"There's nothing wrong with her, Captain." Cottle told Kara as they stood in sickbay a week later, looking down at the baby as she laid on the examination table.

"Obviously there is something wrong with her." Kara sighed heavily as she rubbed her daughter's leg in an attempt to soothe her. "I can't get her to stop crying."

"Babies cry." Cottle told her simply as he puffed on his cigarette.

"Could you put that frakking thing out?" She hissed at him and then watched as he complied with the order/request and ground the butt out in a nearby bedpan. "And don't try and give me that condescending doctor-to-new-mother crap again! Babies do not just cry. They cry when something is wrong. She is crying because something is wrong." She then added. "She wasn't doing this before, it started about a week ago."

"Yes, I know when it started. The reason I know is because you've been bringing her here to sickbay ever since, eight times in the last six days. And we've run every test on her that there is." He said in irritation. "As I've told you the other seven times, there's nothing wrong with her. Aside from the fact that she's half Cylon and ten days old but looks to be about four months old, she's a perfectly healthy little girl."

Kara looked at the baby. Her face was red and wet, and she was sobbing loudly. A nurse came over to the table and began trying to put a digital thermometer in her ear. The baby however, kept moving her head or pushing it away so that the nurse couldn't get an accurate reading.

Kara kept one eye on her as she turned back to Cottle. "So why is she crying?"

The nurse just chuckled in unsolicited response. "Babies cry."

"Was I asking you?" Kara snapped at her. "Okay, I'm just giving fair warning………the next time I hear someone say that, I'm not gonna be held responsible for my actions."

The nurse looked at Cottle in indignation and again began trying to take the baby's temperature, as she in turn pushed it away again and began to wail.

Kara slammed her hand down on the table and glared at the nurse. "She doesn't want you to do that! So help me gods, you try to put that thing in my child's ear one more time and I'll find another place for you to stick it."

The nurse huffed and then walked over to the other side of sickbay. Instantly the child began to quiet down.

"Where the hell is Nurse Coaker? I like her." Kara rasped. "This other one is pissing me off."

"Seems like a lot of things are pissing you off lately." Cottle muttered. "Nurse Coaker is not on duty at the moment. We do occasionally give our medics time to sleep." He looked up to her face and gave her the once-over. "Speaking of which, when was the last time you did?"

"I'll sleep when she stops crying."

"She can't cry twenty four hours a day, she must stop sometime." Cottle pointed out. "But even when she is crying, why don't you get someone else to watch her while you go somewhere to rest?"

"I don't need to go somewhere or get someone else to watch her. Lee watches her while I try to sleep." Kara rubbed her temple in frustration. "But I'm not losing sleep because the sound of her crying keeps me awake. I can't sleep because I don't know what to do; I don't know how to help her. She won't tell me what's wrong!" The baby let out a loud blubber and Kara groaned as she stroked her tiny hand. "Honey, come on. You're driving Mommy crazy here."

"Maybe she doesn't know what's wrong." Cottle suggested. "Or maybe nothing is wrong. She's not sick, it's nothing medical."

"Then why—?"

"She's a very perceptive girl." Cottle surmised. "Maybe she's feeling the effects of the stress in her new environment."

"What stress? There's no stress!" Kara shouted and then looked down to the table as the baby began to bawl incessantly. "No, sweetheart, don't cry." She picked her up and rubbed the crown of her head. "Mommy wasn't yelling at you, I was yelling at the dumb-ass doctor."

"Yeah." Cottle rasped under his breath as he started to walk away. "That sure is one lucky kid."

Kara shot him a dirty look at the sarcastic quip. She then kissed the pouting, whimpering child's forehead and began to bounce her in her arms.


"Hi." Lee said guardedlywhen he stepped through the hatch of their quarters, smiling awkwardly as he closed the door and leaned against it. "How was your afternoon?"

