Before I space out again and forget, thanks to my friend, browneyednezumi, for betaing for me. And as always thank you all for your comments and for reading.

Chapter 12-

Leoben-

Leoben was miffed. True, not much rattled him, but this was, this was different. One of his most staunch supporters and the cylon who was like a sister to him, Caprica, turned on him. Or more accurately, questioned his sanity and wondered if his visions weren't true. Which was the biggest insult to him, very rarely did he see something that had its origin events changed and not come to pass.

He'd left the apartment wondering if she would do as he had tried to get her to follow through with or not. Either way, he knew she would be glad to be out of his presence for a while. He secretly suspected she talked to herself just to hear someone other than him, but he would not install a camera to prove it. There were some things that were just too low, even for the cylons.

He went down the last flight of stairs and passed a centurion, the red eye scanning him and recognizing him as cylon. He thanked the metal being, something he never understood why no one else did, it was as though they wanted their own rebellion or something, and arrived at Caprica's door.

Knocking on the door, it took a minute for her to answer. Her blonde hair was bedraggled and she needed to wash it, his sensitive nose noted she hadn't showered in a while and she looked hollow, sunken. Her clothes were covered in wrinkles and disheveled. She looked surprised to see him.

"Can I come in?" He questioned, his mind thinking of half a dozen other things he could go do if she said no, he had said nine thirty and he was not about to show up back at the apartment just because.

She nodded. Caprica waved him in and he entered the domicile, noting how unlike her it was. There were dirty dishes in the sink and it appeared something had spilled on the counter. The place felt as unkempt as its owner looked and the open door leading to her bedroom revealed clothes all over the floor. It was a far cry from what he had come to know as Caprica Six's ways. She had always been so neat and clean, and Sixes demanded everything on a basestar be an exact certain way. Her apartment looked like a tornado hit it.

"I just wanted to see how you were, haven't seen you for the last couple days." He said quietly, and he felt guilty on the inside too. He had been so preoccupied with Kara and her silences and her refusal to eat that concern for his sister had been shoved back to the back burner. Cavil seemed to take a perverse pleasure to making sure this particular Two had a great deal of work to do as well, and all in all, when push came to shove he'd shoved Caprica.

She looked so deflated, so sad, not at all like the happy bouncing woman she had been a month or so ago when they were tracking down the humans. The reason had been hope. She'd had hope Gaius would still care about her the way she cared about him and she'd been rejected.

"I don't know what to do Leoben." She started sadly. "Can't eat, can't sleep, can't think. Three keeps yelling at me to go do something but I can't. I just can't go out there." he reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. Sometimes actions meant more than words. He couldn't possibly understand what she was going through and he couldn't pretend he did, it would make her angry.

"Do you want me to make you something? Tea or something? Hot Chocolate?" he offered her and she shakes her head no. Leoben wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. He wanted to make her feel better but he wasn't quite sure how to do that. For a couple minutes they just sat on the dark blue couch in her living area which is all bright and contemporary colors, all blues, not saying anything. He takes the time to look around her apartment, noting the excessive use of boxes and squares, and the dominant blue coloring. It's astounding what she came up with Leoben appreciated her work in silence. It wars not an awkward silence by any means. It never has been between them, she's his sister and he's her brother. They know everything about each other despite being able to access the others thoughts through the data stream. She tells him everything and vice versa.

After a few minutes of comfortable quiet she spoke again, desperate to get off the dominating yet unspoken topic of her own failed relationship. "How is it with Kara?" she asked softly, biting her lip, not knowing if it was a good question to ask or not. He doesn't mind, it gets him to confront the question of how to best answer that question.

We've made progress, he decided to himself. "She's overcoming her shock at the cylons coming back. She ate dinner today and spoke a bit." Putting in words made him realize just how little progress that was. From the look on her face Caprica knew that too and there was something else on her face Leoben couldn't identify.

