Fic - The Next Recruit in Lord Iblis's Secret Service part three
Woo! Its part three! This is a stargate/bsg crossover cowritten with the lovely batsojopo and the previous fics in this series is tagged sgfic :)
They were well supplied, she thought as the black woman with the musical drawling accent set down a heaping tray of food. In the fleet, the food she was looking at would have been a feast for a large family, if there was such a thing left. It was noodles in a meaty tomato sauce with hunks of ground meat shaped in little balls. "This looks a little like Delphi style noodles," she said calmly as she shook some of the grated cheese onto the hot noodles.
"They call it spaghetti," Helo said. He sipped a cup of hot coffee. "It won't taste the same, it's more savory and not as sweet. Sharon and… someone else I know can just about make it taste like real Delphi noodles but the kids like spaghetti more."
"Tastes good," she said. She could barely remember what Delphi noodles tasted like. Savory, and the sauce wasn't as heavy, and the meat was usually ground lamb, not beef, but the spaghetti was tasty, and there was bread, and a salad loaded with the fresh vegetables that told her that Helo probably wasn't lying about her being planet side. The doors were a clue as well, and Helo had never been much of a liar. She could count on her hands the people in her life she had trusted, and Helo was one. He and Sharon had even taken the child she had been forced to bear. He'd shown her pictures of the girl, a leggy blonde seven year old in what looked like a school photo. It was hard to look at, a little carbon copy of herself, with Sam's eyes and if she was any judge, Sam's height as well.
Helo had shown her other pictures, of his kids and Sharon. Pictures where the kids looked happy and well fed and if nothing else, she knew she had made the right call for a change. Helo was a good dad, and Sharon was a good mom. She hadn't brought a child into the world and repeated her own parents mistakes.
"So this is Earth. Real Earth." She looked at him, and took a long drink from the glass of milk. It and the cookies were the only thing left on the tray, and she resisted only for a moment. Whoever they were, they had good food and she wasn't afraid to take advantage of it while it lasted. Judging by the well fed looks of the others in the cafeteria, including Helo, they weren't trying to trick her over rations. They also weren't going crazy with security although she wasn't fool enough to act on it. Not yet. If they were really underground, then she needed to know more about the lay out and about the guards and their schedules. They seemed soft at first glance but that meant nothing. That Helo trusted them helped. She wanted to believe Helo, she really did. But he had no idea what the time with Iblis had been like. If the Earth people were at war with the Goa'uld, and they understood what happened when a Goa'uld entered *her* body then she doubted they would be able to resist using her as a weapon. If I could get to the surface, she thought as she nibbled a cookie, I could get away. "What's going to happen to me?"
She was curious what lies Helo had been told. He wasn't in charge, after all. O'Neill was. O'Neill didn't seem to like her and that meant while Helo might be on her side, he wasn't in charge. And Helo had a lot of kids, kids he would protect first. She didn't blame him for that, but she had to consider it in any escape plan.
Helo looked at her. "You're going to get some recovery time. You'll actually be in a quarantine for a few months. The people here are good people. I know that's hard to accept, but it's true. If you want a job here in Stargate Command, well, the Earth people need pilots like you desperately. But most of them don't even know this war is being fought, the Stargate is a secret technology, and the planet is really primitive compared to Caprica. It's only the people here who really know. But. it is good here." He hesitated. "Maybe you should consider this a second chance. We know what the sarcophagus did to you, Kara. For Gods sakes, we're the same age and I'm gray like an old man and you look twenty seven. You can have a life here."
A life. She wasn't even sure what that meant anymore. "How long was I there? With Iblis?" Despite everything, she could barely say his name.
"You disappeared about two years before Sharon and I ran. We've been here on Earth for almost a year. So about three years." Again he hesitated. "There's something else. we have someone here from the colonies. Someone that Iblis captured before you."
"The son of a bitch," Kara said in a scoffing tone. At Helo's look of surprise, she added, "That's what Iblis called him, the son of a bitch that escaped. He was always going on about him." The bastard had made things ten times more difficult. Because of the escapee, who had tested so many ways to escape without managing it, she had it that much worse. Iblis had raged on the topic many times.
"Yeah well, we've got him. It was Jack O'Neill's team that rescued him and you need to know that." Helo rose to his feet. "So I was going to take you to see him once you were done eating."
A test of sorts. She didn't care. Although she wouldn't hesitate to give the son of a bitch a piece of her mind.
