Chapter 27
Dance With Me
In a move that was no surprise to President Adar's inner circle, the Libran ambassador to Caprica did not invite any Cylons to the party he hosted for the President's fiftieth birthday. The ambassador, whose wife and two young sons were on Libran when the Cylons destroyed the planet, was well-known for his caustic comments about Cavil and his refusal to acknowledge the Cylons at any official function. Adar's willingness to attend the birthday party was seen by his associates as his first act of defiance against the Cylons. It was later revealed that Adar had already decided not to seek a second term when his first was up.
-Bartell, History of the Second Cylon War
.
"John, it's just a birthday party. Quit making such a big deal out of it."
Lee was on his third beer at McGee's on Friday night. John was still sipping his first. He hadn't seen John since the night early the previous week that John had slept on his couch.
"It's not just any birthday party. It's the President's birthday party, and it's tomorrow night. What if I say or do something wrong? What if I embarrass Laura?"
"I can't believe this. You faced Cylon Raiders when you were flying a Viper and you're afraid of going to a birthday party? You need to get over it. Laura will introduce you to Adar. You say, 'Nice to meet you, Mr. President. Happy birthday.' You and Laura will have a drink, dance a couple of times, and then you'll go back to her place and frak. You'll have a great time. And don't tell me you aren't going to try to frak her. Have you ever dated a woman you didn't frak?"
"I've dated a lot of women I didn't frak, and I'm going to ask you not to use that word when you talk about Laura."
"What? You don't like me saying frak? When did you get so prim and proper?"
"If…and I say if…something like that should happen tomorrow night, it will be making love, not frakking."
"Sure, John, whatever you say. Making love…frakking…what's the difference?"
"There's a hell of a lot of difference and you know it. What's wrong with you, Lee? The last time I saw you like this was when you and Blaire broke up."
"I'm tired. I'm just so damned tired of the long days with no end in sight. I want to fly a Viper again. I want to get out there and put all this crap behind me for a few hours."
"There's something else going on with you. We're friends. You can talk to me. Some new woman got you tied in knots?"
Lee hadn't planned to say anything about what had happened the previous Saturday night, but he knew he could trust John with anything.
"The girl in my dream or hallucination is real. I met her."
"Okay, Lee, what have you had besides the three beers? Have you been out in the parking lot smoking something?"
Lee started at the beginning and told John what had happened from the minute he saw the door to interview room twelve open and a bloodied Carrie Warner come out through the part about visiting MediFirst and talking to Carrie for the second time. All he omitted were Carrie's name and where she worked. He knew he shouldn't have been talking about the investigation at all.
"That's it?" John asked. "That's what's got you so tied in knots?"
"That's it."
"I don't believe it. Tell me the rest of it."
"I slept with her."
"That's a big jump from talking to her at her place of work to sleeping with her. What happened in between?"
"Not much. She met me at Zeno's last Saturday night. We went to my apartment. We talked. We had a drink. We talked some more. I kissed her. We ended up in bed. She was a virgin."
"You sure you haven't been outside smoking something?"
"I haven't even got to the best part, yet. She won't see me again because she's the terrorist we're looking for. She told me details about the shooting that only the sniper could have known, and I let her go. She pulled a knife on Ackerman in that interview room and I let her go then, too. She was in a refugee camp for three years. Her parents were killed when the Cylons bombed Antioch. She said the war isn't over for her."
A funny look passed over John's face. "She was the shooter at that lab a couple of weeks ago?"
"I shouldn't be telling you this stuff because it's part of an on-going investigation, but I trust you, John. She even has a scar on the side of her leg from where one of the guards shot her with a twenty-two pistol. She told me somebody had to cut the bullet out of her without any anesthetic."
"How old is this girl?"
"Nineteen. Twenty next month. I checked her out. Everything about her checks out…her name, where she was born, everything. She's got a gun permit because she rides shotgun on a truck that delivers medical supplies and medicine to clinics in rough neighborhoods. The rest of the time she makes deliveries on a motorcycle…that is when she's not shooting people. She shot two men at that lab. Only one of them was a Cylon."
"No, both of them were Cylons. I had lunch with your dad today. I also talked to Laura last night after she got back from her symposium in Antioch. Someone sent her a note last week saying there was a fourth Cylon model, a male. Your dad and Agent Darren now think the second guy killed at the lab was a Cylon as well. They think that's who the note was referring to. There's a chance your new girlfriend or one of her close associates might have written that note."
"That's just great. She might know of another Cylon model and I let her go. And she's not my girlfriend. She made it clear we couldn't see each other again."
"Just because she's a terrorist?"
"Or I'm in the military, whichever way you want to look at it. We're on opposite sides. What I can't understand is why she slept with me at all if she thinks the military is cooperating with the Cylons and she hates the Cylons so much. I mean why did she even meet me that night at Zeno's?"
