All of this has happened before.

Those words repeated endlessly inside Kara's head. The walls of the brig were rough and rusted, and not very comfortable, but she payed the sharp bolt digging into her back no mind. There were far more important things to figure out after all.

Like how she had the memories of two full lifetimes inside her head.

Kara Thrace and Kara Shepard.

Both human women, both soldiers. But it seemed that was where the similarities ended. Kara Thrace was born on Caprica, the richest of twelve colony worlds, with no knowledge of aliens. The twelve colonies were destroyed due to the creation of artificial intelligence, the Cylons. Kara Shepard was born on Mindoir, the Systems Alliance made the twelve colonies look backwater. Aliens, instantaneous travel across the entire galaxy, and a race of sentient machines hell-bent on culling all intelligent life from the galaxy where reality.

"Kara..."

She was pulled from her thoughts at the questioning voice. Looking up, she found a tall man standing in the cell. Surprised, Kara scrambled to her feet. She hadn't heard anyone enter.

The man was looking at her with an odd look of confusion, anxiousness, fear, and... hope. His name flashed through Kara's mind, and with it, a feeling of dread.

Samuel T. Anders. Kara Thrace's husband.

It was at that exact moment that Kara discovered that she was completely Shepard. Thrace was just memories. She only felt a desire to find a way to return to Liara. Sam held absolutely no interest for her, except maybe as a means to get back to her fiance.

"Sam." Crossing her arms over her chest, she shuffled uncomfortably. "I..."

Sam's eyes lit up as she said his name and stepped forward, his arms out like he was going to embrace her. "Kara!"

"Whoa!" Holding up her hands, Kara stepped back, feeling incredibly uncomfortable about the situation. "Look... Sam. It's... It's... It's not what you think."

Saying that, Kara realized she had broken the silence that she had planned on keeping until she could find a way to escape. Standard operating procedure would be to only reveal her name, rank, and service number. That was becoming less and less of an option as the situation continued.

And what the hell! She was a Council Spectre. If anyone was suited for a contact situation like this, it would be her.

"Kara, what are you talking about?" He looked at her odd. Like he didn't know what the hell she was talking about. Which, he probably didn't. "My wife just came back from the frakking dead! This is the best day of my life!"

Kara winced. "Look, Sam..." This was going to be hard to explain. She suddenly wished that she was facing a Reaper on foot, with a pistol, instead of having to explain this to Sam. "You should get the Admiral and the President. I don't want to explain this more than once."

Sam stared at her for a moment before he nodded. The door opened and he stepped out before the door slammed shut again, leaving Kara alone with her thoughts once more.

This meeting was going to suck.

#

By Kara's reckoning, about an hour later, Galactica's marines entered her cell and escorted her to the Admiral's quarters. The trek through the halls was strange. It was filled with faces that filled her memories, Tyrol, Cally, Dee, Hotdog. It felt strange that she felt no personal connection to any of them.

Her escort opened the Admiral's door and ushered her inside before shutting the door back behind her. They took up guard position outside.

Inside, she found the most powerful men and women in the fleet waiting for her. Admiral Adama, Colonel Tigh, and Major Adama stood waiting for her. On the small couch, President Roslin and her aide, Tory Foster sat staring at her icily. Sam stood leaning against the wall, looking incredibly confused. Dr. Cottle just smoked uncaring on what looked like a stump of a cigarette.

"You wanted to speak to us?" Roslin was the first to speak. Her gaze seemed to bare into Kara's soul and it would have made a lesser person flinch.

Luckily, Kara was not a lesser person. She had hung up on the most powerful people in the galaxy, multiple times. A school-teacher turned president, she just couldn't measure up to people who controlled over hundreds of billions of sentient beings, with militaries that would chew the colonial fleet to pieces, before the cylon invasion of course.

Nodding to President Roslin, Kara fell into parade rest. "I do, yes." She paused, unsure where to begin. Roslin shot Adama a look that Kara couldn't quite decipher.

She decided to start with the most obvious thing. "I am not Kara Thrace."

A chorus of protest met her simple sentence. Kara waited for them to quiet down before speaking again.

"I am not Kara Thrace," she reiterated, noticing that Sam seemed to want to protest again. "My name is Commander Kara Shepard. I was born on the planet Mindoir and I am a commander in the Systems Alliance marines."

"Kara, what the frak are you talking about?" Sam wasn't able to stay quiet, and he looked at her like she had grown another head. "You're not making any sense!"

Kara took a deep breath before turning to look at Sam. "None of this makes sense, but I know for a fact that I am not Kara Thrace." She let out a quiet sigh, wishing that someone, somewhere, had had the foresight to train her for a situation like this. First contact was the only thing that came to mind and that didn't really work. "President Roslin, as a right-hand of the Council, I am within my rights to grant this fleet asylum from cylons. I can help the fleet get to Earth.

Roslin shakily pulled off her glasses. "Earth." The president said word reverently. "You know where it is?"

"Yes, ma'am." Kara nodded.

