Chapter Five

Lee had debated not going to his session. Maybe what he needed was an out from military life though? This could be it. Duty pushed him out of the bed and into the shower. He knocked on Athelis' door at 9am promptly.

"Reporting as ordered, Doctor Athelis." He announced from the doorway.

Athelis moved from behind his desk, smiling. "It's Agron and I hope you don't feel you were ordered. I was under the impression you weren't happy with how things were going in your life."

Lee looked at him, questions in his eyes. "Does anyone like how things are going?"

Agron smiled more broadly. "It's the optimist in me. I heard you are also an optimist."

"Getting right to the point, are we? You've heard a lot." Lee asked bluntly.

"Why not? It's my job to get to know my clients and you didn't answer."

"Not a patient? I'm a client? I suppose I used to be optimistic, but things have changed." Lee mused.

"Why?" Agron ignored the first question.

Lee was stunned. "Excuse me? Look around you."

"Of course, there's the obvious, but it was only recently that you lost your optimism."

Lee's shock was turning to anger. "Look, I don't know I was ever all that optimistic. Let's not play games. What do you want from me? What do I need to tell you to be done with this charade?" Lee wasn't sure who was talking. It didn't sound like him.

Agron remained as calm as ever. "Ok, no games. I want to know what's going on in your head. So tell me."

Lee sank into a chair. "I don't know what's going on in my head. If I did, I'd stop it. I don't exactly like it."

"Are you open to various treatments?"

Lee growled, much like his father. "I'm not interested in a drugged existence."

Agron shook his head. "No. I don't imagine you are and I wasn't suggesting drugs at this time. I was referring to mild sedation or hypnosis."

Lee thought for a moment. "I don't think hypnosis will work. I've been trained…" He didn't finish his statement. It sounded arrogant to him.

"Good point and I agree. There is a mild sedative that I can administer that would relax you."

"So would a good frak." Lee couldn't believe his own ears and a blush crept across his cheeks.

Agron laughed. "Well, I hope the offer wasn't for me, but I suppose I could find a more suitable and willing partner if you'd like. If that's all you need…"

Lee laughed. It was loud and pure and it felt good. He looked at Agron and felt that maybe the man could actually help him. "You need a vein?" He held out an arm.

BSG

Adama ran to the deck. He'd been stunned to hear that Lee and Athelis were en route to Galactica. He hadn't expected his son to return for at least a week. Lee had earned that much of a rest. Two days didn't seem like enough.

He arrived at the deck at the same time as Major Cottle. It confused him and he didn't like being out of the loop. "Why are you here?"

"Athelis called me. He wants tests done on Apollo. He said he's been experiencing severe headaches and that I should meet them."

"Why didn't he tell me this?" Adama was furious he hadn't been informed of this development.

"Why would I know?" Cottle pondered sarcastically.

The two men waited for the shuttle to open. Adama was stunned at his son's appearance. Athelis was supporting Lee, whose head hung low. As they navigated the ramp, Lee struggled to look up. He was pale and drawn. Adama jumped to his son's side and took over for Athelis. "What the frak happened?" he demanded.

"Let's get Lee to life station and then we'll talk." Athelis pleaded. Lee was oblivious to what was going on.

Once Cottle had assumed control of Lee, Adama turned on Athelis. "What happened?"

"Is there someplace private we can talk?"

As he asked, Kara rushed in. "I just heard about Lee. What the frak's going on?"

Adama assumed a command tenor. "Come with us. Athelis is about to share." The three took over a small conference room nearby.

Athelis was a bit unnerved by the glares he was receiving from the Admiral and the hotshot pilot. He coughed, sucked up his courage and began. "We decided to use a mild sedative to relax Lee so he could open up. He was having a hard time expressing what was going on inside his head."

"Go on." Adama ordered.

"It took some time, but gradually, he began to describe another presence in his mind…"

Adama cut him off. "You thought it was a suicidal subconscious."

"At first, but as he said more, my opinion changed."