"Use those analytical skills of yours. Why do you think?"
"She said she'd read a book about a prince with blue eyes and wings over his heart. She thought I was him. That's why she saved herself for me. How stupid is that?"
"No more stupid than you thinking she's the girl in your hallucination. It sounds to me like both of you had some illusions about the other one before you met and that's why you ended up in bed together. You were frakking your dream and she was frakking hers."
"That's not what it was."
"Frakking…making love…what's the difference?"
"Okay. You made your point. There is a big difference. It's just that the minute I saw her…I knew she was the one."
"You were careful with her, weren't you?"
"Yes, Dad," Lee said sarcastically. "Somebody once gave me a set of rules to always go by when it comes to women. I think his name was John Gallagher. I clearly remember rule number one having to do with taking responsibility for birth control. I might not be a prince, but I'm not stupid."
"I was just wondering if I should start looking for a store that sells cigars. You know the ones that say, It's a boy or It's a girl."
"Not for me, you won't. Maybe for you and Laura."
John grinned. "You think I'm going to break my own number one rule?"
"I think I'm in love with her."
"Oh, come on, Lee, you don't fall in love that fast."
"Says the man who fell in love with Laura over a couple of dinners."
John looked sheepish. "Yeah, well, that's different. I've known her longer."
"Just because you met her at my graduation doesn't qualify for knowing her longer."
"Lee, sometimes you meet somebody and you just connect and when it happens, it's magical and mysterious. That's what happened with me and Laura. That's probably what happened with you and this girl, too."
"I told her I was willing to see her no matter what. She said she wouldn't take the chance with my career or my life because of what she's doing. I think she feels something for me, too, because if she didn't, why would she care what happens to me? "
"Maybe she's a romantic terrorist."
"Whatever she is, I lied to Major Parker for her. I let her go when she told me she was in the resistance and the one we were looking for. I don't know what's happening to me."
"You can still have her arrested."
"The Cylons would execute her for treason."
"Don't you think that's what she deserves? She's resistance. You believe what they're doing is wrong."
"I thought I did but I don't know anymore. This whole thing has really frakked with my head. Before I met her I thought that terrorists were all crazy fanatics who would kill half the population of Caprica if it meant they could take out one Cylon, and now I find out this beautiful girl is one, and she's not crazy at all. I mean no crazier than the rest of us."
"If we were at war, could you kill Cylons?"
"You know I could."
"If you'd lost both your parents to the Cylons and spent three years in a refugee camp, would you think about joining the resistance? Would you think the war wasn't over for you?"
"Probably."
"Then you should understand why you can't make yourself take her in…because under different circumstances you would have done the same thing. I understand why they're doing it. I might not agree with everything they're doing, but I agree with a lot of it. I understand that in any group as loosely organized as the resistance that you can't always control the actions of isolated cells or a single person. Like the guy who tried to blow up that lab weeks before the other succeeded. That wasn't a sanctioned…I'm sure that wasn't a sanctioned operation. "
"You think they were right in blowing up that lab, don't you?"
"Yes, I do, Lee. I'm sorry you're suffering for it, but it was the right thing to do. Baltar and his Cylon friends are messing with something that belongs to the gods. They've got no right trying to make something half-human and half-Cylon. A man and a woman making a new life, that's a miracle. If the gods want us mixing our DNA with the Cylons, it shouldn't happen under a microscope. It should happen the way it's been happening for hundreds of thousands of years. I don't think that's what the gods have in mind, but if that happened, I could accept it. I can't accept what Baltar and his Cylon buddies are trying to do."
"You think she was right to shoot those two Cylons, too, don't you?"
"That's why she was there. She did it to protect…I'm sure she did it to protect the others she was with. That's what snipers do in a situation like that."
"How do you know? Do you plan terrorist missions in your spare time?"
"I've read a few black ops novels. So what are you going to do about the girl?"
"What can I do? She won't see me again."
"Aren't you even going to ask her if she knows who the other Cylon is? She must have seen him if she shot him."
"I really should do that."
"Just don't expect too much from her. You're dealing with someone tough enough that she survived three years in a refugee camp, who dealt with losing her entire family. Hell, if she's tough enough that somebody cut a bullet out of her without any anesthetic, she's not going to be easy."
"I already know that. Don't tell my dad about this, okay? Give me a chance to handle this one myself."
"She's all yours. Good luck."
"Thanks. And thanks for listening to me tonight. I feel better now. And I really hope things work out for you and Laura tomorrow night. Do I need to take my dress uniform to the cleaners and start planning a bachelor party?"
John grinned. "I'll be lucky if she kisses me goodnight again."
...
