New Orders ((AU Lost Year RP for number_eight))

[arrow_of_apollo]

"You've got to be kidding me." Lee all but gaped back at his father. The weekly meeting between the CO's of the only two existing human battlestars had started out just as it had over the last few weeks since the presidential election. With the entire fleet in parking orbit around New Caprica, it wasn't as if there was a lot to discuss other than fuel supplies and resignation letters. But these new orders had thrown the younger Adama for a loop.


"Not at all," replied Bill. "Just because Baltar wants to sit here and pretend as though the Cylons are never coming back, you and I both know it's only a matter of time. And intelligence is going to be our best resource."

Lee shook his head. "And what makes you think that we haven't learned everything we're ever going to learn from this... resource?"

Bill fixed his son with a hard look. "She's a Cylon. There's always more than what we're being told."

It wasn't as though Lee could much argue the point. No one knew how deep the infiltration of Cylon agents had gone, and what other models of the humanoid machines looked like. If the human race was going to survive, it needed to know all it could about the enemy trying to kill it. Lee understood the reasons, but there was still one other question to ask.

"Why me?"

The older man shifted uncomfortably in his chair, something that told Lee couldn't help but note. "After the... incident aboard Pegasus," Bill said, the euphemistic word clearly sitting very poorly with the Admiral, "it's clear that we need to take a different tack with this interrogation. The Cylon has feelings--"

"Manufactured feelings," said Lee.

"Manufactured or not, it's clear that these Cylon agents can be affected by psychological means."

Something very sickening roiled in Lee's gut. "Dad, you're not suggesting--"

"Of course not," Bill said through grit teeth. "Cain's men were animals and their methods abhorrent." The older man reached for the sideboard and poured them both a finger of ambrosia. "The 'Sharon' Cylon is programmed to believe it was a Colonial Officer. So I'm sending in a superior officer to debrief her."

Shaking his head, Lee was still dubious. "And after the... incident..." using the word in place of the truth turned his stomach, too. "What makes you think it'll trust a superior Colonial Officer, especially a male?"

"That's for you to figure out."

**********

Lee nodded to the Corpsmen standing to either side of the cell door. The huge, glass and steel-enclosed chamber was built to just about withstand a fully armed assault from inside, or from outside, and it made Lee nervous just to step into it. But he was about to do more than that.

He'd spent two days going over every text he could on prisoner interrogation, reading every paper on the subject that Pegasus' databanks still held. Lee's plans for the session had been written and rewritten a dozen times until he was hopeful that he would be able to at least begin building some kind of rapport with the Cylon agent.

'Sharon', Lee, he reminded himself silently, call her Sharon.

"Hello, Sharon," he said, his voice calm and even. "I brought you something."

Lee pulled a bundle from under his arm, setting on the end of the cot that was the only furniture in the cell until the Marines brought in a small table and two chairs. When he stepped back, the bundle rolled open to reveal a clean set of clothes-- underthings, pants, top, even a sweatshirt. Lee nodded to the two Marines, then took a seat.

The Corpsmen moved out of the cell, then locked the door with a solid clunk.

Comments

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

She'd done her best to push away every single person who had given her the benefit of the doubt. Well, Sharon mused, that really only means Kara and Helo. Maybe Chief. Kara had moved to the new planet that President Baltar had decreed "New Caprica", and so had Chief. But Helo?

Well, considering that Sharon had knowingly allowed a Cavil model Cylon onboard Galactica, then told him to basically frak off, she was surprised that he came to see her at all. She was still trying to get over what had happened to Hera, but she knew, she knew, that Cottle had murdered her. Sharon hadn't even been allowed to spread her ashes into space.

No, Helo and Chief had done that for her, and how had she repaid them after they both had saved her from the... incident?

She let a Cylon agent onboard.

"Frak them. Frak them all," she muttered, but her heart wasn't as into it as it had been at first. After all, despite her efforts to push Helo away, he still came by to try and talk to her through the glass partition.

She let him. Sometimes.

Sharon figured that the noise she heard was Helo coming back again, but no, this time it was Lee Adama. When she was finally alone with him, she looked down at the clothes and "furniture" that he'd brought along with him.

