Chapter 4
(Cottle's POV)

As soon as I set foot outside the curtain both Adamas pounce on me, just like I was expecting them to. In fact the only real surprise of the lot is Lieutenant Agathon who has been here from the moment Starbuck was first dragged in and yet seems to be trying hard to meld with the walls, but then again I'm guessing he is a smart boy and doesn't want to have Bill pouncing on him. After all, if there is someone who is likely to have at least some clue as to what it is that Thrace is hiding, it is precisely our young lieutenant here.

He was with her on Caprica so he must have at least some idea of what is really going on here, about what happened to her there, though going by the scene I just walked in on I'd say that chances are he is not volunteering any information. That means that he is probably willing to take a reprimand rather than 'betray' Starbuck and that doesn't bode well for whatever it is that she is hiding... especially not considering that he is already on pretty thin ice because of his relationship with that cylon, a relationship I haven't really wanted to think too much about up until now.

Sure, we know 'she' is pregnant --I confirmed that myself-- and she claims that he is the father, a claim he hasn't tried to deny so he must at least be considered a likely candidate, though it is way too early for us to conduct any kind of DNA test to confirm that. Still, just the thought of it is enough to bring up a whole truckload of problems we are going to have to deal with sooner or later, like the fact that if he really is the father then human-cylon hybrids are bound to be a possibility and my gut is telling me that that is something we are going to be hearing a lot more about, to say nothing of the fact that this is going to blur the line between humans and cylons even further and that line was already too frakking blurry for anyone's liking.

To discover that the cylons now look like us was bad enough, but at least there we had the comfort of knowing that they were copies of a limited number of models and those models could be tracked and identified. If human-cylon hybrids are a a real possibility then that would no longer be the case with the next generation because --unlike the cylons themselves-- the hybrids would probably be individuals and that would make recognizing them almost impossible.

In fact even Baltar's so-called-detector, if the damned thing works at all, is likely to be rendered completely useless.

Well, the good news --if it can be called that-- is that from what Lieutenant Agathon told me when I confirmed 'Sharon's' pregnancy, I would guess that 'she' is an exception and that we don't really have to worry about the possibility of an army of hybrids coming after us any time soon. In fact that probably won't be a concern for another eighteen years or so and for the time being no one is making long term plans around here anyway. That's good because right now we certainly have more than enough problems... and the fact that 'Sharon' is here means that I'll be able to keep an eye on that pregnancy, it means that I'll have a chance to learn from it and from whatever comes out of it. That may not sound like much but it may be enough to enable us to figure out just what the frak it is that we are up against before it bites us on the ass... maybe.

Besides, right now the cylon is not my main concern, she is not my patient. My patient this time around is human... not that that is much of an improvement. What can I say? If nothing else, at least the cylons don't come with concerned families attached... or at least they didn't use to.

"She's going to be fine," I say before either of the Adamas can utter a word.

"What's wrong with her?" comes the rather predictable question from the Old Man.

"For starters she has the beginnings of an infection, that's what's causing the fever, but other than that I'm not sure, to tell you the truth. That girl is being stubborn... not that there's anything new about that."

"Can you be a little more specific?" he growls, obviously not happy.

"Well, I can tell you that she has a couple of incisions and apparently the older one of those is from someone extracting a bullet but other than that..."

"WHAT? You mean to tell us she was shot?" exclaims Apollo, beating his father to it, though I can't help but notice that Lieutenant Agathon doesn't seem to be particularly surprised by that revelation as he just lets out a resigned sigh.

"I figured she hadn't mentioned it, otherwise you would probably have dragged her sorry ass in here as soon as she came back. Yes, she was shot, but that's not really the problem."

"How can that not be the problem?" asks Bill.

"I mean that that gunshot wound seems to be healing nicely enough and I really don't expect it to cause much trouble in the long run. No, the incision I'm worried about is the second one, the one she is so frakking tightlipped about. Anyway, she's feeling pretty miserable right now and she is also grounded for at least two weeks, then we'll see but for now you are free to go in there and get yourselves some answers, just try not to push too hard. Remember, this is not a resort and she is in here for a reason."

"But she hasn't told you anything?"

"I didn't ask, or rather I didn't push. I didn't see the point, not after it became apparent that she didn't want to talk to me in the first place," I admit.

"That's not like you," he points out.

"Oh, I knew I would be getting my answers eventually so I wasn't worried about that but I also knew you'd want to know what those answers were so I figured that, with doctor/patient confidentiality rules being what they are, I'd better let you ask the questions yourself. I can tell you though that whatever it is she's not telling me about, it is making her nervous, that's why I decided not to push things too hard. She may not be in any immediate danger but she is upset enough already and I didn't see the point in upsetting her any more if I didn't have to. This way she just has to go over it once."

"But she is going to be fine?" insists the Commander, trying hard to sound as a stern CO rather than as a concerned father... and failing miserably.

"I think so, but I won't be able to say for sure until I know what the frak that second incision is from. As I said, that's the one I'm worried about... or rather about how defensive she gets whenever I mention it. That is not a good sign."

"Just how serious are we likely to be talking about here, doc?"

"From a medical perspective I can tell you that the wound itself seems to be healing reasonably well considering that she hasn't been taking good care of it --and I can also tell you that whoever operated on her was almost certainly a doctor with a real OR at his or her disposal, which is surprising enough considering what the conditions on Caprica were probably like-- but there's no way I can tell you what it's from just by looking at it and until I can figure that one out there's no way I can tell you what the long term consequences are likely to be. Now, going by Starbuck's general condition, and by the fact that she has been pretty much able to function up until now, I'm hoping there will be no lasting effects from that one either and that, whatever that surgery was, it was fairly minor --otherwise I doubt she would have been able to conceal it for as long as she did-- but the truth is that I'm somewhat worried about her mental state. That is my main concern right now."

"Can we see her?" asks Bill, who is obviously not willing to take 'no' for an answer.

"Go ahead," I say as I lead them back to her bed and wait for the fireworks to begin, knowing that this probably won't be pretty. Thrace may be a pain in the ass but I know it takes a lot to rattle her and right now that girl is most definitely rattled.

Author's notes: Hi guys, okay another week, another chapter and another POV (to say nothing of another annoying author's note).

First of all, I wanted to thank you for taking the time to read this, I really appreciate it.

In addition to that I also wanted to mention something I forgot last week: I know that some of Adama's thoughts about the fact that his life wasn't in the Colonies don't work all that well with the flashbacks in Scattered (where a new wife, Anne, is mentioned). I didn't forget about it, I was just deliberately ignoring it. The way I see it --while those flashbacks work well to flesh out Tigh's character-- they don't work so well with what we know of Adama's background or even with what we see in flashbacks from the first season. For instance, if Adama was married, where was his wife in Zak's funeral? Sure, it would be possible to say that she didn't attend to avoid a scene with Caroline but somehow I don't buy it.

Anyway that is the reason why I decided to ignore the two lines in which she is mentioned... and now I'll shut up, before this note winds up being longer than the chapter,

Alec