"To what?" Kara didn't like where any of this was going.

"I began to think perhaps he'd developed a split personality."

Both Adama and Kara were too stunned to react.

"I began to treat it as such. I worked to draw out this other personality. He fought it at first. I've never seen that before. Typically, personalities don't acknowledge sharing the same body. Lee fought to keep the other dormant. He knew it was inside him."

"Lee's a warrior." Adama countered. Kara nodded in agreement.

"You missed my point. Personalities don't know of the existence of the others in the same body. Lee does."

"Ok, so. Did you bring this other Lee out?" Kara asked, not buying the doctor's story.

Athelis pulled out a small tape recorder. "Listen!" He pushed the play button.

"Lee, why are you fighting?"

"Don't let him out. He's evil."

"How do you know?"

"I have been fighting him for months. I know he's evil. Why do you think I fight him?"

"Ok, but perhaps you should let me be the judge of how evil he is? Let him out."

Athelis stopped the tape. "You'll note the terror in his voice next." He resumed playing the tape.

"But what if I can't regain control? It will mean an airlock. Don't you see? He's making me do things. He wants ultimate control!"

"We can force him back, Lee. You have to trust me. Let him out."

There was silence on the tape and then Lee's voice spoke, but yet it wasn't Lee's voice. It was cold and mechanical.

"God's will has been done. We are now in control. I am Thirteen."

"That's not funny. That's not Lee." Kara demanded, rising from the table.

Athelis remained calm. "It is Lee's trapped personality. I'm sure both of you have come to the same conclusion I did." He paused. "Lee's alternate personality is a Cylon."

Adama's head sank to his chest. "No. This can't be right. Lee hates the Cylons as much as anyone, maybe more. He'd never adopt that personality."

Athelis considered Adama's words. "He might if he truly believed they will one day win. If he believed they were stronger, he might use that persona to draw strength from."

Kara refused to listen to any of the arguments. "Why does he look like hell?"

Athelis nodded, understanding what she was doing. "Since this time," he gestured to the recorder they'd just heard, "he's struggled even more to keep the persona in remission."

"He can't control it anymore?" Adama offered.

Athelis nodded. "It would seem so."

Kara stammered. "But you can fix this, right?"

Athelis drew in a long breath. "The headaches are getting worse. The harder he fights to remain Lee, the more Thirteen fights to dominate. Thirteen is spending longer and longer in possession of Lee's body. I brought him back for Cottle to run brain scans. It is entirely possible that there is a physical cause for all of this."

"Why the frak didn't you say so sooner?" Kara demanded, pounding her fist on the table.

One look at Adama and Athelis knew he concurred. He wasn't feeling the least bit intimidated anymore by the military presence before him. He was the expert here. "You believed it was stress."

BSG

The trio split up to collect their thoughts and wait for Cottle's report. An hour later Cottle appeared and a chill passed through Adama's heart. He'd served with Major Cottle for many years now and they'd both been through more than either cared to admit. In all those years and through all those situations, he'd never seen his chief medical officer look this grim. "What did you find?"

Cottle said nothing, but waved the group over to a computer terminal. "This is the first scan we ran an hour ago." He pointed to a small, dark spot near the base of Lee's brain. "We ran this scan 20 minutes later." It didn't take a medical specialist to see that the spot had grown. "We ran this one ten minutes ago." The spot had doubled from its original size.

Cottle looked truly distraught. "I've never seen anything like it. It's not solid. My staff is prepping for a biopsy."

Again the trio waited. Both Tigh and Roslin checked in, but no one felt like reporting anything at the time. It was too overwhelming for Adama and Starbuck, and Athelis knew it wasn't his place.

Cottle finally returned. If possible, he looked even worse than before. "I need to talk to you in private." He looked directly at Adama, who followed him silently.

When they'd rounded the corner and were out of earshot, Cottle reported his findings. "It's the poison."

Adama's greatest fear was roaring its ugly head. "So we can treat it?" He tried optimistically.

