Medical Opinions
I have to admit that some of my doubts about Doctor Salik were put to rest when the Old Man's bandages came off and his vision was back to normal. I already knew she was pretty good with a needle and thread – aside from a thin red line, I have no scar on my hand, and as deep as the cut was that's saying something – but a few stitches and restoring sight are two different things. Okay, so Cassie tells me that it was Mark who actually treated him; apparently the good Doctor didn't get far away. She was also seen exiting his room very, very late so I have to wonder if she did check up on him even though she never checked up on me. Strictly a medical concern, after all. Or maybe hot. Hell, I know there are rumors about her staying in the Commander's quarters overnight, but for once my reputation is preventing information instead of getting it for me. Everyone's so damned afraid that I'll smack them if I hear a word against the Old Man that they clam up whenever I'm close, and the one person who talks to me – Lee – sure isn't talking!
Okay, so the doc and I don't have the best of histories. Our last doc was content to leave me the hell alone, and that was great. He said Flight Physical, I said "no", and that was that. He didn't want to push it any more than I wanted to have it. So I kept clear of the needles and uncomfortable questions, as well as that damned annual female torture session. Leave it to a female doc to be sure I don't get away with that anymore. But still, if she had wanted me to have the frakking physical, she could have just talked to me. Granted, she scheduled me a few times, but hell, so did the last doc. He didn't have a problem with no-shows.
She did. She revoked my flight status, which in my opinion is akin to chopping off a limb. I truly wanted to kill her, and probably would have if Ripper hadn't stopped me. Hell, I might have still done it, but the Old Man just stood there and watched, and I knew – just knew – that he would back her. Now I wonder if there was something between them even back then. So I consented to the damned physical, which proved what I'd said all along. I'm as healthy as they come. I don't get sick; never have. I guess you can chalk it up to some serious gambler's luck. Heaven knows I've got enough of that. She didn't care; she wanted me examined anyway. She was just as firm after one of my more colorful landings a few weeks back. I knew I was fine, but when Mark said I needed an exam, she backed him. I swear they stick together like glue in that Life Station.
Still, I did find out something from that little run-in – a couple of things, really. First, crossing Salik isn't an easy thing to manage. The woman has serious pull on this ship, and she'll use it when she chooses. Second, I learned that some doctors can be really gentle. By that, I'm referring to Doctor Sands. He's a nice guy, and I've since come to know him more as Cassie's boyfriend than anything else – which is awkward in its own way – but at the time I just saw a man with huge hands, evil looking equipment, and I was wearing entirely too few clothes for comfort. Damned hospital gowns! But even though he's probably the… well, the largest doctor to give me that particular examination, he was one of the few that didn't hurt me in the process. He told dumb jokes, ran his hands under warm water before he started, and let me know what he was doing and when. I learned that there are good doctors out there; I didn't learn whether or not Doctor Salik was one of them.
I say the situation has been a little awkward because a few times Lee and I have gotten together with Cassie and Mark for dinner or a game in the rec room. The first time, just about when I figured out who he was, I couldn't get out of there fast enough. Cassie came after me, and I wound up explaining how he had given me that exam. It's hard to look a guy in the eye after he's looked at you… well, there. She actually laughed at me. I don't remember exactly what she said, but it was to the effect of everything being old news after doing it long enough. I decided to do what he'd obviously done – and try to forget it – and we all wound up being pretty good friends. I never did tell Lee why I'd made my hasty exit, but I get the feeling he knows. He's like his dad; he knows everything.
I did quiz Mark about the good doctor, although I tried to be casual. I don't think I accomplished it, because he had this dumb grin on his face during most of our conversation. For someone who can win at Pyramid without a thought, I really can't get much past the people I hang with. It's frustrating as hell. Anyway, Mark informed me that Kylen Salik is a great surgeon, a wonderful boss, and a terrific person in general. He has her nominated for sainthood in at least three of the Colonies. No one is that good. But he does respect her, and I respect him. The same can be said for the Old Man. He respects her, so I'll do my best. On the other hand, he also has respect for Paul Tigh, so his judgment isn't foolproof. He has his blind spots; I'm glad that I'm one of them.
