"HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FRAKKING MIND?" The voice was so loud that it could be heard from outside the door.
"Kara." Lee said holding up his hands to soothe her. "Calm down."
"Don't tell me to calm down, Lee!" She yelled. "Did you hear what she just said?"
"Yes." Lee nodded, willing her to understand. "And did you hear what the President said to us before?"
"I don't care, Lee." She shook her head. "I don't care what the President said."
"Starbuck?" Sharon lightly touched Kara's hand.
Kara pulled back from the gesture as if Sharon had burned her. "Don't touch me."
"Maybe we should go." Lee whispered.
"No." Kara said harshly. "I wanna stay. I wanna find out exactly what it was that made her think we would do the thing that she wants us to do. Now, I felt something for you." She said glaring at Sharon. "Sympathy, even a totally frakked up version of gratitude…………because of Helo and because of what you've done for us. But now I really want to know what glitch in your software made you even consider asking this of us."
"I see you, Kara." Sharon stated simply. "I see you better than you see yourself. I see both of you better than you see yourselves, because I can look past all of the screw-ups, all of the insecurities, and all of the defenses that you build. I see beyond the yesterday and today. I see tomorrow."
"You see the truths that float past us in the stream, blah blah blah." Kara stated bluntly. "Your vision is blurred."
"Surely you must understand," Lee said, looking at Sharon. "That the idea of what you're asking is not easy for us to grasp."
"Nothing is easy." Sharon replied. "Nothing that is worth doing, anyways. The road that leads you to what you want is not always the road that you set out on. If anybody knows that, it's me."
"What I want?" Kara sneered. "I don't want to raise your child! Sharon, I wouldn't even want to raise my child."
"Well, that's never gonna happen, is it?" Sharon said sadly. "You'll never have a child of your own."
"I suggest you shut your mouth." Kara seethed through clenched teeth.
"What is she talking about?" Lee asked softly, staring into Kara's eyes.
"I can't have kids." Kara said non-chalantly, waving her hand as if the statement was a pest that she had to shoo away. "Not after what they did to me in that Farm."
"Unbelieveable." Lee shook his head and glared at Sharon. "And you have the nerve to—."
Sharon interrupted, speaking to Kara. "I saw how you would look at me when you would come to visit me in my cell. I saw how your eyes would cloud over in pain when you looked at me getting bigger and bigger every week."
"You went and saw her every week?" Lee asked Kara in disbelief.
"Yes."
"Why would you do that?" He asked in an awe that conveyed both anger and a little fear.
"Because some of us can't cut people out of our lives as easily as other people can!" Kara hissed at him. She then turned back to Sharon. "Do you wanna know what I felt when Cottle told me that I couldn't have kids? I felt relief. Relief that I wouldn't have to worry about it anymore, that I would never have to fear letting it happen by accident." Kara let out a large breath and her voice got very low. "Some women can't have children, and some women shouldn't be mothers. The loose ends get tied up quite nicely when those two truths apply to the same woman."
"But it's not true." Sharon whispered, looking at a spot on the wall. "You should be a mother, and you will be. All you have to do is give yourself over to what your true purpose is."
"Don't do that!" Kara yelled at her. "It may not have been something that I particularly wanted to hold onto, but your robot friends still ripped it from me. They took something that was mine, and I don't like that. And for you to try and use my infertility to tug at my heartstrings and manipulate me into babysitting your kid is beyond low."
"And what about me?" Lee asked simply. "I don't even like you. Not at all. What would make you think that I would want to do this for you?"
"This isn't about me." Sharon stated harshly, looking at Lee. "You hold onto things. You carry bitterness and anger around with you, and you let it seep into your heart. And it makes you less than what you could be. But I see what you truly are." She smiled gently. "I see what you are capable of when you decide to let all of that go. The last time you forgave, you got your family back. You show mercy this time, and your family will grow."
"We're not capable of this, Sharon." Lee whispered. "We wouldn't even know where to start."
"She'll show you. My daughter will show you." She paused. "In spite of what you felt were misjudgments on his part, you tried to save Helo. You couldn't……. but it was enough that you tried."
"Helo was a part of Galactica, we don't leave anybody behind." Lee looked away from her. "We're a family, we're all we have left."
"Go ask Cottle for my baby's bloodwork." Sharon pointed to the door. "It will show you, she is the child of Lt. Karl Agathon and Lt. Sharon Valerii. Maybe the second part doesn't mean anything to you, but the fact that you were willing to risk your life to rescue Helo obviously shows that the first part does. You can't leave his daughter behind. This ship was our home, the people on it were our family. She belongs here."
