Little Girl Lost

By Crystal Wimmer

Word Count:
Date: 10/29/04
Series: Mini
Rating: T
Category: Relationships
Pairing/Focus: Lee, Kara
Warnings: This story is a little darker than most of what I write, but I was thinking that in the first days following the destruction of their world, not all of the survivors would be busy saving the rest of the fleet. Some of them might just be trying to survive – or decide if they even wanted to do so. If you’ve ever lost someone close to you, then you cannot even imagine the pain of losing everyone close to you. And yet, they did… While I don’t find anything in this material to be objectionable, and I certainly feel it is justified given the feel of the Mini-series, I realize that to some readers the ideas of suicide and severe depression are disturbing. Please be informed that these are primary topics in this story rather than passing suggestions. And fear not… I have always and will always believe in happy endings.
Summary:
Spoilers/Disclaimers:

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Chapter 1

For all the dangers of living in space, and the specific difficulties of living on a Battlestar, there were remarkably few practical ways for a girl to kill herself. The thought was nearly as depressing as realizing that she would have to either live, or get really creative. She wasn’t feeling all that creative at the moment.

Crewman Specialist Margaret Cally wasn’t a warrior. She didn’t have a sidearm, and she didn’t own a knife. She had a couple of tools that might do the job, but they would be both messy and painful. She had never liked medication, so that wasn’t a viable option either. She didn’t have enough of anything to do more than make her sick and send her to the infirmary to face a lot of questions that she didn’t want to answer. There was always the vacuum of space, but even that wasn’t practical. If she tried that route she would likely take someone with her, and there had been enough involuntary deaths in the last forty-eight hours to fill the next ten lifetimes. So barring another attack, it appeared that she was going to have to live.

Cally turned over in her bed and tried to get comfortable in the dead silence of her quarters. This particular enlisted quarters had been home to fifty people as recently as two days ago. There were only nine of them left. The rest had burned, or been ejected into space, or had died as a result of falling equipment or aircraft. In this room alone, there were forty-one empty beds. In the other three quarters that matched it, there were ninety-six more. One hundred twenty-six people that she had worked with were now gone, and many more throughout the crew. They had lost over a hundred and fifty pilots, and no telling how many miscellaneous other officers and enlisted men. The Galactica had been hard-hit by the Cylons, and yet she was still here. Cally wasn’t counting herself lucky to be among the survivors.

At the funeral, Commander Adama had asked them if the dead were the lucky ones, and Cally couldn’t help but wonder if they were. Dying couldn’t have been any harder than dragging the bodies of her friends through the passageways and seeing the faces of those who remained. They were all scrambling to clean up the mess from the attacks, to repair the Galactica and her fighters, and they had to do so with three-quarters of their deck crews dead. It wasn’t an easy task. No one was really talking, and no one had a clue how they were going to manage. They just did as they were told, and worked where they were assigned until they were given permission to eat or sleep. There hadn’t been many breaks for that, either.

She was tired. More than just being tired, her heart hurt. She felt horribly alone, and it was from more than the hundreds of anonymous deaths on board and the billions of deaths in the colonies. Over and above all that, Cally had lost her best friend. Literally.

Andrew Prosna had been three years younger than she was. He had only been eighteen, and straight out of secondary school when he’d joined up. Cally had spent a couple of years on Caprica before giving in and enlisting with hopes for a better future than working with wrecking crews as she had done for the three years following her own graduation. She and Prosna had met in basic, and had been friends from the outset. It had been that friendship which had influenced them to choose the same tech school, and then they had been lucky enough to be stationed together on the Galactia. Or maybe they hadn’t been so lucky after all.

They had been pretty much best friends since basic. They had done everything together from mopping decks to double dates. Part of the crew thought they were an item, but it hadn’t been true. If anything, Prosna had been setting his sights for Dualla. He had even dated the Petty Officer Second a couple of times, and they’d gotten along well. Poor Prosna had fallen so hard for her that he’d been a mess. Cally had loved teasing him about it. Prosna had been such a kid in a lot of ways. On the other hand, Dee wasn’t much older.

Cally hadn’t had a chance to get with Dee since all of this had started. She’d been mostly stuck below decks, while Dee was in CIC. Not that it really mattered, anyway. Dee had to know that Prosna was gone by now, and he was really the only link between them. Now that he was gone, she really had no reason to keep in touch with her.

She didn’t have a lot of reason for anything.

A glance at her watch told her that she was due for duty in only two hours. They were on odd shifts, doubles and triples depending on where you worked. Cally had doubles because Vipers required some level of alertness, but she thought Socinus had been put on triples. He wasn’t all that adept with quick maintenance, so the Chief had a tendency to keep him out of the more complex machinery when possible. Now she didn’t know how the Chief could excuse any of them from anything. There was too much to be done, and not nearly enough people to do it. Heck, he even had the pilots working on their own birds, and he despised letting the fliers work on his babies.

But work they did. And work. And work. Even now, finally in bed after nearly thirty hours awake, she couldn’t wind down enough to sleep. She needed to get it done, though. She had to get some rest, or she’d be useless to the Chief when she reported back in – she glanced at her watch – one and a half hours. Not that an hour and a half would make all that much difference, but it was more than many others had been given.

After another twenty minutes, during which she checked her watch no less than ten times, Cally finally eased herself out of her bed and slipped on her boots. She had showered before lying down, and had on a clean uniform because there was no telling when or from where the next attack might come. There hadn’t been many crewman caught in their underwear during the initial attack, but there had been a few. She didn’t plan to ever be one of them.

Once she’d tied her boots, she walked as quietly as possible towards the hatch leading to the main Galactica corridor. Just before reaching it, she heard a soft and muffled sound. Someone was crying. Moving a little closer, she realized it was Tricia. She had been on deck crew six, as opposed to deck crew four which had been home to Cally, Socinus, and Prosna. Cally thought of trying to offer comfort, but there just wasn’t any. She couldn’t give someone else a reason to quit crying when she couldn’t find one for herself.

Once in the main corridor, Cally felt lost and more alone than she’d ever been. Rather than the bustling activity that this area usually held, there was no one out. The few people who weren’t working were sleeping, or trying to. There was no one walking the halls, no one looking for a place to be. She just felt like she wasn’t even really there. She felt nothing as she walked the familiar path to the port hangars. It was like she was watching someone else do it.

As she eased onto the upper level of the hangar, she watched a flurry of activity below. They were still trying to get the mess cleaned up from the fire. She was glad she hadn’t pulled that duty. There was nothing down that corridor that she wanted to see. She’d spent enough time there, some of it working and some of it screaming. She’d at least been one of the ones who had put on her gear when the fire had begun to decompress compartments. It was standard procedure, but it was bulky as hell. That was the reason so many of the others hadn’t bothered. The survival suits could keep out the heat of a fire or the cold of space, but they were nearly impossible to move in. Prosna had always hated the things, but even he had donned the suit after the first decompression. He hadn’t put on his helmet, though.

God, why hadn’t he put on his helmet?

Shaking her head to try to get those thoughts – those ghosts – out of her mind, she began moving again. She seemed to gain at least some peace from movement. She walked the length of the gangway, past the doors leading into launch control and down towards the tubes. She didn’t really realize that she had a destination in mind until she finally got there. Descending the stairway at the end of the gangway, she eased herself over the small ledge that separated tube from bay, and walked a few feet into the cylindrical tunnel.

It was quiet here, and peaceful, and clean. That sounded silly, even to her, but it was nice to see someplace clean. The bays were filled with soot and grime and even blood, but here in the tube there had been nothing but clean Vipers and solid walls. It was far enough from the bay that the noise was muffled, but close enough that she could hear something. It wasn’t as total as the silence in the sleeping quarters had been. Here, there was at least the suggestion of life.

The tube reminded her of her home back on Caprica. When she’d been young, she’d sneaked out back behind the house and into the woods that surrounded her housing development. She had explored the woods constantly as a child, getting into trouble more than once for coming home late for dinner or not getting chores done. But it had been worth it to just enjoy the calm of the greenery around her, and the small caves that were carved out of the hillsides. She’d had one place in particular, a cave that had a stream running across its opening, where she had spent a lot of time sitting and just thinking. She hadn’t had a lot of friends to play with, and no siblings, so she had made up her own little world in that cave. It had been her safety net; her comfort.

It wasn’t that home life had been bad, because it hadn’t. Her parents had been average class citizens, and she’d had both of them until she’d turned sixteen. Her mother had died of heart failure, and “Little Meggie” had become her daddy’s shadow. That had been when she’d started working on machinery and aircraft. It had been what her dad had done, so it was what she learned. Unfortunately, mechanics weren’t in short supply. Once she’d graduated secondary school, the only place she could find work was with one of the Caprican wreckers. She hadn’t minded the huge aircraft, but they hadn’t been much of a challenge. Most of the breakdowns had been simple wear due to age or failure to adhere to weight regulations, so fixing things had been a simple matter.

After three years of it, she’d asked her dad about the Colonial Service. Lords, he’d been so proud. When she’d enlisted, he had told everyone he knew that she was now a warrior. In truth, she hadn’t been doing much more than she’d done before, but at least she was doing it in a uniform, and the aircraft and spacecraft were a challenge. Her dad had been thrilled.

Her dad was gone now. Maybe he was with her mother, she thought with a slight flutter of pleasure. Maybe they were finally together, as they were meant to be. Maybe soon Cally would join them. She didn’t know. She couldn’t even care. Lords, she was tired.

Cally took a seat on the floor of the tube with her back against the wall and her knees pulled up to her chest. She laid her head on her knees and just tried to think of anything besides what she’d lost. What everyone had lost. Why did it have to hurt so much?

“Cally?”

She looked up quickly to see the last person she really wanted to deal with. Chief Galen Tyrol was great – he really was – but he didn’t have a lot of patience for blubbering. He was the type to get things done and not worry about what he was feeling. The few times he’d looked a little down, he had assured her that he was fine, and then told her to get back to work. She had gone back to work.

“Yes, Sir?” she said softly. Her voice didn’t sound right. She hadn’t realized that she’d been crying. Damn.

“What are you doing down here?” he asked as he came over to sit next to her on the floor of the tube. She was horribly embarrassed that she was crying, but even more mortified that he was here. He was one of the best supervisors she’d ever had, and she hated that she was letting him down.

“Just resting,” she finally said as she swiped away tears on one sleeve. “I’m not on duty.”

“You should be sleeping,” he admonished her gently. His kindness almost set off another bout of tears.

“I tried, but I couldn’t,” she told him.

“I can understand that,” he said. “I don’t even want to think about trying to sleep with all that needs to be done.”

“Yeah,” she muttered. But she wasn’t getting things done. She was sulking like a child.

“If you can’t sleep, would you like to work?” he offered. “You don’t have to; I know you’re off. But it might make the time pass until you’re tired enough to drop. I know that’s what I’m doing.”

She smiled at his admission that this wasn’t any easier on him than on anyone else. But the Chief had always been the first to work and the last to stop. It was one reason that his teams didn’t question his orders, and didn’t fear his help. He was one of the good guys.

“I could work,” she finally said with a shrug. “May as well.”

He nodded, then reached over and took her hand. She looked up at him, surprised to see that he looked almost embarrassed for some reason. “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry,” he said gently. “About Prosna. He was a good man, and he’ll be missed.”

Her throat tightened, but she just nodded.

“We lost a lot of the team,” he added, but he wasn’t looking at her now. He was staring down the length of the darkened launch tube. “But we still have to get it done. They died so that we could get it done.” When he turned back to her, his eyes looked very shiny, but he wasn’t crying. “Do you understand?”

“We have to make them proud,” she answered softly. “Make it worth it.”

“That a girl,” he told her with a gentle squeeze to her hand before he released it. “We’ll get through this.” With that, he moved to stand.

“It’ll never be worth it,” she told him in a broken voice. She hadn’t meant to let it slip out, but it had.

When he turned back, he wasn’t angry, but his expression was sadder than it had been before. “No, it won’t ever be worth it,” he agreed. “But it’s all we can do.”

She nodded, and took the hand he offered to help her up. She wrapped her arms around herself, around a body that suddenly seemed very cold, and very small, and very tired.

“Do you think you can replace the gimbals in one of the sevens?”

She nodded almost absently. “Yes, Sir.”

Finally he smiled. It wasn’t a real one – not like when had been joking around with Prosna and Socinus, or when he was watching Lieutenant Valerii from across the bay – but it was better than she could do. “Thanks. It would help.”

She nodded, but she doubted seriously that one more mechanic fixing one more ship would help much of anything. Still, he was her supervisor, and he’d asked her to do something. She would do what she was told, for as long as she could, or until she was relieved to sleep or eat. In all honesty, the work sounded better than the alternatives.

Chapter 2

There were times when Chief Tyrol loved his job. He loved the feeling of success when one of his pilots managed to do the impossible with his plane. He loved when a problem was solved, and when the purr of an engine was just right. He loved it when his team worked together like the well oiled machinery that they maintained. Yes, there were times that despite the headaches, and the responsibilities, the irritations and the deadlines, when he loved his work.

This was not one of those times.

Around him, his bay was in shambles. Every frakking one of his Vipers was banged and battered, some of them crushed beyond what he would normally consider his ability to repair them. But they had no choice. There would be no new spacecraft to replace what had been damaged. There would be no men to replace those who had died. There would be no rest for any of them; not for a very long time.

He had just sent one of his best mechanics back to work, and he would have rather have had her sedated and sent back to her parents. But there were no available sedatives and her parents were long dead, and there wasn’t even one of her friends nearby to provide comfort. Hell, there wasn’t any comfort to be provided.

Half of what was left of his team was now clearing out debris from the flight pod they’d blown to save the ship. Earlier, they’d had time to go in and retrieve the men – the children – but they hadn’t even begun to repair the damage. It would take them a very long time. On the other hand, it wasn’t as though they had anything better to do. What he had told Cally was the Lords’ honest truth: he would work until he dropped, because there would be no other way for him to get to sleep.

“Chief?”

Startled from his thoughts, Tyrol turned to see one of his men – kids – approaching with more speed than he would have thought possible given the battle they’d endured, the work to be done, and the pervasive feeling of gloom that surrounded them. It took him a moment to remember the kid’s name. “What do you need, Socinus?”

“The Commander wants to see you,” the Crewman Specialist said without preamble. “I think he’s trying to get a status report on the whole ship.”

Tyrol couldn’t help but smile at the enthusiasm. He couldn’t ever remember a time when battle had been exciting, or even interesting. He had heard stories from his father since he’d been a boy about the horrors of war with the Cylons, and regardless of the patriotism that had pushed him into the service in the first place, he’d never had a desire for revenge or first-hand knowledge of war. He had just wanted to work on the best spacecraft in the known universe. That was all. Now it was all that was left.

“Chief?”

Tyrol shook himself. Lords, he must be tired if every thought went off on a tangent. If he was this tired, what must these kids feel like? “CIC?” he asked, trying to cover his inattention.

“Pilot’s briefing room,” the young man corrected. “I guess he’s asking a bunch of people to come for it.”

“Must be,” the Chief said with a furrowed brow. “While I’m off the deck, you guys can report to…” He thought about it for a moment. Anyone with any rank at all was gone; lost to the fire that had decimated their crews. Only the kids were left, with their enthusiasm and fear and shock. “Cally,” he finally decided. She was the best he had for putting things together, and far more instinctive than anyone else remaining on staff. She had looked tired when he’d found her earlier, and as much in shock as the rest of them, but this might just be what she needed. It might be the reason, the purpose that could hold her together until the shock passed and the reality became livable. “Let Cally know she’s in command until I’m back. It shouldn’t be too long. If this goes longer than an hour I’m ducking out of there; we have work to get done.”

Socinus gave a nod, then jogged off towards the line of Vipers that were in the process of having their underbellies rebuilt. Combat landings were hell on spacecraft.

The hallways of the ship were deserted as Tyrol made his way to the briefing room. Normally used to inform pilots of the daily roster and specific duties, the room was essentially a podium surrounded by chairs. As he entered, Tyrol was shocked to see how many of the chairs were filled. The room was essentially silent, with only a few whispered conversations going on that didn’t carry. After the noise and activity of the flight deck, the quiet was deafening. Chief Tyrol walked towards the front of the room and took a seat three rows back and on an aisle. He hadn’t been kidding about ducking out early if this went too long. He didn’t have the patience for a lengthy lecture.

His wait was brief, but he was nearly asleep when Captain Kelly took a seat next to him and greeted him with a glance. Tyrol nodded. They were both too tired for more. Looking back behind him at the lack of even quiet conversation, Tyrol saw Commander Adama entering with his jackass of an Executive Officer behind him. The Chief deliberately ignored the murderer of the majority of his crew in favor of watching the Commander’s slow and steady steps. His face was impassive, but the aura of power was clear. The world might be blown to hell and back, but William Adama was still in command of what was left.

“Good morning,” the Commander said as he reached the podium. He stood in front of it, rather than behind it, and he didn’t bother with the microphone. He didn’t need it. His low, gravelly voice carried clearly despite the fatigue that was evident in it. “Thank you all for coming. I know you have things to get done, so this will be brief. Seargeant Klipston, can you get the door please?”

Tyrol turned to watch an eager man close the hatch to block out the briefing that was about to take place. He wondered what in the world was private under the circumstances. The Commander didn’t leave them in suspense.

“I’ve called you here because you are currently the primary leadership for this Battlestar,” Adama began. “You all have reports on damage and repair status. You all know your jobs, and you’re getting them done. The reason you’re here is for something more… urgent, even than the repairs.” The Commander took a deep breath and removed his glasses as he faced them. He looked as tired as Tyrol felt. “There have been eleven attempted suicides in the last twenty-four hours. Nine of those attempts have been successful.”

The silence following the Commander’s words was shattering. Tyrol didn’t think anyone was even breathing. “We have lost everything,” he said softly. “So have our men. Right now, everyone is far too close to the edge to allow for any pushing. I need your help if we’re going to get this under control. First of all, I want you to learn your crews, and do it quickly. Some of you are new to your positions, coming in on the heels of those we’ve lost. I understand if you aren’t familiar with everyone under your command. Find someone who is, and listen to them. For others, you just have too damned many people to lead to be able to watch them all. Assign others if you need to, but we must be sure that none of our men have the opportunity or the desperation to end their lives. It’s selfish, but this ship needs them. Not only are they the only hope for our future, but they’re also the only hope for this ship. Every man is essential.” The Commander cleared his throat, then put his glasses back on. “We are currently taking an inventory of all individuals with any counseling experience either here or on other ships in the fleet. Unfortunately, even those individuals are undergoing the same stress as our crew. You will be our first line of defense against this threat. Take any mention of suicide seriously, be on the lookout for behavior that seems… more abnormal than the rest of the crew, and report anyone you feel is in imminent danger to Colonel Tigh.