The dress was sapphire blue silk, Aerilon silk, the finest the Colonies had ever produced and once it was gone, once it was fashioned into dresses like this one, there would be no more. The design was beautiful, a long, full skirt with bias-cut bodice and three-quarter length mesh sleeves that were studded with tiny iridescent blue crystals in a lace pattern.
Laura had gotten the dress a year earlier to wear to the Colonial Day Celebration, but had instead been at one of the refugee camps during a food crisis. Tonight she was wearing the beautiful blue dress for the first time.
She was ready early despite the fact that she put her hair up, changed her mind, took it down and recurled it before she did her makeup. She paced the living room. She had told Doug that when John arrived to send him up. She sat down briefly then took off her heels and paced some more.
At exactly 7:45 the doorbell chimed. He looked as good as she knew he would. The tuxedo was single-breasted and conservative. The white shirt had tiny tucks and the studs and cufflinks were black onyx and silver. She was almost certain she had seen her father in an identical tuxedo at numerous embassy parties. Then she remembered that she'd told John about Giovanni's formal wear for men.
She smiled at him. "You look like you were born to wear that tux."
"You look…wow," was all he said for a minute. "I'm not usually this speechless. I knew you were going to look beautiful tonight, but you have a way of exceeding my expectations. I just want you to remember that I'm way out of my league. Drinking a beer with Lee is my comfort zone."
"You're going to do fine. How is Lee?"
"Tired. They've all been under a lot of pressure ."
"No luck, yet?"
"Not yet."
"Well…shall we go?" She realized that she was as nervous as he was but for entirely different reasons.
He held her hand in the limo, his fingers once again laced through hers. She told him about her trip to Antioch and the symposium. He told her that he had turned in his resignation at the cargo company and that next week was his last of a two-week notice. After that he would be flying for the government. He said the government was able to maintain its ships much better than most private companies. He said he was tired of wondering each time he took a ship up if he would make it to their destination in one piece.
When they got out at the Libran embassy, she glanced at him. He was pale, but he smiled at her. The sooner she introduced him to Adar the better. They were a few minutes early and in luck. Adar wasn't surrounded yet. She took John's arm and guided him in the president's direction. Adar greeted her like he always did, by taking her hand in one of his and covering it with the other. He pinned her with those blue eyes.
"Laura, you look especially beautiful tonight. And you're with someone I don't know."
"Rick, this is John Gallagher, a very dear friend of mine and also a close friend of Bill Adama's. John, Richard Adar."
"It's an honor, sir. Happy birthday."
"Thank you, Mr. Gallagher. You're a lucky man if you can call both Bill and Laura friends. They are two very special people, very important to me and to Caprica."
"Yes, sir, I know they are. They're special to me, too."
"A smart man always knows the worth of his friends," Adar said. "In fact one of my advisors is fond of saying you can get a good idea of someone's character by looking at his friends." He smiled at Laura. "Or her friends as the case may be."
Five minutes later she and John were sitting at one of the small tables enjoying a drink. The color was back in his face.
"See, that wasn't so bad," she said to him.
"I don't remember a thing I said. Did I wish him happy birthday?"
"Yes, you did."
"Good. The President certainly regards you highly."
"I've been with him, politically speaking, since I worked on his campaign when he was running for the City Council in Delphi. That was the summer before I started graduate school. My first political appointment came when he was Mayor of Delphi."
Bill and Carolanne Adama came in. Bill scanned the room until he found them, and began making his way in their direction. Carolanne looked lovely in a dark wine-red dress. It took them a while to get to Laura and John because Bill stopped to greet numerous people or they stopped him. He had also chosen to wear a tuxedo tonight instead of his dress uniform. Laura was glad. Bill Adama in his dress uniform at a dance would have stirred even more memories of their past.
Due to her trip to Antioch, she hadn't talked to Bill since the previous week when she had received the letter. They greeted each other. When Bill returned with drinks for him and his wife, she asked, "Any word from Agent Darren on our correspondence?"
"Are you two going to talk shop tonight?" Carolanne asked. "We should be dancing and enjoying ourselves."
"I agree," John said. "Why don't you and I dance while Bill and Laura catch up with what she missed while she was away…that is if your husband and Laura don't mind?" He glanced at Laura and winked.
"Have at it," Bill smiled. He waited until John led Carolanne out to the dance floor. "Why don't we dance, too? It will look less like we're talking business and more like we're enjoying ourselves."
She let him lead her out onto the floor.
"You make it sound like those two things are mutually exclusive."
"This takes me back a few years," Bill said. "You were wearing a white dress that night."
"It takes us back twenty years. And yes, the dress was white. Neither one of us wanted to be there, and I fell in love with you. Did I miss anything?"
"When I saw you coming down the stairs at your father's house I knew I was in big trouble. I was expecting a dog, you see…a girl who couldn't even get a date. Not a beautiful girl who grew into an even more beautiful woman."
