Well here is the end of book one- after the first two paragraphs, those who squirm when reading sex scenes are safe. Sorry about not switching that rating to M right away. Posting the last chapter seemed to be a comedy of errors (probably because I was still squirming after making the sex more explicit) hope the last two chapters are all fixed now. I'd like to thank Nedy Rahn and airam4u for giving me a heads up to problems, with the last chapter in particular. Since no one else has chimed in since the last upload I assume they're fine now. (I really can't read through a chapter again once I post them here, my brain shuts down if I try.) I hope you enjoy the end of the fic.

I do have a question for you all. Given picking Erin Mathias as a character is not a possibility. Should I only pick Six as a character, keep Athena as a second character based on her importance to the story (she's back in Book 2: Breach of Promise) or just change the second character periodically, in hopes of luring some readers to check the fic out? If I do the last, which characters should I include in the rotation? (Athena, Adama, Roslin, Cottle are the characters that come to mind to rotate.) Or is there another option I'm not thinking of?

I sincerely hope someone leaves a post Ooops review. Right now the last review is an 'your upload was wacked.' Yes I could delete, but I like having reviews too yeah, I still want a heads up for mistakes. Though this time preview is actually working.

Book 2 should be up soon. Enjoy!

Chapter 21

Their bodies melded as they kissed languorously. Gina set the pace and Erin followed, offering every inch of her body for Gina to chart through taste and touch. Both cried out as long fingers entered to complete the map within. Gina explored meticulously and Erin screamed as promised.

Mobility regained, Erin's hands, lips and limbs did as bidden. Eager requests became ragged demands. Gina's oans became a sharp shocked cry of pleasure. Emboldened by success, Gina celebrated fiercely. Erin could do little more than grip the sheets as Gina devoured her.

Erin mumbled. "I don't think I can move. I'm deathly afraid of what you'll be able to do with two arms. Are you okay?" she asked tapping on Gina's cast.

Gina handed Erin the water bottle and answered as she nibbled her shoulder. "The re-enforced arm is fine. I am so much better than fine. And I don't want you to move." After Erin drained the bottle, Gina pushed her down and burrowed into her with a sigh.

Erin felt tears Gina hadn't wiped away, and stroked Gina's back wondering if she realized she'd shed them.

In a voice far stronger than Erin could manage, Gina asked. "You had more questions. Do we have time?"

"Did anyone pound on the door?"

Gina grinned and waved her injured arm. "I think the only pounding was my cast, next time we're definitely doing this in my cell. I don't care who watches." Feeling like she was riding on the crest of a wave. She took one last taste of her lover and dove in. "Erin, tell me what you want to know."

Erin took a deep breath and looked at the open door of her locker. "I want to know why they died, what you were thinking."

"I can throw in the history of Kobol." Gina offered.

"I think I can settle for the most disturbing parts of your past." Erin kissed her head.

Gina sighed. "I have to explain what it was like before the attacks. I'm not sure it'll make sense, some of it doesn't make sense to me."

Erin brushed her finger along Gina's cheek. "I understand being ordered to kill and thinking it's right. Why did you think so many of us had to die?"

Gina struggled in silence for a few moments, then her explanation came out slow, but steady. "We believe in the One True God, well except for Ones - I don't think they believe in anything but themselves." Gina moved to hold her head up with her arm. "God had commanded us to procreate. As long as we weren't able to, we weren't fulfilling God's plan. We couldn't do it. You could. We went across the Armistice Line to study you. We came to the conclusion that humanity was doomed to lives of unending violence, greed and depravity as evidenced by your lack of belief in the One True God."

Gina's eyes unfocused as she looked further inward. "We saw how you start life only knowing how to feel and have to learn how to think. We thought that's why you can't control yourselves. From the first moment of our existence we're able to process and solve complex problems, then we learn to feel and react. We thought that made us inviolate, free from the vices born of emotional needs that plague human society. We see ourselves as more evolved: stronger, more resilient, ageless - and we don't kill each other."