"Nice. So, what? You expecting me to give you some secret Cylon intel now just because you gave me a pair of pants? You'll have to do better than that, Lee."

Not that she really had anything to tell him, anyway.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

It... no, she, he reminded himself... She was using his first name. The texts had been in agreement that one of the most dangerous interrogation scenarios was one in which the questioner and the prisoner had some sort of relationship prior to the questioning. In their case, there were two: first was the brief association that Lee had with a young pilot named Sharon Valerii prior to her being revealed as a Cylon; the second was the much more contentious combination of him with this particular version of Sharon Valerii, who had come aboard the Galactica and immediately imprisoned.

Ever since Lee had laid eyes on this Sharon, he had trouble keeping himself calm. All he could see was the face of the toaster that shot and nearly killed his father. It didn't matter that he knew this was physically not the same individual, and that this Sharon had no memory or experience of the assassination attempt. It was still her face and her hand that he saw holding the gun and being sprayed with William Adama's blood.

But now, he couldn't allow those thoughts to rule him as they had before. Lee couldn't afford to be as dismissive and disregarding of her as he had been on his best days. The Admiral said that they needed to access what Sharon knew, and it was Lee's job to figure out how.

"I'm not expecting anything at the moment, Sharon. I just thought it might not be so bad for you to have some fresh clothes and some company that's not Helo or the Chief."

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

She eyed him carefully. "Turn around." After he did so, she changed quickly into the new clothes, wondering why he couldn't have brought some food with him. Not that she deserved it, she supposed, but it was tiring to keep eating the same old stuff she'd been given ever since she'd been locked up here. Once she was done, she said, "Okay, you can turn back now."

Sharon was used to having people see her undressed -- that wasn't the issue. The issue was that it was Lee Adama, that it was one of her "captors", that she was a prisoner and not a member of the Colonial Fleet the way Boomer had been. She was different.

Sitting down on her cot, she clasped her hands and stared hard at him. "So, you're not Helo and you're not Chief. You're here for a reason, though, and it's not to give me fresh clothes. I'm not frakking stupid. So tell me what you want. You want to know why I let the Cavil model onboard? You want to know who the other Cylon agents in the fleet are, because I don't know the answer to that one."

She sighed. She was tired of being treated this way. "God, I have helped you time and time again -- I even saved your life once on Kobol, if you'll remember -- and I get clean clothes in return. Why should I tell you anything?"

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

Lee turned around without protest. He certainly wasn't here for any kind of thrills when it came to the prisoner, and turning his back on Sharon could just bank him a few more points of trustworthiness. He'd seen the speed and strength of the Cylon agents firsthand, and it wouldn't have taken much effort for Sharon to put him down if she felt like it. But he turned his back anyway, then turned back when told.

The points she brought up were, of course, among the questions that the Admiral had wanted answered, but both Adamas had known that answers, if there were any to be had, would not be quick in coming. And Lee had complete latitude when it came to how he would approach this.

So he'd decided on something unusual.

"I'm not going to be questioning you, Sharon," he insisted in an even and conversational tone of voice, "not in the way you seem to be expecting. All I expect you to tell me is whatever you want to tell me. And my only questions have to do with Caprica."

Lee pulled out a small notebook and a pen. "The new historical archives are going to need as impartial and precise a recounting of things as possible, and as one of the individuals in this fleet who spent the greatest amount of time on occupied Caprica, I want you to tell me all about it. I'm just here to listen."

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

"Just here to listen?" Sharon shook her head, then began pacing her small cell. "Fine, you want to know? There are Cylons eveywhere. Any human resistance, like the one that Kara found, is probably gone by now. Centurians roam the woods, and the humanoid models live in the capital city. And if you'd like to know about Helo and what happened to him..."

Sharon got closer to Lee, then sat on his lap, running her hands through his hair. Her face turned soft, and there was a touch of the old "Boomer" persona back as she smiled at "Apollo".

"Apollo. You've always been my hero. I wrote a whole essay on you back at flight school! I can't believe you're here, with me, right now..." Sharon chewed on her lower lip, trying to give Lee a little more of the "little girl lost" that she'd used on Helo first back on Caprica before he'd discovered she wasn't "his" Sharon.

