" So, where would you go if you were on stim and maybe a little paranoid?" Lee Adama said the question out loud but didn't expect much of an answer from Kara. It was more of a way to think through the problem. Doctor Cottle had advised them to not start calling Gaeta on the loudspeaker. It was, the doctor had warned, likely to feed into Gaeta's delusions. What those delusions were, the doctor refused to articulate. That meant that they had to find him the old fashioned way, on foot. On a ship that was the size of a small city. Worse, Gaeta had been assigned to the Galactica for a lot longer than Lee had. Hiding would be easy for him. Finding him was going to be a bitch if he didn't want to be found.

Kara made a scoffing noise as they walked down the corridor. " He's not on stim, Lee. He's having a bad reaction to anti-depressants. And if I was on stims and paranoid, I would be hiding in the colonel's quarters with a gun waiting for a head shot. Now, I have a pretty good feeling that we don't need to search the colonel's quarters, so what now?"

" We track him," Lee said slowly. He felt like a moron. It wasn't the first time he had been asked to perform a task that he had no training for. Since the destruction of Caprica, he was always being sent off to do things that he'd never done before. One day he was a prison negotiator, the next he was a presidential attaché. Being an investigator was just another job that he had only cheesy serial mysteries to use in place of experience. In the books, there was always a part where someone, typically a young teen boy and his trusty tomboyish girlfriend go wandering through the forest looking for smugglers. " We have to retrace his steps," he finished lamely.

" Right." Kara nodded sagely. " I'm sure he'll lead us right to the stolen jeweled scepter of the Delphi Priests, Lee. You think Dad will let us have that treehouse if we catch him red handed?"

"Stop being an asshole." He wasn't in the mood for it. Not with a fleet of Cylons just waiting to pounce and not when they desperately needed a weapon to defeat them. "Where was the last place we know he was?"

" Sleeping in my bed," Kara said. She snickered at him. " You are so jealous."

" Then we need to start in our quarters. And I am not jealous." He hoped his tone would make her stop. He didn't have a lot of hope in that.

" You're not pretty when you're jealous, sir."

He decided that it was safer to just stay quiet. Kara was wanting to needle someone, and he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction. He wasn't jealous of Gaeta, not in the slightest. He wasn't the one having a nervous breakdown of monumental proportions after all. If that's what frakking Kara brought on, then he was happy to be spurned.

The pilot barracks was quiet but he wasn't surprised. People were tired. Lee was tired, more tired knowing that he was probably going to be in a Viper in hours fighting a hopeless battle against wave after wave of Cylon raiders. No doubt the few pilots that weren't on duty were trying to rest. He only saw one up at all, and that was Hotdog, who was looking sullen and holding a bag of ice to his face.

" Well, he's not here. So now what?" He was man enough to admit he didn't have a clue as to where Gaeta would have gone. He didn't even know the man that well. Pleasant, polite, all right to play cards with, Lee knew those things, but he also knew that Gaeta was one of many among the crew who behaved as though his father was the military genius of all time and that was one big reason why he didn't spend a lot of time socializing with Gaeta.

Or with anyone on the ship, now that he thought about it.

" Maybe we should make sure he didn't leave behind any clues," Kara said brightly as she looked over her bunk. She picked up a notebook that was on top of the neat covers. " Like for example, maybe there's a clue in the notebook he's been carrying around for the last few weeks." She flipped through it. " Math equations… math equations… lots of computer commands….Rambling, creepy list of reasons why he might be a Cylon sleeper agent…No, nothing helpful."

"Um… what? Back up to the part about his being a Cylon sleeper agent?" Lee tried not to yell at her.

Kara rolled her eyes. " Lee, trust me, Gaeta is not a Cylon. He's just spent too much time chitchatting with one."

He took the notebook from her and started to look through it. " Are you sure," he asked after a moment. " Just the first five items have me almost convinced."

" Yes, I am. He told Dr. Cottle and that's when Dr. Cottle made the decision to medicate him. That's also why he and the commander are trying to keep this a little quiet. If this got around…."

Lee nodded. " People would panic and someone would do something stupid and violent. But are we absolutely certain that he's…. not?" Because if he was, then the fleet was absolutely frakked.

