The sight of the Heavy Raider had produced a few tense moments, but Erin had allowed them to get her and her toddler sister seated on the back hatch and they accepted the food they were given. Kara sat in the front of the vehicle, idly playing with her dog tags and staring off at nothing. She looked up, however, when Lee sat down with her.

"What are the chances?" he asked.

"Chances of what?"

"Of finding anyone else…Is the risk we're taking worth any reward we might get?"

"No…Anders didn't say there was anyone. Their numbers were going down already; hitting them all probably wasn't that difficult once they were found." Lee didn't need to ask who Anders was; he'd read her report from her first trip to Caprica. He'd learned on this trip that there were apparently a few things that had been edited out of said report, but knew this wasn't the time to confront Kara about it.

"We should check over the site again…and then head out. The less time we're here, the less chance of getting ambushed ourselves."

Kara nodded. "Agreed. Erin and Lachel probably need to get checked out by actual doctors on Galactica." Lee was quiet. "You know we're taking them back. We're not leaving two kids alone on this planet."

"We're taking them back," he agreed, "I just…I don't know. Something's off. I just don't know what."

Kara looked to make sure Helo and Sharon weren't in earshot. "You don't trust anyone who's been left here," she observed.

"No, I don't trust anyone who's been left here with Cylons. Especially if they started frakking them."

Across the Raider from them, Erin had gotten up from her place beside her sister and went over to where Sharon was sitting on a rock. The child just stared at her for a long minute. "I'm not going to hurt you," Sharon finally said.

"Did you get left behind, too?" Erin asked at last.

"No. I'm the one who left…Did someone leave you behind?"

A nod. "In a cabin in the woods. We were there for so long and no one ever came back. I was afraid to leave. But then the others found us."

"You were lucky."

Lachel started whimpering behind them, and Erin turned to look at her sister. "I should go; she probably doesn't like when I leave her alone." Sharon nodded.

"Go ahead." As the little girl left, Helo came over.

"Everything okay?" he asked.

"Yeah…there's something…something about her."

"Something like what?"

"I don't know…it's probably just me. I have some memories, but I myself haven't actually ever been around any children."

Helo offered a small smile. "Even without those two, that would have changed pretty quickly."

"Yeah."

One of the marines approached them. "We're getting ready to head out," he told them. Everyone started loading back into the Raider and getting ready to takeoff.

William Adama looked up from the reports that a petty officer had just handed him when he heard Lieutenant Gaeta's voice announcing that they'd just picked up a dradis contact.

"What have we got, Mr. Gaeta?"

"Cylon Heavy Raider, Sir."

"I've got a signal," Dualla reported, patching the transmission through.

"This is Apollo," Lee's voice filled the room. "Requesting permission to land."

"That was a quick op," Tigh commented as the LSO took over communications. "Either the stragglers really weren't willing to leave, or something happened."

"If I was one to guess," Adama replied, "I'd pick the latter. You have the CIC." With that he headed for the hangar deck.

The Heavy Raider was being pulled to a parking spot when he arrived. When the hatch opened, Adama was met with a sight he hadn't expected: his son carrying a sleeping little girl and his 'daughter' holding a baby. There were a few medical personnel standing by, and the children were transferred to their care, just as a pair of marines came to collect Sharon and return her to her cell.

"Are they all that were willing to come?" Adama asked his son.

"They were all that was left," Lee replied. He noticed out of the corner of his vision that Kara looked torn between going with Erin and Lachel and doing the post-flight, but she definitely didn't look like she wanted to be part of this conversation. He made a mental note to attempt talking with her later.

"Go ahead," he told his best friend, tipping his head in the direction of the medical staff members that were now heading for the exit. "Helo and I can do the post-flight."

"I can stay – " she started to protest, but he shook his head.

"Go ahead," Lee repeated, and wasn't too surprised to see her leave a moment later.

"What happened?" Adama asked his son once Kara was gone. Lee sighed.

"We walked straight into a slaughterhouse. And it looks like the only thing that saved those two was hiding in the rubble."

The doctors and techs in the Medical Bay had checked Erin and Lachel over thoroughly. They'd sustained a few cuts and scrapes in the attack on the resistance base, and were both malnourished and dehydrated, but they would be all right. Erin had refused to be separated from her sister, so the pair was curled up together on a bed when Kara pushed back the curtain that was around them and came to take a seat in the chair next to them.

"How are you doing?" she asked.

"Tired," Erin replied. "What happens to us now?"

"What do you mean?"

"Where do we live? Here?"

"Well…Galactica is a battleship, so it's not really a good place for kids. Everyone's so busy all the time; it wouldn't really be fair to you. There's a ship in the fleet that's full of other kids, though, kids who have lost their parents." Erin looked up.

"We didn't lose them. They lost us." Kara wasn't quite sure what to say to that, and the more she thought about the orphan ship, the more rumors she remembered about how inept the whole system was.

"There are other ships in the fleet where you could live, too," she told Erin. "So don't worry. For now, while you get better, you'll stay on Galactica and we'll work something out for afterwards."

"Will we see you anymore once we leave?" Kara was momentarily stunned into silence.

"Well…I've got a lot of work that I do here…but maybe sometimes, depending upon what ship you're on, I can come see you if I do transport runs." Erin smiled. "Go to sleep, okay? I'll come see you tomorrow."

TBC...