Author's Notice (Sept.2020) : I've recently picked up this story again after a five year hiatus. Yep, anything is possible! Chapter 20 onwards is post-hiatus writing. I lost the original outline for this story, and then real life got crazy but I've always meant to finish it. My writing style has obviously changed a *lot* since this story started, and I'm slowly going back to make minor edits to the contents of the original 19 chapters (to stop myself doing a total rewrite!). Hence why, if you're reading this for the first time, you might see a sharp change in writing style as you make your way through this story.

Exodus Part 2

Colonial One.

It was by no means home, but it was the nearest thing Laura had to one.

Even just the appearance of the vessel was enough to calm the woman. Not even the strong stench of cheap whiskey and cigar smoke could get to Laura. This ship was her home, even if Gaius frakkin' Baltar had taken temporary ownership of it. Just walking through the central compartment of Colonial One, Laura could feel a new found sense of confidence growing inside her. Sitting herself down on the green desk chair, she felt the weeks and months of constant stress, worry and pain, leave her aging shoulders.

Everything would be okay.

"Alright, I'm ready to go," Laura announced as she unwrapped her precious journals, the only reminder she had taken from 'New Caprica' and placed them on the writing desk. As the ship began to lift itself from the crust of 'New Caprica', forever leaving the pain and misery behind, Laura felt a sense of happiness come over her, something she hadn't felt for months. They would have to repair both the fleet and themselves after the traumatising weeks and months they had been through, but everything would be okay now. The fleet would be back together, and everything would return to its former order.

It was then that a loud crash echoed through the cabin.

"If that's Baltar, I'll kill him with my own bare hands," One of the guards said, holding his gun at chest height while looking around for the source of the noise. Laura could detect the anger in his voice, and she couldn't blame him for his clear hatred of the man who had succeeded her as President. "Lower your gun" Laura ordered, raising her hand at the guard in question, signalling for him to lower his weapon, as she rose from her seat.

As much as she would love nothing more than to throw Baltar out of the nearest airlock, she doubted the man had the balls to stay on the ship. He was a coward, but she doubted he was that stupid.

Laura's footsteps echoed through the room, the tension growing as they all held their breath while Laura walked towards the side storage room where the noise had come from.

What exactly would they do if it was Baltar in there?

"Madame President," One of the guards said as the noise sounded once again from the storage room. Laura ignored the guards that simultaneously stepped towards her, guns raised. Reaching out for the door handle, Laura wrapped her slender fingers around the cold metal, taking a deep breath before pulling the door open quickly.

A small muffled cry filled the cold dark grey room. That couldn't be Baltar. No, Baltar didn't sound like a young child.

Heavy footsteps rushed towards her and once more Laura held out the palm of her hand towards the guards. "It's okay," She said, waiting for the men to lower their guns before she turned her attention to the mysterious occupant of the storage room. "Hello?" Laura cooed, attempting to see into the small room, ignoring the claustrophobic feeling that came over her as she stepped inside, pushing the assortment of parchment, folders and empty glass bottles to the side.

She could hear the occupant of the room shuffling around, but in the darkness it was hard to make out their appearance.

Reaching out, Laura hand landed on a small head of soft ringlets. "It's okay, I promise" Laura bent down as she spoke, moving her hand down to the child's shoulder, unable to see through the darkness. "I won't hurt you. Can you come out of there?" Laura coaxed, wondering how on earth a child - of all people - could have ended up on Colonial One.

It was then that she felt two short arms wrap themselves around her shoulder, accompanied by a small head of brown ringlets that buried itself into her shoulder. The motion almost knocked the air out of Laura's lungs, but she managed to catch herself before she could lose her balance.

Appearing from the compartment, Laura took in the shocked expressions of her companions. No one knew exactly what they had expected the former President to find, but it certainly hadn't been a young girl. The child's thin fingers were clutching onto Laura's shirt with such fear that her knuckles were snow white, her eyes sealed shut as she held onto the woman for dear life.

"Madame President?" Tori asked, unsure of what to refer to the woman as, but 'Madam President' seemed most natural. Laura walked through the compartment towards he office area of Colonial One, both of her arms wrapped protectively around the child that clung to her shoulders. Stopping in front of the desk, she moved in an attempt to set the child down onto it, so that she could check the girl over for any injuries.