“We are in the process of trying to fill the more gaping vacancies in the crew. A general call has been put throughout the fleet for those that have experience with our more urgent needs. We are seeking pilots, electricians, mechanics, welders, and dozens of other miscellaneous jobs that are currently in demand both here on the Galactica and on a number of other ships within the fleet. This inventory of individuals will take time, and I know that isn’t what you want to hear. It’s the best we can do.

“I’m sure many of you have individual needs within your squads that should be attended to immediately. Colonel Tigh and myself will remain here to speak with you. If you have no further questions, then you can feel free to leave. If you have concerns, then by all means stay and we’ll see what we can come up with. That is all.”

Murmurs finally began around the room. Tyrol watched as those around him, at least thirty or forty people, gradually stood and either individually or in groups moved towards the podium or moved towards the doors at the rear of the room. Colonel Kelly placed a hand on his shoulder as he stood to leave, but he never spoke. Tyrol didn’t mind; there was nothing to say. Soon the room was down to only about fifteen people, most of them looking more haggard than he did. It wasn’t reassuring. Seated as close as he was, Tyrol heard the vast majority of what was said, both by the Commander and also by the XO.

Most everyone was waiting to speak with the Commander. In fact, aside from taking notes and otherwise looking damned useless, Tigh really didn’t do much of anything. At least Galen Tyrol wasn’t the only person who seemed to think that the XO wasn’t worth talking to.

Not really able to think of anything pressing, and remembering his promise to return as soon as possible, the Chief had begun to stand in order to leave. There was nothing he had to say to the Commander that hadn’t already been said, but as soon as he’d stood, he had received a pointed look and a gesture from Adama to sit back down. Impatiently now, Tyrol watched as person after person went to the Commander with requests that were perfectly reasonable, and no more likely to be met because of it.

“Thanks for waiting, Chief,” Adama said when the last of the other personnel had left. “I wanted to speak to you about the repairs on the port landing deck. How soon will it be operational again?”

“It’s functional now,” he said shortly. “It just looks like hell. We’ll take care of the cosmetics when we have the time and manpower to do it.”

The look on the Commander’s face told him that he had been brief to the point of being rude, but the Chief really didn’t care. So long as Colonel Tigh was standing there, Tyrol had nothing to say. He had expressed his opinions once, and all it had gotten him was a slap in the face – or on the wrist, as the case might be.

“I see,” the Commander said softly. “How is your crew holding out?”

“Those who are left are surviving,” Tyrol told him as he deliberately ignored the XO who had turned to pay some attention to the conversation.

“Chief, I realize that you lost a large portion of your crew,” the Commander began, but Tyrol just couldn’t listen to it.

“Yes, I did. May I please get back to those who are left? We have a job to do, and very few men to manage it.”

William Adama sighed, and then reached out to put a hand on the Chief’s arm. Tyrol wanted to brush it off, but there were certain lines one did not cross with a battlestar commander. Blatant disrespect, for better or worse, was one of them. “I know you don’t agree with the decisions that were made,” the Commander said, and his voice was both low and wavering slightly. “But don’t forget that they were my men, too. All of them; each and every one. So were the pilots, and the bridge crew, and the maintenance workers, and the galley personnel, and the medics. Three hundred and six people, Galen, and nine by their own hand. I have another sixty-one in serious to critical condition and very few medical personnel left to care for them. Each and every one of them were my responsibility. Three hundred and six of my men.”

Closing his eyes, Tyrol absorbed what had not been said. The battlestar had lost far more than eighty-five deck hands. As bitter as he was about the way those lives had been lost, the bottom line was that they were a mere fraction of the total tragedy. All of it would be borne by this one man, not because it was his fault, but because their lives had been his responsibility.

“I understand, Sir,” the Chief said softly.

With a nod, the Commander dismissed him and turned to speak with his XO. While understanding did not relieve the pain of losing his team, he couldn’t find it in him to hold it against a man who had lost far more than he had. “Commander?”

Adama finished speaking, then he turned back to him. “Yes, Chief?”

“Who do we contact if we have personnel on the edge?” he asked, remembering the face of a deckhand who had lost everything she had and had been sitting in a launch tube by herself. Cally was only one, of course. There were others who had the same dead look in their eyes that she did. Too many others.

“Give Colonel Tigh the names of any that you feel are in… urgent need of attention. We’re still in the process of prioritizing needs.”

Galen Tyrol took a deep breath and faced Tigh, doing his best to keep anger and blame from his voice, but not doing a very good job of it. “Team five,” he told the Colonel. “Out of fifty, there are only nine left. All of them are kids, and none of them have family now. Some of them…” He cleared his throat. “All of them are going to need help.”

“I’ll get back to you as soon as we have psych personnel available,” Tigh told him mechanically. Then, looking up from the clipboard where he had made a note, he added, “They’ll be first priority. I can send a priest down this evening if you can get them together.”

Tyrol released a breath he’d been holding, accepting the words as the only apology he would receive. “Yes, Sir.” Then turning back to Adama, “Commander?”

“Yes?”

“I’d like permission to move my crews into two quarters,” he requested. “I think they’ll do better together, and that way they can keep a closer eye one another.”

“Make it one,” the Commander suggested. “Bring in some portable units if you need to, but try to get them into one central quarters. We’ll be doing a lot of rearranging with the living quarters to accommodate the survivors that have lost their ships. Let the crew know that we are… consolidating space.”

“Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir.”

“Get some rest,” the Commander told him. “You’re no good to your men if you make yourself sick.”

“Someone should tell you the same,” the Chief said, and was even able to manage a weak smile. The Commander acknowledged the effort with his own softened expression, then released him with another nod and no argument.

Chief Tyrol’s walk back to the bays was done in slow motion. Whether it was the suggestion of rest, or merely the last few days catching up with him, he didn’t feel as though he could do any more than put one foot in front of the other. Stepping onto the primary bay, he was stunned by the quantity of work that was being accomplished with so few people. It didn’t look like anyone was sleeping today. Pilots, support personnel, and what was left of his crews were swarming over spacecraft. He wanted to go to bed – to forget – but he needed to relieve Cally first. She had looked worse than he’d felt when he’d last seen her.

It took him more than a few minutes to locate her. She had lain down her clipboard to climb up on a high-lift to assist with an engine mounting. Up to her elbows in grease, she looked like a child who had been playing in a mud puddle. Why in hell hadn’t he realized how young they all were? He called her name, and she acknowledged him with a nod before she finished what she was doing. He was pleased that she didn’t stop in the middle, even for him; at least his team was still remembering their responsibilities.

When she came down the ladder of the lift, he saw that her face was wet with more than grease. She had been crying. It was no surprise; many of them were crying, off and on, even as they worked.

“Any problems?” he asked her as she offered him his clipboard.

“Yes, Sir,” she answered.

“What is it?” he asked, wondering what had broken or who had gotten hurt this time.

“Specialist Kayman,” she said simply. “One of his bunkmates found him in the shower with his wrists cut. The medics did all they could, but it was too late. Baker was looking for you – to tell you – but I told him he could go to bed and I’d pass on the message. He looked pretty bad.”

Ten, Tyrol thought. Now they had lost ten to something worse than the Cylon threat. He bowed his head in quiet acknowledgement of their loss, then went back to business. “Your shift has been over for hours,” he reminded her. “Hell, it wasn’t even your shift in the first place. Try to get some sleep, Cally,” he told her softly. “And remember.”

“Remember?” She looked as confused as she sounded.

He nodded, knowing there were probably tears in his own eyes, but not able to do a damn thing about it. Maybe they were just watering from fatigue. That was it; he was just tired. “Remember how much this hurts,” he told the girl. “Because sooner or later we’ll all think about it. Remember what it does to those around you.”

Cally nodded, and from the flash in her eyes he saw that he’d been right. It hadn’t been much of a gamble. They had all lost everything; it wasn’t far from losing everything to wanting to end it all. “Yes, Sir,” she said softly.

He didn’t say any more, but he watched as she walked away from him. The Chief took a moment to realize just how lucky he was in comparison to those around him. He had part of his crew, a few people he called friends, and he still had Sharon.

And sometime soon, he would try to get some sleep. Sometime, but not now. Now he had work to get done, and no one that he was prepared to leave it with. He was as tired as he’d ever been, but he was alive. He reminded himself that life was supposed to be a good thing. And he also reminded himself that until they got the bays cleared up and the Vipers operational, none of them were safe. Not him, not his crew, not his friends, and not Sharon.

Chapter 3

Lee reached to his left and painfully groped around for the hand-held welder that he needed. Lying on his back beneath a Viper, it was not the easiest thing to accomplish, even if he hadn’t had sore muscles that had sore muscles. But he was both determined and desperate; the fitting was not going to stay in place without welding it there. He wished that he’d had the sense to grab the damned thing before he’d slid up under the Viper to get things done. Normally he was much better organized in his repairs, but this day was a long way from normal.

At the very least he was alive, and that was more than most people were and more than he had any right to be. If he hadn’t had a friend – a damned good one – that flew better than he ever had, he wouldn’t even be alive to have aches and pains, much less complain about them.

Just as he was ready to give up and drag himself out from beneath the spacecraft regardless of what he knew it would feel like to get back under there, he felt the familiar feel of the welder’s handle slipping into his palm.

“Thanks,” he said absently, even as he went to work welding the fitting in place. It wasn’t easy to do without watching what he was doing, but he hadn’t put on goggles before getting into position. He really hadn’t been thinking.

It was very unfamiliar ground, because for as long as he could remember, Lee had thought about absolutely everything from every angle in every situation before doing a damned thing. He was known for it. He had been decorated for it, and he had heard the jokes since long before he’d known the meaning of the words “anal” or “retentive.” He was careful. That was all. Things should be done the right way, and that was all there was to it. Period

Which did not explain why he was lying on the ground without eye protection doing a patch-up job with a piece of equipment that some anonymous person had had to help him find. No, it was not a normal day.

With the fitting finally secure – or at least as secure as it was going to get until it cooled and he could check the stability – Lee laid down the welder and began to move himself back from under the Viper. Every muscle in his back and legs protested, his arms hurt beyond words, and there was very little left in the world that he wouldn’t have given for an effective analgesic.

It seemed almost prophetic that the first person he saw when he was out from beneath the bird was the one that had put him in this condition in the first place. She was also the person who was responsible for his being alive, so he decided that grumbling about his situation wouldn’t be the wisest thing to do. Frankly, he didn’t know what would be wise. He still didn’t know how to take what she’d told him about passing Zak through basic flight. Aside from giving him a massive guilt complex for how he’d treated his father – another situation he wasn’t yet willing to acknowledge – her admission had brought back a lot of pain that Lee thought he’d been past. Staying on a professional level with her, at least for the moment, seemed to be the path of least resistance so that was the way he had decided to play the situation.

Sitting on her butt with her legs pulled up against her body and her chin resting on her knees, Kara looked just like she had most of his life. She looked like she knew she was in trouble, and couldn’t quite figure out how she’d gotten into it. It was that subtle mix of innocence and antagonism that tended to keep her in the brig more often than not. The antagonism kept his mind busy, and the gentle innocence behind it kept him from killing her. She was a good friend.

“How you feeling?” he asked as he sat himself rather painfully upright.

“About like you from the looks of it,” she told him with a wry smile. “How’s the bird?”

“A mess,” he admitted. “All three engines were out by the time you brought me in.”

“I thought you said you’d had worse,” she commented with a wink.

“Yeah, well… maybe I exaggerated,” he admitted. “How about you? Any sore spots?”

“Nothing that a good night’s sleep won’t cure,” she hedged. “If they ever get quarters reopened, that is.”

“What?”

She sighed and turned her head to the side for a minute, looking away from him in an uncharacteristically evasive gesture. Even when she’d told him about Zak, she hadn’t exactly looked away. She hadn’t looked him in the eye either, but she hadn’t looked away. He could hear her breathing, deep and regular, and almost forced. She was shoring herself up for something; he’d seen her do it enough in the days immediately after Zak’s death.

“Kara?”

“A couple of the Raptor pilots,” she said softly. “No one’s quite sure what exactly happened. My theory is suicide, but security thinks it might have been more… external. Until they get quarters cleaned up and decide which way the report is going to go, we’re locked out of quarters.”

Lee’s brow furrowed. “And was anyone going to tell me about this?” he asked sardonically.

“I just did,” she answered softly. “Lieutenant Beauchamp reported it to me because I knew them both.”

“Who were they?” Lee asked, just now realizing that this was more than either the inconvenience of being locked out of quarters when sleeping time was precious or the obligation of reporting a questionable situation to the new CAG. They had been pilots, and likely Kara’s friends as well. She had lost too many of those during the battles to be able to afford more.

“Aames and Spencer.”

Aames wasn’t familiar beyond being a name on a roster, but Spencer was more of a concern. He knew that name, and didn’t really believe in coincidence. “Spencer?”

“Ripper’s kid brother,” Kara affirmed. “We used to have a second to the CAG to manage the Raptors, at least when we had the officers for it. Technically Ripper wasn’t his reporting official, even though he was. You know how screwed up the chain can get.”

“What happened?” Lee asked, and when she began shaking her head he added, “And don’t tell me that you don’t know. Tell me what they’ve found out so far.”

“Two men, two guns, and a hell of a lot of blood,” she admitted, her voice bitter. “Aames wasn’t remotely a hothead, and neither was Spence. They wouldn’t have been fighting, and sure as hell wouldn’t have shot one another if it hadn’t been deliberate.”

“Suicide pact?” Lee asked gently.

“That’s my thought,” she agreed, her voice softening a bit. “I wanted you to know before the rumors started flying. Beauchamp should have come to you, but they don’t know you yet. Besides, you were working, and I was off.”

Suddenly registering a very disturbing thought, Lee asked, “Were you there?”

She shook her head. “In the shower,” she said. “But I heard the shots. No one seems to have seen it, and there was no yelling or screaming beforehand to indicate that it was a fight. Both were head shots, and close too. They’re trying to figure out if they fired on one another or on themselves.”

“And weapons aren’t allowed in quarters,” Lee added, rubbing a grubby hand over his tired face. God, he needed a shave. He also needed a shower, a good night’s sleep, and maybe a month’s leave. Oh, and some psychiatric counseling; he couldn’t forget that.

“The Commander said it would be bad,” Kara told him in a quiet voice. It wasn’t wavering, or breaking, but neither was it normal. “But I knew these guys, Lee. Our teams are dropping like flies. How do we fix this?”

Lee reached out and placed a hand on her arm. A part of him wanted to hug her and tell her everything would be okay, but another part was somewhere between confused and furious. He tried to stay in the professional middle ground. He needed to give her some kind of comfort, or maybe he needed it for himself, and he just didn’t have any. “This has to get better,” he muttered inanely. “Everyone’s tired and hopeless… but once they get themselves back together things will straighten out. We’ll get the ship put back together, get some defenses set up, and go back to life like before. It’ll take time, but we can do this.”

“Why?” she asked, finally looking up and meeting his eyes. Her head was resting on her knees again, and the rest of her body seemed limp; just limp, as though she felt nothing. “Will there be anyone left when it’s over?” He didn’t have an answer for her. “You know,” she added. “I was just glad to be alive at first. I had you, and your dad, and even a few good friends that had survived the battle. I really thought we’d be okay. But now…”

“Now you’re tired,” Lee told her with a gentle squeeze to her arm. “You just need some rest, some food, and some time. The shock is starting to wear off, and the depression is setting in. This really is normal.”

“Thank you, Doctor Adama,” she muttered, finally sitting up straight and glaring at him. “And what psych class is that from?”

“One-oh-one,” he admitted. “And I didn’t mean it to sound that way. It’s just, Kara it’s going to take time. This isn’t a drill; it’s a war. Some people aren’t going to be able to handle that.”

She shook her head, and he could have sworn she had tears in her eyes, but they never made it to her cheeks. “Did you care enough about anyone to notice that the world is over?” she ground out. “Doesn’t this hurt even a little?”

“Kara…”

“Look, I was supposed to tell you, and I’ve told you. Now I’m going to get the frak out of here before I hit you, too. I don’t have time for the brig, and Lords know you’d probably send me there. I have to go talk to Cindy, anyway. So finish up your Viper and get back into the fight. I’m sure that’s all you care about doing.”

He watched as she climbed painfully to her feet, clearly in as much discomfort from their collision with a hangar wall as he was. Just as she turned her back on him, he called out, “Kara?”

“What?”

“Who’s Cindy?” he asked softly.

“Andrew Spencer’s wife,” she said just as softly. “Cindy Spencer: Devon Aames’ older sister. They were a pretty tight family; they grew up together. I don’t know what they could have been thinking to leave her all alone.”

As Lee watched her walk away, he realized that psych textbooks weren’t going to serve him very well this time. He also realized that Kara was a lot closer to the edge than most people would be able to see. If Zak had died in this war, instead of years ago in a peacetime accident, would he and Kara have been as emotionally ruined as the men that had apparently just ended their lives? And as it was now, were they going to have any pilots left to get the job done if they ever managed to get their planes in the air? Maybe it was callus of him, and maybe he should be thinking more of people and less of logistics, but it was a hell of a lot easier to focus on equipment than on lives that were falling apart when his own feelings were so tenuous.

Laying back down, staring at the hanger ceiling, he momentarily wondered if there was a point. Maybe there wasn’t. And then he wondered if he was the one who was wrong because he didn’t have a desire to die.

Absently, Lee wondered if he’d ever be able to look at his father without discomfort again. For that matter, he wondered if he ever had. As a child, he had been so busy looking up to the eldest Adama, and wanting both his approval and to be like him, that he’d always been less than relaxed in his father’s presence. It had been easier immediately after Lee had received his commission, because at least they had both been adults, regardless of significantly different ranks. When Zak had died, any comfort had been lost. Anger and resentment had replaced Lee’s childish adoration, and just being in the same room with his father had become difficult.

Lee now knew that William Adama had not been to blame for Zak’s death. Intellectually he understood it, but the comfort that he had hoped for had not come. He knew that he needed to give it time, but between the lingering guilt over how he’d treated his father and the discomfort of having to face the man who was now the highest ranking military officer left living, Lee found even managing his duties to be difficult.

That was another issue. Lee had always aspired to become the Commander of the Air Group, but he had not wanted to get it because he was the last living pilot with sufficient rank. He had not wanted a position above men who did not really want to follow him. He had not wanted to take the position from Kara, and he sure as hell hadn’t wanted the responsibility of managing a crew that would just as soon kill themselves as not.

If he were honest with himself, it had only been four days since the world had crashed down around them. The shock was just now beginning to ease up in some of the crew members, and he really couldn’t expect more from them than what they were capable of. Some people simply weren’t strong enough to manage adversity. It didn’t mean they were weak, but that they just didn’t have any mental reserves to fall back on. Also to be fair, Lee had a hell of a lot more than most. He’d managed to survive the end of the world with part of his family and one good friend. Yes he had lost people, but he had not lost everyone.

