Cassie wasn't quite sure what had transpired between the Doctor and Lt. Jake while she was working on Starbuck. When she had left, Jake was stumbling over answers to the Doctor's questions. The young man had sent her a pleading look as she wheeled Starbuck away. She would like to hope he was asking her to save his friend, but most likely he was begging for his own escape from the caustic doctor.

Salik's gruffness had never bothered her and Jake would have to get used to the man too if he wanted to continue to be a medic. Salik was an excellent teacher, once you got past his exterior. She had seen from her first moments in his Life Center with her broken arm that Salik wore his crusty demeanor as his armor to hide a heart that was far too sensitive for the career he had chosen. On that fateful day, even though the Life Center was packed with refugees who were wounded and dying, Salik had taken the time to check that her arm was healed properly. He had read her chart, then asked if she had been assigned a job in the fleet and if she wanted to try something new, he had need of help. She had shyly asked if he had read her designation on the chart. He hadn't even batted an eye as he stated, "Nothing like a crisis to begin anew."

She took the doctor's advice, as well as Starbuck's offer of finding new living accommodations. She reported to the Life Center and found a new center to her life. While other new technicians jumped and even cried when the doctor barked, she instead felt right at home. Her own father had been much like the doctor, crusty on the outside, softer than a mushie on the inside. She had encountered many such men in her former career, Cain and even Starbuck fitting the same description. Salik had seemed surprised at first that she was not intimidated by him. Once Salik determined she might have the skills and the perseverance to be a true doctor, he had stopped apologizing for his brusque manner and even softened some when she reminded him to. She learned who the man was and revered him even more, especially after one of her first assigned tasks when he had allowed her to join his staff in the critical care area of the life center. He had sent her to his office to, as he put it, tidy up his files.

His file cabinets were overflowing with hard copies of medical files, something normally stored electronically. She wondered as to why he had taken the effort to print out these files, that is until she opened the first one and began to read. The patient had expired. As did the patient in the next file, and the next. Every file was of a patient who had not made it in his care, files that were then normally archived or in an effort to improve computer data storage, simply deleted. He had instead printed off each one and if the java and food stains on the files were an accurate indication, studied them in detail. Each loss of a human being added another wound to his heart, and another layer to his crusty exterior. Despite the appearance of disorder to his files, they were arranged in a pattern of patients he thought he could have saved to those where there had been no hope. Even in these files he had made notes as to when he should have ceased efforts at saving the life and moved on to another patient that could be salvaged.

She secretly wondered if the filing task was his final test to see if she could handle the realities of her newly chosen field, but Salik had also been one of her most ardent advocates for her posting. He knew her past profession and was the first to point out the similarities. Despite his surly nature, he fully understood that caring for a patient meant more than just patching up their bodies so they could fight again. The files were his way of letting her into how he truly felt about being a doctor and how deeply he cared for his patients.

She already had suspected as much, especially when he corrected her. Early in her career he had caught her apologizing for his rudeness, and then fluffing a pillow and smiling sweetly and flirting harmlessly with an injured pilot. Salik had rudely interrupted the exchange and physically dragged her to his office, sealing the door. She had been confused, even more so when he didn't bark at her, but rather patiently explained.

"They're pilots. If you coddle them, they think they're dying. Not a one of them has had an easy life. You make it easy and they think they're done, and then they'll show you what done looks like. Done for them is the end of the line. You are their drill sergeant, not their sweetheart. Death is the mistress that they flirt with. You can't be sweet to them. You never let them think they're done with their duty."

She tried to live up to Salik's expectations, to earn his respect, and had settled into a less sweet and more motherly scolding attitude with the warriors. It had come in handy more than once with Starbuck as the man exasperated her more than a few times as a patient and as a partner. It was what she had adopted for his impromptu proposal. With the news that was delivered by Athena that Starbuck had actually sealed with the young gal from the Zakar, she may have misjudged that tactic. Gruff might be the right approach, but she just couldn't manage it and certainly not where Starbuck was concerned.