Than his mind figured the expression on her face out. It was pity. It bothered him; he doesn't need to be felt sorry for. He knows Kara is going to be his, knows that little girl is their child, he knows it like he knows he's Leoben Conoy, Cylon Model Number Two, Representative for Model Number Two.

"What is it Caprica?" He couldn't bring himself to be angry that she thought that way about the blonde viper pilot and himself that way, not everyone could see the future. But a part of him wass still angry, didn't she believe him? She didn't expect Kara to just fall into his arms, or had she? What was she expecting to happen in the first place?

"Did she try and kill you again?" The Six queried and he nodded his head, having promised long ago he would not mix lies and truth to her. Six bit her lip again and said softly "I'm afraid for you Leoben."

Before she can say anymore he speaks up. "Why? If I die, I download, and each time it happens it's a learning experience. She's going to love me Caprica, I know it."

"But what if you're wrong?" She countered just as quickly. "What if what you saw has changed? What if it is just your fanciful mind creating it as to not disappoint you? What if her destiny doesn't lie with you?"

Leoben visibly flinched. He took his gift of seeing the future and the intuition that came along with his gift very seriously. No other cylon had his gift, and as such he felt very important he received the gift from God. To attack it, was a very low blow.

Sensing his simmering anger Caprica spoke up again her voice softer this time. "Leoben, I didn't mean to suggest anything else you see isn't true. I just want you to be happy and I don't know if you will be with Kara." He glanced up at the clock above her mantle place. 9:15, fifteen minutes till he was due back.

Anger still coursed through his body rapidly at the suggestion he was just crazy, or a liar. "I need to get going." he said, his voice one of deadly calm. Leoben always was when he was upset, never one to snap in two and explode. He hadn't had a temper tantrum of any kind and hoped to never have one. Except around Jared, and those were to defend Kara. He's never ever hurt his sister, despite the sting of her words.

He moved without thinking too much as he made his way to leave. Caprica looked at him with her dark blue eyes long and hard as he leaves out her doorway, sweatshirt and pants still hanging on her tall frame and her hair all over. "Think about what I said. Will this whole idea of yours really make you happy in the end?" Leoben didn't answer her.

He sat by the fountain in the middle of the cylon apartment complex just watching the clear water come out the top of the fountain and into the bottom pool for a while until he was cold from the night's chill and had to go back inside. He pulled his green shirt around him tighter, not realizing just how cold the planet could get at night.

He went back on the route back home distracted, not at all like he had the entire universe figured out and he knew what you didn't. Or at least to some cylons and almost all of humanity he tried to project that image. Caprica knew better, but still, many of them doubted him and his abilities to make hard choices when they learned about Kara and what she meant to him. He had to prove them wrong.

Her sudden shift in support had rattled him. Through all of it Caprica had been the one person who believed him, believed in Kara and his future together. The fact he no longer had any of her faith in him and what he had seen was disturbing. The visions he had, of them, together, were not just his mind conjuring them up in fantasy, they were real, just like the vision that had told them where to find this planet. Just like the one that told them the perfect person to use to get inside the defense ministry.

Running up the stairs on the second level, he ran into a Three. Her red-ish hair waved around as she turned to see who it was. "Oh Leoben. Didn't see you there." Her accent drawled and he was reminded she was created to have an Aerilon accent. She smiled an and just empty smile before speaking to him again. "Don't forget, we need to have at least up to 100 yards from the city completed by the end of the week, we need that water canal finished. So don't hesitate to work the humans to the grind got it Two?"

He nodded absentmindedly, storing it in his mind. Three's brow crinkled a bit in confusion but she choose not to comment on his odd behavior and went back on her way. Something Leoben was relieved about. If Three had not realized what he saw came true she would have been one of the first people to call for him being boxed and put away forever. And that action would have had disastrous consequences all on its' own.

He checked the clock on the hall wall, it was almost time. He waited outside clenching the bars on the outer door a few moments collecting his thoughts and calming himself down. It wouldn't do him any good to go in there angry, even if it wasn't at her. Kara required a great deal of patience and he couldn't do that if he was already pushed closer than he would have preferred toward boiling point..

