Bright, Shiny Futures - Chapter Nine

They stared at one another for a moment in angry silence until Kara remembered she was driving and looked away.

A little stab of conscience pricked Lee. She's right you know, it said, As tough as you thought you had it, she had it much worse. Try to put yourself in her place. She probably coped far better than you would have. In his heart he knew that little voice was right. He hadn't coped with her death well and he hadn't even been in close to the circumstances she had. His life and everything that had happened after Kara's apparent death had happened because of his lack of ability to deal with it.

"I'm sorry Kara."

Her hands ached as she gripped the steering wheel even harder. It was nothing compared to the pain in her heart. This was the first time he'd ever apologized to her. She didn't know whether to be thankful he'd finally realized the universe didn't revolve around him or sock him in the mouth for being so obtuse that it had taken him this long. She wondered if he realized just how many years of heartache could have been avoided if only he'd been man enough to apologize to her after the fracas with Baltar. Many things would have been different now ...

"I want to know what's happened to you since you came here. If you're still willing to tell me," he added softly.

She snuck a quick glance at him. His face was contrite, his eyes imploring. She couldn't deny him.

"I know it was hard for you when I disappeared," she began. "You and Dee split soon after that ..."

"Because of that," he broke in. "There were other reasons too, but my life kind of fell apart without you there to hold it together. And even though she said she was leaving because of those other things, I know it was because of you."

"I'm sorry," she said softly.

Lee tossed it aside. "It's okay. It wasn't meant to be anyway. I didn't see it till after it was over, but I never should have married her."

"However hard it was for you, for me it was multiplied tenfold. I lost my friends, my family, my home, my ability to fly ... I lost everything Lee." She paused, as if to let the full ramifications settle in. "I was alone, lost and I had no way to go back. People looked at me strangely, dressed in my flightsuit," she smiled at the memory, "but when I tried telling them what had happened, why I had no identity they didn't believe me."

She saw Lee's brow crease.

"Well think about it. At the time I was devastated people thought I was a crackpot, but if someone had appeared on Caprica with no change of clothes, no identification, no home ... and they said they'd come from across the galaxy, I never would have believed it either."

"I suppose not," he conceded. "It is kind of a strange story."

"Like something on those sci-fi shows we used to watch back home."

"We?" Lee asked, eyebrows raising.

She slapped his arm playfully. "Zak told me you used to love them. There's no denying it."

"I guess you did too huh?"

"Yup." They shared a gaze for a long minute. Her face fell. "No one believed my story. A few people even called the authorities and tried to have me picked up and locked away."

"What did you do?"

"I hid. I ran. I did whatever I could to stay free." She swallowed, trying to force the lump in her throat down. "Only one person believed me."

"Michael." It wasn't a question.

She nodded. "I don't honestly know if he believed me or just felt sorry for me - I was probably a pathetic sight by the time we met - but he was the only one who listened to my story and offered help."

Lee's heart went out to her. The picture was still awfully murky but he was beginning to understand just how tough it had been.

"He took me to his apartment, let me clean up, gave me some clothes to borrow and let me spend the night. On his couch," she added, catching the tightening of Lee's jaw in her peripheral vision. "Well actually he spent the night on the couch and I slept in his bed ... either way we didn't sleep together."

Lee nodded but said nothing.

"He let me stay with him indefinitely - bought clothes for me, did the paperwork to get me identification ..."

"How did he manage that?"

She shrugged. "I didn't ask." She stole a quick glance at him. "I'm sure whatever it was he did wasn't legal but he seemed convinced that if I went to the authorities and told them who I was I'd end up in a padded cell for the rest of my life."

"Having been on the receiving end of that less-than-pleasant welcome, I can attest to the fact that he was probably right," Lee said softly, voice tinged with bitterness.

Kara instinctively reached a hand over and put it on his thigh. "I got you out as quickly as I could." The words were quiet - almost a whisper.

He looked at her. "I know you did. There are still so many more stuck there though." A sudden flush of shame swept over him as he remembered Kathryn. He'd almost forgotten about her completely! She wasn't going to be thrilled to find out he'd been busy visiting Kara instead of doing his best to get her out. Kara - Starbuck, was a sore spot between them. She hadn't known Kara personally but rumours of Starbuck and Apollo's escapades, both professional and personal, had reached nearly every ear in the fleet and she'd always suspected there had been more than Lee had admitted to between them. It had been the cause of several serious fights.

"I'm going to do what I can to get everyone out, okay?" she said earnestly. "But I can't stay there indefinitely. My family needs me."

"I understand."

