WHTMT - chapter 24

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The room was dead silent for a minute and Adama felt the tension rise to unbearable levels. He looked around the sparsely furnished area and pulled the guard's chair over beside him.

"Sit," he said gently to Kara, touching her shoulder in a fatherly gesture.

She didn't so he tried again. "Sit. I have a feeling this isn't going to be pleasant."

She sat.

Lee hovered behind her, one hand resting on her other shoulder.

"We don't have time for pleasantries," Sharon said, obviously agitated as she paced the cell. "They're on their way. You have to leave NOW."

"They're coming here? Now?" Adama barked.

"Why? What do they want with Kara's baby?" Lee demanded.

"Can't they just leave me alone?" Kara whispered, hands crossing over her belly protectively.

Sharon looked pointedly at Kara. "They think the baby is theirs."

"But it's not. I know, I got away before they had a chance ..."

Sharon strode forward and gripped the bars so hard her knuckles began to turn white.

"How do you suppose you got away?"

Kara's eyes widened and she paled. "It was you?"

Sharon nodded.

"I don't get it." Adama said. "Are you one of them or one of us?"

"Both. Neither. Ever since I found out, I've been playing both sides."

"I can't believe we trusted you," Adama said coldly.

She turned her faze to him, eyes imploring. "I had no choice. When they resurrected me I wanted to come back here. You're the only family and friends I have. I didn't want to stay with them, but I had no choice. They'd have boxed me otherwise."

"Boxed?" Lee asked, eyebrows furrowed.

"Storing my consciousness without resurrecting me. The cylon equivalent of death."

"Perhaps that would have been best," Adama said quietly.

"Then I wouldn't have been around to save Kara's life would I?" she challenged him, eyes flashing angrily.

"Or my baby," Kara put in.

"They were never going to take it."

"Yes they were - how else would they have implanted a hybrid embryo in me?" Kara demanded, standing up and planting her hands on her hips.

"They didn't have to," Sharon answered, speaking barely above a whisper. "Your baby is a hybrid already."

"WHAT?" All three voices were in unison.

Kara paled.

Realization dawned in Lee's mind. I knew it, I knew it all along. He was ...

"Anders was a cylon."

Both men stuck an arm out to brace Kara as she collapsed, but they'd forgotten that under the sweet, vulnerable exterior they'd become used to seeing lay Starbuck.

"No frakking way! He was not a cylon!" she shouted.

"Face the facts Starbuck. Why else did he hook up with you on Caprica?"

"Because he loved me!"

"That's what he wanted you to think."

"He saved me from them, from the farm. Why would he do that if he was one of them?"

"You were let go. You don't think you could have escaped unless we let you, did you? It was decided that the other Sharon and Helo's baby might be a fluke. We needed to try more experiments with hybrids to see if love was the missing ingredient for conception. The situation was perfectly set up - you thought he was human and were attracted to him, and he felt the same way about you."

"No, it can't be," Kara whispered, face ashen.

"If it didn't work out, well, at least we'd have tried. And it's not like we didn't know where to find you," Sharon pointed out.

Kara sat heavily.

"So they're coming for her now?" Lee asked.

"Not her. Just the baby. Anders wants his child."

"But it's not time yet!" Kara protested.

"It's getting close. Cylon babies don't seem to need quite as long to mature."

"So what ... they're going to cut her open and take it by force?" Lee paled at the thought of them slicing her open, taking the baby and leaving her there to die.

"That's about the gist of it," Sharon said calmly.

"That's sickening!" Lee exploded, and from the expression on his father's face, he felt the same way.

"Kill it," Adama said. "Out the airlock."

"Wait! I came to help!" Sharon turned to Kara. "You have to go! Leave here and get away from the fleet. As long as you stay, they can track you."

Kara wavered, unsure whether to trust her or not. Sharon Valerii had been one of her closest friends before it was revealed she was a cylon.

But she hadn't missed that Sharon had switched pronouns several times during the conversation - 'them' to 'we' and back again. She really didn't know whether to trust her. Her fight or flight instincts were telling her to run (as she wasn't particularly up to fighting) but she'd always had faith that Adama and Lee would protect her no matter what.

"Don't believe her Kara. You're safer here with us," Adama said squeezing her shoulder.

Sharon blazed at him. "Do you really think I was the only cylon planted in the fleet? How do you know there aren't many more of us? Maybe your own son is one of us, and you'd never know it."

"Let's go," Adama said tightly. "We're done here."

