Kara Thrace didn't consider herself an unkind person. Impulsive, rude, and insensitive sure, but she wasn't intentionally mean to people. When she spotted Gaeta sitting by himself in the rec area, with his uniform undone and rumpled, holding a notebook and tapping it aimlessly with a pen, she stopped herself before she said something about all the rumors she had heard.

Rumor was that Gaeta had been hauled down to the sickbay after bitch slapping Colonel Tigh for mocking his anti-Cylon virus in a wild stim frenzy. The way Kara figured out rumors was that the wilder they were, the more likely things had been exaggerated or lied about. She had grabbed Alghee and his latest girlfriend Scholls and gotten a much less thrilling but more likely story about Gaeta looking like death and being barely coherent with the commander. Since Gaeta seemed to still look like death, she figured it probably wasn't the right time to ask if he had picked up some Cylon STD from Sharon.

She sat down at his table. After a moment of waiting, she realized that whatever was wrong with him the day before, spending time in sickbay had not cured him. She snapped her fingers in his face. After a very long moment, he blinked. " Did you want something?"

Kara made a real effort to not grin. " Aren't you supposed to be in sickbay?" She had a pretty good feeling that things had gotten busy down in sickbay and Gaeta had somehow slipped away without anyone noticing.

He shook his head slowly. " Dr. Cottle gave me a shot."

" What kind of shot?" She could guess. A hefty dose of mood enhancers from the looks of things. The doctor generally didn't prescribe his relatively small supply of psychiatric drugs without a very good reason. She had, during her time in sickbay, heard his rational on the subject many times. There were only so many drugs, and there were thousands of people in the fleet who all had many very good reasons to want drugs to level out their days of drudgery. There just wasn't enough to go around. That was the first reason. The second was that the really heavy duty drugs didn't just level a person out, they stripped a person of their normal reactions. Cottle normally reserved such treatment for the really suicidal, and for people who were so vital to the ship's survival that they had to be kept working.

Which said a great deal about how close Gaeta was to making his anti-Cylon virus work. After all, they were short on scanner monkeys in the CIC, but not that short.

Gaeta shrugged slowly. " He said I would feel better…." He blinked again. " But now I feel tired, and a little… " He sighed. " I don't know."

This is just sad, Kara thought. " So what are you doing here?"

" I was making a list." He sighed again. " I'm supposed to be working on the virus program but I got distracted by the list. Again."

Now do I want to know what he's obsessing over, Kara asked herself. Not really. Delving into someone else's nervous breakdown wasn't really her thing. On the other hand, she wasn't a total bitch. Sure, he might not be one of her best pals, but he was a friend, and he was the sort that wouldn't hang her out to dry if he found her in a drug induced fog.

"What list?" she asked.

He handed the notebook to her. " I was making a list of reasons why I'm a Cylon and reasons why I'm a human."

" That's very logical," Kara said pleasantly. She looked at the notebook. " You certainly have a lot of reasons that you're a Cylon. You've even alphabetized them… very nice. But there's really nothing that proves you're human?" Yeah, this was a really healthy thing for Gaeta to do with his time. " Does anyone know that you've been doing this?"

" I told Dr. Cottle. That's when he gave me the shot." Gaeta blinked slowly. " He said that if I don't start acting normal, he'd give me another shot. A stronger one." He shuddered in slow motion.

Kara looked down the list. It was actually quite formidable. " You found Kobol?"

Gaeta nodded. "I was the one who did the jump coordinates that led us there."

" And you gave a signal to Sharon to kill the commander?" That was interesting. " What was it?"

" I shook her hand. I might have passed her a gun. I don't really know anymore." Gaeta rubbed his hands slowly. " I should get back to work… the commander said I had to finish the project. That's why Dr. Cottle gave me the shot so I could go back to work." He didn't move, however. " I don't know why he wants me to finish it. I'm probably secretly sabotaging the ship. Like that time that I lost the fleet, which led to the Cylons boarding the ship. Or like how I networked the computer and let that Cylon virus on board and nearly killed us all on multiple occasions." He leaned over the table, his expression intent. " I am a Cylon. I think."

