I fixed a portion of this chapter after several people who weren't my betas (thanks a lot guys, what am I paying you for anyway :P ) pointed out that my depiction of the care of seizure patients was flawed. When my Grandma's brother had them, they were told to hold him down. But then again, that was 60 years ago; they thought lobotomies were a good idea. I guess logic and modern medicine know better now. So don't do that in real life! Anyway, it's been fixed, and sorry for the irresponsible storytelling. --roofietoof


The laughter coming from the rec room could be heard all the way down the corridor.

"I still think its frakking—." Kara's laughing stopped when she glanced across the table and saw Laura's disapproving look pointed at her. "Sorry, extremely—hilarious that you're the one trying to teach our daughter the finer points of Triad, Lee."

He chuckled as he examined the cards in his hands. "Well, I couldn't exactly let you teach her; you cheat."

"Do not." Kara pouted.

Gaeta, Kat and Racetrack all instantly looked up from their cards when they heard her dishonest retort.

"Okay, I do." She smirked. "But I would never teach Laura my nasty habits, I'm trying to raise her as a pure soul."

"I'll take one." Gaeta told Racetrack as she was dealing.

"Me too." Kara added, taking the card that Racetrack threw at her.

"Laura?" Lee looked across the table at his daughter. "Do you want one?"

"Nope." Laura replied, looking back at him from over the edge of her cards.

"Yes, you do want a card." Lee corrected, groaning in exasperation. "But you have to trade yours for a different one when it's your turn. I explained that to you already."

"Lee, leave her alone." Kara admonished him. "She knows how to play."

"Well, obviously she doesn't, because she's had three chances for a different card and she hasn't taken one yet."

"I don't want a different card." Laura shrugged. "I like the cards that I have. It's nice with all the different colors lined up." She went through the all cards in her hand. "I have red and green and blue and black……..and a pretty gold one too."

Everybody at the table groaned and threw down their cards. "I fold." Racetrack and Gaeta sighed simultaneously.

"Unbelievable." Kat said, shaking her head in defeat as she pushed her money toward the center of the table.

"What'd I do?" Laura asked innocently when she saw that everyone had stopped playing.

"Nothing, baby." Lee laughed. "All those different color cards……..that means you have 'Full Colors'. That's the best hand you can have."

"Really? So I win?" Laura put her cards face down and scooped up the pile of goodies from the center of the table. She then looked across it to her mother and smirked conspiratorially. "Was that believable, Mama?"

"Very." Kara smirked back and pointed to the pot. "Now remember, the deal was that you would split that with me."

Realization hit Lee like a thousand ton freighter and he reached across the table to pick up Laura's down-faced cards. He chuckled ruefully and held them up to show the others. "She didn't even have 'Two on a Run!"

Racetrack's mouth hung open. "She tricked us?"

"She didn't do it alone." Lee stated, throwing down the cards and looking at Kara accusingly. Kara and Laura both dissolved into a fit of laughter.

"What ever happened to not teaching her to cheat?" Gaeta shouted in amused offense.

"I didn't teach her to cheat." Kara shot back, chuckling. "I taught her to bluff."

"STARBUCK!"

"Hey." Kara held up her hands. "It's not my fault that you let her youthful purity blind you to her true deviant nature."

"You're totally corrupting her." Lee reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind Kara's ear before he kissed her shoulder. "Seems like just last month she was giggling hysterically as she dangled a piece of string in the air for her cat to paw at."

Kara pulled back and smiled sexily. "That's because it was last month, Lee."

"I want to play again." Laura said.

"Nope, we can't." Lee told her, still gazing lustfully at Kara. "You have homework to do."

"I already did it." She replied.

Kara and Lee broke their gaze and turned to her. "Did you actually do it, or are you just telling us that you did so you can stay and play another round?"

Laura picked up her schoolbag and put it on the table. "I have it here. You can check it if you want."

"Yeah, why don't I do that?" Lee said as he got the homework out of the bag and set it in front of him. He studied it for about a minute and then shook his head in futility "This means absolutely nothing to me. I don't even know………………what subject is this?"

"Chemistry." Laura answered.

"They're teaching chemistry in the fifth grade?" Racetrack asked in disbelief.

"She's not in fifth anymore." Kara replied hesitantly. "They, um………..they moved her up to eighth grade two weeks ago."

"I studied chemistry in college." Geata interjected. "I could take a look at it if you want."

