DISCLAIMER: The character's and the universe of the Battlestar Galactica do not belong to me.

NOTE: I won't be figuring out how the whole resistance thing worked on New Caprica. My guess is we'll see plenty of that in first episodes of Season Three, so we'll just have to wait till then ;). This story is about something else…

NOTE 2: Great thanks for very encouraging reviews! Since a few people asked: yes, I want to include Lee in this story somehow. After all APOLLO is my favorite character on the show :). But not just yet, not yet…

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HYBRID by -yannik-

Chapter Two- THE BARGAIN

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She didn't have a choice. She really didn't have a choice. She had to convince herself that she didn't have a choice.

Because what she was about to do, was horrible.

She decided to give in to the cylons' demand. She decided that she would help them get the child. The human-cylon hybrid. The innocent being, not yet infected with their ideology, not responsible for the extinction of a human race.

She had to stop thinking this way. It was a machine. Half-machine. But still a machine. And it belonged to it's kind.

This was meant to be.

"Would you trust me, if I told you I wanted to cooperate?" Leoben asked out of the blue.

What did he mean?

"So… you don't trust me all of a sudden?" Kara asked, trying to think ahead of him. "You wanted me to cooperate, and now you want me to prove my willingness to you, or what?"

"I believe I do not need to do that. You are not in a position to go up against us." Leoben smiled sadly. And he was right of course, she knew that.

"So why are you asking that?"

Leoben eyed her for a few moments, his sight serious and determined. "Would you trust me?"

"Why?"

"I'm a cylon. If I told you that I've changed. That I want to help humanity, that in reality I'm on your side… Would you believe me?" Kara just stared at him incredulously. Where was that going? "I have a feeling you wouldn't" he sighed, genuinely saddened. "I have a feeling, that you think, that in the end all that's here" he poked his head "is programming. Do you think we can override it?" Kara still didn't respond. But this time he urged her to. "Do you think I could act against cylons?"

"Not really."

"Do you think Sharon did?"

"No" Kara whispered. She never trusted her. And she knew she wouldn't trust him either. "I wouldn't trust a cylon. Ever."

He bent his head and nodded couple of times. And then it hit her – she knew what he was up to!

"I know what you want" she mocked. He tried to play with her again, but this time she wouldn't allow him to fool her. She saw right through his act. "I know what you're doing!" She waited for him to look at her, before she continued. "You want to know if you could gain my support by convincing me it's going to be to the benefit of humanity. But this isn't going to work. I will never trust you! You're right I never trusted Sharon, not even when she was giving us useful information, like with Scar. I never believed that Brother Cavit or whatever his name was, not deep in my heart. I was so wrong to leave the Stars and settle down, but I did it for Sam." She stopped suddenly. The look in his eyes shifted during her speech. It was curious again; he was testing her! – she realized. And she wasn't so convinced anymore whether she guessed his purposes right.

"So you don't trust me?" Leoben asked with fake sadness. It was too fake, like he wanted to pretend, and to let her know he was pretending all together. Like he wanted to confuse her more.

"I don't trust any cylon" she answered through clenched teeth.

"What about those you think are human?"

Of course. Of course there were still unidentified cylon models in the Fleet!

"There are people you trust, that are – in reality – cylons" he reminded, though he didn't need to.

"I trusted Boomer" she reminded him too. "But once I realized what she was, I stopped trusting her."

"So" he said slowly, annoying her beyond endurance. "Once you are convinced, that someone you believe in, is a cylon…"

"I would hate him just like you!" she shouted.

"Even if it was Samuel?" he cut right into her words.

Kara fell silent, taken aback, all blood escaping from her face. She needed to sit down, but there wasn't any place to sit, but for the dirty side road. No – she thought helplessly. That couldn't be! No, that would be too crazy, that would…

"I didn't say he was" Leoben said softly. "I was just theorizing."

"Is that why you want to cure him?" Kara asked breathlessly.

