MONDO EXTRAS

"What are you talking about? Of course I love those people. Death doesn't change that. What's the matter with you?" Jean hissed at them to shut up; years hence she'd learn this truth as well, and join a Six in her own oblivion. They moved forward, into the yellow Caprica light, and Cavil watched them with his gun. Out into the clearing, joining together behind a wall, the friendlies came. Kara giggled, overjoyed, and Athena kept watch for them all.

Little John brought One an apple; he cut off a piece and handed the remainder to the boy. Just a little temptation. Just one tiny question.

Cavil took the shot as Kara and Sam jumped into one another's arms again, after months apart. Her hands, all over him: His face, his arms. His perfection.

The boy bit into the apple, and finally surrendered his name. The forgotten, the lonely boy, whose parents were faced with devastation and horror and could spare no love for him. Perhaps they'd had a new child. Perhaps they'd had a million, six million, three stars and twelve planets. How do we measure loss?

They spoke in nonsense phrases, laughing like children in the sun. You could see why they loved them so much. The brightness in their eyes.

"We've become friends," One offered, and the boy shrugged at him with dull and angry eyes. It pulled at him. The question was answered. He was surprised; he could surprise himself.

Sam stood before miraculous Kara Thrace, back from the dead once again. One pilot shielding another. Cavil's trigger finger began to quiver.

"Friends are dangerous things," One said, and slid the knife between his ribs. They will let you down. They will offer succor, home, love. They will take it away again.

Kara stepped back from Sam for a moment, to take him in. Cavil tracked her, and moved the crosshairs to Samuel T. Anders. The pilot of his race. He played those songs for them, for the woman that he loved, sometimes down by the water. But never for us.

He moved the gun again to Kara. The X-factor, the strange element in every equation. The girl who outran time, again and again. The girl he'd tried so hard to ignore, up there, for so long. The girl who bested death, lived through horror more than once, to save his God. Though he'd be dead and the Colonies lost, she came back. Her love outlasted death. He dropped the gun, then, and began to breathe.

John fell against One, in the tiny bed. His body was warm, and heavy, but One was stronger. He shoved with just the smallest fraction of the strength in his miraculous body, and it slid to the floor.