There was a long time of silence where Lee felt both shame and curiosity - shame at forgetting about his girlfriend, and curiosity at what Kara's life had been like without him - battle within him.

Curiosity won.

"So what did you do? How did you ... deal with the fact that you were pregnant?" Don't tell me Michael married you as soon as you told him. The thought came before he could stop it. There was a part of him that wanted to believe in Michael the chivalrous gentlemen who'd done his best for Kara when she was in need. But another part of him didn't want to believe Kara would turn her back on her previous life so quickly and move on like it didn't matter who had fathered her child.

"I didn't do anything," she answered with a little smile. "I didn't do anything at all at first. I didn't have a job so I just stuck around his apartment mostly and went for walks to get out and explore. I didn't discover I was pregnant till a few weeks later when I became really ill. I thought I just had the 'flu but it continued for days ... over a week."

"I guess that would have tipped you off," Lee suggested.

She smiled and darted a quick glance at him, pulling her hand away as she realized it was still sitting on his thigh. "Yeah, that and the fact that something just felt wrong. Like I wasn't quite myself." She felt his puzzlement through the silence. I'm not sure I can explain it."

"I believe you."

Those three words rocked Kara to the core. It was the one thing she'd always needed from him and never gotten. He'd desired her, he'd loved her, he'd trusted her to have his back, but he'd never ever believed in her. She'd never really been honest with him, it was true, but he'd always taken her words and actions and twisted them till they were ugly and mean. And then he'd thrown them back in her face as a reason to explain why she didn't deserve his trust.

To have him simply say 'I believe you' was at once the most beautiful and painful thing he could ever have said. Her grip on the steering wheel tightened as the tears threatened to fall. She blinked them back rapidly.

"So I told Michael I was pregnant ... or thought I was," she said, resuming her narrative once she'd gained control of her voice. "I was so scared he'd kick me out."

Lee frowned. "Why would he do that? I can't imagine why anyone would turn away someone in need."

"You did."

Lee flushed. "That was different Kara. I didn't realize you were so far gone."

She faced him sombrely. "Because you were immersed in your own problems."

He nodded. "I know I should have seen it, I should have been a better friend, but Gods ... I felt like I was coming apart at the seams. I couldn't see past myself."

"That's exactly how I felt back on Galactica," she said quietly, struggling to keep her voice even. "I couldn't talk to anyone - everyone was too focused on their own problems."

"And it's not like you ever would have talked to a shrink, even if there had been one around," he added, just as quietly. "You always were too stubborn for your own good."

She snorted, as if angry, then a grin broke out. "Yeah, I was." The smile faded. "I can't imagine how things would have gone if I hadn't had Michael."

Lee's insides twisted and churned. "How's that?" he asked lightly, trying not to let his feelings show.

Her knuckles grew white as she gripped even harder. The silence lingered between them and Lee wondered if this was where the openness and honesty between them as going to stop. he wouldn't have been surprised - if anything he was surprised she'd been as candid as she had been. Once upon a time she'd never have told him anything at all.

"I would have aborted the baby."

His head snapped around. "You wouldn't!"

"Oh yes I would ," she countered, voice gaining strength. "I never wanted to have children, you knew that."

"You never said so," he argued.

"Maybe not in so many words," she retaliated. "But the intention was pretty clear. Here I was, stuck having a baby I didn't want, not knowing which of you was the father, in an unfamiliar place where I had nothing and no one. If Michael hadn't bee there ..." She left it to his imagination.

It didn't fail him. "You would have done it yourself, wouldn't you?" he asked, words coming slowly. He turned towards her, watching her profile as she drove. "You wouldn't have gone somewhere to get help, you would have just done it on your own. And you probably would have killed yourself."

"Without Michael I wouldn't have had anything to live for anyway."

XXXXX

There was a long pause after Kara's revelation. Lee's immediate response was to tell her she was wrong, that she was special and had every reason to live - she'd been carrying his child after all - but he couldn't bring himself to say it. She was right, she had been stuck in a terrible situation, having lost everything and being forced to have a baby she'd never wanted. He knew, although she'd never said so directly, that being a mother was something that had never been in her life's plan.

It had to have been pretty overwhelming.

She now knew in hindsight that she'd been carrying his child not Sam's but at the time there was no way she could have known. Jealousy pricked a hole in his heart at the thought that she'd still slept with Sam even after pushing him away and refusing to live with him as husband and wife. He'd always wanted to believe that it had been honour that had made her stick to her marriage vows and not some lingering feelings for Sam, but he'd been deluding himself. He'd kicked himself over and over for not taking the chance when she'd come back and offered it and had harboured much guilt that his refusal had been what had driven her to fly into that storm, uncaring of what would happen to her. Perhaps he'd made the right decision at the time to stay with Dee. Kara probably wouldn't have given herself fully to him anyway - she'd proven she was incapable of that with pretty much every man she'd been seriously involved with.