~*~
Gaeta waited in the conference room. He was alone, although he knew guards would be watching and waiting to step in. Kara was a mess, a giant violent mess, and he knew that no one really believed him on that point. Helo and Sharon to a lesser extent, had been friends with Kara and that had colored their opinion, and everyone else was seeing a tortured woman who was almost waif-like.
Jack was taking him seriously, which he appreciated. He knew he wasn't an impartial judge of Kara Thrace, there was bad blood between them, but he knew she had been through hell. Iblis wasn't a kind master and while he had the personality to endure, Kara was the sort that never understood that Iblis *wanted* his prisoners to throw themselves against the bars. Iblis enjoyed it, enjoyed punishing prisoners who fought. He had thrown himself against the bars, both figuratively and literally for years before he had wised up and realized that what made Iblis complacent was a prisoner who appeared broken. Kara wasn't likely to have the patience or the temper to realize that, and she had hardly been stable the last time he had seen her. Everything he had seen on the videos told him that she was going to react badly on seeing him.
That was fine. He might look the same as he had but he was a forty-three year old man trapped in the body of a twenty-nine year old. Janet had suspected with him and confirmed it with Kara, that humans with blood type P were rejuvenated to their peak age of health when put in a Goa‘uld sarcophagus. Kara was in the same position except that he knew intimately what she was feeling. Well, but sick, and Iblis had always been a bastard about food. There had never been enough food to really feel full and by the time his muscles and nerves had learned to work right, another Goa'uld or Tok'ra would have been brought to be killed and the torture would start all over again. He knew, from his own post captivity behaviors, that he had been paranoid and fearful, and almost obsessed with his own safety. He still had nightmares, and if he didn't need a therapy dog hugged up against him and a daily visit to his psychiatrist, it was because he had been very lucky. But, and the sheer amount of time that had passed had shown him that he was right, he was inherently a stable person while Kara Thrace had proven over and over that she was a loose cannon at best. For a moment, he looked up at the security camera before glancing back over to the door. He was tired of standing, so he sat down at the medium size table. Felix knew what her reaction would be if she saw him immediately, so he decided to have his back facing the door.
“So, Helo, who’s the son of a bitch?” she asked flippantly as she stepped into the room.
For a moment, Felix could feel his heart pounding at her voice. He turned around slowly and answered, “I am. Hello Kara.”
The look on the former pilot’s face went from surprise to fury. In seconds, she launched herself towards the one she felt was responsible for her captivity. With regret, Felix rose to his feet and dumped her on the deck. “I could kill you if I wanted to,” he said softly with a hand close to her neck. “But I’m not, Kara. You think I’m stupid? I know what you dealt with for the past three years. I was held captive by Iblis for 10 frakkin’ years.”
She writhed under his hands. He mentally thanked Janet for talking him into taking the classes in krav maga. Janet had intended it as more of a confidence boost but knowing how to arm bar and pin someone face down to the floor was coming in handy. "Will you listen to me?"
"You made it ten times worse, you bastard!" Kara snarled. "I had those things inside me, crawling around me, controlling me and then that box." She twisted and he almost lost his grip.
"They'd put you in the box, and you'd be screaming because everything hurt so much and once the box was closed it just got worse because you could feel your bones knitting and you couldn't even move? And maybe if you were lucky, there's be enough time between executions that you could figure out how to walk and feed yourself without help. And when you did try to escape, Iblis would spend days torturing you, then healing you, and then torturing you?" He let his voice drop lower. It would be in his reports but Helo didn't need to hear what he was about to say. "Iblis liked to put women with me. You know why. He put men with you.."
"Shut up," she hissed, but her voice hitched. That was all the confirmation he needed. He had been lucky, very lucky, that Iblis had never seriously forced the issue of breeding, but he also suspected that it was partly due to his being a man. Iblis was a pig, but not very creative. It never occurred to Iblis that there were ways to force a man to breed. It would have been different for a woman. Even a woman like Kara, who was fighting like a wildcat even thought he knew her reflexes and muscles were dulled by the rejuvenation process, wouldn't have been able to stop it. It was probably very lucky that Cottle still had a few of long term anti-pregnancy implants.