Finally, after a couple of months of sneaking around and trying to glean information from everyone except the source, I took the Commander's advice and plopped myself down next to the doc and started talking. Truthfully, I cornered her in the mess hall. What I hadn't expected was that outside the Life Station, when she isn't screaming orders or causing pain, she's a pretty nice person. Yes, there is something between her and William Adama, but even she doesn't know what. More than friendship, and less than anything else. I know that feeling to a tee; it describes Lee and I perfectly. But where she might like more and the Old Man is holding back, with Lee and I it's the opposite. I just… can't feel comfortable with what he wants, or what I think he wants. I'm not even sure, because I'm too damned scared to ask. That's a laugh; the Almighty Starbuck is afraid to talk to her best friend. But some things are too important to screw up.
But back to the doc. She really did seem nice. I don't mean fake, plastic nice. I mean real, honest, watch-your-back kind of nice. She was straight with me, or she seemed it. And frankly, she looks as confused as I feel. I have no clue why it's so much easier to tell her what to do in her place than it is to listen to her advice, which is nearly the same. Maybe it's because the Old Man told me to talk with her, that she was a good person, and that I wasn't giving her a chance. Maybe it was the way she opened up and shared that all of her relationships with men haven't been stellar. Or maybe, just maybe, it's because it was frakking nice to have a woman to talk to. I have Cassie of course, and once in a while Sharon and I get together, but everything for them seems so simple. Not the relationships – they each have issues ranging from rank to position – but they know what they want and are basically in agreement with their partners. I wish I could say the same.
After my talk with Kylen – she actually asked me to call her Kylen, and it isn't nearly as uncomfortable as I thought it would be – Lee and the Old Man showed up. That made for a fun end to the meal. Lee and his dad are damned good company, and we laughed a lot that night. There wasn't any tension between Kylen and the Old Man as far as I could see, but I believe her when she says that she's not sure where it's going. I didn't feel as much tension between Lee and I either, but then there usually isn't any unless we're alone, and even then I get the feeling that he isn't noticing it. The only time I really noticed him looking… uncomfortable, was the one time that I kissed him, and instead of laughing and moving on he kissed me back. I still don't know what possessed me to do that. Likely, I never will. But Lee doesn't have a problem with things moving along; that's just me.
And half the time I think it's all in my imagination anyway, because he's so damned casual around anyone else. Sharon says she doesn't see anything out of line, and Cassie says the same, but he's not the same with them as he is around me. When we're alone together, he'll talk my ear off about just about everything, and he seems so damned uncertain part of the time about everything from work, to his dad, to his skills as a pilot. In public he's quiet to the point of being stoic, and he never shows any doubt about anything. I guess you could say that in public he's just like his dad, and in private he's a lot more like his mom. In private, he's a lot more like Zak. I'm not sure how I feel about that.
He isn't Zak, and frankly I wouldn't want him to be. He doesn't have that constant sense of humor that makes a joke out of things that really shouldn't be, or that reckless sense of fun that always kept me on the edge. It wasn't that I disliked those aspects of Zak – they're part of what attracted me to him – but I've grown up a lot, and the world sure as hell has changed a lot since I needed those things in my life. Now Lee's solid presence is a lot more reassuring. I'll take my bad jokes from Mark any day; when I need support, I need Lee's confidence. I think he needs me, too.
That was one of the things that Kylen said that struck me so hard. First she said that Lee has been an influence on me – which I already knew. But then she said that I had been an influence on him, that he was more comfortable around me, and that my support made the CAG position easier. I hadn't really thought about it before. Lee was just born to lead; it's always been that way. He's too much like his dad to follow. It didn't occur to me that he was young for it, or that he hadn't been adequately prepared, or that he might be worried about it. Lee was just Lee, and he should be the leader. That was all; and that was wrong. I hadn't seen it until it was pointed out, but I really hadn't given him very much support at all. Sure, I was there to listen when he'd had a bad day, and I helped him with names and faces as he learned the squad, but that was about all. I could have done a lot more, and yet I hadn't even thought I needed to.
