Awaiting the Verdict
Intro: Secrets & Whispers. The seventh in a series of Baltar/Gaeta missing scenes fics. These stories may be read together or as stand-alone oneshots.
Chapters: 1. Devotion to Good, 2. Return from Kobol, 3. After the Election, 4. The First Intern, 5. Judgement Day, 6. A Walk at Midnight, 7. Awaiting the Verdict, 8. Voices in the Mind. 9. Last Confessions.
Synopsis: Romo Lampkin takes the opportunity to question Gaius over his relationship with Felix.
Characters: Baltar, Romo, Apollo, mentions of Gaeta and Caprica.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own BSG and Romo Lampkin will be my lawyer if anyone tries to sue.
Beta: Thanks once again to
lls_mutant for her most valued advice.
7. Awaiting the Verdict
The court had been adjourned for over an hour now. Gaius sat in the Major’s quarters, waiting to be called back in for the verdict, wondering what sort of judgement could be reached after such a pantomime trial. He was still feeling a little hysterical over the proceedings. There were moments during the testimonies when he had been tempted to laugh out loud. But now his thoughts were mostly occupied with fears of death and how quickly it would come if the jury declared him guilty.
Lee Adama sat on the far side of the room, his palm pressed over his mouth and a dazed look in his eyes. He still appeared to be reeling from the speech that had poured from his lips; the speech that had exposed their legal system as a sham. Much closer to Gaius, Romo Lampkin sat slouching in an armchair. His dark glasses were back in place over his eyes. He was smoking a cigar while his other hand dipped down to stroke the cat, Lance, who sat purring beside his wounded leg.
Lee rose to his feet, waving his hand vaguely in the direction of the door.
“I’ll be back in a…” he faltered, “I just have to…”
He dispensed with excuses and simply stepped outside of the room.
As the hatch closed, Romo twisted his neck and smirked at Gaius. The lawyer had been mercifully silent for the last hour. Gaius imagined he had been replaying the glory of his oddball defence in his mind. Yet Romo seemed to view Lee’s absence as an opportunity; one that he had eagerly been awaiting.
He stubbed out his cigar and laced his fingers over his chest.
“It would appear that we still have some time to kill, Doctor,” he said, not choosing his words too delicately. “So how about you tell me what the story is with you and your Mr Gaeta?”
Gaius closed his eyes and shuddered at the name. Memories of Felix came rushing into his mind unbidden, invading his thoughts like terrorist soldiers. Gaius recalled their last desperate days on New Caprica; the morning after the suicide bombing when Felix had looked so sick with guilt that he hadn’t raised his head from his desk. He had sat for hours with a copy of his census, slowly scratching off the names of the human police killed in the blast with a trembling hand.
A few days later it had been more names - two hundred names - on a death warrant signed by his president. Gaius knew how the cylons had acquired the names for that list. He knew what the Eight had done. But Felix had been in denial and hysterical at the thought of removing even one more name from their records. Gaius had watched him dashing out of the Colonial One and had murmured a silent prayer for Felix to deliver the list to the resistance forces in time.
Gaius had been too distraught to do anything himself. He hadn’t had the will to move until Felix had returned to him; brandishing a gun in his hand and ordering him to put things right on pain of death.
“What exactly was your relationship with the young lieutenant?” Romo prompted, breaking into his thoughts, leaning closer in his chair and peering over the rim of his glasses.
Gaius sighed, pinching his temples. “I already told you. He served as my lab assistant here on the Galactica in the months following the attacks on the Colonies. He helped me with my work on the cylon detector. Over time we became friends. I found him to be very bright and capable so I when was elected President I offered him a job as my Chief of Staff. Well, naturally our personal and working relationship became a little strained during the cylon occupation...”
Romo raised his eyebrows. “Only during the occupation? Are you sure there wasn’t any lingering resentment before the cylons landed? Forgive me for saying so, Doctor, but right from the moment you announced yourself as a candidate for the leadership, I had thought you would make a horrible President.”
“Oh thank you,” he muttered. “So you voted for Laura Roslin, did you?”
