The Airlock

A Chance Encounter

The soft and faltering tic-tac of her heels on Galactica's cool metal decking echoed dimly from the walls of the deserted corridors. At the crossroads after the stairwell, Laura stopped and squinted in the three weakly lit corridors, trying to find her bearings, trying to draw directions from the muddled memories of the day Leoben had been so unsuccessfully interrogated by Lieutenant Thrace. With a minute shrug, she chose the left passageway. It shouldn't be far now.

Leoben. He had gotten under their collective skins more than any other model, and now that she used chamalla again, he'd even started to creep back into her dreams.

She knew he was a machine; yet here she was, on a pilgrimage to the site; unsure what it was going to bring her. She did know she was definitely not going to confess her insomnia to Cottle. The cranky veteran would chew her out for not taking care of her body, and throw in a few cantankerous quips about the controversial qualities of chamalla. She was not going to subject herself to that again. She would solve her sleeplessness herself. Laura nodded firmly.

She would drop in on the doctor, afterwards. Drop in on him again, that was, because when she'd checked in in sickbay half an hour ago, Cottle hadn't been there. Lieutenant Ishay had jittered incoherently about 'a slight delay', fumbling a letter in her hands, oddly on edge, never looking Laura quite in the eye.

As the medic hadn't volunteered any more details, Laura had left, promising to drop by for her diloxin therapy later.

She rounded the last corner and staggered to a halt.

She was not alone.

In the airlock, in the transparent aluminum aquarium, Major Cottle leaned against the hull. He faced outward, his back towards her, both his hands flat against the outside hatch as if he needed the support to keep standing, as if he wanted to prevent the hull from toppling over and crushing him.

His white hair nearly disappeared behind his wilting shoulders, but her eyes drifted to the unexpected intimacy of the gray undershirt that stretched taut around his back, ruthlessly exposing the chunky extra masses his body had collected. The hairy white legs beneath his military undershorts were almost bony in comparison.

She blinked - hoping the image would disappear as other chamalla-induced visions had. It didn't, and she found herself staring at her underdressed physician, wondering what she'd stumbled upon. The idea that this, underwear and all, was something sexual for him, made her pause for a split second before she rejected it resolutely.

But what was he doing? She looked more closely, intrigued despite herself. He seemed to be studying the floor between his feet but the fitful rising and falling of his shirt betrayed the jagged rhythm of his breathing.
Was he crying?

The thought was disconcerting, almost inconceivable. Cottle was one of the very few people that appeared to be unaffected by the war. His unflappable discourtesy seemed to negate the Cylon threat, dismissing it as irrelevant, and patients drew strength from it. She knew she did. A weeping Cottle was disturbing on several levels.

If this was his way of coping, of shouting to the Universe, shouldn't she just turn away and pretend she'd never seen him? Privacy was hard enough to come by as it was and Cottle clearly didn't want an audience to this - what ever it was he was doing. Wouldn't she hope to be extended the same courtesy herself?

The hand that had come up to knock the aluminum wall, fell to her side. She would catch him later, in sickbay, and pretend this had never happened.

Something in his heavy breathing, though, something in his hunched stance was so hauntingly spelling distress that she couldn't just turn and leave. So she stood still, half turned, and waited - wondering why exactly she thought she couldn't leave him to this ... ceremony of his.
Certainly, she hadn't expected anyone to be here, and yes, the picture Cottle made was unsettling, but ...

Then she saw it.

What had disturbed her instinctively, even before she saw it consciously, was the hatch between his airlock and her corridor.

It was sealed shut. Cottle had locked himself inside.

And now that she knew what to look for, she saw his hand, wavering near the handle that separated him from hard vacuum.