Kara and Lee waited outside the sickbay because Cottle had asked to talk to Alex, alone, about Lillith's condition.

"Why is this taking that frakking long? Cottle's not a man of many words, I can't believe we've already wasted 57 minutes outside here," Kara sighed and sat down on a chair next to Lee after having paced around like a caged feral cat.

"Before you mentioned the part with the wasted 57 minutes people could have guessed that you actually care," Lee mentioned and chuckled when Kara gave him a back- head – slap.

"Well," she admitted. "I actually do care. Lillith's just…damn she's just a frakking little girl, she can't just die like that! It all went so fast, she seemed to be pretty healthy in the evening when I met you guys in the mess…"

Lee nodded and frowned. This was absolutely a mystery to him. How could a strong, healthy little girl like Lilli fall this seriously ill in such a short time? He remembered her babbling all the way to the mess, her laughter when she talked about the cook on the Rising Star and her curious look when she saw the mess. This all seemed to weird to him and he had to admit that he liked the girls very much.

Suddenly the door opened and Cottle came out, his head held down and each step he took seemed to be hard for him to walk.

Kara had known Cottle for a long time now and she was absolutely sure that she had never seen him like that before, he had never been that…depressed. She knew that he had no good news for them and Kara felt her heart drop a little.

Cottle didn't immediately talk to them, he first sighed heavily, then sad down too on the chair Kara had occupied before but she had jumped up when the door had opened.

"Lillith died 15 minutes ago, we were to late," he told them, his voice somehow throaty but as calm as always. "I gave Alex a few minutes with her before I left them to talk to you. Give the girl some space, she's absolutely defeated and stunned."

So were Kara and Lee. They had expected Cottle to tell them that it was serious, that Lillith had a little chance to survive, but that she was actually already dead hit both of them hard.

"Why," asked Lee when he found the strength to speak and added: "I mean, what caused her death? It all happened…so fast!"

Cottle frowned. "Yeah well…it's little difficult to explain but I'll make it as short as possible. Lillith had Cylon DNA in her system. She wasn't a Cylon, she was more of a Hybrid but I can tell that someone implanted the Cylon DNA into her system. The short version of what happened to her, is, that both sides, the Cylon side and the human, fought against each other on a molecular base and this cause major organ malfunction. This whole process is much more complex but you wouldn't understand the details. In fact, we have to find out if Alex carries this Cylon DNA in her system too because in her case we could save her with organ transplantation and –in case we find a donor- we could neutralise the Cylon part with donated bone mark. This all unfortunately was too late for Lillith, we had no time to transplant organs and her system was already too damaged."

Kara and Lee looked at him in disbelieve. Lillith an Alex were Hybrids? "Baltar tested the girls and he couldn't find anything in her system, how could you see it in Lilli's blood," Kara asked and raised an eyebrow.

"This is another part of the process, it affects their blood. I'm sure Baltar couldn't see her Cylon side because it was too small but when it started decomposing her organs, it became visible. I'm not actually….sure if what I've seen really is cylonic but I have no other definitio for it because what has killed her is definitively not human," Cottle explained and ran on hand through his grey hair.

Kara breathed out loudly and shook her head. "So you don't even know exactly that it was Cylon DNA?"

Cottle shook his head. "Nope, I'm not but I passed the blood sample I have taken minutes before she died to Baltar. He'll analyse it."

Lee got up and said: "I'll go and look for Alex now."

"I come with you," Kara stated and added when she saw Lee's doubtful expression: "Don't worry, I'll be absolutely friendly and I won't mention the family thing!"

Lee grinned and took her hand in his when hey entered the sickbay without Cottle who had stayed outside.

Alex sat next to Lilli's bed and held the little girl's hand. All tubes hand been removed from her tiny body so she now looked like she was asleep, totally peaceful. When Alex saw them enter, she jumped up from the chair and ran to Lee. Sobbing, she wrapped his arms around him and pressed her body so hard against his that he could feel her tremble.

He hadn't thought she would react like that but nevertheless he stoked her hair and tried to soothe her somehow, although he knew this was somehow impossible now. She just needed time.