Putting his hand on the small square on the wall the door opened with a click and he pulled it open, nimbly stepping in before it swung shut automatically. He pulled his keys from his pocket and unlocked the door, still silently fuming. Who did Caprica think she was anyways? How could she possibly know what was going to happen, she couldn't see the future. It wasn't like she had all this expertise with love anyways. His mind thought spitefully before he felt shame for it. She was only trying to help, it had just made him angry that she had tried to interfere or say Kara wasn't going to end up with him. Because she was, he knew.

He stood at the top of the stairs and looked down at the apartment. Kara was still in the same spot, playing with her left boot, though her hair is damp and she is in different clothes. He was silently quite pleased she went and got clean, even though it was a small victory. The light to the head is still on.

Leoben moves calmly down the stairs, not overly staring at Kara, Caprica's words still in his head. He'll go talk to her again tomorrow, but for now he wasn't going to think about it too much or get angry. He walked over to the bathroom and takes in the pile of clothes on the floor. He wanted to clean it up, but Leoben knew better than to do it now. Turning around to Kara who was still blankly staring out the window he said quietly "It's getting late."

She didn't answer him. He didn't think she would after all, but it was always nice to hope she would because maybe just maybe today would be the day she answered. "I'm going to sleep would you like to join me?" he questioned as he has for the last few days since she woke up. Kara jerked her head side to side, blonde hair swaying a bit and he swallowed his disappointment. They'll be together eventually. Just not tonight.

He entered his room and shut the door as fast as he could. Leoben flicked the light on and sank down to the floor with his back pressed firmly against the door.

Leoben's been sitting here a while now, and hasn't moved a while either. The clock reads 11:00 at night and he's no calmer than he was earlier. Maybe if he read a book, he could be able to fall sleep after reading something soothing like poetry.

Taking a moment to work out the kinks in his neck, he pulled himself up off the soft carpet, his body complaining about the sudden movement of position after being seated on the floor for so long. He silently wonders if Kara is still awake, he hasn't gone out during the night after he went to bed except for that first night. But he really wants the book, poetry always helped him calm his mind and go to sleep.

Flipping the switch and turning off the flow of electricity to the bulbs to not wake her up with the glow he steps out in the living room and looks for her. He doesn't see her, she's not outside in the living room where she had been sleeping on the couch nor is she by the window. Not to mention he would have heard her if she had gone out of the apartment and into the hall, so where was she?

He, for the first time, notices the light from beneath the office door and carefully makes his way over, his footsteps completely silent. His hand carefully held the door handle and pulled the office door open carefully to peek inside. At first he doesn't notice Kara curled asleep on the floor, a book of Katariss on the floor next to her about to close. She looks exhausted and must have finally fallen asleep due to her forcing herself to stay awake for long periods of time.

She's so beautiful when she is asleep, completely Kara. She had a certain calmness to her when she is asleep, she looks younger. She shifts in her sleep and something is troubling her in her dreams, he wants to be there to soothe the nightmares away, not let anything hurt her. But Leoben knows better than to bother her while asleep.

He goes to the living room and picks up her pillow and blanket and goes back to the office. He carefully puts the pillow under her head and blanket over her body. He pulls a bookmark down from the shelf and marks her spot in her book. He stops for a moment, unable to stop himself from looking at her sleeping form for just a while longer. She is his world, her pale skin glowing against her blonde hair.

Tearing himself away, knowing he would be in trouble with her if she caught him, he went to the shelf and pulled down a book from the shelf, poetry, not Katriss, Durrow. He carefully shut off the light and quietly shut the office door, not making any noise.

Going back to his room and settling down to read until his eyes get heavy, he decided to talk to Caprica Six in the morning. He'll get the work Three wants done and he'll make sure Kara eats her food again tomorrow and every day following if he can. Slowly he drifts off into dreamland while the lines of poetry began to blur together. His last waking thought is of the woman asleep on the office floor. And hoping she has pleasant dreams.