His eyes were wide, spilling over with madness. He continued to stare at her with the gaze of an asylum inmate, but relaxed his arm and allowed her to breath normally. As he watched her slump to the floor he holstered the side arm.

"Is that what you want, Rose?" he turned away from her and grabbed a metal framed chair and collapsed into it. "Because if you want to die, I can square with that. We'll put you in a sewage transport and set you up to fire ship a Basestar."

He reached up, fingering his dog tags for a moment. "Or, you can die for something that matters." He let out an exasperated sigh, "Don't you get it?"

"This fleet is probably the last remaining collection of human beings in the universe. We're all that's left. So, you've got to ask yourself how important that makes you in the grand scheme of things." An impish smile slid onto his face as he continued speaking. "I don't know about you, but it was nice to go from a frak-up to one of the best pilots in the Fleet."

"And that's what I'm saying, Rose. We're the heroes. We're the last scions of a golden age. We're the ones who matter. If you die, if I die, if Captain Tarix dies - well it makes a huge fraking difference to the entirety of the human race. So, if you're not going to step up and take your place next to the Lords of Kobol, then get to dying and get the frak out of my way."

"Now," he stood up and walked over to her bunk. He shuffled with her bedding for a few moments, then he pulled out the small box containing her drugs. He turned and casually tossed it on the table. "You can either bury yourself in the mediocrity of this crap or you can make something of yourself."

He reached into the box and casually, prepared a needle full of Morpha. Even to the point of flicking the tip. All that was left was to plunge the needle into the arm. He held the needle out to her, "So you've got a choice to make, Rose Shayl. You can either pony up and become the Viper pilot that humanity needs, that the Fleet needs, that I need you to be. It will be hard. You will cry. You will bleed. You will endure more than you ever have before. And frankly, Rose, I can't make you many promises. You might become the best pilot the Fleet ever sees and still die by the will of fickle fate. But I can promise you that if you do die, whether by fickle fate against the Cylons or gallantly saving the entire Fleet single-handedly that you will have died for a purpose."

He held the needle out to her, "Or you can shoot this Morpha."