Lee wanted to reach across the table and shove this stupid Cylon's face down onto the cool hard metal. He could do it, too. No one would object. He could torture the hell out of this machine, gain nothing from it, and still have completed his assignment successfully.

"You're Captain Apollo, aren't you?" Lee felt himself freeze inside, but to his credit, it didn't show. "I knew it. From the second you stepped in here, I knew it." Leoben smiled. "It's odd. It wasn't supposed to be you."

"Wasn't supposed to be me?"

"You weren't the one."

Lee rolled his eyes. He was getting tired of this stupid Cylon's habit of talking in circles. It was infuriating.

"You'll do, though. You're close to her."

"You can't use me to get to President Roslin."

"I wasn't talking about the President."

Lee thought that over for a minute. For the hundredth time since he came on board the Gemenon Traveler, he wished there had been someone else to do this job. He knew there wasn't. There was no one else his father could trust to go toe to toe with a Cylon and come out on top.

The only problem was Lee wasn't sure he could do that anymore. This wasn't another Aaron Doral or Shelly Godfrey. "Tell me where the warhead is."

"Do you believe in the gods, Apollo?"

"Why should I tell you?"

"I figured as much. Isn't it slightly ironic that you're named after a deity that you don't even believe in?"

"I believe in the gods," Lee insisted, already wondering why he was offering information to the machine.

"Not in the same way that I believe in my god."

"I don't give two fraks what you believe. If you don't tell me where that warhead is, you're going to get up close and personal with your god real soon."

"To know the face of god is to know madness. To fear it is even worse. I see the universe. I see the patterns. I see the foreshadowing that precedes every moment of every day. It's all there. I see it and you don't."

"You're not winning me over here," Lee cut in.

"I was supposed to tell her about the future. There is a special surprise waiting just for her."

"Who the frak are you talking about?" Lee asked.

"You know," Leoben said, his mouth widening in a smile. "We have to see this through to the end, Apollo. We… you and I are more than the basic article of faith. But we are also different. I know that I am more than this body, more than this consciousness. A part of me swims in the stream, but in truth, I'm standing on the shore. The current never takes me downstream."

"Your little Cylon-babble is only making me want to shove you out an airlock even more."

"You can't do that," Leoben stated.

Lee's mind went to the anonymous ship that was on its way to being destroyed by a nuclear warhead. "No, I can't. So I suggest you give me a reason why I should keep myself from resorting to a more physical method of information extraction."

Leoben smiled at him, not even moving to look as the Marines changed shift.

"You're sick, you know. You want to be a human so bad, but that's the one thing you can never be. You're just a machine that's enjoying its own pain. Only you can't fully understand because you don't know the fear of death. When you die, you'll just move on to the next body. You can never know what it feels like to let go of this plane of existence for good."

Leoben shook his head. "All of this had happened before, Lee Adama. All of it will happen again. The players change, but the story remains the same. I have a soul. I see patterns. I see what has gone before and what has yet to come. I have to say I'm disappointed it was not her."

"I'm not good enough to be the one to deliver you unto your silly little god?"

"You will not pray for my soul like she would have." Leoben sighed deeply as if he didn't even care about the situation he was in. "Life is a testament to pain, injuries, accident. Happiness comes only in the brief moments when you are not inflicting pain upon others, when pain is not being inflicted upon yourself. The irony is you are the ones that put it there."

"If you do not tell me where that warhead is, I will personally make sure your fictional soul never leaves your physical body."

Leoben stared at Lee, and Lee was surprised to see sympathy in his eyes. "You intrigue me almost as much as she would have."

"Stop talking about her," Lee hissed. "She's not here. She will never be here."

"You are very protective over a woman who is so willing to let herself be taken." Leoben smiled. "That's okay, though. She needs the pain to have it make sense. She has to believe it because it means that she's the problem and not the world she lives in. It means she's bad luck. It means the gods never meant for her to hurt that much."

"There is no warhead," Lee whispered, shaking his head.

"There's a warhead. It's just not what you think it is."

Lee pushed his chair back. The metal screeched against the floor grating. He made it to the hatchway before Leoben's voice called out to him once more.

"Ask her why she always iced her fingers after every game."

Lee paused, wondering what that was supposed to mean and wondering why it was so easy for him to figure out the Cylon was referring to Kara. Then, he took the final steps into the area outside the cell. He came to a stop beside the President.

"Captain Apollo?"

"There's no warhead, Madam President. There never was." Lee let out a deep breath. "He just wanted to screw with us."

"Did it work?"

"A little bit," Lee whispered, "but not nearly enough."

The President stared at the lone man sitting at the table, bleeding and broken. "Have him thrown out an airlock."

Leoben looked straight through the glass almost as if he had heard her. "You're going to find Kobol, Lee! It will lead you to Earth. That is my gift to you. I ask nothing in return."

"Get him out of here now," the President hissed, "before he does any more damage."

Lee motioned for the Marines.

"You can return to Galactica, Captain. Let your father know I appreciate him lending your services."

"This was a priority for the military as much as it was for the government, Madam President. I'm glad that I could help."

"I'm going to recommend you be given the rest of the day off. I believe you've earned a small amount of downtime."

"I don't think that's your decision to make," Lee said with a chuckle.

"Your father will listen to me," Roslin replied confidently. "I think we've finally come to an understanding."

"Then you really don't know my father," Lee teased. He gave the President a small smile before making his way down to where his Raptor was docked. There was work to be done on Galactica.