Chapter 9
(Cottle's POV)

"Would you mind telling me what that was all about?" growls Bill as soon as he sees me and I know this will probably get ugly, especially because Captain Adama and Lieutenant Agathon are still here and I don't think asking them to leave would be a good idea. Simply put, they already know too much and that means that the best way to keep what I'm going to say confined to this room is to give them the full picture.

"It was about you upsetting my patient and me not wanting to deal with the fallout. I did warn you not to push it," I remind him.

"She has been concealing information for weeks. She should have reported what Leoben had told her right after she questioned him. If there is a reason why the cylons have taken a special interest in her I have a right to know!" he exclaims, obviously more than a little frustrated.

"Yes, but you know Starbuck's never been good at playing by the rules and the bottom line is that you were attempting to interrogate her while she was stuck in a hospital bed a few days after she escaped from a medical facility in which she was held captive and experimented on," I point out before going on. "Now, I'm not one for coddling my patients and you know it but right now chances are that that girl is at least somewhat traumatized and until we have a better idea of just what it is that we are dealing with here we are going to have to be careful, otherwise we could end up with an even bigger mess in our hands. Besides, we are talking Starbuck here and you should know by now that getting her on the defensive is the best way to ensure that you will get absolutely nowhere with her."

"This can't wait," he insists.

"And it doesn't have to," I say, knowing that that will get his attention.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I may be able to shed some light on what that cylon meant, even if I don't have all the details."

"Tell me what you can," he says and I know that is not a request.

"Well, one of the things I wanted to do when I told you to leave was to ask her to allow me to disclose some details of her medical file. She wasn't happy about it but eventually she agreed... mostly because she knew you were not going to back down and I convinced her that hearing some of these things from me would give you a chance to digest them before you start badgering her."

"Her file?"

"Yes, I have a detailed medical file from the moment she entered flight school, as I do with all pilots, you know that."

"And...?"

"And what's interesting is what's not in that file."

"I'm afraid I'm not following you, doctor, what's not in that file?" asks the Old Man, sounding rather puzzled.

"Exactly. You see, I have a detailed file on her from the time she was eighteen years old and yet when I took a series of x-rays after she crashed on that moon I found evidence of at least seventeen old fractures that were not mentioned in it."

"How can that be?"

"Well, the most logical explanation would be that those bones were broken before she was admitted to Flight School, though I have to say that even for the most rambunctious and accident prone child, seventeen broken bones are probably about a dozen too many. In fact I would go so far as to say that a good rule of thumb is that when you start counting a child's fractures by the dozen chances are that there is a problem."

"What are you suggesting, doctor?"

"I'm not 'suggesting' anything. I'm telling you that chances are that those were anything but accidents, a fact that would also explain that cylon's words about her having been born to a woman who believed that suffering was good for the soul and why she was so reluctant to share what he had said in the first place, not to mention that that would also explain why that rambling nonsense bothered her so much."

"So you are saying what, that someone deliberately hurt her, that her mother deliberately hurt her?" asks Bill, the disbelief clear in his voice and I know I'm going to have to tread carefully here because even though he is not usually prone to shooting the messenger, well, somehow I don't think I'm dealing with his usual rational self.

"But couldn't those fractures be the result of her having been involved in some sort of accident?" jumps in Apollo, apparently still determined to go looking for a prettier explanation.

"Not really. Given the pattern of those breaks I would say that a single accident is not a viable explanation. In fact the distribution of those breaks is pretty much consistent with what you would expect to find in a case of child abuse. Besides, seeing how she all but confirmed my suspicions a couple of minutes ago, I would say that the whole point is basically moot."

"What kind of injuries are we talking about?" asks Bill rather quietly, sounding almost resigned and I'm glad to see that at least one of them is starting to move past the denial... the problem is that I know he is still not going to be happy about what I'm going to tell him.

"For starters all ten of her fingers were broken, probably simultaneously as all breaks are basically in a straight line, suggesting that something heavy was dropped on them. That is the most disturbing one, though if that were the extent of it I wouldn't have ruled out the possibility of an accident. The problem is that in addition to that I have also found evidence of fractures on three of her ribs --one of which she apparently wasn't even aware of-- and both of her forearms. In fact I suspect that the right one was broken twice if not three times and the pattern of those breaks would seem to suggest that at least some of those may have been the result of her using her arms to try to shield herself or to try to break a fall, which could also explain why there are three fractures in her right arm and only one in her left: because she is not left-handed."