“I didn’t vote,” said Romo with a shrug. “My business is in weighing up the opposing factions, not in casting the final verdict. When I decided to leave my ship and join you down on that tentative little settlement, believe me…it wasn’t because I had any faith in you as a leader. But I can still remember your right hand man, Mr Baltar. He was always busying around the camp, trying to hold our fragile civilisation together. He struck me as a very gifted and dedicated lad, that Mr Gaeta. I thought if anyone stood a chance of making something of that poxy little planet, it was him…”
Romo shook his head solemnly and then frowned at Gaius.
“So what did you do to him?” he asked.
Gaius blinked in confusion. “Do? What do you mean?”
“What did you do to drive him crazy?”
He scowled at the accusation. “I didn’t do anything!” he objected. “You can’t blame me for the lies he told in that courtroom. That wasn’t the Felix Gaeta I knew. I barely recognised him. He used to be an honest man. He was the first man who told me the truth about my failings. You know, there was a time when I would have let him be my executioner. There was a time when he would have been quite justified and I would have considered it a mercy. But he relented. He gave me a chance to put things right.” Gaius shook his head in hurt and confusion. “Why now? Why would he do this to me now? Why would he suddenly try to snatch it all away?”
“Something changed in him?” Romo suggested.
“They did it,” Gaius accused. “They changed him. I could see it when they sent him into my cell to question me. I could see that he had been fashioned into a little tool of their interrogation. Another piece of torture equipment! I’ll bet they were the ones who put him up to this lie. They turned him against me.”
Romo quirked a smile. “By they I take it that you mean President Roslin and Admiral Adama? The leaders of our emerging aristocracy?”
“Well, of course. They’d do anything to spite me.”
“In all fairness Doctor, they weren’t the ones who made Mr Gaeta stab you with a pen. What did you whisper to him? I’m close to using a cat metaphor here. The curiosity is killing me. What did you say to make him crazy?”
“Oh, will you stop saying that! He’s not crazy. A little corrupted maybe, but not crazy.” He frowned. “What makes you say that he’s crazy?”
Romo sighed at length, reclining in his armchair. The cat Lance purred and nuzzled against his limp hand, stroking his tail back and forth across his ankle.
“In my experience there are two types of perjurer, Mr Baltar. There are the common kind who’ll craft their lies before the trial, intent on perverting justice and holding the courtroom in contempt. I can see them coming a mile off and I do my best to expose them for the frauds they are. But there’s a second sort who are harder to predict and unravel. This type of perjurer doesn’t necessarily choose to tell lies. Rather they force themselves to believe in a different version of the truth. I never would have suspected we’d have any trouble with Gaeta’s testimony. His record shows him to be a man devoted to rules and law. Once I got a closer look at him, I could see he was one of those believers, rather than a liar. If he says that you signed the death list without protest, then that memory is real to him. It has to be real. He needs to believe it. Otherwise he would have to believe some other truth that his mind can’t handle; a truth he buries deep. The shrinks call it repressed memory syndrome.”
Gaius thought once again of the Eight on New Caprica; the Eight that he could have warned Felix about if he hadn’t been so eager for him to share in his nightmare. Gaius thought of the lists Felix had scribbled out so desperately to save human lives only to see those same names scratched away one by one. All those unspeakable losses and a dawning truth that Felix needed to hide even from himself. Romo’s speculations were dancing so close to the truth now yet Gaius couldn’t bring himself to give up Felix’s secret. He knew he hadn’t intended it. Conspiracy requires intent and Felix had never wanted to hurt anyone when he gave his Eight those lists, just like Gaius had never wanted to hurt anyone when he gave his Six the access codes. There are some secrets that are too dark and terrible ever to be spoken aloud.
“That Mr Gaeta is a man on the verge if ever I saw one,” said Romo, continuing in his diagnosis. “Highly disturbed. Remind me to write a letter to the Admiral when this is all over. I think it’s very risky of him to be keeping an officer so unstable in such a vital position of the military. Sooner or later, Gaeta’s going to snap. One day he might just walk into the CIC with a sidearm and start shooting the place up.”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Gaius snorted. “If he’s so psychologically frail then why didn’t you question him? Couldn’t you have broken him?!”
