Chapter 126 Pyramids

Sam was thankful that the Admiral hadn't seen fit to order that the three of them be shackled and collared before being herded to the holding cell; it was bad enough having so many itchy triggers aimed his way without worrying that he might stumble and startle someone. He could feel the eyes of every crewmember follow them as they made their way through Galactica's corridors. And while the Marines didn't shove him into the cell, the deep distrust on their faces—a few of which he recalled from the New Caprican resistance—brought his hopes for an easy alliance into sharp doubt.

After he had crossed to the far wall and turned so he could take in the entire room at once, he chided himself. They'd known this wasn't going to be a cakewalk. He, Ellen, Leoben and D'Anna had discussed the Colonials' likely reactions to the revelation of their identity. The fact that they also knew the names of the other three unrevealed Cylons was both a card to play and a potential bomb if they handled it wrongly—so much so that they had all agreed, some only begrudgingly, that it was best to let Kara establish the initial contact. Let Adama and Roslin learn from someone they trusted the reasons behind their presence and that they weren't trying to hide anything.

With that plan in mind, none of them had protested against being sent immediately into detention. Their game was to wait for the leadership to come to them for verification, to let the Colonials initiate the talks. So when Saul appeared with Lee Adama at his heels, Sam had been at first worried, then encouraged, and then finally just confused.

It wasn't possible to hear what the Colonial Officer was saying to the guard, but the older man's bearings and that of the younger Adama's seemed to negate Sam's initial belief that they were here to add Tigh to the group of prisoners. Well, if the man wasn't joining them, then that must mean that the Admiral at least trusted him enough to let him stay free. Definitely a good sign. But as Sam listened to Ellen's side of the conversation and studied Saul's reactions, doubt crept in and he forced himself to lean nonchalantly against the bulkhead and not reveal any response as he came to the conclusion that no one—possibly even Saul himself—knew that the XO was a Cylon.

Why in the seven-gates-of-hades not? What's Kara's game here?

He caught the movements of the man's one good eye as it would occasionally move from him to the Three before returning to the woman before him. Because he was listening for it, he heard the hesitation in Ellen's answer when she said 'no' about knowing who the other three models were. Obviously she had decided that now wasn't necessarily the best time to out her husband and Sam had to uneasily agree as he mentally ran through possible reasons for how this encounter was going down. He wasn't sure how much time had passed since Kara had been led away, but it surely had been enough for her to fill in the Fleet's leadership and to make the rebels' offer of an alliance known.

Yet here they were, all so careful to avoid revealing too much while trying to gauge exactly what the other knew…or didn't.

His gaze slid to the side and met the intent gaze of Lee Adama. There had always been a surly undercurrent beneath the pilot's outwardly polite demeanor towards him; was it possible he resented Sam for surviving the attack on the Colonies when so many hadn't? Maybe. But there had also been rumors and hints of a relationship between Kara and the young officer of which Sam had managed to mostly set aside as idle or malicious gossip.

Though that hadn't stopped him from checking to see if the Pegasus Commander had come dirtside on those New Caprican nights when Kara would pick a fight, then storm off and come back the next morning reeking of booze and sex. Sam had never found evidence of a liaison between them, but he had come across a couple of men over those months that had boasted of giving a blonde ex-pilot the ride of her life. And though his knuckles were a little bruised on those occasions, he had never confronted Kara about her infidelity, deciding that since she'd given up the sky for him, an occasional need to fly elsewhere was something his could, albeit grimly, accept.

As long as it wasn't with the one they called Apollo.

Now, as he saw the blue eyes of the pseudo-god shift to his bare arm and narrow, Sam automatically straightened defensively and a new certainty gelled for him. And when Lee's hard stare met his again, Sam finally acknowledged what he'd subconsciously known all along.

The easy banter. The fleeting touches on an elbow or hand to draw the other's attention. How on entering a room, Kara's eyes always seemed to search for the man or gravitate to him whenever he entered. Sam had put it down as just the deep camaraderie that often developed between team members that worked so closely together. Hadn't he and Jean established a similar cohesion?

That's what he had thought—let himself believe.

But in that moment with the division between he and Lee marked by meshed plexiglass, Sam finally saw it all. The epiphany wasn't as profound as waking in the resurrection tank, but it tilted his world as thoroughly.

Lee Adama was in love with Kara Thrace.

