I do remember

"Are you awake?" Gaius Baltar's cultured voice finally permeates the darkness and Leoben looks up at him. His grey eyes are still hazed with the sedative but he seems remarkably calm.

"Who are you?"

"Baltar." Gaius' air of nonchalance is calculated due to their audience.

Captain Harstock has refused to allow Leoben to be interrogated without himself present and the three Marines that are guarding the shackled and hand-cuffed prisoner with wary eyes. Together they are an audience that Gaius must play for as surely as he plays for Six when she is watching him.

"Baltar." Leoben tests the name in his mouth. "Should I know you?"

"You tell me." Gaius slides a chair across from him and sits. "You're a Cylon so at some point you've had access to their databases. Its there, even if you don't remember it. Do you remember being a Cylon?"

"It's not something that you just remember." His voice has a bit of sarcasm in it. "One minute I was human….and then...Nya betrayed me."

"You're a machine." Harstock intercedes. "You can't betray a machine."

"I was a man until that moment!" Leoben shouts and lunges forward against his restraints. One marine steps forward and slams his rifle into the Cylon's chest. It causes him to tip in the chair and hit the ground.

"Yes, that's becoming more and more common." Gaius says as he looks down at Leoben. Then – to the marines. "Could you put it back up?"

They drag man and chair back to a sitting position as very human looking blood runs down the side of his mouth. He spits it onto the floor arrogantly.

"What are the Cylons' plans?"

Gaius' attention shifts slightly as Six appears just behind Leoben. Today she is wearing a skintight black suit that accentuates every curve as she is want to do. She examines the copy that sits there and smirks. "Not so proud now, is he?"

Leoben stares at the men around him and ignores Gaius' question. "Where is Nya? I want to talk to her."

"She's with the Galactica's CAG." Harstock supplies. "Ripping apart your bunk for answers."

"I want to talk to her."

"Persistent." Six whispers to Gaius. "But not very good at hiding. This will be the third copy that you have discovered. All of his vaunted knowledge does him no good if they blow all of him out the airlock."

"Okay!" Gaius snaps into the air.

Leoben eyes him curiously.

Six gives him a sexy wink and continues her appraisal. "I never could stand him, you know. All pretentious and high and mighty. Straight from God's mouth to his ear. Well, he's still no good at hiding from humans."

Gaius stomps his foot on the floor at her as the others regard this outburst with even more pique. "Enough!" Then to Leoben. "Tell me what you know about the Cylon presence in the Fleet."

"Who were you speaking to?" The question is suddenly, presciently aware of Six. Gaius' eyes flick to her and then back to Leoben who is waiting patiently.

"You." He covers. "She's knows what you really are. She's seen your copy on the Galactica. She knows that you're a machine.

"Captain," Leoben turns to Harstock. "Whatever I am. I've never treated her wrongly. Let me talk to her."

"No."

A new emotion begins to dawn on Leoben's face, anger.

-----

Lee is as gentle as he can be with the things that are obviously hers, but the Cylon could have hidden things anywhere, and gentleness doesn't get them answers. He pulls engineering coveralls from every drawer while Marines drag the mattress into the hallway and proceed to dismantle it.

She is standing in the corridor with a pale shocked look on her face. Her khaki pilot's uniform looks disheveled and worse for wear.

"Pilot Reece?" He asks softly and hands her a swath of pictures from one of the mirrors. "I know it won't help, but he isn't the first Cylon that has tricked us. Valerii, she is, she was, one of my pilots. I didn't have any clue. No one did."

"Have they made any demands?"

"None." Lee knows how it must feel to be struck with the sudden and horrible news. He's lived through it. "How old are you?"

"28 yahrens last month." Her fingers awkwardly shuffle the pictures that include photos of her and Leoben. Those she plucks from the pile and lets them fall to the floor. "Exploratory vessels encourage long-term pair bonding." Her voice breaks roughly. "I guess I picked the wrong pair to join."