Gina's eyes narrowed. "It's strange, I have no idea what Ones believe in, but they argued humanity was obsolete and should be destroyed; that it was logical. He'd hate me for saying this, but his passion was even more compelling than his logic."

Gina paused as a score of emotions flashed across her face. "Our creators left us with improved Centurions, Raiders and baseships, they're part of us. War seemed mandated, who else were we supposed to fight?"

Erin held Gina's shoulders until their eyes met. "Whoa, what do you mean your creators left you? Who created you?"

Gina's breath caught as an instinctive horror of speaking what was forbidden filled her. She now understood the phrase 'putting the nail in the coffin'. This would be the point of no return - even if Cylons and humans made peace, Gina would not receive amnesty from her people. Gina plopped down on her back and stared at the rack above them.

Erin turned to mirror Gina's former position, her eyes full of worry. "Six, I'm sorry, just tell me what you're comfortable with."

Gina looked at her, then burst out laughing.

Erin turned beet red. "If you give me a minute I can think of something even more daft to say."

"No, that was enough, I need to be able to breathe." Gina had broken every other commandment, or at least made a serious attempt to. Gina searched her memory. That wasn't God's commandment. Nothing in scripture, just a rule of assumed origin they were forbidden to question. "They are known as the Alphas. There is a line unique to cylon scriptures, 'Parents must die for their child to grow.' Cylons don't die, we assumed the Alphas left to allow us to grow to our full potential rather than be undermined by their desires and expectations. When we realize our potential in accordance with God's will, they will return to us."

Horror tinged disbelief broke through Erin's nonjudgmental mask. "Who, what are they? Where did they go?"

"Asking those questions is forbidden. Everything I'm telling you is. Cavil says the rules were made to keep our society thriving, moving forward. Humans with their mortality and imperfect memories argue and obsess over their pasts. We accept data and focus our analysis on the future." Gina fell silent after practically spiting out the last sentence.

Erin prompted her to continue. "You don't sound like you agree."

"I'm not sure what to think. Our society wasn't thriving, it was stagnant. We desperately wanted more and wanted everything to stay the same. It didn't work that way." Gina tilted her head. Nagging thoughts and images from dreams began to coalesce. "Everything alive changes. Sixes know that. Cavil kept saying we're machines, mechanized copies, uncha...Oh God...We were never broken."

Gina looked like she was going into shock. Erin grabbed the blanket and covered her. "Gina, Six. Look at me." Erin began to move trying to maintain physical contact. She ripped open the curtain. "Six, Stay with me..." She darted to the locker and grabbed the bottle.

"Erin?"

"I'm right here. I've got you. You're safe, honey. I promise." Erin got behind Gina, making herself into a cradle to gently rock her lover. "Take a sip. Not too much."

Gina sputtered. The liquid burning it's way down her throat distracted her from the shock freezing up her brain. "How do you drink that?"

"Gina, it's been in there almost three years."

"Your father," Gina coughed. "You never told me he was crazy."

Laughter erupted from Erin's belly. "Bad taste is not insanity."

Gina joined in though she couldn't have explained what was so funny. Snorts and giggles drove them until they lay weakened and gasping for air yet again. Once the laughter stopped they wrapped back around each other.

"I take it you're done talking for today," Erin said.

Gina pulled back. "No, no I have to figure this out. It's what I said before, we thought we were incorruptible, but as we kept crossing over we found out we weren't. The first of us to come back from the colonies created strife, especially the Eights. They began asking forbidden questions. Only the Ones were completely resistant. The Threes barely changed either. Ones began to prepare anyone who would go to the colonies to compensate for what were considered weaknesses in our programming. Since the Threes had reacted mostly by increasing their devotion to interpreting the social rules through scripture, the Ones proposed that they guide and evaluate the reintegration of those who returned. They became the arbiters of who needed to be boxed. We were so afraid of being corrupted no one could see they weren't broken. We thought wanted to feel alive, to grow, but whenever some one did, they were boxed."

Gina stopped to take a breath. Erin whispered hesitantly, as if unsure of the wisdom of interrupting. "Gina, What's being boxed?"

"Being downloaded into a body that's rendered inert; all your memory files are locked in cold storage."