She cupped his face with both hands, then kissed him softly, grinding her hips a little against his. "Gods, I've always wanted to do that," she murmured, not letting go of him, hoping he understood what she meant while at the same time, wondering why the hell she was pushing it this far.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

Lee began dutifully jotting down everything Sharon was saying. It wasn't as if he was there under entirely false pretenses-- he had paid enough attention in history class to know that posterity would want as many things about their time recorded first-hand. And of course, the more innocuous and non-threatening he could make himself and his presence in this cell, the more to his advantage it would be. "So is it likely," he began to ask, wanting to appear engaged in the details, "that in certain--"

He never got a chance to finish the question. Instead, he looked up to find Sharon dropping herself into his lap. Stranger still, there was something different in the Cylon's expression, as if it weren't the same individual who'd been sitting on the other side of the cell a moment before. When she spoke, he recognized the bright and hopeful voice of the rook pilot he'd met and barely given more than a passing thought to when he'd first arrived on Galactica. Boomer.

"What the frak?" he said, and those were all the words Lee could get out, as Sharon was now pressing her lips against his. Lee's head swam. Why in the gods' name would she do this? What was all that she was talking about-- being her hero, some essay? Why was she making sure that he could feel a lot more out of her than just a kiss and why the frak wasn't he stopping her?

She stopped-- she stopped-- and Lee pushed her off his lap. He could still taste her, even as he asked a single word: "Why?"

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

Sharon wiped her lips with the back of her hand after Lee pushed her off him, still tasting the kiss and feeling pretty self-satisfied that she'd gotten her point across to him. Still, she could have made her point in a very different way -- one that didn't involve kissing or grinding her hips against his -- and she hadn't chosen to do that.

Why not?

"Why?" Lee asked her, the same question that Adama had asked Boomer, the same question she had answered back on Kobol for him. So, Sharon gave Lee the same answer she'd given then.

"You kissed me back, and you ask why?"

It was close to what she'd said, and close enough was all she was looking for at the moment.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

He stared back at her. What the frak was she talking about? Finally, his brain flashed back to Kobol, to the words they'd exchanged when he couldn't understand how Sharon could be a Cylon, and yet act the way she did. Lee hadn't understood it then, and now he thought he might understand Sharon even less right then and there.

"So that was what, some kind of test?" he snapped. That was definitely what she was implying, Lee thought. Sharon thought she might have found an opening and went right after it, like a boxer seeing a weakness in their opponent's guard and jabbing through it. She'd tested him, and he'd failed.

"What do you think you're trying to prove here?"

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

"No, not a test," she said tiredly as she sunk onto the floor. "Just..."

Just what? Even Sharon really didn't know.

"I'm not trying to prove anything!" She didn't realize she'd snapped right back at him until after she'd spoken. How the hell did he get under her skin like this so easily?

"I just wanted to show you what it's like. You said you wanted to know everything," she rationalized to herself, "and so I was showing you how easily I manipulated Helo into falling in love with me. Or how easily Boomer made the Chief fall in love with her, too. You didn't pull away from me right away, did you? I'm a frakking toaster, and you didn't pull away at all."

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

He was confused, more confused than he might ever have been, and that included every last frakking second he'd ever spent around Kara Thrace, but he tried to clear it all away, tried to find some thread of an idea he could grab onto-- something to hold and build into something that would make sense. Lee hoped that if he could get one thing straightened, then the rest would begin to fall into place. Sharon was talking about Helo, and about Boomer and Chief. Those were facts, and facts were things he could take hold of.

"So is that your... what would you call it, your programming?" Lee shook his head. "Your mission? Find a human male who could be of use to you or to the Cylons and seduce them? Are you expecting to try it again?" He paused. "Are you doing it now?"

Taking a deep breath, Lee stood, pacing the almost empty length of the cell. Sharon had been right-- he hadn't pulled away from her. Oh, he hadn't responded the way his body had been telling him to, but he didn't fight. "You took me by surprise," he explained, "and it's not like you're not... attractive. And I'm only--" he laughed quietly and ruefully. "I'm only human."

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

"Yes, Lee, that's exactly my programming," she replied, her voice filled with sarcasm. "That's it. You've figured it all out, and now you can leave and report back to your father about me. I was doing it right then and there to you and you fell under my spell. Bravo for figuring it out."