Lee handed the paper over to Geata, who examined it thoroughly. "Okay, Laura? This is wrong." He said pointing to an equation. "It's impossible."

She came over to stand beside his chair and looked at what he was pointing to. "Not if you do it as a triple covalent bond." She corrected.

"But the compound consists of two elements that are polar opposites in terms of electronegativity." Gaeta retorted. "They can't have a single covalent bond, let alone a triple."

"If you use the electron from here—." Laura said, taking a pencil and starting to draw. "You can use the reverse electron from its twin and then………….See? Like that." She finished her diagram and set the pencil down. "Just because it's never been proven in any practical way, that doesn't mean it's impossible."

Gaeta sat there in stunned silence for a moment, staring at what she had drawn. "That's actually really impressive, Laura." He then looked up at her. "Theoretically it's possible. But you're not following the set laws of chemistry, so I don't think your teacher will be as impressed." Gaeta then turned to Lee and Kara with a strange look on his face. "As a matter of fact, unless the teacher has a master's degree in chemistry……I doubt she'll even understand it."

Laura just shrugged and put her homework back in her bag. "Then that's her problem." She then looked at her parents. "So, since I've finished my homework, can we keep playing?"

Lee exhaled. "Sorry, but NO. We need to go eat dinner."

Kara settled up with Racetrack and then smiled at Laura. "What do you wanna have, little girl?"

"I was thinking we could have tarragon noodles."

"But you hate tarragon noodles." Kara said in surprise at the suggestion.

"I do." Laura confirmed. "But they're Dad's favorite, so I thought it would be nice if we had that for dinner—since he's had a bad day."

Kara looked at Lee with concern. "Did you have a bad day?"

"I did, actually." Lee replied wide-eyed, looking over at Laura. "How did you know that?"

"I heard some of the pilots talking." She answered. She then got an inquisitive look on her face. "Mama, what did Hotdog mean when he said that 'maybe if Starbuck got down on her knees more often, Apollo wouldn't be in such a bad mood all the time.'?"

The liquid that Kat had been drinking shot out of her nose, Racetrack was practically crying as she bit back a loud cackle, and Gaeta buried his head in his hands to hide his amused expression. Lee merely sat frozen in his chair with his mouth hanging open in shock.

Kara just closed her eyes and shook her head in insulted disbelief. "Praying." She choked out, clearing her throat. "He meant praying." She then stood up and gathered up Laura's things to make a hasty exit. "Let's go."

Lee got up from his chair and put his hand on Laura's shoulder, steering her to the hatch. But before he left the table, he looked to Racetrack and lowered his voice. "Tell Costanza I want to see him in my office first thing tomorrow."


When Petty Officer Dualla entered the Admiral's quarters, she had to smile at the familiar sight. Only a few lamps, including the one at the desk where the Admiral sat, were on, and the room was cast with a distinct orange glow. She let out a small laugh when she came closer and saw him deep in thought as he detailed a model wooden ship.

He looked up at her and gestured to the chair. "Have a seat, Dee."

"I'm either having extreme déjà vu, or you planned this; some sort of symbolic gesture?" She grinned as she sat in the chair beside the desk. "You asked to speak to me?"

"Yes." He smiled in return and then went back to brushing varnish on the delicate wood of the mast. "And if I was trying to be symbolic, it was a subconscious attempt. But—."

"But?"

"But it's fitting, you know?" He uttered quietly, setting down his brush. "The last time I spoke to you like this, you opened my eyes. You allowed me to see certain truths about the direction in which my family was headed. And you forced me to swallow my pride and lay open my heart……….so that I could set them back on the right path."

Her eyes glimmered with pride that he held such faith in her. "What's on your mind, sir?" Dee whispered.

Adama turned to look at her. "Laura." He answered simply.

She took in a deep breath. "I figured as much."

"I've been having dreams." He admitted, letting his eyelids drop. "And so have Lee and Kara."

"I know."

His eyes jerked up to hers. "They told you about them?"

"No." She let out the breath. "I've been having them too."

The Admiral did not seem shocked at her revelation. "Laura knows things, things that she shouldn't know." He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "Things that happened before she was born, or things that happened while she was alive; but happened to other people."

Dee only replied with one word. "Yes."

"It's not even like she knows these things through visions, or some sort of streaming psychic connection, she just—."

"Knows them." Dee finished. "The memories live inside her like they were hers."