Cottle shook his head. "It's mutated. The residue has centered in his brain. It isn't responding to anything."

"Maybe it needs more time to work?" Adama asked with false optimism.

Again, Cottle shook his head. "Let's look at the facts. We weren't able to destroy the virus. We knew there was a dormant residue in his system and we hid that information from everyone, including him. It seems to have traveled to his brain and hid out. His blood tests hadn't changed, but now his blood is clear. It's living off his brain fluids and it's growing."

"Can you drain it since its localized?"

For the third time, Cottle's head shook. "I tried. His vitals bottomed out. He nearly died."

"What'll happen next?"

"I have no idea. He should be awake shortly. You have a few minutes to think about what you're going to tell him." Cottle pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit up.

"What I'm going to tell him? You're the doctor!" Adama demanded fully willing to display this cowardice in the man's company.

Cottle got right in the Admiral's face. "I only obeyed an order to cover up his condition. This one is yours. You now know as much as I do."

Adama tapped into his inner courage and moved to his son's bedside. He noted the absence of the restraints. Knowing the risk this posed, he suppressed the military officer within him. That side knew Lee should be restrained. He studied his son's sleeping face. He seemed calm and his rest undisturbed. It relieved the anguished father. Lee turned slightly in his sleep and the movement revealed the small, white bandage at the base of his skull. He reached out, lightly touching it and sinking into the chair nearby. He settled in for the wait, praying it would be a long one.

He hardly noticed Kara slip in and join him. When he acknowledged her with a half-hearted smile, she returned a broader one. "I didn't want you to wait alone." She added timidly. "If that's alright?"

He nodded. "I think it's better if you're here when I tell him. I don't think I can go through it twice."

"Sir?" Kara was alarmed at the Admiral's attitude. She knew things were bad, but he worried her as much as Lee did now.

He waved her off. "When he wakes…"

"When who wakes?" Came Lee's garbled response from the bed. He was wakened by a subtle buzzing noise in his brain. It was only now he realized it was his family.

"You. You would be the center of our attention, like always." Kara chided.

Lee let out a sound somewhere between a cough and a laugh. Both Adama and Kara noted how much calmer he seemed. "How you feeling?" Kara brushed a few stray hairs off his forehead.

He smiled sleepily. "Better. Is it the drugs?" He raised his hand and indicated the IV needle taped to his hand.

"Ah, Doc's happy juice. I miss it." Kara sighed wistfully.

Adama remained silent, allowing himself to enjoy the banter of his children.

"Dad?" Lee was trying to pull himself to a more upright position, but his head swam at the movement.

Adama rested a hand on his chest. "Stay put."

Kara explained. "Yeah, they've been poking at your brain. It's bound to make a person like you dizzy."

Lee smiled. "Like me?" He dropped the slander and sobered. "What did they find?"

The air chilled. Adama wished Lee hadn't asked. He was enjoying the short nirvana. He took a deep breath, wishing the words had come to him. "It's not good son."

"I'm dying?" Lee remained calm. He glanced over to see terror in Kara's eyes. She obviously didn't know anything yet.

"We don't know." Adama corrected. "It's…" He looked away, praying his son would understand what he'd done so many months ago. "When you were poisoned…" His explanation came out in chunks.

Neither Lee nor Kara had ever seen Adama at a loss for words and it frightened them both.

"You were never fully cured. The poison went dormant." He paused long enough to glance into Lee's stunned eyes. He didn't dare look to Kara. He knew he'd see fury.

Lee was catching on, and yet remained calm. "The monthly testing? Watching me so closely… You knew then." Lee had revealed the secret that had haunted him these many months. The secret he knew existed but hadn't been able to pin down.

"We assumed if you got sick again, we'd just treat it. You didn't need to know, to worry."

"No, I didn't need to know my own medical conditions." Lee's calm was giving way to anger. "How kind of you."

Kara was flabbergasted. "You knew all this time this would happen?" She stared at Adama in disbelief.

Adama shook his head in denial. "NO. We assumed nothing would ever come of it."

