Chapter 7

Margaret Cally didn't think there could possibly be anything more difficult than walking back into quarters with the Chief at her side. She honestly wasn't sure whether to be grateful for his support or resentful of the attention that it brought her. She really just wanted to forget — forget what she had done, forget what she had lost, and forget what she had yet to deal with. The looks she saw on the faces of friends gathering around her made it clear that forgetting wasn't an option. At all.

"It's good to have you back," Deni said with a gentle hug. "If you need anything"

"I'm fine," Cally told her with a small smile. She wasn't fine, and this wasn't helping.

"Can I get you anything?" Lori asked her.

"No."

"Are you tired?" someone else asked.

"No, I'm fine."

"Are you", "Will you", "Can I"

The well-meaning words of her friends seemed to overlap into a mind-boggling whole. The heard about half of it through the bubble she seemed to be inside. She was uncomfortable, too. She couldn't get warm, and she felt as though she had no energy and yet couldn't be still either. Any moment, she was sure that the tears would begin, and she just wanted a corner to crawl into so that no one could see her weakness.

Their offers of help and promises of support seemed to go on forever, but eventually everyone seemed to remember that there was work to be done. Later, Cally would look back on the moment and realize just how many friends she truly had, but at the moment she was just numb. She didn't want understanding. She didn't want anything except a quiet corner in which to curl up and rock herself.

Part of the numbness was due to a medication that Doctor Salik had given her. She had pills to take — one every day — that she would have to report to the Life Station to receive. She supposed they couldn't just trust her with a bottle of them after what she'd done — almost done — whatever. She really didn't care. All that really seemed important at the moment was work, and when she needed to do it, and where. But she didn't honestly care about work either. She was tired, but didn't want to sleep. She was agitated, but she had no outlet for the conflicting feelings. She was miserable. In a way, it had been easier when the confusion had been predominant in her mind, and it had definitely been easier when she'd believed that she'd found a solution to the pain.

Now, her thoughts were just clear enough to tell her that she'd been really stupid. She didn't want to die. She had never wanted to die. She just wanted the pain to stop. Now it wasn't even pain — pain she understood — but some odd sense of detachment that she couldn't seem to break through. She didn't know how to make it better. Nothing anyone said seemed to make the least bit of difference.

The Chief had left her just as soon as she'd been surrounded by so many friends, and Cally was grateful. She still felt like she'd been unforgivably weak around him. She didn't even think she'd remembered to thank him before he'd left her. But she wasn't alone in quarters; Socinus was on his bunk reading a book, and Katie was on the bunk below Cally's. Even as the rest of the squad dispersed to whatever they'd been doing before, or wherever they'd been, Cally was still being watched. She couldn't even find it in her to care.

Cally took off her duty shirt and tucked it into her locker by habit more than anything else, then walked towards the bathroom. Before she'd taken three steps, Katie was at her side. "So you're my guard?" Cally asked flatly. That was how she felt: flat.

"The Chief is gonna buddy everyone up," Katie explained. "It's not just you. He wants everyone in pairs until things level out."

"Great," Cally muttered. On top of the rest, now she had guilt for pushing everyone into precautions that would probably be unnecessary for anyone else, and yet would inconvenience them all the same. They could blame her for that, too.

"We're on shift together, too. We're both off until tomorrow morning. I don't think I've had this long a stretch without duty since this all started." Katie sounded almost chipper. It was enough to give Cally a headache. Lords, she hated feeling like this.

Cally nodded as she approached a toilet stall. "Do you have to follow me in?" she asked blandly. She really didn't care. She'd go anyway. They had all been watched before during mandatory drug testing at one point or another, and back in basic there hadn't been stall doors or segregated restrooms. She'd gone in front of men, women, whatever. The purpose was that during a wartime situation privacy might not be a possibility. At the time it had just been embarrassing. Since being on the Galactica, it had come in handy. At least she didn't freak when she walked out of a shower in no more than a towel and found half a dozen half-naked men waiting for their turn. Bodies were bodies, and they all had one.

Katie grinned. "Not unless you need help," she said with a wink. "But if you're gone more than a few minutes, I'm coming in after you."

