Chapter 12

Idyll's End

The government took nearly four years to complete housing in the cities and phase out the refugee camps in the northern part of the continent. During those four years an estimated hundred seventy thousand people lived in three different camps, two near Sovana and the other one near Antioch. Conditions in the camps were harsh and during an influenza epidemic which struck the largest camp in the winter of the second year, almost thirty thousand people died. Some people continue to believe that the Cylons were experimenting on the refugees with some sort of biological toxin. No proof of that has ever been found.

-Bartell, History of the Second Cylon War

.

During the two and a half years that she and Karl spent in the refugee camp, Kara sometimes wondered what would have happened if the ice storm in the late winter hadn't brought a tree down on the power lines halfway down the long gravel driveway.

She first realized something was wrong when she woke up early one morning. The light outside the little bedroom was still the early predawn gray. What was different was that Karl was curled against her back, spooned into her, his arm across her waist, holding her against him. But he wasn't trying anything. He was asleep. She could tell by the way he was breathing.

The next thing she realized was how cold it was. He was curled into her for the warmth. Sometime during the night he must have gotten up from the couch where he had been sleeping since they had moved into the little house and come into the bedroom and crawled into bed with her. She looked at the clock beside the bed. It was an electric clock, but not a digital one. It had hands. Everything the old couple had was ancient. The clock had stopped between 3:45 and 3:50. This was potentially a very bad thing.

She stirred and whispered, "Karl." He didn't answer her so she turned over and shook him. "Wake up. Something's wrong."

"Huh," he said, coming awake fast. "What?"

"The electricity is off."

"I know. I got really cold on the couch last night. I didn't think you'd mind if I came in here. I brought my blankets. I thought it would be back on this morning. I wonder what happened."

"I don't know. We need to go look and see if we can figure it out."

Halfway down the driveway they found the ice-covered tree down across the power line.

"Damn," Karl said. "We can't do anything about this."

"What are we going to do?"

Kara stomped her feet against the cold. The soles of her sneakers were thin by now.

"We're going to have to start using the wood stove in the kitchen to heat the house."

"Cook, too?"

"Yeah. Cook, too."

"What about water?"

"I didn't think about that. You're right. The well pump runs on electricity. We're frakked. We're going to have to haul it all the way from the creek and start boiling it."

"There's that pump in the front yard."

"That old hand pump? I don't even know if it works."

"Let's go see."

The handle of the pump worked fine, but no water came out of the spout. Still Karl wasn't willing to give up. "I know there's water in the well. Why don't you start getting some firewood up to the house? Let me work on this."

She got a fire started in the wood stove and then carried firewood all morning and stacked it behind the house. Karl finally found the answer to the pump in a book. All it needed was priming. He carried a bucket of water from the creek and finally got it going early in the afternoon. It didn't work great, but it worked.

Life had definitely gotten harder, though. Cooking on the wood stove was a challenge especially in the beginning. She and Karl both burned meals before they started learning how. Showers were a thing of the past. They had to heat water on the stove to bathe, and in the cold bathroom that was definitely no fun. They found a few candles and an oil lamp that was nearly out of oil. They saved them, afraid they would need them one day.

Reading at night was also a thing of the past. They spent their evenings in the kitchen in front of the wood stove until it was time to go to sleep. They put all the blankets on the bed and learned to sleep with their backs together for warmth. Sometimes she woke up with him spooned against her. Sometimes she woke up spooned against him. It wasn't really all that bad a feeling, she decided, like puppies in a litter snuggled together.

If Karl had any other thoughts or feelings, he was too tired to do anything about them. They didn't have as much to eat now and cutting enough firewood to fuel the wood stove was taking much of their days. Without electricity they had lost everything in the freezer. After two weeks both of them noticed their jeans were looser. They had been wearing the old couples' sweaters and coats which were too big for them but were warm.

Karl was beginning to get good with an axe, but she knew it was hard work. She'd tried it a couple of times. It was definitely hard work. No wonder he was losing weight. She started giving him some of her portion of the canned vegetables and telling him she wasn't that hungry.