She thought she had put aside her feelings for Starbuck at the news of his sealing, but at her first glimpse of the landing bay it was Starbuck stumbling that drew her attention. She had to slam the door on her heart. This was not the time nor the place for that kind of care. Later if Rene didn't make it, Starbuck would need to be comforted, but for now the best thing she could do to help Starbuck was to get him into surgery and get the unknown technology out of his body before it could do more damage.

Not only did Cassie not have to the time to spare for Jake, she knew the questions the doctor was asking were long overdue. Sometime caring for a patient caused a bit more pain at first. Broken bones had to be set, despite the pain of the process. The Sewer Rats were broken and they would continue to live in pain if they didn't see to the wounds, internal as well as external.

She had been the first to recognize the damage that had been done to their bodies. It would be a long time before she would forget that night when Starbuck had brought in the young gal, a bruise under her eye, a shoulder swelling after being reset from a dislocation. The quick and incomplete scan just of the injury was frightening. The shoulder had sustained damage you would see on someone triple her age, or perhaps after a severe trauma. But that was not all. There were the multiple fractures that had healed without proper bone knitters, some as recent as a few sectons, others far older. It was sustained and persistent abuse. With each scan during the pregnancy, Cassie learned even more about the conditions on Dilmun as well as the lives of the refugees before the destruction.

While the scans told a disturbing tale, the copper squadron kept their story to themselves. The most open had been Rene, and she kept details vague, incidences unexplained. Cassie had hoped to find out more from Jake, but he had avoided the topic, claiming his life before the destruction was a common narrative of neglect and a youth misspent. Any questions about the Zakar and Dilmun ended up with him offering platitudes about how drastic times called for drastic measures. As far as the injuries, the most she learned was that Jake had set the majority of the broken bones for the Gutter Snipes. He'd been their doctor and their pharmacist, whether it was for pain or pleasure.

Despite the length of the tricky surgery, Salik was still grilling Jake when they returned with Starbuck. He stopped his interrogation just long enough to ask how the surgery went, and what were the complications.

Paye quirked an eyebrow at the young Lieutenant before given the details of their success. The wire and port had been easily removed. Once they cut the connection of the wire to the port in his arm, the wire detached itself from the heart and the lung tissue, curling up on itself like a carpenter's tape measure. They were able to catch the ends before it could do any damage to the surrounding tissue of the heart, but the lungs received a few lacerations before they could grasp the end and see that it was removed. That had taken surprisingly little time and effort.

It was the wire in Starbuck's central nervous system that had them concerned. Would it react the same, curl up and take a nerve bundle with it? A cut could mean paralysis, scarring could cause permanent nerve damage. Paye had moved slowly. Wilker had turned away to experiment on the wires removed. His tinkering had been what saved Starbuck's life. It was determined that a small electric jolt could disrupt the wire, freezing it so to speak, so that it could be cut from the port, but still think it was attached and therefore remain inert in his nervous system. Then it was a matter of picking the bits of metal out of the nerves, like pulling threads apart in a tapestry.

Cassie had tried not to flinch when the first wire was pulled free and Starbuck's hand had clenched and unclenched uncontrollably before finally relaxing. Paye held the wire up away from any tissue as it extended, reaching out like a snake attempting to remain in Starbuck's body.

"That is interesting," Dr. Wilker and Paye had both exclaimed while Cassie shivered and placed a hand on Starbuck's arm, thankful he could not hear their words.

"Doctors, can we be fascinated later, after we remove this from the patient." Her words had earned her an interesting smile from Paye as he called her a spoil sport once again, but he isolated the wire and began again removing the mesh of mechanics from Starbuck's nerves. Paye was cautious and precise, and they lost track of the time. It had taken over four centaurs before they were sealing their incisions.

Paye detailed the recovery for Salik, "There will be swelling, and there was some scarring, whether from what we have done here or what was done when it was inserted. He may not have his full range of motion for a while, but I'm optimistic it will return."

"How long?" Cassie had asked knowing that delivering this information would most likely be her job. "He's a pilot," she stated even though it was unnecessary.

