"No one on the Quorum is going to lift a finger. Zarek's got them inhaling fear and exhaling anger. But you have taken the pulse of the Fleet, and you know character." Zarek has the air, but Romo knows the heart. And how to eat it. "And frankly, you need a reason to get out of this room. Unless you want to start discussing what's been keeping you here..." That last burns; Romo is steeled, and he turns.

"So you won't be dissuaded, will you? Not even when you hear my fee?" That's the second test. Lee grins at him; like a grownup, like an equal. He's in the Maelstrom and he doesn't even know it. He thinks we're joking around. We're not joking. "Appearances to the contrary, I'm actually in this for the money. I have a reputation to maintain after all." Two lies right there. "Okay, so what did Roslin offer you to defend Baltar?" Romo points to a tiny square window, over his rack: "Room with a view." Lee laughs and doesn't counter. "Then pro bono it is, counselor." No, it isn't. It's pro the same malo it always is, with Romo. Not the pretty picture but the cracks in the canvas. Lee is a cat in a box, neither alive nor dead, neither ego nor id, particle nor wave, oscillating, between-states, between being one thing and becoming another, until Romo says the magic words. Not yet:

"Word to the wise? Sometimes it's better to settle for what you've already got," he says, the third test, as he's been saying for months; Lance stares up at him and licks his chops. As he's been doing for months.

A learned man came to me once.
He said, "I know the way -- come."
And I was overjoyed at this.
Together we hastened.
Soon, too soon, were we
Where my eyes were useless,
And I knew not the ways of my feet.
I clung to the hand of my friend;
But at last he cried, "I am lost."

IT MAKES NO MELODY AT MY WILL

"Colonel Tigh," Bill says, with his last semblance of gravitas. He's a cat in a box. "I understand you've developed a relationship with the Cylon prisoner." Tigh takes issue with the term, but admits she's been more cooperative. There are so many things he wants to say, all the time, every single moment of the day. The songs he'd sing Bill, if he could trust him; the melodies of his new life. The Admiral sends him off to ask about the Hub, and for a moment Bill is weak, and afraid; it breaks Saul's heart. "We'll find her. We'll find all of them." The Lie of Laura.