Erin paled.

"It's not necessarily permanent," Gina added quickly.

Mouth agape Erin asked, "How do they react when you let them out?"

Gina's voice cracked when she answered. "No one's been unboxed."

Erin shifted, breathed in through her nose and let it out slowly. She'd rather be shot in the head. The thought of how cylons would handle teenagers made her shudder. "If spending time with us made you feel you had to do that to your own people, why didn't you just stay away?"

Gina seemed to have developed a fascination with the end of her cast. "We were drawn to the colonies. They were the home we'd been driven from by slavery. And we couldn't have children without humans."

Now Erin was even more confused. "Then why did you completely irradiate the colonies, didn't you know radiation makes us infertile, why attack at all?"

Gina shut her eyes and spoke almost without inflection. "We tried procreating with human prisoners; it didn't work. Fours needed a larger sample of humans to study. We knew if we tried taking humans on that scale you'd notice. We began to talk about and prepare for invasion, but most of the models couldn't come to consensus. Some went looking away from the colonies for a planet of our own. We found Kobol. It was beautiful, but the prophesies about blood being shed were true. A One was the only survivor of the first landing party. The others didn't download. The world which gave birth to humanity was cursed. Then you crossed the armistice line. It seemed like an inevitable prelude to war. We focused on striking the colonies before you attacked us or destroyed them as you did Kobol. But our projections for success were much lower...I don't understand how we got the numbers so wrong."

"Are you saying you didn't plan genocide?" Erin tried to keep the disbelief from her voice.

"I'm not sure. I hadn't been in the data stream for years. I know we had to target the military. We debated government targets but most thought it was safest to destroy them." Gina groaned ferally. "We blamed you for making Cylons unstable, so killing anyone we didn't need made sense. All we cared about was a path to procreation and reclaiming the colonies. It was this complex equation we all worked together to solve, but we didn't understand the variables. It never occurred to us we could be ignorant of anything of consequence. We were certain would never make the same mistakes humans did."

Erin looked at Gina curiously. "You sound like a bunch of teenagers."

Gina stiffened. "We can download data files and share memories, it adds years of experience."

Erin's hand went to her clenched gut. "Gina? How old are you?" Such a simple question, but one she had never thought to ask.

Gina looked at Erin defiantly, "My line...," then looked down in defeat. "I'm twelve. The oldest Six is twenty-one."

"""""""

Erin had wanted to know, had thought she was prepared for what she would hear. It was impossible to tell a Cylon's age. Gina had a mature body, a brilliant mind and was capable of performing every adult task. Images flashed through her mind; almost adult children from Sagittaron and Gemenon with pre-teen naivete after living sheltered lives; and those who'd seen too much, who lied and manipulated as easily as others breathed. Was human civilization destroyed by a bunch of confused and angry abandoned teenagers?

As silence feel between them Erin wanted to tell Gina she'd heard enough. But assumptions she didn't realize she had were being destroyed with every sentence. She didn't want to make the mistake of assuming again. She worked to reconcile Gina's numerical age with the woman in her arms. She could almost hear her wife as she struggled to relate. She finally grabbed hold of a concept that worked- a thirty year old with no memory of her childhood, just skills and knowledge without context. Gina's grip on her arm had slowly tightened as Marina's voice filling her head. Despite fear of ending up with a matching broken bone, Erin ignored it. She didn't want to interrupt as Gina wrestled with her own memories. While she had been wrestling with Gina's age, Gina had been trying to reconcile everything.

"I felt so blessed that my line had been created to infiltrate. All Sixes wanted to go. We're fascinated by everything that lives and grows. Every shared memory and file download was carefully chosen." Gina's tone was bitter. "Nothing that would pollute my superior machine strengths. Nothing from anyone who questioned anything."

She hadn't talked to Erin about life with Helena before the the attacks. Self protective or maybe just self deceptive, she had never wanted to attempt to explain why she had followed through with her mission. Yet now that she had started talking, she couldn't stop. Each word was a reclamation of self. "I was designated to collect and transmit data from Integral Systems, then assigned to infiltrate the Pegasus. I met Helena. She was brilliant, beautiful and so complex: needy yet independent, passionate, but controlled, impulsive and disciplined; she seemed like a perfect warrior. And I swear she was as smarter than the Ones."

