Selling Souls - Part III

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Leoben wakes in the night with a shudder. The nightmare was full of thunder and the wrathful voice of God threatening to expose him. His sheets are soaked with sweat. He swings his legs over the edge of the bed and reaches out for the scroll that should be right there.

"Bad dreams?" Says a soft voice.

"What?" He jumps up as D'anna uncurls from a shadowy corner.

"Bad dreams?" She repeats. "Why would you have bad dreams? A guilty conscience, perhaps? What did you tell Caprica Six and Sharon Valerii that let you go free?"

"Get out of my room." He snarled back and smoothed some of the sweat off of his brow. "I was acquitted."

"Maybe." She gives him a funny look. "Or maybe I'll figure out what's at the bottom of this."

"You won't find anything."

"Hmmm." She says softly. "I could always go to the source."

Leoben shakes his head. Her threats are nothing new. There is nothing she could say that might possibly rattle him.

"Your former love is a pilot in the Fleet now. Maybe I'll have her captured for questioning." Her voice grows soft and slippery with malice. "Or maybe I'll put out a kill order. So that our Raiders blow her out of the sky."

Anger sweeps through him and rage. His fingers twitch with his inability to hide all of the emotion welling up.

It takes all of his self-control to respond without throttling her. "Maybe, D'anna, you should look to yourself. If my judgment was justified on one soul – you might think to worry about your own."

"Threats…" She sputtered.

"Get out of my room."

With a theatrical slam of the door, she disappeared and Leoben sat wearily on his bunk. He could see his reflection in the mirror and he wondered at it for a moment. He looked the same, but he could remember the blood pouring out of his mouth and the bullet holes where he'd been hit. He could remember the horror in her eyes as he lay dying.

"Nya." He said her name. "Don't give up hope. I'm coming."

But his reflection did not answer. It was not a complete copy.

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"Ma'am!" Danny Black waved Nya down as she descended from the RAPTOR.

"Danny." She acknowledged and turned back to her co-pilot. "Hazard, I'll just be a minute. Relay our ETA to Cloud 9 docking control."

"A minute?" Hazard gave her a knowing wink. "Pretty fast for an old man."

"This is a business run." She chided back.

She started off as Danny kept pace next to her. "What's up?" She asked him, her long legs stretching out in her flight suit.

"It's Fisk."

"What about him?"

The older man shrugged sadly. "We haven't had a supply run since you left. Zarek turned him down and suddenly all supply flights were routed around us. If it keeps up any longer…we'll be out of food."

"Why hasn't Tom told the Quorum?"

Zarek steps around the corner with a stern look for Danny. "Because we need the black market. I won't burn bridges with Phalen just to alleviate a little bit of pressure. Fisk will get what's coming to him."

He leaned in to kiss her but Nya is tense. A business run should still mean business.

"Your RAPTOR awaits, Representative Zarek."

"So formal," he teases. "We'll be fine on half rats for another two weeks. Contrary to what Danny may believe. And everything should be clarified by then."

"Clarified…" The word fades as Nya blanches suddenly and wavers.

The world spins away from her…

Around and around and around….

And the down….

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"She's waking up." The voice is rough yet feminine, for a moment it is completely unfamiliar. Nya struggles to open her eyes but cannot focus, until at last Hazard's face straightens in her vision.

"Does she have episodes like this often?"

"Never."

Nya realizes that Tom is cradling her with a worried look on his face. She tries to get a grip on him so that she can rise when nausea almost overwhelms her again. The dream is still so vivid in her mind that she is waiting for him to come around the corner to join them. But he is gone. Dead. Anything else is an illusion, one she gave up weeks ago.

"I can call another RAPTOR."

"No." Then more forcefully. "No. I'm fine. I'm just a little bit tired."

"Nya." He says her name with more emphasis than he needs. "You should see Doc Cottle."

"No." She says again. "I'm okay. Lords of Kobol, how long was I out? Are we off schedule?"

"We're okay." But Hazard doesn't seem completely convinced. "I should really call this in."

Nya struggles to her feet and takes a deep breath to regain her equilibrium. "I'm okay. Really. I'll report to the doctor as soon as we get back to Galatica. I promise. Is the preflight completed?"