And from the look Lee was giving him now, Sam was sure that the other man intended to act on his feelings this time. He immediately discarded the idea that Kara might actually welcome Adama's attention, hadn't his last memories before his death been of her professing her love?

Yet…

Recalling the horror and revulsion in Kara's expression as the realization of what his presence on the Heavy Raider meant, he felt queasy himself. He'd tried to get her to understand that it didn't change who he was…or his feelings for her. Her initial rejection and ongoing cold dismissal in the days that followed had been frustrating. He had sought to be patient, knowing that it was a lot for her to take in, especially given that she was stuck on a small ship with two of the people that had held her captive on New Caprica.

As his eyes shifted to where D'Anna was quietly arguing with the cell's other occupant, Sam frowned. It was less than a week ago when the robe-clad Three, accompanied by a Centurion, had entered Ellen's and his prison compartment. The woman's dark hair had still been damp with fluid from the resurrection tank and she had appeared shaken and disorientated—so much so that Sam had let Ellen dissuade him from killing her on the spot. Relenting to the older woman's contention that he didn't even know if it was the same Three from the detention center, he had curbed his anger long enough to see to the completion of their escape from the Resurrection Ship.

But it hadn't been long before Sam was regretting that decision. By the time Kara had faced him in the Raider, D'Anna had regained herself and made a poorly timed snarky remark. The Three had quickly rued speaking up when Kara had laid into her in a berserk rage. He almost hadn't stopped her when he realized that Ellen had been wrong and that it was the same skinjob, figuring that she damned well deserved the beating she was getting. Only the knowledge of the importance of their alliance mission moved him to step forward and reluctantly pull Kara off.

His narrowed gaze could still discern the bruising on the Three's face and his lip curved up slightly in satisfaction. Over the past days more truth had come to light about Kara's time in D'Anna's care…and Leoben's.

Now his stomach really did lurch as his mind replayed the moment when all the little hints and innuendos dropped by the Three meshed with the hard truth of her outright statement that Kara had been raped by the Two. Up until then Sam had managed to convince himself that whatever she had suffered while in the Cylons' hands couldn't have been too bad. Hadn't she been willing to tolerate Leoben's presence on the ship? And the fact that she had a gun and could've at any time shot both skinjobs only seemed to reinforce his denial.

That is, until everything had come apart when the Heavy's power had gone out. The disgust and rage Kara had focused so entirely on Leoben made D'Anna's revelation almost redundant…and definitely indisputable. When Kara had swung on the woman and she'd fallen against him, Sam had flung her aside as a wave of revulsion for everything Cylon flooded him. He couldn't read Kara's expression as she turned back to face the Two again, but the sharp report of the pistol stung his ears and Sam had blinked in the dim light, vaguely surprised to see the male Cylon still breathing—or rather rasping in pained gasps of air. His eyes had trailed down until he saw the mangled leg and understood that Kara had shot to maim, not kill. His own blood had been pounding in his ears, making it difficult to hear Kara's ranting as she had stepped forward to ground her foot down on the open wound. The scent of fresh blood had overlaid even the reek of their unwashed bodies and brought bile to the back of his throat as he watched Kara abruptly stumble back from the prone figure.

He had fought then to unlock muscles that had frozen at the tableau before him, wanting to reach out to steady Kara, but then she had seemed to regain her balance and had lifted the gun to align for a kill shot.

Only she hadn't pulled the trigger.

And as Sam had watched in bewildered disbelief, her arm had dropped to her side and she'd stood almost listlessly staring at Leoben.

As if her withdrawal had freed his limbs, Sam had moved then to take the pistol from Kara's unresisting hand. He remembered how steady his grip had been as he'd raised the gun and executed the Two. He'd felt the recoil of the shot up his arm but otherwise hadn't even blinked as the sandy-haired head had blown backwards. At his side, he'd been aware that Kara also seemed as unmoved.

The bastard'll never touch you again.

…never touch you again.

…never again.

Grinding his teeth, Sam twisted away from the others in the holding cell and tried to smother the building rage that stirred as his imagination reeled out possible scenarios Leoben's assaults on Kara. He pressed his palms against the cold bulkhead and recalled other moments in the Raider with the Two. Moments now that he wished he could have back to make the man pay for what he'd done. One death wasn't enough to assuage his anger and pain. He almost wanted to believe that Leoben was wrong, that he would resurrect again so Sam could have another chance to stretch the Two's suffering.

