Disclaimer: I do not own these charcters. I just borrow them for a little while every now and again.
Side note: Sorry it took soooooo long to update. I moved, got a promotion (yes I wanted to brag about it, its a big deal for me); unfortunatly it means I work 50+ hrs a week and I'm starting school again. I'll try to keep up but it's going to be more sporatic than it was before. So sorry! Thanks for reading! And sticking with it.
Hours later…
Kara stands as Leoben enters. He tries to cross the small space to her but she backs up quickly. He looks at her puzzled.
"We have a problem." She says moving around the desk.
"What's wrong?"
"Everyone knows about Persephone. I don't have a way to tell its you." He sighs and thinks about the memories of Kara that only he would know.
"I remember how red Lee got when I mentioned I knew what got you thrown in hack." He tilts his head and watches her reaction. She reluctantly stops backing away from him as he advances on her. "What happened in there?" He asks as he wraps his arms around her and pulls her tightly against his chest. She pulls back to look into his face.
"Cavil will kill you every time I refuse to help them find Earth."
He looks confused. After a long while he speaks, "Don't let him bully you. Eventually they'll stop when they realize it won't work." She breaks away from him and paces the room.
"Do you know how hard it was to watch you die the first time? And this time all I heard was that sickening snap. I don't know how many times I can do that. And what if they start torturing you? I know I can't handle that."
"Kara, you can't give in."
"I'm telling you they're going to kill you and you're convincing me to let them?"
"Well yes. I don't want the cylons to find Earth either. What if they don't like what they find? Will they nuke it too? I just can't rationalize turning it over. Kara, stop pacing." He says as he sits on the bed. She sighs and joins him. "You can do this. In fact I'm asking you to do this. To be courageous and not cooperate. I realize it will hurt both of us, but if we've made it this far, we'll survive this too."
"Always the optimist."
A week later Kara watches as the centurions carry Leoben's body out of the room for the fifth time. She stopped crying after the third time. Now she was feeling murderous herself as she stands restrained next to Cavil.
Hours later Leoben joins Kara back in their room. There are two centurion guards posted outside of their quarters now restricting their movements around the ship. He shakes her shoulder as she sleeps on the bed. Last time he'd just slipped in besides her after he'd resurrected she'd damn near killed him again.
"Kara?" He says softly sitting on the bed. She wakes with a start, pain moves across her face as she looks at him.
"Who am I?"
"My wife. The woman who asked me to wear my glasses on our first date." He's come up with several events that the other cylons wouldn't know about. She kneels and crawls across the bed towards him. She collapses in his arms just before she starts crying.
"I can't do this." She whispers. He stiffens and tries to pull away. She holds tightly to him for a very long time. When she finally loosens her grip he moves to kiss her.
"You can do this. Look I'm ok."
"Well I'm not. Obviously." She says wiping her hand across her eyes. "We have to figure something else out. I can't keep watching you die. I'm starting to have nightmares about it."
"Shh." He shushes her as he presses her head to his chest and lies on the bed with her. "We'll figure something out." Kara falls back asleep as she listens to his breathing.
A week later Kara, Leoben and the Six from the initial meeting have a plan. It's risky but it's better than watching Leoben die over and over again.
Six passes the gun to Kara when she brings her fresh clothes for the day. As Kara dresses she places the gun in the back of her pants and swings the sweatshirt back in place. She knows they'll ask again today as the two centurions come to escort Kara and Leoben to Cavil.
"So, Kara, what is your decision today?" He asks in that sickening voice. She looks at him before pulling the gun and pointing it at his face. "Tsk. I will just resurrect, you know that." Cavil motions to the centurions to stand down. Kara smiles her most insane Starbuck smile and turns the gun on herself. Cavil, Six and Leoben all freeze; this was not the plan.
"Oh yeah? Well I won't. Tell the centurions to leave." He waves them off hurriedly not taking his eyes off of her. She notices them leaving out of the corner of her eye. "Alright this is how this is going to work: you're going to let us take a heavy raider, and you're going to point us in the direction of the fleet." Cavil looks at her skeptically. "In return I will send you our next jump coordinates. I only ask that you stay out of our dradis range. That way you will be coming to Earth with us." Six looks hopeful at the plan. Leoben looks disgusted and Cavil looks petrified. "One last condition: If you attack the fleet, all bets are off. Besides you could kill me, you never know."
"How do I know I can trust you?" Cavil asks.
"You don't, but if you think I'm going to watch you kill my husband another 20 plus times, you're sadly mistaken. I'd rather die than be put through that pain over and over again." Leoben studies Kara's face carefully when realization dawns on him.
"She'll do it." He whispers. "Oh gods, she'll actually do it." Cavil looks at him astonished. The Six model keeps her mouth shut but she knows too that the infamous Starbuck would, in that moment, end her life. Cavil looks between Leoben and Kara and lets out a frustrated sigh.
"Fine. I'll trust you. What will we do when we find Earth?"
