Kara stared out at the space that held the world she had called home for all her life except for those few precious years she had spent on Picon. This was home. "It looks the same."
"It's not," Lee said, ever the serious one. "There was a nuclear holocaust a little while back, remember?"
"It still looks the same."
"Just head down towards that cloud formation, Kara. We need to land by the Delphi Museum. That's the last known location of the Arrow."
"You actually think this important key to our continued survival hasn't been destroyed by the Cylons? That they haven't even touched it in all the time we've been gone?"
"I don't think they know its importance. It's just one measly tool in one of our scriptures. They can't know about how our lives are shaping up to follow the Book of Pythia. Well, at least, they can't since we got rid of Leoben and Doral."
Kara fell silent as she thought that over. Who were they to say there still wasn't another Cylon in the Fleet relaying information back to others? Her mind caught on that thought. Why did she keep imagining the location of the so-called hub of the Cylons was Caprica? She suddenly became really afraid that it hadn't been so stupid for her to force Lee to take her along with him. He might actually need her to stay alive through this one.
"You're going to need to decelerate if you don't want to become a mass of metal and blood all over our old home."
Kara snapped out of it to see that he was right. They were almost to the ground, and she had barely begun the landing maneuvers. "Sorry. Lot to think about coming back here, you know."
"Yeah." She could feel his reassuring tone kick in. "It's going to be hard."
"Yeah."
"But I have you and you have me. I think that's more than we could ask for."
"Don't be sappy," she said as the Raider floated in space a few seconds before there was the familiar thump of ground meeting metal. They both stared out the narrow slit carved out of the metal in front of them. It was foggy and bright outside. Exactly how Caprica should be at this time of year.
Kara looked up at Lee to watch his reaction to being home and wasn't surprised to see him transfixed. She had always imagined coming home to Caprica one day. She knew that Lee had dreamed the same thing even if he never hinted to it. The only difference being she knew her dreams were never as detailed as his would have been. Lee Adama would dream of returning to this planet with a plan on how to change it back to the home he remembered. She, on the other hand, didn't know what she would do when it was time to return. In her mind, she hadn't thought that far ahead.
The only detail she had ever imagined was the small fact that when she returned home, he would be at her side. Staring up at him as he continued to look out at the world, she smiled. Mission accomplished.
Lee chose that moment to look down at her and caught the large grin plastered across her face. "What is it?"
"You're a good traveling companion, Lee."
"You don't say?"
"Yeah." Kara leaned in to sniff his neck slowly. There was a layer of sweat and the slight tang of the Cylon goo on the surface, but he still smelled like she had always remembered. "And you smell good."
Lee gave her a smile before pushing the bottom hatch open without warning, and Kara felt herself slid right out of the Raider. At least she knew that was one thing the goo was good for. It kept her from having to stay inside one second more than necessary. She rolled out from under the machine and waited for Lee to join her. When he had, she waved her hand in front of her. "Delphi Museum."
He pushed past her and started walking up the stairs. "Do you remember all the school field trips we had to take to this place when we were younger?"
"Let me guess. You studied the plaques telling of the gods and their journey while the rest of your class got into fights over who could make the most Arrow of Apollo jokes."
"And you were the one who always won that little contest, right?"
"If we were still counting, I'd be winning." She gave him a sly look out of the corner of her eyes as they entered the museum. "I mean, I do actually know an Apollo now so it gives the joke so much more meaning."
Their boots clicked against the tile floor as they hastily made their way through the halls of ancient artifacts. Kara held her hand at her hip where one of her guns was holstered. She kept expecting a Cylon to pop out at every turn. Her eyes came into focus as they turned out of a dark corridor into a large, well-lit room. "This doesn't look familiar. Are you sure you know where this thing is?"
"Come on, Kara. You just said I was the nerdy kid studying the maps and plaques."
"Stupid me. Of course you know where we're going," she said with a roll of her eyes and kept walking.
"One more turn," Apollo said as he pulled her down another corridor. He stopped mid-stride after only a few steps.
Kara bumped into him fully but managed to keep her balance. Sighing, she tried to see around his body. "Cylon?"
He ignored the whisper in his ear and continued to stare at whatever had made him pause.
"What the frak is it, Lee?"
"The Arrow," he said with a laugh. "It's actually there."
"And no Cylons around," Kara said, pushing out from behind him. The small bump to his shoulder was only partially an accident, she told herself. He was starting to infuriate her with all the little ways he was keeping her just out of the action.
"Kara! Would you wait?" he hissed, running to catch up to her. "They could have been tracking us this whole time, waiting for our guards to go down."
"I don't care. I just want to grab that stupid thing and go home. Let them try to attack me now that my goal's in sight."
"You really are on a mission."
"I'm trying to be reliable. Is it working?" she asked as she paused in front of the glass case.
"No. You're just being a nuisance. By the way, what is your little obsession all the sudden about being useful to me?" When she didn't respond, he let it drop, and they returned to their silent staring at the object of their desire.