One day early in the third week without electricity, they finally went out hunting without any luck. The animals seemed to be hibernating now. They were coming back empty-handed in the late morning. The wind had picked up and gotten colder. She looked at the sky darkening to the west. Another storm front was coming in. Was winter going to last forever?

Karl was grumbling about having to eat canned vegetables again or else get the fishing gear and walk all the way back to the pond. She doubted he'd do it because even the fish seemed to be hibernating now. She was only half-way listening to him when he stopped and grabbed her arm.

"Smell that?" he whispered.

"Cigarette smoke." Her heart leapt in her chest. "It's my father!" She started off at a run.

"No, Kara, wait! Wait! It's not your father! It can't be your father! Wait!"

She should have listened to him.

She came out of the woods into the clearing behind the house too fast to stop. The soldiers saw her right away.

There were four of them. One of the soldiers threw his cigarette down and started toward her. He had a strange-looking rifle with a stubby barrel that was slung loosely across his shoulder, but his hand was on it, and she knew that he could have it up and pointed at her in a second. She rubbed her thumb across the slingshot in her coat pocket and immediately dismissed the thought. Slowly she took her hands out of her pockets and held them palms forward away from her body, showing him she wasn't armed. Her mother had taught her that.

When she got closer to him, he spoke into a radio at his shoulder. "We found somebody. It's just a kid. No problem."

She breathed easier. Maybe this would be okay.

"Two of them," the soldier said into the radio.

She looked around. Karl was right behind her.

The soldier walked with them back down to the house. "Where are your parents?"

"Dead," Karl said.

"When?"

"They were on Picon when the Cylons attacked.."

"How did you get here? Got an FTL drive hidden somewhere in that big jacket?"

The other soldiers snickered.

Earlier she and Karl had talked about a story to tell in case they ever had to, and now the lie rolled off her tongue without any hesitation.

"We were here visiting our grandmother when it happened."

The soldier looked at her. "Where's your grandmother then? The house is empty."

"She died after the news about the Cylons." They had to keep that part vague since they didn't know exactly what had happened. "She had a heart attack." A lot of old people died from heart attacks. "We came back here after the funeral." When people died there was always a funeral. "We didn't have any other place to go." That was part of the story, but it was also the truth.

"Are you telling me that you two kids have been living here by yourselves since the Cylons attacked late last summer?"

Kara answered him. "We had plenty of food in the freezer and the pantry and the garden."

"That's pretty damned amazing," one of the others said. "I don't think they're alone, sarge. Two kids couldn't make it that long without an adult."

She and Karl looked at each other and grinned. "Feel free to keep searching," she told him.

"Why'd you come out here?" Karl asked the first soldier.

"A farmer about five miles from here kept seeing smoke. He thought somebody might be operating a bootleg liquor still back here. Whiskey's harder to find and a lot more expensive since the other Colonies were destroyed. People are starting to make their own now, especially out here where corn is plentiful. That's why they sent us. The sheriff doesn't have enough men to cover this whole province."

"Well, you can see we're not making whiskey. We're fine. You can go now," Kara said.

"How old are you?"

"Sixteen and he's eighteen."

More snickers from the soldiers. One of them said, "And I'm the President of the Twelve Colonies, except some folks are starting to call him the President of the One Colony."

"Some folks are starting to call him the Cylons' butt-frak," another soldier said under his breath. "We got frakking rubber bullets in our guns now. Asshole sold us down the frakking…"

"Shut up," the first soldier said harshly. He turned to Karl and Kara. "Come on, you two, pack your stuff. You're coming with us."

For the first time Kara felt concern. "Where?"

"Refugee camp. We can't leave two kids back here by themselves with no electricity."

"I told you we're doing fine. We've got food. We can live without the electricity."

"Sorry. No can do. The camp isn't bad. Food every day, clean bunks, other people. It's not like it was five, six months ago. You can probably even get somebody to give you a decent haircut."

One of the other soldiers laughed.

"Oh, frak you," she said hotly. Inside her coat pocket she clenched her fist.

Karl came up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed. "Take it easy, Kara. Maybe we should just do what the man says. No sense in doing this the hard way."

She took a deep breath and let it out. He was right. They were going to force her to go anyway, so she might as well not get hurt or get Karl hurt.