Some had. Some of the crew simply had nothing left to live for. Judging from what he’d just seen in Red Squadron’s quarters, at least two men had seen no other option than to end their lives. It would take maintenance hours to get the place clean, and even then he didn’t know if the survivors would be able to live there. He was betting not.

And that was why he was here, standing outside his father’s door and waiting as patiently as possible for him to finish with the President so that he could get some things done… maybe make something easier on someone. He felt like he owed it to Kara to do something. He hadn’t been trying to insult her, but he’d done just that. For all the diplomacy strategies that he’d mastered, keeping friends wasn’t one of them. Thankfully, Kara was a forgiving woman. He hoped.

By the time that Laura Roslin finally exited the office, he was wondering whether or not it was worth the trouble.

He smiled when the President patted him on the arm as she left the Commander’s quarters. Lee had to wonder what they had been talking about, but he would never ask. It wasn’t his place, or his business. The President wasn’t a bad leader, but she was definitely inexperienced. She and his father would disagree more than they would agree, or at least that was what Lee thought. But she wasn’t unreasonable. If his dad was willing to work with her, they could be a very effective team in leading the fleet. At least, Lee hoped so.

“Captain?”

Lee ducked his head and cleared his throat. “Commander,” he answered. “I wanted to speak with you if you have a moment.”

William Adama looked exhausted. If Lee had only slept a hand full of hours, he couldn’t imagine how little his father had managed to rest. “Of course,” he said as he gestured for Lee to enter. Professional as always. Lee could do that too; this was the man who had taught him professionalism.

The first thing that caught Lee’s attention was the boxes. Most of his father’s things appeared to be in the process of moving. When he turned a questioning glance to his father, he didn’t have to say a word.

“It’s a little large for one person, given the circumstances,” his father explained as he moved his arm in a gesture to take in the room. “I’m taking a smaller room closer to CIC, and this will be used as an isolation center for some of the less seriously ill patients from Life Station. Doctor Salik assures me that he will have it equipped with hospital beds and other equipment within twenty four hours.”

“Isolation?” Lee asked, his mind latching onto that one word.

“Our conditions are exceptionally overcrowded, or they will be soon,” William explained as he placed a few more items from his desk into a box sitting next to it. “Any illness, however slight, will be a danger at first. Once we get our people registered; find out who is where and who needs what, then we can do a better job of moving things and people around. Although we need this space regardless,” he continued. “We’ve lost another two ships this morning. Engines are fried after two jumps in a row with no real preparation time. I don’t know where we’re going to put everyone.”

“Actually, that’s part of why I’m here,” Lee said as he moved closer to the desk and yet remained standing. He didn’t plan to be here long enough to need a seat; there was work to be done in the hangars. “I’d like approval to move some of our squads around.”

“Any reason?” his father asked, finally stopping to look at him.

“We’ve had a number of suicides,” Lee began.

“I’m aware of that, and you would have been as well if you had attended the briefing this morning.” His father sighed, and rubbed his eyes. “I’m sure you know about the two this morning. At least, we think that’s what they were.”

“I checked the scene,” Lee said softly. “I don’t think anyone in that squadron’s going to be able to sleep in there tonight. Maybe not ever again; but I’m not a psych expert. Anyway, Blue Squadron’s quarters has more than enough room to accommodate what’s left of Red Squadron’s men. I’d like to move them all in together. They know one another, and maybe they can… I don’t know, keep an eye on one another, I guess.”

“That sounds like an excellent idea,” the Commander agreed. “You have my support. If anyone has a problem with it, refer him to me. We’re consolidating space with the deck crews as well; there are so few of them left.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“What else did you need? You said that was part of it…”

“The deck crews,” Lee said with a sigh. “They’re… not doing well. Some of them resent having pilots with their hands in the engines, and others are just numb. Especially Tyrol’s crew,” Lee added. “Crews four and five just seem to be half-alive.”

“Not even that,” Adama corrected sadly. “Three-quarters of those two crews were decimated by the fire, and the venting necessary to stop it. Those that are left either feel as guilty as hell that they didn’t die, or are furious at the world because someone else did. Does that sound about right?”

“Yes, Sir. Exactly. I just wanted to be sure you were aware of it.”

“I spoke to the Chief this morning.”

Lee nodded. It shouldn’t surprise him that his father was on top of it. That was what a Commander did. Lee tried to stifle the curiosity about how he could know so well the many in his crew, and know so little the few in his own family. “There’s one kid… a girl, I think. She’s on team five. Dark hair, really small… I don’t know her name. Anyway, the whole time we worked on my Viper she just… cried. She worked, and got it done, but her mind was only half there. I don’t mean to sound callous, but there are going to be mistakes made.”

“Long hair?” William asked. “Brown eyes, and looks like she’s about sixteen until you see her hands inside an engine? Works miracles without even thinking about it when it comes to electronics?”

“That sounds like her.”

William smiled sadly. “Cally,” he said. “I’ll mention her to the Chief, although I’m sure he knows. I don’t think I ever saw her without Prosna before the fire; they were like twins. I’ll make sure Tyrol checks up on her. But I wouldn’t really worry about her work. She’s good; good enough to put Vipers back together in her sleep. She doesn’t need to have her mind on the job to do it well. With her it’s… instinct.”

“Thanks,” Lee said. Then he had to add, “She just seemed so… young.”

His father looked at him a moment, and seemed on the verge of saying something. When he finally did, it wasn’t what Lee had seen in his expression. “How about the patrols?” William asked, clearing his throat and changing the subject effectively. “How many Vipers are still in the air?”

“Six,” Lee admitted. “Tyrol should have three more up by the end of the day, but most of them had the majority of their bellies gutted out with the landings. Rebuilding takes time, and equipment we don’t have.”

“I know,” William said softly. “And we may not get it in the near future. We’re still trying to get a bearing on what’s here.”

Lee nodded. “We’ll make do,” he assured the Commander.

“Where are you staying?”

Lee looked up at that. It was the closest thing to a personal question that his father had asked since the war had started. “I’ll be moving in with the squads,” he admitted. “I don’t need my own room, and I’m sure it could be used for something. Hell, I don’t lie down long enough to worry about where it is.”

“That’s the truth,” William told him. “But you need to. If you plan to keep your judgment intact, you’ll need to get some rest.”

“Do as I say, but not as I do?” Lee inquired.

Adama smiled. “Exactly. But I’m not flying Vipers. If I fall asleep, someone’s around to wake me up.”

Lee gave a smile and then turned to leave. He had the feeling that his father would much rather be trying to fly Vipers in this mess than trying to lead what was left of humanity’s future.

Chapter 4

Cally put the new filter where she’d just cleaned out the burned crud of the old one. The Viper was a long way from ready, but she’d get it there. She had to get it there. If she didn’t have a reason to move, she’d most likely stop. She couldn’t do that.

“Here’s the piping you asked for,” Socinus said as he walked up behind her. She wasn’t even alert enough to jump. The younger man had a habit of coming up behind her when she least expected it, and Prosna had always said…

She stopped her mind in that track before she could get herself crying again. She hadn’t known a single person could have so many tears, but they didn’t seem to stop. “Thanks,” she told Socinus. “Was there any two-inch, or did you have to bring three?”

“Three,” he told her. “You were right. We’re out of the other.”

“We’re out of most everything,” she grumbled. A glance over the workings before her showed that this Viper was going to be a long time in making back into space, unless of course they jettisoned its remains, as they probably should. It was taking too many supplies and too much time to fix. Sadly, it was in the best shape of the ones on this line, and the most likely to make it back into the air.

“Cally?”

“Hmm?” she replied, her mind still on the Viper, trying to figure out how she could rebuild what she couldn’t replace.

“Did you get your stuff moved yet?”

She nodded. The Chief had moved them all into one quarters, and she and Socinus had been among the relocated. He’d advised them all to pick a bunk, move their stuff, and settle in. Then maintenance had brought in portable beds when they had run out of the built-in variety. Cally had been one of the lucky ones, getting not only a stationary bunk, but an upper one as well. It was hard to consider any of them to be lucky, but it was the closest word she could find.

“I did, too. I’m in D wing.”

“Me, too,” she said. “Third on the top.”

“I’m in a portable,” he admitted. “Not too far down from you, though. So, I wondered if maybe you could do me a favor.”

She finally turned to face her friend. He looked so uncertain that she almost thought it was funny. Almost, because nothing was funny anymore. “What?”

He gave a shrug and looked away. “We’re on the same shift now,” he began. “So I thought that maybe, if you weren’t asleep, that you could wake me up if I get too loud.”

“Nightmares?” she asked.

He nodded. “You?”

“I don’t sleep enough for nightmares,” she admitted. “So if one starts up, I’ll probably hear you. I don’t mind waking you up.”

“Thanks,” he said, giving her a slight smile. “I didn’t think you were sleeping very much. I guess most of us are having trouble.”

He must be, she thought, because he wasn’t nearly as energetic as he normally was. They had teased him since they’d met him about what he must be taking to stay so lively, but he’d just laughed and blamed it on natural energy. There were days he’d made Prosna…

“I guess we are,” she said, stopping her thoughts again. Damn it, why couldn’t she stay out of that rut? It didn’t go anywhere. She knew it, because she’d gone there about a thousand times this morning already. She didn’t need to do it again. Prosna was dead; there was no use in thinking about him.

“Is there anything else I can help with?” Socinus asked.

She looked over her makeshift repair. She liked Soc, but he wasn’t the best mechanic on the deck. The Chief said it would just take time, the same way it had taken her, but he really didn’t seem to have much of a knack for figuring things out. He could follow a spec and get things mostly in the right place, but right now they weren’t working from books. They were making it up as they went along.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I’ve got what I need; I just need to use it.”

“Have you eaten?” he asked. God, he sounded pitiful. Did she sound that bad? Like she was going to cry after every word?

“No. I’m not hungry.”

“You need to eat,” he told her. “Tell you what: I’ll go check with the Chief and see if I can make a sandwich run. If you haven’t taken time out, then probably no one else has either.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” she lied. They needed mechanics, not waiters, but she couldn’t say anything to burst his bubble. He was trying to be helpful. It wasn’t his fault that he was a rook even by the Galactica’s standards. He’d only been assigned for about two weeks. He’d been the first rook assigned to Prosna, and…

She turned her back on Socinus and started working on a nut that had melted solid when the engine had blown. She would not cry. She wouldn’t. There couldn’t be any tears left. She heard Socinus’ retreating footsteps and was grateful that he hadn’t made an issue of it. She’d been rude, and she would need to apologize. Almost angrily, Cally brushed her sleeve over her right cheek, taking away one more tear that shouldn’t have been left.

Twenty-four hours later, Cally was tired. Okay, she was well past tired, and somewhere near sick. Truthfully, she’d already been sick. Twice.

Socinus had been true to his word and brought back sandwiches for the deck crews. Almost everyone had seemed grateful, so she guessed she’d been a little harsh in her thoughts towards him. The Chief had swallowed two of the sandwiches whole, or at least it had seemed that way, before going back to work on what was left of the Viper he was dismantling for parts. It hadn’t been good for anything else.

Cally had taken about three bites of her sandwich, not tasting it, before going back to work. Then the few bites she’d taken had made a return trip about an hour later. That had been a mess to clean up, but she didn’t dare ask anyone to help. She’d been light-headed and still nauseous, but she’d managed. The second time she’d been sick had been after lying down to sleep. She’d made it to the bathroom that time, but there hadn’t been anything to come up. Em had come to check on her, but Cally had blown her off. She wasn’t sick, she’d insisted. Something just hadn’t settled right.

She’d tried to go back to sleep, but she hadn’t managed. She had woken Socinus twice from nightmares, accepting grateful thanks and then watching enviously as he went back to sleep. Cally really thought she’d feel better if she could just get some rest, but every time she closed her eyes, Prosna was there, his face burned and his body limp. Finally, she couldn’t face it any longer.

So she had walked. She had walked the now-crowded passageway of the Galactica twice, all the way around, before wandering down to the flight deck. She had absently thought of trying to pull another shift, but her mind was so foggy that she didn’t dare. She was just alert enough to realize that she wasn’t really safe to be working. So she had stayed on the periphery of the work in progress, watching as she stood against one wall or another, and occasionally closing her eyes to rest. They didn’t stay closed long, though. Prosna was still there.

She wasn’t sure when she’d spotted it. Her mind was in and out of a fog, so when she had seen the sidearm lying on the high lift’s stair, she’d thought for a moment that she was asleep. But she wasn’t. It was there. She had looked around for someone, anyone who might have left it there, but no one was around. She wondered absently where they could have gone, but didn’t think about it too long. The gun shouldn’t be there. Guns were dangerous.

She still hadn’t seen anyone when she’d walked over to pickup the gun. It was a handheld, the kind that Raptor or Viper pilots carried on patrols when they expected to land. Its smooth surface was cool to the touch as she held it. One more glance around the area assured that she wasn’t being watched, so she tucked the gun under her armpit to conceal it and walked away.

She didn’t have a destination in mind, but somehow she managed to get up the stairs and into one of their inactive launch tubes. Her mind flashed back to the day before – or was it two days, or more? – when she had sat here and cried. She had wondered then if it would have been better not to be alive, but hadn’t had a way to do anything about the situation. Now she did.

Her mind was still just a little fuzzy, but clearer than it had been before. Was this even a good idea? It would make work for those who were left. If there was a regret, that was it. Like the Chief had told her, losing someone hurt. She might hurt someone else. But did it matter? The only person on her team that she was even close to was Socinus, and he would bounce back. He was just a kid after all, and barely out of school.

In fact, it might be better for everyone in the long run. With food and medical supplies scarce, one less mouth to feed and body to house would be a good thing. Maybe it was the one good thing she could do for the fleet. Maybe she should just get it done and have it over with. She was dead inside anyway, so it only made sense for her body to join her heart.

She looked at the weapon carefully. They’d been taught how to use the gun back in basic. It wasn’t hard. There was a safety – there – and it was easy enough to take off. She slid the lever to the side, turning the weapon from a precaution to a danger. But was that a bad thing? Almost absently, she wondered what would hurt the least. Probably a head shot, she decided. One to the heart would be deadly, but she didn’t know if she could look at it while she did it. She wondered if it would hurt, or if she’d just be gone. She wondered if she’d see her friends, her family, or if there would just be… nothing.

“Cally?”

She looked up to see Chief Tyrol walking gingerly towards her. “Hi,” she told him absently, looking back down at the weapon, still planning what would be best.

“Cally, give me that,” he said, his voice sounding a little strange. Give him what? Oh, the gun. She was holding a gun.

“Please,” he pleaded, reaching out towards her. “Not one more. Cally, don’t do this to me.”

Do what? she wondered. What would it be to him?

Her glance had gone back to the weapon, which was currently not pointed anywhere useful. She still wasn’t sure how she wanted to do this. When the Chief’s hands closed over hers, she startled a little and looked up to see him very close to her. “Cally, let go,” he said softly. “Give it to me.”

Oh. The gun. She let go of the weapon, letting him take it from her. It didn’t matter. Nothing really mattered. Not even this. She just didn’t care. She didn’t have anything – anyone – to care about.

She watched absently as the Chief set the gun behind him and then sat down in front of her. She had her legs crossed before her, and he did the same. He hadn’t let go of her hands yet. She wondered why. “Cally, look at me,” he commanded. It was a command, too. The Chief didn’t often order; he asked. She met his eyes because she couldn’t do anything else.

His eyes were brown, just like her dad’s. She missed her dad. “I miss him,” she whispered, not even aware that she was going to speak the words.

“Who?”

“My dad,” she answered. He was her first thought, because his eyes were so much like the Chief’s. Brown and gentle and sad. He had always been just a little sad, or at least he’d seemed that way. “He’s not sad anymore,” she thought out loud.

“No, he’s not,” the Chief agreed. “But a lot of people would be if you did this.”

“This?” she asked, confused. Hadn’t they been talking about her dad?

“Cally, I know it’s hard,” he said softly. “And God, I know how much it hurts, but you can’t let it do this to you.”

She heard the words, but they didn’t really mean anything. The comfortable numbness that had surrounded her was beginning to fade, and what had been fuzzy now felt more like dizzy, and slow, and… wrong.

“You have a lot of people who still care about you,” he was saying. “April and Cindy and Socinus. Do you remember what I told you? It’s hard to live, but we have to do it. We can’t let anyone else hurt like we’ve hurt. And Cally, losing you would hurt a lot of people.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You matter,” he corrected, giving her hands a squeeze that almost hurt. Almost. “You’re so young,” he added as he reached up to tug on her hair. She hadn’t put it back in its ponytail when she’d left her bed, so the back was stringy and falling forward. The Chief moved it back, tucking it behind her shoulder. “You matter, Cally. You’re the best mechanic I have, and that’s just on the deck. What about back in quarters? Who will keep Socinus straight if you’re not here? I don’t have time to train a rook right now, and Prosna’s gone. Someone has to teach him a screwdriver from a wrench. Who would be better than you for that?”

“I don’t know,” she answered, but she didn’t know if she was answering for who should train her friend or whether she should live through the night.

“I know. We need you, Cally. You’re the one who looks out for everyone, and I know that’s hard. I know you must be so tired, but it’ll get better. I promise it’ll get better.”

“You can’t promise that,” she said in a moment of clarity. The dizzy feeling was fading too, and a horrible pain was beginning to take its place. She didn’t like it. She didn’t want it.

“Cally… I wish I knew what to say. I’m not the one who’s good at this; you are. If it were Socinus sitting here, and he had a gun in his hands, You what would you tell him? How would you get him back?”

The pain was growing, edging out the numb and dizzy and manageable feelings that had finally begun to give her some comfort. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want to think of anyone else. She didn’t want the responsibility. She had too much responsibility as it was, and she didn’t know if she could do it. She knew she didn’t want to do it. But was the Chief right? Did they really need her? If they did, then it was cruel for her to die. But she didn’t feel like they needed her. She felt like they’d be better off without her.

How would she get Socinus back? What had she told him when he’d woke up that morning, screaming and writhing in his bed from the nightmares that wouldn’t let him sleep? She had told him that it was okay. She had told him that he was allowed to come apart a little bit, and that it would get better. She had even believed it would get better. Did she believe it now?

“It hurts,” she said softly, and she could feel the tears again. Lords, they never went away, and they didn’t help, and now the Chief was watching and he thought that she was enough of a kid as it was. She wanted him to be proud of her; she didn’t want him to feel sorry for her. But the tears wouldn’t stop, and when she tried to make them go away, tried to swallow the burning in her throat and the pain in her chest, then she couldn’t breathe.