"How was my afternoon? Isn't it still happening?" Kara questioned in surprise as she reclined exhaustedly on the couch, the baby in her lap, her back resting against Kara's chest. "Wait, what time is it?"

"20:35."

"Frak, it couldn't be." She sighed as she rose from the couch and put the baby in her crib. "It's amazing how much time tragic frustration can take up." She said as she buried her face in her hands.

"Um, some people wanted to come." He croaked out in fear. "So, I………..let them."

"Okay." She said softly, looking over at the door in worry.

He opened it again and Kara looked out into the hall to see Cally, Dee, Seelix and Racetrack standing there.

"Hi, Starbuck." Dee waved. "We didn't want to overwhelm you, but when Captain Adama asked us to come and help, he made it sound kinda urgent."

"What do you mean 'when he asked you to come and help'?" Kara asked, looking at Lee accusingly.

"We also just wanted to finally see the baby." Cally added hesitantly. "Hope you don't mind."

"No." Lee responded as he gestured for them to enter. "We don't mind at all."

"I wouldn't be so sure, Captain." Kara hissed at him, pointing to the other side of the room. He reluctantly walked there and she joined him, tugging on his jacket sleeve. "What the hell did you do, ask every woman on the ship who isn't me to come help?"

"We're teetering on the edge here, Kara." He whispered harshly in reply. "Neither one of us is finding this very easy. And you won't ask anyone for help."

"I ask." She retorted. "I ask Cottle for help, he just won't give me any that I can use."

"Yeah." He shot back. "And now he's banned you from sickbay."

"He did what?" She asked angrily.

"You've been there nine times since they released her." He pointed out. "And apparently, you're making the nurses cry."

She scoffed. "That's an exaggeration. I made one nurse cry." She raised her index finger to act as visual aid of the correction. "And it's my contention that she was emotionally unstable beforehand, so you really can't blame that on me."

"Mm-hmm." He winked at her. "Yeah, well, we can't keep going like we've been going. Seelix and Dee had little brothers and sisters, Racetrack had nine kids in her family, and Cally was gonna study pediatric dentistry after her tour was over. They know things that we don't because we've never been around little kids."

"We just want to help, Starbuck." Cally piped up.

"Well, that's nice of you." Kara responded without looking at her. "But we're fine."

"We're not fine." Lee countered to the four other women. "She cries, and we have no idea why."

"Well," Seelix interjected. "Babies cry."

Kara turned around and narrowed her eyes at her. "You have no idea the world of hurt that you have in store for yourself if you say that again."

As Seelix gulped loudly, Dee came over and looked at the baby as she laid in her crib. She wasn't wailing like she had been earlier in the evening, but she was still fussing slightly as she reached up to try and grab the Viper parts floating above her head. "She cries in the afternoon, right?"

"And into the evening." Kara finished in surprise.

"And the rest of the day she's fine?"

"I don't know about 'fine'. I mean, she still cries a lot." Lee cut in. "But she doesn't cry non-stop like she does in the afternoon."

"Does it help when you rock her, bounce her?" Seelix asked.

"Yeahhhhhhh." Kara whispered cautiously.

"She's got colic." Dee stated simply.

"Colic." Kara repeated. "Wait……..that's a real thing?"

Dee chuckled slightly. "Yeah. What did you think it was?"

Kara shrugged. "A rumor, an old wives tale, something that people told crazed parents when they couldn't give them a real reason why their kids were crying."

"No." Dee replied. "It's a real thing."

"Did Cottle mention colic to you?" Lee inquired to Kara.

"He mentioned it, but he said it in passing, like it wasn't a big deal."

"Cottle's a doctor; he doesn't see it as a big deal, because it's harmless." Dee corrected. "When he told you that there was nothing wrong with her, he was speaking in medical terms. And medically speaking, he's right. She's uncomfortable, but she'll be growing out of it pretty soon. Then she'll be fine. No damage done."

"And there's also really nothing that you can do to stop it." Seelix added. "Just be extra nice to her, play with her, babies with colic like it when you make a fuss over them."