"What are your names?" the sergeant asked.

Karl spoke up before she could answer. "I'm Karl Agathon. This is my sister Kara." That was part of the story, too. It went along with visiting their grandmother.

The sergeant went into the house with them while they put some clothes into their backpacks. She was glad he didn't look in her backpack first. He never knew she had the Mossinger in there. At least that was a comfort.

They walked down the driveway to the fallen tree where the soldiers had parked three jeeps. The guy who had laughed at her about her haircut offered to carry her pack, but she gave him her best go-to-Hades look and he backed off.

They were many miles down the road when she realized that she had left the book behind. The third and final volume of Prince Olliver's adventures, the book she had just started reading, The Caprican Prince and the Golden Wings.

When she realized it, she wanted to cry. She would never know if Prince Olliver found his father and brought him back to his mother. And Olliver had just seen a princess, a girl with golden hair and emerald eyes, and he hadn't even kissed her yet. He'd been trying to get away from some centurions and had found a hiding place in a secret garden of the palace. Olliver had watched the princess from his hiding place as she had gotten out of her bath, and he had instantly fallen in love. Kara just knew the princess was going to fall in love with Olliver, too, but she would never get to read about it, never get to read about their meeting or their first kiss. She sank back in the seat next to Karl. She wanted to cry but she wasn't about to let the soldiers see her so she sat silent and dry-eyed for the entire trip north to the camp.

The soldier was standing beside them when they gave their names to a man in a big tent, so they had to keep up the lie that Karl had told. She saw the man record their names and birth dates in a computer. She was no longer Kara Thrace. She was officially Kara Agathon, Karl's sister.

For the first week she and Karl were separated. She went to a large hastily constructed dormitory with some other girls who didn't have parents. Karl went to one for boys. She hated it, though, and each day she put on her backpack, which she was afraid to leave behind, waited for Karl and they walked through the camp. Finally they found a small unoccupied two-cot tent near one perimeter. The location was about as bad as it could be, the longest distance from the mess tent, the showers, and the portable latrines and the closest to the sector's refuse dump. Maybe that's why nobody wanted it. At least the tent was upwind of the dump. She saw a couple of rats nosing around, but she could take care of those with her slingshot.

They came back day after day and no one had moved in. After a week they brought their bedding and put it on the cots. No one seemed to care.

She was happy again, as happy as she would be at the camp. It wasn't nearly as nice as the stone house while they had electricity, but it wasn't as bad as when they were without it. At least she got a warm shower whenever she wanted. They had a small heater in the tent and a lantern at night. The food wasn't as good, but someone else was preparing it. Best of all she and Karl were together. They'd been through too much to be separated now.

She had been thinking of him as her brother for so long that it seemed real. She never hesitated when anyone asked her a question about them.

Together they settled into life in the refugee camp.

...

Lee had just finished mowing the front lawn and was pushing the mower up the driveway when he saw a transport stop in front of the house and John Gallagher get out. John leaned in the window, paid the driver, and the transport moved off up the street.

Spring had come early to the south of Caprica that year. Lee had been mowing for six weeks now, and he was still a week away from his high school graduation. It was really Zak's turn to mow, but as usual when there was work to be done, Zak was nowhere to be found. In fact since his father had moved back into the house, something was going on with Zak. He'd changed, gotten moody and started staying in his room a lot. That is when he was even at home. Now that he was sixteen and had gotten his driver's license, it seemed like he was gone more than he was there. He always had a good reason, soccer practice or a game, or a homework project or a club meeting. Lee knew there were a lot of times that Zak was probably just hanging out and goofing off with his friends.

Lee knew, too, that some of Zak's problems had to do with the fact that his father was used to giving orders and having them obeyed. When he told them something, that's the way it sounded. Zak had spent his entire life without being told what to do so he was having a particularly hard time adjusting to Bill Adama. Lee didn't have as much of a problem. When his father told him to do something, he just did it. It saved them all a lot of headaches.