Laura was suddenly aware of where their conversation was headed, of where she had so foolishly started it with her remark about falling in love with him. She couldn't let them go there…not tonight.
"What did you find out about the letter?"
He waited a long time before he replied. Finally he said, "Forensics turned up nothing. The only fingerprints on the letter were yours and Adele's. The only ones on the envelope were mail sorters and carriers. It was standard paper. A handwriting expert has it now, but Darren doesn't expect much since it was printed in block letters. The only thing the guy noticed immediately was the use of the word man instead of male. 'There is a 4th Cylon. A man.' Not a male. He thinks it means the writer either views this Cylon as human or the writer is possibly young or unsophisticated and didn't think of the difference."
"Another part of our riddle," Laura said.
"You do look very beautiful tonight. Showing up with John should put the finishing touches on the affair story."
Laura smiled. "Yes, I expect it will do that."
"Darren said Cavil is already convinced you and John knew nothing about that lab. He believes that all you're having is a love affair. How far are you going to take this act?"
"I no longer think of it as an act. I'm also aware you warned John to behave himself with me."
"He'll hurt you, Laura."
"He probably will. But at least John hasn't forced me to choose between my career and him."
She saw the pain flicker briefly in Bill's eyes. "That was the biggest mistake of my life. My next big mistake stemmed from it."
"Which mistake would that be? Refusing to take my phone calls or ignoring the dozen letters I wrote begging you just to talk to me?"
She had almost forgotten how much that had hurt. Why was she doing this? Why even mention it at all? Did she still want an apology after all these years? She seriously doubted one would be forthcoming. She was right.
"I'm referring to the mistake I made with Carolanne. Surely you've figured out that she was pregnant with Lee when I married her. I was drunk the night it happened. Drunk and missing you."
"But not missing me so much you would call or write."
"You know what your father threatened to do. He threatened to cut you off, quit paying for your education."
"My father calmed down just like I knew he would. If you'd just left quietly and let me talk to him like I asked you to, everything would have been all right. Instead you went out and slept with someone as fast as you could."
"I've already admitted I made several bad mistakes. I paid for them."
"You made the honorable choice, Bill. You always make the honorable choice. It's who you are. And you have Lee. You have a son any father would be proud of. Certainly you can't consider him or his life a mistake despite how it began."
"No."
That night in Bill Adama's arms, Laura saw what her wounded pride and broken heart had kept her from seeing for twenty years.
"Then perhaps everything happened the way it was supposed to. Let's not talk about the past. Let's put it away now. My life has been very full since you and I were together, but in many ways it's been very lonely. I've spent far too much time looking back wishing I could change the past. All I have is here and now. Even if things don't work out for John and me, I'm going to take the chance. I want to take the chance. I don't want to look back years from now and ask myself what if."
"Laura, I…"
"No, don't say it. Whatever you're going to say, please don't say it. We can't do this, Bill. We can't."
He dropped his eyes. "John's a lucky man."
She glanced across the dance floor. John was chatting with Carolanne while they danced, but he seemed to feel her eyes on him. He looked in her direction and smiled.
"I'm a lucky woman," she said and meant it.
There was nothing complicated about what she felt for John or what she was sure he felt for her. They would go back to her apartment and become the lovers that Cavil and everyone else thought they already were. They would have an affair. It would run its course. He would move on to someone younger and prettier. She would be hurt, but as long as she was prepared, it wouldn't hurt nearly as much as her breakup with Bill Adama had hurt all those years ago.
She glanced toward the door. Gaius Baltar had just come in with Natasi. She was wearing a tight red sheath dress and Laura couldn't deny that she looked sexy and beautiful. She didn't look like a machine at all.
"Dear gods," she asked. "What does that man have that makes him so attractive to women?"
"You're asking me what makes John so attractive to women?"
"Not John, Dr. Baltar. A month ago he was dating D'Anna Biers, then John caught him in bed with Lissa and now he's here with Natasi."
Bill immediately looked toward John and his wife. "John caught Baltar in bed with Lissa? Do you think there will be trouble?"
"Oh, no, John would never."
The song ended and John and Carolanne made their way back across the floor and joined them. John put his arm around Laura, his hand cupped lightly on her shoulder.
"Dr. Baltar is here."
"I saw him," John said. "She's the one he should be with…a Cylon-lover with his Cylon. I just feel sorry for Lissa. She worships him."
Bill said, "John, this isn't the time or the place."
"I'm aware of that."
"I remember how you decked Tom Zarek on board the Galactica. I cut you a lot of slack because of the situation, but you can't do something like that here and get away with it."
"If I were going to do something like that to Baltar, I'd have done it when I caught him in bed with Lissa. And we're not on your battlestar now, Bill."
