Chapter 3
(Cottle's POV)

I look around trying to figure out how we are going to handle this, what we are going to do, and I can almost see Bill putting the pieces together in his mind before asking, "is there anything we can do about that?"

"I don't think so. How old was the girl?" I ask, turning my attention back to Anders.

"How should I know? Little, my guess would be one or maybe two years old."

"In other words, way too young for us to question."

"Yes, why?"

"Because that little girl is the only person who may actually know what your wife went through on that planet. Right now we are at an impasse. We need some answers to figure out how to treat her but Starbuck is the only one who could possibly provide us with those answers and she is obviously in no shape to do so. That means that trying to deal with this is going to be like walking straight into a minefield with a blindfold on and there's not a frakking thing we can do to change that," I explain. "The devil is going to be in the details here and if we want to fight it we are going to have to be familiar with those details... and this is going to be hard enough already without adding our ignorance to the mix."

"That bad?" asks the admiral.

"Yes. Once she is a little stronger we will have to organize some sort of suicide watch, that is pretty much a given, but right now that's about the only thing I know for sure. The problem is that I don't know if we have the resources to pull it off, to say nothing of the fact that a suicide watch is a short term solution at best and I'm not even sure we can do it without sending her into a tailspin. She is a former POW, she needs to feel that she is in control of her life and her surroundings and that means that any form of perceived 'imprisonment', even if it is for her own good, could easily end up doing a lot of damage."

"And her prognosis, in the long run? Physically, I mean," he asks.

"Are you asking me if she will ever be fit enough to get into a cockpit again?"

"Yes."

"Probably, but --given the amount of damage she managed to inflict on her abdominal muscles-- it will be four to six months before that can happen... and that estimate doesn't even begin to take into account her state of mind which may well end up taking even longer."

"Six months? That's going to kill her!" exclaims Apollo.

"She almost did that herself and if you were to put her back into the cockpit while she has no real will to live I can promise you that she would not last long," I remind him. "Besides, for the time being even something as basic as breathing is bound to be painful as hell so I can promise you that getting back into the cockpit is not going to be anywhere near the top of her list of priorities. Those muscles have to heal completely and be retrained before she can even think of attempting an AGSM and you know it."

"AGSM?" asks Anders, sounding more than a little puzzled.

"Anti-G Straining Maneuvers. AGSMs are critical to keep pilots from passing out in the air. They are meant to keep your blood from pooling in your legs --away from your brain-- and let's just say that they are not exactly easy on the abdominal muscles," explains Apollo, rather distractedly, sounding almost as if he were talking to a particularly clueless nugget.

"Damn!"

"As I said, she has a very long road ahead of her and even though I'm not entirely sure what she's been through, from what you've told me about her recent behavior I would put her chances of making it at fifty/fifty... and that is in a best case scenario," I warn them, bringing the conversation back to the subject at hand.

"Wait, that is your best case scenario?" jumps in the admiral, almost daring me to repeat that figure.

"Well, not really, but I would describe the odds of my best case scenario as being well below the ten percent mark so I'm not even counting that one. Think of fifty percent as the best realistic scenario."

"And that unrealistic one would be?" he prods, obviously not wanting to give up on a potential glimmer of hope, no matter how distant, the problem is that I'm going to have no choice but to dash it.

"The remote possibility that the realization of what she's done would actually turn out to be enough to cause her to snap out of her self-destructive behavior, but counting on that could easily turn out to be fatal."

"And that fifty percent?"

"Those would be her chances if she could manage to rebuild her support system somehow, but that is a pretty big 'if' and I must warn you that the three of you are going to have your work cut out for you if you want to make that happen."

"Tell me about it. She's so angry. I've been trying to be there for her but she's been pushing me away ever since we escaped from New Caprica. Hell, the other day she flat out told me that she wanted to tear my eyes out just for daring to look at her," mutters Anders, sounding incredibly frustrated.

