Chapter 50
(Kara's POV)

'Frak, frak, frak, FRAK!' I think as I try to figure a way out of this mess, the problem is that I know Lee and I know he can be worse than a dog with a bone at times... and my gut tells me that this is going to be one of those times.

"Jonas?" I repeat, trying hard not to cringe. I hadn't even thought about the bastard in years and now...

"Yes, you said Leoben, Simon and Jonas," he reminds me... not that I need a frakking reminder, damn it!

"No one," I say, even though I already know that that is not going to cut it, not this time around. The problem is that the way I see it I can either lie to Lee or I can tell him the truth and neither one of those options is likely to do me much good. The truth is not something I want to deal with --not now, not ever-- and while a lie would probably buy me a little time, I am afraid that in the long run it would come back to bite me on the ass. That leaves obfuscating as my best bet but even there Lee knows me too well and I don't think he is going to just let me bluff my way out of this one.

"Don't lie to me, Kara, please," he pleads, almost as if he were reading my mind.

"It doesn't matter. Besides, he is dead," I say, knowing that to be the truth... well, maybe 'knowing' is too strong a word.

"Dead?" he repeats and I just nod at that.

"Yeah, he never made it out of the colonies... or at least I don't think he did," I explain, knowing that I can safely admit to that much... and that the more information I can bring myself to 'volunteer' here, the less likely Lee will be to notice the things I'm not telling him.

"So how did he get mixed in with Simon and Leoben?"

"He didn't, not really," I reply.

"But you said..."

"I said that he was with them in my dream, that doesn't mean a frakking thing," I remind him.

"But who was he?" he insists, getting back to the subject at hand... just as I knew he would.

"He was just one of the many losers my mom dated after my dad left. One that lasted longer than the others," I say, shrugging my shoulders and trying to downplay the whole thing.

"I'm guessing there was more to it than that," he points out, almost daring me to contradict him.

"I didn't particularly like him but my mother did and there wasn't a frakking thing I could do about it, in fact there wasn't a frakking thing I could do about any of them. It was her house, her rules, her choice and no one gave a damn as to how I felt about any of it... especially not my mother. I was just along for the ride and I knew that trying to say anything would only have served to make matters worse," I explain, and that is definitely the truth, no need to lie about it... or to mention the fact that --unlike most of the creeps my mother dated back then-- Jonas did like me, that he actually 'liked me' a little too much, that he liked me more than he liked my mom or that that was the real reason he stayed for as long as he did.

"How old were you?"

"I was ten when he first moved in with us and twelve by the time he left."

"So he lived with you for a couple of years?"

"It was more like twenty-two months," I correct him distractedly.

"Not that you were keeping track or anything?" he asks with a hint of a smile.

"Okay, so maybe I really wanted him gone but, as I said, it wasn't up to me. In fact it was pretty much up to everyone but me," I say, not quite managing to keep the anger and the bitterness out of my voice.

"I think I get it," he says with a look of understanding and something akin to pity in his eyes. "You had no control over the situation at all. It may have been your life but at the time you were just a kid and as such there was nothing you could have done about any of it. You were powerless, trapped, just like you were trapped and powerless on New Caprica. You couldn't have escaped this 'Jonas' character any more than you could have escaped Leoben, could you?"

"I guess not," I sort of agree, deeply relieved to see Lee put two and two together and come up with twenty-two. Oh, I know I should probably feel bad about misleading him but as far as I'm concerned I haven't openly lied to him. Everything I have told him so far has been the truth --just not the whole truth-- and if he has jumped to the wrong conclusion, well, I sure as hell am not going to correct him. I may be a screw-up but I am not that stupid.

Granted, trying to kill myself was a dumb thing to do --especially the 'trying' part-- but the bottom line is that I've just about had it with the 'poor broken Kara' looks I keep getting from pretty much everyone these days. Yes, New Caprica was a nightmare and things are still kind of rough but in the end I am still me, I still don't do pity and I just want everyone to back off and leave me the frak alone. I want to put this whole thing behind me once and for all and I know that if I were to tell Lee --or anyone else for that matter-- the whole truth about who Jonas was then the odds of that ever happening would plummet to less than zero.