[Hub, Centurion Repair Unit]

The centurion parts were neatly stacked in racks, here the arms, there the toes. In the far corner, a few Fours were working on centurion heads.

"You can't be serious," Doral said to Cavil.

"I've been hampered by the confines of this human body long enough," Cavil said. Contempt and loathing drew his muscles taut; emotions he could very well do without. If only his parents had had a modicum of common sense. He's ready, as ready as he's ever been, to make the transition, to start a new prototype for his line.

"But a centurion!" Doral said.

The centurion stood in a corner of the room, plugged into the Hub, as empty as the knight's armor Cavil had seen on display on Picon after the victory. His new body.

"Think of the wonderful visual spectrum," Cavil said. "Think of seeing a supernova through the eyes of a centurion. Never be hungry again. Not losing your mental capacity because your sugar level drops." No longer being confined and controlled by the flesh.

The Four stared at him.

"Never mind," Cavil said. "Just do it."

Cavil fingered the telencephalic inhibitor in his pocket. He had removed it from this specimen himself. His model, after all, craved access to his higher brain functions and speech.

Doral cast one doubtful look at Cavil. "Your choice." Finally, his hand dipped into the liquid interface.

Cavil scrutinized the centurion for the first twitch of his finger, the first glow of his visor. Nothing.

"Well?" he demanded.

The Four looked at him in frustration, then pulled his hands out of the liquid. "What parts of your brain are you least attached to?"

"Why?"

"There's not enough space."

"What?"

"Your memories and cognitive patterns require the storage capacity of wetware." Doral eyed him speculatively. "Unless you want to abandon complex thought."

"Complex?"

"Leading a war, or presiding over a meeting. Being you."

Blast. Cavil turned and walked away.

[Galactica, Bill's quarters]

After Bill had left, the younger one stared down at Laura, hiding behind her aloof presidential mask. She couldn't honestly believe Laura would fall for it. Then again, her own face probably showed the same detachment.

"You're not my sister." The muscles in the younger one's jaw tighten. Bill's dark robe reached to halfway her shins.

"Definitely not," Laura said. "But we are both Cylons. Maybe we can help each other to end this." Killing two birds with one stone, removing all Cylon presence from Bill's quarters, from the Fleet. "We're both a risk to Bill and to the Fleet."

The younger one hummed. "Bill was right about you. You still believe killing ourselves will help him."

Laura felt the warmth of the flush that crept up her face. "And you don't?" she asked, as flat as she could.

The young one shot her an annoyed look. "Death leads to resurrection. Another round with Cavil and Simon."

"So?" The prospect wasn't new. Nothing Bill could do would ever change that. Bill couldn't save them. It was their problem.

"Resurrection on the hub will also," the young one said, "lead to us disclosing the Fleet's secrets."

A whisper of doubt slithered into Laura's collected thoughts. Disclosing humanity's secrets hadn't posed a problem before. Then again, what Fleet secrets did she know? The sooner she left the better. But that woman… She lives with the Commander of the Fleet. What does she know? Would it be safe to kill her?

"He has mourned her until it left only a shell of him," the younger one said. "He almost destroyed himself. We cannot allow that to happen again. The Fleet needs him more than ever, without the original Laura to assist him. Killing ourselves is out of the question."

The image of Bill stooped in mourning, hugging himself, swaying back and forth in his empty quarters, nipped at Laura's resolve. "But our programming?" she ventured, despite a sick twirl of dejection that wavered in her gut.

"He couldn't care less. We've both tried to kill ourselves. He thinks it's the best evidence we haven't been turned by Cavil."

"Is it?" The idea was more than a little naïve, given Valerii's sudden awakening and shooting of Bill.

"I don't know," the other admitted. "But staying with Bill is infinitely better than staying near Cavil."

Their happiness was inconsequential. The Fleet mattered. "We still may kill him," Laura said, squaring her shoulders.

"Will you kill him?" the younger one asked, squinting at her as if she had an airlock ready for the eventuality.

"I don't intend to," Laura said. "He's Bill." Of course, she wouldn't kill Bill, not if she had anything to say about it. "Do you?"

The younger one shook her head. "He knows we still might. He says he'd rather die in our arms than lead the Fleet with Baltar and Zarek."