Their father had bought them a car that they were supposed to share. That was a joke. When Lee dated on the weekends he usually had to borrow his mother's. He knew his father would make Zak let him have the car more if he made an issue of it, but he didn't. He didn't want to cause more problems. Not for Zak and certainly not for his father. His father had enough to worry about on his new job.

Lee pushed the mower over into the grass and walked back down the driveway. He was really glad to see John. He couldn't count the number of times he had wondered about John's whereabouts since that night at the airbase.

Gallagher was carrying a duffel bag and was wearing a pair of khaki cargo pants that looked a lot worse for the wear than when he'd last seen the captain. He had on a brown leather bomber jacket over a white t-shirt. The jacket looked old, but the leather was still good. Lee thought he saw a Solaria patch on one shoulder. There was definitely a Viper patch on the other shoulder. Gallagher also looked like he had lost weight that he didn't need to lose.

Gallagher took off his sunglasses. "It's good to see a friendly face."

He put the bag down on the driveway and he and Lee hugged. It seemed like a natural thing to do, like he would have hugged Zak or his father if he hadn't seen them in a long time.

"I'm sweaty," Lee said.

"That doesn't bother me a bit. I haven't seen a shower myself in two days. Haven't shaved either. I know I look rough. How've you been?"

"Good. You?"

"I've been better."

"Did you find Kara?"

"No. I'll tell you about that later. How's your dad?"

"He's on a battlestar somewhere. He's working for the President now. About once a month he visits a couple of battlestars, a good-will ambassador or something like that. I'm not sure exactly what he does while he's there. He carved out this job for himself. I asked him one time if he was putting together an anti-Cylon network on all the battlestars. He gave me a weird look and told me I'd been reading too many spy novels. He said he just has a few drinks with the commanders and talks to them about what's going on. I doubt that's all he does. He'll be back this weekend and I know he'll want to see you. Come on up to the house."

Gallagher picked up the bag and walked beside him as Lee pushed the mower back up the driveway.

"I've wondered where you were and what you were doing."

"I've thought about you and your dad, too. I should have called, but I just never seemed to get around to it. Look, I know you don't want me smoking in the house, but I've got to have a cigarette. I swore when I found Kara I was going to quit. I'm still smoking."

Lee took him around to the patio beside the koi pond in the back of the house. "This is where Dad comes when he wants a cigar. Have a seat. I'm going to take a shower. I'll be back."

When he returned Gallagher was sitting in one of the chairs at the wrought-iron table. His left leg was propped on another chair. The silver flask that Lee remembered from the Galactica was sitting on the table. There was already one cigarette butt in the ashtray his father used for his cigars. Gallagher was smoking another one. The bomber jacket was hanging on the back of the chair. The other shoulder patch was definitely from the Solaria.

"I don't normally put my feet on other people's furniture, but my leg is killing me today for some reason. It does that from time to time. Mostly when I'm tired and haven't been taking good care of myself. You wouldn't think I could feel something that was gone, but I can." He stubbed out the cigarette, picked up the flask and took a drink. Then he pushed it across the table to Lee. "Your mother will probably have my hide, but here. I'm not too particular about who I'll drink with, but I'm real particular about who I'll share this flask with. The last person to share it with me was my daughter. I call it Siren's Kiss."

"As in temptation?"

"I figured you'd get that one right away. It went over Kara's head. She took it too literally."

Lee turned up the flask. "Wow," he said after he took a swallow. He could hardly breathe and his eyes began watering.

Gallagher grinned. "Sorry, I should have warned you. Kara did better than that. You know that worries me. It makes me think she's more like her old man…" His voice caught and Lee heard him take a deep breath. "…than I'd like for her to be."

"Wow," Lee said again. "It's good, but it has a real kick."

"I'm going to have a couple more drinks and then I'm going to put this flask back in my bag. When I do that, don't you let me get it out again. Otherwise I'll sit here and get drunk. I've done too much of that lately when I wasn't flying."

"You want to tell me what happened?"

"I couldn't find her. I couldn't frakking find her. It's like she and her friend fell off the face of the planet…or got swallowed up by it." He took another drink and went on. "I'm almost out of money, the ship needs some serious maintenance, more than I can do to it, and I don't know where to look next. She's not dead. I just won't believe it. She's out there somewhere. I just don't know where. All I wanted was the chance to be a father to her for a couple of years while she finished growing up. Was that…" Again his voice caught and again he took a deep breath, got it under control. "…was that just too gods damned much to ask?"

