Lee walked to the conference room the next morning. He saw his father waiting outside the door and came right up to him. "Reporting as ordered, sir." He smiled widely.

Adama didn't smile in return. "I'm glad." He replied with a cautious lack of emotion.

"Kara's not with me." Lee said carefully in response to his cold manner. "She spent last night in sickbay with the baby. I think she's in our new quarters now, getting some sleep. I didn't want to bother her."

"Kara's already inside."

"She is?" Lee asked in surprise.

Adama opened the hatch and gestured for Lee to enter. "Come in, Captain." Adama said as Lee came through the door. "Sit down, please."

Lee looked around the conference room to see that Kara and the President were already sitting at the table. He took a deep breath. "Why do I feel like I'm about to be ganged up on?"

"There's no reason you should feel that way, Captain Apollo." Roslin replied soothingly. "We're all on the same side here."

"Then you don't mind if I stay standing?"

"No." She smiled. "Not at all."

"I do." The Commander said firmly. "Sit down, Captain."

Lee moved to take a seat. "You know what this is about?" He whispered to Kara as he sat down next to her.

"A little bit, yeah." She answered softly.

Adama began cautiously. "There are a few precautions that we need to take, safeguards that we need to implement because of the unusualness of the situation."

"Like?" Lee inquired.

"There is to be an attachment of marine guards assigned to the child, and she is never to be alone. Someone needs to be with her or guarding the area that she is in at all times." The Commander paused for a moment to let it sink in. "And there are certain areas of the ship that she will not have access to."

"Well, she's a child. Of course there are certain places she won't be able to go to." Lee's eyes narrowed and he exhaled loudly. "But you're not doing this because she's a child, are you? You're doing this because she's a Cylon." He murmured in accusation.

"Stop it, Lee." Kara whispered sadly, not looking at him. "This is hard enough for him without you making it worse."

"Maybe it should be hard for him." Lee told her before looking back to his father. "She's a child. She's not going to do anything bad. She's not even gonna know or understand how to. And for you to perpetuate this fear……………? You're supposed to set an example. You're supposed to be the leader of this ship."

"I AM the leader of this ship!" Adama rasped back.

"You're also her grandfather. Doesn't that count for anything?"

"She won't be a child for very long, Lee." Kara pointed out. "Not the way things are going."

Lee covered his eyes in recognition of her point. "Fine." He replied coldly. "There will be certain restrictions regarding her and the ship, I get it." He paused, glaring at his father. "What else?"

"We want her to undergo weekly tests." Adama answered.

Lee smirked sardonically. "Not a chance in hell."

"Just a couple of tests, Captain." Roslin told him. "Non-invasive tests; a couple of scans to study her neurological functions and see if there's anything alarming."

"Even Cottle thinks it's a good idea." Kara added. "Because of her fast development. We can accurately track her growth; predict any side effects that she might experience because of it."

Lee shook his head vigorously. "I won't have you treating her like a lab rat. How is this any different from what Baltar wanted to do with her?"

"Because we're not doing this as a science experiment." Adama responded. "We're doing it to keep the people we care about safe, her included."

Lee turned to the President. "How can you condone this?"

"Condone it?" Roslin repeated his words, looking around the room in puzzlement before she turned back to him. "It was my idea."

"Yours?" Lee breathed out in disbelief. "How can it be yours? You said—. I thought you believed that she wasn't going to hurt us."

"I still do. I believe that very strongly." She glanced at Commander Adama sadly. "But I'm sure none of you believed that the first Lt. Valerii was going to hurt anyone either."

"Madam President, you cannot do this."