"He's a sentimental romantic." Laura snorted. "Our arms?" she asked, suddenly unable to swallow.

"Oh yes. He's set his mind to generously sharing the Commander around."

Her pulse skipped, her chest tightened. "Does he now?" It explained a good deal of his behavior earlier. He didn't just pretend she was his Laura, he wanted her to be his Laura.

The memory of Bill's naked mass, close, his warmth seeping into her skin, his belly, his greying pubic hair, his cock, and his eyes in that singular state of bliss and of love, pushed the air out of her lungs. Her body betrayed her, relaxing as if she was safe, lying in his arms, listening to his soft snoring. She fought the wave of want that tried to pull her under, stopping rational thought.

"You mind sleeping with him?" the other one asked.

Laura made a small 'what do you think' gesture. Loving Bill wasn't an intimacy she wanted to share with any other woman. She was not going to take turns, waiting for that girl's leftovers. It had taken them long enough to get together. He was hers.

"Good," the young one said.

Good?. Laura's hearts thuds. Was she willing to give him up?

He was the young one's former lover just as much as he was hers. The other woman had had the chance to enjoy the pleasures of Bill's undivided attention already. Her naked body in Bill's robe was the proof of their consummation. Laura would never give that up herself.

"But you?" Laura ventured.

"Her diaries have given him a whole set of new plans in that area."

Laura rolled her eyes. Didn't he understand? Sharing Richard was a different matter entirely.

"You want to share him?" Laura asked the young one.

The woman shook her head imperceptibly as if she wanted to deny her denial. Laura eyed her, much in the same way she had scrutinized the women Richard had brought to her bed. At least the young one was less an uncertain factor. Her memories and desires would be similar if not the same. Sharing Bill must be anathema for her too.

"Why?" Laura asked.

The young one blinked and caught her eyes, looking at her as if Laura was a particularly thick Quorum member, waiting for the simple logic to trickle home; all president and not a little bit snotty.

Laura grappled for the logic of it, but could find none. "Why do you want to share him?" she asked.

"You remember being Cavil's plaything?" the young one asked.

Those were the memories she tried to block most of all. His presumptions, his masochistic joy in her distress, in bending her to his will, his one-sided releases. Her body clamped shut, bile rose in her throat. She nodded silently unable to find words she cared to impart, feeling frayed.

"What is sharing Bill, compared to that?" the young one asked.

The tension that had set in Laura's muscles, fell away all of a sudden. She was glad she sat.

From feeling herself to be Bill's one and only Laura, ready to reclaim her rights to his bed, she was yanked back to being a copy, a Cylon who'd spent an inordinate amount of time thinking up novel ways of killing herself, and who saw killing herself as her sole mission. She fingered the bandage around her neck.

She exhaled a soft "Oh."

She shouldn't let herself be diverted from her objective. She should take the fight back to where it belonged, to Cavil, by ending this farce of a life. She should leave these quarters right away before she got hopelessly entangled in this travesty of a life.

But the fleeting spark of hope the younger one had kindled had eased her grip on her hardened perseverance, her set plan to end this. Laura closed her eyes, worn out by the rollercoaster of desire and hope, that ended in squarely facing the dread of being Cavil's minion; a misery she could not escape, not even in Bill's quarters. If only she could sleep it off, and wake up with a clear mind, to execute her plans. Exhaustion drags her under, like the pull of an undertow she's too tired to fight.

"Laura?" the young one asked.

She needed to open her eyes, confront the woman, tell her that her fantasies about sharing Bill, were not only gullible but also distracting them from what really mattered, the Cylon war, but she couldn't bring herself to open her eyes.

"It's nothing," she heard herself mutter. She felt afloat, drifting from wishing to stay, to needing to go, to wanting to be safe, too tired to stop the pendulum that swung between the options. She didn't even have a bed to withdraw into anymore. Would Jack accept her back in Sickbay? How far was Sickbay? "I have to go", she said.

"Come," the young one's voice murmured.

Laura stood, swayed, and felt the hand of the other one under her elbow and her soft voice coaxing her to walk, coaxing her to stretch her arm out and feel the welcoming matrass, coaxing her out of her outer layer of clothes and into a bed.

When Laura's head touched the cushion, Bill's scent permeated her senses, and she unwound at last, drifting off to sleep.