" And you're absolutely certain, Dr. Baltar?" Roslin looked at the test results with both relief and concern. It was a relief that the Galactica's tactical officer wasn't a Cylon, but she didn't envy the problem Bill Adama now faced.
Baltar nodded fervently. " The test doesn't lie. Lt. Gaeta is as human as everyone in this room." He emphatically tapped the paper print out. " Obviously there is something wrong with him, but he is not a Cylon." He looked around the table, obviously expecting more of a reaction than what he was getting. " This is good news, people."
Roslin sometimes wished that slapping his face wasn't technically out of line. He was right, in the sense that it good that a Cylon hadn't been plotting their course for the last six months, but Baltar had the empathic ability of a child at times. " Dr. Baltar, while it is good news that Lt. Gaeta is not a Cylon, we are still left with a very serious problem. Namely, that Lt. Gaeta is mentally disturbed." And disturbed in a way that made it very unsafe to let him wander about.
" It is a problem, Madame President," Adama intoned. He looked down at the file of test results that Baltar had brought and then passed them to Dr. Cottle. " However, it's now just my problem and not the civilian government's. Dr. Baltar, I thank you for clearing this up."
Roslin knew a dismissal when she heard one, and it was clear that Baltar knew it too. He was quick to gather his papers. " If there's anything I can do to help," the scientist said nervously as he opened the door, " please do let me know. Lt. Gaeta has been a fine assistant."
" Of course, Dr. Baltar," Adama said easily.
Roslin also began to gather her paperwork. She had plenty of things to do, and was glad that one of those things was not watching an execution, but there was still a concern that had to be dealt with. " I expect to be updated on this situation. I understand that severe mental illness is usually grounds for a medical discharge, but I do not want a mentally ill man put into the civilian population of the fleet without some structure in place. Or some warning." Because all it would take was one conversation and some civilian would be up on murder charges. And she really didn't feel like explaining that to the press.
Adama waited until Roslin had left before turning his attention to the remaining member of the conference. " Well, Doctor?" Now what?"
For a change, Cottle wasn't smoking. He gestured aimlessly to the file that he had brought. " You remember what I said before. That hasn't changed, it's just been confirmed. The question becomes where do you plan to put him. The president isn't a doctor but she is right on one point. You can't safely discharge him into the civilian population. They'll kill him, which is exactly what he wants. At the same time, I personally don't like the idea of letting him continue to plot our jump coordinates." He tapped his file. " I did a thorough medical exam. There's nothing organic going on. No brain tumor, no sudden hormonal changes, no drug problem. There's no physical reason for him to be hearing voices from God telling him that he's a Cylon. That means he's crazy. There's no magic cure for crazy." He looked at Adama intently. " On the other hand, we do let Dr. Baltar walk around without a keeper or medication and I have to say, he's showing far more signs of severe mental illness than Lt. Gaeta."
" So what is the plan?" Adama didn't pretend to understand Cottle's job but he sensed that the doctor was uneasy about the situation. So was he. Mental breakdowns happened, he had seen it more than a few times in his lengthy career, but there were signs. They took more risks, they drank more… on any given day he could pick out who was struggling. There had been no warning at all with Gaeta. Ironically, Felix Gaeta being a Cylon made more sense than Gaeta having a breakdown.
Cottle shrugged. " There's a slight possibility that this is a brief reactive psychosis, and not the first obvious sign that Gaeta is a raging schizophrenic."
" And what does that mean? In laymen's terms?"
Cottle pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. " There's a very small chance that Felix has had a major but temporary walk away from sanity. He's young, under a lot of stress…Let's face it, you didn't think he was going to suddenly start getting into fights with deckhands or screwing anything that moves. That's not how a man like him has a nervous breakdown. Maybe this is his way of relieving stress."
" By killing himself with pills and trying to get us to kill him?" Stranger things had happened, Bill Adama knew that, but it seemed a bit excessive.
"Transferring any guilt he might feel over desperately needing time off but not being able to ask? Hey, I don't know, but maybe. I'd prefer that to the notion that he's so frakking nuts that we're going to need to keep him under lock down. Let me keep him in sick bay for a few days. With the President not currently dying of cancer, I have a little bit more time available to counsel people and fix broken legs, whatever." Cottle waited patiently. "If he's not a Cylon, then the big issue is that he might try to hurt himself. If you take what he said at face value, he only wants to hurt himself. Sickbay has plenty of people of keep an eye on him, I can try out the all the crazy people meds, when the mood hits I can shrink his head…." He paused, and exhaled smoke contemplatively. " Of course, I won't be able to stop the random idiot with a gun coming in to kill the admitted Cylon. That little tidbit is already going around the ship and you can bet that Dr. Baltar won't keep his mouth shut. And let's face it, you didn't exactly punish the last person to plug a Cylon."
Adama eyed him carefully. " You say that like you disapprove, Major."
" I did disapprove." Cottle tapped the ash from his cigarette onto the conference table. " You set a precedent. Cylons are things, not people. That means that people expect to get away with it when they gun someone down in the hallway. And that means you need to say something to the crew before I find someone hunting Cylons in sickbay." Cottle glared at him. " Because I know how to fire a sidearm too, Bill. And if the test says he's human, then I have to go along with that, just like you do. And that means he's a patient and I'm not going to have my patients gunned down like dogs when they are mentally ill. So that's a word of warning, Admiral. I hope you pass it on." Cottle stood up. " I'm not frakking around on this. If he's not a Cylon then he's crazy and if he's crazy then he's sick. If he's sick, then shooting him is murder. Murder in cold blood of someone who can not and most likely will not defend himself, and I hope that means that anyone who tries will get a frak lot more than a month in the brig. If they don't take a bullet trying."