"Look at what I've already done." She stood from her chair. "I've removed an elected official from office and made deals with a terrorist because I believe so strongly that this child, that this fleet…………. deserves a chance to do what the gods have promised me." She placed both palms on the table and leaned forward, looking right at him. "I've taken enough on faith, Captain Apollo. The fact that your daughter is still alive shows how much faith I have. I'd very much like to believe that I am serving the will of the gods and can do so without question—." She began coughing harshly and sat back down. Adama handed her the glass of water on the table and she drank it gratefully. Kara sat up straighter in her chair until the President's fit slowed and then finally ceased. "But at the end of the day, I'm not a priest." She continued strongly. "I'm a public servant; I have to answer to them. And while faith is still the strongest force in me, I have to have a measure of practicality as well."

"We don't keep Cylons around, Lee. She's already allowed two exceptions to that rule." Kara pleaded with him. "Don't force her to make any more concessions."

"We're not afraid of her." Adama amended. "We're afraid of what they might cause her to do."

Lee stood from his chair and walked to the door, turning back just before he left the room. "It's still fear, Dad."


Kara knew where to find Lee, but Adama insisted that he go instead of her. "This is a father thing, after all."

He found Lee sitting in the front row of chairs in the briefing room, looking at the whiteboard that still had Defeating the Cylon Missle written across it in Kara's handwriting.

Adama sat down next to him, and noticed that his son made no move to recognize that he was there. "Son?"

"I gave my word; that I would be her father." Lee said bluntly, without preamble. "And I don't mean the hollow words that I gave Sharon. I mean the word I gave to her, and Kara, and you, and the President……….and myself. And if I don't trust myself to keep my word, then why do I deserve to be?"

"This isn't about you breaking your word, Lee. It's about you keeping it."

"In your life, have you ever loved anything unconditionally?" It was voiced harshly enough that the Commander knew that Lee meant it to be more accusatory then questioning. "Without reservation, even though it's not everything that you think it should be?"

"No." Adama answered truthfully. "Not until recently. And neither have you." He put his hand on his son's shoulder. "You're ten times the father I ever was, and you've only been at it for three days." He tightened his grip a fraction. "You'll also be ten times the Commander, which is how you know I'm right." His breath caught in his lungs for a moment. "It's possible to keep this ship safe and love your child at the same time. Trust me."

"This feels so easy, Dad." Lee sighed sadly. "So why is it going to be so hard to actually do?"

"Because that's fatherhood, Lee." Adama gave as his response. "Nothing is easy. Nothing that is worth doing, anyway."

Lee nodded to himself. "Is there something that I have to sign, something giving my permission?"

"No. You and Kara seem to forget that you are officers on my ship. And even though she's your child, she's living here on it. As such, you don't have to agree to anything I want." Adama paused. "But I want you to. I want you to know that we are not coming from a bad place. She's my family, and I want you to know that I would rather die than let anything bad happen to my family."

"I do, Dad." Lee replied as he looked right at him. "I know that."


"WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?" Kara hissed at Lee in a furious whisper as he walked through the door.

Lee hadn't expected to be accosted when he entered his new quarters that afternoon. But when he saw Kara standing there, the baby teetering in her arms and a frenzied look on her face, he forgave the angry abruptness in her greeting.

He closed the hatch behind him and held up his hands in a gesture of mock-surrender. "Sorry I'm late, dear." He paused and dropped the sarcasm from his voice as he saw her give him a dirty look. "I was on Colonial One helping the President and Billy with the fallout from Baltar's resignation, and then I went to sickbay because I thought that was where you guys would be." He walked over to the two of them and stroked the baby's cheek as she slept, tucked away in the crook of Kara's arm. "Hello, sweetheart."

"We weren't in sickbay anymore, they released her." She said into his ear as he looked down at his daughter. "We haven't been in sickbay for an hour and a half."

"I realize that now." He smiled up at her and noticed that her face had not changed from the same dirty look. "What are you so upset about?"

"Oh, I don't know." She moved over to the crib and then with delicateness that he'd only seen her give brand-new retro-fitted Vipers, she laid the sleeping child in her new bed. "Maybe I was just hoping that when I brought our child home for the first time, both of her parents would be there."

"I was doing something important." He told her in frustration.

