Author's note: People do not seem to be enjoying this one quite so much as the other, and I would be eternally grateful for any input as to why. I know it is taking me a long time between posts, and I apologize. Time has become something of an issue for me. I'm sorry also for the sluggishness of the story. I'm taking perhaps more care in its development than I ought. I really need feedback folks. Tis important to me.

Lie still. Lie still. Shh shh shh. Not a sound. Don't move. Lie still.

Movement on the end of his bed. A huff, scratch, flop. Easier for her to get comfortable than for him. Lie still, lie still. His eyes were supposed to be closed. Closed eyes when sleeping, the way of nature. But they were more than closed now. They were pinched like, squeezed hard 'til they hurt, 'til they cried. Don't move. Oh…gods. Bite the lip to keep from crying out. Is that saliva or blood snaking down the chin? Both maybe. Fistfuls of sheet gathered up, muscles quaking, breath catching.

She was up now, whimpering and snuffling at him. Moving, getting her attention.Or smelling like…did pain smell? Smelling like sick. Smelling like dying.

"Lee?" Oh frak. No no no no I'm not. Not here. Not sick. Shhhh. Don't move, lie still, she'll go away.

Weight on the edge of the bed. Her sitting there, curious, confused, painted on the back of his eyelids. Was not supposed to find him like this. Was not supposed to be here. Stupid to hope. Someone was always here. Always here but the others were sleeping. She was early back, and he was not gone. Don't touch don't touch don't touch don't touch…

Hands hovering over him. Can feel the heat. Can feel the breath. Dark in here, she's leaning closer to see. See him pale and sweating and shaking.

"Lee!"

Voice more urgent now because he hasn't answered. Harder too, shakes like he does. Scary? Think how I feel. Puppy crying, circling, lying down, standing up, sitting. Hovering hand drops lower. Don't touch don't touch! But he can't say it. Her fingers brush the flesh of him, the heat of him, the slick of him. Bush hair back, touch his brow…

And explosion of pain, a torrent, a tear, a hot cold sharp dull razor bullet hammer needle knife. A howl claws from his lungs, body surges up and forward and against her as she holds him and pushes him down again.

"Somebody get a medic in here now!"

Daniel was not a lurker. He was not a prowler. He was not an edge of the crowd shadow-lover, not a stalker, skulker, or creeper. Let them see everything within you that matters to anyone and everyone but you, and no one will look at you.

So it was very fortunate for him that a large crowd had assembled in the corridor outside the infirmary; he was pleased to be able to hang about the place without having to lurk. He would have expected the off-duty crewmen and women loitering around to be abuzz with concern and speculation. The tense surprised him. It shouldn't have, he supposed. People such as these would be accustomed to tragedy by now. They might even be used to a certain degree of mystery. So they had clumped together, leaning against the bulkheads, murmuring softly to one another if they talked at all, and he, who could not be expected to know anyone, stood amongst them looking confused and frightened. It was his first day, after all. He could not be expected to know that things like this happened all the time in the service. In fact, a fair degree of apprehension regarding his chosen profession would not be out of line at all.

Starbuck had been in and out several times since he had been here. The first time has not been voluntary. Several of Major Cottle's orderlies (one or two looking with shiners already blossoming) had hauled her out. The blood on her skin and clothes had alarmed the witnesses (who had been far fewer than they now were), especially since it clearly was not hers. When the Commander appeared at last, looking stern as ever and slightly paler than usual, Starbuck had trailed in on his heels. Obviously Cottle found her presence more acceptable this time, because they had not seen her again for some time. She left when the Commander did, and returned a short while later, unwashed and unchanged. Lt. Thrace had not emerged from the infirmary since.

Daniel kept silent vigil with his shipmates for a little over an hour before drifting away. There was no need for him to await word, after all. He knew what the doctor would tell them, if he told them anything at all. Apollo was feverish and dehydrated. He was exhibiting spontaneous bruising, and seemed to experience extreme pain at the slightest touch. Anything more than feather-light contact broke the skin, and he was bleeding from several small wounds on his arms, legs, and torso where people had grabbed him trying to get him here. There should also be some hemorrhaging in the eyes by now. The wounds he had sustained on Caprica, which everyone had supposed healed, would be discolored and oozing.