"No, not yet."

"Well lets get going before we are behind schedule."

She starts to follow Hazard back onto the RAPTOR when Tom stops her. He searches her eyes for an answer but doesn't seem to get what he's looking for in her eyes.

"The baby. You need to slow down."

"I'm okay." She tells him. "The baby is okay too. I just haven't been sleeping well." A smile flickers across her face. "I don't sleep well when I'm away from you."

"Someday, I'm going to marry you to stop all that."

"Someday you will." She gives him a sunnier smile, one to prove that everything is alright. "Come on, Representative. You have a very important Quorum meeting to attend."

"Of course."

Another thought crosses her mind and she turns back to him. "Tom, you're doing the right thing by keeping away from Fisk. He's just like her. Admiral Caine. There's nothing but poison there."

"I'll stay away from the black market as long as Fisk is involved." The promise is so easily made. "I'd rather sleep with you than the enemy." A pause. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine."

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Doc Cottle gave her a strange look as he drew the curtain closed around them. He wasn't smoking but had a cigarette tucked behind his ear as she waited for him in the thin paper examination gown.

"So what's this about? You doing drugs?" He peered into her eyes. "Why did you faint?"

"I'm pregnant."

It didn't faze him as much as she thought it would. He nodded, took her pulse and listened to her heartbeat and then to the tiny one in her stomach.

"So you're probably exhausted. Especially with the rations being as tight as they are." He made a few notations and looked her over again. "You're not married, but can I assume that you know who the father is?"

"Yes."

"And he knows?"

"Yes."

"Good." Cottle made a few more notes and checked the whites of her eyes carefully. "Fatherhood makes men into better human beings. You're most likely low on iron which can cause exhaustion, lethargy and fainting spells. I'm going to put you on a few supplements and give you a stern warning, young woman. You should have told me the minute you found out."

"Yes, sir." She answers meekly.

"Okay. I'm going to order an ultrasound so that we can get an idea of your due date and then we'll need to meet with Captain Adama about your flight schedule."

"Doc," She protested. "I can still fly."

"Of course you can. But the long eighteen hour duty shifts will have to stop fairly soon."

"Doc Cottle!" Shouts a nurse from the other side of the room. "Doc Cottle!"

"Excuse me." He gets up to leave and as he brushes the curtain aside Gaius Baltar sees in. "Baltar, could you fill this for the Lieutenant?"

Baltar sneered faintly. "Of course, Doctor. I came in merely to work in your little pharmacy."

"Not now." Cottle snapped. "Just do me the favor."

Gaius looked down at the prescription and his eyes widened. Six peered over his shoulder at the piece of paper and her voice rattled in the air.

"She cannot have this baby, Gaius."

"Why not?" He glanced back at Nya whose attention was elsewhere. "What do we care about the Lieutenant? Leoben is dead. Really dead. It can't be his. What does it matter?"

Six grabbed his shoulder with painful fingers. "You will need Zarek. He has influence in the fleet. Influence against Roslin. If she has a child…he will not help us."

"How do you know it's his?"

"It is."

Baltar walked numbly to the pharmacy cabinet and shifted himself so that he stood completely in front of it. He read the prescription and picked up the correct bottle, noting the tiny blue pills inside. Then, almost unconsciously, he located the next bottle he wanted. These were identical.

He shook three of those into his palm and still filled the other bottle with the correct medication. The poison sat in his palm with surprising heaviness as he gathered himself and headed toward Nya.

She looked up in surprise as he entered the room.

"Mr. Baltar?"

"The Doctor was called away on some kind of emergency." Baltar was surprised that his voice didn't tremble in the slightest. "These are the pills he wanted you to take." He extended his hand where three pills already sat. "You should take these now. Instructions for the rest are on the label."

Nya accepted the pills and the small glass of water that Baltar offered. He and Six watched as she tossed them into her mouth and swallowed them down.

He gave her a weak smile. "I just wanted to say congratulations, on your happy news."

A flicker of wariness crossed her eyes. "Thank you."

"No problem." He answered. "No problem at all."