Lee knew Gallagher wasn't expecting him to answer.

"You went back to the place you left her?"

"The detective was as helpful as he could be, but he was more interested in hearing about what had happened to Singer. And you know what? They're not even going to try that son of a bitch Zarek for Singer's murder. His men all said he wasn't there when it happened so Zarek gets a free pass. He'll finish out his original sentence and get a few months tacked on for the escape. The detective said he'd be a free man in a couple of years, maybe less. They're not even going to try any of them for hijacking my ship. His men all said I volunteered to take them off Caprica. In a sense that's true after Zarek threatened to let his men rape my daughter. Hell yes, I said I'd take them. Without Kara and her friend to testify, it would be my word against theirs. They've all gone back to prison anyway. The District Attorney said it wasn't worth the cost of a trial. One of his men is going to be tried for killing the pilot of the Astral Queen. The copilot identified him from a lineup. That's all the DA is interested in."

"That sucks," Lee said.

He reached for the flask and gingerly took another sip. Since he was prepared for it, he did better this time.

"The detective had tried to find Kara and her friend Karl, though. He had followed through on that. He'd notified the police in all the towns around the airport to be on the lookout for them. I went to the airfield and spent a couple of days searching the woods nearby. I found a place they might have camped, two places actually, but I don't know. It could have been somebody else, even some kids playing. I just don't understand why they wouldn't have waited for the police."

"Maybe they were afraid," Lee said. "I mean if I were in their situation I probably would have been. They were in a strange place. They didn't know anybody. They probably realized that they might have been separated if the police had to get Social Services involved. I'm sure they wanted to stay together until you got back. But since that was days…" Lee shrugged. "They're kids, not adults."

"Yeah, yeah, you're right. I keep forgetting thirteen-year-old kids would look at the situation a lot differently than an adult."

"What about the refugee camps? I know there was one about a hundred miles north of there."

"I eventually got there. First I went to all the towns around the little airport. The airport has been closed since Singer's murder. I locked the ship in a hangar and used Singer's old truck. I spent a couple of weeks driving to every town on the map in a fifty-mile radius. Outside of fifty miles there's nothing but farmland. It's not that I didn't believe the detective, but I wanted to follow up. Two homeless kids in a big city wouldn't be noticed, but in towns as small as these they would be. I went to the police stations, hospital if there was one, boarding houses, motels, anywhere two kids might have gone. I even stopped at a lot of farm houses. The detective was right. Nothing."

He took another drink. "Finally, I thought they must have gotten picked up and taken to one of the camps. I went to the closest one first, the one you mentioned up near Sovana and managed to sweet-talk a nice lady into letting me look at the list of refugees. I spent a couple of hours reading through it, but didn't see Kara's name. But just to be sure I walked around the camp for another couple of days. Nothing. Nothing but a bunch of miserable, starving people, a lot of them injured in the bombing. People were dying every day. I almost started hoping I wouldn't find her there. You think you've seen it all. Damn. I wasn't prepared to see people so hungry they were fighting over frakking rats."

He reached for the flask. Lee thought Gallagher was going to pick it up, but he didn't. He took a deep breath and went on with his story.

"Second camp was about seventy miles away from the first, between Sovana and Kinsdale. When I couldn't produce Kara's birth certificate listing me as her father, the woman in charge looked at me like she'd relish the opportunity to neuter me with a dull table knife. Yeah, that's the first thing you think about after a nuclear holocaust, running to the courthouse to get a birth certificate you're not even on anyway. I think she thought I was a pedophile looking for a young girl. I know they've got to be careful, but what could it have hurt to let me look at the frakking list? She just glanced at it and said Kara wasn't on it. I was careful to avoid her, and I walked around that camp for three or four days. I finally realized I needed to be talking to kids about their ages. Nobody knew a Kara or Karl."

This time Gallagher did take a drink.