Adama nodded. "At first I thought it was because of her Cylon half, that she was downloaded with some sort of—."

"She wasn't." Dee interjected, leaning over to place a hand on his arm. "It's not a software program. The memories, the knowledge that she has………….they're not Cylon memories or Cylon knowledge."

"It's all human." The Admiral agreed. "President Roslin, Colonel Tigh, Chief Tyrol, Lee, Kara, you, myself, Helo—."

"Everyone."

He put his glasses back on and smiled self-deprecatingly. "I was hoping you could now impart some of the wisdom that lit a fire under me before and got me on a Raptor to Kobol to put my family back together. Because the other woman I used to turn to for insight isn't here anymore to guide me, and I find myself quite lost."

Dualla then did something he found very strange; she laughed so hard that she placed a hand on her chest and doubled over in her seat. "I'm sorry, sir. I'm not laughing at you." She choked out. She took several calming gulps of air and finally could speak clearly. "It's just………I find myself lost 99.9 percent of my life, so I'm not really sure you should be speaking to me."

"Then maybe we could just be lost together." Adama answered seriously. "We could actually ask out loud……. some of the questions that we've only been asking in our heads."

Dualla sobered instantly, voicing a question of her own. "Like is there a balance?" She looked down to her hands where they rested in her lap. "There is where Laura is concerned." She answered her own question. "But it's a tentative one, because the line between human and Cylon was blurred beyond recognition when she was born."

"She is both." Adama agreed. "We would like to lie to ourselves that she is completely human, but all we have to do is look at the young woman she's become—and then realize that she's only been alive fifteen months—to see that she isn't."

"But that doesn't mean she's tainted, sir." She paused when she saw the anguished look flash across his face. "Neither one of her ancestors is completely good—but neither one is completely evil either." She thought for a good long moment, and her voice was quiet when she finally spoke. "It's true that the Cylons slaughtered an entire civilization, and that was wrong. But if we were to believe that children are punished for the sins of their fathers, then maybe the human race deserved to be wiped out for the things that we'd done. And personally, I'd rather not believe that."

"There is no black and white." Adama added, looking to her for assurance.

"But gray can be quite beautiful." She put her hand on his arm again. "I hate to point this out, but you haven't actually asked any questions yet. So I'll do it for us:" She closed her eyes. "How can we fight so hard for the continued existence of someone that was never supposed to have existed in the first place? Because she wasn't, Admiral; her father was human, but her mother was a machine. How can you get a child from that? That wasn't supposed to happen." Dee shook her head slightly. "How can Laura be sitting in front of us, smiling, laughing, and crying? How can we love her so much, even when we know what she is? And how are we supposed to help her when she begins to struggle to find the balance between human and machine……….. inside herself?"

"Those are the questions that I've been asking in my head." He confirmed sadly.

"But I think the most important question you've been asking yourself is: How can someone so blended………..be so pure?"

He placed his hand over hers where it rested on his arm, but he lowered his head and nodded.

"I don't know the answers to any of these questions, Admiral." Dee regretfully told him and smiled slightly when he looked to her eyes again. "So, I guess the only wisdom I can impart upon you is that……. maybe these questions are supposed to stay unanswered."


Kara sat in Doc Cottle's office in a detached trance, listening to the sound of her own breathing and the tapping of her finger against the arm of the chair. The only thing that brought her out of her inner thoughts was the creak of the door opening behind her. She smiled slightly as Cottle sat down at his desk, but he did not return the smile. She saw his apologetic eyes scan over her where she sat across from him.

"You're the one that wanted to run these tests, Doc. Not me." She said. "If it's bad news, just come right out and tell me."

He looked down at his desk to where he had laid his file. "I wanted to do the tests to see if anything has gotten better."

"But nothing has." It was a statement, not a question.

"No." He said almost inaudibly, before raising his voice again. "If anything, it's gotten worse. The one ovary that you have left is non-functioning, reproductive wise. It's still producing hormones, but none of the ova that we tested were viable." He took a deep breath. "The chances of you having a child are practically non-existent."

"I already have a child." She answered without hesitation.

"You've only had Laura for a little over fifteen months, and she already looks like a young teenager. She won't be a child for much longer."

Kara shook her head. "That doesn't matter." She replied, her eyes firm. "She's my child."

Cottle closed the file on his desk and leaned back in his chair. "You know, there are some who believe that raising and loving a child that wasn't born to you…….. isn't the same as raising and loving a child that was."

