Chapter 13
(Adama's POV)

I just glare at Cottle at that, even as I walk out of sickbay. The thing is that, seeing how I can't track Kara's mother down and throttle her with my bare hands after beating her to a bloody pulp because the cylons already beat me to it --and in the process allowed her a death that was far less painful than she deserved-- I am left with very few options... especially now that killing a punching bag has also been ruled out, but at the same time I've never been particularly good at doing nothing.

The problem is that I am all too aware of the fact that there is a difference between trusting my instincts and rushing headlong into a situation without thinking things through and this is not a situation we can afford to tackle without a plan. Like Cottle said, this is a mess, one that calls for a specialist's touch, but we are fresh out of specialists. That means that we are left to our own devices and that is where things get complicated because in order to come up with a plan we would need to know what we are up against but we can't get that information without questioning Kara... and we can't safely question Kara without that information.

I'm still thinking about that, trying to figure out how we can hope to deal with this when Lee catches up with me.

"Can we talk?" he asks, rather hesitantly.

I nod and gesture for him to follow me to my quarters. As soon as I close the hatch I turn my attention back to my son.

"How are you doing?" I ask, knowing that this is probably hitting him hard.

"Would you believe me that I don't even know?"

"Yes," I say, feeling pretty numb myself.

"I mean, how could we not know about something like this?"

"I don't know, son, I really don't know."

"She never even told Zak and she was going to frakking marry him!" he exclaims.

"How do you know that?" I ask, somewhat taken aback by that comment.

"I asked her if he knew... she didn't even seem to understand why I thought she should have told him in the first place. It's like the idea of telling him had never even crossed her mind!"

"And that means that you shouldn't take it so personally," I point out, realizing that Lee is on the brink of exploding and trying to defuse the situation.

"Yes, but... I don't know," he says, obviously still trying to wrap his mind around this whole mess.

"I know it's hard but for the time being there is almost nothing we can do. Right now the best thing we can do is to take a step back and to try to calm down. I would also like you and Helo to come see me after your shifts so that we can discuss this. We are in this together and we need to come up with some kind of strategy to deal with it because the one thing we can't afford to do is to be working at cross purposes from each other... and I don't think I have to tell you and Helo to keep this to yourselves."

"Of course," he says, even as he walks out of my quarters, leaving me to try to sort this one out on my own. The problem is that I still don't know what to think about any of this and Lee's revelation hasn't exactly helped matters, in fact it's left me wondering how well I really know Kara... how well Zak really knew her.

I remember our first meeting shortly before his funeral but mostly I remember her at the funeral. We were both standing together and yet alone. I felt like an outsider, especially because neither Caroline nor Lee would meet my eyes as they stood on the other side of the chasm that was my son's open grave. In fact Kara was the only one there willing to acknowledge my presence, my grief, so --almost instinctively-- I found myself reaching for her hand and we just stood there, taking comfort from each other as we said our silent goodbyes.

It was after the funeral that Lee confronted me, blaming me for his brother's death and, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't help but wonder if maybe he was right so I went looking for answers. I didn't find any, of course, but I did learn a lot more about a certain young lieutenant whose career was all but over.

I don't think Kara ever realized in just how much trouble she really was in the aftermath of Zak's death.

That a cadet had been killed in an accident had done very little for the academy's reputation and the fact that the one who had been killed had been my son had only served to add fuel to the fire by drawing the press's attention to the incident. The higher ups wanted a quick way out of the whole mess and a young flight instructor who had blatantly broken dozens of rules by getting involved with one of her students seemed like the perfect scapegoat but I couldn't let that happen. For some reason I couldn't fully understand I wanted to keep Kara safe so I requested that she be transferred to the Galactica instead.

Sure, at the time there was a lot I didn't know, like the role she had played in that accident --and I can now see that, even if her decision to pass Zak when she should have failed him contributed to what happened, it truly was an accident-- but even though I never got to see her with my son, I never had any reason to doubt the fact that she loved him... not until now and that bothers me.

In a way I feel like I'm back to square one with her, like she is a stranger, though at the same time I can't help but to recognize that a number of things that had never seemed to add up before all of a sudden are beginning to make a disturbing amount of sense. In fact that is one of the most troubling elements of this whole thing: the fact that there were countless clues, clues I just wasn't willing to see.

Of course, I know that for the time being there are other things that should take precedence, especially because nothing I can do can change the past and that means I have to focus on the things I can do... or at least that is the theory, though --truth be told-- I can't seem to stop thinking about it. The problem is that, while some applied psychology is obviously a must of command, this mess with Kara does not really fall anywhere near that 'some'.

In addition to that there is also the fact that, while Cottle's revelations concerning Kara's past are deeply disturbing, they are not the only problem I have to contend with, far from it. In fact from a military perspective my top priority should probably be dealing with the intel she brought back regarding the cylons' activities, so maybe I should try to concentrate on that one instead. If nothing else --seeing how this is not an entirely military matter-- I should at least fill Laura in on this. After all, what is the point of having a chain of command if you don't take advantage of it to kick things up or down when the situation calls for it?