For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1

Chapter 21
(Adama's POV)

After my talk with Lee I decide to drop by sickbay once more before heading back to CIC and when I get there I am not exactly reassured by the realization that Kara is asleep. That worries me because it hints at the fact that her condition could be far more serious than I had allowed myself to believe. Sure, on a rational level I knew Cottle had told me that she had been shot but up until now there had been so many things vying for attention --from my outrage at the magnitude of the things she had both learned and concealed, to my shock at the revelations regarding her past-- that the fact that she was actually shot was all but lost in the shuffle.

As I look at her I can't help but to notice that she looks incredibly peaceful but she is also more than a little pale and seeing her I can't help but to remember those nights --especially after I had been away for a while-- in which I would sneak into the boys' room just to watch them sleep. I remember how back then I used to think that my sons were the most amazing thing I had ever seen and all of a sudden I find myself wondering if anyone ever felt that way about her when she was growing up. Going by what I learned here today I seriously doubt it and that saddens me.

For a moment I am almost tempted to approach the bed and place a kiss on her forehead, as I used to do with my boys when they were little, but I know that that would be a very bad idea. I know startling a sleeping soldier can be a dangerous thing even under the best of circumstances, not to mention that --even if she could manage to keep her instinctive reaction at the unexpected contact under control-- I would still find myself with an awful lot of explaining to do. The thing is that I had never felt anything like this surge of protectiveness for her before. Sure, I have thought of her as the daughter I never had for close to two years now but this overwhelming need to keep her safe is something new... and totally unacceptable considering the fact that I am her CO and that means that it is my duty to send her out there day in and day out, knowing that chances are that sooner or later she is not going to make it back. That is something I've struggled with every day since the attacks when it comes to Lee but I had never really allowed myself to feel that way about Kara before --not to this extent anyway-- probably because I was already so used to sending her out there by the time my mind caught up with the fact that my heart had summarily adopted her that I never gave it much thought.

Sure, Lee and Kara are by far my best pilots and I know that if there is a way out of any given situation they are the ones most likely to find it --and that is especially true of Kara, with her uncanny ability to think outside the box... a box I suspect she permanently misplaced many years ago-- but they are still my children, damn it. Would I have been able to send Zak out there if he were here? I'm not sure, I had never really dared to ask myself that particular question before but the truth is that I don't think so. I wanted my younger son to follow on my footsteps, there's no denying that, and I was incredibly proud when he was accepted to flight school but long before the accident I already knew that --even though with the proper guidance he could have been shaped into an outstanding officer and he probably would have shined in CIC-- Zak didn't really have his brother's instinctive feel for flying and no amount of training was ever going to change that, not really.

Sure, I tried to deny it, in fact I had almost managed to convince myself that with some extra effort he would have been able to overcome those shortcomings and become at least a competent pilot but the truth is that long before the accident I had already been approached by a couple of his instructors who had hinted at the fact that maybe I should talk to him about the possibility of pursuing other options within the context of the military. Kara may have been the one who made the final mistake by passing him when she should have failed him but I suspect that she was not the first one to make that kind of call, that others before her had balked at the thought of washing out an Adama and she was just the one who was set up to take the fall if things happened to go wrong. Oh, I'm not saying that anyone at the Academy wanted my son dead, not even that they expected him to get killed, but now as I think back I can't help but to notice some things that never really made sense, like the fact that the final decision on whether or not my son was ready to be put in the cockpit by himself was left to an inexperienced instructor who was only a couple of years older than her student. That may not have been against the rules, at least not technically, but it wasn't SOP either... nowhere near it.

Knowing that all this reminiscing is getting me nowhere, I set out to find Cottle.

"How is she doing?" I ask as soon as I catch up with him.

"Getting some much needed rest, at last," he mutters.

"At last?"

"Let's just say that as far as patients go that young woman seems to be missing some pretty basic traits --namely patience-- but right now she desperately needs to get some rest and apparently her body finally gathered the courage to put its foot down and log a formal complaint against all the abuse she's been heaping on it lately."

"Is her condition really that serious?" I ask, feeling more than a little worried.

"Well, considering that she should probably have spent these past few days recovering and not traipsing through Kobol, shooting cylons and trying to fool everyone into believing that there was absolutely nothing wrong with her in the first place, I have to say that she got off remarkably easy but she does need a chance to recover and maybe, now that she no longer has to worry about trying to keep up appearances, she'll be able to do just that. As for the infection, so far it seems to be responding well to the antibiotics I'm pumping into her. Her vitals look good, her temperature has already gone down considerably and if there are no unforeseen complications in the next couple of hours she should be off that IV by tomorrow morning."

"But in spite of that you still intend to keep her here for the full week?"

"Unless something comes up and I need that bed, yes."

"That means that from a medical perspective she doesn't really have to stay here though, right?" I insist, trying to get a better idea of just where we stand here, at least as far as her health goes.

"'Have to' not really --that's one of the reasons why, starting tomorrow, I intend to allow your son and Lieutenant Agathon to get her out of here for a couple of hours a day, at least as long as they promise to make sure she doesn't do anything too foolish-- but, as I said, that young woman does have an annoying tendency to push herself too hard too soon and I don't want her to find herself right back where she started in a couple of days so I intend to keep her where I can actually hope to keep an eye on her for as long as I have to to make sure that her recklessness doesn't come back to bite her on the ass," he growls.

"And what are the other reasons?" I prod, reading between the lines and knowing the good doctor well enough to realize that he has something up his sleeve.

"Other than a desperate attempt to preserve what little is left of my sanity? I figured that that would give the three of them a chance to get over the worst of the awkwardness without that girl's stubborn pride getting in the way."

"You know, you may be an excellent doctor but the fleet lost one hell of a strategist when you decided to go to medical school," I say, shaking my head at that and feeling, for the first time since this whole mess exploded on my face, that maybe in the end we are going to be just fine.