“Oh, Honey, I know it does,” he said gently. Too gently. She would have rather he yelled. She could take yelling; she had learned to tune out the yelling, and look for the message beneath. It was why she didn’t take a lot of things on the flight deck personally; yelling didn’t phase her. But this soft understanding was too much. She couldn’t tune it out, and she couldn’t fight it, and she didn’t want it, but she couldn’t push it away because she needed it.

When his arms came around her in a hug as careful as his voice, she finally lost it. All the pain and the burning and the pressure just seemed to explode. She tried to hold her breath, to make it quiet, but she couldn’t. Great wracking sobs shook her, leaving her gasping for breath. She lost track of things then, everything except the warm arms that were holding her and keeping her safe. And for a moment – just a moment – it was like her dad was really there, and for that one moment the pain wasn’t as bad.

The Chief’s shirt was soaked by the time she managed to catch her breath. Her nose was running, and her face was wet, and she felt like her eyes had swollen closed. The faint light in the launch tube was too bright for her, so she squeezed her eyes shut. She realized that she had handfuls of the Chief’s coveralls squeezed in her hands, so she let go. As soon as she did, she felt his hug loosening and he moved back to look at her. She didn’t want to know what he saw.

But he didn’t seem to mind. He used his thumbs to wipe away the worst of the tears, and then searched his pocket until he found a rag. It had grease on it, but he smiled when he handed it to her. “Better than nothing,” he said. “Blow.”

She took the rag and blew her nose. She coughed a little, sniffed, and blew her nose again. By the time she finished, the Chief had scooted back a little, but he still had a hand on her arm. “Thanks,” she said. It seemed like the least she could say.

“Cally, I want to take you down to the Life Station,” he began.

She shook her head emphatically. “I’m okay now,” she said quickly. “Really, I’ll be fine. I’m just tired.”

“Maybe,” he allowed. “But I’d feel a hell of a lot better if one of the docs told me that for certain. I haven’t seen you eat, and I know you’re not sleeping. Maybe the doc can give you something to help. Please.”

If he’d ordered her, she could have argued, but she couldn’t find it in her to fight his gentle reasoning. She felt like she was packed in cotton anyway, like the world was a long ways away and she wasn’t really a part of it. And it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. In the calm following the storm of tears, she didn’t feel much of anything, and she didn’t feel up to arguing. It was easier to go along than to fight.

“Okay,” she told him.

She watched as he turned sideways and nodded to someone. Only when she followed his gaze did she see one of the Galactica’s security teams standing at the opening to the launch tube. She looked right back at Tyrol, fear taking over where only pain or numbness had been before. Gravely, she wondered just how much trouble she was in, and why it suddenly mattered so much.

Chapter 5

Galen Tyrol wanted to throw up. His hands were still shaking, his heart was pounding, and he still didn’t know if he’d done the right thing, or if he’d screwed the kid up even more than she’d been before.

But she was alive, and right now that was enough.

He had nearly fallen apart when he’d seen her pick up the weapon and walk off with it. When he found the idiot who had left it laying there he was going to rip somebody’s head off. It had probably been found in the Raptor and set aside to be put away later, or maybe one of the pilots had been working on his spacecraft and had taken it off to make working easier. Tyrol really, truly didn’t care. Too many of his kids were too close to the edge to give them any opportunities.

He had been doing this job for fifteen years, and in that time one of the things he’d had to learn how to do was to take care of the kids. Maintenance in general had a quick turnover, and the Galactica in particular was known for breaking in the rooks. No longer really set up for fighting, and one of the lowest level ships technologically, the Galactica had been a training ground for at least the last seven or eight years. At the time of the decommissioning, nearly every man on board had been new to his or her job. Tyrol had a few older rookies – specialist ratings that had been with him for between three months and a year – but still they were relatively young and in no way ready for a war.

In his years as a chief, one of the first things he’d learned is that when kids came in he was often their entire support system. He was parent, nursemaid, counselor, and occasionally priest. It wasn’t deliberate, but they were simply his kids. Many men in the military didn’t take the position seriously, but to him being the Chief Petty Officer was as much a calling as a job. He was here for the planes, yes; but he was also here for the kids.

And he’d had a few kids over the years with a particular look that he’d come to recognize. In the past, his job had been testing them out and seeing who needed to go back home and who was solid enough to keep. Following the Commander’s suicide precaution request, his job was even more than that. There was a look – part desperation and part sadness – that served as a hell of a warning to anyone who was looking. What scared the crap out of Tyrol was that most of his crew had that look. They looked hopeless, broken, beaten… and there wasn’t a frakking thing he could do about it except to try to nurse them through it. And he didn’t feel like nursing anyone through anything.

He’d told them to keep an eye on one another, and he’d been busy doing the same. That was probably why he’d managed to catch Cally standing against a wall of the bay for more than an hour. Her hair had been down, she’d been deathly pale, and her duty uniform had been wrinkled. He had known how hard it was to sleep, and he knew what she’d seen and lived through – he’d done it right beside her – but he had hoped she would be okay. He often came to the bays himself when he needed the peace of a familiar place, so he hadn’t really considered asking her to leave. When he’d seen her pick up the gun, he’d known she was in trouble.

Thank the Lords he’d thought to have security called before he went into that tube. He probably should have waited, but one of the things he’d been trained in was crisis management. Cally had definitely been in a crisis. He hadn’t had time to think or wonder or plan; he’d had to go in by the seat of his pants and try to figure out what she’d needed to hear. In retrospect, he’d done everything wrong.

Never approach someone with a weapon when they’re contemplating suicide. That was what he’d been taught. If they don’t care about their own life, they sure as hell won’t care about yours. The problem is theirs. So don’t let it get personal – you cannot control the outcome. But he’d walked right up to her, settled in next to her, and damn-it he’d made it personal because it was. Okay, so he’d used guilt. He would have used more than that if he’d had it available. Even though a part of him wanted to throttle her for even thinking she could be expendable, another part was hurting right along with her.

There was guilt, too. Survivor’s guilt was common following a battle, and Tyrol had it in spades. For all he had lost – and yes, he had lost a lot – he still had what was most important to him. He had his work, a commander he respected, a purpose to get up in the morning, a job to get done, and he had Sharon. Thank the Lords he had Sharon, because if he hadn’t had her for a refuge, even if only for a stolen moment here and there, he probably would have been thinking about using that damned gun on himself. Even with the boy to dodge – not hat he was a bad kid, but he was a kid all the same – and their differing ranks to juggle, he and Sharon had managed to be there for one another for a minute here and a minute there over the last few days. Just knowing she was there, even when he didn’t get abt time with her, was almost enough.

Sharon was down in his bays quite a bit working on the Raptors. She knew them pretty well, and maybe he’d spent a little more time in recent months training her in maintenance than was strictly necessary. It had served him well, and she was holding her own on the repair crews. So he’d see her throughout the days, even if it was only in passing. It made things easier. It also made them harder, because they still couldn’t really announce how they felt. Partly that was rank and fraternization and career, but the other part was that it simply wasn’t appropriate to have anything to be happy about when so many had lost so very much.

So many like Cally. She’d been with him for nearly six months, so he knew her better than most of the rooks. He knew that she and Prosna had been close, although whether friends or lovers he had no idea. It didn’t really matter at this point. He knew she was the type to try to mother those around her. He knew that she’d had a father back home that she really looked up to, and that he’d been in maintenance as well. He knew that she could fix just about anything given enough time to puzzle it out. And he knew that she had a very soft heart. What he didn’t know was whether or not she was strong enough to get through this.

He’d managed to get the gun away from her, although he hadn’t known what he should or shouldn’t say. He’d had all the classes – both mandatory instructional hours every year. The military had always been good about telling supervisors just how prevalent suicide was in the ranks, and what to look for to prevent it. But mostly the classes were directed at managing situations with strangers, and of course the statistics about how frequent suicide was among military personnel. Cally was both a coworker and a friend of sorts, so it changed the rules. There was very little objectivity when someone you liked was ready and willing to die.

The only rule of crisis management that he had truly followed was to stay calm. He had done that. He’d also made promises he couldn’t keep, he’d put his hands on a loaded weapon, and he’d held her for twenty minutes while she bawled like a baby. None of those things were approved in the handbook. What was more, it had taken all his strength not to cry right along with her.

Still, when security had shown up, he was glad that he’d had the gun away from her and they’d had no reason to threaten her. She’d been through enough without that. He had gestured for them to stay put, and whether because they understood or they were just too tired to argue, they had complied.

God, the look on her face when she’d seen them there had been almost enough to push him over the edge. She had looked so betrayed, and from her perspective he supposed she was. He still wondered if calling them had been the best idea, but it was standard procedure when someone potentially unstable had a weapon. And in the end they had done what he could not; they had taken her to the Life Station and she’d gone to the head of the line for care. As a cry for help, it had been damned efficient.

Tyrol had left the bays unsupervised while he’d gone with her to the Life Station. He couldn’t just leave her to security. Lords, she was barely more than a child, and she was scared. The doc had looked her over and slammed an IV in her faster than Tyrol could blink. Apparently she’d been pretty bad off, whether from not eating or not sleeping he couldn’t be sure. But at the very least the doctor had said it was no wonder she hadn’t been thinking clearly, and that had helped. Maybe she wasn’t as far gone as Tyrol had feared. Maybe she wasn’t mentally unstable, but rather physically exhausted. They all were. He liked that answer better than thinking that she really, truly didn’t want to live. It was the only comfort he’d had as they had shooed him out of the treatment bay to wait in a crowded hallway.

And now he supposed he should leave, even though he’d asked the doc to let him know as soon as he could see her. There were friends of hers on the deck who would be anxious to know how she was – calling security had made the situation more obvious than he would have liked – and there was more work to get done than they could ever accomplish. Now he had one less man doing it, but that wasn’t what was worrying him. What worried him was that she might not make it back, and at one point he had known that she loved her job. He hated to see anyone this low.

When Captain Adama made his appearance outside the Life Station, it was all Tyrol could do not to turn his back on the younger man. He had actually looked forward to meeting the Commander’s son, and he’d been both shocked and angered that the flyboy had been no more than a spoiled, rude brat. The last thing he’d wanted was for the new CAG to upset Cally even more.

“Chief,” the Captain now said. Tyrol had nodded back, but had no desire to speak to the man, whether he was CAG or not. “How is she?” the Captain asked.

“Alive,” he replied.

Captain Adama nodded, then leaned back against the opposite side of the corridor outside the Life Station. He didn’t say any more. But he didn’t back down either, and Tyrol had to give him credit for his tenacity.

“You don’t have to stay,” Tyrol said a few minutes later. “I’m just waiting to see if they’re going to keep her here or stick her in the brig.”

The Captain’s eyebrow went up, but he didn’t speak immediately. “I don’t think she’ll wind up in the brig,” he said, almost conversationally. “Although at least she’d be supervised there.”

“Is there something you’re trying to say?” Tyrol asked. He didn’t like the implication that he wasn’t watching his crew, or that they weren’t watching one another. Supervision was adequate. Cally was here – she was alive – because he’d been watching her.

“Nothing you don’t already know,” he answered. “This isn’t the first attempt and it won’t be the last. I lost two pilots yesterday morning to the same thing. It’s hard to watch everyone, and we have no way of knowing who’s going to…”

“That much is true,” Tyrol said in a tired voice. “I’m sorry about your pilots.”

The Captain closed his eyes, and for a minute he looked very much like his father: tired, worn, and very sad. “I didn’t even know them,” he said softly. “But I wish they’d had someone they could’ve talked to. I can’t help but wonder if their CAG had been around…”

Tyrol couldn’t think of an answer to that. He didn’t really want to offer comfort to the man he saw as the enemy. Thankfully he was saved from the situation by the physician’s arrival.

“How’s she doing?” the Chief asked, directing his question towards the doctor.

“She’s stable now,” the doctor admitted, and he seemed more tired than anyone else was. The Chief figured that he must be, but that didn’t lessen his concern for his troop. “We have her hydration level and blood sugar back up where they should be, and her electrolytes are leveled out. At least I’m not worried about heart failure or hypoglycemic shock, both of which were possibilities when you brought her in. She’s coherent now, as well. She wasn’t making a lot of sense before, but that could have been either the blood sugar or sleep deprivation. I’m amazed she was still conscious.”

“Can we see her?” the Captain asked. Tyrol scowled. He didn’t want the bastard anywhere near Cally, but it wasn’t like he could say anything against it. And maybe he was being a little harsh towards the new CAG, but regardless of any differences they’d had, William Adama was a damned fine leader, and Tyrol had a problem with anyone who showed him as little respect as this man had when he’d boarded the Galactica. He’d been a guest on the ship, and still he’d had nothing kind to say about his own father.

“Actually, I need you to get her out of here,” the doctor said. “We don’t have the space for anyone who isn’t critical. She’ll need to be watched constantly, even going to the bathroom, until we can get a thorough psych evaluation done. I don’t know when that will be.”

“There are a lot of people back in quarters who are worried about her,” Tyrol said slowly. “I’m not sure she’ll be able to handle that right now.”

The doctor shook his head and started to protest, but the Captain cut off his attempt at speech. “Can you keep her here until morning?” he requested. “We need time to set up the supervision, and she’ll probably do better if you can get a little more fluid in her, right?”

The doctor still looked doubtful, but Apollo added, “I’d be happy to clear it with my father if you’d like.”

Reluctantly, the doctor nodded. “Until morning,” he allowed. “If you’ll excuse me, I have other patients.”

With that, the physician was gone. The Chief was left stunned, and very uncertain of this rude and obnoxious man who had just plaid a trump card on the doctor. Days before, the Captain had been brief to the point of rudeness when complimented on his father’s policies, and now he was using him to pull rank. It didn’t make any sense.

But the Captain wasn’t standing around. He was walking back through the doors that led to a room full of sick and injured people. Tyrol followed, still unwilling to trust this officer’s apparent change of heart. When they reached Cally, she was lying on a cot with an IV in one hand, and Tyrol was pleased to see that she had a little more color than she’d had before. She was awake, and alert enough to see them approaching. The fear in her expression made him furious. Why the hell did the Captain have to pick now to get involved with his men?

The room itself was full, but not all that noisy. Most of the patients appeared to be sleeping, whether drugged or natural, and none were paying a great deal of attention. To Tyrol it didn’t matter; his attention was focused on one person – two if he counted the uninvited Captain Apollo.

But as they got closer, Apollo stepped aside and gestured for Tyrol to precede him. The Chief didn’t ignore the opportunity to place himself between the two of them. If the Captain chose to ream her out for being human, he was going to have to go through Tyrol to do it.

“Hey, there,” Tyrol said softly as he stood next to her. She looked so damned scared; it was worse than seeing her sad.

“I’m sorry, Chief…” she began, but he cut her off.

“Don’t worry about it,” he told her with a forced smile. He didn’t really have a clue what to say to her. “Just feel better.”

She nodded, and he was left with a silence that was horribly awkward. The Captain broke that silence by stepping forward. “How are you feeling?” he asked Cally.

The fear flashed in her eyes once more, but Tyrol couldn’t see a way to get in the middle of this without being insubordinate. As Apollo moved closer to Cally, Tyrol shifted to the foot of the cot. He might not be able to remain between them, but he wasn’t getting too far away.

“Better, Sir, I guess,” she answered softly. “I’m not dizzy now.”

“I’m glad,” the Captain said, and then he did something that floored Tyrol between one heartbeat and the next; he reached out and took Cally’s hand in his and just held it. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

She shook her head, but the fear was fading and that made the Chief feel better. “I’ll be okay,” she told the Captain, even as another tear slipped down her cheek. “I just… things were a little messed up for a while. They still are, but I’m not going to… you know.”

“I’m glad,” Apollo told her, and was that actually a smile on his face? “We don’t have enough decent mechanics. You’re probably the only one who will put up with training me.”

She almost smiled. Almost. “You didn’t do too bad,” she said. “You’ll get the hang of it.”

“Maybe.” They stayed that way, neither of them talking for a moment, but the silence wasn’t the same as it had been earlier. It wasn’t tense, but simply there. “I know how you’re feeling,” Apollo said softly. “Or pretty close. A couple of years ago I lost my brother in… in an accident. Afterwards I didn’t know if I wanted to live or not. It took a while to get my head back together.”

Cally seemed to think about that. Tyrol was frankly shocked. He had known that Commander Adama had lost a child a couple of years back, but until now he hadn’t connected it with the irritating and ungrateful son who had remained. It was easy to think of the Commander as having loved his son, but not so simple realizing that this Captain had loved his brother. Family just hadn’t seemed to be one of Captain Apollo’s priorities.

“Were you really close?” she asked. When he nodded, she swallowed heavily and asked, “Does it get any easier?”

Apollo appeared to think that over. “It doesn’t hurt any less,” he admitted. “But after a while you get… used to it. You start remembering the good stuff, and that helps some. I’ll never be glad it happened, and I’ll always miss him, but in a way I’m glad he didn’t have to see… this.”

Cally nodded her head as though she understood. “Prosna… he was a good friend; my best friend. He died in the fire. I miss him.” There were more tears now, but not the uncontrolled sobbing she’d had earlier. It bothered Tyrol almost as much.

“It’s hard,” the Captain admitted as he reached out to brush away one of her tears. “But it will get easier. And if he was a good friend, I know he wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself. He’d be glad you survived, wouldn’t he?”

She nodded slowly, and once more there was a comfortable silence. He still hadn’t let go of her hand, and that surprised Tyrol for some reason.

“You look tired,” the Captain said. “You should sleep some.”

“I can’t,” she admitted, and her voice was shaking as she did so. “When I close my eyes, he’s there… after.”

Apollo nodded again. “You can’t stop remembering him, but you can try to remember better things. If he’s going to be around when you’re sleeping, try to think of the good stuff you remember.” When Cally appeared uncertain, he continued, “How did you two meet?”

She did smile at that. “In basic,” she said. “We were in the same Flight. I was horrible at the run, though. I couldn’t keep up, and the first few runs my TI did nothing but scream at me. Then Prosna just started… running behind me. When I’d slow down, he’d stick his hand in my back and push. He wouldn’t let me drop out. At first it bugged me, but then I realized he was just trying to help. He kept getting in trouble because they thought he was as slow as I was, but he kept doing it anyway. It’s the only thing that got me through the Physical Training in basic.”

“Sounds like he was a really good friend,” Apollo said gently. “Was he always looking out for you?”

“Most of the time,” she admitted. “But I looked out for him, too.”

“Did you ever date?”

Cally shook her head. “We weren’t that kind of friends,” she said, but she didn’t seem to take offense at the question. Tyrol thought that must be because of how casually it had been asked. And she wasn’t crying anymore.

“So, how much trouble did you keep him out of?” Apollo asked her with a wink, and once more she smiled. And then she started talking.

Tyrol listened as she told of the short friendship that had been so deep. She spoke of their time in basic, and the last six months on the Galactica, which had been the only duty assignment for either of them. He remembered some of the antics she mentioned, but others were new to him.