Kara nodded, closing her eyes. "They're right." She then smiled wistfully. "In some ways, it's better."


The first thing Tigh noticed as he walked down the corridor to the Admiral's quarters was one of Laura's guards standing outside the hatch. He nodded in greeting and the guard knocked for permission to let the Colonel in.

"Come in." Adama's voice shouted through the door.

Tigh opened the hatch and entered the room, smiling when he saw the Admiral sitting on one side of the desk and Laura on the other side. Both had pens in their hands, both were doing paperwork.

"Hello, Laura." Tigh said.

Laura looked up and smiled. "Hey, Colonel."

"What do you need, Saul?" Adama asked, looking up as well.

Tigh put down the folders on the desk. "These need your authorization. And Captain Watson in Navigation needs you to make a visual approval of the revamp they're doing on the old tracking computers."

"This is the revamp with the hardware from the Pegasus?" Adama inquired.

"Yep." Tigh smiled slightly. "Watson and the boys in Nav. know how you feel about computers, and they just want to make sure that you're onboard before they finish the project."

"Cause Grandpa doesn't like computers." Laura sang in a melodic voice.

"I'm fine with computers as long as they're not being used against us." Adama told her, before looking back to Tigh. "Can it wait? I need to stay with Laura for a couple more hours."

"Yeah, no big rush." Tigh replied. He then sat down in one of the chairs and affably turned to Laura. "Why are you bothering the Old Man?" He smirked. "Why aren't you in your quarters, little girl?"

Laura looked up from her homework and smirked back at him. "Do I still look like a little girl to you?" She teased.

Tigh made a show of examining her from the crown of her head to the tips of her feet. She didn't really; she looked more like a twelve year old. "No." He replied honestly.

"Then I really wish people would stop using that particular nickname." She chuckled. "I'm not in my quarters because Mom and Dad needed a few uninterrupted hours alone so that they could finally get those overdue training evals done."

Tigh's face jerked up to the Admiral at the comment. "What the hell? Starbuck and Apollo turned in those evals two days ago."

Laura's face grew puzzled and she also looked to her grandfather. "That's weird. Well, if they're not doing the evals in our quarters, what are they………………………?" She trailed off as she got a horror-stricken look on her face. "Ohhhh." She crinkled her nose and shook her head to get the thought out of her brain. "Okay, that was more than I needed to know."

Tigh chuckled. "You and me both, kid."

Adama chuckled slightly as well. He then looked at Laura. "Sweetheart, do you have that Navigation book that I lent to you? If I'm gonna go down there to approve the new equipment, I need a refresher course on all the techno-babble they're gonna be throwing at me."

Laura stood up from her chair and started to walk to the couch. "Yeah, I've got it right here in my bag. But do you think that you could get it back to me? 'Cause there's this really interesting chapter on……….."

Adama and Tigh heard her stop speaking, but she was already on the floor by the time they shot up from their chairs. The Admiral ran over to his violently trembling granddaughter and knelt beside her.

"Corporal!" Tigh shouted at the door, before kneeling on Laura's other side.

Corporal Townsend was in the room in less than two seconds..

"We've got to get her to sickbay." Adama rasped harshly. "This is a bad one. I'm afraid she's gonna hurt herself."

Townsend looked down and then straight at the Admiral. "They're getting worse."

The Admiral just gazed at Laura in fear. "I know."


Half an hour later, Kara and Lee sat in the sickbay waiting room, occasionally glancing over to where Cottle and Baltar were examining their daughter. The Admiral was not sitting. In fact, he had not stopped pacing since they had brought her in.

"I've never seen one like that before." Adama told them remorsefully. "I've seen her have three of them, and yet, I've never seen anything like that."

Kara nodded numbly. "The last one I she had when I was with her, it was so out of control………she was practically banging her head on the floor. I was terrified she was gonna break something."

"They're getting worse." Lee added, quoting Corporal Townsend's previous statement. The look he gave his father conveyed something deeper. "I'm afraid."

Adama nodded in sympathetic understanding.

Cottle and Baltar left Laura and Baltar went into the lab while Cottle came to stand before the Adamas.

"She has a nasty gash on the inside of her mouth from where she involuntarily bit herself." Cottle told them without preamble, because they'd been through this routine before. "I'm surprised she didn't bite her damn tongue off."