Not that any of that really mattered now. What might have been was long past. All that mattered now was the future. Kara was alive and they had a son together. It was going to turn his world upside down, but somewhere deep down in his heart a voice was telling him everything was as it should be.

He reached over and pulled a hand off the steering wheel and enclosed it in his. "Then I'm glad you found him. I'm glad you're still alive and I'm glad Zach is alive." He squeezed lightly. "Every day I wished you were still alive. Every day I missed you. Every time I closed my eyes at night I saw you. You were always there - whenever I caught sight of a blonde head in the distance my heart leapt, thinking I might have been mistaken and you were alive after all."

She swallowed hard. "There wasn't a day that went by that I didn't think of you either," she whispered. "I knew I'd probably never see you again but I prayed every day that the baby was yours." She turned to look at him and their eyes burned.

She looked back at the road and pulled her hand from his. "It's all different now though. It can't be like it was before."

His heart nearly burst at the naked longing in her voice.

"I know," he whispered, face held forward stiffly. "You have a husband and family who need you. I can't ask you to leave them."

"Thank you" she whispered, tears slowly beginning to fall.

Lee gave a dry chuckle and smiled ruefully. "Besides, I have a girlfriend."

XXXXX

Helo very nearly dropped the phone. He sat heavily on the couch.

"Are you sure? Did you double check?"

Sharon's heart began to speed up, anticipating trouble from the tone in her husband's voice. Helo was pretty unflappable - it took a lot to floor him but at the moment he looked as though he'd seen a ghost.

Sort of like when he'd first discovered she was a Cylon ...

"No ... it's not a problem. I just ... don't recall ever hearing they had had it."

"Of course."

He began to sweat. Sharon sweated in sympathy, knowing it was going to be bad.

"Thank you." He hung up the phone.

"What is it?" she asked slowly.

"Sam Anders and the Chief both have the same blood type as yours. They're Cylons!"

For a moment Helo was afraid he'd short-circuited her brain, she stood so still and unblinking.

"Sharon?" he said tentatively.

"Frak me," she said evenly. Her eyes swiveled to meet his. "The two most active opponents against the Cylons turn out to be Cylons themselves. If that isn't poetic justice ... next thing I know you'll be telling me Colonel Tigh was one too."

Helo shrugged. I guess it's kind of late to find out." He stopped to think a moment. "I can't believe it. Well maybe the Chief ... but Anders? He's always been so against them. It seems impossible he could be one of them."

The atmosphere in the room dropped several degrees. "No more impossible than me being one," Sharon said coldly.

"I didn't mean it like that."

"The situation is no different. I was one hundred percent against the Cylons as well and I had no idea I was one of them till my programming kicked in."

"But you're still on our side."

"I'm on the side of what's right. It doesn't matter who's real flesh and blood and who's an imitation. What they did was unforgivable and I had to help stop them. Genocide is never acceptable."

"You're right Sharon, you're right," he nodded. "I guess I was just surprised. I never expected ..."

"You've always known there could be more sleepers among us. They could be anyone. Just because they find out they have Cylon blood instead of human doesn't mean they're going to turn against us you know."

"Do we have to tell them?"

"Of course we do," she said indignantly. "They deserve to know the truth about themselves."

"What are we going to do with them?"

"Do? We don't have to do anything. Just let them live their lives."

"It's as simple as that?"

"What else are we going to do?" She put her hands on her hips. "You've already propagated the lie in order to get the authorities to let me go, you can't suddenly tell them that people with that specific blood type need to be kept prisoner now can you? Besides, if I'm free they should be too. Fair's fair."

He nodded. She was right. Mind you, she usually was.

After she headed upstairs to get the girls ready for their baths and bed he gave himself up to thinking about what was going to happen once Tyrol and Anders found out about themselves. How were they going to react to the news? Would they handle it well or go off the deep end?

Another thought popped into his head. How was Kara going to feel when she found out the man she'd been married to was a Cylon? He himself had done it but it had been a difficult thing for most people, including Kara, to accept. After what had happened to her he didn't think she'd take it very well - time might have passed but he suspected she was still haunted by what they'd done to her, both the ones on Caprica and Leoben on New Caprica.

He didn't think she'd take the news very well.

TBC