"Listen to me very carefully," he said softly. "That will never happen here. Do you understand me? Never. No one here will ever use you to kill a Goa'uld. No one will touch you unless you want. I know you never liked me, and hated me after New Caprica. but I never lied to you. The people here, the Earth people, just want to help you because they hate the Goa'uld and they hate what Iblis did. They don't want to use you like Iblis did. I know you're scared about that, because I was, and I was so terrified I could barely function." He eased up his grip just a bit. "I know we had our differences, Kara, but I never once lied to you. You know when I disappeared and that I went through one of the gates that Iblis had. You know you look twenty seven and you shouldn't, and I look the same. That's because of the sarcophagus. My leg grew back in the sarcophagus. I can show it to you. But you have to show some self control and not attack me. I am sorry Iblis captured you and I am especially sorry that he made things so much worse for you. But I am not Iblis, and the people here didn't hurt you. If I let go of you, are you going to be calm?"
He could feel her tense. "You wouldn't believe me if I said yes," Kara snapped.
"Yes I would." He let go of her and stepped back. She jumped to her feet and then swayed. He put out a hand to steady her and she leapt back, almost falling.
“Don’t touch me!” she ground out as she backed away. Her movement stopped when she bumped into the conference table. Reaching a hand behind her, she moved around the table until she had the large piece of furniture between them. Movement from the door distracted the former colonial pilot for a second. She knew Helo was out there, but there was someone else there, someone else that at least had one of those things inside him or her.
“And then there were the nightmares. It’s been over three years, and I still haven’t gotten a full night’s sleep.” Felix kept his tone calm. He knew it was Sam Carter outside the door, but Kara wasn’t likely to know that the Air Force colonel she’d already met was the only person in Stargate Command that would set off the permanent goa’uld alarm they both had.
“Kara,” Sam said gently as she stepped into the room. “You need help. We have psychiatrists and counselors…”
“And be thrown in with all the crazies?” The blonde woman shook her head viciously. “I’m not going through with that.”
“Listen to me,” Sam’s voice had a command edge to it. If the Colonial wasn’t going to listen to reason, then maybe she’ll listen to an order. “If Felix needed help, and he did, then we know that you need it, maybe even more so.”
“Please, just listen,” Helo said with almost a pleading tone to his voice. “We all know you’ve had an extremely hard time.” He waived his arm towards the others in the room. “It won’t be forever. They have a really good hospital for people who have had… traumatizing things happen. It’ll be good for you to be able to take a break and calm down. And we’ll be with you every step of the way. Right Felix?”
Felix nodded. He moved with exaggerated movements towards the conference room table and sat back down. Kara had, in his opinion, had a harder time that he had. She wasn‘t behaving worse than he had but she was definitely more violent. If they didn‘t talk her into accepting help at the psychiatric facility, the next option was forcing her and that would be much worse. “I warn you, there will be times where it will be extremely difficult, and seem like nothing is working. There is one thing you need to remember: it may not look like it, but it is working. I wasn’t able to function until I got some help.”
“Yeah, frakkin’ right,” she muttered darkly.
“Kara,” Felix sighed. He hated having to bring this up, but he also knew she still was fighting them. “I know what you’re thinking. And yes, I was in the hospital for a short time.” He winced at the memory of the black eye he gave Janet. At his admission, the look in Kara’s eyes changed slightly. At that moment, he realized that if that’s what it took to get to the former Colonial pilot, then he’d gladly go through everything again. That he never needed to be hospitalized was because of Janet’s help, not because he’d been stronger.
“Yeah, right,” she muttered again.
“Kara… I had been here for two months when I finally lashed out. I guarantee you, if you bury everything it will only bite your ass in the end. I couldn’t even stand being outside for even five minutes before I would start panicking.” He ignored Karl’s surprised look and continued, “You’re not in the Colonial society anymore. Being in a hospital or talking about having problems doesn’t incur any shame. People here are encouraged to talk about it.”
“And if I do this I’ll be cursed and not get any type of job,” she shot back. “No one wants crazy people around.” It was a far point, Felix thought. People in the Twelve Colonies stigmatized mental illness. He had been frightened of the same thing.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Sam answered as she took another step into the room. “Our laws specifically state that someone cannot be refused a job if that person is the most qualified. The only thing that would limit a person’s qualifications is if they had problems with the law. Even then, employers have to give everyone equal opportunity.” She hesitated before continuing, “And it is never put on a person’s record.”
“Kara,” Felix kept his hands well within sight and then placed them on the table, “I can be with you every step of the wa - ”
“No. If I do this, I do not want you holding it over me. Like you held New Caprica over me.”