Lee took a deep breath and looked up at Cottle pleadingly. "Doc, she stopped shaking as soon as she got to sickbay and you gave her the medicine."

"Yes." Cottle answered quietly, knowing where this was going. "She did."

Lee looked back down to the floor. "We've got it worked down to where it only takes two minutes for her to get to sickbay, or to the medic station on the Greenleaf when she's at school." He exhaled. "But she can do a lot of damage to herself in those two minutes."

"I'll sign out some syringes to you." Cottle conceded, pointing to Lee and Kara. "You and Captain Thrace carry them at all times." He then pointed to the door that Corporal Townsend was on the other side of. "The guards, of course, will have to carry syringes too. And I'll give you a communal one that you can hand over to whoever watches her when you're not there."

Lee nodded. "Thank you, Doc."

"Yestradin is a highly potent tranquilizer." Cottle warned. "If I give these syringes to you, it has to be with the understanding that you will handle them the same way that a medical professional would; with the utmost caution and care."

"We understand what it means, Doc." Kara answered. "We're only asking so that we can keep her safe."

Cottle nodded sadly and went back to Laura, leaving the three of them alone.

"That's not the only reason." Lee whispered, careful not to look at Kara.

Kara jerked at the comment and her mouth fell open. "What do you mean?"

Adama finally came and sat at her other side. "He's right, Kara."

"I don't—." She stuttered.

"They're getting worse." Lee repeated. He then reached over to cup Kara's face. "And I know that Cottle and Baltar say that the seizures are caused by her rapid growth, and I know that that's definitely part of it……………but what if that's not all of it?"

Kara took in a harsh breath. "Meaning what?"

"Sharon—Boomer, the first Boomer, she shot herself not long before she shot Dad." Lee said, and then looked up to Adama's tortured face. "We all thought it was an accident. She told us that she was cleaning her gun and it went off, and we believed her…………. because she was Boomer; our Boomer. And we had no reason not to."

"But now you think there was something more to it." Kara finished for him sadly.

Adama placed a soothing hand on Kara's knee. "She was a sleeper agent. I now believe with every fiber of my being that she did not know what she was doing. That she did it because she had been activated by the Cylons."

"Boomer believed that she was human." Lee added. "She loved us. That was real to her, she wasn't pretending."

"Lee and I have been talking." Adama interjected. "Laura's seizures have been getting more frequent and more severe."

"And our greatest fear………." Lee whispered agonizingly. "Is that the Cylons may be trying to activate her. And the seizures are an effect of her subconscious trying to fight it."

Adama continued. "Just like Boomer was trying to fight it when she shot herself."

"Boomer wasn't successful in her fight, because she was ignorant of what she was—so was everyone else. But Laura knows what she is—and so do we." Lee comforted her. "We're not saying that she'd do what Boomer did."

"But we have to be prepared." Adama concluded. "If our worst fears are realized and she's forced to do something she doesn't want to do, we have to find a way to incapacitate her without hurting her."

Kara let a single tear fall down her cheek and chuckled remorsefully. "Enter the syringes filled with a knock-out drug."

Lee turned her to face him and pressed his forehead against hers. "I love you so much. I love her so much. And I will for the rest of my life."


"Hello, little Laura." Kara grinned as she walked through the door of the classroom on the Greenleaf a month later.

Laura looked over from her desk and quickly got up, walking to stand in front of her mother. "Mom, don't call me that in front of the other kids."

"I used to call you that in front of other kids all the time." Kara chuckled.

"Yeah, but that was months ago; when I was in elementary school." Laura whispered, looking back to the four other teenaged students in her group. "You can't do it now, it's embarrassing."

"Oh, okay." Kara said, giving a slight wave over to the desks. "I won't call you that anymore." She stuck out her tongue at her daughter. "I'll even call you Ms. Adama if that's what you want."

"You don't have to go quite that far." Laura chuckled. "What are you doing here?"

"I had a free hour, so I thought I'd pick you up today." Kara smiled.

"Great. I'll go get my stuff." Laura said, going back to her desk.

"Mrs. Adama?" A voice spoke from behind Kara.

Kara turned around to see one of Laura's teachers standing there. "Ms. Lucci, it's good to see you again."

"And you as well." Ms. Lucci responded hesitantly. "I'm glad you came here today. I've been meaning to get in touch with you to see if we could schedule a meeting to discuss some concerns that I have."

"Is Laura having problems in her classes?" Kara asked, the sudden concern making her whole body tense.