The President was silent for a moment, looking incredibly torn, before her face hardened and she made up her mind. "How do I know you are telling the truth? You look a lot like Kara Thrace to me, how do I know you weren't brainwashed by the cylons to lead us astray?"

Kara wanted to groan. Politicians always needed the truth fucking laid out for them step by step. "Ma'am, you have no reason to trust me. For all you know, I could just be crazy. I could be Kara Thrace, brainwashed by the cylons... but I'm not."

"What is this council that you keeping referring to?" Adama spoke up, his expression hard to read.

THIS was a question Kara was more qualified to answer. "The Council is the governing body of the Citadel, the political, cultural, and financial capital of the galactic community. The Council is comprised of a single representative from the Asari Republics, the Turian Hierarchy, the Salarian Union, and the Systems Alliance. They have no official power of the individual governments, but the Council's decisions carry tremendous weight. I am a Citadel Spectre, right hand of the council. I can speak on their behalf in this situation."

"This situation?" Roslin was still eying Kara warily.

"First contact," Kara simply stated.

The room fell dead silent and everyone stopped moving.

Adama blinked. First contact... everyone enlisted in the Colonial Fleet knew what First Contact meant. The galaxy was a large place, and the fleets had only begun to explore the outer limits of the solar system before the Cylon's attacked. But this... no one expected to ever actually have to use the F.C. Guidelines.

"First Contact," Roslin stood up, walking to stand toe to toe with Kara. She had a smug smile on her face, "But you're human. How can this be a first contact situation?"

"I am human," Kara began. "But the Citadel only recognizes the Systems Alliance as humanities government. They have no knowledge of the Colonies, or Kobol, or even the Colonial Fleet. This is very much a First Contact situation."

"President Roslin, Admiral Adama," Kara continued, straightening up, "As of today, The Citadel Council offer asylum to the Colonial Fleet from the Cylons."

"I'm going to need some proof before I even begin to entertain this..." Adama waved his hand in the air, "fairy-tale."

Raising her arm, Kara activated her omni-tool, startling the men and women in the room. With a quickness that came from years of practice, she projected a hologram of the Citadel. "This is the Citadel. It was built so long ago that no one even remembers the name of the race that constructed it. It is 44 kilometers long, with a population of 13.2 million. Last time that I checked, it was parked in orbit above Earth."

She began typing again, "For the past year, the galaxy has been teetering on the edge of a sword. Your fleet must have been small enough to avoid attention, but the rest of us have been on the edge of extinction." With a flourish, she brought up her suit recordings from Virmire.

The most powerful men and women in the fleet could only watch, astounded. Obviously recorded with a helmet cam, the video showed a large walkway. What looked like a massive hologram of a cuttlefish appeared before the end of the walkway.

"You are not Saren." The voice boomed from an unknown source.

Kara flinched at the horrifying voice of Sovereign, but she didn't stop playing.

"What is that, some kind of VI interface?" A heavily accented female voice said from off the screen. Admiral Adama couldn't help but think that she sounded sagittaron.

"Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh, you touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding," The massive voice continued, and everyone in the room shifted uncomfortably. There was just something... evil, about it. Terrifying, the thing of nightmares.

"I do not think this is a VI," another female voice asked from off-screen, softer and smoother.

"There is a realm of existence so far beyond your own you cannot even imagine it. I am beyond your comprehension. I am Sovereign."

"Sovereign isn't just some Reaper ship Saren found. It's an actual Reaper!" Everyone in the room recognized Kara as she spoke in the video.

"Reaper. A label created by the Protheans to give voice to their destruction. In the end, what they choose to call us is insignificant. We simply are." Sovereign continued, his voice seeming to seep from the video, ringing from the very bulkheads of Adama's quarters.

"The Protheans vanished fifty-thousand years ago. You could not have been there. That's impossible!" The softer voice spoke again and Sam watched as Kara smiled at its sound. Sam felt a sinking feeling in his stomach.

"Organic life is nothing but a mutation. An accident. Your lives are measured in years, and decades. You wither and die. We are eternal. The pinnacle of evolution and existence. Before us, you are nothing. Your extinction is inevitable. We are the end of everything." The bulkheads rumbled, the voice of Sovereign becoming a presence.

"There is an entire galaxy of races united and ready to face you!" A hand cut enthusiastically across the screen, making a point.

"Confidence born of ignorance. The cycle cannot be broken." The air grew thicker in the room, darker. Sovereign reaching out from beyond the grave.

"Cycle? What cycle?" The accented woman again. She sounded young. Barely beyond a child.

"The pattern has repeated itself more times than you can fathom. Organic civilizations rise, evolve, advance. And at the apex of their glory, they are extinguished. The Protheans were not the first. They did not create the Citadel. They did not forge the Mass Relays. They merely found them, the legacy of my kind."

"Why would you construct the Mass Relays and then leave them for someone else to find?" The video moved closer to the massive hologram.

"Your civilization is based on the technology of the Mass Relays, our technology. By using it, your society develops along paths we desire. We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it. And you will end, because we demand it."