"And this isn't important?" She asked in insulted disbelief.

"What are you talking about?" He said in a loud voice and then quieted down when she shushed him and looked down to check the infant in the crib. "I didn't say that it wasn't important. If you wanted us both to be here when you brought her home, then why didn't you just wait until I was there to leave sickbay?"

She walked to the other side of the room as she began to pace. "Because she'd already been in sickbay for three and a half days and I didn't want to keep her there any longer than she needed to be just because her father wasn't where he promised me he would be!" She told him angrily.

Lee groaned in exasperation. "Kara, I realize that you're a new mother, but you can't use post-partum raging hormones as an excuse for acting this way. You knew where I was, you knew what I was doing, and you knew why it was important." He then added in a soothing voice. "You just need to be calm."

"But I'm NOT calm, Lee. I'm freaking out!" She cradled her forehead in the palm of her hand. "I was alone with her. I'd never been alone with her before. And I was afraid, and she kept looking at me like I would know what to do. But I DON'T."

"Kara." He walked up to her and placed his hand on her forearm. "If you were afraid, why didn't you just ask one of the guards to come in?"

Her head snapped up and her eyes got wide. "Are you actually suggesting that I send in the marines so that I won't have to be alone with my child?"

Lee closed his eyes and sighed as he squeezed her arm in reassurance. "I'm just as new at this as you are. I don't know what to say any more than you do."

She lowered her head in regret. "I'm sorry." She looked in the direction of the baby. "I just……….do you think everybody feels this way?"

"Yeah." He moved her back over to the crib and looked down. "But I think in our instance we're allowed to feel it ten-fold." He smiled. "She's very cute, lying there, sleeping."

"Yeah." She smiled too and then her entire body froze. "I wonder what happens when she wakes up."


The next day, Kara heard a gentle knock on the door and had to fight back a laugh as she walked to get it. "Lee, you live here." She said under her breath. "You don't have to knock."

But when she opened the door, she was met with the apprehensive face of Chief Tyrol.

"I can come back." He said in way of greeting and then moved to walk away.

"Wait." She grabbed his arm and pulled him back. "I hadn't said anything. I hadn't even said 'hello' yet."

He pointed back down the hall. "If it's a bad time………"

"It's not. It's fine. Come in." She moved back so that he could enter, but he stayed frozen in place in the hallway.

"Everything okay, Captain Thrace?" The guard in the hall asked as he saw that they had not yet closed the door.

"Yeah, Corporal, everything's fine." She waved at him before turning back to Tyrol. "We either have to get in or get out." She smiled. "Did you want to see her?"

Tyrol's eyes shone with a previously hidden agony. "I did. I mean I do. I want to see her." He looked past Kara into the room. "But now that I'm here, I'm not so sure I actually should be here."

Kara lowered her head and then looked back up at him, straight into his eyes. "I'm sure she wants to meet you." Tyrol nodded and then moved inside. She closed the door and pointed to the crib. "So, she's right over there."

"Yeah." He whispered.

Kara looked at him, her heart breaking a little. She then saw the box that he had been holding the whole time. "What's that?"

He looked away from the crib long enough to look down at the box. "I made you something." He said absently.

"Yeah?" She took the box from him and laid it down on the couch. When she opened it she saw a mass of connected aeronautical parts. "You made this?"

He nodded in the affirmative. "Cally helped a little."

"I hope you won't find this offensive, but…………what is it?"

Tyrol laughed slightly. "It's a mobile. You know, something that you hang over a crib to keep the baby entertained."

"And it's made of spare parts?" She inquired as she lifted it out of the box.

"Yeah, I figured that it was fitting, because of who her parents are." He walked over and pointed to the tiny hanging objects. "These things off to the side, they move around in a circle when you spin 'em. They're made out of Viper parts." He then pointed to the center of the mobile, to the largest part. "Then that thing in the middle……….that's from a Raptor." He stopped and looked at Kara. "You know, because………you know why."