" Or, you're just incompetent at your job, nearly getting us killed all the time. You have to consider that possibility as well. I mean, sure maybe you really are a secret Cylon spy who is subconsciously sabotaging the fleet, but maybe you just get tired and make mistakes. It happens." Although, Kara admitted to herself, she didn't think Gaeta was incompetent. Getting more than a little mentally frakked up, yes, but not incompetent. The anti-Cylon virus weapon was close to working. The commander clearly wanted it completed and he either didn't believe or didn't care that Gaeta was convinced that he was a Cylon.

Scratch that, Kara thought suddenly. Commander Adama did care, he just cared more about getting an upper hand with the Cylons. Once the weapon was complete and working, then there would be a full investigation into whether or not Gaeta was a toaster. Not that she believed it. The very fact that Felix Gaeta was going over the edge at the thought that he was possibly a Cylon seemed like a pretty good indicator that he wasn't. Not to mention the fact that she knew that all of the CIC staff had been tested. Tested twice in fact, with the more refined testing process, to make sure that no Cylons slipped through the cracks.

Gaeta was just having a breakdown and needed someone to show him that he wasn't a Cylon. " Look, I know something we can do that will prove you're not a Cylon."

He woke up suddenly. Not my bed, he thought somewhat incoherently, this is not my bed. His quarters were the size of a large closet, and much larger than the rack he was lying on. What am I doing lying in some crewman's rack, Gaeta thought as he carefully sat up.

No, not just a crewman's rack, he was in Kara Thrace's rack. In the pilot barracks. And he and Kara… why, they had spent what felt like hours in her bed. He didn't consider himself inexperienced but she had done things that he hadn't even heard about. He felt bruised.

Neatly folded at the foot of the rack were his clothes and his notebook. It was opened to his list, and written in a surprisingly feminine hand in the pro-human column was a new entry. 'No glowing spine during orgasm. Tested repeatedly.' Underneath that was another note. 'Blood passed Dr. Baltar's Amazing Cylon Detection Test. You worry too much, Felix. Don't forget to make up my rack before you go.'

He almost smiled. Almost. Kara was just trying to be nice. She thought he was insane. So did Cottle. Despite the list, he was willing to allow that it was certainly possible. Not as likely as his being a Cylon, but possible. He certainly couldn't remember ever feeling so odd. What did being crazy feel like? He wasn't sure, but he suspected that it felt a lot like how he felt right now. Logy, dazed, paranoid.

Probably not so bruised though.

He got dressed slowly, not caring that he was probably late for some work shift, and especially not caring about the low snickers coming from Hotdog in the rack across the aisle. He didn't care. The important thing was to complete the virus program. That and find some way to prove that he was or wasn't a Cylon. He made up the bed and noted with some surprise that Kara had a small pistol under her pillow. Not the regular issue either, a small handgun loaded with armor piercing bullets. Without even thinking he carefully tucked it into his belt at the small of his back. A gun might be handy and he had a feeling that the weapons locker codes had been changed since he had been down to see Dr. Cottle.

" Hey Gaeta, I had no idea you were such a stud," Hotdog chimed up as Gaeta walked by him. " Is frakking Thrace as good as frakking your Cylon whore?" A few of the other pilots chuckled but it was an uneasy sound. Gaeta decided to ignore it until Hotdog blocked his path. He poked Gaeta. " Are you going deaf as well as crazy? I'm not sure I like having some stimmed up deck trash frakking around our quarters." Hotdog's breath smelled of ambrosia. " Got anything to say to that?"

Gaeta punched him in the face and then in the stomach. He grabbed the stunned pilot and slammed him up against the wall, ignoring the gasps of shock from the few other pilots present. Softly he said to Hotdog, " You have no idea what you are frakking with right now."

He let go, and stalked out of the now silent pilot quarters. It was time to get back to work.