Chapter 34
(Kara's POV)

I'm relishing my first taste of freedom in what feels like ages as I instill the fear of God --that would be me-- in a brand new batch of disgustingly green nuggets and I am also feeling incredibly grateful for the fact that I am finally out of sickbay --well, at least for a couple of hours-- when I look up and I can barely keep myself from hitting my head against the wall as I realize that the old man is sitting quietly in the back of the briefing room. True, it is not so unusual for him to sneak in here to quietly check out the new recruits --and that is why I refrain from drawing attention to his presence in the first place-- but somehow I get the feeling that this time around the nuggets are not the reason he is here. The thing is that both Adamas have been hovering a little too much for comfort lately --though the old man at least tries to be subtle about it-- and that in turn is driving me nuts. That was one of the reasons why I had been looking forward to being here, on my own. Of course, maybe I should have realized that getting rid of them, even if it was only for a couple of hours, wasn't going to be anywhere near that simple.

The problem is that even though the idea of hitting my head against a wall --repeatedly-- is starting to look like a surprisingly tempting one, I am afraid that giving myself a concussion would only serve to give the doc the perfect excuse to keep me grounded for even longer and that is the last thing I need.

Sure, Cottle is still not willing to let me completely off the hook and he still wants me to report back to sickbay at night for another week or so rather than go back to my own rack but at least now I'm free to move around the ship during the day without a damned babysitter. That's progress! As for the nights, he said something about wanting to make sure that I actually spend them sleeping and not playing triad in the rec room, not to mention that I'm still not allowed to drink, but somehow I suspect that that is just an excuse... and a pretty lame one at that. I mean, come on, even when I was a kid I didn't have a bedtime so what's next? Are they going to come into my room to tuck me in at night and read me a frakking bedtime story while they are at it? Sure, I know they mean well and I also know that this whole mess caught them more than a little off guard and they are trying to cope with it as best they can but the truth is that --even though I'm trying hard to cut them some slack-- they are smothering me and sometimes I just want them to back off and leave me the frak alone.

I want things to go back to the way they were but that is looking less and less likely with every passing day. Like what happened yesterday. I was trying to push Lee's buttons as I always have, trying to goad him into a fight so that he would just stop being so frakking nice to me but no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't get him to play along. He ended up just looking hurt and, to top it all off, that left me feeling guilty about the whole thing. I have to say that that was frustrating as hell.

On a positive note, I only have a couple more days to go before I'll finally be allowed to resume my maintenance shifts. That will at least get me onto the flight deck and close to my viper, not to mention that it will cause me to find myself surrounded by other people --people who are not Adamas-- and I'm hoping that that in turn will get them to give me a little more room to at least breathe. I can barely wait.

Oh, I know they mean well and I realize that they are only trying to 'help' but the problem is that they don't seem to realize that nothing is broken here and I just want to go back to feeling like myself, damn it. Of course, I know that that won't really happen until after Cottle clears me for active duty and he is obviously in no hurry to do that.

I really don't know what the doc's problem is. Sure, I didn't tell him that I had been shot, that was probably a dumb thing for me to do and it did make matters worse from a medical perspective, I get that, but this is getting ridiculous. I mean, the guy usually can't get rid of his patients fast enough so why did I have to go and become the exception to that frakking rule?

I'm really itching to be out there, flying. That is where I need to be, where I belong, where I feel at home and where the universe actually makes some sense. Out there things are simple, not to mention that I really miss my viper. Yes, I know that at times it sounds like I'm obsessed with it but let's face it, my life literally depends on it so it's kind of natural that I would be attached to it. I depend on my viper to stay alive and to this day it has never let me down. That is more than I can say about most people... besides, this time around I do have an additional reason to miss it: with the incredible hovering Adamas hovering over me I can't quite forget that, my viper is mine and no matter how you look at it, a viper only sits one.