Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, I just play with them. Getting more angsty.
As soon as the admiral hangs up the wireless he looks to Dee. "Get the president on a secure line."
"Yes, sir." The petty officer responses. "Sir, her administration is telling me she's busy."
"Tell her aide to repeat this exactly. "The threat is real, and in the fleet." Got that petty officer?"
"Sir, yes sir." She says noting the seriousness of the admiral's face.
"XO, would you join me in the wardroom?"
"Sir." Colonel Tigh says following his CO. Once in the wardroom the admiral closes and locks the hatch. Tigh stands at attention waiting.
"There's a cylon sleeper agent in our fleet." The admiral grimaces at the thought.
"What?" The XO says. "Who?"
"Captain Thrace's husband." The XO's eyes grow large. "She's escorting him over now."
"Trouble seems to follow that woman." Tigh comments more to himself than his CO.
"That it does." The admiral agrees. "She sounded pretty upset."
"What are we going to do?"
"I'm not sure. I'm not even sure it would have information if it's a sleeper agent. I've notified the president. I'm sure she'll want to be here when we interrogate it."
"What are you going to do with Kara?" Tigh asks.
"Well, she'll be locked up for 4 days for disobeying a direct order not to go to her ship, but after that I'm not sure. She's been married to it for two years. Even if she consciously knows it's a cylon, I'm not sure she can stop thinking of it as her husband."
"That is just really frakked up." Tigh comments.
The raptor full of marines arrives an hour later. Kara moves Leoben through the ship. She's told them she's taking him to the doc on Galactica for observations. They seem to buy that story. The marines scatter as she brings Leoben on board. One of the marines moves to put the shackles on him.
"Let me." She says quietly extending a hand. They hand over the shackles and move away from the cylon. She moves the manacles around his ankles, up to his hands and finally the collar around his neck. She steers him to sit in the copilot seat in the raptor and prepares for take off, the raptor pilot moving as far away from the cylon as possible.
"I don't think these will hold me." He leans over and whispers.
"I know." She says moving the center consol down. "That's why I am here." She checks everything over for preflight and then they're off, back to Galactica. When they move him out of the raptor, the flight deck is empty Kara notices. They are all taken to the wardroom. They put Leoben on the chair in the middle of the room and Kara moves to the other side of the table.
"Can you state your name for us?" The president smiles.
"Leoben Conoy." He says.
"And why are you here today?"
"Because I am a cylon." He chokes out.
"I'd like Captain Thrace to leave us." The president says. Kara stands at attention.
"Marine, escort Captain Thrace to the brig. You are confined to the brig for 4 days for disobeying a direct order from your CO." The admiral says dismissively.
"Sir." She salutes and moves towards the marines. "Permission to speak freely?" She says turning before moving out of the hatch.
"Granted." The admiral says.
"Please don't kill him." And with that she exits. There's nothing else she can do. Once Kara has been removed the president turns back to the cylon.
"Your wife still cares for you." She looks puzzled.
"I will love her until my last breath."
"Are you capable of love?" The president asks.
"Up until four or five days ago I thought I was human. I have human emotions. I feel physical pain that I am causing my wife pain. I'm confused, but I know that I love her. So I would say yes, I am capable of love."
"Why would machines program themselves to feel love?" The admiral asks.
"That I cannot tell you. But it is the strongest bond, isn't it? The bond between a parent and child, husband and wife, brothers and sisters. We do horrible things to one another and the only thing that keeps up together is love. I know my family and I have said some horrific things to one another and if we didn't love each other we wouldn't have spoken to one another."
"What can you tell us about the cylons?" The admiral asks.
"Very little. I can hear them in my head. But mostly they're just yelling at me that I am betraying them. Or that they will find me."
"Perhaps you have schizophrenia setting in?" Tigh suggests.
"I don't think so." He says quietly.
"Why?"
"My strength has increased."
"Can you show us?" The president asks, not believing him. He thinks about it briefly before raising his hands. They look at him with interest. He pulls the metal shackles apart. The president gasps and the marines train their guns on him at the sudden movement.