I wonder if the doctor will tell them? He'll have to now won't he? It was actually more than a little surprising that Cottle had not said something sooner. After all, and as Daniel was well aware, Lee Adama had been coming to the infirmary with pains for some weeks. He would have ignored them at first, but Daniel had seen to it that the pain increased to a level that Apollo would not be able to pass off as stress or work related. He would have sought medical help. Not that there was anything anyone could have done. Now, of course…

Starbuck sat on a stood beside Lee's bed, watching his chest rise and fall. He was unconscious now. When they had tried to bandage his wounds he had screamed and screamed, flailing about until the pain was so great he had finally just dropped. Even with him unconscious the medics had looked almost pained themselves, wrapping his arms and legs. Just knowing how much pain their actions seemed to cause him when he was alert, they were loath to continue even when he was unaware. But they had managed, and left her there with him while Doc Cottle poured over the blood work, and figured out a course of treatment.

As she sat there watching him, she thought about the weeks that had passed since she had last seen her friend torn and bloody. It seemed like he was having all the worst luck lately. It was strange, looking back, to think of all the times he had winced at nothing, or shied away from someone's touch… most often hers. She had assumed it was because he had not forgiven her. Actually, she was still fairly positive that that was true, at least in part. But seeing him now, bruising at the slightest touch, brought those moments into sharper clarity.

"Kara…"

Starbuck jerked her eyes sharply up from where they had been fixed on the spot between her fingers and Lee's on the bed. His blue eyes glistened with the fever. They asked something of her, those eyes. But then I'm always reading something that isn't there.

"Hey Captain," she chirped. "Have a nice nap?"

Lee grunted. His eyes flicked down to where hers had been a moment before, to the place where there hands were not touching. He swallowed, letting his eyes slip shut.

"Hurts."

"I know."

"Something…on Caprica…" In his mind that slight turn of his head was probably meant to be a frustrated shake. Talking was apparently difficult for him.

"You think it's something they did to you on Caprica." Nod. "That's what we've been thinking. Doc says you've been feeling like this for a while." Bastard. Should have told me.

"Not…" Not this bad, he meant to say. She understood.

"Well I get why you're so crazy about not letting the dogs jump on you," she teased. Or anyone else... What the hell. Where'd that come from?

Lee grunted again. There seemed to be something strained about him, or straining, as if he was reaching for something just outside his grasp. It was not his body that was reaching of course, but his face. His eyes would have been too, if he would open them.

"Anyway don't worry about it," she said, striving for a lighter tone. "The doc can hook you up with some really nice stuff."

"Yeah," he croaked. "I know."

But not good enough obviously, if Lee had been in pain for a while. Gods I feel so fraking helpless. Whatever was going on with Lee was well outside her area of expertise. What was worse, he had not wanted to make her a part of it. He could have told her long ago, and maybe she could have helped him. Of course, it was not likely that she could have, but there was always a chance. She glanced away, cursing softly, and was peripherally aware of his eyes opening to regard her curiously.

"Get some rest. The Commander will be by later."

And she left him there, feeling his eyes on her back as she went. Kat was just on the other side of the curtain, she knew, with Caprica straining at the leash. She had suggested to the Commander that the pup be left with Lee for the duration of his stay in the infirmary. Caprica would be taken in and tethered to the bed, to be swapped out for Geminon a little later. Kara could not have said why she did not want to leave Lee without at least one of them. It was just that something about this illness of his did not seem right to her, and the orderlies had been instructed to listen for any barking or growling coming from Lee's side of the curtain.

Abrianna found her way to the hanger deck around midday. She should have been there earlier, and her sisters with her. The Chief would be annoyed, but she doubted she would get in trouble. Everyone was too worried about Apollo to day to bother about her.

There did not seem to be a lot going on when she arrived. In fact, the hanger deck was as sparsely populated as she had ever seen it. There had not been a Cylon attack in days now, so there was not a lot of work to do. Tynan, one of the other girls from Caprica, was working with Cally on a scrap Viper. The Chief was here too, as ever, tinkering with the Blackbird Mark II. A few others were on hand, but she had not interest in what they were doing. It was nothing interesting. Whenever anything good was going on the Chief was in the thick of it, and he was not involved in anything at the moment.

Aeirlon noticed her first. The approached her silently, with that shuffling, loose-limbed trot of his. The pup was looking more and more wolfish as he grew – nothing at all like his brother and sisters. He had taken to the training better than they had too, at least the silence training; he had never been much of a barker to start.

As he approached her, Abri raised a closed fist to her chest; it was the hand signal they had devised for "sit." Aeirlon responded at once, cocking his head expectantly to one side. Abri next flattened her hand and held it out towards him, then lowered it slowly. Aeirlon went down. When she lowered her hand further still he dropped his head to rest between his paws, and when her fist returned to her chest he sat up.

"Good dog," was all she said, and scratched behind his ears. Care was always taken to reward Aeirlon without getting him too excited. He was a good pup, but was still learning that playing with humans was different than playing with his siblings. He would sometimes bite, and he was getting stronger every day.