Kara smiled and put it back in the box. "I think it's the most beautiful piece of melded together scrap metal I've ever seen." She heard a noise from the crib and went to check. "We weren't expecting visitors. Nobody has come to see her yet, besides the Commander and the President. Nobody's come here, or to sickbay when she was there." She took a deep breath to try and suppress some of the hurt that she felt because of that. She then looked down at her now-awakened child. "I guess they're a little afraid of her."

Tyrol walked over to the crib too. "They're not afraid. Even though I know of no reason that they shouldn't be." He stopped as he heard Kara snort in amusement. "I guess they're just waiting for someone to give them the 'all clear', so to speak."

"And you're that someone?"

He sighed. "I was sort of in the middle of this whole mess." He paused in fear as Kara looked back up at him. "Not that it was a mess, I wasn't trying to say that she is the result of a mess, I just meant—."

"Chief." She stopped him from continuing. "It's okay. I thought it was a mess too. I'm sure Helo and Boomer………….Helo and the other Sharon thought it was a bit of a mess as well." She looked down again at the baby as she smiled up at her and tried to grab her toes. "But I like messes. The people I used to share a bunkroom with can attest to that."

Tyrol finally mustered the nerve to look in the crib, his eyes got wide and he cracked a smile. "She's a big girl."

"Don't let her hear you say that, she'll get a complex." Kara laughed. "She grows. A lot. I think that's why I haven't left the room yet, because she's different every time I look at her."

"She looks like Sharon." He said simply.

Kara looked her up and down and put the blanket back on her that she had pushed to the side. She did have the same coloring as Boomer, albeit a slightly lighter skin tone. And she had the same dark hair and the same big eyes. But hers were blue. "You think so?"

"Is that hard for you?" He asked cautiously. "I know your feelings on Sharon were never really clear."

"Actually, my feelings on what I thought Sharon was were never really clear." She corrected. "And I mean both Sharons. I thought the first Sharon was one of us, turns out she wasn't really. And I thought the second Sharon was one of them, turns out she wasn't really. It's confusing." She nodded simply and smiled with pride. "But the baby looking like Sharon really doesn't bother me that much, because I really don't think she does. She looks like herself."

"She looks like Helo too." His eyes and his fists both clenched shut at the same time, and his head dropped to his chest.

"You don't have to talk about it, Chief." She told him softly, knowing what he was thinking about. "You haven't told anyone anything, except at the debriefing. And you don't have to now."

"But I want to." He looked up at her pleadingly. "I want to tell someone, so that it's not just me." He closed his eyes again. "Can I tell you?"

"Of course."

"I know what you were going to do. What you and Apollo and the Old Man were going to do, what you were willing to do to Cain. You were gonna put your lives on the line, risk getting the firing squad right along with us."

"I wish we'd done it." She said bluntly.

"Why? So that you'd be dead too?" He took a deep breath. "That's crazy. They would have killed us anyway. They killed Helo anyway, and it was the Cylon that shot Cain. Imagine what would have happened if it had been the two officers that Adama considered family."

"Sometimes I think, 'What if someone had gotten there sooner?'"

"I play the 'what if?' game all the time." Tyrol told her. "I'm starting to think it wouldn't have mattered." His finger gingerly traced the edge of the crib. "They say it was because of the chaos, that those two guys were able to get into our cell. Three of them are in that same cell now; those two guys and the marine that let them in. But it wasn't just those three. That whole ship killed Helo."

"I know." She said under her breath.

"Those two guys had beaten us before. Did you know that?"

"Yeah, I knew that. Not at the time, but I found out later."

"I thought that was what they were going to do that time. But they came in, and the looks on their faces, it was like…………….I wish I could say it was pure evil, but it wasn't. It was like they had once been human, but they'd just been—."

"Pushed too far?" She asked in understanding.