He knew that he should leave – he’d been off the deck too long, and it was obvious that the Captain wasn’t going to drag Cally to the brig – but it was good to see someone smiling, even if it was just at memories. Gradually, her voice became softer and then slowed to a stop. Her eyes were finally closed, her features relaxed, and she was sleeping. Tyrol turned to leave then, walking towards the exit of the Life Station. When he heard footsteps behind him, he looked over his shoulder.

Apollo was right on his heels. At Tyrol’s questioning look, the Captain shrugged and admitted, “I need to get back to the deck. If you don’t mind, go by quarters and let her friends know she’s okay… or as okay as she’s going to get. You said they’d worry.”

Tyrol nodded; he’d forgotten about her friends for the moment. “Why?” he asked, although he hadn’t meant to ask.

The Captain didn’t pretend not to understand. “She’s a sweet kid,” he finally said. “We had to rebuild the skids on my Viper, and she pretty much walked me through it. She cried the whole time, but she was never impatient or angry. Just sad. She’s about the same age as…” He broke off then and cleared his throat. “Let me know if she needs anything. I mean that.”

Tyrol nodded. He believed him. “I don’t think she would have talked to me that way,” he said softly. “But I think she needed it. Thank you.”

“She’s not out of the woods,” he said gently. “None of them are.”

Tyrol smiled faintly. “But now she may have the time to find her way out.”

The Captain stood there for a moment more, and then with a faintly embarrassed expression he asked, “What’s her name?”

“Cally,” Tyrol answered, only now realizing how personal the conversation had been for two people who had not even been properly introduced. “Margaret Cally.”

“That’s right,” Apollo said, as though he’d known and simply not remembered. It was probably the case. Truthfully, the Captain had to have a lot on his mind, and it both surprised Tyrol that he’d taken time out for Cally and in a way pleased him. She needed someone to look out for her, and Tyrol hadn’t done that good of a job so far.

“I’ll see you on the deck,” Tyrol told him. “I won’t be long.”

Apollo nodded, and with no more than that he was gone.

The Chief took a couple of deep breaths, and then turned to go in the opposite direction. He needed to go by quarters and let them know how she was. The Captain was right; Cally had a lot of friends. Tyrol could only hope that they were enough.

Chapter 6

Kara tucked the last of her cigars into her new locker and shut the door with a thud. She hated moving. She always had. While she couldn’t remember when the hating had started, she was sure it had been early. It wasn’t a convenient aversion when one was in the military.

But she’d been lucky. In eight years of service, this was really only her fifth relocation. She’d moved from the Adama home into basic quarters when she’d gone to college, and she’d lived with Lee there. From basic quarters she’d moved into another room with Lee at the Academy, as they’d gotten along well as roommates. When she had been made an instructor, she’d made the move from student housing to instructor’s housing, and six months later Lee had joined her there as well. When Zak had entered the Academy, Lee had found another roommate just so that Kara wouldn’t have to make another move. He’d known how much she hated doing it. Two years ago she’d moved into her cubby on the Galactica when the Commander had brought her here. So this was only her fifth real move, and just a few doorways down from where she’d been, but she still hated moving.

On the other hand, she would have hated staying even more. As senior ranking among the Galactica’s Lieutenants with the most time in grade – courtesy of being ineligible for promotion on three different occasions for various infractions – she’d had her pick of the bunks. Kara had taken the one in an identical location to where she’d been in Red Squadron’s quarters, only now she was in Blue. She supposed they should call it Purple with all the Reds and Blues mixed together. It was a lousy joke, but a lot less awful then sleeping a few feet down from where two friends had blown themselves away.

Very quickly and abruptly, she shut down those thoughts. They wouldn’t do anyone any good. Spence was gone, as dead as his big brother Ripper. Cindy was a basket case, and they’d put her in the Life Station under sedation until she could cope without hurting herself or someone else. Kara wondered what Aames and Spence could have been thinking. Yes, they’d ended their own pain, but who the hell had thought about Cindy? Why hadn’t they realized what would happen to a woman who had already lost almost everyone she cared about?

As bad as life had been for Kara at certain points, she’d never considered suicide. Even when she’d lost Zak, she hadn’t actively thought of taking her own life. Granted, she hadn’t thought about living either. She’d lain down on a bed and closed her eyes until William Adama had brought her here to the Galactica and had given her a purpose for getting up each day. She might have let herself starve to death, but she wouldn’t have considered actually putting an end to her life. She just didn’t think that way. It frightened her that so many did.

A few of her friends had joked, albeit more seriously than she liked to admit, that she had a death wish while flying her Viper. Maybe she was a little… extreme. But she was also a survivor, and so far she’d always made it back. She never went out there to get killed, but instead to get the job done. If that had given her a reputation for unnecessary heroics, then it certainly wasn’t her fault.

“Good morning,” Lee said as he passed behind her on his way in the hatch. She looked sideways at him but didn’t reply. His uncaring attitude towards her friends’ deaths was still stinging, and she didn’t want to be in any more trouble with him than she likely already was.

“When does your shift start?” he asked as he tossed a few things on the bunk a couple of racks down from hers. Damn, it looked like he was moving in.

“You make the schedules,” she reminded him, and was proud of herself for keeping her voice so level.

“And I’m too tired to remember who’s where,” he admitted bluntly. “Cut the shit, Kara. What time do you go on?”

“I’m working on the decks at midday,” she told him, trying desperately to hold onto her anger in the face of his obvious fatigue. It was hard to look at a friend who was going through so much and remain angry, even when that friend was being a royal jerk.

“Okay, then I need a favor,” he asked.

She turned and looked at him, but didn’t speak. Her question was in her raised eyebrow and pointed glare. She was sure he could also see the clear disbelief that he would actually think she would do anything for him the way he’d been acting.

“I need Tyrol off the deck,” he said simply. “He’s been working nonstop for forty-eight hours, except for the time he was down in Life Station. He needs to sleep. You know him better than me; how do I get him to lie down?”

Kara thought about it. It was a legitimate concern; Tyrol would work himself sick if given the opportunity, and they needed him. The answer was pretty simple, but she didn’t know if she wanted to share her information with Lee. She didn’t know him anymore – or she wasn’t sure she knew him – and she didn’t want to risk getting the Chief into trouble. “I’ll check the roster when I get down there,” she said. “I know someone who can talk him into resting for awhile.”

“You mean he actually listens to someone?” Lee said with a trace of amusement. “Amazing.”

“I could always talk to your dad,” she said thoughtfully. “But I really don’t want the Chief in trouble. If the Commander has to order him to quarters, that’s what Tyrol will consider it. Still, if this other way doesn’t work, we can go that direction.”

Lee nodded. “So long as he gets some sleep,” Lee agreed. “Thanks.”

“You’re awfully concerned about our non-comms,” she said as she turned and leaned back against her now closed locker with her arms crossed before her. She didn’t consider how defensive the stance was. If she had, she wouldn’t have cared. “It’s not like you.”

“We can’t do our jobs if they don’t do theirs,” Lee said as he used the ladder to hoist himself up to the bunk he’d claimed. He stuck the things he’d brought with him into the shelves at the head of the bunk, then pulled his feet up to lay down, boots and all. “The Commander said the Chief lost most of his crews,” Lee added softly. “We’re lucky he’s not a basket case.”

“Tyrol’s solid,” she told him softly. “He’s a good man.”

“We have a lot of good men that are dead,” he reminded her as he pulled a blanket over himself and beat on his pillow to scrunch it up and lift his head a little more. His eyes closed, he shifted around a little, and then began beating on the pillow again. It wasn’t going to help. Fleet issue pillows were no thicker than they had to be.

“Here,” she finally said, tossing him one of hers. “Just put it back when you’re done.”

The pillow had hit him in the face, startling him, but he didn’t argue. He stacked her pillow on top of his and lay back down. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” she said grudgingly. Then she left him to his nap. There was a lot that they needed to say to one another. They needed to clear up misunderstandings and find out if they even had a friendship left after all they’d been through, but now wasn’t the time. It was the first time she’d seen him lie down since this mess had begun, and she wasn’t going to keep him awake. If he was going to make it as CAG, he needed the sleep. She would leave him to it.

Kara herself had managed a few hours on a deserted bunk earlier that morning. Instead of whining that she couldn’t get into Blue Squadron’s quarters, she’d found a quiet place in Red’s and settled down for a nap. It hadn’t been easy finding a bunk where she didn’t know the owner, but she’d managed it. Her sleep hadn’t been long, but it had been deep. Only the commotion of the Squadron moving into their new quarters had awoken her. She had grabbed her own things then, had claimed the bunk she wanted even as she had tried to forget that Tracie had once used it, and had started getting ready for work.

Her return to the hangar was uneventful. It seemed like the same men were working on the same planes that they had been when she’d left. She checked the schedule for what she needed and made a couple of notations there, moving two pilots around to cover the opening she’d just created. She initialed the change as acting CAG, because while Lee was sleeping she was. If he didn’t like how she did what she was told, then he could stuff it. Paperwork managed, she went in search of Sharon Valerii.

“Hey,” Kara called out as she approached the Raptor. Sharon was on the ground beneath it, checking lines and replacing any wiring that needed it. Courtesy of Tyrol, she was one of the better mechanics among the pilots, and she was in demand with so many repairs in the works. But Lee had given Kara an order – if not in so many words – and as Kara happened to agree with it, she was going to carry it out.

“Hey, Starbuck,” Sharon called from beneath the spacecraft. “What’s up?”

“Got a mission for you,” Kara said with a grin.

“Flying?” Sharon asked hopefully.

“That’s up to you,” Kara muttered. But it got Sharon’s attention, and she scooted out from under the Raptor. “What do you need?”

“A favor,” she admitted. “We have a certain Chief that hasn’t been off the deck in three days, and he needs some sleep. We’ve ordered, coerced, and now we’re going to get sneaky. I need you to get your guy out of this hangar and into a bed. Now.”

Sharon blushed as she climbed to her feet. “I’m on duty,” she protested.

“Not anymore. Schedule has been altered, I checked to be sure that the CAG quarters is empty, and you are officially ordered to get him out of here.” At Sharon’s dubious look, Kara added, “Boomer, he’s going to fall apart if he doesn’t take care of himself. I can’t go to him and tell him that, though. So it was either come to you, or go to the Commander. I’d rather keep this off the record.”

Sharon blushed slightly. “What makes you think I…”

Kara just shook her head, her expression cutting off Sharon’s words. “Most of us knew before,” she said gently. “The only people who don’t know now are either blind or stupid. Just get him out of here, please.”

The blush intensified, but Sharon nodded. “I’ll do my best. Can I use the threat about the Commander?”

“Be my guest,” Kara allowed. “So what do I need to finish here?”

“Primary check was good,” Sharon said, her tone returning to its usual professionalism. “I’ve replaced most of the wiring into the gravity pod, but there’s still a short or two. It’s fine here, but out in space you can’t fly it without being in a restraint. We need to get power back to that pod.”

“I’ll get it,” Kara said with a nod. “You get some rest. You’re back on duty at twenty-two hundred.”

Sharon nodded. “Ten hours,” she said with a grin. “Wow.”

“Try to spend it sleeping,” Kara said with a wink. “Or at least most of it.” Sharon just grinned back as she walked away. With a groan, Kara then lowered her body down to the hangar floor and slid up under the Raptor to grab the circuit meter. If there was a short there, she’d have to find it.

It took several hours to get the pod operational on the Raptor, and by the time Kara finished she was aching worse than when she’d lain down. Dragging herself back up to her feet, she looked at her watch in surprise and glanced around the constantly bustling bay. At the very least, there seemed to be fewer pieces and more intact spacecraft around her. That was something. No one had come complaining to her either, and that was even better. Maybe things were actually settling into an even keel.

Her stomach gave a disconcerting growl, reminding her that she hadn’t grabbed anything to eat before she’d come down. She had come to the hanger straight from her talk with Lee, and she’d been so distracted that food hadn’t been a priority. Yet even if she’d had breakfast, she would have likely been hungry by now; it was well past time for lunch.

But Kara didn’t want to eat alone. On the previous days, someone had gone for sandwiches and everyone had eaten as they worked. It hadn’t been bad, but there was something to be said for getting away from work for a few minutes, even if it was only to grab a bite to eat. Kara made a cursory glance around the bay, but everyone seemed actively engaged in whatever they were doing. On a whim, she went looking for a friend to talk to while she looked for a friend to eat with her. The one person on the current schedule that she really knew and liked was one of the mechanics. Although normally the enlisted and the officers didn’t mix much, Kara had never held to military tradition. She took her friends where she could get them, and as there weren’t many women who enjoyed working on spacecraft, there weren’t many women who particularly liked hanging around with Kara.

Cally wasn’t at her usual section of the hangar, which was odd. Kara looked around for another ten minutes before spotting someone she thought might be able to help her. Socinus wasn’t the best mechanic, but he was a good worker. And he was also pretty close to Cally, so Kara was fairly sure he’d know where to find her, or at least whether she’d taken time yet to eat. Kara was guessing not, because Cally was as known for getting tied up in what she was fixing as Tyrol.

“Hey, Soc,” Kara called out, moving towards him at a jog that seemed to jolt every sore muscle in her body. “Have you seen Cally? I thought the roster said she was on today.”

The look on his face was almost terrified, and Kara had to frown. What the hell had she said?

“She’s still in Life Station, I think,” the Specialist admitted.

“Did she get hurt?” Kara asked anxiously. She hadn’t heard anything, but then she’d gone straight from bed to the roster to Sharon.

“Not exactly.”

Kara rolled her eyes, “Then why exactly is she in Life Station?” she asked in exasperation.

“She… well, she…”

“Spit it out,” Kara said in frustration. “She…”

“She had a gun,” he finally said, his eyes fixed on his feet. “She took it into a launch tube and… well, the Chief talked her out of it, but security took her to the Life Station. I don’t know when they’ll put her back on duty.”

The bottom dropped out from under Kara’s world. Cally? “I’m going to lunch,” she said quickly. “Tell Evans he’s in charge until I get back. Overhead me if there’s a problem. Got it?”

“Yes, Sir,” Socinus said, and took off towards the other side of the bay at a jog.

Kara wiped greasy hands on the orange coveralls she’d donned when she’d entered the bay, and didn’t bother to think about changing. She took the stairs two at a time as she ran up to the primary level, and walked quickly into the Galactica’s main corridor. But she didn’t head to the Dining Hall or the Officer’s Mess. She was headed directly to the Life Station.

It took some fancy talking once she got there, but Kara wasn’t above throwing her rank around when she had the opportunity. She was directly beneath Lee in the chain of command, and with that knowledge she didn’t take “no” for an answer. Dodging doctors and techs, she made her way to the rear of the medical bay and finally found Cally sleeping on a cot back out of the way. She was pale, and she had gray shadows under her eyes. But in sleep, she looked as sweet and innocent as she did awake, and Kara found it very hard to believe that she might have even considered…

Kara stood there for a few minutes, not wanting to wake Cally and yet still needing some assurance that the young woman was okay. Kara had known that Cally had taken Prosna’s death hard, but she had never expected this. Kara felt like she must have misunderstood what Socinus had said. Maybe he didn’t know the whole story? After all, the docs wouldn’t put in an IV for something mental, would they? It wasn’t making sense.

Just as Kara was about to decide to leave and let Cally get some much needed sleep, the younger woman began to move restlessly on the cot, murmuring in her sleep, tears squeezing from closed eyes. Kara had watched too many nightmares in the last few days not to recognize one, and she knew very well that losing sleep was better than staying in the grip of horror.

“Cally,” she said softly, reaching for the hand closest to her, the hand that didn’t have the needle in it. “Wake up, Cal. It’s just a dream.”

With a start, Cally’s eyes flew open. She looked frightened for a moment, then her gaze landed on Kara and the look changed to one of embarrassment. Finally, Cally’s glance took in the room around her, and a horrible sadness seemed to overtake her features.

“It was just a dream,” Kara said with a forced smile. “It’s over now.”

“No,” Cally corrected. “It isn’t.” The tears were making steady trails down the sides of her face now. Kara wasn’t entirely sure what to do.

“How are you feeling?” Kara said, trying to at least divert her attention from the people around them and the absolute desolation she saw in Cally’s eyes.

“Tired,” Cally said softly. “Stupid.”

“We’re all tired,” Kara told her with a smile. “And we all do… dumb things once in a while.”

“Not like this,” Cally corrected. “I can’t believe I actually…”

“What happened?” Kara asked.

Cally shook her head. “I don’t even really know,” she admitted. “I just know that I was miserable, and I couldn’t sleep, and there was a gun sitting there. I just… I guess I thought… But I don’t think I would have used it,” she said, turning large brown eyes on Kara. “I really don’t think I would have done it. I swear.”

Kara felt her heart racing as she realized that Socinus had indeed interpreted the situation correctly. Cally had actually thought about… “Well, you’re here now,” she said. “They’ll take good care of you.”

Cally nodded and squeezed Kara’s hand. “Thanks for coming to see me,” she said with a pitiful attempt at a smile. “It really was a crappy dream.”

“We’re all having them,” Kara admitted. “Don’t be embarrassed about it. We’ve all been through quite a bit, and it’s not over just yet. But we’ll be okay, Cal, just as long as we stick together. Got it?”

Kara watched as Cally met her eyes, focused there for a moment, and seemed to read the message that went beyond the words. They could get through this if they leaned on one another. They could get one another through it. But no one would manage if individuals kept pulling themselves out of the game. They had to finish this together, or none of them would finish it at all. “I’ve got it,” Cally whispered.

“Good,” Kara said with honest relief. The understanding in Cally’s expression was unmistakable.

She stayed a few more minutes, until Cally started to look drowsy again and then drifted off. Kara watched as the younger woman finally surrendered to sleep, the shadows beneath her eyes just as dark, and her expression just as sad. She wished she knew what she could do to make it better, but she honestly had no idea. With a feeling of resignation, Kara left the Life Station and walked back down to the hangar. It wouldn’t be for another several hours that she would realize that she’d forgotten to eat once again.

Chapter 7

Margaret Cally didn’t think there could possibly be anything more difficult than walking back into quarters with the Chief at her side. She honestly wasn’t sure whether to be grateful for his support or resentful of the attention that it brought her. She really just wanted to forget – forget what she had done, forget what she had lost, and forget what she had yet to deal with. The looks she saw on the faces of friends gathering around her made it clear that forgetting wasn’t an option. At all.

“It’s good to have you back,” Deni said with a gentle hug. “If you need anything…”

“I’m fine,” Cally told her with a small smile. She wasn’t fine, and this wasn’t helping.

“Can I get you anything?” Lori asked her.

“No.”

“Are you tired?” someone else asked.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Are you…”, “Will you…”, “Can I…”

The well-meaning words of her friends seemed to overlap into a mind-boggling whole. The heard about half of it through the bubble she seemed to be inside. She was uncomfortable, too. She couldn’t get warm, and she felt as though she had no energy and yet couldn’t be still either. Any moment, she was sure that the tears would begin, and she just wanted a corner to crawl into so that no one could see her weakness.