"What?" asks the commander, still struggling to wrap his mind around what he is being told.

"And that's just based on what I can tell, on those injuries that were serious enough to make it possible for me to identify them clearly even now. You have to remember that cracked bones and hairline fractures may not show up in x-rays ten to twenty years after the fact, to say nothing of soft tissue damage so I can't even begin to give you an estimate when it comes to cuts and bruises, concussions, first and even second degree burns... the list goes on. Of course, I'm just guessing about that and I know how you feel about guessing so it would be possible for you to try to argue that what those x-rays revealed might have been the extent of it but..."

"But you don't think that is the case," he finishes for me.

"Not really, in fact I believe that broken bones were the exception rather than the rule and if that is the case then this is just the tip of the iceberg."

"But why didn't she ever say anything?"

"Who knows? I mean, she is Starbuck and I gave up on trying to figure out why she does what she does a long time ago," I say, though I do have my suspicions and for the most part they all boil down to the fact that she is Starbuck and Starbuck isn't 'weak'... and if that is the case then the fact that this has come out will probably throw her for a loop.

"But how could the cylons possibly have known about something like this?" asks Bill.

"I don't know and --before you barge in there asking questions-- I don't think she does either."

"I still want to talk to her."

"Talk, yes, question, no. Not until we have a better idea of just what it is that we are dealing with," I warn him.

"Very well," he says before disappearing behind the curtain, freeing me to turn my attention back to Lieutenant Agathon.

"Now, lieutenant, I think it's time for us to have a little talk."

"Sir?"

"You have been with her pretty much from the moment she escaped from that farm, haven't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. That means you get to tell me exactly how she has been doing."

He hesitates for a moment, throwing a worried look at Captain Adama and I realize that he is at least somewhat uncomfortable at the thought of speaking in front of him. That is not good, it means that this is probably going to be as bad as I fear but the truth is that right now it can't be helped. Yes, this goes well beyond what Starbuck said I could tell them but seeing how I won't be doing the telling here we can safely overlook that little fact... and the bottom line is that I think Apollo should know because he is her closest friend and my gut is telling me that she is going to need him.

"When she first got out she was a mess but after a couple of hours she managed to pull herself together somehow," says Lieutenant Agathon. "Then after we came back she was trying hard to pretend that everything was fine, that nothing had happened and I didn't want to push it. I knew she was hurt and I knew she was hurting and I knew she should probably have said something about it but it was her call and I couldn't tell anyone, not without getting her in trouble for keeping quiet in the first place and the truth is that at the time I wasn't sure she could take it. That's why I decided to keep an eye on her as best I could and then today, when I realized that there was a problem, that she was actually getting worse, I brought her in."

"That bad, uh?" I say, reading between the lines.

"So what happens now?" asks Apollo.

"I'm not sure. On the one hand I am afraid that if I try to keep her confined to sickbay for as long as I should she is going to go crazy and take half of my staff with her but on the other I just don't trust her to do as she is told, to say nothing of the fact that the conditions in the crew's quarters are not exactly ideal for bed rest," I reply, knowing that I have to be careful as to how I play my hand here.

"How long are we talking about?"

"At least a week," I say.

"One week?"

"That's how long it's going to be before I can even think of clearing her to teach again and I want her to spend that time resting and recovering, not gallivanting all over the ship. I don't want her pushing too hard and ending back here in a matter of days just because she is too proud and too stubborn to listen to her own body when it tells her that enough is enough."

"Isn't there another way?" asks Lieutenant Agathon, wincing in sympathy at the thought, and I know that is my cue.

"Well, if I could trust her to come back when she is supposed to I would probably allow her a couple of hours a day out of here to give her a chance to clear her head and unwind but I would have to be sure that she won't overdo it," I hint.

"Maybe we could take turns going with her to the mess or something like that. That way we could make sure she comes back when she is supposed to," suggests Apollo, looking at Lieutenant Agathon who nods in response.

"No detours?" I ask.

"No detours," he promises.

"That could work," I say after pretending to think it over for a while, even though what they are suggesting is precisely what I was hoping for. The truth is that I don't want that girl putting up any more walls than she absolutely has to and the best way to keep her from doing that is by getting her to believe that her friends talked me into allowing them to spring her for a couple of hours a day against my better judgment rather than letting her know that her spending time with them is exactly what the doctor ordered.

Sure, I know I should probably tell Apollo and Lieutenant Agathon the truth but I know Starbuck and the bottom line is that I really don't have much faith in the ability of either of these clowns to keep anything from her.