Chapter 1
(Cottle's POV)

"How is she?" comes the rather predictable question before I can even finish closing the curtain behind me and I take a deep breath before I even try to answer that one.

"Still breathing," I say, turning around to see the three worried men who have been cluttering my sickbay for the past few hours. "I managed to stop the bleeding and repair the damage but she lost an awful lot of blood and we almost lost her a couple of times in there. She has a fighting chance, that is the good news, but she is still not out of the woods, not by any stretch of the imagination."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that she managed to perforate both her stomach and her intestine and that even though I cleaned things up as best I could, she could still develop an infection and then all bets would be off. The risk of peritonitis is not one that can be taken lightly, not even under the best of circumstances, and no matter how many antibiotics I pump into her there is still a chance that we could end up losing her. The next 48 hours are going to be critical."

"But barring any major complications she is going to make it?" asks Bill, obviously looking for some sort of reassurance, the problem is that I can't afford to give him that kind of comfort, not with the stakes being as high as they are.

"I repaired the damage and chances are that her injuries will heal just fine if that is what you are asking but that doesn't mean she is going to live. The bottom line is that right now those injuries are the least of her worries. Let me be perfectly clear here, admiral: this was a serious suicide attempt, not a cry for attention, and she damn near succeeded. I don't think you realize just how close she cut it here."

"Tell me."

"If it weren't because someone was worried enough about what was going on to come looking for me before she did anything in the first place I would almost certainly have been too late, that's how close it was. Now, the good news is that, as serious as this was, I don't think she planned it. Of course, that doesn't mean she is not going to try it again but that is all the good news I have to offer, at least for the time being."

"Wait, you don't think she planned it?" asks Apollo, beating Anders to the punch.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because if she had planned it she would probably have used her gun and I'm fairly certain we wouldn't be here arguing about it, we would be too busy arranging her funeral and the whole point would be moot anyway. Now, going by what I was told before I went looking for her and by what I found in the head once I got there I suspect that she went in there intent on cutting her hair. That was probably her original goal but then something just snapped. Keep in mind that she did three things while she was in the head: first she cut her hair, then she smashed the mirror and finally she turned the knife on herself. Based on that sequence of events I would say that chances are that there was something about her reflection she just couldn't handle. That is the most logical scenario."

"But what was it?" asks Bill, looking almost sick at the thought.

"I don't know. Honestly I think something was just too much for her but I don't know what that something was, however I am willing to bet that one way or another this whole thing can be traced back to New Caprica. Of course, while I am fairly certain that that is what caused her to try to kill herself in the first place, that is not what triggered this, that was not the final straw, and while New Caprica may be at the root of what happened today, for the time being identifying that final straw should probably be a far more immediate concern. As I said, something caused Starbuck to snap when she did and if you want her to live you are going to have to figure out what it was that pushed her over the edge, you are going to have to figure out what the frak is going on in that thick head of hers and you are going to have to do it soon."