"I can imagine," I say, fighting the urge to roll my eyes at him as he all but confirms some of my suspicions. "Now, going by what you've told me I think it's safe to say that she is going to have a very hard time coming to trust any of you again and she is not in any kind of shape to go making new friends either. That is probably going to be the biggest hurdle because leaving her alone would almost certainly turn out to be fatal."

"So what do you want us to do?" asks Apollo.

"The truth is that there's not much you can do," I admit.

"But you said that she had a fifty percent chance only if she could manage to rebuild her support system," he reminds me.

"Yes, but in the end she is the one who is going to have to do the heavy lifting here and there's nothing you can do to change that," I explain. "The most you can hope to do is to try to provide her with the best possible environment in which to do that heavy lifting and hope that she will be strong enough to pull it off somehow... and if you are wondering just how high the stakes are, let me just add that if she were to be left to her own devices I would put the odds that she will try this again sooner or later at about eighty percent."

"What!?"

"The bottom line is that she needs a kind of help she cannot get and our best may not be anywhere near good enough," I admit before going on. "She needs peace, quiet and stability, to say nothing of a sense of safety, but we are at war and she is not going to be getting any of those things any time soon. We are on the run and our resources to deal with this kind of trauma are almost non-existant. We can't even hope to get her away from the front lines because the front lines are all that remains. As for the chances of getting her some sort of professional help, there are only a handful of trained psychologists left in the entire fleet and those are as traumatized and as screwed-up as everyone else. Right now they can't even help themselves, to say nothing of the fact that they are so overworked it's not even funny. Besides, the only 'mental health professional' currently on board the Galactica is a child psychologist down in Camp Oil Slick who is waiting to be reassigned to the orphan ship. She is hardly a perfect fit for Starbuck, especially under the circumstances, and any attempt to transfer Kara to another ship would only serve to convince her that she is being tossed out like yesterday's garbage. That is the last thing she needs. Hell, even her physical recovery is going to be far more difficult than it should have been due to our lack of resources."

"Why?"

"Because even though I managed to repair the damage the simple fact is that she is still going to have to start eating sooner or later. There's no way around it and that is not going to be pleasant, far from it. Under normal circumstances she would be put on a special, carefully controlled, diet while she heals but even though I can try to make some adjustments in terms of the quantity and frequency of her meals, in the end my options in that regard are rather limited. Sure, as long as she remains on an IV or a feeding tube that is not going to be an issue but eventually I am going to have to reintroduce solid food into her diet and, just like everyone else, she is going to have to make do with whatever we have available. That will not only complicate her recovery but it will also make it far more painful than it should have been. Now, depending on how things go I may decide to delay that reintroduction by a couple of days to give her body more time to recover --in fact the sedation will pretty much force me to do that anyway-- and I will obviously back down if I see any signs that something is proving to be too much for her system but that is about all I can do and in the end she is just going to have to cope."

"Can we see her?" asks Anders.

"Well, she is out cold now but you have ten minutes each, then I want the lot of you out of here. She may not know that you are here but I certainly do and having you underfoot is the last thing I need."

"Ten minutes?" he repeats, sounding anything but pleased.

"At least for today. Starting tomorrow you will each get two fifteen minute visits --as long as you spread them throughout the day-- and then we'll see about extending those to twenty minutes the day after that. We will keep that schedule, maybe adding five minutes per visit each day, until she starts coming around and then we'll just take our cues from her."

"Meaning?" asks Bill.

"Meaning that my top priority is going to be to keep her stress levels to a minimum so if I see some signs that she is responding well to someone's presence I will ask that person to spend more time with her to help keep her calm but by the same token if she responds negatively to someone I will ask that someone to cut back on the time they spend with her, at least until she is a little stronger. Of course, right now that's not an issue and there's no point in borrowing trouble," I say.

"Sam, she's your wife, so why don't you go in first?" offers the admiral and I can help but to raise an eyebrow at that, realizing that the old man probably has something up his sleeve here.