"Please don't try to use Helo to make us—." Kara whispered in an agonized voice.
Sharon looked back to Kara. "When you were torturing him, Leoben told you that was not your path. And he was right. Your path is not pain and intimidation, Kara. You're not like your mother. You have a different destiny." Sharon watched as Kara's face grew serene and she nodded. "And destiny is not about who you are, it is about what you will become. And we knew who you were, Kara. You were chosen, and I don't just mean by Roslin." Sharon reached to take Kara's hand, and this time, Kara didn't pull away. Sharon then looked back to Lee. "You were both meant to change the world. And the best way to do that is to start with the children."
"Sharon, I can't even…………….I'm not right for this. You don't want me to do this." Kara pleaded near tears.
"Yes." Sharon nodded. "I do. I want both of you to do it. It is my last request."
"Alright." Kara whispered as Sharon's words and the President's mingled together in her head. Lee looked up and locked gazes with her as she raised her eyebrows and cocked her head to the side. "We'll do it."
Lee saw the strange look in her eyes, and knew that Kara had to get out of that room. He also knew that it would only take a few hollow words to end of all this.
Sharon looked at Lee and he nodded. "We'll do it. It's crazy, but so is everything else left in this world. Besides…………." He said gesturing at Kara. "I like crazy. How do you think I put up with her?"
Sharon laughed with relief. "Good." She closed her eyes. "You can tell the President to come in now. I'll give her the information that she needs."
When the two of them came out of the room, Lee closed the door and then leaned heavily against the wall. "My gods." He uttered.
Kara looked at Roslin with a blank expression. "We granted her request. She'll tell you what you want to know now."
"What?" Roslin asked nervously. "What did she want from you?"
Lee spoke up. "She wants us to raise her child."
"I'm sorry?" Roslin asked in amazement. She then was silent for a moment as she tried to find her words. "She actually said that she wanted you to—."
"She wants us to raise her baby." Kara confirmed.
The President laughed skeptically. "And what did you say?"
"We did what you said." Kara said numbly. "We told her what she wanted to hear. Now she'll tell you what you want to hear."
"So you agreed to it?" Roslin asked, and then watched as Lee nodded in the affirmative. "I'm amazed at the two of you. I never imagined she would ask something so ridiculous. You truly went above and beyond."
"We only did what you told us to do." Lee assured her. "It won't matter anyways, they're just words."
"Still, I know it must have been hard for both of you. And I'm sorry I had to ask such a thing of you."
"Go get what you need from her, Ma'am." Lee said.
"Thank you, Captains. I thank you both." Roslin walked to the door and then turned back around. "I'm afraid I have one last favor to ask of you. Will you stay? Until she………..in case she needs to speak to you again?"
"We'll be right here." Kara confirmed as she sat back down in the waiting area chair.
Roslin nodded in gratitude and then walked into Sharon's room.
"I'm sorry that you had to go through that." Lee said as he waited next to Kara.
"Which part?" Kara asked softly.
"All of it." He answered, and then waited a few moments before speaking again. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because it didn't matter." Kara said, looking away.
"Still, you shouldn't have gone through that alone."
"I'm used to being alone. I thought I liked it that way, no entanglements, nothing to hold me back, no one to let down when I inevitably screw up. I thought I liked it that way." Kara paused and clenched her eyes shut. "I'm not so sure anymore."
"Don't let her get to you like that, Kara." He reached over and took her hand. "This will all be over soon."
She turned back to face him. "That's what I'm afraid of."
Just then the door opened and a rather dazed looking President came out. Doctor Cottle saw her condition and walked over to her, taking her wrist to check her pulse. "Madam President?" He asked.
"I'm fine." She assured him, covering his hand with her other one. "Doctor Cottle? We need a priest."
"There isn't one." Cottle told her. "Not on Galactica."
"Then contact any other ships that may have one."
"I'll call the Ethereal Dawn. It's a missionary ship. I'll get one of their priests to come over." Cottle said.
"Tell them to come quickly." Roslin pleaded. "She is fading fast."
Cottle nodded and then went to the nearest phone. Lee and Kara rose from their chairs and stood before the President. "Ma'am, why do you need a priest?" Lee asked softly.
"Last rites." Roslin muttered unconvincingly.
"Last rites?" Lee asked in disbelief. "Why would a Cylon ask for one of our priests to give her last rites? And more importantly, why would you allow it?"
