mr_gaeta | (no subject)

(no subject)

Just over a year ago, Gaeta made an implicit promise to Laura Roslin: keep an eye on Milliways.

There's been idle talk among some of the Ones -- always bitter, always the least likely to behave as if this is cohabitation and not occupation -- about shutting down the school; he can hope that it stays idle, but Gaeta knows that he ought to prepare for the possibility that it may not be. That could mean collecting data in an attempt to convince them otherwise.

That could mean visiting the school.

He keeps his head down for the entire walk to the tent, and it has less to do with the cold than one might assume.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A second's worth of hesitation.

"Some of the Ones," he admits at last. "Like I said -- I don't know if it'll amount to anything, this isn't the first time they've talked about taking more...extreme measures than some of the other Cylons. But I'd like to be prepared for the possibility."

She sighs, then removes her glasses for a moment and rubs at the bridge of her nose. Roslin looks weary.

"Of course."

He nods, casting his eyes to the dirt beneath their feet. Gaeta lays the pen flat against the notebook and presses his thumb over it to hold it in place.

Through the thin walls of the tent, he can hear the muffled babble of the students' voices.

"Well."

She puts her glasses back on, then directs a look at him over the top of their frame.

"Do you know why? In particular, I mean?"

"No, ma'am."

He lets both notebook and pen fall into his palm, lowering his hand to his side. He looks up.

"I'm sorry. But if I do manage to find out more information..."

"Thank you, Felix. I appreciate it."

She holds his gaze for a moment before glancing away, looking around the room as though to fix it in memory.

"It must be difficult for you."

Simon Tam said much the same thing not too long ago.

He answers in much the same way, quieter than before: "I'm just trying to do what I can."

"Still."

She trails her fingertips over the back of one of the chairs before looking back at him.

"How is President Baltar holding up?"

Silence.

Gaeta's expression shifts, subtle but noticeable: away from the quiet and weary sympathy, back to the calm mask of professionalism from before.

Calm, and a touch harder.

"As well as he can, I suppose."

She smiles at that.

"I wouldn't expect anything less."

Baltar is a topic he shouldn't discuss...and, frankly, Gaeta doesn't want to discuss it at the moment. He gives a terse nod in response before glancing away.

And while it never left his mind, thinking of Simon -- and now Colonial One -- pushes him to bring up the other reason he came to see Roslin. He glances back, lowers his voice further.

"There's...something else you should be aware of, too."

Her smile fades, slowly.

"Is there?"

Unconsciously, her hand tightens on the back of the chair, to the point where her knuckles whiten.

"Then I'd better hear it, hadn't I?"

"Yes."

He essays a careful breath.

"One of the Sixes knows about Milliways."

Every bit of color drains from her face. Laura Roslin looks as if she's just been shot.

"No."

If he lets himself notice the expression on her face, Gaeta knows it'll be that much harder to make it through this report. He goes on.

"She's known about it for a few months now; she didn't clarify whether that meant she found a door just prior to her arrival on New Caprica, or just after. She also claims she's the only one -- both of her model and the Cylons as a whole -- who knows about it."

"A few months."

She's taking it all in as quickly as she can; absorbing, thinking, adjusting.

"You haven't seen any of the rest. Or heard about it, I presume."

It's not a question, that's clear. It's a safe bet, given that he's here now, telling her this.

"If they all were aware -- I can't imagine that they, they wouldn't..."

She shuts her eyes.

Breathes in. Breathes out.

"We've got to warn him."

"President Baltar?"

(But that doesn't make much sense -- he doesn't know about the bar, as far as Gaeta's aware, and even if he was, what would he bother to do? -- )

She shakes her head.

Roslin takes another breath, then opens her eyes and meets his.

"The admiral."

Beat.

"He's been there before, too."

Nearly the instant she says it, Gaeta arrives to the same conclusion. One corner of his mouth twists in something very much like helplessness.

"I know," he says. "But...someone I've spoken to there, Dr. Simon Tam -- " Gaeta turns a hand palm up. "When he mentioned he'd seen the admiral, he also told me it'd been years since he had seen him."

A pause, then, considerably more wryly: "In fact I had to correct him when he asked if I knew a Commander Adama."

"Oh. Oh dear gods."

She rubs at her temple, then lets her hand drop.

"It's been so long since I myself have able to get there, I hadn't realized..."

Her passage had been through Colonial One, after all.

"What about Commander Apollo?"

He doesn't bother to ask Apollo's been there, too? -- clearly he has, and the only indication Gaeta wasn't expecting that is the mild surprise that crosses his face.

"I haven't seen him," he says, shaking his head. And that's followed quickly by: "Who else do you know from our world who's been there?"

Her smile is somehow sad as she tells him,

"Starbuck."

A beat.

"... I don't suppose you...?"

It's been a long time without any word from Kara Thrace.

(Longer for Anders than anyone else.)

"No."

He tucks the notebook between both hands now, lacing his fingers together around the spine.

"I'm sorry."

She nods.

"I'm sorry, too."

Roslin pushes her glasses up on the bridge of her nose and tells him,

"I only saw the two of them there the once. Remember when we were all jumping every thirty-three minutes? They were there from a year or so after that."

"It was a hopeful thing to know, then."

Gaeta remembers that very well: calculating two hundred and thirty-eight jumps in the span of five and a half days, running on nothing but stims popped by the handful (enough to make his hands shake and his heart race), still reeling from the destruction of the Colonies, and knowing that one misplaced variable on his part could reduce the human race even further.

That would have been a hopeful thing for him to know then, too.

His eyes widen by a fraction. "You mean," he says slowly, "the fact that people can arrive at Milliways from different years as well as different places. That difference can arise even if they're from the same universe?"