"No. Laura's been having some problems, but she's very smart." The teacher responded, exhaling loudly. "Actually, she may be smarter than I know how to deal with."

"I see." Kara whispered resignedly.

"You and your husband and I need to get together and talk about which direction we need take as far as Laura's education is concerned."

Kara just nodded numbly. "I'll talk to Lee; see what time would be best."

"I can pretty much work around any time you have open." Ms. Lucci smiled amicably.

The teacher started to walk back to the dispersing students, but Kara stopped her, pointing at one of the computers. "Ms. Lucci, is that computer hooked up to the encyclopedia database?"

"Yes, it is."

"Can I use it for a moment?" Kara asked, sitting down in front of it.

"Of course." Lucci said. "Take as much time as you need."

Kara typed something in and then sat back, waiting for the search engine to give its results. When it finally did, Kara was even more confused than she was before. "Huh. I guess I really am crazy."

"You probably are if you're talking to yourself, Mom." Laura laughed from behind her, her schoolbag in her hands.

Kara stood up from the chair. "You ready to go, Ms. Adama?"

Laura grinned and gestured to the computer. "What were you looking up?"

"Nothing I guess. Since it doesn't seem to know anything about what I was asking." Kara chuckled, scratching her nose.

They exited the room and the teacher came over to reset the computer back to the original screen, wiping out the response that Kara had seen:

No Result Found for the Entry: NEPTUNE


"Laura, you're walking too fast!" Lee shouted down the hall at his daughter when he noticed that Corporal Wilkes was practically running just to keep alongside of her. "LAURA!" Lee shouted again, his voice traveling the fifteen feet that separated him and Kara from their angry daughter. "Are you gonna listen to me?"

Laura opened the hatch of their quarters when she got to it and then slammed it shut behind her, practically on Corporal Wilkes face.

Kara and Lee came to the door and Lee smiled apologetically at the guard. "Sorry, Corporal."

"Pissed off teenagers are just a fact of life." Wilkes laughed in response.

"Yeah, that might be." Kara hissed as she opened the hatch again. "But I'm still not letting her get away with it."

Lee shut it behind them and looked around the living area; Laura wasn't on the couch or on her bed, so Lee figured she must be in their bedroom. "Laura, come out here, NOW!"

"No!" She shouted through the door.

"Laura Karla Adama, get back here! Your father and I are not done screaming at you yet!" Kara shouted back.

"FINE." Laura seethed as she came back in the room.

"Why didn't you tell us about this?" Kara demanded angrily, holding up a piece of paper. "What, you're getting failing grades now?"

"I didn't fail." Laura shouted back. "I did the assignment, and I did it better than anybody else in my group. The only reason I got a bad grade was because the teacher didn't even comprehend what I was trying to say. And I'm not gonna pretend that I'm as dumb as she is just so I can get good grades and fit in at that school!"

"Gods." Lee groaned, his eyes cast up to heavens as if asking for divine help. "Don't call your teacher dumb! Your mother and I can't keep up with most of the things you're interested in learning about……..are we dumb too?"

"I didn't say that!" Laura screamed back. "But at least you guys don't treat me like I'm weird when I know more about something than you do."

"What is going on with you lately, huh?" Kara yelled. But it was concern, not anger, which resonated most in her voice. "You're having trouble at school, you've stopped doing things with Ethan and Charlotte, and you've been stomping around here for days pitching a hissy fit because you say your clothes don't fit you anymore."

"My clothes DON'T fit me anymore." Laura screamed.

"So we'll get you new ones, like we have every other time you've grown out of them!" Lee responded, his voice cracking with exasperation. "That does not give you the right to act like this."

Laura just petulantly crossed her arms in front of her chest. "I'm not going back to school."

"Yes, you are." Kara responded firmly.

"Why?" Laura yelled.

"Because I'm your mother and I said so!" Kara yelled back. "You used to like school."

"I don't anymore." Laura whispered; the sadness echoing in her voice as her blue eyes started to moisten.

Kara calmed when she saw her daughter's pain. "Why not?"

"I don't fit in there." She cried, walking over to her bed.

"Are the other students being mean to you?" Lee asked quietly, his heart breaking.

"No, it's not that." Laura sank down and took her Aerilon Chiefs bear in her arms. "It's just………I don't know where I belong. And they don't know where I belong either. They keep moving me up to a higher group, and I don't even have time to make friends before they move me to the next one. And Ethan and Charlotte are still in the other room with the other teacher."

