The coffee was awful. Ship coffee was notoriously bad, but the muddy brown liquid in his cup even smelled bad. He suspected that the grounds had been reused one too many times, but that was just how it was. He was just glad he had been able to get a cup for himself and for Dualla. He knew Dualla found monitoring his conversations with the Cylon boring at best. He appreciated her help. A cup of bad coffee was small thanks. Especially such a bad cup of coffee.

Gaeta stepped into the small room and was taken back by the sudden reek of disinfectant. He coughed. Dualla, who was spraying cleanser on the chair, looked up. She was upset.

" I'm sorry, sir," she said as she wiped the chair with a cleaning rag. " I just couldn't stand it any more. I couldn't sit here and look at the inch of grime that coats everything in here. All I can think when I sit here is that the mold on the floor must be plotting with the weird green goo on the far wall to kill me."

" I thought the green goo was on our side. Now the blue mold that was in the corner, that was starting to scare me." He held out one of the cups of coffee. " I brought you coffee. It's not very good, but it's hot."

"Thank you sir." She took the coffee and sipped it, and made a face. " Oh gods, that's awful. I thought the coffee would be better in the officer's mess… At least it's hot." She sighed. " I miss good coffee."

He sighed as well. " So do I. With cream and sugar…" All of the sugar supply was under lock and key, and carefully rationed. Cream, even the powdered kind, was in even shorter supply and being conserved for the few children in the fleet.

Dualla visibly shook off her mood and took a seat. " So are you planning to try something new this time?" She began to ready the recorder as she spoke.

He shrugged. " I thought I might suggest a new theory on why she's pregnant." It had been rolling around in his head for a while. He hoped it would be upsetting to Sharon. He hadn't had much luck since the first session. Sharon generally made rude remarks about him and was otherwise silent. They had done five sessions so far and he was beginning to think that he might not succeed. He didn't want that. He had made enough mistakes on the job that he didn't want another failure added to the list. " I don't know if it will work but it's better than just sitting there."

" Well, good hunting, sir." Dee said, smiling slightly. She held up her cup and he saluted her with his cup. He was glad that she wasn't mad about getting stuck with extra duty. He didn't worry much about Sharon breaking down the glass and metal barrier between them and trying to kill him, but the reality was that it was possible. With Dualla listening, he never worried that he was seconds from death.

He strode down the hall, hot, rancid cup of coffee in hand. He hoped the grounds it had been made with had left some residual caffeine in the bitter, watery mixture. It was a nasty mess to choke down and without the caffeine, he was torturing himself for nothing.

Sharon was waiting for him. After the first session, she was always waiting for him, even though she rarely spoke to him. It made him think that there was a way in. His newest idea was more desperation than anything else. It might work. He plugged in his head set. " Hello, Sharon."

"Hello, Lt. Gaeta." She rolled her eyes at him and gestured to the cup of coffee. " Is this your latest attempt to keep awake?"

He let it roll off and took a long sip of the coffee, hoping that he made it look a lot better than it was. " It's just coffee."

" I'm not allowed coffee," Sharon sniffed.

He knew that. The commander refused to waste luxury supplies on prisoners. There was another reason though, and it was his way in. " The caffeine is bad for the baby."

She tossed her hair back. " What do you care about my baby?" Her eyes bored holes into him. " Don't you want to lock it up in a cage and study it?"

He set down the cup of coffee and leaned back in his chair. " It's just a baby. Once it's born, it doesn't matter who the parents are." He let himself smile.

Sharon glared at him. " You know the baby is special. It will be half human and half Cylon."

"Which is complete nonsense," he said easily. " You aren't discernibly alien, Sharon. Haven't you ever wondered about the implications of your pregnancy?" He had, although he hadn't shared his ideas with Dr. Baltar. Not his recent ideas anyway. Dr. Baltar hadn't been very receptive as of late, and tended to dismiss ideas that he didn't personally generate. " What being pregnant by a human has to mean?"

She looked puzzled. " I don't see what you're getting at." There was a note of interest in her voice. " Helo and I love each other, that's why we were able to have a baby even though I am a Cylon."