"I got to the third and last camp in the late autumn, maybe early winter. The weather was just starting to get cold. It's a lot farther west, about twenty miles south of Antioch. Bigger than the other two camps put together, so big it was divided into sectors A-Z. Must have been a hundred sixty, seventy thousand people in all, maybe more."

"You drove Singer's truck all the way to Antioch? I heard the roads between Antioch and Sovana had been bombed."

Gallagher nodded. "The Cylons took out the bridges so I went back to Singer's airfield, flew the ship into the Antioch Airport and parked it with a few other private ships. There were a lot of cars in the parking lot whose owners weren't coming back for them...ever. I found one that had been there a couple of months based on the dashboard ticket. I…uh…borrowed it."

"You stole a car?"

"No, I borrowed it. I eventually took it back and left it right where I found it, same parking place even. Hey, don't look at me like that. It cost me some cubits to get the damned thing out of the parking lot. Like I said, it had been there for a couple of months."

"It's just that…never mind…go on with your story."

"The guard at the camp's gate pointed me to a big tent. Once I was inside, they started sending me from one person to the next. At times like that patience is not one of my virtues. I lost my cool. I finally asked some prissy little guy to tell me just what the hell I needed to do to see the gods damned list of refugees. Not smart. I got thrown out of the tent by a couple of Marines. That was no fun. They escorted me to the gate and told me if I came back to the camp they'd arrest me. I was on my way back to the car thinking about how I was going to get into the camp when a woman, and I use the term loosely, catches up to me and says she can get me the list."

He stopped talking for a moment. Then he laughed, but it didn't sound like he found anything funny. "Guess what she wanted in return?"

"To share a bunk?"

"You're quick."

"So, did you?"

"What do you think? We're talking about a list that might have had Kara's name on it. Once we got to the place she was staying, though, I had some doubts about whether I was going to be able to do it. But she…uh, had a talent I won't dwell on except to say I was really hoping she'd had her rabies shots. And it had been a damned long time since Lissa and I had shared my bunk. I just shut my eyes and pretended it was her and everything happened like it's supposed to."

Gallagher stopped and took another drink, shook his head slightly as if trying to clear an image from his mind. Then he went on with his story.

"I guess I must have made her happy because she went back to the admin tent and got the list. Hell, it was so thick I thought she was bringing me the Caprica City phone book. Turns out it was actually a master list for all three camps. A hundred and eighteen Thraces, but the closest one to Kara's age was an eleven-year-old boy with his parents. The other bad thing is I can't remember her friend's last name. I got the Karl part, but not the last name. I might recognize it if I heard it again, but I just don't remember it. Anyway, I waited a couple of days and managed to get into the camp without being seen. I spent time in every sector avoiding anybody who looked like they were in authority. I talked to as many kids as I could. I figured they'd know quicker than anybody else. No Karas. I found a couple of Karls, but not him."

"I'm sorry."

"So am I."

Lee suddenly had a terrible thought. "Could there have been another list, like the people who, uh, didn't make it?"

"The list I saw had everybody. If they had died in a camp, there was something beside the name, usually just the word deceased, sometimes with a reason. No, after I saw the conditions, especially in the first camp, I thought about it. But even if that had happened, she would have been on that master list. So it was worth whoring myself out to find out Kara wasn't there. The bad part is that was the last place I could think of to look for her."

"My father told me that Laura Roslin, the Secretary of Education has been trying to help the people in the camps. It was her idea to use military transports to deliver food and other supplies. I guess you heard about the stand-off at the Caprica Airbase?"

"I saw some big military cargo ships at the Antioch Airport. I'd sometimes go for days without seeing any news. I'd try to catch up when I got into a town. I got back into Antioch a couple of days after all the excitement had happened. I talked to some of the pilots. I finally saw the photograph everybody was talking about. What a fantastic shot. I didn't know it was the Secretary of Education who was responsible."

"I met her about a week ago. My parents and I were having dinner in the city and she came over to our table. She was on the negotiating team with my father last fall. She's really beautiful. My father…a long time ago he had a thing for her. I mean he never told me that, but I put a few things together."

"If she's trying to help the people in those camps, then I'll drink to her." He held up the flask before he drank. "To Laura Roslin."