Their offers of help and promises of support seemed to go on forever, but eventually everyone seemed to remember that there was work to be done. Later, Cally would look back on the moment and realize just how many friends she truly had, but at the moment she was just… numb. She didn’t want understanding. She didn’t want anything except a quiet corner in which to curl up and rock herself.

Part of the numbness was due to a medication that Doctor Salik had given her. She had pills to take – one every day – that she would have to report to the Life Station to receive. She supposed they couldn’t just trust her with a bottle of them after what she’d done – almost done – whatever. She really didn’t care. All that really seemed important at the moment was work, and when she needed to do it, and where. But she didn’t honestly care about work either. She was tired, but didn’t want to sleep. She was agitated, but she had no outlet for the conflicting feelings. She was… miserable. In a way, it had been easier when the confusion had been predominant in her mind, and it had definitely been easier when she’d believed that she’d found a solution to the pain.

Now, her thoughts were just clear enough to tell her that she’d been really stupid. She didn’t want to die. She had never wanted to die. She just wanted the pain to stop. Now it wasn’t even pain – pain she understood – but some odd sense of detachment that she couldn’t seem to break through. She didn’t know how to make it better. Nothing anyone said seemed to make the least bit of difference.

The Chief had left her just as soon as she’d been surrounded by so many friends, and Cally was grateful. She still felt like she’d been unforgivably weak around him. She didn’t even think she’d remembered to thank him before he’d left her. But she wasn’t alone in quarters; Socinus was on his bunk reading a book, and Katie was on the bunk below Cally’s. Even as the rest of the squad dispersed to whatever they’d been doing before, or wherever they’d been, Cally was still being watched. She couldn’t even find it in her to care.

Cally took off her duty shirt and tucked it into her locker by habit more than anything else, then walked towards the bathroom. Before she’d taken three steps, Katie was at her side. “So you’re my guard?” Cally asked flatly. That was how she felt: flat.

“The Chief is gonna buddy everyone up,” Katie explained. “It’s not just you. He wants everyone in pairs until things level out.”

“Great,” Cally muttered. On top of the rest, now she had guilt for pushing everyone into precautions that would probably be unnecessary for anyone else, and yet would inconvenience them all the same. They could blame her for that, too.

“We’re on shift together, too. We’re both off until tomorrow morning. I don’t think I’ve had this long a stretch without duty since this all started.” Katie sounded almost chipper. It was enough to give Cally a headache. Lords, she hated feeling like this.

Cally nodded as she approached a toilet stall. “Do you have to follow me in?” she asked blandly. She really didn’t care. She’d go anyway. They had all been watched before during mandatory drug testing at one point or another, and back in basic there hadn’t been stall doors or segregated restrooms. She’d gone in front of men, women, whatever. The purpose was that during a wartime situation privacy might not be a possibility. At the time it had just been embarrassing. Since being on the Galactica, it had come in handy. At least she didn’t freak when she walked out of a shower in no more than a towel and found half a dozen half-naked men waiting for their turn. Bodies were bodies, and they all had one.

Katie grinned. “Not unless you need help,” she said with a wink. “But if you’re gone more than a few minutes, I’m coming in after you.”

“Hunky-dory,” Cally said softly as she entered the stall to take care of business so that she could lay down and get some sleep. Salik’s drug was making her sleepy, but at least she didn’t have that damned fuzzy feeling anymore. She would have preferred it to the numbness, but she supposed that she had to have something to deaden the pain. Absently, she wondered what would happen if she didn’t take the pill. Would she hurt again? Would she feel again? Would it matter? Did anything matter? Lords, she was in a crappy mood. If this was depression, Cally decided that someone else could have it – she wasn’t enjoying it.

True to her word, Katie was waiting to walk her to the sink to wash her hands, then back to her bunk. Katie then crawled into her own spot beneath Cally. For some reason, having a shadow just didn’t seem like a fun idea. Not for her – she really didn’t care enough about anything to worry about privacy, but for Katie to be stuck with someone who couldn’t even carry a thought seemed pretty sad. For that reason if no other, Cally felt like she just had to get herself together. For herself, it wasn’t as though Cally was used to time alone, but in the past she’d been able to choose her friends. She and Prosna…

Cally took a deep breath and finished the thought. She and Prosna had pretty much gone everywhere together, if not to the bathroom. On the other hand, he’d had to accompany her there a few times as well. Her sense of direction had been horrible, and when they’d first been assigned to the Galactica she hadn’t been able to find anything. More than once she’d grabbed him by the arm and asked him to help her find the head. He had thought it was hysterical. More than once he’d asked her how she could find her way around inside any engine when she couldn’t find her way out of a paper bag. He’d had the nicest laugh…

Pulling a blanket up over herself, Cally closed her eyes and made herself smile. There was a lot of good to remember. Captain Apollo had been right about that. Prosna had been funny, and sweet, and truthfully he deserved to be remembered in the best possible way. No, she could never forget what he’d looked like after she had dragged him from the burned remains of the port flight pod, but neither could she forget his smile, or his sick jokes, or the way he’d pulled on her ponytail just to tease her. There was a lot of good. If she was going to remember, there really were a lot more happy memories than sad ones. She just hoped that it was the good thoughts that followed her into sleep.

As it turned out, no thoughts really followed her into the deep, black sleep. Whether from the drugs Salik was making her take or from leftover fatigue, Cally’s sleep was deep and dreamless. She actually awoke before the automatic alarm went off, so she flipped the switch to keep it from bothering anyone later. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she slid down the ladder to the deck and walked to the bathroom. That stupid IV was still making itself known. She felt like all she ever did now was pee. A glance at her watch told her that the hall would be open for breakfast within a few minutes, so as she left the stall she decided to grab some clean clothes and head for the shower. She wasn’t really hungry, but if she didn’t eat they would put her back in the hospital, and while she didn’t give a damn where she was, the thought of another IV wasn’t something she wanted to face. She might be shielded against emotional pain at the moment, but physical pain was another matter altogether.

She nearly collided with Socinus as she closed her locker. “Good morning,” he told her tentatively. His usual enthusiasm and energy were gone, making Cally suspicious. He sounded as flat as she did.

“You got guard duty?” she asked. There was that numbness again. She could notice that Soc didn’t sound right, but she couldn’t care enough to ask why.

He blushed. “Katie’s sleeping,” he said as though it explained everything. Cally supposed it did.

“Well, you’re not taking a shower with me,” she told him with no feeling, and she didn’t even smile at the increase in color on his face. Soc had a fairly dark complexion – at least compared to hers – so when he blushed badly enough that it was visible, it was positively funny. Usually. Nothing was funny at the moment. Nothing was… anything at the moment.

“Um, no,” he agreed. “I’ll go wake Katie up.”

“Don’t,” she requested. “I’ll wait until later. If she’s asleep, leave her to it.”

Socinus shrugged, but he didn’t answer.

“Are you hungry?” she asked him.

Another shrug. “I could eat,” he admitted. Lords, he sounded like she felt.

“Then let me get a uniform on, and we’ll grab some breakfast. Okay?”

Socinus gave her a smile, this one less shy and more genuine. “Cool.”

And so it was that Cally found herself in the dining hall with Socinus griping over the over-ripe fruit and lack of milk. Cally supposed she should be grateful for even this, but she was finding it tough. On the other hand, it didn’t really matter. She couldn’t taste anything. She didn’t want anything. She just shoved in one bite after another and chewed by rote to get it done.

The kitchen was already out of milk and most vegetables, and the fruit was on its way out. After that it would be canned stuff, and when that was gone she had no clue what they would do for food. She tried to appreciate the last of the fresh produce, but nothing really tasted good to her. Her stomach was thankfully accepting the food without nausea, but she didn’t test that by eating very much.

“You’re quiet,” Cally commented halfway thorough the meal. It was really odd, because Soc was not one to lack for conversation. She asked not because she cared, but because it was… strange. It didn’t fit. Inside her bubble, everything had a place, and Soc was outside of his.

“I really don’t know what to say,” he admitted ruefully. “I’m pretty sure you don’t want to talk about what happened, and I know I don’t want to talk about work, so that doesn’t leave much.”

“Good point,” she muttered, taking another bite of too-sweet banana.

“What is it okay to talk about?” Soc asked her with his eyes lowered. “Cally, I don’t want to mess you up, but… I don’t know what not to say, not really. I guess maybe I’m not all that smart, but can you help me out?”

Cally took a deep breath and smiled a bit. It was the first true smile she’d felt in a long time, even as feeble as it was. “Talk about what you want, Soc. I really am okay. I was tired, and I wasn’t thinking very clearly, and I did something really stupid. I’m glad the Chief was there, and I’m sorry everyone knows about it, but that’s pretty much all there is to say on the subject. For now, I just… I can’t really feel anything, so you’re not likely to mess anything up. Hell, I’ve done that well enough myself. Just don’t get your feelings hurt if I’m not real talkative back. I’m just… tired.”

He looked at her for a moment, and then he smiled back. “You know, this was a lot easier when I had Prosna’s lead to follow.”

“What was?” A slight measure of confusion weaseled its way into her bubble. She didn’t understand.

He shrugged. “Talking to you. Talking to anyone, for that matter. He always seemed to be in the middle of a conversation by the time I got into it, so I didn’t have to put much thought into things. Now it’s like… I analyze everything. That probably sounds dumb.”

“No, not really. He was a good friend. He always seemed to know what to do or say. I’ll miss that. But you know, I don’t think even he could say something to fix this. I don’t know that it can be fixed. I’m not even sure I can be fixed. But I’m going to stick around and find out. Not so much because it seems like a good idea, but because dying doesn’t sound that good either. Right now… nothing does. I guess it’s easier to keep living.” She took a deep breath before adding, “So I’ll eat and sleep when they tell me, and work wherever they put me, and maybe someday I’ll feel like me again.”

Soc looked at her sadly. “I wish I had some magic words to make it better. But you’re right, even Andy couldn’t fix this.”

“No, but I’d like to see him try.”

“Me too. I really miss him. And I’ll miss the training,” he admitted wryly as he bit into bread that she knew was stale. “The Chief wants me to get the gravity pod rebuilt for one of the Raptors, and I swear half the stuff the book says we need we don’t even have.”

Cally nodded. “The replacement parts are gone. You’ll either have to pull it from one of the junkers that are down at the end of the deck, or you’ll have to make it yourself. It’s usually easier just to make it.”

“How do you make couplings and fuses?” he asked in confusion.

“It’s not hard,” she explained with another shrug. “In fact, I’m doing the same thing for a couple of the Vipers. If you want me to show you, I can.”

“That’d be great,” he said with relief. “Everyone’s so busy that I hate to ask.”

“You can’t learn if you don’t ask,” Cally told him. “That’s the first thing the Chief taught us. He said the only dumb question was the one you didn’t bother to ask.”

“Then I guess I have a lot of those,” Soc said with a grin. “If you’ve got time, I’d really like to learn this stuff. It’s not like I can just do my tour and go home afterwards. If I’m gonna be here forever, I may as well do a good job, right?”

“Right,” she agreed “When’s your next duty?”

“Tonight,” he answered. “Late watch.”

“I’m early watch,” she said thoughtfully. “If you don’t mind staying up a couple more hours, I can show you how to put together a makeshift coupling,” she offered. “It doesn’t take long, and like I said, I was going to have to do it anyway. They’re gonna have somebody playing bodyguard for me anyway, so it may as well be you.”

“If you’d rather have somebody else,” Soc began.

Cally cut him off. “Soc, I don’t want anybody. Or anything. I just… I can’t even explain it. I just want to get through the next few days, and maybe it will get better. It has to get better,” she said with desperation. “Doesn’t it?”

“I hope so,” he told her. “Because I can’t really imagine it getting any worse.

Chapter 8

Galen Tyrol tightened his arms around Sharon and held on tightly as his breathing returned to normal. Sharon was mostly doing the same. Her arms were around him, and her grip was firm.

After taking a few more breaths and finally getting his head to stop buzzing, he eased his weight to the side and tugged Sharon with him. She obligingly curled into his body, her arms around him and her knee between both of his.

This was new. With Sharon, the sex had always been… beyond amazing. He had originally thought that it was the excitement of a forbidden affair, or even the risk of getting caught. Then Tyrol had almost lost her. As he had struggled through his duties on the flight deck, using every movement to thrust her as far from his mind as possible, he had come to a realization. That realization had frightened him. If he was honest with himself, it still did.

Because he hadn’t been thinking about red-hot sex when he’d believed her lost. He had been thinking of long, dark hair. He had been seeing soft, brown eyes. He had been missing that one person who listened – really listened – when it had been a frakking bad day. When he’d honestly believed that he’d never see her again, the last thing on his mind had been sex.

And that put him… where? He had known that he loved her. He’d known that for several weeks. He had loved her as a friend, and he had loved the sex too. He also loved the hum of a well-tuned engine, the taste of a fine ambrosia on a particularly hot day, and he loved to watch a really intense game of Triad. Love was an easy emotion to define; it was an intense form of “like”. Yes, he loved Sharon.

But was he in love? Because that was a different matter entirely, and one that was well out of his depth. Galen Tyrol had never really been in love. He had loved many women over the years, some more intensely than others. He’d had his heart battered a bit by those women, but he’d beaten a few hearts around himself. Still, he’d never had his heart truly broken, because he’d never been in love. He hadn’t allowed himself that, because quite frankly it gave a woman a hell of a lot more power than he trusted her with. Could he trust Sharon with it? Did he have a choice?

“What are you thinking?” she asked softly. Her hair was spread over his chest, tickling slightly. She was curled into his side as though she belonged there. Did she? What the hell would she do if she did know what he was thinking?

“That… you have the most gorgeous hair,” he finally told her, and there was a good deal of truth in the statement. Maybe it wasn’t all the truth, but it wasn’t a lie.

“Cute,” she muttered, raising her head to turn chocolate brown eyes on him. “Now tell me what you’re really thinking.”

Caught. Frak, how did she do that? “I was thinking about your hair,” he defended himself, but he didn’t meet those eyes as he said it.

“Wanna know what I’m thinking?” she asked.

Did he? “Always,” he told her, and that too was the truth.

“I’m thinking that this is a hell of a lot easier in a bed,” she admitted with a grin.

Tyrol kissed her smile, then relaxed and enjoyed when she took the kiss deeper. They weren’t going any further right now than this kiss; he knew it, and he was sure she did as well. They were both due on the deck within the hour, and he for one was spent. The last two hours had been incredible, but he didn’t have any illusions of an immediate repeat performance. A man had his limits, even in a bed.

And this was a fine bed. As Starbuck had mentioned to Sharon the night before, the CAG quarters was without an owner and was one of the few doors on the Galactica that could be blocked, if not locked. It took some work, but a bar wedged in the wheel of the hatch and beneath the metal desk that was built into the wall could provide more than a minute or two of privacy in which to dress or at least find a position less… compromising. It was a privilege that he’d not had with her before, but it was one he might like to get used to.

When she finally raised her head, the smile was gone. “You’re worried,” she said, and it wasn’t a question.

“Everyone’s worried,” he hedged.

“You know what I mean. It’s that Specialist, isn’t it? The girl… Cami?”

“Cally,” he corrected, and as a topic other than the nebulous status of their relationship it wasn’t his first choice. Why didn’t Sharon ever go for the easy stuff, like whether he was hungry, or if he was still tired?

“She should be okay,” Tyrol said thoughtfully, because he felt bad enough about sidestepping what Sharon had asked in the first place. “I’ve got her teamed with Soc, and he won’t let her get out of his sight. Then in the barracks Katie’s watching her, so our bases are covered. She won’t be alone.”

Sharon considered that. “If I ask a question, will you promise not to hate me?” she asked tentatively.

“I could never hate you,” he told her honestly. “But I’m not going to promise to agree with you, or even to like what you say.” If she was starting the conversation with that kind of a disclaimer, he figured that he should do the same.

“Do you think…?” She took a deep breath, moved her gaze from his eyes to his shoulder, and tried again. “Do you think what you did was a good thing?”

“You mean keeping her from shooting herself?” he asked in confusion. How could that even be a question?

“I know you like her,” Sharon explained. “And as a crew we need her. But… I also know how much she’s got to be hurting. Don’t you think it would have been kinder to let her put an end to that?”

“No.”

Sharon’s eyes closed and she laid her head back down on his chest, but what he’d seen in them before she’d done so was seared into his mind. “Sharon, talk to me,” he ordered softly.

Her head didn’t move, her gaze didn’t raise to meet his, but he heard her soft voice. “Some friendships are special,” she said. “And there are some people who… make the job worth it; worth all the crap, I mean. Someone to… guide you, and make you feel like you can do it even when you know you can’t. When you lose that… Galen, if she really misses him that much, don’t you think it would have been better…”

“I don’t think we’re talking about Cally,” he told her, his arms tightening protectively. He felt like she was a million miles away.

“Maybe not,” she admitted.

“You miss him?” It wasn’t really a question, but it was phrased as one, so he hoped for an answer. And he didn’t need to clarify who he was talking about. Of course she missed Helo. The two of them had been practically attached at the hip since she’d been assigned. No one liked taking on rooks, but Helo’d had the knack. He was patient, firm, and when it came to making a Raptor soar he was the one they had all looked to. More than once Galen had been jealous of what Sharon and Helo had shared; time, rank, and a friendship he couldn’t touch that came from so much common ground.

“It’s different for me,” she said, still not looking at him. “He had a choice. I may not have liked it, or agreed with it, but I had to respect it. Yeah, I miss him. I don’t think I’ll ever get into a Raptor without hurting at least a little, but I know that it had to… be that way.”

“And Prosna didn’t have a choice,” Tyrol reasoned.

“No. And she didn’t get a chance to say good-bye, either. At least Helo and I had some kind of closure, but she just had… nothing. I know she has things to live for, and she’s young, and she’ll learn to live with it. But, Galen, she’s a long way from that right now. If she doesn’t want to fight her way through it, should she really be forced?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I do know that she was too tired and hurt to make a decision that permanent.” He sighed and tried to order his thoughts so that they made some kind of sense. Sharon had once told him that she had the same kind of jealousy towards Cally as he’d had towards Helo; it was a simple fact of shared interests and time together. He didn’t want to give Sharon an unnecessary reason for concern; he just wanted her to understand how unclear Cally was at the moment. “How many suicide attempts fail, and the person regrets it afterwards? There aren’t a lot of repeat attempts by people that screw it up the first time. Most of the time once they’ve tried it, they realize it didn’t fix the problem after all. They need time to fix things. I think she deserved that time, so yes, I think I did the right thing.”

“That’s fair,” she decided. “And I really wasn’t thinking that you’d done anything wrong. I just wondered if watching her like a hawk now is going to accomplish anything.”

