A.N.-For continuity, even though this is now A.U. I am using Sharon's new callsign of Athena to avoid confusion.

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Six Months Later

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"Get that freak away from me!"

"How can you say that about your own daughter?"

Kara looked at Leobon out of the corner of her eye, gritting her teeth. "She's not my daughter. She's not even real. You're not real. NONE OF THIS IS REAL!"

Before Leobon knew what was happening,Kara jumped from her seat, throwing the startled man back and straddling him. Holding him down with her legs, she wrapped her hands around his throat, choking the life from him.

Suddenly she felt a sharp pain at her neck and she was thrown back.

----

The sounds of screaming filled the small jail like cell, as bodies hovered around the body strapped to the table.

"What's happening?" Sharon had a hard time keeping her face emotionless. She might be a cylon, but Starbuck had been her friend for over four years, or at least another version of herself, and the sound of her screams were downright chilling.

"She's fighting the hallucination. She's starting to catch on," the "doctor" explained. "Her mind is resisting the conditioning. She still refuses to accept that Kacey is her daughter."

"So what happens next?"

"If she doesn't improve in the next week, we go to plan B."

Plan B.

Kill her. Sharon briefly closed her eyes. They had to get her out of here.

----

"Sir."

Lee turned to the source of the voice, barely holding in a groan. Ever since their divorce had been finalized last month, Dee had been out for blood. "Yes Petty Officer?"

"The Admiral wants you in his office, sir," she said, with as much contempt in her voice as possible.

Lee heaved a sigh. At first he'd hoped that they would part amicably. She seemed to understand and agree with his reasoning. They never should've been married. They were both using each other to get over other people, and you couldn't build a marriage based on that. She had claimed she agreed with all of his points.

Then one day she turned around and decided to exact vengeance. He'd never understand women. At least she hadn't started another fight in the middle of the walkway again.

----

"You wanted to see me, sir?" Lee asked as he walked into his father's quarters.

"Yes. Take a seat, son," Adama replied, leading his son to the couch. "I just wanted to see how you were holding up."

Lee looked at his father. Really looked at him. He didn't like what he found. Ever since the rescue of the people of New Caprica, his father had seemed to age ten years. The loss of so many people, the constant need to be on your guard, was starting to wear at him.

Not to mention Kara. His father never spoke of her, but he knew how heavily she weighed on his mind. How he regretted leaving things with her. He knew, because he felt the same way.

Lee opened his mouth to reply to his father when Helo walked in.

"Sir, I'm sorry to interrupt, but Athena and Racetrack say that they found an abandoned Raptor on their rounds. There doesn't appear to be anyone in it, and it looks like one of ours."

The Admiral turned to Helo, mistrust and a bone-weariness in his eyes. "I want a full team out there to surround it while it's being brought in. I won't take any chances."

"Yes, sir."

----

Everyone waited with bated breath as the ship was opened. Tyrol, gun in hand, poked his head through. For a couple of second he was still, before he let out a string of curses, and came back out.

"We need a frakkin' medic. NOW!"

Lee's heart nearly stopped. It couldn't be. Could it? He had no real reason to believe it was her, except that it could be. But if it was her, that brought up so many questions. Why would they have left her in there? Did they let her go for some reason? Did she escape or was she released? Was she even the same person anymore?

There was no reason to believe that the person inside the raptor was her, except there appeared to be no better explanation for the feeling that had been growing in his gut ever since word of the unmarked raptor had reached his ear.

Focusing back on the events unfolding in front of him, Lee watched as Tyrol once again went inside the ship, slowly coming out a few second later carrying something in his arms.

The air in his lungs seemed to leave him in a great breath as the figure in Tyrol's arms was laid gently on the ground.

Her face was obscured by hair matted with blood, her arms and legs were covered in bruises, cuts, scrapes, burn marks, anything else that one could thing of, and one arm was hanging at an odd angle as if dislocated and broken.

As the medics finally arrived and knelt down next to the figure, one of them brushed her hair aside, and her face was finally revealed.

One eye was completely swollen shut, her lip was cut, and she had blood running down her face, but there was no mistaking her.

And as Lee Adama stared at the broken face of Kara Thrace, something inside of him broke as well.

----

For days afterwards, all that was spoken of were the occurings aboard the Battlestar Galactica's Port Hanger. From the arrival of the long-thought-dead Kara Thrace, to the reaction of the normally stoic Commander Adama. The condition of the Lieutenant was horrific, to be sure, but no one could seem to stop talking or speculating about the reaction of Apollo.

They said that the cries were heard at the other end of the ship.

They said that he collapsed right in front of the crew. Curled up into a little ball.

They said that the wails that escaped from his mouth were some of the most disturbing noises they would ever hear in their life.