"Come on Kara, how long are you gonna keep this up?" Sam asked piteously. Ever since that day Sharon had shown up in their tent and he'd admitted to accepting her help, his wife had barely spoken to him. The first few days of it he'd almost enjoyed the silence, he'd been expecting a much different, much louder reaction from her. But as the days wore on, and the silence became a little more than he could bear, he longed for her to pick a fight or scream at him. At least then he'd be able to find out what she was thinking. A silent Kara was a frightening Kara.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she muttered, not even sparing him a glance as she washed the grime from the day's work from her hands. The two of them, along with the majority of able bodied adults on New Caprica, had been conscripted to work on building a new city for the Cylons, something they deemed worthy of their residence.

"Don't give me that. You're still pissed off about the Sharon thing. Why don't you just admit it and we can talk about it?"

"Please. Sharon is the last person on my mind right now, unless you want to include the way her holier than thouslave-driver selves have been out there in force kickin' our asses to get their frackin' city built."

"Different Sharons, but still irritating I'll grant you," he said with a mirthless grin on his face, trying his best to make light of their situation. She just ignored him, continuing to wash and rewash her already clean hands. He tried again, "Are we going to the meeting tonight?"

"I am, but I wasn'tsure if you had your Cylon bitch's permission to go," she grunted.

"I knew this was about Sharon," he sighed. "You're making more out of this than you should, she was just helping me."

"Out of the goodness of her heart I suppose."

"Yeah, I guess you could say that."

"She's a Cylon; she probably doesn't have a heart."

"I wouldn't know, Kara, I'm not exactly an expert on Cylon anatomy. That'd be more the Doc's specialty."

"You know what I mean Sam. Any time a Cylon offers to help a human you gotta ask yourself what it expects in return," she replied bitterly.

"I got the impression that some of them like our Sharon aren't real happy about the broken armistice."

"Armistice? There was never any armistice, Sam. All we had to go on was a crazy old man declaring that the Cylons had decided we could live in peace together. Only it was a Cylon speaking, and we were dumb enough to buy into his lie."

"We don't know for sure he was lying. If he was part of Sharon's group, then maybe he really meant what he said. If she's willing to help, and that blondethat's beenbabysitting the President is willing to help, they can't all be bad," Sam reasoned. Kara was silent, his words slowly ruminating through her mind.

"If it isn't the old man himself, I feel so honored. You must be feeling pretty desperate if you're here talking to me personally…….and without your Marine bodyguards in tow," Sharon sneered as soon as the door closed behind the Admiral. He watched her stoically for just long enough to make her wonder if he would speak at all orif he just planned to stand there and watch her all day.

"I didn't come here to trade insults with you, Sharon."

It was the first time he'd addressed her by the human name since before finding New Caprica. She had always been known as 'that thing' in his eyes. She couldn't blame him; not really, it was a typical ploy of humans to try to dehumanize their prisoners. It made it easier on their consciences for them to treat their prisoners like little more than animals in cages. In her case though, she didn't need that little extra something to dehumanize her, she already knew she wasn't human. And she'd long given up on trying to make them forget she was anything but what she appeared, a bitter Cylon captive. From the day they'd killed her daughter she'd stopped trying.

"Then I guess this is a waste of both our time, unless you're going to tell me why you put a stop to Helo's visits."

"I didn't stop anything, if Captain Agathon isn't visiting you it's of his own choice."

She sat down on her cot, her back ramrod stiff and turned away from the old man, digesting the information. He could be lying to her, but she didn't think so. His words just reinforced that Marine's less than flattering statement that Helo had gotten tired of his Cylon bitch. It was the first time she'd allowed herself to believe that those words could be true, that he really had given up on her. In all her anger, she'd just taken his visits and words of love for granted, and now it was coming back to bite her in the ass. For the first time since she'd been imprisoned, she truly felt alone.

"So if you're not here to gloat, then what are you here for?" she asked, a touch of hostility still audible in her voice.

"I came here to make a deal with you," the Admiral said softly.