Looking back at his naiveté, he chided himself. Of course he had known that it was a Two that had come for Kara while he lay sick with pneumonia. And even early on he had overheard the rumors no one had dared say to him directly: the whispered speculation that it was the same skinjob she had tortured before that had taken her for retribution. As the weeks of the Occupation had slowly passed without a single word on Kara's whereabouts, Sam had become more and more reckless, driven by all the imagined torments she might have been enduring while he helpless waited for some word of her. His capture was assuredly due to his building desperation and though he had berated himself for an idiot, at the first sight of her, he had thanked the gods for her survival. Even as they both had realized that D'Anna intended to use one against the other, he had been ironically grateful that the Three seemed intent on working him over instead of Kara. Despite the burning pain of the knife strokes, he had hungrily clung to his wife's eyes and mentally chanted thanks that she seemed relatively unharmed.

How was he to know that the wrists the Centurions had held behind her back were raw or that the sweatsuit that hung on her lean frame hid bruises in varying shades of healing. Only later, on the Heavy Raider, did he catch hints of what she had suffered when D'Anna or Leoben let slip a caustic taunt aimed at the other model. There was no love lost between the pair, and they sometimes forgot they'd an audience to their exchanges.

Initially Sam had had the impression that Leoben had acted as a protector of sorts for Kara, claiming that he'd taken her to keep her from joining the Resistance and thus attracting the deadly attention of his siblings. But in the long hours confined to his seat in the ship, Sam had pinpointed the falsehood. Leoben had come for Kara before a Resistance had even been formed. He supposed that the Two could have made the leap that there would be a resistance movement and that Kara would insist on being deeply involved—hell, anyone that knew her at all would've bet on that. Still, there had just been something too intimate in Leoben's reverent tones when he'd spoken of her.

And then there was D'Anna.

Though Sam had made the decision to put the alliance talks above his desire for revenge on the Three, he'd made it clear to the woman that if she tried to lift so much as a finger against Kara, he and Leoben seal her in a crate for the remaining length of their voyage, regardless of how long it took. She had taken their threat seriously—he suspected that the thought of being literally boxed had given even D'Anna sufficient reason to behave—and she had avoided provoking Kara in the following days…mostly. But that hadn't stopped her from making off-handed insinuations about what had been done to his wife while she'd been held.

More than once it was only Ellen's restraining hand on his elbow that had kept him from lashing out after some disparaging or revealing remark from D'Anna. In the quiet moments, he found himself perplexed by her malevolent manner. Memories of the original Three prototype confused him and he wondered what had caused this version to turn so bitter. He had had a private word, difficult in their circumstances but not impossible, about her with Leoben. The Cylon had shrugged and murmured that she'd never been quite this spiteful prior to her boxing and the Two had seemed satisfied to blame her present demeanor on the Cylon collective's decision to shelve her entire line.

Looking at her now, Sam could give a guess that she wasn't exactly sowing seeds of joint Human/Cylon peace into Caprica Six's ear. He shook his head at the miscalculation of the others in sending D'Anna along. Between her and Leoben, they had probably shoved out the airlock whatever willingness Kara had had to advocate an alliance. At that grim thought, he brought his attention back to Saul and Ellen who seemed to have finally fallen silent, yet each still held the handsets as if loath to lose the connection with the other once again.

Sam felt heat flush his neck as he recalled all the various ways Ellen Tigh had shown him to pass their time together on the Cylon ship. There was no doubt in his mind that the woman was the only reason he hadn't lost it completely and found a way to kill himself in the long weeks after his rebirth in the resurrection tank. She also had a way of smudging some of the worst of the pain after each of Cavil's mocking visits. The One never resorted to physical torture with them because he much preferred to torment them with stories of the abuse and deaths of their respective spouses. All along Ellen had refused to even entertain the notion that Saul was dead, but Sam hadn't been able to shrug aside Cavil's credible recounting of Kara's last days.

But Ellen had been right.

He abruptly turned his head away from the pair as arousal, densely mingled with guilt, stirred in his groin. As he considered whether to confess to Kara about the physical side of his confinement with the older woman, Sam grimaced, wondering if she'd even care. Of all the obstacles between them, he doubted that his infidelity was going to be a big one.

The click of the receiver returning to its cradle drew his attention and he saw the reluctance in Ellen's face as she stepped away from the partition. His brows rose slightly as Lee took the other handset from Saul and wave him forward. As he crossed the space and lifted his end, Sam debated what he dared reveal to the other man. He could guess what answers Lee wanted, but he was also sure that those weren't the ones he was about to demand. At least not this publicly.