"You can see it in her eyes, how much she cares. My father said she always wanted to better humanity. Those were his exact words. So where have you been since you left the last camp?"

"Flying for a group called United Caprican Charities based in Delphi. A pilot in Antioch told me they were looking for help. It was just temporary...shuttling medical supplies from their hub to a distribution point near Antioch. I slept on a cot in a hangar, shared the showers and bathroom with the maintenance crew. The job paid almost nothing, but it was enough to buy food and cigarettes and more whiskey that I should have. Have you bought liquor lately?"

"Uh, no," Lee said.

"Of course you haven't. What was I thinking? You wouldn't believe how much the cost has gone up since the other Colonies were destroyed. Anyway, I made my final flight for UCC early this week. They called me and my copilot in and paid us off. They're out of money. Donations aren't coming in like they used to. A lot of people have forgotten about the camps. The government would probably have forgotten, too, if it weren't for people like Laura Roslin."

"She's not going to let them go without supplies. Dad said so."

John screwed the cap on the flask, put it back into the bag and zipped it. "I just got back to Caprica City this afternoon. I've got an interview tomorrow morning with that friend of your father's about a cargo pilot's job. I just wanted to stop by and see you. I've got to find a place to stay tonight, get something to eat, get cleaned up. I'd best be on my way."

"You can stay here tonight. We have a guest bedroom. Mom will be home soon. I just put a casserole she made last night in the oven. Stay."

"I don't want to be any trouble."

"You deserve a break."

"I could use one about now. I appreciate your offer, but you need to clear it with your mother first."

Fifteen minutes later Lee was telling John about his senior year when he heard the patio door slide open. His mother walked up behind him and put her hands on his shoulders.

Lee looked up at her. "Hi, Mom."

By the time he looked back at Gallagher, the captain was on his feet.

"Mrs. Adama, I'm John Gallagher. It's nice to finally meet you." He held out his hand.

"I've heard my husband mention you, Captain Gallagher, and of course Lee has too. Please, it's Carolanne." She took his hand and shook it.

"John."

Lee said, "I've asked John to stay for dinner. Also to stay the night. He just got into town."

"And I told Lee I don't want to be any trouble."

"No trouble at all. Any friend of Bill's and Lee's is always welcome in our home. It will be nice to have someone share our table in Bill's absence. Could I offer you a drink? I'm going to have one."

"Just one," Gallagher said and smiled. "I've had a little bit of a head-start."

"What'll you have?"

"Whatever you're having."

His mother turned and went back inside. She came back out shortly with a straight whiskey.

"My kind of drink. Thank you," John said.

"You look like a straight whiskey kind of man, just like Bill. Let me know if I can get you another one. Now, I'm going to check on dinner. I'll let you and Lee finish catching up."

As soon as Lee heard the door slide shut, John said, "So finish telling me about your senior year. Still at the top of your class?"

"Third. I got involved in too much this semester. It doesn't really matter, though. I've been accepted at the Academy for next fall and after that I'm going to go to Flight School. I'm going to be a Viper pilot."

"Good decision. You won't regret it. Girlfriend?"

Lee shook his head. "I've dated a couple of girls. I even, uh, shared a bunk with one of them, but nothing serious. I'm not ready to go there yet. I guess I was waiting for you to come back with your beautiful daughter."

He realized as soon as he said it that he shouldn't have. Gallagher made an effort to keep up the joke. He smiled, but the smile never reached his eyes.

"You know it's a good thing for you my leg is hurting and I'm about half-drunk right now. Otherwise I'd have to get up and kick your ass. Kara's not eighteen yet."

"I'm sorry, John. I'm really sorry."

Gallagher finally shook his head. "It's okay, Lee. Where I am right now is not your fault."

They sat in silence for a long time until John said, "I was born in the north of Virgon, on the coast where the waters are cold and the fish are…were the best in the Twelve Colonies. My dad had a fishing trawler that he worked with a small crew and my four older brothers. I think I was a big surprise to my parents. Two years at most between each of my brothers. Then almost nine years before I came along."

"I'll bet that was a big surprise."