She turned, meeting his eyes as she scoffed, "What could you have that I could possibly want?"

"The Cylons have captured the majority of my people; I need your help to get them back. You have information somewhere in your memory that I might be able to use to sneak in through the back door and get my people back."

"I've been locked up in this cage ever since I set foot on the Galactica, what could I possibly know about the occupying force?"

"You wouldn't know the specifics of course, but they're still your people. You should be able to give me at least a rough idea of the average troop levels per basestar, how many Raiders, centurions, the works. You can also give me information about those resurrection ships."

She laughed. "You're joking right? Even if I do know any of that, and I'm not saying I do or don't, why would I do anything to help you?"

"Because I have information that you want, and I'm willing to make you a deal."

"Really?" she laughed again bitterly. "Surprise me. Besides my freedom and the death of all humans what could you possibly have that I would want?"

He stepped closer, sitting in the chair located beside her cot and meeting her eyes. "I have information about your daughter."

"My daughter's dead. Your kind killed her," Sharon gritted out between tightly clenched teeth. Her anger was so powerful that sitting as closely to her as he was, it was nearly palpable.

"No, Sharon. She's not dead. She's alive, and I know where she is."

"Do you ever regret ending things with Dee?" Helo's voice came over the radio, catching Lee off guard.

"Helo I really don't think….."

"Yeah, I know, we're on patrol," Helo cut in. "But all the quiet, all this empty space, it's starting to get to me a little, so I figured it would be as good a time as any for us to talk."

"Talking is one thing, but what's with the question about Dee?"

"I just get the impression that she still loves you."

Lee didn't know how to respond. He knew Dee had never been happy with how he'd ended things between them. Citing fraternization among officers serving aboard the same vessel as one of his reasons probably hadn't been the one of his finer courses of action, but it served its purpose. It had been enough to put the last nail in the coffin after he'd told her he couldn't handle her petty jealousy of Starbuck any longer. Starbuck was his best friend, practically family, his father loved her like the daughter she'd so nearly been. That was what he'd told Dee, and in a way it was true. His father did love Kara like she was his daughter, and between them, the Adama men had been the closest thing to a real family, all dysfunction aside, that Kara had ever known. And she was his best friend, even when he felt like choking her one minute and making love to her the next. It was that last part that he could never admit to Dee.

"Lee? You still with me over there?"

"Sorry, I guess I was just thinking."

"About Dee?"

"Sort of."

"And?"

"I miss the companionship, the idea that there's someone waiting for me at the end of a long day."

"But it's not necessarily Dee you're thinking of in that respect. Right?"

"Don't get me wrong, she's a beautiful person inside and out. She's just….She's not…."

"She's not Kara."

"Now you sound like Dee," Lee complained, frustrated. Was he that transparent?

"You can't keep pining away for Starbuck, Lee. She's married, remember? And if that's all that's holding you back…."

"Kara has absolutely nothing to do with any of it! Except for Dee's insane jealously problems," Lee protested.

"Dee was jealous of Starbuck?" Helo chuckled.

"Left that little tidbit out did she?"

"So what's the real story then? Because I feel like I've just spent the last year walking on eggshells around you two and I'm curious as to why."

"This isn't going to get back to her, right? I don't want to hurt her, I've never wanted to hurt her," Lee insisted.

"It goes no further than us," Helo pledged. Lee was quiet for a few moments again, and Helo began to wonder if his friend was going to wimp out.

"It was a mistake from the beginning," Lee admitted softly. "She's a great friend, and just drop dead beautiful, but there was really nothing more then friendship and lust between us, at least on my side. I always felt guilty about the way she'd ended things with Billy, and then the way he died. She never said so, but I always got the feeling that he died trying to prove to her that he could be like me."

"That wasn't anything to do with you, Apollo. Billy died because of trigger happy terrorists, not you."

"Dee told me about how she'd told Billy to stand down, to let the trained soldiers handle things. And he knew that we were there together that night, me and Dee. I just never quite got over the feeling that I was responsible for his death too," Lee admitted.