"It'll be ok, Alex," Kara suddenly said and her voice was full of sympathy which surprised Lee and made him smile. Tough to the bone Starbuck had let her guard down and felt for the crying girl, he half sister.

Alex looked up to her, her eyes filled with tears. "It's easy for you to say that," she answered bitterly. "But Lilli was all I had, all that was left of my so-called family. Now I'm all alone. I have no one!"

"You're not alone," Kara whispered and touched her arm that was still wrapped around Lee's hips. She was a bit helpless because of her own inability to wear emotions to the outside but she had decided to not longer hate that girl, she now was her whole family somehow, even though she didn't like that idea very much.

"She wasn't even my sister, she was just…a girl they had stolen, but she was a baby girl when she came to us, she never remembered her real family and saw me as her sister! I wanted so badly to take her back to her parents, but...I couldn't," Alex said and tried to stop the tears from floating because she wanted to be strong.

"So…we know that you disappeared years ago from Libra…where have you been? And what do you mean with 'they had stolen'? Who stole Lilli and how? Why," Lee asked and made her sit down again so she could calm down a bit.

"How do you know I disappeared," Alex asked sharply and stopped crying.

"Long story, just answer my questions," Lee told her and waited.

"When I was 11 years old, one day after my birthday, they came and took me away from my family. I had played in our garden, I didn't even see them coming. All I remember was them giving me an injection and when I woke up again I was on another planet of the colonies, on Gemenon to be more precisely. Callisto and Ben – the people who kidnapped me- told me, that I was their kid now and that I should forget about my real family. Thy already had a boy, his name was Nathan, he had been with them since he's been 1 year old so he didn't know anything else," she explained and stopped for a second.

"They cared for us and if you forget about the fact that I had actually been kidnapped and missed my family, I had a good life there. We went to school, we lived together like a family and I had a lot of friends there. Nevertheless the was always a kind of tension between me and them because I had been old when they had taken me and they knew that I had made some plans to escape. They knew I prayed to the gods every night that my mommy would come and take me back home. Unfortunately, no one ever came. Now I know that by the time the police had told my parents that I was dead, my mom was pregnant again. They just…forget about me. No one ever looked for me on another planet of the colonies!"

"From time to time, Ben took us into the cellar. No matter how hard I try to remember what he did to us down there, I can only remember some impressions, nothing real. I just know that it hurt sometimes…and that he did things I didn't like but it's very undefined in my mind. Sometimes I woke up in bed and was sick for weeks but they never told us they were the reasons for our strange diseases. They just would tell us that we had caught the flue from someone at school and that's it. One day, I was sick of it and just took off with Lilli after school, when both of them were working. We took a Raptor to the Raising Star that should take us to Libra where I wanted to visit my parents but while we were in space the Cylons came and destroyed the colonies. I was so frakking stunned because I finally had escaped and wanted to see my parents again and then I could just watch the whole planet going up in flames and dark clouds from their atomic bombs. That's the end of the story," she finished and took a deep breath. Never before she had told anyone about that.

"Wow," Kara said and scratched her arm. That was absolutely not what she had expected. "So, the things they did to you caused illness. But you can't remember anything from it," she stated and waited till Alex nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, like I told you. But there's one thing – Nathan died the same way Lilli did and I think it has something to do with what Ben did to us in the cellar. I don't think he raped us or something, it's been more of experiments I think. But of course, I'm not sure. I know that sometimes I had little stitches in my arms, from syringes maybe but Cally always told me it was from mosquitos – somehow it never itched."

Lee though for a moment, then he had an idea. "I want you to tell someone what Callisto and Ben look like so we can create phantom pictures of them!"

Alex shrugged. "What for? They're dead, Gemenon was destroyed," she reminded him. Lee nodded but told her: "It's not that we want to find them or something, but nevertheless I need pictures of them. We don't have to hurry, just take some time and maybe in a few days we can create them. We can…" he said but was interrupted when a nurse came in and asked them to leave the room so they could take Lilli's corpse to the morgue.

Lee wanted to show the phantom pictures to Sharon Valerii because in case Alex ad Lilli had been victims of Cylon experiments, she could tell them!

Well, finally an update, sorry for the delay but I was on holiday and had no time! I hope you like it, I would be more than happy about some more reviews!