"So that's it, just colic?" Lee asked.

"Maybe." Cally said as she looked down into the crib. "But you said that she cries at other times too, when she's not hungry or needing to be changed?"

"Yeah."

Cally smiled down. "Hey, baby. How are you? You wanna suck on my finger?" She then put her pinky in the baby's mouth.

"Cally!" Kara shouted, walking towards her. "Don't put your finger in her mou—." Before she could finish her sentence, the child was sucking away insistently.

"Don't worry." Cally laughed as the baby was kicking her legs excitedly. "I washed my hands before I came here." She moved her finger a bit and a thoughtful look came on her face. "Yeah, that's what I thought." Cally took her pinky away. "She's teething."

Kara waved her hand in dismissal of the assessment. "She couldn't possibly be. She's only—." She looked over at Lee.

"Eleven days old." He answered.

"Yeah, and even if we went by the whole 'ten times faster' thing, that means she's only a little under four months."

"Some babies can start to teethe at three months." Cally told them. "It's unusual, but with everything else, it's not surprising that she's getting teeth a little faster than most babies."

Kara looked at Lee totally dumbfounded.

"Don't look at me." Lee said in response to the look. "I didn't know that either."

"Okay." Kara said. "Do we have to just put up with that too?"

"Yeah, actually. But there are a few things that you can do. Ambrosia helps."

Kara snorted. "I'm not giving an eleven day old baby liquor."

"I didn't say give it to her." Cally laughed. "Just rub some on her gums. It'll be rough for a while, until she gets all of her baby teeth in……………but from what I felt in her mouth that might not be too far in the future."

Seeing an opportunity to get some answers, Kara went on. "She has a— I don't know that you'd call it a rash, but it's something, on her stomach." She walked over to the crib and pointed at it.

Racetrack, who had stayed quiet and against the wall the whole time, spoke up. "It's probably the fabric of the shirt. My brother used to get skin irritations because the clothes that we would put him in were too coarse for his skin." She hesitantly walked over and looked down. She then reached for the shirt, but stopped and sucked in a gasp when the child instead grabbed her finger and giggled up at her. "She's beautiful, Starbuck." She whispered poignantly.

"I know." Kara smiled.

Racetrack then traced the cloth and gestured for Kara to feel it too. "It feels soft enough to us, but a baby's skin is different, more sensitive." Racetrack then gave Kara and Lee a heartrending look. "You don't—, you don't want anything to be too………rough on her." She choked out.

"Thank you." Lee whispered in gratitude.

"So we're not doing anything wrong?" Kara asked softly, needing reassurance.

"Of course not. This is just normal baby learn-as-you-go stuff." Dee answered. "Why, what did you guys think was happening?"

"I guess maybe we thought she was depressed because she looked at the two of us and realized exactly what a mess she'd been thrown into." Kara laughed in self-deprecation as she rubbed her temples.

"Just give yourself some time." Seelix told them. "I'm sure everything will work out for you and………………" She moved her hand in a circular, questioning motion.

"……….the baby." Lee responded, confused as to what she was asking.

Dee sighed. "Listen, we didn't want to be the ones to jump on you about this, since you have so much on your plate already. But it's been ten days, even the Commander is asking about it."

"Asking about what?" Kara inquired, equally confused. "Ten days since what?"

Cally laughed incredulously. "You guys do know that you haven't named her yet, right?"

Kara sighed and covered her eyes in shame. "Oh my gods."

Lee sank down heavily into the nearest chair as the realization hit him. "Oh my gods."

Kara turned to Lee and then groaned loudly as she looked up to the ceiling. "This kid is gonna be so screwed up!"


Kara was on the flight deck the next afternoon when she saw the President's shuttle docking. She smiled when the hatch opened and the ramp was lowered, but it quickly dropped as she saw a man she'd only seen in passing before exit first and then turn around to pull out a wheelchair. The President was sitting in it.