Lee's voice was cold. "So what's changed? I'm not sick like before."

"Cottle says it's mutated and transferred to your brain. He tried to drain it, but you…"

Lee released his anger now. "I WHAT?"

"You nearly died. He had to stop." Adama finished.

Anyone watching could see the internal struggle Lee waged to retain his composure. "What now? I become a Cylon and you airlock me?"

Kara screamed at him. "NO! Don't say such a frakkin' stupid thing. We just have to keep working on it, like before."

Adama nodded. "She's right. We don't know what's going to happen."

Lee shook his head. "I do. It all makes sense now. I knew it. I knew the Cylons were trying to take over my brain. That's why I fought them. That's why I tried to kill myself." He paused and seemed to be piecing it all together before their eyes. "At least I know I was fighting it. I tried to keep the Cylons away from us." His volume dropped. "I guess I failed though. It's going to win."

"DON'T SAY THAT! This isn't over." Adama roared.

Kara backed him up, while trying to lighten the mood. "Yeah, he's right. That's probably just Thirteen trying to scare us."

It failed. Lee looked at them, dejected. He pulled his hands up, stared at them, and dropped them back to the bed. "I need to be restrained. I can't control him. I could cause too much damage." Neither Adama nor Kara moved. It infuriated Lee. "I SAID RESTRAIN ME!"

Cottle had lied. He had been hovering just outside the curtained area. At Lee's outburst, he barged in. To soothe his patient, he retrieved the requested restraints. Once Lee saw them coming, he calmed. At the same time, the doctor pulled a syringe from his pocket and injected it. Within seconds, Lee drifted to sleep. "That went well, don't you think?" He ended his statement glaring at Adama.

Lee slept and Adama knew he needed advice on how to proceed. Not wanting to deal with Kara either, he left her to sit with his son. He went about assembling those that would need to know.

They met long into the night: Roslin, Baltar, Tigh, Athelis, Cottle and Adama. In the morning, they had lots of possibilities, but no solutions. Splashing cold water on his face and a strong cup of coffee was all Adama could muster. It would have to be enough to get him through the day.

Ishtay stopped him outside Lee's bed. "He's not taking visitors, Admiral."

Adama smiled, assuming she was teasing him. "He'll see me, I'm fairly sure."

She coughed and held out her hand when Adama moved to pass. "No, Sir. He specifically requested that you not be allowed to visit." She added a genuine, "sorry."

Not wanting to push her commanding officer further, Layne stepped away. Adama stood in the middle of life station, debating what to do. He was torn. He wanted to be at Lee's side, beg him if necessary, to understand why he'd done it. The other part of him understood Lee's anger. He knew his son simply needed time to process everything happening to him. He tried to accept it, but he couldn't. He'd spent too much time not being there when Lee needed him. He wasn't going to miss a chance to show his son he loved him. He marched through the curtain.

"I don't want any visitors, nor do I think it's wise for you to allow them." Lee said flatly.

"You're my son. I'm not going anywhere. You can't refuse me." Adama challenged.

"Why not? Why do you get to be a father only when it's convenient for you?" Lee rebutted.

Adama scowled. "Oh, that's pathetic, Lee. It's a weak, not to mention ancient argument to pull out. Couldn't come up with anything better?"

Lee glared. "How about this? If you keep playing daddy, I'm going to end up doing something stupid that destroys the ship. Be an Admiral for frak's sake. It's what you're good at."

Adama sighed and struggled for calm. He knew Lee was venting. He also knew it was his job to take it. If Lee was testing him, he couldn't fail. He was about to speak, when a choked sob came from Lee's bed. He couldn't begin to describe the look that crossed Lee's face. It was sheer agony, physical pain and terror all at once.

Lee whispered through clenched teeth. "Oh gods, he's coming and I can't stop him."

A second later, Adama stared in horror at a transformed son. "Lee?"

A sickening, cold laughter was the response. "Lee's gone. I'm Thirteen, but I think you already knew that."