“I didn’t… If that’s what you want.” Don’t, he told himself, don’t get on that topic. She needed help more than he needed to dredge up an old resentment.
~~~~~~~
They were well supplied, she thought as the black woman with the musical drawling accent set down a heaping tray of food. In the fleet, the food she was looking at would have been a feast for a large family, if there was such a thing left. It was noodles in a meaty tomato sauce with hunks of ground meat shaped in little balls. "This looks a little like Delphi style noodles," she said calmly as she shook some of the grated cheese onto the hot noodles.
"They call it spaghetti," Helo said. He sipped a cup of hot coffee. "It won't taste the same, it's more savory and not as sweet. Sharon and… someone else I know can just about make it taste like real Delphi noodles but the kids like spaghetti more."
"Tastes good," she said. She could barely remember what Delphi noodles tasted like. Savory, and the sauce wasn't as heavy, and the meat was usually ground lamb, not beef, but the spaghetti was tasty, and there was bread, and a salad loaded with the fresh vegetables that told her that Helo probably wasn't lying about her being planet side. The doors were a clue as well, and Helo had never been much of a liar. She could count on her hands the people in her life she had trusted, and Helo was one. He and Sharon had even taken the child she had been forced to bear. He'd shown her pictures of the girl, a leggy blonde seven year old in what looked like a school photo. It was hard to look at, a little carbon copy of herself, with Sam's eyes and if she was any judge, Sam's height as well.
Helo had shown her other pictures, of his kids and Sharon. Pictures where the kids looked happy and well fed and if nothing else, she knew she had made the right call for a change. Helo was a good dad, and Sharon was a good mom. She hadn't brought a child into the world and repeated her own parents mistakes.
"So this is Earth. Real Earth." She looked at him, and took a long drink from the glass of milk. It and the cookies were the only thing left on the tray, and she resisted only for a moment. Whoever they were, they had good food and she wasn't afraid to take advantage of it while it lasted. Judging by the well fed looks of the others in the cafeteria, including Helo, they weren't trying to trick her over rations. They also weren't going crazy with security although she wasn't fool enough to act on it. Not yet. If they were really underground, then she needed to know more about the lay out and about the guards and their schedules. They seemed soft at first glance but that meant nothing. That Helo trusted them helped. She wanted to believe Helo, she really did. But he had no idea what the time with Iblis had been like. If the Earth people were at war with the Goa'uld, and they understood what happened when a Goa'uld entered *her* body then she doubted they would be able to resist using her as a weapon. If I could get to the surface, she thought as she nibbled a cookie, I could get away. "What's going to happen to me?"
She was curious what lies Helo had been told. He wasn't in charge, after all. O'Neill was. O'Neill didn't seem to like her and that meant while Helo might be on her side, he wasn't in charge. And Helo had a lot of kids, kids he would protect first. She didn't blame him for that, but she had to consider it in any escape plan.
Helo looked at her. "You're going to get some recovery time. You'll actually be in a quarantine for a few months. The people here are good people. I know that's hard to accept, but it's true. If you want a job here in Stargate Command, well, the Earth people need pilots like you desperately. But most of them don't even know this war is being fought, the Stargate is a secret technology, and the planet is really primitive compared to Caprica. It's only the people here who really know. But. it is good here." He hesitated. "Maybe you should consider this a second chance. We know what the sarcophagus did to you, Kara. For Gods sakes, we're the same age and I'm gray like an old man and you look twenty seven. You can have a life here."
A life. She wasn't even sure what that meant anymore. "How long was I there? With Iblis?" Despite everything, she could barely say his name.
"You disappeared about two years before Sharon and I ran. We've been here on Earth for almost a year. So about three years." Again he hesitated. "There's something else. we have someone here from the colonies. Someone that Iblis captured before you."
"The son of a bitch," Kara said in a scoffing tone. At Helo's look of surprise, she added, "That's what Iblis called him, the son of a bitch that escaped. He was always going on about him." The bastard had made things ten times more difficult. Because of the escapee, who had tested so many ways to escape without managing it, she had it that much worse. Iblis had raged on the topic many times.
"Yeah well, we've got him. It was Jack O'Neill's team that rescued him and you need to know that." Helo rose to his feet. "So I was going to take you to see him once you were done eating."
A test of sorts. She didn't care. Although she wouldn't hesitate to give the son of a bitch a piece of her mind.