Sharon watched him pacing and her brows furrowed. What was the matter?

He thought she was attractive. That surprised her, since she had never thought he had found her attractive before at all. She knew that Boomer had a crush on him, but it was one-sided. So why was he acting so odd?

"Human. Right. And humans just want to frak any skinjob they see because they don't know any better." Sharon went to her cot to lay down, hoping he'd leave. "Just... go. Please. I'm tired of being interrogated while I'm still grieving the loss of my daughter." Had he forgotten that little bit?

"Just... go."

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

By the edge in Sharon's voice, it was clear to Lee that this session had definitely taken a turn for the worse. Now the only question was, in piloting terms, whether to stick it out and try to come home or just eject and call it a day. He wasn't sure in the least just yet what would be the right tactic. The edge didn't take long to start sound like frustration, though, and that was something Lee could work with.

"Sure, I'll go," he said, but very pointedly didn't move. "But I have to say, Sharon, you're not doing a lot of good for yourself. You don't like me because I'm a human, or because I'm on the other side of the cell door from you, that's fine. You want to sit here on a hard cot and do your push-ups on a steel floor, go right ahead. But you should think about the kinds of things a little cooperation could get you."

He stood. "And don't worry. I won't tell Helo about you kissing me."

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

"I never said I don't like you because you're human!" Sharon stood up immediately, walking right to Lee and yelled in his face. Surprisingly, it wasn't that hard to do. His height was almost the same as hers, which made their lips close within reach again.

It would be one way to shut him up, she thought to herself, but held onto her anger a little bit longer instead.

"I fell in love with Helo on Caprica. We had a child together. Do you think that any of that would have happened if I hated humans? I don't hate you, Lee, I just hate..." Her arms moved about a little, indicating her cell. "... this. Being here, being without my daughter, being alone."

Which wasn't true. She'd done her best to push both Galen and Helo as far away from her as possible so she could wallow in the loss of Hera alone.

"Tell him. I don't frakking care. Not anymore. Not anymore." She wiped at her eyes that were suddenly filled with tears, muttered a curse, and looked away from him.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

She was yelling; screaming in his face, really, and Lee let her. When he'd first arrived, there'd been nothing out of Sharon but thinly veiled contempt and a disregard for anything he said or did. Now, at least according to the books and manuals, he'd made an inroad with the prisoner. It might not have been one made of trust or dependence, but it was an emotional in he could use. Or, at least, he hoped he'd be able to use.

"Loving a person doesn't mean you love everything about them and everything around them," said Lee, and the moment the words were out of his mouth, he wondered just why he'd thought them, let alone said them, out loud, and to her. But it was the truth, he was sure of that much. "But you say you don't hate humans, so I'll take your word for it."

He watched as the tears welled in her eyes and she turned away. Lee waited a few seconds, then stepped closer. "You're not that good a liar, Sharon. You don't cry when you don't care." Cautiously, he reached out a hand and put it on her shoulder.

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

She flinched slightly when she felt his hand touch her shoulder, but she didn't move or push him away. Really, it was the only contact she'd had since... God, since when? Since Kobol? Since Hera had died?

Since she'd betrayed everyone and allowed the Cavil model to come onboard Galactica?

She wiped her face dry. "Maybe I'm not a good liar, but neither are you. You still haven't told me what you want. What you really want from me." She thought about what he'd said, though, about loving a person.

"I don't think Helo loves me anymore, anyway." Another lie, but she wanted to believe it. It would make things so much easier if he hated her. Then she could move on, grieve, and just.... die in this frakking cell. "Why do you bring that up, though? Someone in your life that you love but don't...?"

Ah, and she remembered what Helo had told her, about how Lee had kissed Kara once they'd brought back the Arrow of Apollo. She just nodded at him. "So, what do you do when the person you love isn't perfect? Do you accept someone else in exchange? Someone willing to give you the things that you need?"

