[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

[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."

[faithful_lt]

He opens his mouth, then closes it; shakes his head, and opens his mouth again.




"How?"

[mr_gaeta]

Gaeta raises his head, staring at Louis in disbelief.

"How do you think?"

[faithful_lt]

Hoshi looks steadily back at him.


"I think I've learned not to make any assumptions about what you're thinking."

[mr_gaeta]

He bites down hard on nothing, fingers tightening on his mug, and looks away.

I can't frakking believe this, says his expression.

[faithful_lt]

His lips compress into a thin line.

"Tell me I'm wrong," he challenges.

[mr_gaeta]

"Because when there was a really frakking good chance you'd get hurt, I tried to protect you?" he lashes back.

[faithful_lt]

"We've been over this," Hoshi snaps. "I don't know how to make it any frakking plainer, Felix: you shouldn't have."

[mr_gaeta]

"So why do you keep insisting you don't know what I was thinking when I've told you more than once?"

The bird, who's been pressing closer and closer to Gaeta as their voices rise, hooks its head over his left thigh and ruffles its feathers.

[faithful_lt]

"Because I didn't know when it counted!" he shouts, and jerks to his feet.

He turns away, taking one step blindly toward the door, then stops where he is and stands there, his breathing ragged, head down, his hands clenched tightly at his sides.