"Laura, honey." Kara began, sitting on the bed next to her daughter. "We can't just give up—."

"I'm basically doing what I was doing before I went to school, except now I feel like everybody's looking at me weird." Laura gazed over at her desperately. "The stuff they're teaching…….I'm already way past it, so I'm just sitting off in a corner reading books while the other kids are trying to learn the stuff that I already know." A tear fell down her cheek. "So why can't I just stay at home and do that?"

Lee walked over to stand by the bed and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "I know it's hard, but we just need to hold out—."

"NO!" Laura shouted, bolting from the bed and going into the bathroom. "I'm not going back." She slammed the door behind her. "And you can't make me!"

Lee just walked over to the door and knocked gently. "Laura?" He pleaded. "Please come out."

"Just give her time to cool off, Lee." Kara told him softly. "At least that will give us time to think."


When Lee walked into their bedroom at the end of that night, Kara was still wearing her dress uniform, sitting at the head of their bed and hugging her knees to her chest.

Lee shut the door behind him and leaned against it. "She's asleep now. She just faced the wall and curled up, she wouldn't even say good night."

"She's miserable, Lee." Kara whispered, looking down at the bed.

"She's on the cusp of being a teenager." Lee said as he came and sat at the foot of the bed. "Aren't most teenagers miserable at some point or another?"

"But she's miserable for a very specific reason." Kara caught his eyes. "And it's something that we can fix."

He moved up the bed and flopped on his back beside her. "She's not going back to school, is she?"

Kara shook her head. "She's right, Lee. We've known it for weeks now, we just didn't want to admit it. Not only is she just as bored as before, but she feels like a freak—which is something that we've always gone to great lengths to keep her from feeling." Kara's voice trembled as she traced a circle on her knee. "You were right. It was a bad idea."

Lee sat up on his elbows and gently took her hand. "I didn't want to be right. I wanted this to work out for her." He kissed her fingers. "And you were right; for seven months it was a good idea. It's just……….things changed."

"She still has to learn; otherwise she'll just go crazy. She can't seem to stop asking questions." Kara laughed thoughtfully. "And most times they're questions that we can't answer."

"We answer them." Lee also laughed, lying back down and covering his face with his arm. "It's just that most of our answers consist of the words 'I don't know'."

"And she can't just learn from books, she has to have guidance. She has to learn from someone who's smart enough to teach her."

"But who?" He dropped his arm and looked up at her. "There aren't many people left in the world who can teach at her level."

"Hell, Lee, there weren't too many people before who could teach at her level." She replied, looking back down at him. "But there is someone who could do it. Someone who has a classroom of sorts…………it's even on this ship."

Lee shot up in bed all the way. "Kara………"

"I know." She shook her head dryly. "I can't believe I'm suggesting it either. But who else is gonna do it, Lee?"

"You wanna let that man teach our daughter?"

"Laura knows him from all the help he's given her with her seizures. He's not that bad."

"You called him an over-sexed, over-arrogant, egomaniacal, frakwit." Lee responded.

"Well, everybody has a nickname." She responded sarcastically.

"We put Zarek in office to keep her away from Baltar." Lee pointed out. "ZAREK, Kara. That's how desperate we were to keep Baltar from having control over her life."

"He'll be teaching her for seven and a half hours a week." She assured him. "That's hardly giving him control over her life. And she'll be studying with him in his lab, not being studied by him in it."

"Yeah, it's just—." He laid back down in exhaustion.

"Laura's got a good heart. We raised her to have a good heart." She chucked wistfully. "Or maybe we had nothing to do with it; maybe she was just destined to be that way, I don't know. But whatever caused it, it's there, inside of her. That's the part of her that will guide her through her life. And Gaius Baltar teaching her about chemistry and astrophysics and………what is that subject she was asking about a couple days ago? The one about heat energy?"

"Thermodynamics."

"………….won't change that part of her." Kara finished as she laid back, propped up on her elbow so she could look down at him. She traced her fingers across his chest. "What she'll learn from Baltar won't change her heart."

His right hand found its way to the buttons of her top and began to undo them. "I can't believe I'm actually considering this." He leaned up to kiss her collarbone and took out her ponytail, letting his left hand tangle in her hair.

She pulled back and started to undo his belt as he eased her shirt off of her. "You'll just have to consider it one of those 'leaps of faith' that we're so experienced at." She whispered into his ear before placing a kiss on the skin beneath it.