The two men looked at each other. Laura sensed there was more going on with them than a dispute over Gaius Baltar's choice of a date. It seemed almost like John and Bill were getting ready to go head-to-head.
She put her hand on top of John's and said, "Dr. Baltar may not have had any choice about who he brought tonight. I don't think any of the Cylons were invited. Cavil may have insisted that Baltar let Natasi accompany him…his way of having the last word. Gaius does not look like a happy man."
John glanced at Baltar. "I don't think I'd be happy either if I'd betrayed the human race, but you know what? Tonight I really don't care. I'm happy about being here with you. That's all that matters. Dance with me."
He led her onto the dance floor and took her in his arms.
"What's this about you hitting Tom Zarek?"
"It's a long story."
"I'd like to hear it."
"Later. I don't want to talk about it right now and spoil the mood. Tonight I want only good memories. I'm with the most beautiful woman in the room, and I'm still asking myself how I got this lucky."
"It started a long time ago in a garden on Libran," she said mysteriously. "And it involves a princess and her handsome prince, or maybe I should say a pilot and a diplomat's daughter."
She thought briefly of the irony of how she had come full circle, of how the diplomat's daughter was once again dancing in the arms of a pilot.
"I think I'm going to like your story a lot better than you'll like mine."
She leaned up and put her mouth close to his ear, "My story ends with a kiss, or maybe I should say it begins with a kiss and it involves happily ever after."
He pulled her close. "I'm a big fan of happily ever after, but I like the kiss part even better."
She was right. There was nothing complicated at all about what he wanted from her. She had no problem with that. She'd wanted the same thing from him since the night he'd kissed her.
"I wonder how soon after we sing Happy Birthday to Rick that we can leave without being really obvious," she murmured.
"I don't think we should leave before we speak to Dr. Baltar. I know he'll be overjoyed to see me."
"You've got to promise me you won't do anything foolish."
"Foolish, no, cruel, yes."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm not going to do anything. I've got a comment I want to make to him in front of his Cylon. Didn't you say you think they've got something going on?
...
"Siren's Kiss," John said as he handed her the glass back at her apartment. "Take a sip first to see if you like it. It's strong."
She sipped and then took another. "It's very good. The peach brandy gives it just the right touch. And it is strong, but that little bit of sweetness keeps it from being too strong."
"Don't be fooled by that sweetness. It doesn't take a lot of this to get you seriously drunk, and we don't want to do that tonight." John raised his glass. "To a wonderful evening. Thank you for inviting me."
She touched her glass to his. "I'm still trying not to laugh when I think of the expression on Gaius Baltar's face when you told him he looked a lot better with his clothes on."
John grinned. "I couldn't resist. You wouldn't think someone with an IQ as high as his could stammer like that."
"Natasi certainly didn't find it too amusing."
"They've got something going on. If I didn't know she was a machine, I'd say she was jealous."
"I think you probably ruined the evening for both of them."
"What a shame. Of course I think I ruined Bill's evening, too. He acted like he was afraid to get ten steps away from us. He really doesn't know me if he thinks I would have done anything to embarrass you tonight."
"I'm not sure that was his concern. I think Bill may have a problem with us…with you and me."
"I was afraid of that."
"I basically told him our relationship is none of his business."
"Laura, I'm not like Chuck Winters. I didn't assume anything when you asked me in for a drink. To tell you the truth, I expected you to kiss me goodnight on the sidewalk again and then send me home."
She smiled at him. "Won't you let me take your jacket and hang it up? I'm sure you'll be more comfortable."
He smiled as he pulled the bowtie loose and stuck it in the pocket before he took off the jacket and handed it to her. She took it to the entry closet then came back and lit the gas logs in the fireplace. She had made sure before he had arrived that the lighting was subdued. They had stayed at the party nearly two hours, ample time for her case of nerves to have subsided, but she still felt uptight.
John sat down on the couch and patted the cushion beside him. "Come sit down, take off your shoes and put your feet in my lap. I haven't got a clue how you women stand all evening in those heels. My feet hurt just looking at them."
She gratefully sat on the couch and slipped off the shoes. "You don't need to…"
"Yes, I do. Put your feet up here."
She turned sideways and put her feet up. He finished his drink and sat the glass on the coffee table before he took her feet in his hands and began massaging them.
The sound she made was something between a sigh, a whimper and a moan. "Oh, gods, you have no idea how good that feels."
He smiled. "This will relax almost anyone. I was wound tight before the party. You're wound tight right now. Laura, I can promise you that nothing is going to happen tonight unless you want it to happen. We'll just sit here and talk and I'll rub your feet for as long as you want so just relax."
"I think I'm seriously in danger of being spoiled."
"Don't tell me a man has never massaged your feet before."
"I'm afraid not."