"Don't you think I'd have better ways to do that?" the cylon explained patiently. As if talking to a child. "Don't you think we do not get sick? No. I do it, because I want to win your loyalty. I'm honest."

"You're never honest!" she screamed. "I don't know what your motives are, but I'm not going to just believe you that Sam is a cylon. I'm not going to doubt him!" she yelled loud enough to silence the little voice in her head that said – beware. And she knew very well, that Leoben heard that voice too. He saw her hearing that voice. He planted the seed of doubt in her heart. He knew she could not trust a cylon, no matter how much she loved him.

"So" he smiled showing those teeth of his again. "You still want this medication?"

"Yes!" she spat.

"And you'll helps us get to the hybrid?"

"You didn't give me any tips so far" she reminded, but that was not the answer Leoben wanted.

"Will you?" he repeated.

"Yes."

"Deal. I'll give you tips when we're ready to access him" he turned all business. "All you will have to do is neutralize his protection then, and I'll tell you exactly how to do this – when the right time comes."

"You mean kill his parent?"

"Perhaps. That model is of no value to us anymore" he answered casually, handing her a small package. "But I don't know yet. That's for you."

She took the gift. "This is…"

"The antibiotic. He should get better soon." Kara looked up at him, but Leoben wasn't smiling anymore. "I'll contact you when the time comes. Go to your husband, he needs you" he said, and walked away.

Kara felt like she had just sold her soul to the devil.

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But it was worth it. Or so she choose to think.

Samuel started getting better within hours after the first shot. And a few days later, when the Colonists led by Laura Roslin, Chief Tyrol and Starbuck herself set the rebellion against the cylons in full motion, he was able to add all his knowledge and experience to the resistance collective head.

"It would have all been different if Adama hadn't abandoned us" Ellen Tigh went on about her favorite issue, as soon as the secret session ended and only the friends remained at the Tighs' tent. It seemingly became one of the resistance headquarters, and would be convenient, if not for the constant gibes of the mistress of the house.

All that brooding nearly ticked Kara off, and given how much pressure weighted on her over the last few days, she was about to explode. Alright, she had her own bunch of problems with the Adamas, but had anyone tried to rub them the wrong way, she was ready to go for a kill. Nearly.

Apparently she was not the only one.

"And what was he supposed to do with a battlestar manned by five hundred people?" Laura asked in a steady voice, but with a dangerous hint to it.

It was odd how quickly she and Kara got to be on the first name basis.

"Bill hadn't abandoned us" Tigh cut in. "He's coming back" he grunted. He hadn't lost faith in his best friend, but Kara could tell it was getting thinner with each passing day, that didn't have the battlestars returning. That's why she decided not to hope that the Adamas would come to their rescue. She choose to believe she'd never see either of them in her life again. She chose to blame them and hate them, because it was easier to blame them, than to mourn them. That's why she never really burst out on Ellen Tigh.

"They'd better be coming back soon" Ellen chipped in, smiling playfully. "Or else we're going to have to start searching for them."

"We have to concentrate on surviving" Sam, who sat quiet most of the time, now decided to insert his opinion. "We can't go on living on false hopes of someone coming to our rescue. We ourselves are the only hope we have. And we must rescue ourselves."

That comment infuriated Kara even more than Ellen's words. Not because it mirrored her own thoughts – those she wasn't thinking at all, about being abandoned, and left behind. No, not at all because of that. There must have been something else.

"You're speaking out of experience?" she took on him furiously. "I thought you said you'd been waiting for me to rescue you? Or didn't you need that? Did I risk all those peoples' lives, and raptors, and resources for something that wasn't necessary? Or maybe even wanted, huh Sam? Maybe you didn't even want to be rescued!" Not waiting for his response, not wanting to bear everyone's startled eyes on her, she stomped out of the Tighs' tent, straight into the rain.

"What do you hear, Starbuck?"

"Nothing but the rain."

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t.b.c.

If you like this story, and want to know where it's going, please let me know!

-Y-