“It limits her opportunities,” he explained. “When things settle down, and when we all find something to start living for again, then we won’t have to watch everyone so closely. At that point, maybe it will be her right to make that choice. But at the moment, she’s not ready to do it competently, so we won’t let her.”

Sharon nodded. He felt the movement against his chest, even though he couldn’t see her face. An unwanted thought occurred to him. “Did you think about it?” he asked, not knowing if he wanted to hear the answer.

“No,” she told him quickly. “I had too much to come back to.” Sharon lifted her head and met his eyes again. When she looked at him this way, it was as though he could see into her soul. “I’ll miss Helo,” she said gently. “But he wasn’t… everything I had. He wasn’t even the biggest part.”

There was a message in there. Tyrol was sure of it, even as he couldn’t fathom it. She couldn’t mean he was her reason for living. They weren’t even really a couple. They were just lovers, and maybe friends, and sometimes a little more. But it wasn’t something he could define, and it certainly didn’t seem like something solid enough to give someone a purpose for living. “I’m glad,” he told her. “Everything seemed to get a lot easier once I knew you were alive.”

She smiled before kissing him again, gentle this time. Tender. Sweet. He found that it was as emotionally satisfying as the physical joining they’d shared earlier.

“I’m going to be honest,” he told her carefully. “And if you decide to leave, then I’ll understand. I’d rather you’d stay, but I’ll understand.”

“Honest about what?” she asked, and he could have sworn that her eyes held fear.

“I don’t know what to do with this,” he said. “Us, I mean. Before it was… different. All I could think of was getting you out of your uniform. Well, not just that, but you know what I mean.”

“I know,” she agreed.

“It’s not like that now,” he told her. Reaching up to brush her bangs back out of her face and tuck her long hair behind one shoulder, he finished the caress by running a finger down the side of her face and just looking at her. “I don’t know where this is,” he admitted. “It’s not someplace I’ve been before. I care about you though, and more than just…”

“Just sex?” she suggested.

“Yeah. It’s more now. I don’t know how much; and I’m not talking about forever or anything, but I wanted you to know that… you’re important to me; even without the sex, you’re important to me.” He held his breath and waited for a response. He was pretty sure his little ramble wasn’t what every girl wanted to hear, but it was honest and right now that was the best he could do.

“I could tell you I feel the same way,” she said softly, her head going back to his chest to block her face from his view. “But it wouldn’t be the truth. I don’t know, but I guess I always wanted the ‘happily ever after’ stuff that you see in fairy tales. You know, the handsome prince, the white charger, and all the rest. I grew up without a family, so I want to have one of my own. Maybe not today, but if we get through this, I want one.” She finally lifted her head and met his gaze head-on. There were tears in her eyes. “I would have like to have one with you.”

Tyrol just stared. How did he feel about that? “Are you saying you’re in love with me?” he asked her in gentle confusion.

She shrugged one shoulder, and a tear slid down her cheek. “I guess I am. When everything was flying apart, all I could think of was getting back here to you. And I know it’s too soon to feel that way, and we’re under a bunch of stress and all that, but it’s how I feel. Right now, it’s how I feel.”

“I don’t know what to say,” he told her.

“You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted you to know. I thought you deserved to know, because we’re never sure when we might not get a chance to say anything else. I don’t expect you to feel the same way.”

Galen Tyrol looked at the beautiful woman in his arms, and had no clue what to do, or say, or even feel. She was offering him every man’s dream, and he didn’t have any idea what he should do with it. He might have found it easier if he hadn’t cared so much. She was offering him everything, and essentially asking for nothing in return. Thankfully, he had more to offer her than that, but nowhere near what she wanted, or needed, or deserved.

“You are… very special to me,” he said softly, rubbing the silky skin of her back, enjoying her warmth, and wishing that he didn’t have a streak of honesty that ran a mile deep. It would have been so much easier to lie to her and tell her what she needed to hear, but he couldn’t do it. Life was too short to base it on lies. But wasn’t it also too short to miss an opportunity like having a woman this beautiful to love? And he didn’t mean just that she was gorgeous – although she was – but what about her courage, and her spirit, and her fire. Those things were just as important as lovely hair and a body that was amazing. Most of the time, they were even more important. “I’m sorry,” he said gently. “I want to offer you more than that, but…”

“I’d rather have your honesty than a passel of lies,” she told him with a sad smile, once more looking up at him. “We’ve never lied to each other; not really. So for now, how about we try to meet in the middle? I won’t press you for more, and I don’t think you’ll give me less,” she added with a smile. “And from there we go one day at a time.”

“I like the sound of that,” he admitted.

“So… I’m not asking for a commitment or anything.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

“But, can I ask for a favor?”

“Anything I can give,” he answered, and found that in his heart, he meant it. He would give her anything he could. Hell, he was half-way tempted to give her something that he couldn’t – his heart.

“Boxey needs a place to stay,” she told him.

“I thought he was in quarters with you,” he said with confusion. “It’s not like you’re short on bunks.”

“Granted, but… Galen, it’s not the most appropriate place for a kid. Co-ed quarters are hard to adjust to when you’re of age, and he’s not. So far, the girls have been pretty good about where they change, and the guys are even trying to keep their language within reason. But it’s not fair to ask them to make themselves kid-friendly indefinitely. They’re under too much stress for it to be reasonable. They need a place they can cut loose, and with Boxey there they don’t have one.”

“So what do you want from me?” he asked, cutting through the explanation for what she was really asking.

“The Commander is setting up one of the bays as family quarters,” she explained. “He said I could move in with Boxey. They’re going to divide off the area with some partitions, and do their best to give families a place to make a home.”

He shook his head in confusion. “So… please don’t take this wrong, but what does that have to do with me?”

“I don’t think I should be the one to move in with him,” she admitted. “For all the reasons he shouldn’t be in co-ed quarters in the first place, and also because I think he needs to be around men if he’s going to grow into one. When I… years back, when I was growing up, I saw too many boys that didn’t know how to act like men because they hadn’t been exposed to them. I don’t want that to happen to Boxey.”

He had known she had grown up in an orphanage; that discussion had come shortly after they had met, and before they’d become romantically involved. She rarely mentioned it though, so it was easy to forget that her start in life had been less than ideal. It explained a lot of her attachment to the orphaned boy; she’d been there.

He had to admit that she had a point. Cally was an example of what growing up with the influence of a parent of the opposite sex could accomplish. And while in her case he considered it a good thing – small hands made for an amazing technician – he also knew that it was easier for a woman to get by with some masculine traits than for a man to act feminine. He didn’t want to sentence Boxey to an upbringing that might make later life hard. The kid had lost enough. If Cally had picked up so many male habits – although she was by no means inappropriate – in just a couple of years without a mother, how much would Boxey miss out on by losing his father this early?

“He’s a good kid,” Sharon said softly. “And I know it’s a lot to ask. But… Galen I’ve been where he is, and I don’t want to see him get lost in the system. There are so many orphans around that no one knows what to do with them. I don’t feel like I’m the best person to raise Boxey, but I want to be there, you know? If he’s with you, I know I can be.”

He had just finished telling her that he didn’t even know what he felt for her, and she was essentially asking him to share a child with her? How bizarre was that? But what struck him as the most odd, the most incredible, was that he really didn’t have to think about it. “I’d be happy to take him,” he said softly, giving her body a gentle squeeze. “Not sure how he’ll feel about me, though.”

Sharon looked up at him with a grin that went from ear to ear. “He’ll love you,” she declared. “It’s easy to do.”

He just shook his head in wonder. What in hell had he done to deserve something like this? And how in hell was he going to manage it without screwing up?

Chapter 9

Commander William Adama was tired. Beyond tired if he was honest; he was bordering on exhaustion. Only the fear that if he let himself sleep he might not be able to wake back up kept him from falling into the small, unmade bunk across from his desk and letting nature take its course. He was too old for this shit. He was supposed to be retired, not running what little was left of the military. He was supposed to be bouncing grandchildren on his knee, not herding the last survivors of humanity into an uncertain future. He was supposed to be…

But it didn’t really matter, did it? He would do what he had to, because he was there to do it. It was a part of who he was. He had never been one to shirk responsibility when it was thrust upon him, and he’d be damned if he’d start now. There was work to be done, and precious few people were left to do it. Two fewer today then there had been the day before.

Salik’s report told him that the previous day had given them another five suicide attempts; only two had been successful. He supposed he should be grateful, but Adama was anything but. He was angry, frustrated, and positively disgusted with the entire situation. Part of the emotion was religiously based; suicide was forbidden in the Holy Scrolls. But another part of his irritation was that he understood. Despite his religious upbringing, and despite his own innate tenacity to hold on to life, he understood the desire to leave this disaster behind. Even the unproven next life couldn’t be any worse than what they were facing; and either was as unknown as the other.

So he understood, and sympathized, and yet it still angered him that so many could be so selfish. Yesterday they had lost a cook and a medical technician, and had nearly lost two mechanics and a pilot. Each and every life not only had its own individual value, but was essential to the survival of his battlestar, the fleet, and for that matter the entire human race. It was irresponsible and damned selfish to even consider backing out of the responsibility that survival had placed upon them. No, it wouldn’t be easy; but it wasn’t a choice. It shouldn’t be a choice. They had survived for a reason; he just wished to hell that he knew what the reason was.

There had been no sign of Cylon pursuit, but that really meant nothing. For all they knew they might be surrounded by Cylons, infiltrated by them, or heading into the middle of their empire. There was purely no way to be certain. His best guess was that they were somewhere between those extremes. Surely there were a few Cylons in their midst, if they indeed looked and acted human. Most likely there had to be some Cylon pursuit occurring, although jumping was the most secure method they had for concealing their escape. And probably the Cylons did have a further reaching empire than the Colonies had imagined, or so one would think given the advancements they had made within their own race.

But as bad as things were, they could be far worse. They were alive – many more than had originally been thought – and so far they were able to house and feed the surviving members of humanity. Granted, security was becoming an issue. Armageddon had a way of bringing about the best and worst in people. Many had sacrificed their lives for the good of others, and yet some had begun to take advantage of the lack of formal law enforcement and structures. There had been dozens of rapes, many attacks, more fights than he could keep on his roster, and even a couple of murders. All of humanity was not the best it could be, but that was part of life. It always had been.

And his responsibility was to protect those lives – the innocent, the criminal, and everything in between – and find them a place to live, then to get them there safely. It was an impossible goal. It certainly didn’t surprise him that he had become exhausted just trying to keep abreast of what was going on.

Seated at his desk, his head in his hands, he sent a quick prayer to the Holy Lords. It was a prayer for strength, and for patience, and mostly for guidance. He didn’t know what to do. He never had. He was just making it all up as he went. At times like this, he wondered if the Lords did the same thing. Maybe there wasn’t a grand plan, or a logic to the universe, or anything bigger and wiser than man. Maybe there was no hope. Maybe there was no point.

A knock on the hatch drew him from his morbid thoughts, and he was grateful. He hadn’t let himself slump into this type of thinking since he’d lost his son years before, and he didn’t want to go back. It was normal to doubt the wisdom of the universe when challenges were faced, but it didn’t solve anything. It didn’t help anything.

“Come,” he called out.

The door opened slowly, almost tentatively. He knew then that it wasn’t Tigh or Gaeta; those two had been in his room a dozen times this evening for one thing or another, whether he was here or not. When a head finally popped around the doorframe, he was startled but not displeased. “What do you hear, Starbuck?” he asked softly.

She gave a sheepish grin, but didn’t say her lines. Either she was as tired as he was, or she just wasn’t okay. Both were equally plausible and understandable. “I guess… I just wanted to see how you were doing,” she admitted as she slid through the door and pulled it closed behind her. Had it been anyone else, he might have wondered what the agenda was, but this was Kara. She was the closest thing to a daughter that he’d ever had. If she was asking, she meant it.

“I’ve had better days,” he admitted. “But I’m still here. How about you?”

She gave a shrug. “The same,” she said. “Overworked, underpaid, and generally miserable.”

“A warrior’s lot,” he told her with a smile, the old joke seeming far less funny than it had once been. “Honestly?”

She leaned back against the door. He would have offered her a seat, but the only one was his bed and he hadn’t yet made it up. The mattress didn’t look inviting. “I’m tired,” she said. “But managing. Most of us are.”

“Most,” he agreed, and he was reminded of those who had not managed, or who did not want to manage.

“I came to ask a question,” she said.

“I thought you’d come to check on the old man,” he said with a raised eyebrow. She had the good grace to blush at that. “What’s the question?”

“I have… a friend,” she said haltingly. It wasn’t like her; Kara never hedged. “I was wondering what the official policy is going to be for attempted suicides,” she finally said. “I know that dishonorable discharge is customary, and in wartime it’s potentially desertion, but…”

“But if we hold to that, we’re going to be kicking out half of our fleet?”

“Yes, Sir,” she said with relief.

“Who’s your friend?” he asked, gesturing her to the bed anyway. It was in no worse shape than hers likely was.

She took a seat, looking nervous, her hands tucked between her knees. He didn’t know if she was that insecure or if she was cold, but either way it wasn’t like Kara. Belatedly he realized that she was under at least as much stress as the rest of them, if not more. Everyone was being pushed to the limit. It was daunting to realize that even the legendary Starbuck – even Kara – had limits. “Meg Cally,” she said, then cleared her throat. “Crewman Specialist Cally,” she corrected.

His eyes closed in pain. He’d seen the name on his roster, and he’d hoped it had been a mistake. He’d hoped, and yet he had known better. Suddenly the sweet smile of the young mechanic flashed into his mind. Lords, she was just a child. They were all children. How in hell was he going to protect them?

“I realize what she did was definitely against regs,” Kara was saying. “But she’s lost a lot… I mean, we all have, but she’s lost most everyone. I don’t think she really meant to do it. I even talked to the doc in Life Station, and he said that she’d been pretty out-of-it with not eating or sleeping, so it may not have even been her fault. I guess… I want to know if you’re planning to court-martial for the attempts, because if you are I wanted to start looking for someone to represent her. And you said that you’d be inventorying professions, so I thought maybe you’d have information about where I could get her some council.”

He held a hand up to stop her. “Kara, I’m not court-martialing anyone for being human right now,” he said gently. “I’m working on getting someone in to provide some counseling, or at least some guidelines on how to manage these kids. At this point, it’s all we can do to persecute those who act against others. She wasn’t trying to hurt anyone; she was trying to stop hurting. That will be taken into account.”

Kara released a pent-up breath and visibly relaxed. “Thank you,” she said simply. “She’s already scared… all she has left is her job.”

“And she’s damned good at it,” he admitted. William rubbed his tired face, wondering when he had last showered or shaved… he couldn’t even remember. “Lords, we’ve lost so many. I was down to the flight deck this morning, and it was… unbelievable. Damage reports can’t tell you what the crews are living with. I don’t know how they’re holding together as well as they are.”

“It’s a battle,” she admitted. “For the pilots, too. There aren’t a lot of us left from the Galactica. We’re filling up the squads, though. We’ve already had over a hundred men report who were either found in dead ships or picked up planetside. It’ll take a while, but we’ll have things running again before you know it. If they… if we need to fight, we’ll be ready.”

He smiled at the enthusiasm which he was far too old to share. “I’m hoping it isn’t necessary,” he admitted. “We need time to regroup, repair, and… maybe just live a little. I’m still waiting for the rush of separation requests; not many people would want to stay in the fleet with a war going on.”

“You’d be surprised,” she told him. “Most everyone wants to fight back. It’s easier to be mad than to hurt.”

“So it is,” he agreed. He had told her the same thing years before, and he had a feeling that they were no longer talking about semi-anonymous crewmen anymore.

Kara was silent for a long time, and when she spoke her words neither surprised nor confused him. He had expected this. “I told him.”

He looked up at her – at clear green eyes that were steadily holding his own despite the fear there – and he smiled. “I assume you mean that you told Lee about Zak’s… flight test.”

“Yes. He needed to know.”

William shook his head and sighed. “You didn’t have to do that. Lee and I can work out our own squabbles. Don’t try to focus his anger on you. It won’t make him any more accepting of me.”

She shook her head as he had. “Why didn’t you tell him?” she asked, exasperation clear in her voice. “I understood at first, because I know you wanted to protect me and give him time. But it’s been two years. He deserved to know the truth.”

“The truth is that you were in an unacceptable position and you made a poor decision based on inexperience and emotion. That’s all. Kara, we’ve been over this before; I don’t hold you responsible.”

“Lee may,” she argued. “He has the right.”

“It isn’t his place to judge,” William argued. “Not me, not you… hell, not anyone. If he’s giving you a hard time, you come to me. Understood?”

“Actually, he’s taken it pretty well,” she admitted with a small smile. “All things considered, anyway. We haven’t… talked about it or anything. There hasn’t been time. But I wanted you to know, because… the two of you…”

“Kara, stop.”

“No!”

“Kara…”

“There aren’t a lot of families left!” It had burst from her, as though she were fighting to keep it in, and she just couldn’t. “I don’t want to get in between yours. Not again; not ever. Please… I…”

“Kara,” he began. She didn’t let him finish.

“You lost one son because of me,” she said, her eyes closing as the grief poured through her expression, her body shaking with the control it took to hold herself together. He could almost see the force of will she exerted not to fly apart. “I don’t want you to lose another. You’ve come too close to losing him… twice. Please don’t lose him again; not because of me.”

He watched her for a moment more, and the fatigue he’d felt suddenly seemed more than overwhelming. He’d had a lifetime of regrets and disappointments – Lee’s lifetime – and none of those wrongs had to do with this woman. She hadn’t forced him to leave his family behind, and she hadn’t ordered him to lie to his son. She had simply made a mistake – the same mistake anyone in love would have made. She didn’t deserve to pay for it. He on the other hand deserved more penance than he could ever hope to pay. His decisions had always been selfish; nothing was likely to change. He was still selfish.

“Kara…” He looked at her for a moment, then just gave up. He left the small chair at the desk to sit beside her on the bed and put an arm around her. She was stiff and unmoving as he did so. “I won’t lose Lee,” he said gently. “Not over this. And you won’t lose him either. Yes, he was angry – probably he still is. But he’s also Iilya’s son, and as such he has a heart that was made to forgive. It will come with time, for both of us.”

“So many people are just… giving up,” she said, her voice breaking but her eyes dry. “I don’t understand it. This just… it makes me want to live even more, just to prove I can. Is that wrong?”

“It’s exactly right,” he said, giving her rigid body a gentle squeeze. “You’re young, and you have a lifetime ahead of you. You have skill, and spirit, and you have a lot of people who both care about you and need you. It’s okay to want to live through this; I wish more people did.”

“But… I have you, and Lee, and I still have a lot of friends around. I guess… Lee doesn’t have that. Everyone he knows, except us, he’s lost. And if he’s mad at us…”

“You’re afraid that he’ll be as desperate as some of the others?” William asked.