"I have some concerns. Some demands to make of Dr. Baltar." He ran his hand from her shoulder down to her hip.

She eased him back down to the bed and laid her body on top of his. "Of course you do." She chuckled as she kissed him, letting her tongue tease his bottom lip. "You wouldn't be the man I love it you didn't."


"Captain Thrace." Baltar uttered in shock when he looked up to see Kara walking into his lab. "To what do I owe this honor?"

Kara walked past the counters that held the lab's equipment, gently drifting her fingers over all of it. "I just wanted to see where my daughter would be coming to learn an hour and half each weekday."

"You've seen it before." He smiled suggestively. "Is there anything specific you'd like to see?"

"Careful." Both Kara and Six warned at the same time.

"Of course." He stuttered, running his hands through his hair. "I know how that must've sounded. But I assure you, I did not mean anything inappropriate by it."

"Of course you didn't, Gaius." Six purred sarcastically, coming to stand beside him. She looked at Kara. "So this is our child's human mother. One of the ones God has chosen to guide her through her formative years." She managed to say with only slight disdain. "I have no doubt that she loves our daughter. But really, how deep can human love run?"

"I don't like you. Never have, never will." Kara told Baltar harshly. "But I'm willing to set that aside if it means that it helps Laura."

"I guess we're about to find out how deep." Six said, walking over to the other side of the table to examine Kara. "Let's see how far she's willing to go for the love of a child, Gaius."

"I too, only wish to help Laura." Baltar answered. "I know how it feels to be held back; to not have certain people understand the potential that runs through you."

"That's it, darling." Six urged. "Now tell her what she wants to hear."

Baltar took on false humility. "It's admirable that you and Captain Adama are willing to set aside your reservations about me…………..if it means that Laura will benefit from the knowledge I carry. You must love her deeply."

"We do love her." Kara stated firmly, the edge in her voice almost sharp enough to cut glass. "So much so that if we find out you've done anything harmful to her—we'd be quite willing to watch you suffer."

"I'm perfectly aware of the vengeance that parents are willing to exact upon the people who cause their children harm." Baltar smiled; more at the sexy blonde standing next to Kara, than at Kara. "But I assure you, I'm not one of those people."

"That's good to hear." Kara and Six again replied simultaneously.

"And I also assure you that I will follow the guidelines that your husband has set in terms of Laura's education." Baltar nodded. "He has ordered me to not impart upon her …….any knowledge that I have about Cylon nature. I intend to follow that order."

"Yes." Kara answered softly, shifting her eyes away from his to look at a random spot on the wall. "Except……………I don't want you to follow it."

"Excuse me?" Baltar asked in surprise.

"Play your cards right, Gaius, and you may get everything that we want handed to you on a silver platter." Six stated, studying Kara thoroughly.

"I want you to teach her about who she is." Kara whispered, agonized that the words were coming from her mouth. "Laura's half-Cylon. She is what she is, and I don't think that she should have to hide it or be ignorant of what it means." She looked back to him. "The one person that could best tell her about her Cylon half, died bringing her into the world. So I'm just gonna have to settle for the second best."

"Captain Adama won't like this." Baltar warned.

"He won't know about it. He wouldn't understand, the only experience he's ever had with Cylons has been superficial, 'they're evil and that's all there is to it'. My experiences show me that everything goes deeper." Kara informed him. "You and Laura and I will have to keep this a secret from everyone. I will have to deceive the man I love most in the world." Her eyes filled with tears and she bit her lip. "That will have to be my burden. That is how far I'm willing to go for the love of my child."

"That's almost miraculously beautiful." Six smiled appreciatively. "Maybe they're worthy of the task that God had given them after all."

"Laura needs to know who she is. She needs to understand the other part of her." Kara told him with conviction. "So that she can rise above it, cast it aside and never look back. So that she can fully accept the better half of her."

Baltar nodded. "You want me to help her come to terms with what she is?"

"Yes." Kara admitted, cradling her forehead in her palm before looking back to him. "Will you do that, Doctor?"

Baltar smiled in acceptance, his eyes pointed at the space next to Kara. "Since that seems to be the task I'm being given."

Six looked at him in total worship. "Didn't I tell you, Gaius? How could you have ever questioned the will of God? The melody is playing out as if he was conducting the symphony with his own hands."

TBC