The girl was having none of it, and simply tightened her grip of Laura's blouse. Deciding that there was no point fighting with the girl, Laura lowered both herself and the child down into her seat once more, placing the girl down onto her knee.

"What on earth would a child be doing here?" Tori asked, stating the obvious and what everyone else in the room was thinking. "I have no idea," Laura confessed, allowing herself to take a better look at the girl now that she was seated. Even with the child's head buried in against her shoulder, Laura could still make out that the child looked healthy, if only shaken, and seemed to be lacking the first signs of malnutrition that some of the other children on New Caprica had experienced. That was a small mercy, if nothing else. Her main concern was how the cold the child felt, and she noted the absence of any coat or jacket over the girl's navy dress. "Tori, find me something to wrap her in, she's ice cold," Laura ordered, looking from the group of people and down to the child once more, watching as the child cautiously opened her eyes and looked up at her.

As Tori disappeared in search of a blanket, the girl seemed unsure of her surroundings and moved herself closer to Laura, burying her cheek into the woman's soft curls as she felt a group of watching eyes. Sensing that she would get nothing out of the child while they had an audience, Laura looked at the guards that had accompanied her back onto Colonial One. "Can we have the room please?" She requested, ignoring their mutters of protests that they were following the Admiral's orders before they filed out into the back of the ship. As the men left, Tori returned with a cotton blanket for the girl, handing it over to Laura before sitting herself down on the visitor's seat across from the President's desk.

Now that they were alone, Laura wasn't even sure where to start with the girl.

"Pandora,"

It was the girl herself who broke the silence between them, her soft voice was weak and sounded broken, a clear sign she must have been crying before Laura found her. The girl took a deep breath, filling her lungs before speaking again. "My name's Pandora," She revealed, looking up at Laura with her bambi eyes as she spoke.

"Pandora," Laura repeated the girl's name with a smile, glad that the young girl was beginning to relax. "I'm Laura. This is my friend, Tori. Do you know how you got in here Pandora?" She asked the child, watching as the girl's smile changed to a look of confusion, as though trying to search for an answer to Laura's question. "I don't know," Pandora admitted after a moment, her eyebrows drawn as she tried to think of how she had ended up in the cold grey room. "You're the first person I remember," The girl concluded as she looked down at the plush elephant in her hands, as though examining it for the first time. Even something that was meant to bring comfort to the young girl seemed like a foreign object. Laura began to worry then, no one simply forgot things, and she silently wondered if the child's sudden memory loss was a result of whatever trauma she must have endured on New Caprica.

Pulling her eyes away from the child, she looked up at Tori for a moment, exchanging a look of concern before speaking. "Can you get through to Galactica, tell them I'll be coming on board and that I need to see Doc Cottle?" Laura asked, deciding that a visit to Cottle would be needed for the girl to have a full checkup and set of tests. After all, it might more than just Pandora's memory that was playing up. "Of course," Tori nodded her head and went off to find the nearest working telephone to contact Galactica, deciding it may be better not to mention the reason for their visit, as if anyone in the CIC would believe her anyway.

Once Tori left, Laura returned her attention to the child. "Do you know how old you are, Pandora?" She asked, knowing that it would help Cottle if she could get some basic information, or whatever the girl could remember, from her before they would get to Galactica. "Four," Pandora said, holding out four small figures as she looked up at Laura. "You're four?" Laura asked, getting a self-assured nod from Pandora in response., the child now confident of her answer. At least it seemed that Pandora knew a few basic things, if only her name and age. Perhaps her memory loss was short term?

Laura Roslin wasn't sure of what reception she had expected to receive when arriving on Galactica, but it hadn't been this.

"I may have told them that you needed to see Doc Cottle immediately," Tori admitted shyly when the pair of them and Pandora were greeted by a small group of soldiers to give them an escort directly to the sick bay. Of course, several heads did turn when the former President came stalking through the halls of Galactica, her arms filled with a young child who was clutching onto her for dear life.

Should she have really have expected anything else?

