Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica belongs to Ronald D. Moore and the Sci-Fi channel.

Chapter 11: Adequate, but insufficient

"I should've… asked this… earlier, but what… is Zack's call sign?" Adama asked Laura as they walked to Life Station.

Laura shook her head. "I'll tell you later. Right now you'll laugh and it'll only make your cough worse."

"You… owe me… later," he told her.

She smirked. "Even when you're sick, you still manage to tease me."

He returned her smirk. "I… learned from… the best."

As they entered Life Station, Cottle gave him a disapproving glare. "Took you long enough. What's going on out there?"

Laura answered. "The Cylons have retreated for a moment."

"Good. Let's get you X-rayed," Cottle told Adama.

A few minutes later, the three of them looked at his X-rays as they hung on the light screen. "It doesn't look like cancer," Laura remarked.

"That's because it's not," Cottle replied. "He's got fluid in his lungs. It's more like pneumonia, except worse. What I can't figure out is how he got it."

"I thought… it was from… the air… filtration… system on the space station," Adama interjected.

Cottle raised an eyebrow. "Air filtration systems can't do this. They take pathogens that cause things like this out of the air."

Laura looked back at the doctor. "How is my husband?"

"It's the usual with him, but actually he heard that this one," he paused, pointing to Adama, "came back and he wants to talk to him."

Just great. I'll have to fake that I'm fine, Adama thought as he headed over to where the other Bill was staying. Cottle had kept most of the staff busy so that they had not noticed the multiple admirals. They stopped by the bed and Adama took the chair again.

Bill turned to face him. "What happened with the battle?"

"The Cylons have retreated for the moment," Adama replied.

The other Bill drew in a labored breath. "I hope you've got an extra plan up your sleeve."

Adama cleared his throat and Laura quickly handed him a glass of water. "Sort of."

Just then a nurse sauntered over and placed a hand on Laura's shoulder. "Ma'am, I'm sorry to bother you, but I can't get the baby to stop crying."

Laura faced her. "I'll be right there, Marla." She and the nurse left the area while the two Bills continued.

"I've got a sample of a Cylon virus that was taken from dying Cylons onboard a baseship that we found drifting. I'd rather not use that if I don't have to though," Adama explained.

Bill wheezed from the bed. "We blew up that baseship. It wasn't worth investigating. So you've got a an actual virus that'll make them sick? Sounds promising. Who'd you bring back with you to test it on?"

Adama's eyes widened. "I don't know how you figured that out, but I did bring Tory Foster back with me. I wanted to keep an eye on her."

"You're a tactician. A military man knows he's got to keep his options open, so of course you brought somebody back with you. I'm you, remember? I would've done the same thing. The question is why you haven't used this before," Bill pointed out.

"It's genocide to use it because it'll destroy not only the Cylon it affects, but if the Cylon is close to the resurrection ship, it'll destroy the entire model, along with infecting the resurrection ship," Adama explained, taking a breath to supress the cough he felt creeping up.

The other Bill folded his hands in his lap. "You don't seem to understand. The Cylons in this universe are different than the ones in yours. What I didn't tell you earlier when we discussed the Final Five was that each one tried to kill someone, except Tyrol. Tigh tried to assassinate me. Tory went after Laura, and that was after she had already killed Cally Tyrol. She was in a cell when she hanged herself. Kat tried to kill Starbuck. The Cylons here want to eradicate the humans."

"What about Boomer and Athena?" Adama reminded.

Bill waved it off. "A fluke in the system. My point is that you can't give these Cylons a choice. You have to decide what's best for humanity, and it isn't to coexist with these machines. Maybe… it worked… in your universe, but… it won't work… in this… one. Then there's… the Borg…" another coughing spasm interrupted the other Bill's oration

"Yes, Colonel Kira has told me," Adama mentioned.

"Go back to the station," the other Bill ordered. "Dismissed."

Adama frowned as he stood, walking back to Cottle's office. Laura joined him shortly, noticing his expression. "What's wrong?"

"It's weird being dismissed by yourself," Adama finally stated.

Laura smirked. "As they say around here in Starfleet, 'weird is part of the job.'"

"I… suppose. I'm… going… back to… the space station," Adama concluded.

Laura nodded. "I'm coming with you to see that you stay on your feet long enough to reach sickbay."

Cottle called Bashir on a secure channel. Then Adama and Laura were beamed to the transporter room. Due to a signal complication, they could not beam directly to sickbay. As they stepped off the transporter pad, he faced Laura. "Oddly enough, I feel better here than I did on Galactica."

"Then the air filtration system wasn't your problem," she concluded.

Jake greeted them. "What's going on?"

Laura sighed. "We don't know yet. I need to get him to sickbay."