“I dare say I could have,” Romo remarked. “In fact, I’m almost certain of it. Yes, I could have plucked that boy’s bleeding heart out of his chest and thrown it down on the courtroom floor for all to see. I mean, we had already taken such cruel pleasure exposing the return of Roslin’s terminal illness and the Colonel’s crime of killing his beloved wife. Why stop just when were on a roll? Yes, I could have broken Gaeta. I could have destroyed his testimony, exposed him as a perjurer, humiliated him and ruined his career; maybe even earned him tidy little prison sentence of his own for obstruction of justice. I could have. But I didn’t wish to do that, Doctor Baltar. Yes, there are some people in that court who you never did any wrong and they still want to see your head served up on a plate. I can see there are many hurts and betrayals that you should not be held responsible for. But Gaeta? Gaeta I think you deserved.”
“Oh, that’s just great!” Gaius spluttered. “So now my own attorney thinks it’s fair for me to be convicted over a piece of delusional, fabricated, slanderous…”
“I didn’t say it was fair, Doctor. I said deserved. Hardly the same thing.”
“Actually Mr Lampkin, I think you’ll find those words mean exactly the same thing,” said Gaius, getting a little exasperated with his lawyer’s pretentiousness. “And I for one don’t think I deserve to be found guilty and executed based on…”
“You’re not going to be found guilty,” Romo interrupted.
“Oh, really. And how do you know that?”
He smiled again. “Just a funny tingling in my toes…”
“Well…whatever my sentence, would you please explain to me why you think my case should deserve such a low blow from Felix Gaeta?”
“That’s the part I’ve been waiting for you to tell me.”
Romo flashed him a knowing look. He gave Gaius one last chance to come clean on his own. When he failed to answer, Romo exhaled and hunched forward in his chair. He removed his shades and placed them on the table before them.
“I know the look of a scorned lover, Mr Baltar,” he said, his eyes sincere. “I was one myself for many unhappy years. I could read it all over his face. He thought he was masking it well but it was there for all to see. It was the same look that I saw in your cylon girlfriend when I visited her in the brig.”
Gaius winced at the mention of Caprica, but he still didn’t speak.
“For the record, Doctor, I don’t think you deserve to be condemned for these supposed crimes against our race,” Romo consoled. “But when it comes to injuries of the heart? There I think you have many victims and you’re as guilty as all hell.”
Gaius flinched. His mouth opened and closed a few times, but he had no line of defence. He couldn’t even say he had never intended to hurt them. He knew that he could be selfish, cruel and wanton in his desires. He knew he had encouraged them to love him only so he could use them, take pleasure in them and enjoy all the flattery and comfort of having them adore him. He knew he had carelessly let their hearts break over him. He had never really tried to pick up the pieces.
“Yes,” Gaius nodded weakly. “Guilty as charged, Mr Lampkin.”
Romo sat back in his chair. He didn’t gloat. He seemed satisfied enough with this confession and wasn’t interested in belabouring his case any further.
“Might I make a suggestion, Doctor?” he said.
Gaius nodded again, knowing that this advice would be the sentence following the verdict; his punishment for these crimes against the heart.
“Once you are acquitted…when you leave that cell to start your new life…I don’t think you should ever speak with Mr Gaeta after this day.”
He swallowed. “What?”
“I mean it, Doctor,” he said. “Never cross his path in the hall, never darken his doorway again. I’m sure you’ll forget him soon enough, but it’ll take him longer to move on. You’ll be the angry cat that he carries around in his suitcase. One day the hissing and scratching might stop for him. Maybe it’ll never stop at all. But you ought to give him a chance. If you ever cared about him, if you were ever truly his friend, then I’d say you should leave him well alone.”
Gaius wanted to protest. This penalty seemed too severe. It was a life sentence. It was the termination of the one true friendship he had known in this fleet. Even after all that had happened part of Gaius still hoped he and Felix might be friends again some day. But Romo was right. This was what he deserved.
“Alright,” he answered. “I’ll leave him alone.”
“Wise choice,” said Romo, placing his shades back over his eyes. “Really, I think it’s the best choice for all of us. I dare say that if you two ever sit down in the same room again, we’ll know our world is coming to its end.”
