Chapter 28
(Adama's POV)

"What did the cylons do to you, Kara?" I ask when it becomes apparent that she is not going to volunteer any additional information.

"Give me your eyes, captain," I order but, even though she complies, she still doesn't say anything.

"What did they do?" I insist for what feels like the umpteenth time but she still refuses to answer, leaving me with no choice but to push even harder. "Kara, I need you to answer that question."

"No," she finally growls.

"That wasn't a request, Starbuck," I insist, hating myself for it but knowing it has to be done, unfortunately she just shakes her head at that and I can see that she is getting upset... or even more upset.

"Dad..."

"Not now, Lee," I warn him, already knowing what he is going to say.

"Do you want to get this over with?" I ask, deciding to try a different approach... especially because it is pretty apparent that my current one is not going to get me anywhere.

"Yes," she says, glaring at me.

"Then answer the question, captain."

"No."

"Did he rape you?" I ask, realizing that she may be reluctant to be the first one to utter 'that' word, not that I'd blame her.

"Yes... almost as soon as we were alone... I tried to fight him but..." she trails off.

"It's okay," I try to reassure her, knowing her well enough to realize how hard that admission must have been for her... how much it must have cost her.

"Yeah, right," she snorts.

"No-one is judging you, Kara."

"Yet... you don't understand," she whispers, not meeting my eyes.

"No, I don't, and that's precisely why we are here," I remind her, still trying to get through to her. Unfortunately that same dogged determination that has kept her alive up to this point is now working against us and overcoming it is bound to be all but impossible.

"It's not so frakking simple," she growls.

"I know it's not," I reply, especially because 'simple' is not a word I would ever have used to describe any of this, not by a long shot.

"It's just that..."

"Just that what?"

"Nothing."

"It's not nothing, Kara."

"Never mind," she sighs and I can barely keep myself from grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking some sort of answer out of her.

"What did he do afterwards?" I finally ask, not wanting to think about it but knowing that I have to keep this on track no matter how unpleasant it is... and also knowing that as hard as this is for me, it is probably a lot worse for her.

"He told me that I stank and then he all but dragged me to the shower... after that he gave me a tour of the 'apartment'. I remember when he first led me into the bedroom. There was a single bed and just being there scared the crap out of me. I was still sore as hell, I could barely walk and he was acting as if nothing had happened. He told me that it was my choice to share that bed with him or not... that I was free to sleep wherever I wanted. I didn't believe him, not at first, but he was telling the truth, well, for the most part anyway. The catch was that 'elsewhere' wasn't 'safer'. I found out almost immediately that it wasn't. Hell, that frakking bed was probably the safest place for me in the whole apartment."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that, with one exception, when we were in bed he was almost gentle with me, he didn't go out of his way to hurt me or to prove to me that I wasn't safe. As long as I shared that damned bed with him he would sometimes even let me sleep through the night without even touching me but if I..."

"If you what?"

"At first I didn't want to... I didn't want to sleep with him... I tried sleeping on the couch or on the floor... anywhere but in that frakking bed but he..." she trails off.

"He made a point of hurting you then, didn't he?" I ask, realizing where this is going.

"Yeah... or just when he saw me elsewhere and decided that he frakking wanted me," she says, shrugging her shoulders and looking away.

"And the one exception?" I prod, even though I'm pretty sure I don't really want to know.

"What?" she asks, looking almost puzzled at that.

"You said that he didn't force you to share a bed with him 'for the most part' and that he was almost gentle with you there 'with one exception'," I remind her.

"I did something... something bad... something I wasn't supposed to do. There were rules and I broke them... he punished me... he..."

"What did he do, Kara?" I interrupt her, not liking the fact that she seems to be accepting the blame for whatever it was that that damned toaster did to her, that she seems to be accepting his 'rules', but she just goes on without even acknowledging my words.

"I wasn't supposed to fight him there... I could fight him and even kill him elsewhere but not in bed. Those were the rules and I knew it but I..."

"What did he do?" I insist, getting honestly worried.

"I don't want to talk about it," she growls, suddenly snapping out of it and shaking her head.

"Okay," I agree, backing down reluctantly but realizing that she is already too close to the edge and that this is not the time for me to be pushing that particular issue... not when I too could probably use a break to at least try to wrap my mind around this one.

The thing is that as far as I'm concerned, Leoben never gave her a 'choice' --not really-- but he did give her the illusion of a choice and in a way that was even worse. He put her in a position of having to go to him in order to survive and even though I can see that no matter what she did she would still have been playing straight into his hands, he did it in a way that led her to believe that going to him was her decision, her choice, and that's what's killing her now. That is what we are up against, that is the enemy we have to defeat and, going by her attitude, I suspect that that is going to be an uphill battle.