For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1.
Chapter
12
(Cottle's POV)
"So, how did it go?" I ask as soon as the commander steps into what passes for my office.
"As well as could be expected," he says.
"That bad, uh?"
"Let's just say that this is not a situation I ever thought I'd find myself having to deal with."
"And what makes this a 'situation' for you to deal with in the first place?"
"She is one of my people," he reminds me.
"So you are saying that it never occurred to you that one of the more than a thousand people serving under your command could possibly have been abused? You are not that naive," I push, knowing that that is not the problem and wondering what is it going to take to get him to admit it.
"You know that's not it."
"Okay, so the problem is not that it is someone under your command but rather that it's Starbuck," I point out, well aware that if it had been anyone else this revelation would hardly have merited a footnote in their personnel file.
He just glares at me at that.
"Well, as long as you are willing to admit it to yourself," I say, trying to keep myself from shaking my head at his reaction. "And, for what it's worth, my advice is to give it time and to take things one step at a time... though in the meantime it probably wouldn't hurt to let her know that you are not mad."
"But I am."
"Fine, then you should let her know that you are not mad at her," I say, openly rolling my eyes at that.
"She should have told me what Leoben had said," he insists.
"True, but that is not what this is about --not any more than it is about it being 'someone under your command'-- and you know it. Besides, you have to remember that as bad as this is for you, it's probably a hundred times worse for her."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because chances are that that girl has been running from her past for the last ten years or so and I seriously doubt that she was ready to have that past catch up with her today. She was willing to risk a reprimand rather than tell you about it, that should tell you something."
"Well, I know now."
"Yes, and that brings us to the question of what do you intend to do with that knowledge."
"That's easy: find myself some answers," he growls.
"You actually expect me to believe that you didn't question her?"
"Not much. You had warned me not to try to interrogate her but..." he trails off.
"But you did ask a couple of questions anyway," I finish for him, not particularly surprised by that revelation.
"Yes."
"And I take it that her answers weren't much help?"
"Not really. I thought that if only I could get to the facts things would make some sort of sense. It didn't turn out that way," he admits.
"So what did you ask?"
"About her hands, about what happened."
"And?"
"And apparently her mother found her playing the piano and slammed the lid on them... she was eight."
"That would do it, though I suspect that she may have instinctively tried to pull her hands away in the last second, even if the whole thing happened so fast that she wasn't aware of it, otherwise that lid would almost certainly have fallen on the back of her hands, probably close to her wrists, not on her fingers," I say, trying to keep myself from wincing at the thought.
"Does that matter?"
"Not really, though the damage would almost certainly have been less extensive, but that's precisely the point: this all happened a very long time ago and if you want to help her you have to focus on what it did to her rather than on what was done to her."
"I'm afraid I'm not following you."
"It's just that even though you may want to go back in time and keep her safe that's not how it works and you know it..."
"I'm not..." he begins but I interrupt him.
"Yes, you are and that's perfectly normal but that is not the point. The point is that while knowing the details will probably help you get an idea of just what it is that you are dealing with, in the end those details are not likely to be all that relevant because what you are dealing with here are basically old wounds and when it comes to those the 'how' doesn't really matter."
"Care to explain that?" he asks.
"Well, from a medical perspective, when treating someone who has just been injured your top priorities have to be first to keep the patient alive and second to try to minimize the long term consequences of that injury, however when you are dealing with an old wound --one that has already healed messily on its own-- things are different. With an old wound you no longer have to worry about keeping the patient alive, that's the good news, but the tradeoff is that you no longer have the option of trying to minimize the long term damage either and the only thing you can do is to try to reverse that damage as best you can... and in that regard the nature of the original injury is far less relevant than its consequences. For instance, if a bone was not set properly after being broken, years later how it got to be broken doesn't really matter because the problem is how it healed... and the more scar tissue you have to contend with, the more difficult things are likely to be. That is what you have here and let's just say that in this case the amount of scar tissue you are going to have to cut through if you want to get to the root of the problem is going to be considerable and the whole thing will probably be painful as hell, not to mention that, knowing that girl, you can pretty much count on her fighting you every step of the way."
"So what do you suggest?"
"How should I know? I'm not a shrink and as far as I'm concerned this qualifies as one of those instances in which my job is to keep the patient breathing and more or less in one piece until I can hand her care over to someone who knows what the frak they are doing. That means that at best I may be able to tell you what not to do but when it comes to what should be done I don't have a clue... and, seeing how we are fresh out of specialists, we have a problem. In fact the only thing I can tell you is to be careful and to trust your gut. What you can't do is bury your head in the sand and pretend that you don't know what happened to her."
"But I don't know what happened to her! All I know is what you've told me and that is vague at best," he reminds me.
"Yes, and that's something you are just going to have to deal with because the bottom line is that it is too late for you to leave well enough alone. You know and Starbuck knows that you know so you can't even pretend that you don't. One way or another that is going to change things between you and the truth is that there isn't a damn thing you can do to prevent it. The most you can hope to do right now is to try to shape that change."
"That is hardly reassuring."
"It's not supposed to be reassuring, it's supposed to be a damned fact."
"Is there anything else you can tell me about what happened to her?"
"Not really. What I told you about her injuries is what I know, everything else is just guess work and, as I said, which bones were broken and when is not likely to make much of a difference, as for the rest of it, you are just going to have to get Starbuck to trust you."
"Somehow I don't think that's going to be easy."
"Oh, you can bet on that. Starbuck is a stubborn one and you know it, not to mention that she has probably had years of practice when it comes to keeping people at bay but the way things stand you don't really have much of a choice. By the way, I 'allowed' your son and Lieutenant Agathon to get her out of here for a couple of hours a day, hoping that the three of them will manage to move past the worst of the awkward stage before she is cleared to return to duty... you may want to consider the possibility of spending some time with her and trying to do the same."
"You 'allowed' them to get her out of here?"
"Okay, so I let them think that they had talked me into allowing them to go with her to the mess as long as they promised to keep an eye on her while she was out of here," I say and he laughs at that.
"I'll see what I can do."
"Fair enough... and Bill?"
"Yes?"
"About that punching bag..."
"What punching bag?"
"The one you were going to hit as soon as you walked out of here, remember that you are still recovering and I haven't cleared you to go anywhere near the gym."
