For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1.
Chapter 55
(Adama's POV)
"Jonas?" I repeat, having never even heard her mention that name before.
"Yeah... from what she told me she didn't like him but, seeing how her mom did, she was stuck living with him anyway."
"Is that what she told you?" prods Cottle and something in the way he is looking at Lee alerts me to the fact that he is up to something so, even though I have several questions I am itching to ask, I allow him to take the lead.
"Basically."
"Do you remember what she said, what her exact words were?" he insists.
"She just said that he was one of the many losers her mom used to date when she was growing up, one that stayed for a lot longer than the others. She didn't like him and she wanted him gone but there was nothing she could do about it. She told me that he lived with them for almost two years, from the time she was ten to the time she was twelve," Lee explains with a shrug.
"So that relationship lasted for a fairly long time, especially from a child's perspective?"
"Twenty-two months, why?"
"And she didn't give any additional explanation? She didn't say why she didn't like him or why he got mixed in with Simon and Leoben in her mind in the first place?" insists Cottle, not even acknowledging Lee's question.
"Not really. I guess it was because it was something she couldn't control, something she couldn't escape... just like she couldn't escape Simon and Leoben down on New Caprica. She may have wanted this 'Jonas' gone with everything she had but, seeing how she was just a kid, she was basically at his mercy."
"'At his mercy'? Is that what she said?" Cottle pushes.
"No, it's just an expression... one I never even used in her presence," says Lee, rather defensively and somewhat taken aback by the doc's vehemence.
"So those are your words, not hers?"
"I guess, but when I explained it along those lines she didn't contradict me, why?"
"Because I suspect that your little 'expression' may be closer to the truth than you realize."
"What the frak is that supposed to mean?" Lee blurts out even as I realize what it is that Cottle is not saying.
"You are not suggesting that..." I begin before trailing off, not even wanting to say the words. This is my 'daughter', damn it, and just thinking about it is enough to make me want to kill someone.
"It would certainly explain a lot... and not just about her recent behavior," he points out.
"But..." I say, wanting to argue, even though deep down I can't help but to acknowledge that he does have a point, that it would explain a lot.
"But you don't want it to be so?" he asks and I glare at him because he is right. I don't want it to be true but I suspect it is.
"He doesn't want what to be so?" Lee interrupts us, sounding more than a little puzzled and I realize that I am going to have to explain it to him... and that in order to do that I'm going to have no choice but to say it.
"He means that we can't quite dismiss the possibility that Kara may have been molested by this 'Jonas', son," I explain, just wanting to get this over with.
"WHAT?!"
"I said that..."
"I heard you but..."
"But what?"
"But that is crazy! She was just a kid! She was ten frakking years old when that bastard moved in with them!" he exclaims, shaking his head.
"So?" asks Cottle, who has never been all that fond of sugarcoating the truth in the first place.
"'So'?" Lee repeats, glaring at the doctor and not even trying to keep the anger out of his voice.
"Yes, 'so?' I know you and you are not that naive."
"No, but..."
"But this is Kara? But this is wrong?"
"Yes, damn it!"
"And do you honestly believe that just because it is Kara and because it is wrong it didn't happen?"
"No, but..."
"But you still don't want it to be true?"
"No," Lee replies, even though I can see his denial crumbling before my eyes... not that mine is doing much better. The problem is that, regardless of whether Cottle is right or not, we are still going to have to confront this thing somehow and that is not going to be pretty, to say nothing of the fact that --especially if he is right-- this is bound to make an even bigger mess out of Kara's recovery.
We had a plan, we had a strategy, we thought we knew what it was that we were up against and we had been making progress but this latest revelation is now threatening to cause us to have to reevaluate everything. Oh, on a rational level I know that this is not a new development and that in the long term this may actually turn out to be a good thing, that dealing with what Kara went through on New Caprica while letting something like this fester underneath would probably have come back to bite us eventually but right now I'm not in the mood to be rational or look at things on the bright side, to say nothing of the fact that in the short term the situation just got a lot more complicated. Frak, even if Cottle turns out to be wrong about this we are still going to have to figure out a way to broach the subject with her before we can do anything else and that is bound to be tricky. She is the only one who can tell us if we are on the right track but she is not the most approachable person, not even under the best of circumstances... and the fact remains that these are anything but the best of circumstances.