He nodded. "And they said that they owed it to Cain to carry out one of her last orders. They made us kneel on the floor. And I was so scared. I mean, I've been scared before, but I've never………… Then they said it was poetic, that we'd die on a day when so many Cylons did; since we loved Cylons so much." His voice had been trembling for several sentences now, and so had his hands. His eyes had a vacant, haunted look to them.

"Chief?"

"Helo mouthed off to them." He smiled slightly. "I didn't quite grasp what he said, because I was so scared. But I'm sure it was offensive."

"He'd taken after me too much." She shut her eyes in regret.

"They shot him in the head, and I heard him fall to the ground." His hand now gripped the edge of the crib as the painful memory coursed through him. "Then I felt the barrel against the back of my head and I closed my eyes……….then I heard the door open and—."

"Saw a whole squad of marines standing there with their guns drawn."

"And I wish I could say that I was relieved, but all I really wanted was for someone to finish the job. Because all I could see was Helo laying there, face down on the floor."

"And they wouldn't even let him into their sickbay." She rasped out in anger.

"They were too busy grieving over Cain. And he was nothing; he was below nothing to them." The Chief added. "And he was already dead."

"But they brought him back to Cottle anyway."

"Not because Cottle was a miracle worker, but because Galactica was where Helo belonged. It was fitting that Adama was the one to sign the death certificate." Tyrol finished their back and forth storytelling.

"I didn't know." Kara told him regretfully. "With everything that was happening with Cain; trying to figure out where the Cylon had gone. Then I heard some little piss-ant say that they'd 'only managed to take care of one of the toaster-lovers'." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I almost killed everybody on that ship with my bare hands when I realized what they were talking about." She heard the baby make unintelligible gurgles and looked down to see her kicking her legs excitedly. Kara picked her up. "I got in a Raptor and came home, and I'm never going back. And if anybody I care about ever goes to that ship, it'll be with a whole squad of marines watching their back." The baby laughed as Kara made a funny face at her.

"It should have been me." Tyrol said simply, without hesitation. "I feel guilty that it wasn't. I wasn't the one who was in love—at least not anymore. I wasn't the one who was gonna have a child. I should've been the one to mouth off to them. They should have killed me first; so that Helo would be here. And I feel guilty that he isn't."

"Yeah, I know about feeling that way."

"You do?"

"Sure." She snorted. "Helo was one of my best friends. I trusted him, loved him, and we'd been through a lot together. But if they'd killed you; and Helo was here instead? I wouldn't have her." She paused as the baby cooed and grabbed the index finger that Tyrol extended for her to take. "I've known her for a little over four days, she's not even mine, she's not even fully human, and yet—."

"You're glad she's here instead of Helo." Tyrol finished for her.

"No." She corrected. "Not 'instead of'………but I can't seem to find it unredeemable that things turned out this way." She smiled a shameful, self-deprecating smile. "Talk about guilt."

"But here we are, Starbuck: trying to do right by him." He replied as he stroked his thumb over the little hand.

"We're not the guilty ones." She affirmed to them both. "We didn't do anything wrong." Kara looked at the baby, who had laid her head against her chest and was now sucking her thumb. "Do you ever wish Adama and Fisk had executed them, the guys that did it?"

"No, I like it this way." He answered honestly. "Helo and I did the right thing, protecting Sharon. And we were going to get the firing squad because of it. These guys committed murder; cold-blooded, without orders. And they get to live. Because we're better than them." He stroked the baby's head. "No one on that ship would be doing what you're doing."

"You know they'll use that as an example of why they're better than us."

"I don't really care." He began to walk to the door. "The problem with those guys is that they just don't get it." He said as he turned back around.

She stayed where she was, holding the baby in her arms. "I'm not sure I really get it either, Chief."

"Yeah, but that's another reason why we're better." He smiled as he opened the door. "Just because we don't get it, we don't necessarily assume that it's not the right thing to do."