Arriving at the sick bay, Laura quickly asked the guards to wait outside before heading inside, being greeted by Cottle who stopped in his tracks when the unusual pair arrived at his door. "What exactly have you been doing, young lady?" Cottle demanded, pulling the freshly lit cigarette from his thin lips, looking unamused by his latest patients as he walked them over to the nearest cubicle. Last time he had seen Laura Roslin, she most certainly did not have a young child in her care. "Do I want to know?" He asked with a raised eyebrow, watching with slight amusement as Laura attempted to get Pandora onto the bed, with the child protesting by silently tightening her grip on Laura before the woman admitted defeat and sat herself down on the bed, Pandora sitting between her legs.

"I found her on Colonial One, she doesn't exactly seem to remember anything," Laura revealed, watching as Pandora turned her head away from the man, pulling the blanket Tori had given her closer. "Anything?" Cottle asked in surprise, putting his cigarette out as he began to think to himself. Children didn't just forget everything.

"Is there any way we could explain this memory loss?" Laura wondered aloud, deciding that there had to be some sort of medical explanation for it all. It was clear the girl had gone through some kind of trauma, given her clear distrust of everyone around her, save for Laura. "A traumatic even could have resulted in short term memory loss. Perhaps she witnessed the death of her parents?" Cottle suggested, still unsure of what exactly could have caused the unusual memory loss in someone so young. "Let me run some tests," He said, and with that, the man relit his cigarette before disappearing off in search of a nurse to preform the necessary tests.

It seemed Cottle sure was taking his time today.

It had been at least forty minutes since someone had last seen Pandora, and Laura could feel her patience running thin. Resting back against the fluffed pillows, Pandora was simply content to listen to the steady beating of Laura's heart as she rested against the older woman's chest, her small arms locked around the woman's shoulders.

Laura almost jumped out of her skin whenever she heard his voice, "They told me you were down here," Bill said, standing at the end of the cubicle with an amused look on his face. Looking up at the man, she was shocked that he had chosen to see her and not stay in the CIC. Bill Adama was someone she believed put duty before friendship, but New Caprica had changed them all. "Hello Bill," Laura said, her lips pulling into a smile, the first one to reach her eyes in month, before she followed his line of sight to the child in her arms.

"I'm guessing the rumor mill is running over time," She joked lightheartedly, instinctively tightening her hold on the child. Laura could only imagine the rumors that were running around Galactica, it wasn't every day that the former President came running through the halls towards sick bay with a young child in her arms. "You could say that" Bill chuckled, having heard several such rumours on his way down to the sick bay. Once he had been assured that the former President's visit to sick bay hadn't been for her own health, Bill had to admit that it was his curiosity that had brought him down to the Sick Bay; that and his worry for Laura.

"Hello," Pandora said, lifting her head from Laura's chest as she looked at the man in front of them. So far, Pandora had pulled away from everyone except from Laura, choosing to hide herself behind Laura's hair or against the material of her blouse, but now, she was openly speaking to Bill. "Hello," Bill replied, moving to sit himself down on the plastic chair next to the bed, watching as the child's eyes followed his every move.

"I'm Bill, you must be the girl everyone's talking about," He said, moving towards the edge of his seat as he folded his hands in front of his knees as he looked at the child. "This is Pandora," Laura introduced the girl, her free hand pushing the girl's hair out of her eyes. "I found her on Colonial One," She explained, watching Bill's eyebrow raise in suspicion as a look of confusion set on his face. "No one has any idea how she got there. She doesn't even remember anything that happened before I found her," Laura added, having sent Tori off to see if there was anyone missing a young child, but so far there was no word of anyone missing a child from any of the ships.

"What does Cottle think?" Bill asked, knowing that although the girl appeared healthy, that looks could be deceiving. "It might be tramua related, the Lords of Kobol only know what she might have gone through down there" Laura said, as she felt a shiver run through her spine at the very thought of the torture, pain and misery the innocent girl may have suffered at the hands of the cylon occupation.

Just another reason to detest the very existence of Gaius frakkin' Baltar.

Bill moved to cover his face with the palm of his hand, knowing all to well what the girl might have witnessed or endured on the streets of New Caprica.

"Where did the strange smelling man go?" Pandora asked, looking up from her plush elephant and towards Bill and Laura. Laura chuckled to herself, remembering how Pandora had turned her nose up at the smell of Doc Cottle's beloved cigarettes. "Don't let him hear you saying that," Bill said with a chuckle, relived that the girl was now making small talk.