"What do you think? Does our scruffy hanger dog have the pilots beat?"

Abri had not seen the Chief approaching, and turned a radiant smile on him now that she did. "And the CIC too," she said with a laugh.

"That'd be something. Beating the Commander's own."

"Boxey says they're going to start aggression training soon."

"That's what I hear. Aeirlon is anyway, and Geminon I think."

"Why just the boys?" she huffed. "Girls can be aggressive too."

"Don't I know it!" The Chief laughed. He was thinking of a certain deck hand of his who had once bitten off a would-be rapist's ear. "It's just that the girls are smarter."

"Smarter?" Abri had a hard time believing any man would admit such a thing.

"Sure. They can alert quietly, without spooking the enemy. The males get all excited. So the Commander figures the males can be attack dogs and the females can…do something else."

Tyrol petered out towards they end, but Abri understood what he meant. Of all of Galactica's crew, only the men and women that had been on Caprica fully understood the purpose of the dogs, and what they were being trained for. Everyone knew they were to be precisely trained, and that they were to have something to do with enforcing order in the Fleet, but that they would be Cylon detectors was not widely known. Tyrol knew it, because he had charge of Aeirlon's training, and so did Dualla, for the same reason. It was not freely spoken of, though, and Abri wondered if anyone else would ever really know the full truth. She supposed that if the dogs grew to do their jobs well, no one would.

"Go on and get to work," Tyrol said, smiling fondly at the girl. "Cally was asking for you."

Abri went, not because she believed there was any pressing need for her to go to work, but because she had seen Aeirlon's ears perk, and seen the Chief's eyes flick up briefly to something over her shoulder. She had also seen the way the Chief's hands settled on his hips, the way they did when he was bracing for something, and the way his chin jutted out when his smile faded and he glanced away from her again. She did not have to wait long to see what the trouble was. Cally and Tynan had stopped their work when she joined them, and had unabashedly turned their eyes towards the hatch.

Starbuck had entered, with Geminon on her heels. She looked drained, and a little angry. She had the Chief conversed briefly, but heatedly, and headed off together. Aeirlon nipped at Geminon as he fell in behind the two. It was funny. He was so much smaller, but could still assert his dominance over his littermate.

"What's going on?" Tynan asked.

"I don't know."

"Come on you two. We've gotta strip this thing by the end of the shift."

When Adama had officially assigned the puppies to head trainers, Dualla had seemed to many to be an unlikely choice. Though she was universally liked, she did not command the respect of any number of officers in more powerful positions. Most expected that the Commander himself would take charge of little Scorpio, who seemed to favor him. Others insisted that it would be the XO, to give Tigh something to mellow him and turn his attention away from the bottle and his meddlesome wife. A few even supposed the dog would go to Gaeta, or even Baltar.

Adama had never explained why he had chosen Dualla, and of course no one had ever asked him. Perhaps it was because he thought a softer touch would best tame a head-strong best. Or perhaps he himself was a soft touch, and wanted to give his beloved Dee something to bring her some happiness. In spite of (or perhaps because of) the secrecy under which they had engaged in their little tryst, everyone knew of Dualla and Apollo's short-lived and torrid relationship. Even Billy knew, though he pretended not to when Dee came back to him. It was believed that the Commander had been relieved to see it end. Maybe he felt a little guilty, to be relieved when Dee was so clearly miserable. In any case, the Commander had never explained, so people felt free to come up with their own ideas.

What was even more surprising that Adama was selection was how expertly Dee rose to the task. The whole CIC had charge of Scorpio, but Dualla planned the training regimen, and the pup slept at the foot of Dee's rack when the other was off rotation. More surprising still was how well the Petty Officer was able to work with Starbuck and, especially, Apollo. The four chief handlers would gather once every other day to go over their progress and confer, mapping out further training strategies, ironing out kinks, and drilling together. Apollo was almost unrealistically friendly towards her, and Starbuck never tried to throttle her, but even once. This, naturally, was attributed to the calming influence of puppies.

If the people who were so amazed at all of this had been on hand to see the meeting between Starbuck, Chief Tyrol, and Dualla while Apollo was laid out in the infirmary, they would have altered their opinion. Starbuck paced like a caged animal, fists clenched at her side, and looked so ready to beat the hell out of someone the several someones in the room with her very nearly turned tail and ran. Standing fast in addition to the Chief and Petty Officer were Helo, Racetrack, and the remaining Marines from the Caprica expeditionary unit. Sharon was not there, obviously, though there was no doubt in the minds of either Tyrol or Dee that whatever went on here would be reported back to her; the men and women who had gone down to Caprica shared a bond that extended even to their cylon compatriot – a fact of which a good many crewmen and women disapproved.