Helo was silent. After he'd first arrived back on the Galactica, he faced his own guilty feelings over his relationship with Sharon.

"Anyways," Lee continued, "Dee could never handle the way things were between me and Kara. She was always accusing me of sneaking off with her whenever the Admiral ordered briefings with the CAGs, or any other duties that required the two of us to work together. Even after she married Anders and moved down to the planet, Dee could never let it go."

"So if lust and friendship was really all it was, then why let things go on as long as you did?"

"Because I liked the companionship and the idea that someone was waiting for me at the end of a long day," Lee said again. "Only it never felt like it was the right woman."

Gina walked beside Doral on her way to the Colonial One; it would be her first time seeing Gaius since her rebirth. It defied all logic the nervousness she felt at the very thought of seeing him again. He should have been merely a means for her escape, but somehow he'd become more.

"This should be highly interesting," Doral commented. "Having another Six infringing upon Caprica Six's territory, I dare say she won't take this very well at all." He was enjoying the thought. Ever since her rebirth on Caprica, he harbored doubts over Caprica Six's continued usefulness to the cause. But after the parking garage debacle, both she and that Sharon model had seemed to come around to the correct way of thinking. Sharon no longer dressed herself in the uniform of a Galactica pilot, and Six no longer seemed the frightened rabbit she'd so often reminded him of.

"What are you talking about?" Gina had difficulties thinking of herself as a model number rather than a name. She supposed it was some sort of failing of the download program, the inability to strip the human mindset and emotions learned during their previous lives.

"You must have been on the Pegasus since before the invasion if you don't know about our glorious heroes of the Cylons," he intoned sarcastically. "Caprica Six is the one planted on Caprica and assigned to get access to the human defense grid. Her contact was our dear President Baltar. And she's been most territorial of him ever since we arrived on this godforsaken planet."

"Gaius spoke of recognizing my face," she murmured thoughtfully.

"This should be most interesting," Doral said again cheerfully as they reached the hatch to the Colonial One. Gina ignored him, not really sure what to say. They stepped inside, Gaeta was sitting at his desk, Caprica Six perched on the edge, their heads together as she whispered something conspiratorially. They broke apart at the sound of footsteps on the threshold, both turning to look at the door.

"Isn't this cozy."

"Hello Doral, slumming it I see."

"I thought I'd try to see where your fascination with it all lay. And to bring by another one of your precious human's old 'friends.' He does seem to have a week spot for helping the Sixes after all," the little man gloated.

"Indeed. You got her hair all wrong though. It's too dark," Six replied, rising to her feet and stroking her own white-blonde locks as she made a brief circle around Gina, looking her over carefully.

"According to what I've heard, he seems to like her well enough no matter what color her hair is," her nemesis boasted again.

"And I'm also quite capable of speaking for myself," Gina declared, returning Six's careful once-over glance in kind. "And I'd like to see Gaius now."

"Of course, my dear. Right this way," Doral exclaimed gallantly, waving his arm towards the door that led to Baltar's private office. Together they entered the room, startling the man in question as he slowly roused himself from slumber.

"What the bloody…..Gina? Is it...is it really you? I thought you were dead! But I thought the other one was dead too, and she never left me either."

Six heard the surprise as well as the warmth in Baltar's voice as he uttered the other model six's name. She turned to Gaeta briefly, "Stay close by, I may need you," she said, moving briskly into the inner office. Gaius had risen shakily to his feet and was staring at Gina when Six entered the room.

"Oh, this is bloody great," he moaned. "You're here and she's here, and I know she's going to be rather miffed about my being here with you…..only she's real now……at least I think she's real…..or maybe neither of you is real…." he babbled.

Off to the side Doral just sat back and watched the show, a big smile brightening his face.

A/N: Okay, I realize that that whole conversation regarding Dee while Apollo and Helo are on patrol was really stretching it, but I thought it was necessary for further explaining away the discomfort I felt every time Dee & Lee shared the screen together during the final few episodes of the season. There was just no chemistry there. And what better place to talk relationships then out on a middle of patrol, at least in my world anyway. Hope you enjoyed.