~*~
Gaeta waited in the conference room. He was alone, although he knew guards would be watching and waiting to step in. Kara was a mess, a giant violent mess, and he knew that no one really believed him on that point. Helo and Sharon to a lesser extent, had been friends with Kara and that had colored their opinion, and everyone else was seeing a tortured woman who was almost waif-like.
Jack was taking him seriously, which he appreciated. He knew he wasn't an impartial judge of Kara Thrace, there was bad blood between them, but he knew she had been through hell. Iblis wasn't a kind master and while he had the personality to endure, Kara was the sort that never understood that Iblis *wanted* his prisoners to throw themselves against the bars. Iblis enjoyed it, enjoyed punishing prisoners who fought. He had thrown himself against the bars, both figuratively and literally for years before he had wised up and realized that what made Iblis complacent was a prisoner who appeared broken. Kara wasn't likely to have the patience or the temper to realize that, and she had hardly been stable the last time he had seen her. Everything he had seen on the videos told him that she was going to react badly on seeing him.
That was fine. He might look the same as he had but he was a forty-three year old man trapped in the body of a twenty-nine year old. Janet had suspected with him and confirmed it with Kara, that humans with blood type P were rejuvenated to their peak age of health when put in a Goa‘uld sarcophagus. Kara was in the same position except that he knew intimately what she was feeling. Well, but sick, and Iblis had always been a bastard about food. There had never been enough food to really feel full and by the time his muscles and nerves had learned to work right, another Goa'uld or Tok'ra would have been brought to be killed and the torture would start all over again. He knew, from his own post captivity behaviors, that he had been paranoid and fearful, and almost obsessed with his own safety. He still had nightmares, and if he didn't need a therapy dog hugged up against him and a daily visit to his psychiatrist, it was because he had been very lucky. But, and the sheer amount of time that had passed had shown him that he was right, he was inherently a stable person while Kara Thrace had proven over and over that she was a loose cannon at best. For a moment, he looked up at the security camera before glancing back over to the door. He was tired of standing, so he sat down at the medium size table. Felix knew what her reaction would be if she saw him immediately, so he decided to have his back facing the door.
“So, Helo, who’s the son of a bitch?” she asked flippantly as she stepped into the room.
For a moment, Felix could feel his heart pounding at her voice. He turned around slowly and answered, “I am. Hello Kara.”
The look on the former pilot’s face went from surprise to fury. In seconds, she launched herself towards the one she felt was responsible for her captivity. With regret, Felix rose to his feet and dumped her on the deck. “I could kill you if I wanted to,” he said softly with a hand close to her neck. “But I’m not, Kara. You think I’m stupid? I know what you dealt with for the past three years. I was held captive by Iblis for 10 frakkin’ years.”
She writhed under his hands. He mentally thanked Janet for talking him into taking the classes in krav maga. Janet had intended it as more of a confidence boost but knowing how to arm bar and pin someone face down to the floor was coming in handy. "Will you listen to me?"
"You made it ten times worse, you bastard!" Kara snarled. "I had those things inside me, crawling around me, controlling me and then that box." She twisted and he almost lost his grip.
"They'd put you in the box, and you'd be screaming because everything hurt so much and once the box was closed it just got worse because you could feel your bones knitting and you couldn't even move? And maybe if you were lucky, there's be enough time between executions that you could figure out how to walk and feed yourself without help. And when you did try to escape, Iblis would spend days torturing you, then healing you, and then torturing you?" He let his voice drop lower. It would be in his reports but Helo didn't need to hear what he was about to say. "Iblis liked to put women with me. You know why. He put men with you.."
"Shut up," she hissed, but her voice hitched. That was all the confirmation he needed. He had been lucky, very lucky, that Iblis had never seriously forced the issue of breeding, but he also suspected that it was partly due to his being a man. Iblis was a pig, but not very creative. It never occurred to Iblis that there were ways to force a man to breed. It would have been different for a woman. Even a woman like Kara, who was fighting like a wildcat even thought he knew her reflexes and muscles were dulled by the rejuvenation process, wouldn't have been able to stop it. It was probably very lucky that Cottle still had a few of long term anti-pregnancy implants.