Kara walked over to the shuttle. "Hello, Madam President." She called.

"Captain Thrace, hello." Roslin answered back as the wheels of the chair finally hit the deck. "Do you know Donald?" She pointed to the man.

"We've seen each other, but I don't think we've ever been formally introduced." Kara reached over and shook his hand.

"I can't have Billy doing things for me anymore." Roslin smiled. "That is below a Vice-President."

Kara smiled back. "I have a feeling Billy would darn your socks if you ever asked him to. Even now."

"Loyalty is a wonderful thing; I hope I've earned it."

"Loyalty is earned when someone trusts a person. I'd say you've earned trust in spades."

Roslin looked at Donald. "Would you give us a moment, please?" Donald nodded and moved about fifty feet away, Roslin looked back to Kara. "It's good to see you out and about, Captain."

"You too, ma'am." Kara replied, careful to not look at her new mode of transportation.

"Out……..but not totally about." Roslin laughed. "But don't worry, it's just temporary." She took in a stuttering breath as she patted the wheels of the chair. "I have good days and bad days. Today just……….wasn't a good day. Tomorrow will be better."

"I have no doubt." Kara smiled slightly.

"I've been coming to sickbay almost every day to see Cottle, he tells me that you've definitely been there." Roslin teased. "But I haven't seen you anywhere else. You used to be a near-permanent fixture on this flight deck."

Kara looked at the Vipers that stood nearby. "Yeah, I've been—. Things have been a little crazy lately. And also…………"

"What?" Roslin asked softly.

"I'm not very good at balancing things, you know?" She sighed. "I get focused on one thing, and everything else just kinda falls to the wayside."

"Well, it's an important thing, what you're focused on." Roslin told her. "But hopefully someday soon you'll realize that you can have some sort of balance between professional and personal."

"Yeah?"

"Well, I'm not speaking from experience." Roslin laughed. "I managed to be Secretary of Education of the Twelve Colonies, but if you knew anything about my personal life……….Well, let's just say you wouldn't give my wisdom any credence."

Kara looked at the Viper in front of her with a look of intense longing. "I do miss it."

"Well, you're very good at it." Roslin chuckled. "You think you're ready to go back?"

"No, not yet. But it's a step in the right direction that I came on deck today." Kara smiled. "Lee finally got Laura to go to sleep so I just thought that I'd—."

"What did you say?" Roslin asked in shock, interrupting her.

"Well, don't worry, ma'am." Kara calmed her. "I mean, he's with her now. We're not quite so bad as to leave her al—."

"No, I……….what did you call her?"

Kara got a surprised look on her face and glanced around the deck. "Has no one spoken to you today, Madam President? Not Lee or the Commander?"

"No." Roslin responded. "I've been meeting with the Quorum on Cloud Nine all day. I haven't seen anyone from the Galactica."

Kara sighed and looked right at the President. "We named her Laura. It was Lee's idea, but I thought it was a good one." She began to get worried when she saw the numb look on the President's face. "I hope that doesn't bother you."

"Actually." Roslin finally smiled up at her. "I'm feeling the exact opposite of bothered right now. I'm really………I'm very honored."

"Yeah, well, I really loved that Blackbird." Kara deadpanned.

Roslin laughed loudly, she then got quiet as she looked to her hands resting in her lap. It was almost a full minute before she spoke again. "I can't even count the number of times I almost had the pregnancy terminated. Every day it seemed that I would pick up the phone to order it, but I'd put the phone back down. One day I actually did place the call, and the guards were halfway to the cell before they got word that I had rescinded the order." She looked back up at Kara. "Something always stopped me."

Kara looked back at her seriously. "I'm not trying to………….but what stopped you?"

"I just couldn't do it. I knew that it would be wrong." Roslin told her honestly. "I'm not talking about medical ethics or morality or political ideologies. Just in this particular case, I felt that it wouldn't be the right thing to do."