"When I was just a kid, probably about twelve, I wanted something my parents couldn't afford. I don't even remember now what it was, but you know how kids are, whatever they want is the most important thing in the world. Anyway, I was arguing with my parents at the dinner table, which wasn't allowed, and my dad finally got up and took me by the arm and marched me to my room."

"Uh-oh."

"Yeah. I figured I was in for it, and it sure wouldn't have been the first time because I was a hard-headed little brat, but he just sat me down on my bed and said, I know your mamma's spoiled you and maybe I have too, because you're our baby, but you need to be a little more thankful for what you've got…for a warm home and food on the table and for parents who love you more than anything else in the world even if they can't always afford to give you everything you want.

"And of course in the beginning I was only half-way listening to him because I still wanted my way, but before he was through talking I felt so bad I almost wished he'd taken his belt to me instead. Finally my dad said, Be grateful for what you've got, John, because otherwise that selfish streak you've got in you will eat you alive. It's negative and it's bad for you.

"I've been letting the negative eat at me too long now, ever since I couldn't find Kara. There's only one time before in my life when I did that, when I just frakking gave up, and the love of a good woman pulled me back from the edge. The result of that love was our daughter. She's all I've got left of her mother now except memories. And every time I was so discouraged I'd start thinking about putting that damned ship into the side of a mountain, I'd ask myself, What if tomorrow is the day you're going to find Kara?. I'm still waiting on that tomorrow, and I still believe it will happen. But I've done everything I know to do right now. I've got to get on with my life, lay off the booze, get a real job, and get back in touch with the few friends I have who are still alive. I'm starting with one who means a lot to me. I'm starting with you."

Lee reached out, took the drink that Gallagher hadn't touched and poured it into the edge of the flowerbed beside the table. He was tempted to drink it himself, but he was really feeling the effects of the Siren's Kiss. John had just shared something deeply personal with him, something that resonated, something that struck such a familiar chord that some of Gallagher's words about the negative side of a person could have been his own. Lee had to let John know that he understood exactly what he was talking about. It was a struggle to talk about himself, but he made himself do it because it was important.

"When I was growing up my dad was hardly ever here, and my mom was depressed and drank a lot. She didn't hit me or abuse me. She just ignored me. I mostly raised myself and my brother, too. There were times when I wanted…I don't know…just wanted to give up…when I fought with something really dark. I was lucky I was able to get into stuff at school. It helped me. But I don't know what love feels like, John. At least your parents loved you and wanted you, and you and Kara's mom loved each other. I'm still waiting to find out what it feels like to love somebody. Or have somebody really love me. My dad was in love with Laura Roslin and something happened between them and they broke up. I don't know about that part. I just know he got drunk one night and got my mom pregnant. I know neither one of them wanted me, but my dad did the right thing and married her. Even my grandparents referred to me as a mistake. I've never told anybody this before, but when you talk about the negative eating at you, I know exactly what you're talking about."

Gallagher said softly. "You really do, don't you? And here I sit feeling sorry for myself. I had no idea. You hide it well."

Lee thought about the many times he'd felt the pull of the negative, when he got tired of being the responsible one, of shouldering burdens his parents should have been taking care of, when he'd had to turn away from the dark thoughts just to survive, when sometimes just knowing his brother was depending on him was the only thing that kept him going. He'd never thought of it quite that way before, but John was right. The negative was something that could consume you if you let it.

Lee finally went on. "So I know what you're talking about. I learned how the negative can dominate your thoughts a lot younger than you did. My dad is home now and my mom has quit drinking so much. She's doing a lot better. I didn't tell you this so you'd feel sorry for me. I did it so you'd know I understand what you're talking about."

"I guess in some ways we're kindred souls, Lee. And I don't feel sorry for you. You're way too smart and got too much going on for me to feel sorry for you. You showed me up there on the Galactica what you're made of. When I find Kara, you'll meet her. It doesn't matter if she's eighteen or not."

"I know."

"But I'll still kick your ass if you try anything with her."

Lee grinned. "I know that, too. The way you love her I wouldn't expect anything less."

"Just so we're clear on that," Gallagher nodded and smiled. This time the smile reached his eyes.