Part 1, Battlestar Galactica, Finding Humanity: Learning To Become Human Again

Prologue

Prologue

The Present

Laura Roslin wondered how much longer she could keep this up. Between teaching children during the day, and playing insurrectionist at night, she was beyond exhausted. A better word for it might be "numb".

She shouldn't complain. At least she was no longer in a Cylon prison, sent there at one time by D'Anna's insistence that President Gaius Baltar lock her up. She hadn't been physically tortured by The Cylons. Emotionally? Psychologically? That was another story. At least she hadn't lost an eye, like Colonel Tigh.

She also had survived the terrible pneumonia virus that had struck New Caprica just as The Cylons arrived. That had claimed well over five hundred souls, among what few survivors of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, and, perhaps, all of humanity that remained. They had lost so many-most, of course, she hadn't know, among the thirty-five thousand who had stayed on the surface. But they had lost Sam Anders. Even as strong and healthy as he had been, it had destroyed him in short order.

That was a year-and-a-half ago. Sam had married Kara Thrace, who had, much to Laura's surprise, decided not to stay on Galactica before The Cylons ran it out of the system. Laura couldn't remember seeing Kara smile since the day Sam died. Kara had then vanished the day the occupation began, not even aware of Sam's death. Four months ago, Kara had reappeared, with an incredible story of how Leoben had kept her hostage in what Kara had called "a doll house"-and reappeared with a young child by the name of Kacey with her.

With the school day finished, Laura would head back to her home-maybe the nicest tent in all of New Caprica, where she would grade papers, then meet with the major leaders of the resistance to talk about what was going on, and plan any attacks.

She had all but but given up on the return of Galactica and Pegasus. That son-of-a-bitch Gaius Baltar had told her a few months back that The Cylon leadership on New Caprica had informed him that a group of Baseships had been keeping the old battlestars busy-too busy to mount a rescue.

Laura made it home, and contemplated the silence of her abode. It was so lonely when she was by herself. She and Bill were just starting to become closer when all hell had broken lose after the election. Now, she had nothing except a life in captivity.

Kara Thrace had a place of solitude on New Caprica that no one knew about. Just north of the New Earth settlement, the only really beautiful area of the planet could be found: up a hill, which overlooked a lush, flowery meadow, with a small river. The water there was clean and sweet, and on the few times the sun would peek out on this gray planet, and a soft breeze would waft downward, it would make Kara believe that there was still something good left in the Universe. When Kacey was in school, she often went there to clear her mind.

The only truly good thing that had ever happened on this gods-forsaken rock to Kara Thrace was Kacey. She didn't know if Kacey was indeed her daughter. It was possible. Doc Cottle had confirmed that her one ovary had been taken from her body when at The Farm on Caprica, and the little girl greatly resembled Starbuck.

Kacey had given back Kara Thrace a sliver of her humanity.

She still didn't know how the frak she had escaped from the Doll House one day. She really didn't. Yes, she had been waiting by the door of their "home", with knife in hand, hoping to kill this rendition of Number Two before the door was locked behind them. She had tried numerous times before that to escape-sometimes with Kacey, and even a few where she planned to leave the child behind.

That one fateful time, she had succeeded, with Kacey literally right behind her when she plunged the knife into Leoben's throat as he walked into those living quarters. She had used Leoben's body as a door stop, gathered a few items, and fled with Kacey, making it back to the New Caprica settlement.

Since escaping, she had made her peace with many things. She had found out about, and come to terms with Sam's death. She had truly loved Samuel T. Anders, but just like almost every relationship she had ever entered, it was far from ideal. They fought loudly and often, both of them hotheads who couldn't get past their own stubbornness. Occasionally, the fights would become physical in nature, only to be followed by love-making that was equally loud and sometimes on the verge of being physically violent.

Kara had grown up believing love was measured by how often her mother would curse and belittle her for not being good enough, or by how many times her fingers had been broken inside a door by her mother. That was life with a drug and alcohol addict.

She had tried to find a "normal" with love when she met Zak Adama, and he had treated her like a goddess. She had repaid him by putting him in the one place he never belonged-inside the cockpit of a Viper-where on his first active mission, he had died in a crash. He had never been a natural pilot, but Kara, who had been his training officer, had passed him anyway.

From that point forward, she cemented her rep as a hard-drinking, hard-smoking, hard-fraking misfit, but one who could fly a Viper better than perhaps anyone who had ever sat in a fighter for the Colonial military. The drinking, the partying, the carousing, the bad-ass attitude which included insubordination to superior officers, in the end, was all an act. It was an act of self-defense for letting anyone, even those she did love, from getting too close and too comfortable with her.

Now, with the exception of caring for Kacey, she found herself alone.

Oh, to be sure, she still worked as a leader in the resistance. Nothing could ever keep her from trying to bring down the Toasters. But the Kara that came back from the Doll House, after Sam's death, wasn't the same Kara everyone had known before The Cylons had arrived on New Caprica.

She, like Laura Roslin-like so many of them on New Earth-under what seemed to be an unbreakable bondage under The Cylons, had been driven numb by the monotony of this life. Kacey kept her sane.

She needed someone else, even above and beyond Kacey, to make her human again.