8. Voices in the Mind
Chapters: 1. Devotion to Good, 2. Return from Kobol, 3. After the Election, 4. The First Intern, 5. Judgement Day, 6. A Walk at Midnight, 7. Awaiting the Verdict, 8. Voices in the Mind. 9. Last Confessions.
Synopsis: Romo Lampkin takes the opportunity to question Gaius over his relationship with Felix.
Characters: Baltar, Romo, Apollo, mentions of Gaeta and Caprica.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own BSG and Romo Lampkin will be my lawyer if anyone tries to sue.
Beta: Thanks once again to
lls_mutant for her most valued advice.
7. Awaiting the Verdict
The court had been adjourned for over an hour now. Gaius sat in the Major’s quarters, waiting to be called back in for the verdict, wondering what sort of judgement could be reached after such a pantomime trial. He was still feeling a little hysterical over the proceedings. There were moments during the testimonies when he had been tempted to laugh out loud. But now his thoughts were mostly occupied with fears of death and how quickly it would come if the jury declared him guilty.
Lee Adama sat on the far side of the room, his palm pressed over his mouth and a dazed look in his eyes. He still appeared to be reeling from the speech that had poured from his lips; the speech that had exposed their legal system as a sham. Much closer to Gaius, Romo Lampkin sat slouching in an armchair. His dark glasses were back in place over his eyes. He was smoking a cigar while his other hand dipped down to stroke the cat, Lance, who sat purring beside his wounded leg.
Lee rose to his feet, waving his hand vaguely in the direction of the door.
“I’ll be back in a…” he faltered, “I just have to…”
He dispensed with excuses and simply stepped outside of the room.
As the hatch closed, Romo twisted his neck and smirked at Gaius. The lawyer had been mercifully silent for the last hour. Gaius imagined he had been replaying the glory of his oddball defence in his mind. Yet Romo seemed to view Lee’s absence as an opportunity; one that he had eagerly been awaiting.
He stubbed out his cigar and laced his fingers over his chest.
“It would appear that we still have some time to kill, Doctor,” he said, not choosing his words too delicately. “So how about you tell me what the story is with you and your Mr Gaeta?”
Gaius closed his eyes and shuddered at the name. Memories of Felix came rushing into his mind unbidden, invading his thoughts like terrorist soldiers. Gaius recalled their last desperate days on New Caprica; the morning after the suicide bombing when Felix had looked so sick with guilt that he hadn’t raised his head from his desk. He had sat for hours with a copy of his census, slowly scratching off the names of the human police killed in the blast with a trembling hand.
A few days later it had been more names - two hundred names - on a death warrant signed by his president. Gaius knew how the cylons had acquired the names for that list. He knew what the Eight had done. But Felix had been in denial and hysterical at the thought of removing even one more name from their records. Gaius had watched him dashing out of the Colonial One and had murmured a silent prayer for Felix to deliver the list to the resistance forces in time.
Gaius had been too distraught to do anything himself. He hadn’t had the will to move until Felix had returned to him; brandishing a gun in his hand and ordering him to put things right on pain of death.
“What exactly was your relationship with the young lieutenant?” Romo prompted, breaking into his thoughts, leaning closer in his chair and peering over the rim of his glasses.
Gaius sighed, pinching his temples. “I already told you. He served as my lab assistant here on the Galactica in the months following the attacks on the Colonies. He helped me with my work on the cylon detector. Over time we became friends. I found him to be very bright and capable so I when was elected President I offered him a job as my Chief of Staff. Well, naturally our personal and working relationship became a little strained during the cylon occupation...”
Romo raised his eyebrows. “Only during the occupation? Are you sure there wasn’t any lingering resentment before the cylons landed? Forgive me for saying so, Doctor, but right from the moment you announced yourself as a candidate for the leadership, I had thought you would make a horrible President.”
“Oh thank you,” he muttered. “So you voted for Laura Roslin, did you?”