True to her word, Laura made sure that Adama was standing as he reached Dr. Bashir. The doctor looked up in surprise when the two entered. "Admiral, what can I do for you?" he asked.

Adama removed the hood of the robe he had put on again. "I've got… a bit… of a problem."

Bashir led the two over to a private room away from everyone else. Once Adama was sitting on the biobed, the doctor lifted up a tricorder to scan him. "You've contracted some mutated form of pneumonia."

"My doctor told me that much," Adama mentioned.

"Can't you help him?" Laura implored.

The doctor turned toward her. "I'm afraid it's not that simple. I can ease the symptoms, but from what I'm looking at, it will just come back."

"Am I missing some immunity then? Or are you going to tell me that I can't live in this universe now?" the admiral grumbled.

"No, your immune system should be functioning properly," the doctor answered.

Laura's eyes widened. "Would it have something to do with the fact that the other Bill Adama is the dying leader here?"

Bashir shook his head. "That shouldn't affect… wait. There are two of them here. I think I see the problem. There is a theory that states, 'an object cannot occupy two points in the same timeline.' You're ill because two of you cannot simultaneously exist here indefinitely."

"It could also explain why you were worse on Galactica," Laura added.

Jake decided to ask a few questions. "Some people have gone to the mirror universe and met their doubles. Why weren't they affected?"

Bashir sighed. "It affects everyone differently, but eventually one will die. The process is probably slower for some people."

"But Commander Riker was copied. What made his situation different?" Jake questioned.

"He was split. Parts of his personality went to his other self, and there was a genetic deviation after the split. Admiral, I'm afraid you'll have to stay here until the other admiral, well," he paused to glance at Laura, "passes," Bashir explained.

Bill glanced over at Laura. "You should probably head back to your husband."

She placed a hand on his shoulder. "I was planning on it. But I don't want to leave you alone. I think I'll send Hannah over here to stay with you for a while. This whole thing's been hard enough on her. She's said her goodbyes. I don't think it would do her any good to watch the end result."

He nodded. "That's fine."

As he waited for Hannah, he noted how quiet the room was. With the door closed, any activity outside only sounded like a low murmur. He stood, pacing the small room pulling the robe off over his head. This is just great. I give up everything in my universe to come here and I can't even help them in battle. All I can do is sit here and hope that the other Bill dies before I do. Some trade, he grumbled mentally.

The whoosh of the door opening broke through his internal tirade, causing him to jump slightly, bringing on a small coughing fit. Hannah stepped inside and let the door close. Folding her arms in front of her, she leaned back against the wall. The hair band on her brown hair was coming loose. She chewed her lip pensively, not looking directly at him, but just past him. Maybe I can do something good here after all, he reasoned.

"The Cylons are back," Hannah mentioned.

"I… figured they… would be… back. I wish… I was out… of here," he responded, still coughing.

"You sound almost as bad as he does," she remarked.

Bill sat back down on the biobed. "I… suppose that's what… I get for jumping universes."

Her eyes darted around the room to everything but him. "I just hope we don't have two dying leaders in this universe."

He patted a spot on the bed next to him. "Sit." She complied and he continued speaking. "It's okay to cry, you know. Nobody is… expecting you to be strong in this kind of situation."

She folded her hands in her lap. "But I've got to make sure everyone is alright first."

"No you don't. You're twelve, and you're losing someone you love. It's okay to grieve," he conveyed.

"I hate this. Why do their have to be Pythia prophecies and a dying leader? And why does he have to be the dying leader?" she questioned, facing him as her messy ponytail flopped forward over her shoulder.

"I can't answer those questions. I've asked them myself about my Laura. Death is something that we can't control," Bill relayed.

It began as a simple sniff as a few tears slipped down her cheeks. Without warning, she grabbed hold of his uniform. She sobbed into the material as he put an arm around her shoulders. He let her cry for a while before resuming the conversation.

"When my father died, there were so many things I was still angry about. I remember regretting that I we didn't part with kinder words. You're fortunate that you got to say goodbye on good terms," he told her.

She took a deep breath. "It doesn't make it any easier. In some ways I think it would be easier if I was mad at him."

He sighed, his eyes not focusing on anything in particular. "The truth is that it's never easy to lose people, whether you're on good terms with them or not. I think you were right earlier too when you said 'death blows like tillium.'"

Sitting up, she rubbed her eyes and slowly a smirk appeared on her face. "I'm rubbing off on you. That's a bad sign."

He gave her a tender smile, moving her ponytail behind her. "No, I think that's a good sign."

(A:N: 'an object cannot occupy two points in the same timeline' comes from the Pauli Exclusion Principle, which states that:"No two electrons have the same quantum numbers" from the Hyperphysics website)

(My thanks to Mamabella, McGonagallFan, Alecandrain2, Mariel3, carolann, Ceridwyn2 for reviewing :D)