"I'm just racking up all kinds of firsts with you…first kiss standing out on the sidewalk, first foot massage, first taste of Siren's Kiss. Any more firsts I don't know about?"
"You're the first man I've ever dated who's worn my father's favorite tuxedo. You must have gone to see Giovanni."
"I did. He recommended it."
"One of my earliest memories is of my father carrying me downstairs to an embassy party wearing his tuxedo. It was almost like a uniform for him. I hadn't thought about that for years. I couldn't have been more than three or four."
"I never saw my father in a tuxedo. I rarely saw him in a suit. What I remember most about my parents was how much they loved each other. I used to play in the kitchen when I was a kid because it was the warmest room in the house and I was in there a lot when my dad and my brothers came home from being out on the boat. They always took their fishing clothes off outside the kitchen in the mud room. I can remember my dad coming through to go to the shower in his shorts and t-shirt, and my mother's face would just light up when she saw him. He always went over to her and kissed her…always. She never got over losing him. She…I told you what she did."
"What happened to you, John, after you lost her?"
"I was sent to a foster home. It was okay at first, but that didn't last. You know you've got to wonder about the wisdom of the people in Social Services on Virgon. What kind of idiots would place a fifteen-year old boy in a home with three girls? My foster parents had two daughters of their own, an eleven- year-old and a fifteen-year-old and a seventeen-year-old foster daughter."
"That surprises me, too."
"Maybe they were the only ones who would take me. I'm sure a fifteen-year-old boy is hard to place. The worst part was that it was a couple hundred miles inland and I was used to being at the ocean, but maybe it was better for me to be away from there for a while. Who knows? They had fixed up their attic for me. It was nice. I had my own space. Then a few weeks after I moved in, the seventeen-year-old started coming up there at night after everyone was in bed…and…hell, I hadn't done anything but kiss a girl up until that point. Next thing you know I was getting an education I hadn't dreamed I'd be getting."
John stopped talking and leaned his head back on the couch.
"She got pregnant?" Laura asked.
"Not her. She was old enough to go to one of the free clinics and get birth control pills. As soon as she turned eighteen, she left and moved in with an older guy. The one I got in trouble with was the fifteen-year-old."
"Oh, John."
"Her name was Amelie. She was sweet and pretty and she developed a big crush on me and I fell for her, too. Her parents were strict. They didn't let her date so I was the first boy she'd ever been with. I got no excuse for what I did except that I was a messed-up kid who had grown up being loved and all of a sudden my family was gone and I was alone and Amelie gave me something that was missing from my life. A couple of months later she was pregnant and a couple of months after that her mother figured it out. I didn't have a clue until one day in the spring when her dad was waiting for us when we got home from school. He beat the crap out of me and when I was unconscious, he started on her. The only thing that saved us was the little one, the eleven-year-old. She thought her dad was going to kill her sister. She ran to a neighbor's house and they called the police."
"Where was the mother?"
"At the grocery store. Maybe on purpose. Maybe not. I never found out."
"What happened?"
"The police called paramedics. Amelie and I were taken to the hospital. Her father was arrested and taken to jail. I had a bad concussion from where he'd knocked my head into the kitchen cabinets. I had a couple of cracked ribs and a bruised kidney, too. It was two days before I could sit up without getting so dizzy that I threw up. Longer than that before I quit peeing blood. Amelie wasn't in much better shape. She lost the baby."
"Was it a girl?" Laura asked wondering if this was the child he had lost, the daughter.
"I don't know. I never got the chance to ask. When I was finally able to get on my feet and go to her room, she and her mother went into hysterics. All of a sudden everything was my fault. Her husband was in jail and it was my fault. Her daughter was beat up and ruined and it was my fault. The next day I walked out of the hospital, went back to the house, got my stuff and took off. I hitched back to the coast and spent the next two years working on a fishing trawler. Then I joined the military and started flying a Viper. Life was a lot better after that."
"Oh, John, that was a terrible thing for you to have to go through."
"I learned a lot from it."
"I can understand how it would have changed you. Those years are some of the most impressionable in our lives."
"Laura, I'm probably not the man you think I am. I don't want you to think you're getting somebody special and be disappointed. I'm a good pilot, a damned good pilot, but that's it. I don't advise the President or run the Academy. I read a lot, but I don't have any formal education. I'm a simple guy. Flying is the only thing I do really well."
"Is that your way of turning me down nicely?"
"I just don't want to be a one-night stand for you, Laura. I don't want you to do this because you think you owe me something for the information I got you."
She smiled. "I can assure you that neither one of those has ever crossed my mind when I think about you."
He stood up, took her hand and gently pulled her to her feet. "I've thought about this from the moment I met you."
In her bedroom as he unzipped and unhooked the dress for her, he leaned down and put his lips against the back of her neck. She shivered at his touch and learned something about herself that she didn't know. He gently pushed the dress off her shoulders and kissed her there, too.