Now that I think about it, Lee has been more than a little stressed lately. It's been more than the difficulties with planes and pilots, or getting his relationship with his father back on line. He has been worried about work, and he's said a hundred little things that I should have picked up on. I feel pretty stupid, actually. What is it they say about missing the shouting because you're listening for a whisper? I guess that's what I've been doing. I figured if he needed me, than he'd ask. Well, he's been asking in about a hundred subtle ways, and none of them registered until Kylen made that remark.
About a week ago, I made the remark to Lee that the rotation seemed to be going well. He just shrugged it off, and I took it to mean that he knew what I was saying. Maybe he doesn't agree? Maybe that was insecurity rather than a casual disregard. Again, the new perspective makes a difference. Lee's never been casual about anything in his life, so he wouldn't start now. I don't know what I was thinking. Something similar happened just a couple nights ago. I stuck my head in his office – a little cubbyhole that he rarely comes out of when he's not flying, eating, or reporting – to see if he needed anything. His quick reply was a smile and the statement, "Just another CAG." I stuck my tongue out and walked off. Hell, he probably did need some help.
Ripper was forever bitching about the mountain of paperwork that his job entailed, and he was in a peacetime position. Lee's not. I mean, just because the job is meant for him, that doesn't mean it'll come naturally or anything. It's a big job for anyone. It's way more than I wanted to deal with, and Lee knows it. Maybe that's why he hasn't asked for help. Scratch that. Lee doesn't ask for help; he never has, and probably never will. His friends just have to know when he's over his head. I guess right now that's me.
With more than a little guilt nagging me, I change my current route from the gym to the main pilots' quarters. Sure enough, when I get through quarters and back to his office, he's perched at his little desk with a small stack of work neatly piled before him, a pen in one hand, and a look of disgust on his face. "That bad?" I ask.
"Pretty much," he mutters, making a notation on the form and then staring at it again.
"Whatcha doin?"
He looked up in relative surprise, and I feel about an inch tall. I was right; I wasn't doing much for him at all. "Next week's roster," he said, looking back at the paper with a frown. "I thought I had it, but Valerii is sick, and I don't want her flying for at least a week. I was going to put in Hudgins, but he's already on six shifts, and Billings is on seven. I guess I could move Carpings over…" He looked over the work, sighed, and shook his head. "Nope, he's on six, too. Somehow I have to cover twenty-four shifts with three pilots, and not give anyone over six. You wanna tell me how to do that?" he asks in frustration.
"Last I checked, it's not a mathematical possibility. Even at twenty-one, they're going to have to pull seven, so it looks like this week they'll have to pull eight."
"Frak," he mutters, closing tired eyes and rubbing them. "They hate me enough without having a good reason. No one can fly every day; they shouldn't have to."
I peek over his shoulder at the schedule. "How are we with Viper pilots?" I ask.
He shrugs. "Next week, thirty-eight scheduled patrols and nine pilots."
I remember back to good old fifth grade math. "That's five patrols, six tops."
He nods absently.
"How many of those pilots are dual qualified for Raptors?"
He shuffles around on his desk, grabs a folder, and looks it over. "Only two," he says. "And you're one of them."
"Okay, let's rethink," I say, my mind shuffling numbers. "If we move me over, that gives you four and eight. That'll even out the Raptor roster with six flights each, and only increase the Viper patrols to…"
"Five max," he says, catching on. "I'll have to redistribute here…" His voice trails off and then he reaches down to grab the current Raptor roster and wad it into a ball. "Back to the drawing board," he says with a half-hearted grin. "It'll be easier to go from scratch than to try to cross stuff out."
"Wait," I recommend. "What if you move…" I peek over his shoulder to see the book he'd looked in. Anders, I see. Oh yeah, I'd forgotten Anders was qualified for Raptors. "Anders too," I continue. "That'll give you five and seven. It would bring the Raptor patrols down to four or five, and only increase Vipers to five, with three patrols left over. Put either me or Anders back for those…" I shift some numbers in my head again, "Exactly three shifts there, too. Everyone gets five, no exceptions. Can't get more equitable than that."