"That will most likely be up to the patient if he follows the course of treatment and therapy I recommend, which we all know he won't. I am actually hoping a little paralysis might encourage him to take this seriously." She was shocked by his response. Paye was beginning to sound just like Salik, something she had never expected from the cavalier doctor.

"Relax, Cassiopeia, it should be temporary. Besides, he's too ill right now to want to jump right back in the cockpit. I suspect the only place he's going to be for a while is in our care. We are going to want to make sure that whatever bug that has caught a ride with him is expired before we let him go mingle with the other pilots. Should we begin on our other patient?"

"I want to give the medications more time to work. She's not stable. Some of the damage done to her body in the past is exacerbating the effects of the illness." Salik cast an angry glare towards Jake. "Cassie, could you help the Lieutenant with a toxicology report from a hair sample. I want to know if he's been truthful about the drugs she's ingested."

She watched Jake wince as he mumbled that he could do it on his own. Cassie looked to the sample in his hands, a long strand of blonde hair, enough to provide at least two, maybe even three yahrens worth of results on her past exposure to toxins and drug. The strands of hair would hopefully provide some answers to the damage done to her heart and why her body was not responding to the medications. Cassie joined Jake, placing a soft hand on his arm to try to lessen the sting of Salik's words. Jake looked to her, his eyes a well of pain and sorrow for a brief micron before he could bring up his armor once again. He whispered to Cassie, "We didn't think we'd live long so, might as well enjoy ourselves."

Salik's hearing was better than most as he picked up the words and shot back, "So shortening your lives was a good solution to the problem? Imbeciles!" Salik turned away to monitor Starbuck's vitals mumbling under his breath.

"Didn't have much to live for but more pain," Jake whispered the words and Cassie didn't know if they were for her benefit, or if the young man just had to have the last word, even if it was with himself.

She realized once again that both her professions had a similar goal, to ease suffering. She took the sample from Jake's hands, "I can do it. Go see to her."

For a brief moment his eyes held a trace of relief before he looked away and nodded, a gruff "thanks," coughed out under his breath before he fled to his friend's side. Cassie watched for a moment as Jake positioned himself between the two beds, taking Rene's hand first, but needing to reach out to touch Starbuck as well.

Entwined, the word came to her mind again as she tried to not correlate the word to the wires they had removed from Starbuck and were still within Rene. But was it not the same? The Copper Squadron was embedded within each other's lives, and if one was removed, what scarring would remain?

She had to recognize the symptoms of her own entanglements. Her life had definitely taken a strange turn, perhaps even more so in the last couple of yahrens, she mused. Here she was in the middle of the toxicology test on a strand of hair from the wife of her ex-lover while waiting for her past boyfriend to awaken from surgery while her current suitor held each of their hands. Perhaps in another time and place she would have felt a twinge of jealousy or anger, but what she felt instead was hard to put into words other than care. She cared for the wellbeing of these individuals, not just because they were her patients. She knew them, at least one of them, very well, and hoped to one day know the others. While many might find that odd, perhaps even tell her to cut those connections and move on, she found she could not. Instead she could feel the bonds tightening. She had no words to describe what this was.

As she waited for the results to finish on the sample from Rene, she brought up the records for both Starbuck and his wife. She read Rene's first, noting that she had indeed changed her status to sealed, Jake's name removed and Starbuck's in its place, but she had listed as kin every member of the Copper Squadron, even adding Boomer and Giles to the list. Jake was at the top, even before the children. Cassie sighed at that and brought up Starbuck's record. He had changed his status as well, but he listed only one kin, Rene. His list was short, too short, and she realized that she had helped to severe a connection that she should have strengthened instead. She brought up another screen, opening a communication to the Rising Star and the Senior ship, unsure which Chameleon would be calling his home at the moment. It was a simple message because how did one explain the changes that had happened in such a short time?

You need to come to the Galactica Life Center. Starbuck needs to know.

She had debated adding that Starbuck could be dying, but truth be told, the reckless pilot courted death nearly every moment of every cycle. That wasn't what prompted Cassie to call out Chameleon for keeping his secret. It was the life that Starbuck was making that demanded the truth. She looked over her shoulder to the monitor above Rene's pod. Two heart beats raced each other, one stable and strong, the other slower and skipping. If Starbuck lost those lives, he'd need help to keep his own.