"Hunky-dory," Cally said softly as she entered the stall to take care of business so that she could lay down and get some sleep. Salik's drug was making her sleepy, but at least she didn't have that damned fuzzy feeling anymore. She would have preferred it to the numbness, but she supposed that she had to have something to deaden the pain. Absently, she wondered what would happen if she didn't take the pill. Would she hurt again? Would she feel again? Would it matter? Did anything matter? Lords, she was in a crappy mood. If this was depression, Cally decided that someone else could have it — she wasn't enjoying it.

True to her word, Katie was waiting to walk her to the sink to wash her hands, then back to her bunk. Katie then crawled into her own spot beneath Cally. For some reason, having a shadow just didn't seem like a fun idea. Not for her — she really didn't care enough about anything to worry about privacy, but for Katie to be stuck with someone who couldn't even carry a thought seemed pretty sad. For that reason if no other, Cally felt like she just had to get herself together. For herself, it wasn't as though Cally was used to time alone, but in the past she'd been able to choose her friends. She and Prosna

Cally took a deep breath and finished the thought. She and Prosna had pretty much gone everywhere together, if not to the bathroom. On the other hand, he'd had to accompany her there a few times as well. Her sense of direction was horrible, and when they'd first been assigned to the Galactica she hadn't been able to find anything. More than once she'd grabbed him by the arm and asked him to help her find the head. He had thought it was hysterical. More than once he'd asked her how she could find her way around inside any engine when she couldn't find her way out of a paper bag. He'd had the nicest laugh

Pulling a blanket up over herself, Cally closed her eyes and made herself smile. There was a lot of good to remember. Captain Apollo had been right about that. Prosna had been funny, and sweet, and truthfully he deserved to be remembered in the best possible way. No, she could never forget what he'd looked like after she had dragged him from the burned remains of the port flight pod, but neither could she forget his smile, or his sick jokes, or the way he'd pulled on her ponytail just to tease her. There was a lot of good. If she was going to remember, there really were a lot more happy memories than sad ones. She just hoped that it was the good thoughts that followed her into sleep.

As it turned out, no thoughts really followed her into the deep, black sleep. Whether from the drugs Salik was making her take or from leftover fatigue, Cally's sleep was deep and dreamless. She actually awoke before the automatic alarm went off, so she flipped the switch to keep it from bothering anyone later. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she slid down the ladder to the deck and walked to the bathroom. That stupid IV was still making itself known. She felt like all she ever did now was pee. A glance at her watch told her that the hall would be open for breakfast within a few minutes, so as she left the stall she decided to grab some clean clothes and head for the shower. She wasn't really hungry, but if she didn't eat they would put her back in the hospital, and while she didn't give a damn where she was, the thought of another IV wasn't something she wanted to face. She might be shielded against emotional pain at the moment, but physical pain was another matter altogether.

She nearly collided with Socinus as she closed her locker. "Good morning," he told her tentatively. His usual enthusiasm and energy were gone, making Cally suspicious. He sounded as flat as she did.

"You got guard duty?" she asked. There was that numbness again. She could notice that Soc didn't sound right, but she couldn't care enough to ask why.

He blushed. "Katie's sleeping," he said as though it explained everything. Cally supposed it did.

"Well, you're not taking a shower with me," she told him no feeling, and she didn't even smile at the increase in color on his face. Soc had a fairly dark complexion — at least compared to hers — so when he blushed badly enough that it was visible, it was positively funny. Usually. Nothing was funny at the moment. Nothing was anything at the moment.

"Um, no," he agreed. "I'll go wake Katie up."

"Don't," she requested. "I'll wait until later. If she's asleep, leave her to it."

Socinus shrugged, but he didn't answer.

"Are you hungry?" she asked him.

Another shrug. "I could eat," he admitted. Lords, he sounded like she felt.

"Then let me get a uniform on, and we'll grab some breakfast. Okay?"

Socinus gave her a smile, this one less shy and more genuine. "Cool."

And so it was that Cally found herself in the dining hall with Socinus griping over the over-ripe fruit and lack of milk. Cally supposed she should be grateful for even this, but she was finding it tough. On the other hand, it didn't really matter. She couldn't taste anything. She didn't want anything. She just shoved in one bite after another and chewed by rote to get it done.