"Don't blame yourself." He tries to determine what might soothe her, but Lee hasn't ever been very good at expressing his feelings. Not to his father and certainly not to Kara, he just doesn't have the skill set to comfort a complete stranger. He settles for patting her shoulder again. "As soon as the interrogation is complete, we'll get rid of this copy and you'll have a chance to start over."

"Get rid of. You don't even say kill."

"You can't kill a machine."

"I would have said you couldn't love one either."

Lee stiffens. First, Helo and now this ship. What line would delineate them if Cylons and humans started to love each other? What would it mean for the war?

"Sir, we haven't fou…."

---

Leoben glares at Gaius and Harstock in turn. The first for being such a fool and the second for sitting idly by and not arguing with any of the inane questions that Leoben is being asked. He is growing desperate with the feeling that he is simply running out of time.

"I'm not in contact with the Cylon Fleet. We've been eight ways past Kobol since leaving Sagitarron. There's no way I could know what was happening."

"But you know now." It's not a question the way Baltar says it. "The minute you awoke, you knew what you were and what happened."

"How did you know that?" He asks the question slowly and watches as the diminutive man's eyes flicker again to empty space before returning to him.

"We've learned that stress reactivates the Cylon memory core."

"Is that what they're calling torture these days?" He asks sarcastically. "I want to see Nya."

"That's not going to be possible." Gaius starts to stand as Leoben lunges back out of his seat.

The Marines try to stop him. But he snaps the shackles in one move. His hands throttle the first Marine, snapping the vertebrae between the second and third cervical attachment. Leoben throws him down and smacks the second's rifle muzzle away from him. It discharges into the wall as Gaius dives for cover.Two punches and that Marine goes down.

The last Marine turns to shoot as the Cylon in Leoben makes a movement too fast for the human eye to track and punches Harstock in the throat. It crushes the windpipe and Harstock's eyes bulge out as the last Marine dives through the open door and slams it shut.

Baltar slams his hands against it calling for the Marine to come back as Leoben squats in front of Harstock.

The big Captain is obviously dying. His normally red cheeks are blistering as he struggles for air that can't find its way into his lungs.

"You shouldn't act against God." He tells the Captain. "When the time of reckoning comes calling, you will be found wanting. You could have trusted me. I haven't harmed anyone here."

The Captain manages to spit blood from his lips and it splatters across Leoben. Leo just wipes it away and waits patiently as suffocation sets in and Harstock slumps to the floor. He turns toward Baltar but something stops him from making that killing blow.

Six is leaning against Baltar protectively even though Leoben can't see her. "Shhh," she hisses. "Don't move. You're safe as long as we don't tempt his programming."

"This is programming?" Gaius gasps.

"It's not programming." Leoben and Six answer simultaneously.

"Then what do you call it?"

"I'm not one of the Cylons that attacked the Colonies." Leoben searches the Marines until he finds a slender piece of metal that he can use. Standing he jimmies the lock with it and jumps away from the sharp sparks of electricity. The door slides open after another thirty seconds of manipulation. "Come here." He repeats the order more forcefully so that Gaius finally goes to him. He grabs the other man's arm roughly and they set off for the bridge.

"I'll prove it to you."

"How do you intend to do that?"

"I have to show Nya that I wasn't there when they attacked the Colonies."

"They. You. You're all Cylons!" Gaius protests.

"No," there is something else in his voice. "We're not all the same."

"I beg to differ. Your programming will override any choice you think you can make. That's how it works. That's why you're a machine."

"No," Leoben repeats the word as though it alone will hold back the truth. "I didn't blow the airlock. I chose not no."

Six hisses as she inhales sharply, startling Baltar. "Impossible."

"It's not impossible." Leoben answers as though he can hear her. "Not for something worth living for."

Thanks to everyone reading. Chapter 4 will be up before the end of the weekend and revelations about Sharon and Leoben will threaten the status quo.