Sharon finally turned around and reached a hand out to Lee, slipping it inside his trousers, and rubbing him slowly as she locked her eyes with his.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

Lee took a deep breath. Sharon had just called him out, and while he hadn't assumed that she'd labor long under the excuse he'd given her about "historical records", it wasn't a tactic he'd prepared for. But maybe there were better ways at getting what he wanted. Cards on the table time, maybe. Not all of them, but some. "Fine, I--"

She continued as if she'd never asked the question, saying something about Helo not loving her anymore, something that Lee knew was complete crap. Anyone who saw Karl these days would tell you that, but then like Sharon said, she rarely if ever saw him. And then, the look in her eyes and the tone in her voice changed. It wasn't the girlish pitch of before she'd kissed him. It was something deeper, and huskier. And more than that, the words hit home.

"You do what feels right, I guess. If there's something you need, then you need it."

Faster than he thought possible, Sharon's hand had darted inside his trousers and her slim fingers were caressing him quickly to hardness. Sharon's words hit, along with the realization that Dee was on another ship entirely, and they'd both been so busy in the last weeks they'd barely even seen each other, and Kara was down on that damn planet...

Lee stepped back, composing his face and turned to where the Marines could see him. A hand gesture and a few nods of confirmation, and the two Corpsmen were outside the outer door. Lee turned back around and sat on the chair he'd brought. "So..." he said cautiously, "you were saying about having something you need..."

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

Sharon froze a little when he stepped away from her. It wasn't exactly what she'd been expecting, but then she watched Lee order the men out. For privacy, maybe? She smiled a little bit to herself to see how smug he looked sitting in that chair. She'd gotten to him, somehow, someway.

"Needs come in different forms." Right now, Sharon needed contact. She needed a place that felt like a home... and she knew that she wasn't going to get any of that with Helo. How could it be possible? Even if she loved him terribly, what could he do? Marry her and have her move into some personal quarters on the ship? Right, like that would happen.

But Lee, here, right now... this was a chance for her to get both of the things she needed. She stepped closer to him, looking down, and then kneeled between his legs. "I could use a bed. Even a couch. Something a little bit softer and more comforting than a frakking cot. Something that makes me feel like I'm not going to be a prisoner for the rest of my life." Her hands ran up and down his inner thighs as she spoke, and finally slipped back inside to stroke him again.

"And I need to touch someone," she whispered as her fingers gripped him tightly. "No phones, no glass partitions..." Her mouth hovered over the bulge in his trousers and she blew hot air along it. "I need to know that I'm still alive..."

Her hand began to move faster as she licked her lips, looking up at Lee.

"What do you need?"

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

He listened to her-- mostly, at least. But while Sharon slowly approached, he couldn't take his eyes from hers. Sharon was looking at him differently, as though their places on the chessboard had evened out somehow, and now they were both talking the same language, or at least, the same suggestion and innuendo.

On her knees, between his legs, Lee understood just what the Cylons had created in Sharon, and how irresistibly seductive she would be-- she was, clearly-- to someone like himself. The blonde, Shelly Godfrey, the one Baltar called Number Six? Wouldn't have done much for Lee, but the woman gazing up at him with the hunger (no other word for it) in her eyes?

"Those things aren't impossible," he said finally, finding his breath shallow. "Not with the right kind of cooperation."

"And you're touching someone now, but if that's not enough..." Just as he felt the warmth of her breath through his trousers, he was reaching down to open them. "I think we can find ourselves an understanding," he rasped as he pushed enough of his clothes aside to expose himself to her, crossing the line.

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

Cooperation. Was that what she would be doing? No, part of her wanted it, she knew that much -- otherwise she wouldn't have said so. So when Lee pushed his clothes off, he'd asked her for something he needed, too.

"I'd like to think that you might be able to understand me and where I'm coming from, Lee," she whispered before lowering her mouth on top of him, swirling her tongue and sucking softly. It felt... good. Touch. Taste. He was different than Helo, but that was what she was looking for right now. Someone different who didn't care about love.

Love was too complicated an emotion for her right now.

Sharon pulled her mouth slowly upwards, then looked back at Lee. "I like touching you," she said, moving her hand up and down his wet length. "Do you like it?" Her tongue darted out to touch him again.

"Do you think you can help me? Get me some furniture... ?"

