Lachel was scanning the room for Kara, knowing that she was there, and a small smile crossed the girl's face once their eyes finally locked. Suddenly a group of marines appeared and pulled her away from Racetrack.

"Wait!" Kara told them as she made her way over.

"We have orders, Sir," one of them told her.

"From who?"

"The XO."

Kara rolled her eyes. "Figures. Just wait a frakking minute, okay?" The marine that was trying to handcuff Lachel had gotten up close and personal once already in his life with Kara's right hook. He backed off.

Kara knelt in front of her. "Are you okay?" she asked. Lachel nodded. "What happened?"

"I don't know. She did something to me, and then I woke up all by myself."

"She who?"

Lachel looked away. "Erin…I don't want to go back."

"We'll do everything we can to make sure you don't. I need you to go with these guys for right now, and I'll come and see you as soon as I can, okay?"

"Promise?"

"Yeah. I've gotta go talk to some people first." Lachel nodded and Kara stood, giving a nod to the marines. They collected their charge and left the hangar. Kara left as well, heading for Adama's office.

Halfway between the hanger and the command area, Kara heard her name on the overhead and a request that she report to where she was already going. Adama's hatch was open, and she knocked on the frame as she went inside. He looked up from the paperwork on his desk.

"From the look on your face, I take it you know," he said.

"I was in the hangar." He nodded. "Why is she getting thrown in a cell? She's not a threat."

"We don't know that. A Basestar came following right behind her. We don't know what their purpose was in letting us have her."

"She doesn't want to go back. She doesn't want to help them."

"Is that what she told you?"

"She didn't even know what they were doing. She just woke up on that moon."

"What if she's a sleeper?"

Kara narrowed her eyes. "We all know what she is."

"She might not even know what she's here doing until a trigger's already been pulled."

"I know... but she's not that Sharon, Sir. She's not like the Sharon we have now, or any other model for that matter. She's something completely different."

"We still don't know what that means."

"I know…She is a Cylon, but she's like us, too. That was the whole point." Adama didn't reply. "You convinced me before to take a risk when it came to her. I'm glad that I listened. Now I'm asking you to do the same."

Kara stopped by her bunkroom to get the little stuffed animal she'd earlier given Lachel. Just before she headed out again, she heard a page on the overhead for Karl Agathon to report to Detainment Alpha. She ran into Helo in the hall on her way towards there. "Hey, do you have any idea what this is about?" he asked.

"No, I'm on my way to see Lachel." Helo smiled when he noticed the little dog in his friend's hands.

"Cute."

"Thanks."

"Doc was saying that he was trying to get permission to actually take the baby to the medical bay to check her out. I wonder if someone finally agreed."

"You still don't have a name for her, huh?"

Helo grinned sheepishly. "We're working on it."

The guard outside of the door opened it for them, and they both stopped short upon entering the room to see that Sharon, the baby, and Lachel were outside of the cage, standing in the middle of the room with Adama. "What's going on?" Helo asked, instantly going to Sharon's side and taking advantage of the fact that he was able to actually touch her for the first time in months.

Adama turned to Sharon. "A few months ago, you told me that you wanted me to know you made your own decisions about the actions you take. I thought it was about time that I make a few decisions of my own," he explained. "You were both supposed to be tools for the Cylons to learn from. We've all been given an opportunity to learn how to make coexistence work; I suggest making the most of it…Maybe we'll all be surprised in the end."

By the end of the day, Helo and Sharon had made plans to move into an empty room in the ship that they were going to convert into quarters for them and their still unnamed daughter. A crewman recruit would have more priviledges on the ship than Sharon would, but it was a start. For Kara, sorting out plans wasn't so easy. She'd promised herself that if Lachel was actually living in the fleet, she would make sure she went to school on one of the civilian ships, but now that she actually had the child with her, she was finding it difficult to think about sending her away.

"What's the rush?" Helo asked her as they talked it over while she helped him pack up his stuff from their bunkroom. "I mean…I'm sure we don't even want to know some of the stuff she's already got up in her head."

"She didn't know what a dog was, Helo."

"And that's something she could learn better on some civilian ship? It's not like they've got any over there." Kara had to admit he had her there.

"But shouldn't she get to learn all the normal human stuff that people are supposed to know?"