"Why did you feel that way? I mean everybody else thought—."

"It was a selfish reason really." Roslin answered pensively looking away from Kara. "The President should be concerned with the safety of her people, protecting them at all costs. But if I had been thinking about that, I would have done it."

"But you didn't because……….?"

"I want to beat the Cylons." She chuckled sheepishly. "And I know that I'm not a military strategist, but I don't ever see that happening using guns and fighter jets. They're just too strong." She then looked back, right at Kara. "But your daughter, Laura, she's…………yeah, I know she's half Cylon, but she's also half human. And I want the human side to win out. That wouldn't have happened if I had been the one to end her life." She looked to her hands again. "So that's why I didn't do it."

"Well, I'm glad that you were, um, selfish." Kara smiled slightly.

Roslin got hesitant. "I know that you and I have never—." She looked at Kara with regret. "With Captain Apollo and the Commander, I seem to…………we have an understanding. But you and I have never had time—."

"I understand you." Kara corrected gently. "Sometimes I'm astonished at the things you do, but I understand why you do them."

Roslin smiled. "I wish that we had time to—."

"I wish that too. But you're not gonna be around for very long, I get that." Kara then looked back to the hangar exit. "Laura's probably not gonna be around for very long either, I get that too." She bit her lip slightly. "But you know what I've come to realize these last couple of months, Madam President?"

"What's that?"

Kara looked back to her. "It's not the length of time that matters."

Roslin opened her mouth to speak again, but Kara stopped her with a shake of the head. "I think that might be a good place to leave it, Madam President. Too much sentimentality is very draining." She laughed. "And I'm a new mother who hasn't slept well recently. And you………….. well, you need to save your strength."

Roslin nodded at her in agreement. "Donald?" She called to the man. "I'm ready to go now." Donald came over and started to move the President towards the exit.

"I'll see you soon, ma'am." Kara told her as she was wheeled away.

Cally had been standing nearby and walked up to Kara as soon as the President left. They stood there looking at the planes. They didn't speak for a bit, not ignoring each other, but just enjoying that they didn't really have to say anything.

But Kara needed to talk about something that was eating away at her, and Cally knew that. She also knew that the great Starbuck wasn't going to bare her soul without a little prompting.

"That was a good thing that you did, naming her after the President." Cally told her firmly.

Kara smiled sadly. "We wanted her to know that she made an impact, and will continue to even after she's gone."

Cally shook her head slightly. "No, I meant it was a good thing for the baby."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. With a name like that, she's off to a good start." Cally smiled widely at her. "Of course, she caught a lucky break the day she was born, getting a mother like you."

Kara nodded sadly and with a touch of shame as she looked to the floor. "Cally, I think that there is a truth that you, and Lee, and the Commander, and the President, and well, basically everybody in this fleet are going to have to come to terms with. And it is this: I am going to be………………..a TERRIBLE mother."

"No, you won't." Cally responded simply.

"Cally, I couldn't even get her to stop crying, I didn't even know why she was crying. You guys came in and had it figured out in ten seconds."

"But that's just because we've been around babies before. And because we could look at the whole thing objectively."

Kara continued. "Did you know that I went six hours without feeding her the first day? Because who eats more often than that? BABIES, Cally, that's who. Babies eat more often than that." She sighed deeply. "My whole life, I've tried not to do things that I knew I couldn't do better than everybody else. And now this is the most important thing I am ever gonna do and I'm frakking it up! What the hell was everybody thinking? I don't have a shred of maternal instinct in me."

"Of course you do. You teach the nuggets, you're in charge of the air group from time to time." Cally pointed across the deck to where Hotdog and Kat were doing their pre-flights. "You take care of them, you keep them safe, you tell them what to do, and they all do it."

"Yeah, Cally, because they're afraid of me!"

"Well, all children are afraid of their mothers to a certain degree." Cally joked as she cocked her eyebrows.