"Listen to me very carefully," he said softly. "That will never happen here. Do you understand me? Never. No one here will ever use you to kill a Goa'uld. No one will touch you unless you want. I know you never liked me, and hated me after New Caprica. but I never lied to you. The people here, the Earth people, just want to help you because they hate the Goa'uld and they hate what Iblis did. They don't want to use you like Iblis did. I know you're scared about that, because I was, and I was so terrified I could barely function." He eased up his grip just a bit. "I know we had our differences, Kara, but I never once lied to you. You know when I disappeared and that I went through one of the gates that Iblis had. You know you look twenty seven and you shouldn't, and I look the same. That's because of the sarcophagus. My leg grew back in the sarcophagus. I can show it to you. But you have to show some self control and not attack me. I am sorry Iblis captured you and I am especially sorry that he made things so much worse for you. But I am not Iblis, and the people here didn't hurt you. If I let go of you, are you going to be calm?"
He could feel her tense. "You wouldn't believe me if I said yes," Kara snapped.
"Yes I would." He let go of her and stepped back. She jumped to her feet and then swayed. He put out a hand to steady her and she leapt back, almost falling.
“Don’t touch me!” she ground out as she backed away. Her movement stopped when she bumped into the conference table. Reaching a hand behind her, she moved around the table until she had the large piece of furniture between them. Movement from the door distracted the former colonial pilot for a second. She knew Helo was out there, but there was someone else there, someone else that at least had one of those things inside him or her.
“And then there were the nightmares. It’s been over three years, and I still haven’t gotten a full night’s sleep.” Felix kept his tone calm. He knew it was Sam Carter outside the door, but Kara wasn’t likely to know that the Air Force colonel she’d already met was the only person in Stargate Command that would set off the permanent goa’uld alarm they both had.
“Kara,” Sam said gently as she stepped into the room. “You need help. We have psychiatrists and counselors…”
“And be thrown in with all the crazies?” The blonde woman shook her head viciously. “I’m not going through with that.”
“Listen to me,” Sam’s voice had a command edge to it. If the Colonial wasn’t going to listen to reason, then maybe she’ll listen to an order. “If Felix needed help, and he did, then we know that you need it, maybe even more so.”
“Please, just listen,” Helo said with almost a pleading tone to his voice. “We all know you’ve had an extremely hard time.” He waived his arm towards the others in the room. “It won’t be forever. They have a really good hospital for people who have had… traumatizing things happen. It’ll be good for you to be able to take a break and calm down. And we’ll be with you every step of the way. Right Felix?”
Felix nodded. He moved with exaggerated movements towards the conference room table and sat back down. Kara had, in his opinion, had a harder time that he had. She wasn‘t behaving worse than he had but she was definitely more violent. If they didn‘t talk her into accepting help at the psychiatric facility, the next option was forcing her and that would be much worse. “I warn you, there will be times where it will be extremely difficult, and seem like nothing is working. There is one thing you need to remember: it may not look like it, but it is working. I wasn’t able to function until I got some help.”
“Yeah, frakkin’ right,” she muttered darkly.
“Kara,” Felix sighed. He hated having to bring this up, but he also knew she still was fighting them. “I know what you’re thinking. And yes, I was in the hospital for a short time.” He winced at the memory of the black eye he gave Janet. At his admission, the look in Kara’s eyes changed slightly. At that moment, he realized that if that’s what it took to get to the former Colonial pilot, then he’d gladly go through everything again. That he never needed to be hospitalized was because of Janet’s help, not because he’d been stronger.
“Yeah, right,” she muttered again.
“Kara… I had been here for two months when I finally lashed out. I guarantee you, if you bury everything it will only bite your ass in the end. I couldn’t even stand being outside for even five minutes before I would start panicking.” He ignored Karl’s surprised look and continued, “You’re not in the Colonial society anymore. Being in a hospital or talking about having problems doesn’t incur any shame. People here are encouraged to talk about it.”
“And if I do this I’ll be cursed and not get any type of job,” she shot back. “No one wants crazy people around.” It was a far point, Felix thought. People in the Twelve Colonies stigmatized mental illness. He had been frightened of the same thing.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Sam answered as she took another step into the room. “Our laws specifically state that someone cannot be refused a job if that person is the most qualified. The only thing that would limit a person’s qualifications is if they had problems with the law. Even then, employers have to give everyone equal opportunity.” She hesitated before continuing, “And it is never put on a person’s record.”
“Kara,” Felix kept his hands well within sight and then placed them on the table, “I can be with you every step of the wa - ”
“No. If I do this, I do not want you holding it over me. Like you held New Caprica over me.”
“I didn’t… If that’s what you want.” Don’t, he told himself, don’t get on that topic. She needed help more than he needed to dredge up an old resentment.
~~~~~~~