In Those Brief Moments, All I See is Red: Chapter 3
III.
It took two more days for Kendra to be allowed to sit up in her cot, and another three before she could leave the sickbay. Her total time away from her post, then, was nine days.
A lot could happen on a Battlestar in nine days. Yet, as she walked into her quarters, stumbling slightly - though making sure she waited until the hatch swung shut behind her before she let her steps falter - she noticed a distinct lack of paperwork on her desk. In fact, there was only one folder, shut, sitting atop it.
She quickly walked over to and sat down at the desk before flipping the file open, revealing the blank mission report forms within. For some reason, she couldn't find the strength to get a pen out of her drawer to fill them out, and the blank lines stared back up at her, mocking her lack of motivation. She had been so eager to finally get her report written and given to the Commander, however...
There was something missing - a gaping hole in her mind, where the memories should be.
It hadn't bothered her before when she was in Sickbay, because she figured it would take some time to recover from such a grave injury. Looking back, however, there were even moments when she had thought she had been awake and conscious in the Sickbay, yet could not recall them. Captain Thrace had stopped by, the doctor had reminded her of the short conversation, but she could not remember what they had spoken of.
Even if she wrote the report as it was, it would be incomplete. Kendra Shaw didn't leave tasks unfinished.
Then again, Kendra Shaw also didn't allow herself to get injured on duty, nor have amnesia issues.
Something wasn't right.
Pushing the feeling to the back of her mind, she recited over and over what she did remember:
Going to the baseship. Finding the hostages. Shooting DaSilva. Getting shot by a Centurion. Taking the nuclear bomb from Captain Thrace. Agreeing to set the bomb off.
The bomb went off, she knew it had, Commander Adama had congratulated her on that. But she had no memory of detonating it.
She gripped the pen tightly and began to write.
--
"So, what, now?" Kara asked in exasperation. "The Major’s back on duty, isn’t she?"
Lee rolled his eyes and tried to focus on the paperwork in front of him instead of his hot-headed CAG.
Pulling the file away from him, she leaned forward, "You are not ignoring me, Lee."
"We’re on duty, Captain," he stated, trying to remind her that being on a first-name basis was one of the clauses of the fraternization regulations.
Which they were already breaking.
"For frak’s sake, Lee, take a breather for once," she sighed.
Finally looking up, he closed the file and folded his hands together, resting his arms on his desk. "Fine. What is it?"
She sat down on the chair opposite his desk. "I was working on the mission report, now that Major Shaw is back up to accept it. I asked the Doc for the medical forms to staple to the back."
He tapped his fingers absently on the desk and sighed. "The report’s done, then? Take it to Major Shaw, she’ll look through it."
Shaking her head, she answered, "No, it’s not done. I looked through her records from the surgery after I rescued her and -"
"Kara, you can’t go looking around at private documents like that!"
She grinned. "Now look who’s breaking the frat regs. Besides, there’s hardly any of us left. If I get in trouble, who’s gonna be your CAG, huh?"
He clenched his jaw shut.
"Anyway, I know I’m not supposed to look at them since she’s not one of my pilots, but I did rescue her, you know," she continued. "And I found something interesting. Twice during the surgery, her heart stopped."
He tried to relax a bit, shrugging the tension out of his shoulders, and responded, "That’s normal, you know that. She was shot in the chest and the stomach. They probably had to start her heart again a few times, standard procedure."
"No, Lee." She stood up from the chair. "That’s not what it says. Her heart started again on its own."
--
"There's something I have to tell you."
A man's voice. Old. Almost monotone in inflection, but the words still seemed to hold meaning in context.
The room was dark, spashes of red covering the walls. Somehow, the colors were changing. And even though there was no light, she could still see them.
Her chest hurt, weights pressing down, her eyes wanting to shut. She was so tired, just a moment, she could spare just a moment to rest…
She couldn't remember.
--
Kendra's report was efficient, to the point, and placed neatly on the Commander's desk. She stood, then, waiting to be dismissed. After a moment of looking through the pages, he did just that, and she turned to walk away.
In the hatchway, she slipped past Kara, who was also going to turn in her report. A polite salute was exchanged, and then Kara was inside and Kendra was outside.
A wave of dizziness overcame her and she had to reach out for the wall to support herself. No one seemed to notice, and so she straightened up and continued back to her office.
Once inside, she laid down in her rack and immediately fell asleep.
She dreamt.
--
"Come in, Major. I've been waiting for you for a long time..."
She walked into the room, the bag with the nuclear bomb dragging behind her. In the middle of the room was an old man, lying in a basin, hooked up with tubes to the ship around him.
There was something important about what he said.
--
And remembered.