For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1... and if you have a moment, please review!
Chapter 25
(Lee's POV)
"What?! What kind of question is that?" I sputter, not quite believing my ears.
"A simple one. How many times do you think she was raped?" he repeats.
"I don't know... a couple," I growl, trying hard not to think about it.
"Maybe a dozen," adds my father, sounding about as comfortable as I am with this sudden turn in the conversation.
"A dozen?" asks Cottle, openly rolling his eyes at us.
"Yes."
"And what would you say if I were to tell you that I wouldn't be surprised if that figure turned out to be off by more than a zero?"
"WHAT?!" I all but yell.
"You heard me," says the doctor.
"One hundred and twenty?!" asks my father, shaking his head.
"That's crazy! There's no frakking way..." I exclaim but Cottle interrupts me.
"Actually it's not crazy, in fact it's basic math."
"Basic math?" I manage to ask.
"Yes. The cylons took her on the first day of the occupation and their goal was to breed her, or at least that is what the evidence would seem to suggest, though why would anyone want to breed Starbuck is beyond me... I mean, as far as I'm concerned one of her is more than enough, but that's not the point. The point is that considering that the occupation of New Caprica lasted four months..."
"That brings us to a total of one hundred and twenty days and given what we know of what the cylons wanted with her in the first place it wouldn't be all that unreasonable to assume that her being raped was a daily occurrence," finishes my father, sounding almost resigned and, much to my dismay, I can find no real fault in that logic.
"Exactly," Cottle agrees. "Now, up to this point all I have is speculation and I could be completely off the mark here but the bottom line is that --going by what I've seen in these past few days-- I don't think I am and, if this is as bad as I think it is, I'm afraid that it may be well beyond any of our parameters. If my suspicions are correct we are not really dealing with something as 'simple' as rape but rather with something that comes closer to sexual slavery. That's an entirely different ball game and even that doesn't even begin to take the impact of Leoben's mind-games into account. Anyway, the point is that what we are dealing with here is unlikely to be an isolated incident or even a handful of incidents and I don't have a clue as to what the long term consequences of something like that are likely to be... hell, I'm not a frakking shrink to begin with and, no matter how I look at this, I know I am way out of my league here, we all are."
"So what are we supposed to do?" I ask, still trying --without much success-- to wrap my mind around what Cottle is saying... and then I am hit by the realization that we were the ones who left her there. That is something I had managed to avoid thinking too much about up to this point but now all of a sudden I can't escape it... especially because I was the one who argued against ever going back and that means that in a way I was willing to leave her in the cylons' hands. It means that in a way I was willing to leave my 'best friend' to that fate.
"I don't know but that's why we are going to be 'debriefing her' in the first place: because we need some facts to figure out where the hell do we go from here and to come up with a strategy but the bottom line is that a reaction like the one the two of you just had in front of her right now could be devastating so I need to know that there will be no such outbursts."
"You don't ask for much, doc," I say, shaking my head.
"It's what she needs," he replies, not backing down an inch. "You may be disgusted at the thought of what was done to her but right now that girl is a frakking mess and I seriously doubt that in her current frame of mind she would be able to tell the difference between you being disgusted by what was done to her and you being disgusted by her."
"But..."
"He is right, Lee," dad interrupts me and somehow I get the feeling that I am missing something here.
"I'll do my best but..."
"No 'buts'... trust me, she can't afford them," Cottle warns me. "You have to be there because you need to know, because --in spite of all the bad blood that has obviously been brewing between the two of you for some time-- you are still the other half of 'Starbuck and Apollo'. You are her wingman and as such you are one of the people she is closest to and most likely to trust but there will be no room for error... not to mention that, no matter how much you may want to protect her, we are going to have to hurt that girl in the short term if we are going to get the answers we need to help her in the long run... or at least to keep from tripping over our own two feet. Anyway, I can promise you that the whole experience is going to be painful as hell from her perspective, I can promise you that she is going to fight us with everything she's got and I can also promise you that she will get upset but this has to be done and you cannot interfere, do I make myself clear?"
"Yes," I manage to grind out, even though I don't have much faith in my own ability to keep that particular promise.
Author's notes: Okay, I got this update done on time, that's the good news. The bad news is that I'm going to miss next week's update so the next one will be posted on September 22 at the earliest. Sorry about that!
Take care and thanks for reading,
Alec