Closing her eyes, she nodded. Her hands were still held tightly between her knees, her body was still held rigidly against the shivers that he could feel coursing up and down it, and he could see that she was far more frightened than he had first thought.

He wasn’t sure how to comfort her without making her think he was belittling her concerns. He wasn’t; they were valid. But as many differences as the Adamas had, he did know his son. If losing Zak hadn’t pushed Lee over that precipice, then nothing could. “Talk to him,” he finally said. “Kara, it’s something you need to do. He may be angry, and he may be unwilling, but you need to sort this out. Hell, hit him if you have to,” he said with a gentle shake, slightly worried when she didn’t even smile at the attempt at levity. “You know you can take him if it comes to that. Make him listen; it’s all you can do.”

“That didn’t work for you,” she said softly, finally meeting his eyes with wide, green pools of fear.

“You’re a hell of a lot better looking than I am,” he said with a raised eyebrow, grateful to finally see the flicker of a smile. “And he likes you better than he ever liked me. Just talk to him, Kara. Something tells me he’ll listen.”

The look she gave him was frankly disbelieving.

“And as for the rest, try not to worry. I’m not taking disciplinary action against the people who have attempted to end their lives. I’m taking precautions to ensure that this insanity stops, but I’m not going to arrest them. They have enough problems as it is. My only goal is to get them back to work, get them some help, and hopefully get us all through this.”

Kara took a deep breath and nodded, looking back down at her hands. He gave one last gentle hug, wishing that his feeble attempt at comfort had been more effective, and then stood. She did the same almost immediately afterwards. “Thank you,” she told him. “For the information… and for listening. I know how busy you are…”

“The day I’m too busy for you is the day I quit,” he said with all honesty. He had not been there for his family in the past – he knew that – and it was time for some changes. The end of the world had a way of making a man realize what was important; what was left of his family was damned important.

She smiled at that and took a step towards the door. Just before reaching it, she turned, walked quickly back to him, and threw her arms up around his neck. The hug was hard and fast, and seemed to surprise her as much as it did him, but he accepted it gratefully. He squeezed tightly, reminded almost absently of the feel of having his son in his arms after thinking him dead. In her way, Kara meant as much to him as Lee did; she wasn’t blood, but she was indeed family. She said nothing more as she released him and backed away, gave him half a smile, then exited through the hatch.

William experienced a vivid flash of memory of the dozens of times he’d gone home on leave, and when he’d left after each short visit his boys had hung on him as though they would never let him go. It had hurt, but it had reassured him that they still loved him, still knew their father, and that they would be there for him when he returned. Once he’d managed to get clear of them, and Iilya’s clinging good-byes, Kara would stand by the door looking as though she wanted so much to do the same thing. He’d always offered her open arms, but only once or twice had she actually hugged him. It wasn’t that she disliked him – he had never felt that from her – but rather that she just didn’t share those emotions with anyone. He doubted that she even admitted them.

Moments later, as he still stood looking at the closed hatch, he wondered if maybe he wasn’t the only person who had shifted his priorities because of the war. Maybe he wasn’t the only one reevaluating what was important. Maybe he wasn’t the only one who wasn’t sure where to go from here. Maybe he wasn’t the only one who needed the touch of someone alive just to know that he was living too.

He hoped that Kara and Lee would talk. Frankly, he would love to be a fly on the wall when it happened. His son wasn’t an easy man to talk to – he had his faults – but William knew that Lee’s soft spot for Kara was as wide and deep as his own. Given time, they would work it out. Given time, they would be family again. And hopefully, if the Lords were with them, He might be a part of that family as well.

William gave one more glance at the bed, then with great regret seated himself at his desk and reached for his glasses. He had work to get done; the sooner he had it finished, the sooner he could sleep.

Chapter 10

“It’s not that hard,” Cally explained. “Just fit this… in here,” she said as she demonstrated. “It’s even more solid than the original, if you think about it. We won’t be replacing them again.”

“Let me try,” Socinus requested as he placed his hands beneath hers within the opened engine compartment of the Viper.

Cally watched as he took the parts from her and completed the makeshift repair. He’d come a long way; that much was certain. Two weeks before, she wouldn’t have trusted him alone with a Raptor, and now she was training him on the simpler Viper repairs that needed to be accomplished.

It had been a long two weeks, though. Schedules were returning to something resembling normalcy, although they still worked too many and too long. It beat the alternative of sitting and moping, which was the other primary activity. They were down to canned stores, so trips to the mess hall were avoided rather than appreciated, and even the few books that they’d pooled within the squadron didn’t offer much in the way of distraction. Time off was boring as hell, so if you weren’t sleeping it was better to work. At least, that was the way Cally felt. Her opinion seemed to be echoed by most of the deck gang if their constant appearances despite being off duty were an indication. Working was bad, but not working was worse.

On a personal note, she was doing a little better. Rest and regular meals had gone a long way towards bringing her usual resilience back. Doctor Salik had reduced her to half a pill each day, so she was feeling less zoned and more coherent. The shock of what she had tried had also blended in with the trauma that everyone else was dealing with, so it all didn’t seem so extreme. Yes, she’d had a hard time, but everyone else was struggling too. She wasn’t crazy; just tired.

“Hey, Cal?” Chief Tyrol approached with his usual volume and speed. He always seemed to be everywhere, whatever the shift, and she didn’t know whether to appreciate it or worry that they weren’t trusted. She knew deep down that he was just being helpful, but that didn’t make it any easier to be watched with every movement.

“Sir?” she responded, looking up because her observation wasn’t necessary for Socinus to complete the repair. He was doing fine. They were all doing fine.

“I need a favor,” he said quickly, only then moving aside so she could see the boy that accompanied him. “I need to make a run up to CIC, and Sharon’s on patrol. Can you keep an eye on Boxey?”

The ten-year-old rolled his eyes at Tyrol’s reference to him in the third person. Cally could only smile; she’d been there. “Depends,” she replied, and then directed her attention to Boxey. “How are you with Viper repairs?”

He gave her a shy grin. “I can learn,” he offered.

Cally winked at the Chief, and reached for Boxey’s hand to move him over next to Socinus. “There are three steps to learning anything,” she informed the child. “You watch, you do, and you teach. If you can do that, then you’ve got it. Soc, you’ve watched and you’ve done it… how about teaching Boxey about Callorman fittings?”

Soc looked back over his shoulder with a grin. “Sure thing,” he said with excitement. “Watch here,” he began, holding Boxey’s attention raptly. “You take this, and then fit it here…”

“Thanks,” the Chief said quietly. “I owe you one.”

She shook her head with a smile. “I’ll be paying you back for a lifetime,” she admitted softly. “Besides, it’s fun to work with him. He learns everything so quickly, like a sponge. He’s going to make a hell of a mechanic before he’s even of age.”

“As long as the CAG doesn’t find out,” Tyrol said sheepishly.

“Find out what?”

They all jumped at Captain Adama’s voice as he approached from behind the Viper. None of them had seen him coming. Cally looked at the man nervously. He had seemed nice enough, and he often came by to check on how she was doing, but rarely when she was on duty. The Chief was right: kids weren’t allowed on the flight deck. Still, most of them were kids compared to him; what was one more?

“We’re working on increasing the mechanical staff,” she said with wide eyes, hoping that if he was going to slam them, it wouldn’t be in front of Boxey. The kid was perpetually on excellent behavior – as though he were afraid they were going to run him off the ship – and he didn’t need any real reason to be afraid.

The Captain looked around her to Boxey, and she watched as a very soft smile crossed his face before he hardened his expression. Socinus and Boxey were too involved in the “lesson” to pay any notice to the Captain, but Cally had her eyes pinned on him. “I can remember my dad sneaking us into the hangers to work on the planes,” he said softly, then met Cally’s eyes. “My brother and me. I think it’s where we fell in love with Vipers. I thought the Mark II was the best bird in the world.”

“It’s damned close,” Tyrol agreed. Cally startled; she’d forgotten the Chief was still there.

“Keep him out of anything moving,” the Captain instructed, shooting a glance to Tyrol and then one to her. “But we’re going to need good mechanics, and in a few years he’ll be old enough to enlist.”

Paying attention or not, Boxey heard that and turned to Captain Adama with a grin. “Yes, Sir,” he replied happily.

Cally and Tyrol both laughed, but Lee Adama just smiled and turned his attention back to the Chief. “Are you attending the briefing upstairs?” he asked.

“Yes, Sir,” Tyrol replied.

“Can you let my father know I’ll be late?” he requested. “There’s a small problem with one of the patrols, and I want to be here when the bird comes in.”

“Anything I need to know about?” the Chief asked. Cally waited anxiously for the reply.

Apollo shook his head. “Banking thruster giving some problems,” he said. “Kara can bring it in. She could land a cardboard box if she had to. I’ll check with her when she’s down and get you a report, then you can put your crew on it.”

Tyrol nodded, although even Cally could see the reluctance in his acceptance. He worried about his birds as though they were children; he took problems with his equipment very seriously. Still, he followed orders and left them, heading for the main stairway up out of the hangar. She watched him for a moment, seeing Sharon Valerii meet him at the top of the stairs, and the two walked towards the main corridors of the Galactica together. Cally couldn’t help but wonder what they were talking about. When she returned her attention to Captain Adama, she saw that his glance had followed the Chief as well. He didn’t look upset, though. He just looked thoughtful.

“Which Viper is it?” Cally asked softly, diverting his attention from the Chief and Lieutenant Valerii.

He turned back to her quickly. “Eight-oh-one,” he said. “Not one of Gang Five’s birds. Don’t worry.”

She gave a partial sigh of relief. While it was good to know that she hadn’t been responsible for the maintenance failure, it didn’t make her feel any better about a pilot trying to land with one thruster down. “Can she really land it?” Cally asked softly.

“Kara? Hell yes. If she can bring me in with no engines, she can land herself without one thruster. She’ll be fine. The truth is, she’s really pissed. I’m afraid she’s going to punch the first person she sees when she gets out of that plane, so I’d like that person to be me. I won’t press charges,” he added with a grin. “It’s the only way to keep her out of the brig.”

“She does spend a lot of time there,” Cally muttered, and then immediately blushed. She had no right to speak of the officers that way, especially to her CAG.

To her surprise, he didn’t remark on her borderline insubordination. “Yeah, she does,” he said in disgust. “She’s always been that way. Hit first and talk later. Everyone handles stress in their own way.”

“I suppose.”

“So, how are you doing?” he asked. She had wondered how long it would take for her to get around to asking. He seemed to find the time to check up on her every other day or so. Something told her it was more than just concern for one of his deck gang. Weeks before, she had helped him with rebuilding his Viper’s underbelly. They had talked a bit then, and she had cried a lot. He hadn’t known many people aboard, and so she’d figured he needed a friend, officer or not. His appearance in Life Station after her little “incident” had proved to her that she wasn’t the only one who had made a friend that day. He was fairly nice for an officer.

“I’m okay,” she said, and for a change she rather meant it. “The doc isn’t worried, so I try not to. We have most everything back together down here, so even the workload is easing up.”

“I’m not sure if that’s good or bad,” Apollo mumbled as he looked around the bay. Everyone seemed busy enough, but it wasn’t the same kind of frantic activity that they’d been engaged in before. Instead, it was steady and productive, and there was even some laughing and joking going on along the way. Life was not returning to normal, but normalcy was developing in a new way – a new order, so to speak.

Cally saw the woman approach before the Captain did. She couldn’t help smiling when he jumped, startled by his lead pilot. “Hey,” she said to him, then nodded to Cally. “Lee, can I talk to you for a minute?”

“You are talking,” he said with a grin.

She gave an odd look, and Cally wondered just what was going on in her mind. The rumor mill was having a field day with the CAG and the troublemaker, but Cally hadn’t really seen anything more than good friends who had both been very nice to her. She couldn’t find it in her to believe anything really bad about either of them, but then Prosna had always called her naïve.

It felt good to remember Andy without the searing pain that had used to accompany his memory. Maybe she was dealing with life after all.

“Sure,” the Captain said quietly, and he had a concerned look on his face. Cally was dying of curiosity, but it wasn’t her business. “I’ll catch you later?” he asked.

She nodded with a smile. The Captain asking her permission? Wonder of wonders – the world did have a new order. “Whenever,” she said. “Unless you needed me to do something…”

He shook his head. “Just checking in,” he admitted. “I can see you’re fine.”

She smiled again, and the two officers left together, already talking in soft tones. The words didn’t carry back to Cally, so instead of spying on them she turned to see how Soc was making out with his fledgling trainee.

“What if it doesn’t have the grease?” Boxey was asking.

“Then it sticks,” Soc explained. “And trust me, you don’t want this rusted on. Then you’d have to drill it out, rebuild the stem, and start all over.”

“Wow,” the child said in an almost reverent voice. “You can do that.”

“I’m learning,” Socinus admitted.

Cally leaned over and checked to see how the guys were doing and gave an approving nod. He might have been a slow starter, but Soc was holding his own now. Tyrol would likely move him to Vipers soon; Cally would appreciate the help.

“Specialist Cally?”

Rolling her eyes, she turned to see the Chief coming up to her at a jog, which caused her a flash of worry. Chief Tyrol wasn’t one to be rushed into anything, and wasn’t he supposed to be in a meeting with the Commander?”

“Yes, Sir?”

“You’re needed upstairs,” he said quickly, and only slightly out of breath. “Socinus, if you’ll take Boxey to lunch, I’ll let you know when Cally’s back down here.”

“Yes, Sir,” the young man said, taking Boxey by the hand. Despite his efforts to act like a grown-up, Boxey took the hand willingly.

“This will only take a few minutes,” Tyrol told her. She grabbed a rag, wiped the grease off her hands, and followed her boss up the stairs towards the main corridors.

She was more than a little surprised when she was escorted into Commander Adama’s small quarters, and much more than a little apprehensive. Specialists weren’t routinely summoned to the Commander, and she couldn’t help feeling like she must have done something very wrong. Even the soft smile on the Commander’s face couldn’t eliminate the fear.

She snapped a salute. “Crewman Specialist Cally reporting,” she said in a nervous voice.

He returned the salute and gave a nod. “At ease,” he said simply. Yeah right, she thought. At ease in the Commander’s office? Not damned likely.

“We’ve finished sorting through some of the effects that were left following the fire,” he said gently. “Most of our men don’t have remaining family, so we’re doing the best we can to get things where they belong. Chief Tyrol tells me that you were a good friend of Andrew Prosna,” the Commander said. “Is that true?”

“Yes, Sir,” she admitted softly, wondering what this could be about. What effects? The lockers had been cleaned out and everything distributed among the crew and new recruits – there wasn’t enough to go around as it was.

“Then I believe this should be yours,” he said softly. With that, he held out his closed hand.

Confused, Cally reached forward and was surprised when she felt a heavy weight dropped into her palm. As she pulled her hand back, she looked down at the heavy platinum ring that he had given her. It was large, clearly a man’s, and she knew it very well. She had often teased Prosna that he had bought such an expensive ring when graduating secondary school. He had laughed about it, saying that he wasn’t planning on college so this was likely the only ring he’d get. He had treasured the damned thing, not even giving it to the girlfriend he’d had for a short time when they’d first come aboard the Galactica. He had been really grateful for that when the relationship had dissolved and he’d started dating Dee. He had planned to give it to her, Cally thought, but he hadn’t had the chance.

“This shouldn’t be mine,” she told the Commander softly, looking up and adding an apologetic, “Sir.”

“Yes, it should be,” he told her gently. “All of our crew had statements on file regarding their personal effects in the event that they should die in the line of duty. Your name was listed, and the Chief confirmed that the two of you were good friends. He would have wanted you to have it.”

She held the ring tightly, a small piece of her best friend that she could touch. She didn’t realize she was crying until she saw the tear land on her hand, right next to the ring. “Thank you,” she choked out.

“You’re welcome,” the Commander said. “I truly wish I had a metal to give you as well; he earned it. Unfortunately, with supplies as they are you’ll have to settle for the thanks of the Colonial Service. Prosna was a true warrior, in the finest sense of the word. You should be very proud of him.”

“I am,” she whispered, finally glancing up at the Commander.

He nodded. “Then, you’re dismissed. Thank you for coming, and please don’t salute on the way out. You’re a family member, not a warrior right now. If you need anything, please let me know. I am very truly sorry for your loss.”

Cally just nodded, slightly dazed as Chief Tyrol’s arm came around her to turn her around and escort her from the room. She was still looking down at the ring, its shining surface and sparkling diamond at odds with the gray walls around them.

“Are you okay,” Tyrol asked softly.

She brushed tears aside and sniffled. “Yeah, I am,” she answered. “Do you mind if I put this in my room, though. I don’t want to lose it.”

He stopped and looked at her for a moment, then shook his head. “I have a better idea,” he offered. “He reached towards her and pulled the chain she wore around her neck up and over her head, neatly missing the ponytail as he did so. He took the ring from her, and slipped one end of the chain through it, then threaded the other through the loop, effectively attaching the ring to the solid chain. Then he reached forward and put the chain back over her neck, dropping both the dogtags and ring down to her chest. “Why don’t you keep it close to your heart for a while,” he said gently. “I think that’s where he belongs.”

It was against regs; she knew that. But the Chief was right. The slight weight around her neck reminded her that the ring was there. She looked down at it for a moment, then took both dogtags and the ring and tucked them into her uniform beneath the regulation undershirts so that it wouldn’t be a danger while she was on the job. Of course, it also meant that no one could see it, and that was fine too. For the moment, it was only hers; it was rather like having a piece of her best friend with her. “Thank you,” she said simply.

He nodded and smiled. “You need a few minutes, or are you ready to get back to work?” he asked.

She brushed away the last of her tears on her sleeve. “Work,” she requested.

His smile broadened. “Work it is,” he told her. “Let’s get to it.”

Cally followed the Chief, her hand going to her chest to touch the slight weight that rested there, pressing cool metal against her skin. Prosna was still with her, she thought. They all were. It was there in the fact that she had survived the jump, and that life had gone on. The men they had lost were all around her, in the sad smiles of her friends and the tiny reminders that they often recognized… the repair that she remembered Kenny making on the aft wall of the flight bay after a zealous pilot had taken out a chunk, or the scratches on the floor by the primary storage room where Prosna had dropped a box of tools.

Those that they loved – and missed – were not truly gone; not as long as there were people who loved them who were alive to remember. For the first time in a very long time, Cally was glad that she was one of the survivors. As the solid weight around her neck reminded her, someone needed to remember those that they had lost. Her friends had not died without a reason; they had saved the human race. Their efforts had enabled the Galactica to survive, and with it what was left of humanity.

And Cally realized that she was honored and privileged to be able to carry on the memory of those she had loved. It was as good a reason as any to be alive.