As though his ears had been burning, Cottle appeared with another cigarette resting between his fingers. "Seems you're a bit of a mystery, missy," Cottle announced as he put the test results down onto the foot of the bed and took a blow of his cigarette as he watched the child try to pull her blanket over her head.

"Did the tests show anything?" Laura asked, wishing that for once the man before her could just get to the point. With a heavy sigh, the man shook his head as he put out his cigarette. "Frak all," Cottle admitted, as he took a final look through the test results. Nothing made sense. There was no head trauma, nor was there any sign of problems with the brain's basic functions. "Take her back in a week or so if she doesn't start to recall anything else, we'll run some more advanced tests then," Cottle suggested, still puzzled by the child in front of him. It wasn't easy to be a Doctor and not be able to give your patient an answer, especially when that patient was accompanied by both the former President and the Admiral.

"I believe they're opening up the nursery to orphaned children to place them with suitable families," Cottle said, and the moment the suggest left Cottle's lips, Bill watched as both Pandora and Laura tightened their grip of one another. There seemed to be no right way to deal with it all. Pandora's apparent memory loss was a problem, but so was deciding a suitable place for the child to stay. Tori had yet to find any information about any missing children that matched Pandora's description, and it was most likely that the child was an orphan. Laura considered all of this as she looked at the girl in her arms.

Colonial One was no place for a child, or was it?

It was Bill who spoke up then, raising himself up from his chair to stand at level height with Cottle. "I somehow don't see that happening, Doc," Bill proclaimed, stating the obvious as Pandora began to relax once more, giving the Admiral a soft smile as she contented herself once again. Cottle nodded his head in response, having suspected such an answer in response to his suggestion.

It seemed Bill had made Laura's mind up for her.

With that, the Doctor took the test results and left the cubicle. "I better head back to the CIC and have them arrange a raptor to take you back to Colonial One," Bill said, having noticed the dark circles under Laura's eyes and though he knew she wouldn't admit it, it was clear the woman hadn't slept properly in months. "Thank you," Pandora said, smiling up at the man in the stern uniform. Laura appeared to trust him and if he was good enough for Laura, then he was good enough for her to. "Don't worry about it," Bill smiled, and with that, he disappeared through the cotton blue curtains that divided the cubicle from the rest of the sick bay, giving the former President and her young ward some privacy.

The journey from Galactica was a lot more controlled and understated than their arrival.

It seemed Bill had given the guards under strict orders to get the pair from sick bay and onto a raptor with as little fuss as possible. By the time Laura and Pandora got back onto Colonial One, Tori was standing waiting for them both at the foot of Laura's desk, the look on her face was one that Laura knew all too well.

"Tori?" Laura asked, her voice dropping as she saw the expression on her aid's face. "You might want to sit down," She said, biting the corner of her thin lips as she contemplated the best way of breaking the news to her former boss. Laura placed Pandora down onto her own two feet, watching as the child ventured off to sit in one of the flight seats before Laura sat down at her desk.

"It doesn't look like Maya made it off of New Caprica," Tori said after a moment of silence, clutching the slightly crumpled photograph before handing it over to the woman before her. Laura felt her heart drop at Tori's words. How was it even possible? Laura had done everything she could to ensure the pair would get off of New Caprica alive, but it seemed even her best wasn't good enough.

"What about the baby?" Laura inquired, praying to the Lords of Kobol that perhaps Hera had managed to be saved. Her prayers for some form of a miracle were dashed when Tori simply shook her head, taking a shaky breath before speaking once more. "I was there when the two guards left to take them to their ship. I don't know...I let you down, it's all my fault" Tori said, her voice shaking as she appeared on the verge of a nervous breakdown as she started to stumble over her own words, attempting to find some sort of explanation for the entire ordeal.

"No you didn't. It's not your fault, this is bigger than us." Laura said, knowing there was nothing else that they could have done.

She ran her thumb across the worn photo of Maya and Hera, remembering the day the photo was taken like it was only yesterday. Now that bright young woman, who had been one of the few sources of light during her time on New Caprica, was dead - and Hera along with her. "This is life" Laura concluded mournfully, feeling the tears finally start to flow.