" I get the point. Just don't get trigger happy."
It was obvious that he wasn't being allowed visitors. He didn't mind, not really. He had tried to talk to his friends before he had made his confession, but most of them had been too involved with the day-to-day drudgery to really listen to him. He understood that. He had left notes for his close friends, knowing that it was unlikely that he would survive long enough to worry about friends visiting him in the brig.
It was also obvious that the admiral was not telling everyone what he had said. He knew what had happened to Sharon, to the other Sharon. People had constantly harassed her, the guards, while hardly as bad as the Pegasus, hadn't been kind. Admiral Adama was a smart man, and a merciful man in a lot of ways. Gaeta knew, without even needing to question it, that the admiral wouldn't enjoy killing him, and certainly wouldn't allow him to be mistreated as badly as the Pegasus Cylon had been. He didn't want to die, not really, but he just couldn't trust that there wouldn't be some command that he couldn't resist. He didn't know, and that was the problem.
He didn't know anything, and that was the bigger problem. He had been successful in saying no, and the voice had pressed very hard at times. There had been many times that the pressure had been overwhelming. It had just been a screw up that he had lost the fleet over Kobol. He had been exhausted and frantic because it had never occurred to him that there could be another Cylon on the ship. But when the fleet was split and he was running interference for Tigh, it had been tempting. Tempting to just throw up his hands and scream frak it at the drunk bastard and then shoot him. Worse that he could almost hear cheering in his head whenever he thought that way. Something was going to happen, and that would trigger his doing something awful. Knowing what Sharon was, he had realized that she had been fighting temptation. Had she been under more pressure? He didn't know, but he understood how easily that it could be him, the next time.
She hadn't struggled all that much, really. She had to have been the one that blew up the water tanks. It was even possible that she had helped Shellie Godfrey escape. He had read the reports, had helped Dr. Baltar prepare them. Sharon had blackouts, where she did terrible things, before truly accepting her nature. It had worried him a great deal but he was certain he had not blacked out. With both the water tanks and the disappearance, he had carefully retraced his steps just to make sure he hadn't been responsible. Neither Sharon had ever hinted that they knew him, or about him. That seemed odd to him but God had dismissed it when he asked about it.
God dismissed almost everything he asked about. It was upsetting, and concerning. Of course, he supposed he was technically the one in the wrong, to question God on anything. Then again, God had intentionally arranged it for him to be raised among the enemy, by skeptics of all religion who had taken him to religious ceremonies to show him how to pick out inconsistencies. So he supposed that a just god would have more patience than what he had gotten.
He was positive his parents, his adoptive parents were dead. He was certain that if they were alive, it would have been used against him in some way. He had a feeling God wasn't one to fool with. Sharon proved that point when she gunned down the commander. A part of him was glad they were dead, so that they wouldn't be suffering as prisoners of the Cylons, and so they wouldn't have to know that the child they had raised as their own was the enemy.
The door to the brig opened. He was surprised to see Dr. Cottle of all people enter the room. Even more surprised to see the doctor dismiss the marine guard. He had helped write the protocols on handling Cylons. There was always supposed to be a guard.
Cottle casually lit up a cigarette. " You know, you are one giant pain in the ass, Lt. Gaeta."
" Excuse me?" He didn't get up. It was awkward, with the shackles, and while he knew that Cottle was a caring man, the attitude was often hard to take.
Cottle glared at him. " The test results are in. You've officially won the basket case of the year award and now you're my problem."
" What?" Gaeta felt sick to his stomach. " What are you talking about?"
" You're not a Cylon." Cottle smiled slightly. " That means you've passed. Twice. You're a human being. You're probably psychotic. I'm hopeful that drugs and therapy will help, and that you've just had a temporary vacation from sanity. Otherwise you're going to spend a lot of time bouncing off padded walls."
" I am not human. The test is wrong. You have to do it again." It was impossible, Gaeta thought, there was no way that he was human.
" Felix… Do you think that we don't understand? You're under unbearable stress. If you screw up and forget to carry the one, everyone dies. That's a lot to deal with, especially when you aren't a pilot and getting constant validation." Cottle pulled a bottle of pills out of his pocket. " I've got some medication. You're going to take one of these pills every few hours. We're going to try to talk about your issues and see if you can't be convinced to shut up about how you think you're a Cylon."
" I am a Cylon." Gaeta considered the possibilities. It was unlikely but possible…. " Dr. Baltar lied. To protect me. He thinks he owes me a favor. Because of how I was able to exonerate him when he was accused. He's lying."
Cottle chuckled. " Sure. Dr. Baltar, out of the kindness of his heart, falsified a test just that he could prove an admitted Cylon was human for no other reason than that he felt that he owed a debt to someone. Have you actually met Dr. Baltar? Been around him for longer than five minutes? Hell, he's crazier than you, he's just not dumb enough to have tried to kill himself by confessing to be a Cylon."
The problem was that he had a point. It was really a stretch to think that Gauis Baltar would do anything that put himself at risk. Still, unlikely as it was, it was the only explanation. " I am not mentally ill. I am a Cylon." He decided to go for broke. He pulled the shackles that bound him, until the metal twisted and broke. He let the chains fall to the floor. " Is it so unreasonable that I don't want to get every single person left that I care about killed?"
Cottle looked down at the chains and then at him. He shook another pill out of the bottle and held the two pills through the bars. " I'm willing to discuss the possibility after you're nicely drugged. I personally am not interested in dying."