Giving him a questioning look, "Lee?" he said, deciding to see where the man took his line of questioning, hoping it would shed some light on what was happening with Kara.

"Anders." A long pause as Lee studied him. Then, "Can't say I ever saw this coming. How long have you known?"

"Yeah, me either." He looked away for a moment before meeting Lee's eyes again. "I thought I was human up until I woke in one of those Cylon bathtubs after New Caprica. I swear I never knew. You can believe that or not, but it's true."

Again the young officer scrutinized him, obviously trying to decide whether to put any stock in his words. Sam held himself steady beneath the other's regard and willed the man to accept that he was telling the truth.

"Let's say I believe you, what about now?" It wasn't said in a very reassuring manner, but Sam was relieved that at least he appeared willing to listen.

Putting all the assurance he could in his tone, "I'm not another Boomer, if that's what you mean," he stated.

"And we're supposed to just take your word for that?" Lee demanded with a derisive huff.

"Look, man. This is crazy. I know it. I can't even count how many toasters I've slagged since this thing started, and now… Hell, I don't know." He ground his teeth, trying to swallow the sick irony of not just his identity, but that of Saul's and Galen's. A slow burn made his fists clench as he remembered how Cavil had taunted him about his 'Resistance' efforts. Realizing that Lee had noticed his reaction, Sam gave a stiff shrug and forced his hands to relax.

Silence except for the slight hiss of the phone's connection stretched between them to the point that he was starting to wonder if Lee was finished with him. Then, "Tell me about the other three," Lee said, and Sam had to resist the urge to glance at the Colonel where he stood just off to the side now.

Instead of answering, he asked his own question.

"Where's Kara?"

He saw the corners of the pilot's mouth tighten and wondered if the glimpsed unease in his eyes was for Kara or because he had asked after her.

"Not your concern," Lee coldly said, then snapped out, "The others. I want names."

Feeling his own ire rise at the dismissive tone, Sam abruptly returned the handset to its holder. Lee's startled expression turned furious and he shook the receiver meaningfully. Unimpressed, Sam crossed his arms, letting his own glare convey that he was done talking unless Lee was willing to explain what was happening with Kara.

As Lee slammed his handpiece home, Sam was honestly surprised. He would've bet that the man wouldn't have been so easily put off. So, when the figure spun and strode off, he was even more perplexed. But also thankful. He hadn't been prepared to answer questions about the others when he still didn't know where Admiral Adama and the President stood.

With only the guard watching now, he looked to the side and met Saul's eyes and was instantly sure Tigh had somehow come to know what he was. He saw a twitch start in the man's cheek and remembered from long ago that it was a 'tell' of his, a sign of barely restrained rage…or deep agitation. With the barest tilt of his head, he confirmed his knowledge of Saul's secret, then turned and moved to resume his former position against the back wall.

Watching Ellen move to place her palm against the plexiglass and Saul lift his own to mirror hers, Sam suddenly wished that he and Kara could have what he saw between the pair—the soul-deep need for each other despite all reason. Shifting his gaze away, a bleak voice whispered to him that it wasn't going to happen. Hadn't he had a year to try to forge that sort of connection only to slam time and again into the wall that Kara had built about her deeper self. Over those many months sharing a tent and life, he'd learned enough of her history to know that she was weighted by a cask of issues that would've staggered most people. Yet, despite all his attempts, Sam had never been able to get her to shift some of that load to him. To trust that he wouldn't waver if he was allowed to sample the bitter spirits of her distilled past.

If he hadn't been able to get through to her then, how the hell was he supposed to breach her defenses now when the entire foundation of their relationship had shifted with the revelation of his nature?

He dropped his gaze to his boots and vowed to keep trying.

Author's Notes: There has been a lot of talk lately of M rated stories being pulled/banned. Obviously this site has that right despite how unfair such a wide sweeping move would be to quality stories. So many of these stories are rated M because of theme with really minimal violence or sexual content, but that may not make a difference if there is a total deletion of posts.

I intend to continue this story to its end. I can be found at mserrada dot livejournal dot com should this event actually occur. I hope those that have followed my little fic will come by and keep up with it. Thanks!

PS: Reviews are always appreciated. They let the author know that you are really out there and not just a stat :)