent a long time with my thoughts, and then with you. And I realized that it didn't matter." He shrugged. "You're Kara. And that's who you'll always be, no matter what you are. And that's all that's important." He shook his head, his anger at himself returning. Pulled his hand from her grasp. "But he's right. How could I have been so convinced? Maybe I don't know you at all."
Her face still held that strange combination of confusion and wonderment. "No." Her voice was steely. "No, Lee. You do know me. Better than anyone in the worlds. And you still –." She paused, hoping he would understand, that she wouldn't have to tell him. But his distraught expression told her he wasn't convinced. (You've done this too often, expected him just to know.) She reached back for his hand and shook it lightly; leaned in toward him from across the bars. "Lee, you've been telling me… for hours, for days… frak, for years… that you're willing to stand beside me, no matter what." She frowned. "But there's this darkness inside of me. This chaos." She laughed bitterly. "Frak, I wouldn't stick with me if I had a choice. I spend so much time just… just hating myself. Do you understand what that's like?" She paused, remembered a certain moment when he'd wanted to die. "But maybe you do. And so I've never wanted to believe you…." She paused, prepared herself for the moment. This wasn't just a confession of love, like in the sands of New Caprica. This was something much, much more profound. "Lee, I believe you now." She paused. Gripped his hand tightly, dangerously. "And I need you now more than ever."
"A very interesting move." Dee's head swung around. She was standing outside the brig, watching Starbuck discreetly. Lee had left not long before after an extended but muffled conversation with the brig's newest houseguest. As Dee watched them, kneeling on floor, leaning toward one another as if in prayer and whispering through the bars, fingers just grazing, she felt a slight pang of jealousy – but not nearly what she expected. She had, she found, not lied to Lee all that time ago, when she'd told him that he and Starbuck were linked, when she told him that she'd have him until the Cylons or Kara Thrace came back into their lives. (Though the statement seemed to have newfound meaning in retrospect.)
Now was no time for reverie, though, now, as D'Anna Biers watched Dee watching Starbuck in the brig. "I have to wonder, though, why you don't just tell them all what you are? What could be so awful that you have to hide it?"
Dee turned on her heel and walked briskly away from the brig and from the Cylon. "I don't know what you're talking about. Please leave me alone."
D'Anna was nothing if not persistent. She followed Dualla down the hall. "The way I figure it is this. Getting rid of Starbuck through the lie you told accomplishes two things. First, the Fleet does away with Kara Thrace. But second – and maybe this is even more important to you – the Fleet leaves Earth." She quickly surpassed the smaller woman and threw an arm in front of her and against the wall, blocking her in. She stood over her and looked down with something akin to menace. "So my next question, obviously, was: Why does she want these things? It's not simply because you're a Cylon. The Fleet has started tolerating us fairly well. No, I think you realize that Kara Thrace and Earth are the sparks of their memories. And there is something you don't want them to remember."
Dee gritted her teeth. "Let me go. I'll have you thrown in the brig for assault."
D'Anna let out a scornful laugh. "Well, then I'd be able to just ask Starbuck what your secret is, wouldn't I? You must know that she knows." Her face contorted in a mockery of sympathy. "Oh, my dear, it can't possibly be as bad as all that, now."
"Let me go!" In a burst of strength (perhaps she'd learned something in those self-defense classes after all), she pushed D'Anna away from her and began running down the corridor.
After her, the Cylon's voice, calm, thoughtful: "I remember the first time one of my model spoke to you. I remember you told me that you joined this Fleet because you wanted to believe in something." A pause. "So, do you? Believe in something?"
As Dee took off down the hallway, D'Anna laughed slightly to herself. "I suppose we'll just have to wait and see."
"Why do you think she was here?" Kara turned her head slightly toward the Cylon in the cell next to hers.
"How do you know she was here?" He'd seen Dee as she peered cautiously into the brig, but Starbuck's back was against the bars. (So very contrary to her normally guarded nature; he wasn't sure if it suggested a death wish or a newly acquired sense of peace.)
Kara shrugged. "Call it a sixth sense."
"I'd call it more than that." He paused; changed the subject. "You've asked a lot of him, you know."
"I know. But he wants to help me. And I need him. He's the only one who can do this."
"Can you trust him?"
She glared. "As if I can trust you. After the things you've done to me, I don't know why I'm speaking to you at all."
He cocked his head. "You keep me close because I'm part of the plan, and you know that. You need me as much as you think you need him. All this has happened before, and all will happen again. And you keep me close because you're afraid: because you don't really know yourself without me." A beat. "Can you trust him?"
She sighed. "I think I finally know the answer to that." Silence for a moment. "So?"
Leoben sighed. "Why was she here? I couldn't tell you. Perhaps she bears remorse."
"I thought Cylons didn't feel remorse."
He smiled idly. "Cylons feel a great many things you couldn't possibly imagine."