"Fraking nuclear explosions everywhere and one simple glass case doesn't bust?" she muttered, shaking her head. She looked around for something to use, and her eyes finally came to rest on a long piece of metal on the ground by her feet.
"They're going to hear that," Lee scolded as she picked up the metal.
"Then we'll just have to snatch and run." She looked down at the weapon in her hands and then back up at the glass case. "Really, really fast."
"Don't you want to think this out?"
"No." She grasped the metal tightly and swung out at the glass. Just as Lee said, there was a resounding boom and then the crash as thousands of pieces of glass hit the marble floor. He didn't take time to relish the thought that he had been right, though. Instead, he pushed past Kara and vaulted up into the case.
Lee grasped the arrow in his hand, surprised to feel it give way immediately. The marble hand of Apollo had seemed like it had a good hold on the Arrow. It was almost ridiculous how the long piece of metal had practically jumped into his hand. He really didn't have time to wonder about the mythological meaning of that any more than he already had. They had already delayed too long.
"Got it," he said, hopping down next to where she still stood.
"Running time?"
"Running time."
The two took off and immediately synchronized themselves into the same stride. They were so familiar with one another that the pace was pressing but nothing either one of them couldn't handle. Kara let Lee take the lead seeing as how he knew this place so well. Plus he seemed determined to want to protect her.
They were ten feet from their exit when Kara felt her foot catch on something and fell to the ground. Lee turned to help her up, but he immediately paused when he saw a man holding a gun to her head. Ignoring what his military training told him to do, he followed his gut instincts and drew his own firearm out, pointing it at the back of the man's head. It figured that they would run into a Cylon when they were so close to being home free.
"I don't know who you are, but I will kill you without a second thought if you don't put that gun down," Lee hissed.
"I can't believe the two of you are Cylons. When the Old Man finds out, he's going to be going through hell having his whole family destroyed."
Lee's hold of his gun slipped a little at the man's words. Who was this guy that he was so calmly spouting off the nickname all of Galactica had for his father? His heart froze as he realized that this guy might actually be one of the people stationed on the ship. Right in front of them the whole time had been a Cylon.
"Frak off, Helo. We're not Cylons," Kara said as she pulled herself to her feet. "And I am going to kill you if that tumble gives me bruises."
Lee's mind immediately went back to the memory of Boomer's old ECO, the one she had left behind on Caprica. He had only known him a day or two before the whole holocaust had happened. "Lieutenant Agathon?" The man turned to look him in the eye, and Lee realized it really was him.
"Sir," Helo said, still pointing his gun out to where Kara rested against the wall.
"If that really is you, Lieutenant, you need to put down that gun."
"Is that an order?"
"Yes, and seeing as how I'm a Captain and you're obviously not dead, it's from your superior officer."
"Even with all things considered, I can't do that, sir," Helo said, still staring at Kara. "I'm really not sure what two of the good guys would be doing on a Cylon-infested planet. And until I do, I'm staying armed."
"You're such a fraking idiot," Kara hissed, glaring at him defiantly.
"You're not helping, Kara," Lee scolded. He flinched when he saw some sort of realization come across Helo's face as the words came out of his mouth. He had obviously slipped up, and he had a pretty good idea how. Both of them had always had trouble sticking to call signs only when in the field. "Please put down your gun, Lieutenant."
"Sorry but no, I don't think so. I got to protect myself here. So I am going to give you two seconds to convince me that you're not a toaster before I kill her. And you better believe that once she's dead, I will kill you, too."
His harsh words made Kara's eyes go wide. This was not the Helo she remembered. He would never make a threat like that. She didn't have time to dwell on the changes in her old friend because the next sound she heard was the safety on Lee's gun being released. He looked even more pissed off than Helo.
"You won't have a chance," Lee hissed.
"Yeah," Kara said with a laugh. It was always fun to watch Lee get mad even if the chance that she might die hung in the air. "You shoot at me and he'll have you down within half a second. So stop being stupid, Helo."
"That's not what I mean," Lee said. Kara turned her attention away from her old comrade to look at the man she had come on this mission with. He was staring intently at Helo, almost as if he was going to kill him with just the power of his eyes. Intense. "I meant you won't have a chance to kill her. Because I will kill you long before you can even think about pulling that trigger."
Kara's heart fluttered a little as Lee's protectiveness reared its beautifully, fraked-up head. She really loved it when he got like this. But she didn't have time to bask. "Helo, we came here to get the Arrow of Apollo. The Fleet needs it if we're going to find Earth."
"Starbuck would never do something as stupid as return to this place," Helo replied. It was obvious that the stress of the situation was breaking him slightly. He didn't sound so sure of himself anymore.
"She didn't. In fact, she turned down the mission." Lee lowered his gun a little as he took a step closer to the man in front of him. "But she couldn't resist playing the role of protector when I told President Roslin that I would do it."
"President Roslin?" Helo said, turning his attention away from Kara. "Who the frak is that?"