"They are harvesting us! Letting us advance to level that they need, then wiping us out!" The soft voice spoke again.

"Where did you come from? Who built you?" Kara's voice was angry.

"We have no beginning. We have no end. We are infinite. Millions of years after your civilization has been eradicated and forgotten, we will endure." Sovereign ignored Kara's anger.

"What do you want from us? Slaves? Resources?" Kara was shouting now, the helmet cam shaking as she pointed at the hologram.

"My kind transcends your very understanding. We are each a nation. Independent, free of all weakness. You cannot even grasp the nature of our existence."

Roslin watched the video flabbergasted. If this was real... how could the cylons be a threat compared to this? Whatever this was. She could practically hear malevolence rolling off Sovereign. The cylons just couldn't compare.

"Where are the rest of the Reapers? Are you the last of your kind?" Kara spoke again, trying to get any last bit of information that she could.

"We are legion. The time of our return is coming. Our numbers will darken the sky of every world. You cannot escape your doom." Sovereign seemed to loom over everything, a deep menacing presence, even through video, suffocating everyone in the room.

"You're not alive. Not really. You're just a machine. And machines can be broken!" Kara was insistent, a tone of protest in her voice.

"Your words are as empty as your future. I am the vanguard of your destruction. This exchange is over." With a crash, the hologram of Sovereign disappeared.

Kara shut off the video projection, letting the room stew in silence for several moments.

"Three years ago," she spoke softly. "A rogue Spectre named Saren was indoctrinated by what the galaxy later learned to be Reapers, ancient sentient machines that obliterate all civilized life every fifty-thousand years. That was the vanguard of the Reaper invasion, Sovereign. He attacked the Citadel, and it took the combined power of the Citadel Defense Fleet and the Systems Alliance Fifth Fleet to take him down. That was just one Reaper."

Kara stopped, silent, waiting for any questions. There were none. Adama and Roslin were contemplative and the rest were deferring to their superiors.

"The Reapers invaded a year ago," Kara continued, projecting ship cameras of battles against the Reaper. "We were losing ground on every front. For every Reaper we destroyed, we lost more men and ships than we could spare."

Kara projected an image of Earth as the Normandy came through the Mass Relay with the rest of the fleet. "Earth was the first planet hit, and it is where the galaxy made its final stand. We won, but we took many losses. I have to get back to Earth."

Roslin and Adama looked at each other for several long moments, communicating silently. Adama nodded and Roslin stood. Turning to Kara, she took a deep breath. "We are going to have to think over what you have told us."

The guards entered the room and escorted Kara out. The door swung shut, leaving them only with their thoughts. Kara found herself back in the brig. At least this time around, they brought her something to eat.

#

The room was silent for several long moments. Sam looked shell-shocked. Lee was impossible to read. Roslin paced back and forth, while Adama poured himself a glass of Ambrosia. If any situation warranted dipping into his dwindling supply, this was it. He gulped it down quickly. Colonel Tigh looked like he wanted to laugh and Doc Cottle just puffed on his cigarette.

"What the frak was that?" Lee was the first to speak.

No one answered.

"Are we going to take her seriously? That was Kara Thrace!" Lee gestured wildly with his hands. "She's crazy! Obviously the cylons are behind all of this. They brainwashed her or something, like they did with Sharon."

"Hey!" Sam shouted indignantly. "That's my wife your talking about. She's been held captive by the Cylons before. If they didn't break her before, they wouldn't be able to do it now! And how could the cylons have had her when you saw her die?"

Lee frowned at that. "Then how could she have come back? Did she really die, Sam? The cylons can trick us!"

"I'm with Lee on this one." Tigh spoke up, his gruff voice full of suspicion. "This is some sort of cylon trick."

"Keep this to yourself. If I hear that any of you have been talking..." Adama let what would happen go unsaid. "Leave us."

There was a pause before everyone began to leave the room. Roslin stayed sitting on the couch.

The bulkhead slammed shut with a bang.

Adama poured another glass of ambrosia, handing it Roslin, who took it gratefully. Adama sunk down onto the couch next to her as she emptied the glass. "Gods! I needed that."

With a dry chuckle, Adama leaned back, shutting his eyes. "I don't know about you, but that certainly was not what I was expecting."

Roslin nodded, "Do you believe her?"

The Admiral was still for several long moments, before, to Roslin's surprise, he nodded. "I do. Call me crazy, but I do."

"What?" He flabbergasted expression was enough to make Adama laugh.

"I trust Cottle," he began his explanation. "He has been around Cylons, hell, he even worked as a doctor for them on New Caprica. If he says that the cylons have nothing to do with this, then I believe him." He poured another glass of Ambrosia, draining it down. "Then there's the footage. I have seen faked footage... that was not it. It was to real. The emotions on Kara's face, you can't fake that type of reaction."

"But its so..." Roslin gestured with her hand, searching for the right word.

"Fanciful?" Adama smiled. "It is, but it is so far beyond anything that we imagined waiting for us..." He laughed again. "I can't help but think that she is telling the truth."

AN: Unbeta'd