The tox screen finished and the results were almost as frightening as the injuries Rene had received in the last two yahrens. Multiple incidences of opiate use spanned the two plus yahrens, approximate dates matching up too closely with the dates of her pregnancies. Carrying a child had not stopped her addictions. Amphetamines were mixed in with the opiates, as well as psilocybin, which shouldn't have registered unless it had been in large amounts. She scanned the report finding it easier to mark the times Rene had not consumed opiates and amphetamines rather than the times she had. She waved Salik over and he shook his head cursing as he looked at the report.

"Well that explains a lot. I'm going to assume it was worse before the destruction when there was easier access to a ready supply." Salik cast a glance to Jake before speaking to Cassie again. "Is that why he's interested in my medical texts or is that why he's turned down your offer to get him training? Doesn't trust himself? Can you get him to agree to a sample?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe." She answered all the doctor's questions with the simple reply. Salik easily interpreted her answer.

"I want him monitored while he's here." They were words that didn't need to be said. She had no intention of leaving Jake on his own. "I need to check on the others. Call me immediately if there are changes. I won't be long. We will wake up Lt. Starbuck when I get back."

Before Salik had taken a full step into the other ward, the tall dark friend of Jake's had halted his progress. She wondered at the conversation as Salik pointed to the contamination coverings before moving away from the pilot. She watched as Nik stripped off his jacket and donned the gear before stepping into the room.

"You shouldn't be here," Jake barked before Cassie could ask, albeit in a politer manner, what the pilot was doing there.

"We need an update, and you need sleep." Nik took the steps towards his friend, looking down upon Rene. "How's Starbuck?"

"Alive," Jake answered abruptly. Cassie got up to offer more details, but Nik held up a hand that told her to stay.

"Still out?" And Rene?"

Jake shook his head and offered no reply. It was Dr. Paye that answered his question. "We aren't making progress. The bacterium keeps staying one step ahead of us, plus the damage of the yahrens of drug abuse has weakened her heart. We may have to put her in cryo-stasis until we can isolate the infection and find the right combination of medications. An added benefit is that cryo may slow the growth of the cylon technology inside her."

Nik nodded to the information before stating, "So it's going to be a while."

"Or too fraking fast," Jake answered his friend.

Nik looked over his shoulder to Cassie before turning back to his friend. "You need some sleep and everyone needs an update. The kids need you. Time for you to go."

"No! I'm staying, I need to be here!" Jake's voice rose, and with it the alarms on Rene's pod. Rene's head rolled towards the voices, her eyes blinking as she weakly raised a hand. The monitor over her pod beeped a short alarm at the rise in heart rate at the effort. "Baby?" Jake tried to go to her, but his friend Nik firmly pushed him aside, taking a hold of his arm and backing him towards the door of the ward.

"She'll quit on you before she'll quit on me. You know that! Besides, what can you do if you're exhausted and sick yourself?" Nik lowered his voice to a whisper as he leaned in and spoke. "Go take care of yourself so you can take care of all of us. We need you. The kids need you. I need you."

Jake hesitated in his friend's grip, and Cassie came to place her own hand on Jake's chest. "I promise we will get you if there are any changes, but he's right. Your temperature is rising and you need rest."

He looked to Rene first, then to Starbuck before he turned back to Cassie and nodded grudgingly. Nik let go of him without another word and headed to Rene's pod. Jake's eyes followed his friend and Cassie reached up to turn Jake's face away to meet her gaze.

"I promise. I will come get you if there is a change." Jake shut his eyes for a moment at her words, before opening them and giving a tired nod. Cassie continued, "Besides, you've been through your own enemy interrogation today. He wants a sample from you too." She nodded her head towards Salik as Jake's eyes hardened and his lips went tight. It almost told her more than she wanted to know about what she might find in his tox screen. "You may want to rest up before the next round of lectures."

He sighed heavily before he nodded and went to turn from the room. She found it hard to watch him go with those as her last words. He had done an admirable job caring for his team. What Apollo had said was true; they might not have lived without Jake's expertise. "You're a good medic," she called before he could open the door. "We need you."