"It is the only explanation." He states. Tigh grunts in agreement. The admiral looks pensive.
"Do you know if they can make you do things? Either the voices or the other cylons?" The admiral finally asks.
"They tried to get me to not let Kara take me here, but it wasn't that they could force me to stay or to harm Kara."
"Get new restraints and escort him to the brig for now." The admiral tells the marines. The escort the prisoner to the brig.
When Leoben has left the room the president turns to the admiral. "What on earth are we going to do with a machine that can break restraints?"
"I'm not sure."
"You can't possibly be thinking of keeping him alive." She says.
"You want me to kill it. It's been living with Kara for years."
"Are you keeping it alive for her?" The president looks at him incredulously. The admiral thinks about that for a moment.
"Maybe, or maybe I think we can use him. Maybe the voices will give him information."
"I can't believe you of all people would keep it alive." She sighs. "So we're at an impasse."
"For the moment."
Weeks later a glass and metal room has been constructed. Leoben sits inside with a cot and a table. The voices have become part of him; he doesn't even notice them most of the time, even when they're yelling at him to stop talking to Kara or the others from the fleet.
Kara comes every day after her shift. After the first few weeks they let her in to sit with him. She hasn't touched him since she brought him to Galactica. Most of her is afraid to touch him. Today they both seem morose.
"Kara?" He asks sitting across the table. "Why do you come here?"
"To see you." She states.
"You barely talk to me when you come. I frighten you; I can hear your heart beat now. Even as I'm talking its speeding up." He shakes his head. His body still feels alien to him even after a month.
"You scare me." He nods in agreement. "And yet I still love you." She barely whispers, knowing he can hear that if he can hear her heart.
"I love you, always will." He states. "Do they send you here to interrogate me?" He asks.
"Yes, but not every day." She looks down at the table.
"What about today?"
"No, they didn't ask me to come here today."
"So why did you come?" He presses. Part of it is the psychology side of him; the other part needs her to admit why she comes every day without fail.
"I told you."
"You told me half of the reason." He moves his shackled hands on top of the table. She looks up as he reaches across the table for her. She glares at him as her heart rate slows a little. She frowns then smiles a little.
"Just like old times, eh?"
"Indeed." He says smiling back at her.
"I'm here to prove to myself that this is real. That I didn't have a horrific nightmare that the man I'm passionately in love with is a cylon. I do it to prove to myself that I can and to prove to you that I do love you, even if I am completely confused right now."
"Thank-you." He smiles.
"For what?"
"For making it easier on yourself. I know you don't realize how much it helps to admit things out loud but it does." She sighs. He's been trying to convince her of that fact for years.
"I feel like I come down here more for myself than I do for you." She remarks.
"You do." He states. She looks into his eyes with a look of disgust. "That came out harsh. But you come down here for both of us but primarily for yourself. I appreciate the effort on my behalf but you have to let some of the anger go before we can really talk again." He sighs. "At this point you've become more my patient than my wife." She angrily gets up and crosses the room.
"Frak you." She yells.
"I love you too Kara." He says, the sadness returning to his eyes.
The next day on CAP Kara is distracted as she tries to sort out if she's going to see her husband after her rotation that night or not. At some point in the night she'd decided he was right; that she was going to see him because it hurt her. Because it evoked some sort of feeling. Because seeing him made things worse and better all at the same time and because who else was she going to talk to about this?
Helo had come to her rescue right after she'd found out about Leoben being a cylon but he had a life and she felt like she was monopolizing his time. Lee avoided Kara like the plague, not wanting to have any conversation with her that would involve her husband. Everyone else treated her like a leper. The admiral had tried to engage her in conversations but failed when it came to the topic of the cylon in the holding cell.
What do you expect them to say, she thinks to herself as she follows Lee around on CAP. She decides not to go see Leoben until she wants to see him, really wants to see him. Not because she feels guilty, not because the military asks her to, but because she wants to be there. She sighs as the hatred for the cylons fills her, its going to be a very long time, she thinks to herself.
TBC...