He shakes his head and then looks back around at me. "You're forgetting something," he says. "If I put Anders back in a Raptor, he'll kill me. You know how pilots feel about Raptors; once they qualify for Vipers, going back is an insult."
"We do what we have to for the fleet," I tell him with a glare. He's right, though. I'm not thrilled about flying a Raptor either. "Split it with three to me, and two to him. We play up how great it is that he qualifies on both and can do this for us, make a big deal of it to the squad how he's really showing his loyalty and all that crap, and we should get by with it at least until Valerii is back. Hell, you may have a couple other pilots willing to go back and get current on Raptors. It wouldn't be a bad idea anyway," I say thoughtfully. "There's so damned few of us, we have to be flexible. Besides, if I can give up a Viper, they have no place to complain."
"Point taken," he says, pulling out a couple of sheets of paper and setting them side-by-side. "Now I just have to get it in writing. Again."
And that'll take him half the night, I realize. "Here," I say, grabbing one sheet and the book with pilots listed and pulling the only other chair in his office closer to the desk to sit in; even I can't remember everyone at once. "I'll do Raptors and you can do Vipers. That way if anyone has a problem with it, they can deal with me. Trust me, they won't. I hit."
He smiles, and the expression on his face is both grateful and… relieved. That doesn't make sense to me. He's a bright boy; he would have come to it on his own. "You would have thought of it," I tell him softly.
He shook his head. "I'm too tired to think at all," he admits. Then, rubbing his face again, he leaves his head resting in his hands for a minute. "Lords, I'm just tired of all of it," he mutters. "I pray we never go back into actual engagements, because I'd never be able to keep that straight."
And there it is, the self-doubt and the worry. It's as bad now as it was when he was fighting with final exams and had no confidence in the fact that he'd studied more than any three people at the Academy put together. Anything less than perfect was always unacceptable to him, and that kind of self-imposed pressure is exhausting after a while. So I do now what I did then, although it doesn't feel quite as natural. "Here," I say, standing up and moving behind him. Instead of talking, or reasoning, I go straight for feeling. Putting my hands on his shoulders, I gently start a simple backrub. Nothing fancy, but just something that will feel good and maybe relax him. He leans back into me with a moan and I have to smile. The man's back is one solid knot – always has been – and he'll tighten back up the second I stop, but for the moment he's enjoying.
And in all honesty, I am too. It isn't so much how the backrub feels to me – my hands are cramping after only a couple of minutes – but when his head falls back and I see his eyes closed in relaxation instead of fatigue and pure frustration, it eases something inside of me. He shouldn't have had to carry this alone. All that stuff I said about loyalty to the squad applies to me as well, and that's outside the cockpit as well as in. A burden shared is a burden halved, or something like that. If we split this – if he'll let me help – then the job will be far more manageable.
He's almost asleep by the time my hands are too knotted to do more and still be able to hold a pen so that I can help with scheduling. "Okay, enough of that," I tell him with a grin. "Now get to work."
He gives me a smile that's priceless. "Thanks, Kara," he says softly.
"You could have done it on your own," I tell him. "But you shouldn't have to. You fly as much as the rest of us; you can use a break."
Just the fact that he doesn't argue tells me how tired he is. I sit down beside him and start dividing the sheet with lines, the way he does. Together we fill in times and names, the night passing quickly. From there we move on to fuel reports, juggling numbers there as well to be sure that flights are covered, and then pilot ratings and uniform management. It's only a couple of hours until his shift when I finally get him to stop so that he can get some sleep, and even then it's with the threat that I won't leave the work until he does. I make him promise, knowing he won't lie to me, and leave him to get some much-needed sleep.
As I settle in to my own bunk, I'm tired, but my mind is racing. I have to wonder how long he's been fighting with paperwork this way, and whether or not he would have ever asked for help or just silently suffered it out. Truthfully, I don't have to wonder. He isn't one to complain. For such a smart man, he can really be an idiot when he puts his mind to it. Most men can. I guess that's why there are women around to keep them out of trouble.