Roslin looked up at Lee. "I once told your father something that President Adar had once told me. 'The great thing about being President is that you don't have to explain yourself to anyone.' That includes you, Captain." She then turned to face Cottle as he walked back to her.
"The priest will be here in twenty minutes." Cottle said.
"Good." Roslin replied. "I'll be in there………..waiting with Sharon." She then turned and walked back in the room.
"What the frak is going on, Lee?" Kara asked softly.
"I don't know, Kara." He answered. "I just don't know."
The priest came and immediately went into Sharon's room, and the three of them stayed in there for close to an hour.
"I don't understand this." Lee stopped pacing around the room long enough to stop in front of Doc Cottle. "What the hell is going on in there?"
"You're asking me?" Cottle asked. "I don't have X-ray vision, I know about as much as you do. Now sit your ass back down. Your pacing is making me dizzy."
Lee complied with the order and sat down next to Kara, who had barely moved in the last 45 minutes. "You're not saying much."
"I'm just thinking." She replied.
"About what?"
"Huh?" She looked up at him.
"What are you thinking about?"
"I wasn't." She shook her head. "I misspoke. I wasn't thinking so much as feeling. I have this nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach, like something is about to happen. But I don't know what, and trying to fight it is exhausting me so much that I feel like I could sleep for a thousand years."
"Kara, you've just gotta—." Lee stopped as the door opened, and they both stood up.
President Roslin and the priest came into the waiting area. "And you're sure that we won't need an attorney of some kind?"
"No. According to Colonial religious doctrine, a member of the clergy is qualified to oversee the transfer of rights. Verbal termination is acceptable in Sharon's case, given her condition, but Captains Thrace and Adama will have to have to sign a written application."
"And you can set that up?" Roslin asked him quietly.
"Yes, I'll just need a few minutes." The priest walked to the door and then turned back to Lee and Kara and smiled. "May the gods bless you on your noble journey." He then left sickbay.
Lee and Kara both stood gaping at the door, then reluctantly turned to face Roslin. "Um, Madam President?" Lee asked, the fear reverberating in his voice. "I say this with all due respect, but what the hell is he talking about?"
"Sit down, please. Both of you." She gestured back to the chairs and motioned for Billy to bring forward another so that she could sit in front of them. "That was Father Monseau, he is an Artemial priest from the Ethereal Dawn, and he has just gone to draft a document for the two of you to sign that would give you full parental rights to the child."
"We really have to go that far?" Kara asked sadly. "Sharon is really expecting us to sign legal documents?"
The President took a breath. "Sharon died, five minutes ago. This is not for her."
"Ma'am—." Lee began before he was cut off.
"She knew. Sharon knew that you were lying to her, she knew that you had no intention of honoring your word, and she knew that I had asked you to deceive her." Roslin placed a hand on Lee's arm and one on Kara's knee. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but…………I want you to do it."
"I'm sorry?" Lee laughed softly as Kara raised a hand to cradle her forehead. "You want us to do what?"
"It is, of course, entirely your decision, but I want you to seriously consider raising the child."
"What in the name of everything holy has gotten into you?" Lee inquired in shock.
"When I was in there with her, she touched my arm, and I saw something." Roslin answered.
"You had a hallucination?" Billy asked worriedly, coming up to stand behind her.
"It was more than that, I had a vision." She confirmed.
"Great, that's just great." Lee said sarcastically. "You have a frakking daydream in the presence of the toaster and now we're just supposed to buy into all the Cylon crap that it's feeding us?"
Roslin watched as Billy walked over to the phone, picked up the receiver and asked for CIC. She then turned back to Lee. "This has nothing to do with the Cylons. This is about humanity, and that child can help us, she will save us."
"Exactly how will she do that, Ma'am?" Kara spoke in child-like voice.
Roslin began reluctantly. "She will heal us; she will make us trust again. She will bring us all together, and in that love we will find our salvation."
"This is so frakked up, I can't even comprehend it." Lee muttered as he stood up and went to the other side of the room. "We cannot allow a Cylon, even a half-human hybrid one to remain on this ship or anywhere else in the fleet."
"She will not hurt us." Roslin stood and walked to him. "I have been given a message from the gods. I have a feeling down to the core of my being that tells me that we must protect this child with every resource that we have, and this child must grow among us. If we do this, no harm will come to us. In fact, we will be given an immeasurable blessing."
