"All right," Tyrol said, standing in Bill and Laura's living room, flanked by Tory, Sam, Saul, and a perplexed Caprica. "I know this is out of the ordinary, Lee, but we needed to tell you. We've been...remembering."
"Remembering," Lee said blankly, Wren at his elbow. Helo lounged against a table, arms crossed.
"Remembering Earth," Tyrol said. "The bones. They're saying the Thirteenth Tribe was all Cylons. This was our colony. We're from Earth."
"What exactly are you remembering?" Lee said.
Tyrol turned to Sam, who took a deep breath. "Just moments, from before. Before the bombings. There was a market. I played in a band. I thought it was just a daydream." He rubbed his forehead. "It's been coming stronger, the last couple of hours. When we all got together, at the reception, it all came back in a rush. We have our memories back, from when Earth was alive. We were all working on the resurrection technology. It was our breakthrough, the Five of us."
"Who's the Fifth?" Wren asked, her voice sharp.
"Ellen," Tigh said, and Caprica squeezed his hand. He squeezed back. "She may be alive somewhere. They put us on the Colonies to punish us but they didn't want us to die. There may have been copies in the Hub or on one of the Basestars."
"It was a game," Tory said bitterly. "We made them, the Eight. They were like our children, and they betrayed us. It was the Cavils."
"The Eight?" Helo said.
"There were eight models of resurrecting Cylons," Tyrol said. "We built them. It was sort of a favor to the Centurions and sort of an experiment to see if we could rebuild our race."
"There are only seven models," Helo said. "Cavil, Leoben, D'Anna, Simon, Doral, Six, and Sharon." He ticked them off on his fingers. "Seven."
Saul shook his head. "There were eight. You know it: your wife is an Eight. The Cavils killed the Sevens. Daniel, he was called. The Cavils slaughtered all the shells they could find, tainted the line out of some kind of grudge. We don't know if any survived. This was all after they put us into cold storage, shoved us out onto the Colonies to teach us a lesson about who wore the pants."
"They wanted to show us the error of our ways," Sam said. "Wanted to show us how weak the humans were. Wanted us to be there at the end, when the Centurions overwhelmed us."
Saul scoffed. "Nothing like a little teenage rebellion." Caprica cast her eyes down.
"We've seen the error of our ways," she murmured.
"Nobody's blaming you," Saul said, squeezing her hand.
"So there might be another model somewhere in the Fleet?" Lee demanded.
"No," Tory said. "The Daniels are gone. If there were any, they died on the Colonies. Cavil would have found them and killed them in the Fleet."
"Curiouser and curiouser," Wren said, her eyes hard. "Why didn't you let us know before?"
"We didn't know it was happening to all of us," Tyrol said. "Like Sam said, it feels like a dream. It's little flashes here and there. We weren't sure what it was until tonight."
"Better late than never," Helo said.
"Daniel," Lee said. "Huh."
"What is it?" Wren asked him quietly.
"Nothing," he said. "I feel like there's a connection I'm not making." He gave her a watery grin. "Maybe I'm part Cylon."
"Maybe we all are," she said back.
"I understand if this changes things, Mister President," Tyrol said. "I mean, if you want us to step down from the committee until we have this all figured out."
"Absolutely not," Lee said. "You're not getting out of this that easily."
"I didn't know if this would change things," Tyrol said.
"Maybe we should charge consulting fees for our years of experience living on this planet," Tory muttered.
"Keep me updated," Lee said to Tyrol. "I'm not gonna interrogate you. I want this to be completely voluntary, but understand that you're all a security risk right now. I want you to compile whatever you can remember. Talk it over. You're the only ones who know why this happened in the first place; we're gonna make damn sure it doesn't happen again."
"Mister President," Saul said, ducking his head, and the rest followed suit.
"I'm going to go and get Adam from the creche," Caprica said, and Saul nodded. She slipped away, leaving the four alone.
"So how are we gonna do this?" Tyrol asked quietly, as the Cylons stood together in a corner of the porch, looking out over the joyous crowd.
"We're gonna sit down and write down every last frakking thing we can remember," Saul said gruffly. "What did you think?"
"Don't we have a duty to our race?" Tory said.
"Always going on about race," Saul grunted. "You've got a higher duty, girl, to the entire population that survived. No way either of us are gonna make it on our own. You'll co-operate or we're all lost."
"I fail to see the connection between our memories and the survival of anyone," Tory said, crossing her arms.
"We need all the information we can put together," Sam said. "This can't happen again, Cylons and humans destroying ourselves and each other. Not now. There's too much at stake."
"You thought they were your people," Tyrol said. "Tory. Help us. It's gotta be everyone. You're one of us."
"That's what I mean," Tory said and tossed her hair. "One of us. Us Cylons."
"Cylons, humans," Saul said irritably, "we're all people. Lee had the courtesy to sign a pretty law that says so. Get off your silicon high horse. If something happens, we're as dead as anyone else. Without Ellen, there's no resurrection."
"Takes away the meaning of living anyway, when you can't die," Tyrol said, gazing into space.
"Philosophy aside," Saul said. "we're gonna tell Lee every last frakking thing we can remember. You too, Tory. Think of how special this'll make you when everybody knows you're two thousand years old. You're the original." He cackled. "You could give tours. 'This twisted heap of scrap metal used to be the best restaurant on Earth.'" Tory glared at him.
"It was a beautiful city," Sam said wistfully, and then shook his head. "This isn't the place."
"There you are," Kara said, coming up the steps, swinging her shoes in one hand. "Still dizzy, Sammy? I drank your Fat Lee to save you from the shame of leaving a man standing." She stopped a few paces away. "Am I interrupting something?"
"Nothing," Tory said, shifting away from Sam. "We were just finishing up."
"Tomorrow," Tyrol said. "My place. We'll put it all together."
"Fine," Saul said.
"I'll tell you about it when we get home," Sam said, moving to Kara and touching her hand.
"My favorite thing to hear," Kara grumbled, rolling her eyes, but she looked at Sam with concern. "Come and dance with me, Sam. It's been a long time since we had a party to go to."
He followed her down the steps, humming under his breath.