" He passed the test. You know Cottle told the commander, so the commander must trust that the test was right. It's Gaeta that didn't trust the test. " Kara pointed to one of the numbered items. " See? He wrote that he didn't think Baltar was being honest."

" And," Lee said, making the connection, " if he didn't believe Baltar… maybe he went to see Baltar? It's worth checking. They're friends, aren't they?"

" As much as anyone can be friends with Baltar." Kara sniffed. " Don't forget he must have met up with Dualla. No one has seen her and she did have orders from the old man to make sure that Gaeta finished his weapon."

"Hey!" They both turned. Hotdog was standing and Lee realized that someone had punched him in the face hard enough that he wouldn't want Hotdog as his wingman for the upcoming battle. Hotdog pointed to Kara's bunk. " Your little frak toy sucker punched me before he left."

" Well, perhaps you shouldn't have been calling him my frak toy," Kara said darkly. To Lee, she said quietly, " That seems a little out of character, like what Cottle warned about." She turned back to the cot and patted around the pillow. " We have a bigger problem, Captain. I had a little souvenir from Caprica hidden in my bunk and Felix found it."

"Souvenir?" Kara was being serious, and he appreciated that, but he just didn't get it.

She rolled her eyes again. " A gun, Lee. I had a gun, I didn't turn it in to the armory because it was a civilian piece, and now Gaeta has it, and he's not winning any prizes for rationality these days. So now what?"

"Now we track him down," Lee said simply. He had a bad feeling about how it was going to end.

A few of the petty officers in Dualla's barrack remembered seeing Gaeta wake her and one of them had even confirmed their suspicion that Gaeta was looking for Baltar. Lee was uncomfortable, Kara could tell. That was ok. She was more than uncomfortable. She could kick herself for holding onto the gun. She certainly didn't need to sleep with a gun under her pillow, but it made her feel better.

But Gaeta was definitely not well, and he was wandering around the ship in a state that the doctor couldn't even guess at, and he was armed and he had Dualla with him. Kara doubted that he would do anything intentionally to Dualla, but there was always a chance that the young woman would disagree with him and cause a drug induced explosion.

And if Dualla got shot or killed, that would be her fault.

They stopped in front of the door to the lab. It was closed, but that wasn't a surprise. Baltar tended to be a total ass about people entering the lab. Kara knew why. He couldn't keep his hands off himself and if one didn't knock, one got a show.

She didn't knock as she swung the door open. " Dr. Baltar?"

"Yes! Please! I need help! Lt. Gaeta well… he's gone mad." Kara and Lee looked around to find the voice. Both couldn't help but laugh as they spotted Dr. Baltar, tied to a chair with electrical cord, his pants clearly undone. Baltar seemed to shake off his upset at the sound of their laughter. " This is serious! He was armed and I think he might be holding a young woman hostage. I think he finally snapped, had a mental breakdown…He kept demanding his test results when I clearly had told him that he was not a Cylon. I mean I think we all knew it was coming… sad really. He was promising but… clearly too delicate for real scientific work…."

"Dr. Baltar," Lee said, " Lt. Gaeta is not having a mental breakdown. He's having a serious, possibly life threatening reaction to some medication that Dr. Cottle gave him. Did he say where he was taking Petty Officer Dualla?"

" You have to untie me," Baltar insisted. " I have to speak to the commander."

Kara had enough of that. She knew, and she was pretty certain that Lee knew why Baltar wanted to see the commander. He wanted to rat Gaeta out as insane, so that his little power base didn't crumble further. She slapped Baltar's face. " This is very easy, Dr. Baltar. Did Gaeta say where he was going? Yes or no."

" No… no… Yes!" Baltar practically spit it out. He was angry, yet frightened, not a pleasant mix. " He said something about talking to Sharon in the brig. Now untie me!"

" We better get down there," Lee said. He made his way to the door. "Coming, Kara?"

Good old Lee, Kara thought with a smile. She turned her attention back to Baltar.

" You can't leave me here," Baltar whined. " You have to untie me!"

She slapped his face again. Hard. " No, I don't."