"You have a feeling?" Lee said, his voice getting more insulted by the moment. "Is it the same feeling that you had about the Arrow of Apollo and the Tomb of Athena? Is the message the same one that you got from the gods that led us to find the map that has led us nowhere?" He sucked in a harsh breath. "I took an oath to protect this fleet, and I can't stand aside and just rely on the gods to protect us. Not when everything has shown me that the gods have abandoned us."
Roslin lowered her head in shame. "Our journey is not over with. Now, I can't lead you to the destination, but I can set you on the right path." She looked back up to him. "Something is happening here, Captain. Something greater than we could ever imagine, and it is going to require a huge leap of faith."
"Well," Lee said as he walked back over to Kara and stood beside her chair, placing a hand on her shoulder. "We won't be doing any jumping today."
Kara had been sitting quietly, looking to her hands and then over to the room that held the body of the woman she had thought was her friend as Lee and the President had been conversing. She then felt Lee's hand and was brought out of her trance. "Yeah." Kara said firmly, looking up into his eyes. "Uh-huh. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna do it."
At Kara's words, Roslin sunk down into the nearest chair and covered her eyes in relief.
Lee shook his head in disbelief and knelt before Kara, grasping her hand in his. "What are you talking about? You don't know what you're doing." He pleaded with her, his eyes filled with fear.
"You're right." She answered simply. "I don't know what I'm doing."
"Kara, think about this for a—."
"Nope. Don't want to." Kara pulled away from him and stood up. "And that feeling that the President has, the one that you were mocking just now? I have it too. And I don't want to over-think this. This feels right, Lee. And I don't want to pick it apart ad nauseam until I come up with a huge list of reasons that this should feel wrong." She turned to Doc Cottle. "Go get her, I want to see her."
Cottle looked at the President in apprehension until she spoke. "Do it." Roslin ordered in her most authoritative voice. Cottle went off into another room.
"Kara, I realize that this has all been very tough on you. Obviously you went through some type of trauma—." Lee began, only to be cut off.
"Don't you dare try to brush this off as Post Traumatic Stress, give me a little more credit than that." She hissed back at him.
"What the hell else am I supposed to think?" He shot back. "How else would you explain this lunacy?"
"It's not lunacy." She explained.
"You want to raise the Cylon's baby!" He screamed.
"She's NOT the Cylon's baby." She screamed back, near tears as she trembled where she stood. "She's mine. I want her, and nobody is gonna tell me I can't have her!"
"What the hell is going on?" A gruff voice asked from the door. Roslin, Lee and Kara all turned to see Commander Adama standing in the hatchway. "I get a message over the P.A. from CIC, telling me to get down here right away and I find the two of you screaming at each other." He pointed to Lee and Kara. "Now granted, that's not unusual. But somehow, the content of the argument seems rather odd. Kara, what did you say about a baby?"
"Commander—." The President began, rising from her chair.
"Oh good. Dad, you're just in time." Lee laughed sarcastically. "It seems the two women closest to you have lost their frakking minds!"
"What is going on?" Adama rasped.
"Captain Thrace has agreed to raise the child." Roslin explained.
"Is there another child that I'm not aware of? Because if you're speaking of the child that I think you're speaking of, then I'm going to have a serious problem with this." The Commander warned.
"No. It's the same child." The President answered. "It needs to be raised among us, and Captain Thrace has agreed to do it. I was hoping that Captain Apollo would agree as well but—."
"But my son is the only one of you that has any sense!" Adama yelled at her.
"I'm doing this, Commander." Kara told him. "And you can't—."
"That's enough!" He yelled at Kara. "I cannot allow this."
"You wanna toss that baby out the airlock? Fine, go ahead. I just have to warn you, I'll be going with her if you do." She said defiantly.
Lee plopped heavily into the chair. "I've gotta wake up. This has got to be a dream, a frakking nightmare." He muttered to himself.
Adama turned to Roslin and gave her his patented death glare. "Just what is it that you think you are doing? I found a way to put up with your religious crap, because you believed in it and because it was the only way to preserve the fleet, but I will not allow you to spread this nonsense if it means the destruction of my family!"
"I'm trying to save your family, Commander Adama." Roslin answered back in a loud voice.
"By allowing something that nearly killed me to be a part of it?" He asked in stunned disbelief.
"The child didn't do that. And I hate to point this out…………" She pointed to Sharon's room. "But neither did her mother."
"They're all the same." He hissed.
"No. They're not!" Kara hissed back. "Not every Cylon is the same, just as every human isn't."
"Kara!" Lee screamed, standing back up. "Just what the frak is wrong with you?"