" Love has nothing to do with making babies," he said in a chiding tone. " You had to frak Helo to get pregnant. Emotional love does not involve sperm and eggs. Unless you want to change the whole baby making story to some sort of metaphysical thing where you were never touched by a human man. But I don't think that's the case. You two made this baby the old fashioned way, and yet you profess to be ignorant of simple biological facts."

" And what facts are you talking about?" Sharon said, her tone dangerous.

" Let's use an example," Gaeta said brightly. " No matter how much a dog and a cat might love each other, they won't perform a sex act on each other unless forced. That forced pairing will never result in baby crossbreeds unless one of the animals is genetically modified and even then the success rate is unlikely to make it a viable reproductive method. Even in species that are very closely related, the offspring of hybridization is almost always sterile. You may have a baby, but your baby will most likely not be able to breed, which puts all this nonsense about God telling you to be fruitful in question. Unless…" He sipped his coffee and waited.

" Unless what?" she asked after a long moment.

" Unless you aren't a Cylon. Then it makes perfect sense that you and Helo are having a baby… but again, that means your baby is no more special than anyone else's." Gaeta stopped. It wasn't an idea that he would share out with some of the people on board, but it was a valid theory. Certainly as valid as believing that love could overcome the genetic incompatibility of two distinctly different species.

It was working, too. Sharon was completely taken back. He could see that she was considering it, and not liking how it made sense. Finally, she leaned forward and said softly, " Maybe you should be my lawyer, Gaeta. You could argue that I've been framed, that I'm really an innocent human who just happens to be able to communicate directly with Cylon raiders by happenstance."

He grinned. " You aren't innocent, Sharon. You just aren't a Cylon in the strictest sense of the word." He tried not to let it please him too much that she was getting angry. Getting her to talk was just the first step. The hard part was getting useful information from her. "Haven't you ever considered this possibility before?"

Her eyes glared daggers at him. " You're an idiot."

"You are a human being." Gaeta leaned forward, his expression intent. " The Cylons obviously know quite a bit about humanity. With their technological abilities and without the restraints that our government placed on cloning and genetic manipulation, they could have easily made themselves some willing human stooges. Add the religious mysticism into the mix and no wonder you think you're a toaster."

"Oh really? How do you explain my using the fiber optic cable to signal the Cylon fleet?" she asked.

It was a good question, one that he had wondered about. " Two possibilities exist. First, you may have miniaturized computer chips embedded in your body, something too small to be scanned. You obviously weren't raised among humans, and I have to assume that there's been some genetic enhancement as well. The fiber optic cable touches the chips and your nervous system can transmit the signal. It's technology the colonies had, although it was used differently. Until it was banned after the first Cylon war. The second possible answer is that you do have a fiber optic port in your body and were taught how to transmit directly by thinking about it. That's another technology our society banned." He gestured expansively. " Given the proper equipment, you could teach me or anyone else to do the same thing."

" I doubt that." Still, he could see that she was unsettled by the idea. Her fingers drummed nervously on the desktop. " What's your first name, Gaeta?"

" Don't you know?" He sensed a trick. She was trying to divert him.

Sharon shook her head. " You're a bit secretive. Actually you're very secretive. I know hardly anything about you."

"Maybe you should try accessing the other Sharon's memories," he suggested brightly.

"Maybe I have, and maybe that wasn't very helpful," she shot right back. " Or maybe not. Is your first name a secret?"

" It's Felix. It's not a secret. I just don't use my first name very much." He wondered why she was so curious.

And she clearly was curious. " Why not? It's not a bad name."

" It's old fashioned."

" No, I don't think that's why." Sharon pondered it a few moments and then grinned. " You got teased in school. By little kids, and at the Academy by the pilot jocks. You must love the last name only culture here."

The problem was that she was right. " Everything has its pluses and minuses." The timer that Dualla had rigged went off in his ear. " Our time is up for today."

" How sad for us," Sharon said darkly. She watched as he stood up and then said, " You know, maybe you and I aren't so different. Ever think about that?"

" Yes. I wouldn't be here if I didn't." Gaeta tried not to look too pleased. His theory was bothering her. That was exactly what he wanted. If Sharon started to see herself as human, then she would be more willing to give up technical information that he could use to make weapons.

She smiled secretively. " I don't think you've thought hard enough about it, Lt. Gaeta."