The Airlock

Smoke

Slowly the deck between her knees formed itself to its familiar shape. She moved her head back, pushing against Cottle's firm hand. "Enough."

He let go. "You would be doing a whole lot better if you would sleep at night, young lady."

"Long time since I smoked," she mumbled by way of explanation.

The twist of his lips dismissed her diagnosis in much the same way as it had dismissed chamalla as a treatment. His hand grabbed her wrist with professional gentleness and felt for her pulse. "Lie down, careful now." Steady hands guided her to her right side.

"I'm okay, don't fuss." But her washed out tiredness was no match for his years of experience in managing unruly patients.

The metal plating of the hallway was hard against her hip. Her neck made an awkward angle with the deck. When she shifted uncomfortably, he pushed a piece of warm cloth under her head. It smelled of smoke, sweat and mothballs, but it helped. She snuggled it and relaxed.

"No drooling," Cottle said.

Her eyes flicked open.

Cottle crouched beside her in his gray underwear. He had given her the neatly folded jacket of his dress uniform as a cushion. "You are a pest," he told her.

"Look who's talking," she murmured sourly, wistfully remembering the missed dinner in Bill's comfortable quarters.

The major slumped from his haunches to the floor of the corridor. His head fell back and he rubbed his eyes. "I suppose you're not going anywhere anytime soon," he said. There still was a splinter of a plea in his voice.

"I can't, Jack." She pushed the thought of Bill's algae soup firmly out of her mind. "You know I can't let you do this."

She heard him shuffling over the floor until he rested with his back against the outside of the aluminum wall, not far from her head, but outside her line of vision. He smelled of cold cigarettes, disinfectants and old footwear. For the moment she just lay there in the eye of the storm, a brief repose, silently wishing herself to wake up.

The unforgiving metal plating of the hallway became more solid and cold as the minutes ticked away, and by the time she could no longer deny reality, she raised her head to talk to Cottle once more.

There must be a way out of this.

Cottle calmly placed his hand on her hair and guided her back down to her makeshift cushion. "Give it a few minutes," he said. "We do have five minutes."

She resisted the urge to struggle against the controlling hand, then thought the better of it. "I will," she said, "I will, if you talk to me." She had negotiated with the unionized teachers, surely she could reach an agreement with a solitary suicidal surgeon.

There was a dry snort above her head. "You think you can talk me out of this?" A hint of bitterness and resentment tinged his voice. "You think I didn't think this through? That this is a whim?"

She realized she was hoping all of these things. She ignored the grating in her stomach. "Talk to me, Jack. If this is the last conversation we'll ever have, then please talk to me."

He grunted uncooperatively. The long silence was filled with uneasy shuffling of his feet against the deck as he repositioned himself. There was a deep sigh. Then nothing. She waited him out.

"It's not easy," he ventured eventually.

"I don't expect it to be," she acknowledged slowly. "I don't expect," she reflected softly, "that explaining your death to Admiral Adama will be easy either." She let that sink in. "So talk to me."

The silence lasted longer, this time. He didn't even move.

"Jack?"

The stub of his cigarette sailed with a leisured curve through the air until it bumped against the corridor wall and slid to the deck. It glowed for a few seconds and then died.

"Have you ever been in an avalanche?" Cottle asked.

"Huh?" Taken aback by the sudden shift in the conversation she turned upwards to look him in the eye, but his heavy hand came to rest on her ear and quietly pushed her head in place. No glances allowed. Maybe he'd started to realize his state of undress. If so, she would take that as a good sign. She kept her head down. "I've seen avalanches on TV," she offered.