"Stop asking me that! I won't let you make me feel stupid just because I want to believe in something other than cynicism and hatred."
"I'm not trying to make you feel stupid." Lee answered. "I'm trying to protect you!"
"And I'm trying to protect her. That is the most im—."
"Will you all please shut your damn mouths for two seconds?" Cottle hissed as he came back into the room followed by a nurse that carried a bundle in her arms. "This is going to be scary enough for her without the four of you screaming at each other when she meets you for the first time." Cottle motioned for the nurse to come forward and give the baby to Kara.
The nurse stepped forward and Kara stepped back for a second, as she ran her hands through her hair in worry.
"It's okay, Captain Thrace." The President calmed her.
"I'm not afraid of her." Kara corrected. "I'm just afraid of………….myself. If that makes any sense?"
The nurse laughed. "It makes more sense than you will ever know."
Kara stepped forward. "Give her to me." She ordered as the nurse again came forward, placing the child in her arms.
"Watch her head." The nurse said. "Just put her in the crook of your elbow like……..yes, there you go. That's it."
"What do I do now?" Kara asked in a small voice, looking up at Cottle.
"You're just gonna have to wing it, Starbuck." Cottle replied, chuckling slightly. "You're good at that."
Kara looked at the baby, a tiny, graceful little thing that stared right back at her. She blinked and then raised her hand to grasp at the air before lowering it again as she put it in her mouth to suck on it.
Kara let out a breathy, nervous laugh. "This feels, I don't know, this just feels—."
"It's normal for mothers to feel weird when they hold their babies for the first time." Cottle told her.
"Well, then, I feel completely normal." She grinned her Starbuck grin. "But all in all, it's not an entirely unpleasant feeling."
President Roslin stepped up and gently touched Kara's elbow as she looked down at the child. "She's beautiful, Captain Thrace."
Lee just stood there gaping at the scene before him. "I can't believe you are actually doing this." He looked at Kara, and then turned to his father. "Dad, will you do something?"
Commander Adama stepped forward. "Kara—."
Roslin lifted her head to look at the two of them. "The two of you claim to know Captain Thrace better than anyone. So tell me, gentlemen, why is it that you are the only people in this room that don't realize she is not going to be talked out of this?"
That stopped both of them where they stood. Cottle laughed and motioned for the nurse to follow him out of the room.
"Madam President?" Father Monseau questioned as he came into the room just as the doctor and the nurse were leaving. "I think I have everything in order. I will handle the religious doctrinal aspect of the transfer and given that you are the President of the Twelve Colonies, I'd say you are adequate to represent the legal facet." He showed the President the documents and she motioned for Billy to bring her glasses to her so that she could read them.
Kara looked over at the document as well; she then tried to adjust the baby in her arms so that she could get a closer look. Finally she gave up and walked over to Lee. "Take her." She said to him.
"Not a chance in hell." He replied coldly.
"Do it or I'll never speak to you again." She watched as he shook his head. "Oh, for fraks sake, Lee. I'm not asking you to put her through college, just hold her so I can sign the damn paper."
Lee looked around the room and saw that Roslin and Monseau were busy looking over the document and that Billy was on the phone. He silently prayed for Cottle to come back into the room, but then saw the irritation growing in Kara's eyes and held out his arms.
Kara placed the child in them gently. "Just hold her." She said as she walked away. "I'll be right back."
Lee tried with all his might not to look down at the baby's face, but then she made a small sound and he glanced into her eyes. "Huh." He uttered in amazement.
"What, son?" Commander Adama asked as he moved closer.
"She has blue eyes." Lee answered softly.
"What does that have to do with—." The Commander stopped as he looked down at the baby's face. "Well, look at that. They are blue." He smiled as she cooed up at him. "She has nice eyes."
"You'll have to change this part." Kara told Father Monseau as she pointed to a clause in the document. "You'll have to change it so that I alone have full parental rights."
Monseau looked up at the President nervously, and then over at Kara. "Captain Adama will not be taking part in the adoption?"
"No." Kara breathed out sadly as Roslin shook her head. "It seems Captain Adama wants nothing to do with the baby."
Roslin looked over in the direction of the sound of gentle gurgling and smiled. "Actually, Captain Thrace?" She pointed over to the two Adama men. Lee was smiling gently as he stared at the child, and Commander Adama was lightly caressing her head. "You may have spoken too soon in that regard."
Kara turned to face them fully just as Lee looked up at her and caught her gaze.
And in that instant, Kara knew. Lee had become a father.
TBC
