Chapter 15
(Adama's POV)

As soon as I walk into sickbay Cottle pulls me aside and explains to me what happened with Sam and, even though my gut reaction at that is to want to throttle Kara's husband for what he did, there is also a rational part of my mind that can't help but to acknowledge that something like that was probably unavoidable.

Pulling the curtain aside I see that Kara is looking away from me and, even though I can't see her face, something in her posture makes me realize that there is something very wrong here.

"Hey," I say, hoping that she will at least look at me but she doesn't, in fact she just tenses even more at the sound of my voice.

"Kara, would you look at me please?" I ask, and she does so reluctantly but she doesn't say anything.

"What is it?" I insist but she still won't talk to me. She just shakes her head at that, pressing her lips together.

"He is gone now," I say, trying to reassure her, but she just looks away again at that, letting me know in no uncertain terms that that is not what this is about.

"Talk to me," I all but beg, not quite knowing what else to do here.

"Why?" she finally asks.

"Why what?" I prod, not really understanding what she could possibly mean by that.

"Why is he gone," she explains. Unfortunately that 'explanation' is not much help either and I still don't have a clue as to what it is that she is talking about.

"I'm afraid I don't understand," I admit, feeling more than a little puzzled.

"It's nothing," she whispers, and the truth is that I just don't know what am I supposed to be doing here. On the one hand I want to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until she tells me what the frak is going on --especially because this despondent Kara scares the hell out of me-- but on the other I know that that is precisely what I can't afford to do, not under the circumstances.

"What is it?" I insist, not knowing what else to do and painfully aware of the fact that I am completely out of my depth here.

"You know," she replies, still not meeting my eyes, but the problem is that I don't know... or maybe it's just that I don't know what it is that she thinks I am supposed to know in the first place. Am I supposed to know what's bothering her or is she talking about something else entirely? I don't have a clue... in fact the only thing I know for sure is that something has changed since I last saw her, something that goes a lot deeper than her husband's less than unexpected bout of stupidity.

"No, I don't."

"Why are you here?" she asks after what feels like ages, finally meeting my eyes... in fact she seems to be almost challenging me.

"I'm here because I care," I say, willing her to believe me.

"Right," she snorts, looking away once more at that but at least now I have a clue as to what I'm dealing with here and the truth is that it scares the hell out of me. The way I see it, chances are that she remembers our last encounter, that's what's changed. I had been dreading something like this almost from the beginning, of course, but at the same time I was not ready to deal with it... I was nowhere near ready.

"Kara, please... I'm sorry," I say, knowing that if there ever was a case of too little, too late this is almost certainly it but needing her to believe me.

"Why? You were right... about everything," she replies, sounding more than a little baffled at that.

"WHAT?!" I exclaim, totally taken aback by her response. I had been expecting her anger, not her acceptance and in a way that is much worse.

"I just can't..." she trails off.

"You can't what?" I ask, trying desperately to understand.

"It doesn't matter," she sighs, looking incredibly tired.

"Kara, listen to me, I was wrong, you hear me? I was wrong."

"No, you weren't, I..."

"Kara, look at me, please," I say for what feels like the umpteenth time. "I was out of line and you certainly did not deserve that."

"Right," she whispers.

"You didn't," I insist, willing her to believe me, even though I suspect that what I can see here is just the tip of a very big and nasty iceberg... especially because all of a sudden I find myself remembering her earlier comment, the one that didn't seem to make sense, at least not at the time: 'you know'. That's what she said and even though when she said it I couldn't figure out what she could possibly mean by that, I couldn't figure out what it was that I was supposed to know in the first place, now I am starting to suspect that I do. I know what happened to her on New Caprica --or at least I have a general idea-- but she never told me about it... and chances are that she never intended for me to find out either.

That would certainly explain both her words and her reaction but at the same time that is far from a comforting thought, especially because I am almost painfully aware of the fact that I am completely out of my depth here. The problem is that, even though I don't really know what the frak it is that I am supposed to be doing here, I don't have a choice but to try to deal with this mess anyway... even if I don't really know where to begin.

The way I see it we have at least three problems layered on top of each other here. We have what the cylons did to her, we have what we did to her upon her return and we have the fact that we know what the cylons did to her even though she never meant to tell us about it, even though she never wanted us to find out. Any one of those three things on their own would almost certainly have been enough to push anyone over the edge but to have to deal with all three of them combined and compounding each other...