He paused, his spine straightening slightly, but he didn't turn back. She waved to Giselle out in the other ward, pointing to Jake, and the young med tech headed in the Lieutenant's direction, a biomonitor in her hands. Cassie had to turn away from the scene before she could verify that Jake indeed got the care he needed as another alarm sounded on Rene's pod. Her heart rate was rising while her blood pressure was falling. To make matters worse, the rhythm was not steady, skipping erratically.

The dark lieutenant leaned down by Rene's head, whispering into her ear. Her eyes were wide and frightened as she looked to her friend.

Paye said to Cassie, "We are going to have to do this soon, so we can isolate the infection and whatever else is going on inside her body. She is too weakened to fight this off on her own. Prepare to lower the temperature on her pod." Paye reached to move the warrior out of the way so they could seal Rene's pod.

Nik spoke up at the touch. "Just give me a centon!" He refused to move as he reached for Rene's cheek, guiding her eyes to his. "How's the party going? Mind if I join or is this an exclusive event?"

Cassie watched as Rene shook her head and tried to form words, but they didn't reach her lips.

"It's a pretty quiet party though, don't you think? I'll see what I can do about livening things up with some music, okay?"

Rene gave her friend a slight nod and he smiled, "Good. What's my name?"

Rene's voice was soft, but there was no hesitation as she replied, "Nik."

The young man smiled, and he didn't look as dark as he did before. "Good. Do you know where you are?" She nodded.

"I need to hear your words."

Rene struggled to bring the words forward in her mind. Her heart rate rose for a beat or two, then skipped and a low beat finally followed the silence as Rene struggled to form the words. Her brow creased as she was able to utter the first syllable, "Galac…"

Cassie called out in warning, "Nik, we don't have much time."

"Okay, okay, good enough." Nik glanced quickly from her to the monitor where her heart raced and an alarm sounded as her pressure dipped again. He turned his attention back to Rene. "Relax, baby. They're talking about putting you in deep freeze until they can figure out what's got a hold of you. I thought I'd give you a little send off, okay?" He pulled a round object from his pocket, placing it near her head. He pressed a button, and music poured from the device, echoing loudly through the room. "One of your favorites, am I right?"

The beat was loud, the words nearly screamed as the guitars wailed, but the rhythm was a steady four four time, the same steady beat a heart should hold. Nik tapped out the rhythm against the side of the pod as he mouthed along to the words of the song. After half a centon, Nik snapped his fingers to get Cassie's attention, then pointed to the monitor. Rene's heart rate had lowered and was holding steady.

"That's it, baby. Find that beat." She closed her eyes, her brow creasing in concentration. He continued to tap out the steady rhythm against the metal at the head of her pod.

The door to the ward opened and Dr. Salik was there shouting, "What the frak is going on in here!"

Rene's heart skipped a beat but as Nik reached out and pressed a button on the device, another song began to play just as loudly. He pointed again to the monitor snapping his fingers along to the beat.

Salik stepped closer to the life pod, adjusted the flow of medications before replying, "Interesting technique. Let's hope it keeps working."

Nik nodded. "You gotta give them a reason to live. She likes it loud, don't ya, baby?" Her eyes opened and fixed on her friend as she nodded. "That's right, baby. You don't get to quit yet. That's cheating."

She mumbled to him, "I don't cheat."

"Of course you don't. Don't need to, right? Only losers cheat."

Nik grinned as Rene said in a stronger voice, "I'm not a loser."

"That's right, I am. And a slacker too. Need you around to make me look bad."

Salik reached out a hand to the young man's shoulder giving it a squeeze before he spoke to Dr. Paye. "Let's wake, Lieutenant Starbuck. Although I have no idea how he can sleep through this."

"Must be on drugs, everybody else is," Paye replied wryly.

"I'm old, son," Salik said to Nik, "do me a favor and lower the volume just a little, but by all means, keep it upbeat."

"Party pooper," Nik replied, but he did take the volume down to a more comfortable level.