Gina's voice held all the emotion her perfect memory retained. "It was a stupid risk trying to seduce her, she was so guarded, and she hated civilians mucking with her ship. I was so focused on seducing her without appearing to be trying, that I didn't realize she was just biding her time before bedding me where and when she wanted." To Erin's shock, Gina blushed.

"Just being in the same room with her was thrilling. It was so overwhelming." A note of pain underpinned her expression of wonder. "But whenever I wasn't with her, I just felt unstable, broken. I kept telling myself to stay focused - not let myself be corrupted. I knew it was love, but it hurt. And the attack made everything worse instead of better."

Gina paused as all the confusion and doubt she had felt played across her face. "I was so proud of how well I blended in. Then Helena gave a speech over the comm after the attack. Everyones emotions became overwhelming and alien. I felt like someone could just look at me and tell I didn't belong." She shuddered. "And all Helena wanted to do was kill cylons. She wouldn't run. I couldn't control her, myself or anything else. I kept thinking she was ruining everything- not the attack, not me being there to sabotage her ship- just her wanting to fight after we destroyed everything." A keen escaped from Gina's throat. A familiar sound, but this time it was for what she had done, rather than what had been done to her.

"""""""

Erin had wrapped Gina in the quilt and held her fast, but she couldn't stop shaking. As the words she had been living in fear of Erin ever hearing came out, her memories kept playing: Helena's face as she ordered Gina's arrest, the instant contempt as she was relegated to a 'thing', Helena glaring through the glass. Gina spun out of Erin's arms to stare into her eyes. Fear met fear, but underneath was an aching tenderness and sorrow that matched her own. Gina grabbed Erin's hand and put it to her own cheek. Erin was still there, still wiping tears from her face. The memories stopped.

This was not what she envisioned happening after making love to Erin. But it bonded them closer than sex ever could. Once the flood pouring from her eyes would have made Gina panic. Sixes didn't cry. Now she suspected crying proved she was alive. Raw and exposed Gina curled her body inward even as she wrapped herself around Erin. "Do you still want me now that you know I'm an idiot as well as a spiteful bitch?"

Erin managed to pull her even closer. "I want you. I feel honored that you trust me. And yes, I am still falling in love with you." She pulled a handkerchief from an unseen location and another water bottle appeared. "I hope I can make you happy, Gina."

Gina drew back and smiled. "Erin, you already do."

Epilogue & Prologue

Extraction of the algae proceeded without disruption, but not without difficulty. Impatience led to accusations ranging from incompetence to graft. Many rumors fed discontent and the fleet relished each one: abandoned ships, Cylons, a falling out between Adama and Roslin, arrests, assaults, each story became more colorful as it circulated. People's stomachs being filled by that which revolted their senses did not improve the situation. Instead of sating the population, the algae only sustained their dissatisfaction.

Rogers hadn't made it back to Colonial One before it departed. He'd been busy getting shots of the Six. She wasn't in a flight suit, but she wasn't cuffed like the pilot. And she definitely got on better with the marine escorting her. He didn't get caught. Thankfully the marine following them was as distracted by their obvious affection as he was. Yet he was still rattled and not completely sure why. He was relieved he got stranded on the Galactica. Presidential security surrounded by military security wasn't the environment he wanted for viewing the footage.

He headed for Cloud Nine. Only the cabins being insulated well enough to remain habitable kept many away, while the efforts to lower the radiation levels under the dome made transportation accessible. Safe in the knowledge that no one would bother him, he looked forward to reviewing the tapes. McManus could track him down for a change.

Logging the shots brought him clarity regarding his jitters. His journalistic instincts may have compelled him to shoot the footage, but common sense was squelching the euphoria he expected to feel. Given the climate of unrest, he was sitting on a bomb that could blow the fleet apart.

THE END of Book One

Look for Book Two "Breach of Promise" coming soon.