"There's a cylon on this ship," was all Starbuck said. She said so abruptly, and after so long a period of silent, angry pacing, that everyone was a little startled at first. "Well, more than one. There's Sharon, and there's another one. Or more."

"We knew that didn't we?" Helo ventured. "Or suspected it."

"Sure. Obviously."

"This is worse than another cylon isn't it though." Though Shields phrased it as a question, there was no uncertainty in his voice. Starbuck's eyes jerked up to him from the floor, briefly, angrily, and approvingly.

"How do you mean?" Racetrack asked.

Landin jumped in next. "There's a cylon on this ship, other than Sharon (he said the last with a nod to Helo), that knows something about what happened on Caprica."

"Whoa whoa. Where'd you get that from?" The Chief, try as he might to keep up, was falling impossibly behind.

"Apollo was wounded on Caprica," Starbuck growled. She was no longer pacing, but she looked to him more like a raging animal than Aeirlon ever had.

"Doc says he never recovered. He's been in pain all this time and never told us." Walker rolled a toothpick pensively between his teeth, leaning back against the bulkhead with his arms crossed and his face cemented into a million mile gaze. "We wondered why he recovered so fast on Caprica. Why he was walking and talking after how they messed him up."

"Frakin' morons. We never saw it. Why they would possibly just let him go…"

"What are you talking about?" Dualla demanded. It was her first contribution to the conversation. "He did heal. He was fine…" she trailed off. Confused as she was, she knew better than to talk about how hale and hearty Apollo was when he was fraking her. As angry as Starbuck was, she was likely to put the other woman's head clean through the wall.

"He wanted us to think so." Starbuck blew past the comment, as if Dualla had never spoken. "Doc says Lee's been in pain for a while now. On and off. He's been on pain killers, goes to sit with the President on his bad days. Bastard had us all fooled."

"So we're saying what now? That there's some cylon onboard putting the heat on now? Somehow making Apollo sick?"

"You got any other suggestions?"

"But why? Why now? You don't think they know about…" Landin nodded to where the pups were lying in a pile in the corner.

"No. No way. They would just kill the puppies then."

"How? We never leave them alone."

"It doesn't make any sense. None of it makes any fraking sense."

"It had better. And soon."

"Doc have a prognosis?"

"Either he gets better, or he doesn't last the night."

"I'll talk to Sharon." Helo had mostly listened, offering only one or two comments in all the time they had been talking, but when he spoke his voice was decisive. Helo was a man of action, more than words. "She might have an idea what's going on."

"If she did, why wouldn't she have said something back on Caprica?"

"Right. Helo, you can ask her that too. For now, one of us should be within shouting distance of the infirmary at all times."

"And for gods' sake no one leave a puppy alone."

"No joke. All this started on Caprica. Might be everything that came up from Caprica's gonna have some trouble."

"What about the girls then?" the Chief asked. "Abri and Tynan and Gwyn and the others. They'd be a part of this too." Whatever the hell this is.

"I think it's pretty clear we have no power at all to help Apollo. And he's pretty well guarded anyone. I say we post a guard on the girls, stay within shouting distance of them."

"Does the Commander know about any of this?" Dualla asked.

"He will. I'll go talk to him this afternoon."

"He couldn't understand," Shields murmured. "How could any of them understand? How could you." The look with which he favored Dualla and Tyrol was almost accusatory.

"Enough. We have a job to do now. Let's get it done." Starbuck looked more relaxed now, more like a person with a mission rather than raw, un-harnessed rage. "I'm going back to sickbay to check on Apollo, then to talk to the Commander. Helo, you check with Sharon. The rest should keep their eyes on the dogs and the girls. Something's going on here."

The group nodded and dispersed, walking off in groups of two and three and conversing softly with one enough. Dualla caught Starbuck's eyes. She recognized immediately what she saw there, but said nothing. Her understanding of the other woman was limited to her understanding of Apollo…and she was not so much a fool as to think that was not limited as well. Starbuck stared hard back at the Petty Officer, very much in charge of all that passed between them. Try as she might, Dee could not hate Kara Thrace. She had known from the beginning that Starbuck was more a part of Lee than she could ever be. Nothing had been held back from her; it had not been a secret. What she saw in Kara now she recognized, because it was a fear that mirrored her own. It was stronger, she knew, because it was more than the fear of someone losing something close to them; it was fear at the prospect of having a part of one's own self ripped brutally out. She had seen that desperation before, in Lee, when Kara was missing and presumed dead, or when he threw himself into her cause in the hope of seeing her again when she was lost.

It was Dee that broke the stare first.