"If you stop attacking the fleet, it may be possible to open up treaty talks. I know President Roslin was willing to try that in the beginning. Now, let's get going." She motions for Cavil to walk in front of her. Leoben falls in step next to her, giving her a look like he doesn't even know her.
"You want me to believe that you're going to be our ambassador?" Cavil asks with his awkward smile as he leads them to the hanger bay.
"In essence, yes." Kara says.
"The only reason I'm letting you go is because we can't afford to lose you and the fleet is easy enough to track."
"I don't really care why you're letting us go. Just get me off this ship. Do you have the coordinates of the fleet?" She asks. Cavil walks onto the heavy raider and programs it quickly. He looks back out at Kara and Leoben and sighs heavily again. At least they'll be together, the thought crosses his mind briefly.
"Yes. They're already programmed in. I will never understand humans." Cavil comments then turns to leave, followed by six.
Kara and Leoben board the heavy raider. Leoben surprisingly takes the controls, and maneuvers them away from the basestar before the FTL begins to spin up. He looks across the ship towards his wife. She is sitting in the corner shaking.
"Kara?" He moves towards her. "Kara you have to come to the comm. so they don't blow us out of the air when we get within dradis of the fleet." He kneels down next to her. She doesn't seem to hear him. He takes the gun from her hand and that is the first time she seems to notice he's there. She looks up at him as he kneels over her.
"What?"
"You need to come to the comm." He says. She allows him to help lift her up and they make it to the comm. right before the raider jumps. As their dradis starts to pick up the fleet, Kara presses a button to speak to the fleet. She gives her colonial identification code and her call sign and rank and then they wait. Two vipers come along side and escort the heavy raider to Galactica.
When the hatch opens they're greeted by marines and the XO, who looks a little too smug about the whole situation. Kara and Leoben are separated, much to Kara's distress. After watching him die over and over, she was a little protective. Her protests are ignored as she is escorted to life station while Leoben is put into the holding cell with Doral.
Five hours later Kara returns to the bunk room. They were looking into getting her and Leoben some quarters since Leoben and Doral weren't exactly getting along. She'd gone to talk to him after her medical exam but couldn't say much with Doral right there. The commander asked the quarter master to page Kara the moment something was available and that she was free to have one of the marines escort Leoben to wherever they ended up.
Before the quarter master can find a suitable place Kara is called to the Ward Room to be debriefed by the admiral and the president. She puts her dress blues on and waits patiently in the room as the commander and president stop whispering amongst themselves.
"Captain Thrace, it's good to have you back with us." The president starts. Kara's guard goes up immediately. The president was usually cordial with her but that was down right friendly. The admiral's face betrayed no emotion. Maybe they're playing bad cop, good cop, Kara thinks.
"It's good to be back sir."
"Can you tell us what happened?"
Kara launches into her story which takes the better part of an hour to explain. By the end the president looks horrified at what Cavil had implied and the admiral looks a little sick about how Kara convinced them to let her go.
"Well Kara, we're glad to have you back. You said that Cavil will not attack the fleet as long as you keep sending them communications?"
"Yes sir. They can already track us and I wanted to at least try to get them to stop attacking us. This will gain a little trust and we lose nothing, except now we know the cylons basically wait just outside of our dradis and jump with us every time."
"I don't like it." The admiral states.
"Neither do I sir, but isn't it better to know they're there than to think we might have finally evaded them?" Kara asks the Admiral.
"When we go to jump I'll have Dee scramble a message to the cylons. Did they say how you were going to lead us to earth?"
"The hybrid said that somehow my light would merge with Leoben's and then I would find the path. They were really unclear as to how or when that would happen. In fact some of the models thought it had already happened with us being married."
"So they didn't exactly help?"
"No, mostly verbal salad sir. They don't seem to be able to decipher their hybrids wandering thoughts any more than we can our oracles."
"You're dismissed Captain Thrace. Oh Doc Cottle said that you were experiencing some PTSD and you would be off the CAP rotation and flying until further notice." The admiral stands and walks to the door. He grabs Kara and hugs her. "Don't scare me like that again." He says gruffly as he pushes her through the hatch.
Kara goes to bother the quarter master and finds that in the hour or so in the presences of the admiral and president that Leoben had already been transferred to a small room. She finds her way there, almost running to get there.
Leoben is lying on the bed when Kara pushes the door open. She closes it behind her so the nosy marine guarding their quarters doesn't get a show. She is in his arms before she can think about it, the space so small it takes less than 5 steps to get to his embrace. He pulls her down onto the bed with him and sighs a sigh of relief as he breathes her in, knowing that Cavil or Six isn't going to come through the door and kill him at any random moment.
Kara buries her face in his neck and breathes in the scent of the man she's completely in love with. She knows she'll eventually have to deal with the fact that she would rather die than watch him be killed over and over again but now is not the time. For now she's content to breathe him in and hold him.
TBC....