Kara took the opportunity to whip the gun out of his hand and turned it around to face him. "You've missed a lot while you were dead." She gave him a small shrug. "We have a woman for president now. She's kind of good at it, too, considering she used to be the Secretary of Education."
Helo stared in awe as she looked the gun over before holding it out for him to take back. "I don't get it."
"Whole lot of world got destroyed in the attacks, Karl. There's less than fifty thousand of us left now. We formed up a Fleet to try to make our way to the thirteenth colony. That's why Apollo and I are here. We came back on a mission to save humanity. We were on our way out when you decided to attack. You are such a moron for doing that by the way. The only saving grace you have is no Cylon has stumbled upon our little altercation."
"There are no Cylons around the museum. I would know."
"Oh really?" Apollo said, holstering his gun. "How exactly would you know? Because last I checked, humans didn't have Cylon radar. Are you a Cylon, Helo?"
"Frak you," he said.
A small noise pulled all their attentions to the end of the corridor. Kara's eyes widened in horror as she saw one of her best friends standing there, looking like she had been through hell. And it suddenly hit home what the Old Man had meant when he said that the Cylons could be anyone.
She let a heart wrenching yell loose as she pulled the gun right back out of Helo's hands and aimed it at the woman she had always known as Sharon Valerii.
"No!" Helo screamed, pushing Kara back into the wall. He gripped her wrist tightly with his fingers until the pressure made her drop the gun "You can't do that, Kara."
"She's a machine, Karl," Kara hissed at him.
"It's more complicated than that. She's carrying my child." The desperation and pain of what her friend must have been going through alone here on Caprica resonated in his eyes. "She's a Cylon but I love her, Kara. So you can't kill her."
Kara's eyes shifted to something past his shoulder and a wicked smile slid across her face. "Not a problem. Because I don't have to."
The shots reverberated through the corridor as Lee opened fire on the woman standing a hundred feet away. Helo pushed Kara to the ground and launched himself at Lee. The two men landed in a heap, both looking up just in time to see Boomer turning the corner at the end of the corridor.
"Frak!" Kara yelled, pulling herself to her feet. "She's going to take our ride, Apollo."
Lee punched Helo in the gut to get the pilot to stop struggling to hold him down. When Helo's grip loosened, Lee pushed him to the side, and, with a grunt, he limped in the direction Kara had run off. Something had shifted in his leg when Helo flung them to the ground, but he didn't have time to focus on the pain right now.
When he caught up to Kara, he found her standing in the open doorway to the museum, not moving. He shuffled to her side and stared out at the still present Cylon Raider.
"Where did she go?"
Kara looked up at him, almost as if noticing he was there for the first time. "I don't know. Those toasters are fast." She turned her attention back to the Raider. "She didn't take it, though. What do you think that means?"
"It means she isn't stupid," Helo hissed from behind them. The two pilots turned to look at him inquisitively. "That Raider isn't useful to you anymore."
"It's our ride home," Lee said, a confused look plastered across his face.
"Not anymore," Kara whispered, understanding dawning on her. She walked over to stand in front of Helo. "Because we have you."
"Sharon knows you won't leave me behind."
"So then why didn't she take the Raider if it was so useless?"
"I don't know," Helo said, shaking his head. "I don't understand much about her."
"You understood enough to know she was a machine and still you fraked her," Kara spit at him, glaring intently. "You knew enough to know she seems to have some sort of plan. Why were you at the museum anyway, Helo?"
"We've been on the run from the Cylons for days now. She said it would be safe."
"Convenient," Kara said. "You just happen to be at the Delphi Museum when Lee and I show up. You just happen to trip me, thinking that two of the best pilots left in the world are actually toasters. You just happen to make it impossible for us to get off this planet the way we had planned." She inched her way closer so that he could feel her breath on him. "You never answered Apollo's question, Karl. Are you a Cylon?"
"No," he grunted through clenched teeth.
Kara looked back at Lee. "So, none of us are Cylons. None of us have a way home. And none of us are stupid enough to think the Cylons aren't coming for us right this minute. So what do we do now, fearless leader?"
"There's a military base a few miles from here in the woods," Lee said, finally placing his gun back in the holster. "We get there and we might be able to find a Raptor that still works."
"Plan B," she said with a small shake of her head. "Figures you'd have one already cooked up."
"The Cylons have control of that base," Helo pointed out. "They have control of everything. Otherwise, I would have been off this planet weeks ago."
"It doesn't matter what the Cylons have control of. It's our only option. I'm not going to waste time running around this planet when I could be stealing a ship from underneath their noses," Lee said with a leer. "And since Kara seems mighty attached to you, you're coming with us."
"I'm not leaving Sharon behind."
Kara shook her head. "She left you behind without a thought. You know why? Because she's not human. She doesn't have our weakness for making attachments. Take a lesson from her. Check your pathetic excuse for love at the door and follow us home, Helo."
Both men watched in awe as Kara started walking down the stairs away from the museum.
"She hasn't changed," Helo said finally with a laugh.
Lee turned to look at him and felt a small smile escape. "Did you expect her to?"
Without another word, both men started following her.