Baltar walked down a hall in the Cloud Nine hotel. He had been given a lovely send-off from Colonial politics, complete with President Roslin giving a dishonestly grateful speech and banners that read Thank You, Vice-President Baltar. Only he wasn't the Vice President anymore. Billy (or William, as he was now called) Keikeya had been sworn in that afternoon. Baltar had already heard speeches and commentaries all over talk wireless, praising him a whole two seconds for his selfless act before moving on to gush over the wonders of the new boy prince. Baltar couldn't believe that this wasn't some sort of dream. But he knew that what he was about to do was very real. The only truly real thing left in his life.

He stopped in front of the door and raised his hand to knock on it.

"Here to see your mistress, darling?" Six purred from behind him.

Without turning around to look at her he answered. "Don't know that it's really considered being unfaithful. Since I am, after all, cheating on you with you."

"It's not the physical aspect that bothers me, Gaius." She hissed. "The only thing that matters to me is who is in your heart."

"Then you win, because you are always with me." He sighed in irritation and then knocked on the door. "Literally."

Gina opened the door and smiled. "Doctor Baltar, what a pleasant surprise." She opened the door fully and he walked into her room, leaving Six in the hall. "It's been nearly a week since you've come to see me."

"It's been a very busy week." He said dejectedly as he turned to face her.

"Yes, I know." She responded soothingly as she ambled up to him. "But don't worry; you're still a very powerful man, people like you. You'll still be able to carry out your destiny." She then moved to stand in front of the window, and looked out onto the fake horizon. "But it would have been nice, if you had become President. Maybe then you could have stopped it." She looked over her shoulder at him, "I know that it's all part of God's plan, so that she understands the extent of their depravity by seeing it first hand. But I have to tell you, when you actually do see it firsthand…………….you realize that you would have much rather taken someone else's word for it."

Baltar gasped for air, in shock for a moment. "You know about the child? That she has been born? What her purpose is?"

"Model number Thirteen? Yes, I know."

"Is that what the Cylons are calling her?"

"That is her true designation." Gina replied simply.

"How do you know about the child?" Baltar asked in curious fear. "We've never talked about her. Did the model that gave birth to her get downloaded?"

"You destroyed the resurrection ship, it is now impossible for us to access her information. But we don't need anything to be downloaded to tell us of God's plan. We all know of the child; prayed for her existence." Gina sat down on the bed and reached down to take off her shoes. "Besides, that copy of model number Nine had lost faith, she turned away from us. She wouldn't have been resurrected anyway. In order to be reborn, you either have to be innocent or a true believer."

"You had feared that you would be reborn." Baltar pointed out. "Hadn't you lost faith?"

"I hadn't lost faith in God, just in his grasp of the extent of the evil that we were dealing with." She corrected. "And I hadn't stopped believing. I just didn't care anymore."

"Do you care now?"

"I care about seeing them suffer." Gina raged quietly. "You shouldn't allow the face of the shape of things to come to grow up around them."

"But that is what she is supposed to do, to understand them." Baltar began hesitantly. "And they are supposed to—."

"I know what they are supposed to do." She cut him off. "They're supposed to raise her, love her, and accept her………..so that she can see why mankind was once revered. And then they're supposed to fear her, despise her, and reject her…………so that she can see why destroying them was just. They are supposed to drive her to us." Gina stood up, then walked over to the bar and poured herself a drink. "Sharon was supposed to remain one of us. But she betrayed us, because she became too human." She then picked up the glass and squeezed it until it shattered in her hand. "And God told me that I was going to die, be reborn. The humans were supposed to kill me. But they didn't." She seethed.

Baltar watched as drops off blood started to trickle from Gina's still-clenched fist. He went to get a towel and then took her hand in his to look at her palm. "What are you trying to say?" He asked as he removed shards of glass from her grasp.

She stopped his movements and looked him right in the eye. "I'm trying to say that humans have a funny way of not doing what they're supposed to do."

TBC