"Normal human stuff? What the frak is normal in this fleet? And are we not human because we're military? Actually, don't answer that." They both laughed. "Why are you trying to get rid of her, Kara? You know you don't want to, I know you don't want to, so what is this really about?"

She sighed. "What the hell do I have to offer her? I'm not exactly parental material, Helo, and you know it."

"I'll exercise my rights under Article 23 for that one. But I do know one thing."

"What's that?"

"You didn't give up on her…Sometimes, that's all that really matters."

They both looked up as the door opened, and a little head poked inside. "Hey, Boxey," Kara told him.

"Can I come in?"

"Sure, my prince, what's up? Does Tyrol know where you are?"

Boxey nodded. "I heard there was another kid living here on Galactica now." Kara couldn't help but smile at the naked excitement in his eyes.

"Yeah, there is. How much else did you get out of the rumor mill?"

"She's your daughter…and she's kinda a Cylon, but different from the other ones."

Kara nodded. "Accurate so far."

Boxey handed her a book. "Sh-Sharon used to try to get together books for me to read. I thought that Lachel might like them, too."

"Thank you. How about you come find us tomorrow around lunchtime and we can go to the mess together, okay? You guys can get to know each other."

"Okay." Boxey hesitated a moment, giving Helo a sideways glance, before heading back out the hatch.

"I thought you and Lachel had a shuttle flight over to one of the liners tomorrow," Helo told Kara with a smile. She returned it.

"Guess not. What's the rush, right? She can learn enough around here for the time being."

He chuckled. "Right."

Trying to track Lachel down proved to be more of a challenge than Kara had anticipated. She'd left the girl with Cottle, getting checked over, but when she went back to the Life Station, she found that Lee had beaten her there. And the Doc hadn't asked where they were going.

After searching half the ship, Kara finally headed for the hangar bay on the off chance that they might be there. The pilot briefing room was empty, and there wasn't anyone around Lee's Viper – and then she noticed a head sticking out of her own fighter's cockpit.

"Lee?" she called as she headed over and started up the ladder. "What, did you break your own bird again?"

With a smile, he turned to her and put a finger over his lips, then turned back to what he was doing. Kara also grinned as she noticed the little person sitting in his lap. "Okay, what was I talking about?" he asked Lachel.

"How Vipers move in space."

"Right. Do you remember how many directions they move in?"

"Six?"

"Yep. Can you name them?"

"I think so," the girl replied. "Forwards and backwards, side to side, up and down…" Names eluded her at that point, so she simply made motions with her hand for the next two.

"That's pitch and yaw," Lee told her.

"Yeah. And roll," she finished. Kara smiled as she watched them together. She never would have thought that Lee would accept a Cylon like a human, but then again, Lachel wasn't an average Cylon. The days and weeks and years to come probably weren't going to be easy, but they'd be worth the challenge.

"Good job," she told the girl. "If you're finished with flight lessons for the day, I've got something that I wanted to show you."

"What?" Lachel asked as Kara and Lee both helped her climb out of the cockpit and down from the Viper.

"You like Galactica, right?" Kara asked the child, kneeling in front of her. "Living here would be better than going to another ship?"

She nodded. "Galactica is where you are."

"Well, then…I think I know of a bunk that's got your name on it."

Lachel's eyes lit up. "I can stay?"

"Yeah. You can stay." She grinned.

"Thank you."

"We're going to have to figure out something for you to do to keep busy when I'm flying, though."

"Well, what do you think, 'Mom'?" Lee teased Kara with a smile. "Is she too young to start training into a deckhand?"

"Don't start with me unless you want to wind up in the Life Station," Kara replied. "I don't think I'll get used to it any time soon, but even still, there's only one person with the rights to use that title." Lachel smiled. "And technically, she's about six months old, so yes, definitely too young for a deckhand. But maybe we'll work up to it. There's never a shortage of work to do on this ship."

Lee laughed. "No kidding."

"After we see my bunk, can we get dinner?" Lachel asked.

"I think that can be arranged," Kara told her, standing up and taking her hand. "Let's go."

"Lee, too?" she asked, reaching her free hand in his direction. He and Kara shared a smile.

"Yeah. Lee, too." He took Lachel's hand and they headed out of the hangar. Everything Kara never thought she wanted was exactly what she needed.