Kara felt the tension in both men as they escorted her out of the brig. She sensed Lee wanted to say something but his lips were pressed tightly together - so tightly that they were a thin white line.

"What are we going to do?" she asked in a small voice.

"Get a raptor loaded up and get her out of here," Lee answered immediately.

Adama stopped and the others did too, looking back at him.

"You don't mean to say you believe it?" he said incredulously. "And just how far do you think you'd get without FTL drive?"

"Whether we believe what she says is true or not is irrelevant. I'm getting Kara to safety."

"You're ..." Adama rasped. "Don't you think a battlestar is the safest place she could be?" he growled.

Just then the warning klaxons began to shriek. Adam raced over to pick up the nearest phone.

"This is the Admiral. Report!"

There was silence, and all Kara could hear was the pounding of her heart.

"Frak! Get a security team down there IMMEDIATELY!"

He slammed down the phone and began to walk towards the landing bay rapidly.

"What? What is it?" Lee asked, hurrying to catch up.

"It appears that our 'friend' may have been telling the truth. Somehow they managed to make it on board. They're waiting for us in the hangar bay."

Lee reached for Kara's hand and squeezed it, letting her know she wasn't alone. She squeezed back, glad of his presence, knowing that however tough she was, she was going to need him.

And she was right.

Standing just beside on of their presumed missing raptors stood Anders, looking healthier than she'd seen him since they first met.

"Oh my gods!" she cried out, shrinking back as he smiled his heart-stoppingly handsome smile at her.

"Hello Kara." His deep voice still gave her shivers - now shivers of revulsion. She glance down at her swollen stomach and for the first time since she'd found out that she was pregnant, she wished she wasn't. There had been times along the way where she'd wondered if she could do it, if she would be a good mother, if she could handle being a single parent, but never had she wished the baby had never been conceived.

She stared at him blankly, unable to voice the myriad emotions rushing through her like a tidal wave.

"I want my baby," he said, stepping forward.

Twelve guns were suddenly pointing at him.

"It's my baby," Kara said, not knowing where her sudden burst of courage was coming from. "It's in my body, and possession is nine tenths of the law."

"Unless we take it from you." Two more of them stepped from the raptor - a blonde like Kara had encountered on Caprica ... and another Sam.

"I dare you!" Lee spat, stepping in front of Kara. "I dare you to even try touching her again. I swear I'll rip your filthy metallic head off you son of a bitch!"

Sam's eyebrow rose. "I always had suspicions about you and Lee, Kara. I guess I was right."

Kara stepped forward past Lee, eyes blazing.

"I never lied to you! You knew Lee and I were close friends ..."

"Seems like more than 'friends' to me," he broke in.

"Since you died we've ... well, he's helped me through and we just ..."

" ... became lovers," he sneered.

"I was always faithful to you while I was with you. And what were you? A robot pretending to be human," she spat. "Why the hell couldn't you have told me?"

"Yeah, and when was a good time? At the wedding? In bed after making love? " Kara flushed. "When we found out you were pregnant? 'Oh by the way dear, I'm a cylon and that baby inside you is a half-breed that you can't keep'. Would that have been better?"

"Maybe back in the beginning before this all happened? Back on Caprica might have been a good time." Her eyes flashed darkly.

"Sorry, it wasn't my decision. My job was to make you fall in love with me and try to create a child. I couldn't have done that if you'd known the truth could I?"

"No, because I'd have blown your frakking brains out sooner than let you touch me!" she yelled. "Get out of my life! You're dead, stay dead!" She panted and began to step back, but Lee caught her and steadied her as she wavered, energy spent.

Sam's eyes narrowed. "You'll never get away from us. It doesn't matter where you go, we'll find ..."

A shot rang out and Adama lowered his weapon as Sam crumpled to the deck, blood seeping out of his chest.

Kara spun around and buried her face in Lee's chest, unable to bear the sight of him dying in front of her eyes again.

"Kara," Sam rasped, eyes beginning to glaze over, "I love you ... I really did ..."

Lee's arms tightened around her as her shoulders began to shake.

"If you want to live, I suggest you let the guards escort you down to the brig," Adama said, voice like ice. He leaned over and whispered in Lee's ear as eight of the security guards disarmed the remaining two cylons and began to lead them away.

Fifteen minutes later, Lee was piloting a raptor out of the hangar bay, plan hatching in his mind as Kara sat quietly in the back, tears still falling silently.

TBC