She turned and put her arms around his neck, and he kissed her finally in that slow, sensual way of his that made her nearly crazy. He really did believe in kissing until kissing just wasn't enough. He kissed her throat and the side of her neck and very quickly found the spot that was so sensitive for her. Her head fell back and she moaned softly.
"I believe I've found a sweet spot," he said and kissed her at the same place on the other side of her neck. "Is this spot sweet, too?"
"Yes," she managed to say.
He brought his mouth close to her ear. "I'll bet if you let me, I can find a spot a lot sweeter than either one of those."
"Oh, please."
"I'll take that as permission to proceed."
Laura was almost embarrassed by the way he seemed to know her body better than she did, by the passionate response he elicited from her, and by how quickly he satisfied her physical hunger the first time.
What she loved the most, though, was the slow and gentle way he finally took her, watching her eyes the whole time, watching her respond to him, waiting to make sure he wasn't hurting her. Maybe he knew instinctively how long it had been for her and maybe he knew that she needed this gentleness from him right now.
There was a moment, just a moment, as she looked into his eyes that she thought their relationship might be more complicated than she believed, but he knew her better than she knew herself and very soon the intense pleasure had crowded every conscious thought from her brain.
But even his considerable self-control had its limit, and just before he said her name, just before he gave in and let himself experience the pleasure he had already given her, he brought his lips to her neck, to her second-sweetest spot, and she was again lost, this time with him, in the hot, wild, ecstasy of physical bliss. She had forgotten how very good it could feel to abandon herself completely in the arms of a man.
Afterward she drifted slowly and contentedly through layers of a cloud. That's the only way she could describe how she felt. She was vaguely aware that John got up, barely conscious of the bathroom door closing. She drifted again, and he was back and gently settled her against his body, his arm around her, her head on his shoulder.
"The best part," he said.
"This is the best part for you?"
"There's three best parts to making love…before, during and after. This is the best part after. I need to hold you like this for a while."
She drifted contentedly through the cloud layers again. Finally she said, "John, if I'm not saying anything it's because you've rendered me completely speechless. And for a politician, that's saying a lot."
She heard the smile in his voice. "Speechless is fine, Laura. I can handle that as long as it's the good kind of speechless."
"It's the best kind of speechless."
They lay that way for a long time until finally he said, "When I was looking for my daughter, I went into a temple up near Antioch. I'd just been to the last of the refugee camps and she wasn't there. I was already half drunk, on my way to getting completely drunk that night. I was trying to pray and I looked up and there was a priest at the altar. I don't know how she got there because she wasn't there when I came in, but I looked up and there she was. When I was ready to leave, I walked up to put some coins in the bowls. Without looking at me, she said, 'You will find her and she will find you.' I thought at the time she was talking about my daughter. It gave me a lot of hope. Now I think she was talking about you."
He stopped talking and pulled her closer.
"I thought you might have lost a daughter based on something you once said but I assumed she had died."
"She is dead. I've accepted that now. Three years ago I couldn't. That's why I was praying in that temple. I looked for her for months, in all the towns around the airport where I'd had to leave her. I went to hospitals and hotels. I even stopped at every farm house I came to outside the towns. I looked everywhere. Finally I went to all three of the refugee camps. I knew it was a long shot, but I wanted to believe that she had survived the bombings. The airport where I'd had to leave her was between Kinsdale and Antioch. I wanted to think that someone had picked her and her friend up and taken them to one of the camps. They were the last places that I looked, my last hope of finding her…alive."
The memory of the green-eyed girl surfaced again. "How old was your daughter?"
"Thirteen."
Laura's breath caught. "What does she look like?"
"Blond hair, about five six, slim, athletic, beautiful."
"Does she have your green eyes?"
"She did. Yeah. Why?"
"Is her name Kara?"
"Bill or Lee told you."
"No. Someone else told me her name. I met her. I met your daughter in the big camp near Antioch."
"You couldn't have. She wasn't there. I know. I went there. I saw the master list for all three camps. She wasn't on it. I walked around for days. I talked to other kids. Nobody knew her."
Laura propped herself on one elbow and looked at him. "John, she got in my face. She challenged me to go with her out into the camp. She wanted to introduce me to a teacher. He told me that her name was Kara. When were you there?"
"Late autumn or early winter...a couple of months after the Cylons bombed us."
"It was over a year later when I saw her…right after the flu went through the camp. Sometime that spring. That would have been almost two years ago. She was there John. She was alive then. She told one of my Marine guards that her mother was a Marine and had died on Picon. I asked her about her father and she told me that he was dead, too. That explains why she hasn't tried to find you. She thinks you're dead."