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

What was he doing? What the frak did he think he was doing? In the space of just a second or two, Lee's mind raced with the question. He loved Dee, even if it wasn't the way she loved him-- she was good for him, and he would never be able to repay Dee for everything she did for him. He loved Kara, in a way he didn't and probably would never understand, but would probably never go away. Sharon he didn't love. He didn't hate her, not the way he had reacted when she'd first come aboard. But he didn't--

And all the speeding thoughts stopped when Sharon's mouth surrounded him. Warm, wet and tight around his length, she sent a shiver through his body. Lee looked down, watching her lips slide back up, and thought he understood. It was everything Commander Lee Adama should never and would never do, and that was exactly what he needed.

Sharon's tongue touched a sensitive spot and Lee's breath hissed out. "I like it a lot," he answered, "but I like your mouth even better." Lee locked eyes with her. "Finish," he said in a low voice, "and you can keep the chair. Next time, we'll... negotiate for more."

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

Sharon didn't want to think. Thinking meant remembering Hera and how she'd been murdered, it meant all the times she'd tried to help the humans on this ship and never been repaid for it. It meant thinking about Helo and his soft eyes, the way he put her on a pedestal when she wasn't that at all.

So, she stopped thinking about everyone else and started thinking about herself, right then, right at that moment when Lee's eyes met hers and she saw pure hunger there that she could satisfy.

"You like giving orders?" Clearly, he did. She wanted a bed. A couch. Something so that the rest of her life wouldn't be trapped in an empty cell, but she guessed she'd have to make due with a frakking chair for now.

The idea that "for now" entered her mind at all gave her little shivers as she lowered her mouth back onto him, sucking again while holding the base tight with one hand. He wanted her to frakking finish? Oh, she could oblige him, then. Sharon's tongue ran up and down the length of him, feeling him getting harder until she pushed him all the way back into her throat for a moment, then gasped for air. Her head bobbed up and down, faster, as she tightened her lips around him, too.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

No, Lee hated giving orders. He'd never asked to be in the Fleet, or a pilot, or be promoted to CAG and then XO and then CO on the Pegasus. First, it had been expectations and assumptions from everyone in the world who knew his father, and then after the attack, it had been responsibility. Lee could do these things, could take on these duties, so he did. But leading soldiers had never been his dream.

But to Sharon, he said, "Yes". Not because he wanted to give orders. Even as the pressure of his shaft pushing against her throat made him groan and pant, the understanding made itself known. He wanted control of something. This situation was going to be it. He could tell her what he wanted, and he had the power to give her what she wanted. Lee could be in charge of himself.

Sharon's mouth sped up and down his length. Lee felt tongue and lips and even teeth working on him, watched as Sharon's hair shook out loose and wild and fanned across his lap. He gasped as he felt her drawing him closer and closer to the end, faster and faster. "Gods, Sharon... I'm going to..."

Lee had only just the smallest bit more warning than he was able to give her before he exploded.

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

Her hands were braced against his legs when he suddenly filled her mouth, and Sharon swallowed it all, gasping for breath afterwards as she took one arm and wiped her mouth with it. She looked up at him from where she was at, kneeling, and grinned.

"Knew you liked giving orders. Get out of my chair."

She stood up slowly, rearranging her hair and smoothing out the new clothes she had been given. She'd kept her her end of the "bargain" or "arrangement" or whatever the frak they were going to call this, and now she wanted him to keep up his end.

"Come visit me anytime you like, Lee. I can see that I'm not the only one who has certain needs that aren't being filled around here right now."

Otherwise, there would have been no frakking way he would have allowed a Cylon to touch him, let alone do what she'd just done. She whispered one last thing to him before turning her back.

"By the way? You taste great."

And maybe, maybe if she kept up the act, Sharon could fool herself into thinking that she was the one in charge of this situation after all.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

Lee's breath came in shudders as he watched Sharon swallow him down as if she'd been longing for it. Maybe she had-- not him specifically, but what he had given her, the contact she talked about. He stood on slightly weakened knees and straightened his clothes.

"I think we're both going to be addressing each other's needs quite a bit," he promised, and it seemed that neither of them would be much in opposition to it right then.

Her last words made it difficult for him to turn and call for the guards to open the cell instead of looking to do more "bargaining", but he did. Lee exited the brig, hoping that somehow, he'd be able to stay in control of himself, let alone Sharon. But he did know he'd be back, and soon.