"I don't want fear to be what Laura feels when I'm around. And most children are afraid of getting lectured or grounded. They're not afraid of getting punched or thrown against a bulkhead or beaten."

"You won't do any of those things."

"How can you say that?" Kara nearly shouted. "I did it to Tigh, I did it to Racetrack, I did it to Leob—…………I did it to others."

"Yeah, butthey deserved it." Cally reassured.

"Well, who doesn't deserve it? I'm sure there were times I deserved it when my mother beat the crap out of me, does that make it right? In every child's life, there comes a time when they deserve it. When they're being rude or ungrateful or just acting like a total frakking brat. And what am I supposed to do then, when the way my mother brought me up is telling me that it's okay to hurt her?"

Cally sighed and looked at her in sympathy. "As long as you do what's best—."

"What's best? Cally, my heart jumps every time I see Laura, with joy is what I'm trying to say. Something happens that I can't explain, that I've never felt before. But there is also a part of my brain that keeps jumping too. And I'm ignoring it, but I know it's still there." She started to choke on her words and took in several shallow breaths. "And that part of my brain is telling me that maybe for us to have done what was best; we should have gotten rid of her the second we got back from Kobol. And I hate that there is one molecule in me that still feels that way…………….but I keep thinking about Admiral Cain."

"Cain?" Cally asked in surprise. "Why the hell would you think about her? She would have had the pregnancy terminated without a second thought, callously, without regret. She would have put it on her 'list of things to do today', and then placed the order like she was asking for a cup of coffee."

"Yes, because it would've been what she thought was best. And I'm not forgiving it, but everything that she did was for the best. Of course it was only for the best in her paranoid psychotic little brain, but still, how can I fault her for that?" Kara looked back to the Vipers. "Everything that she did, she thought was for the greater good. And look at the horrible things she was capable of because of that."

Cally smiled and looked to the planes as well. "I think you just identified the way that you're different from your mother and Cain; I don't think either of those women ever stopped to wonder if what they were doing was wrong."

Kara turned back to her. "Cally, in spite of everything that I feel for her, what if I'm just not capable of doing this?"

"That's just it, Starbuck. You're not doing it by yourself, and I'm not just referring to Captain Adama. You're right; something is happening that none of us can explain." She looked over to where Chief Tyrol was working underneath a Viper and spoke with tortured regret in her voice. "I killed Boomer, and I was glad that I did it. They put me in the brig for thirty days, thirty days for killing her. And the whole time I was in there, I didn't feel remorse. All I felt was resentment that I was in there at all. 'They shoulda given you a medal for popping that toaster' That's what they would say to me, and I believed it." She looked back to Kara. "And now me and Racetrack, Miss 'fill hell up with every toaster son of a bitch I find', we're giving you advice on how to take care of a child that we all know is half-toaster. It's unthinkable, and yet we don't question it. Something is happening here, and I know that you and Apollo thought that you were the only ones that felt it, but you're not."

"I'm starting to realize that." Kara smiled.

"We still feel all the bitterness and hate and fear that we used to, and we're still more than entitled to feel it, but we don't let it consume us. It's like something kinda whitewashed it. And I know that it's your baby that did that. And all I can feel is gratitude for that when I look at her."

"Yeah?" Kara questioned as she smiled.

"Uh-huh." Cally smiled back. "Worry about and fear the little stuff, Starbuck; feedings, changings, getting her to sleep. Because the big things will be taken care of. One day you'll find out that the things you fear you are capable of doing, you really aren't capable of doing. Until then, something else has got your back."

Kara studied her from head to toe. "What the frak do you know?" She teased, grinning widely. "What are you………like twenty?"

From across the deck, Chief Tyrol called out to her. "Cally, stop bothering the Captain and get over here. I need your help with this converter."

Cally looked over at him and then back to Kara as she smiled. "Gotta go."

"Yeah." Kara whispered to no one in particular as she watched Cally walk away. "Thanks."

TBC