John sat up and put his face in both of his hands. "Oh, gods. Lee told me not to give up hope. Lee told me that she had survived. I didn't believe him. I gave up. I quit looking for her."
Laura put her hand on his back. "John, I'm going to get up and put on my robe and then I'm going into the kitchen and make us some tea. You need to put on your clothes and come in there. Then we'll talk about what we're going to do next. Will you do that?"
"Give me a minute to get myself together."
Laura got up and went into her closet and slipped into her heavy winter robe and a pair of bedroom slippers. When she came out of her closet, the bathroom door was closed. She went into the kitchen, filled the kettle with water and put it on the stove. She got two tea bags and put them in mugs. She was standing there, lost in thought, waiting for the water to boil when John came up behind her and put his arms around her. She leaned back against his chest.
They stood that way for a while without speaking until she said, "You know I can get access to the camp's records. We'll find her."
She felt his lips against her hair. "Thank you…for tonight…for everything."
"Will you tell me the whole story?"
"I'll tell you anything you want to know."
The kettle began to whistle and she poured the hot water into the mugs. They sat at her kitchen table and he told her everything starting with the night he stole a drug runner's ship to get his daughter off Picon until the time he left the last of the camps in the early winter after trying for months to find Kara.
Then he went back and told her about Kara's mother. He told her about his motorcycle accident and meeting Socrata in the rehab hospital, about their love affair that had spanned more than a decade, about her decision to remain behind with her Marine unit on Picon.
"Wasn't that hard to accept?"
"It's who she was. She had always loved being a Marine more than anything else. More than she loved me, probably more even than she loved Kara. She didn't want a child. She told me later that she'd almost had an abortion. The only thing that stopped her was not knowing whether the baby was mine or her husband's. She said she couldn't kill what might have been part of me. Because she didn't know, she never even told me she was pregnant. She broke up with me. If the baby had been his, she'd never have seen me again. As it was, I didn't see her for almost a year…until after Kara was born. One of my biggest regrets is not being with her while she was pregnant. I think pregnant women are beautiful. Making a new life like that is a miracle."
"We don't do it all by ourselves, you know."
"What did I contribute to making Kara? A couple of seconds, that's all. Sassy carried her and nurtured her for nine months."
"You weren't careful obviously."
"She was fanatic about her birth control patches. I'm still not sure what happened. She told me her doctor said it might have been an antibiotic she had to take for a strep throat that weakened the effect of the patch, but the truth is we don't really know what happened…except that she got pregnant. It's one of those things that I finally decided was meant to happen, destined to happen, something I never questioned."
"Were you there after Kara was born? Did you get to know her?"
"I was around Kara a lot when she was a baby. Sassy would bring her over to my apartment. I look back on those times now and they were some of the happiest in my life. She finally had to stop when Kara was about three and was getting confused about me and Sassy's husband. Picon follows Gemenon law on family matters. Legally Dreilide Thrace was Kara's father. I had no rights to her. It was like having most of my heart ripped out. I love Kara more than I've ever loved anyone in my life. She's…she's…" Laura could see him struggling with the emotion.
She put her hand on his. "She's your child, John. You're supposed to love her like that. We'll find her. Monday morning I'll get Billy to request access to the camp's records. He's very good with the computer. He understands how to do the searches."
"How did Kara look when you saw her?"
"She was a little thin like most of the people in the camp, but not malnourished. Her eyes are beautiful, but they were hard. Yet there was still an innocence about her. She's a tough young woman. She's a survivor. She had a slingshot. She shot a very large rat in the head from nearly twenty feet. One of my Marine guards was so impressed that I think he wanted to take her to their recruiter right then."
John looked at her and she saw the emotion he was struggling with, but she saw something else, too. She saw a father's pride in his daughter.
"John, she's like you. You survived some terrible things when you weren't much older than she is now. She's tough. She's your child."
"She's tough like her mother. Kara didn't even know I'm her father until the night I took her off Picon. She didn't remember me. She's sixteen years old now. Where could she be? What could she be doing?"
"The last of the camps has been shut down. Everyone has been resettled. She's either here in Caprica City or in Antioch since those are the two places that the government housing was built. She's probably in school somewhere. There were special provisions made in the housing for…orphans. She should be easy to find."
"All I ever wanted was the chance to be a father to her."
"I think you're going to get that chance."
He squeezed her hand. "It's almost two in the morning. I need to go so you can get some sleep."
Laura got his jacket and walked with him to the door. He wrapped his arms around her again and held her against him. Words weren't necessary. They seemed to understand each other without anything being said. Once again she wondered if their relationship was more complicated than she'd first thought.
"I'll call you Monday as soon as we know something."
"Thank you." He kissed her forehead.
"And John, flying is not the only thing that you do really well."
"I assume you're referring to the foot massage?"
She smiled. "What do you think?"