[Room 372]

[mr_gaeta]

[After this.]

"Okay," says Gaeta -- out of breath, as always, from the climb up the stairs -- as he shoulders open the door. The bird immediately weaves around him and darts in, plocking happily at its return to its new nest.

Once it became obvious that Gaeta would be a permanent resident, Bar kindly supplied a few additions and expansions to his room: a kitchenette, a couch and TV, a small bookshelf, a wooden partition to separate his bed from everything else. It looks more like a studio apartment now than the hotel atmosphere of most Milliways rooms.

Stepping aside as best he's able, he holds the door so Louis can come in.

Comments

[mr_gaeta]

"I don't know what else to do."

He curls a hand in front of his mouth, as if, too late, he's trying to stop the words from coming out.

[faithful_lt]

His unsteady breathing is the only sound between them for several long seconds.






"Why?"

[mr_gaeta]

"Because it's just -- "

Gaeta moves again, this time to wrap both hands around the mug, reminding himself of the warmth there. He's shaking his head, slow and steady.

"I don't know. I just can't..."

[faithful_lt]

"... be honest with me?"

[mr_gaeta]

"No. It's not that. Louis -- "

He finally looks up, his fingertips blanching against the mug.

"I'm trying to deal with this and I don't know how."

[faithful_lt]

He draws in a long breath, and lets it out slowly.


"Well," he says, "that makes two of us."

A beat, and another breath.

"But you don't have to do it alone, do you?"

[mr_gaeta]

He blinks, hard.

Carefully -- and a little wobbly, as if walking on a tightrope -- "I don't. And I don't want you to go. But some of it..."

(didn't you see them)

"I don't have a choice. I died because of this and you're still going and I don't know what to do."

It was always so much easier, just following orders.

[faithful_lt]

He swallows against a suddenly dry throat. If he tries to lift his coffee now, he's not sure he'll be able to hold on to it.

"You died because of this," Hoshi repeats, carefully.


"Felix. I don't understand. I don't--"


"-- what about this was worth you dying for?"

[mr_gaeta]

I'm still here, he said, and Louis asked, did you mean not to be?

He doesn't have the heart to reiterate it. All he can do is shake his head, falling mute again.

[faithful_lt]

Hoshi studies him in silence for several long moments.





"Or was it just a way for you to die?"

[mr_gaeta]

Instant, desperate with the denial: "Of course it wasn't."

Louis has no frakking reason to believe him, he realizes dimly. Hell, Gaeta barely even believes himself anymore.

[faithful_lt]

He lets out a ragged breath, nods, and takes a sip of coffee to buy himself time.

"Okay." A beat. "Okay," he repeats. "Okay. That's something."

The gods only know what, but it's something.

[mr_gaeta]

He can't articulate it: the contradiction of wanting to survive the mutiny, yet being deeply relieved that he didn't. The comfort of hearing he'd be executed after committing such a grievous crime. The ache of the past few weeks.

Even if he could put it to words...it'd just make Louis feel even worse.

"I didn't know what else to do."

[faithful_lt]

It's all he can do to bite back the cry that rises from deep within.


Why didn't you come to me?


He stays quiet, instead, looking down at his coffee.

[mr_gaeta]

"It was a last resort." He wraps his fingers a bit more tightly around the mug, takes a moment to breathe in the steam. "I wanted -- I tried going through the proper channels first. Please believe that."

[faithful_lt]

Hoshi glances sideways at him.

"You mean to the Admiral?"

[mr_gaeta]

"Yeah."

He returns the glance, if only for half a second before looking downward again. It's a little easier to talk if he's not focusing on Louis, like he's simply talking to himself in an empty room.

"And the XO. But they..." He shakes his head. "It'd been going on for a long frakking time, Louis. Nobody was listening, I got -- I got my leg hacked off and you frakking know if it'd been Starbuck they wouldn't have waited fifteen hours, I didn't even get to see Dee in the morgue, Tigh practically frakking told me I was lying when I told him about the Raptor -- "

By the last, his voice is starting to shake.

[faithful_lt]

How did I not notice how badly he was hurting? How could I have been so selfish--

"The Raptor?"

He fixes on that single statement with all the hurt confusion that twists inside him.

"But why would he - you weren't lying, Felix, and it's all there in the report, both Racetrack and I filed them--"

[mr_gaeta]

"He said -- "

What did he say? Gaeta struggles to remember, his breath starting to come faster.

"I couldn't trust anything I saw or heard on there. Because of, of the oxygen deprivation or some shit."

[faithful_lt]

He's no doctor, he's never learned more than basic first aid, but the XO isn't either. Hoshi promises himself he'll find a way to talk to Cottle, or maybe Ishay.

"It was a horrible experience," he says, carefully. "What you went through out there."

[mr_gaeta]

You don't know the frakking half of it.

(And he never will, if Gaeta has any say in the matter.)

He lifts his mug, the movement so jerky and convulsive that it puts the coffee on the verge of spilling. Gaeta takes a long drink in lieu of saying anything, letting the warmth spread through his chest.

[faithful_lt]

Clearly that was the wrong thing to say, but he has no clue how or why.


He lapses into silence as well, thinking over what the other man's just told him.







"What I don't understand," Hoshi begins, finally.

"All those things you just said. None of those - how were those a reason for mutiny?"

[mr_gaeta]

"It wasn't just that. It was -- "

Fitfully, he rubs at his forehead.

"It was endemic. He was never going to listen. The meeting I went to, it wasn't whether or not they should put Cylon tech on the ships, it was about how to frakking sell it to everyone."

[faithful_lt]

His brow creases in silent confusion, but he doesn't say anything yet, hoping (perhaps against hope) that Felix will explain further.

[mr_gaeta]

"Nothing anybody said, or any legitimate objections we raised, would've made him stop. And this wasn't just, Louis. It was going to put the whole Fleet in danger."