The kitchen already out of milk and most vegetables, and the fruit was on its way out. After that it would be canned stuff, and when that was gone she had no clue what they would do for food. She tried to appreciate the last of the fresh produce, but nothing really tasted good to her. Her stomach was thankfully accepting the food without nausea, but she didn't test that by eating very much.

"You're quiet," Cally commented halfway thorough the meal. It was really odd, because Soc was not one to lack for conversation. She asked not because she cared, but because it was strange. It didn't fit. Inside her bubble, everything had a place, and Soc was outside of his.

"I really don't know what to say," he admitted ruefully. "I'm pretty sure you don't want to talk about what happened, and I know I don't want to talk about work, so that doesn't leave much."

"Good point," she muttered, taking another bite of too-sweet banana.

"What is it okay to talk about?" Soc asked her with his eyes lowered. "Cally, I don't want to mess you up, but I don't know what not to say, not really. I guess maybe I'm not all that smart, but can you help me out?"

Cally took a deep breath and smiled a bit. It was the first true smile she'd felt in a long time, even as feeble as it was. "Talk about what you want, Soc. I really am okay. I was tired, and I wasn't thinking very clearly, and I did something really stupid. I'm glad the Chief was there, and I'm sorry everyone knows about it, but that's pretty much all there is to say on the subject. For now, I just I can't really feel anything, so you're not likely to mess anything up. Hell, I've done that well enough myself. Just don't get your feelings hurt if I'm not real talkative back. I'm just tired."

He looked at her for a moment, and then he smiled back. "You know, this was a lot easier when I had Prosna's lead to follow."

"What was?" A slight measure of confusion weaseled its way into her bubble. She didn't understand.

He shrugged. "Talking to you. Talking to anyone, for that matter. He always seemed to be in the middle of a conversation by the time I got into it, so I didn't have to put much thought into things. Now it's like I analyze everything. That probably sounds dumb."

"No, not really. He was a good friend. He always seemed to know what to do or say. I'll miss that. But you know, I don't think even he could say something to fix this. I don't know that it can be fixed. I'm not even sure I can be fixed. But I'm going to stick around and find out. Not so much because it seems like a good idea, but because dying doesn't sound that good either. Right now nothing does. I guess it's easier to keep living." She took a deep breath before adding, "So I'll eat and sleep when they tell me, and work wherever they put me, and maybe someday I'll feel like me again."

Soc looked at her sadly. "I wish I had some magic words to make it better. But you're right, even Andy couldn't fix this."

"No, but I'd like to see him try."

"Me too. I really miss him. And I'll miss the training," he admitted wryly as he bit into bread that she knew was stale. "The Chief wants me to get the gravity pod rebuilt for one of the Raptors, and I swear half the stuff the book says we need we don't even have."

Cally nodded. "The replacement parts are gone. You'll either have to pull it from one of the junkers that are down at the end of the deck, or you'll have to make it yourself. It's usually easier just to make it."

"How do you make couplings and fuses?" he asked in confusion.

"It's not hard," she explained with another shrug. "In fact, I'm doing the same thing for a couple of the Vipers. If you want me to show you, I can."

"That'd be great," he said with relief. "Everyone's so busy that I hate to ask."

"You can't learn if you don't ask," Cally told him. "That's the first thing the Chief taught us. He said the only dumb question was the one you didn't bother to ask."

"Then I guess I have a lot of those," Soc said with a grin. "If you've got time, I'd really like to learn this stuff. It's not like I can just do my tour and go home afterwards. If I'm gonna be here forever, I may as well do a good job, right?"

"Right," she agreed "When's your next duty?"

"Tonight," he answered. "Late watch."

"I'm early watch," she said thoughtfully. "If you don't mind staying up a couple more hours, I can show you how to put together a makeshift coupling," she offered. "It doesn't take long, and like I said, I was going to have to do it anyway. They're gonna have somebody playing bodyguard for me anyway, so it may as well be you."

"If you'd rather have somebody else," Soc began.

Cally cut him off. "Soc, I don't want anybody. Or anything. I just I can't even explain it. I just want to get through the next few days, and maybe it will get better. It has to get better," she said with desperation. "Doesn't it?"

"I hope so," he told her. "Because I can't really imagine it getting any worse.