“I didn’t vote,” said Romo with a shrug. “My business is in weighing up the opposing factions, not in casting the final verdict. When I decided to leave my ship and join you down on that tentative little settlement, believe me…it wasn’t because I had any faith in you as a leader. But I can still remember your right hand man, Mr Baltar. He was always busying around the camp, trying to hold our fragile civilisation together. He struck me as a very gifted and dedicated lad, that Mr Gaeta. I thought if anyone stood a chance of making something of that poxy little planet, it was him…”
Romo shook his head solemnly and then frowned at Gaius.
“So what did you do to him?” he asked.
Gaius blinked in confusion. “Do? What do you mean?”
“What did you do to drive him crazy?”
He scowled at the accusation. “I didn’t do anything!” he objected. “You can’t blame me for the lies he told in that courtroom. That wasn’t the Felix Gaeta I knew. I barely recognised him. He used to be an honest man. He was the first man who told me the truth about my failings. You know, there was a time when I would have let him be my executioner. There was a time when he would have been quite justified and I would have considered it a mercy. But he relented. He gave me a chance to put things right.” Gaius shook his head in hurt and confusion. “Why now? Why would he do this to me now? Why would he suddenly try to snatch it all away?”
“Something changed in him?” Romo suggested.
“They did it,” Gaius accused. “They changed him. I could see it when they sent him into my cell to question me. I could see that he had been fashioned into a little tool of their interrogation. Another piece of torture equipment! I’ll bet they were the ones who put him up to this lie. They turned him against me.”
Romo quirked a smile. “By they I take it that you mean President Roslin and Admiral Adama? The leaders of our emerging aristocracy?”
“Well, of course. They’d do anything to spite me.”
“In all fairness Doctor, they weren’t the ones who made Mr Gaeta stab you with a pen. What did you whisper to him? I’m close to using a cat metaphor here. The curiosity is killing me. What did you say to make him crazy?”
“Oh, will you stop saying that! He’s not crazy. A little corrupted maybe, but not crazy.” He frowned. “What makes you say that he’s crazy?”
Romo sighed at length, reclining in his armchair. The cat Lance purred and nuzzled against his limp hand, stroking his tail back and forth across his ankle.
“In my experience there are two types of perjurer, Mr Baltar. There are the common kind who’ll craft their lies before the trial, intent on perverting justice and holding the courtroom in contempt. I can see them coming a mile off and I do my best to expose them for the frauds they are. But there’s a second sort who are harder to predict and unravel. This type of perjurer doesn’t necessarily choose to tell lies. Rather they force themselves to believe in a different version of the truth. I never would have suspected we’d have any trouble with Gaeta’s testimony. His record shows him to be a man devoted to rules and law. Once I got a closer look at him, I could see he was one of those believers, rather than a liar. If he says that you signed the death list without protest, then that memory is real to him. It has to be real. He needs to believe it. Otherwise he would have to believe some other truth that his mind can’t handle; a truth he buries deep. The shrinks call it repressed memory syndrome.”
Gaius thought once again of the Eight on New Caprica; the Eight that he could have warned Felix about if he hadn’t been so eager for him to share in his nightmare. Gaius thought of the lists Felix had scribbled out so desperately to save human lives only to see those same names scratched away one by one. All those unspeakable losses and a dawning truth that Felix needed to hide even from himself. Romo’s speculations were dancing so close to the truth now yet Gaius couldn’t bring himself to give up Felix’s secret. He knew he hadn’t intended it. Conspiracy requires intent and Felix had never wanted to hurt anyone when he gave his Eight those lists, just like Gaius had never wanted to hurt anyone when he gave his Six the access codes. There are some secrets that are too dark and terrible ever to be spoken aloud.
“That Mr Gaeta is a man on the verge if ever I saw one,” said Romo, continuing in his diagnosis. “Highly disturbed. Remind me to write a letter to the Admiral when this is all over. I think it’s very risky of him to be keeping an officer so unstable in such a vital position of the military. Sooner or later, Gaeta’s going to snap. One day he might just walk into the CIC with a sidearm and start shooting the place up.”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Gaius snorted. “If he’s so psychologically frail then why didn’t you question him? Couldn’t you have broken him?!”
“I dare say I could have,” Romo remarked. “In fact, I’m almost certain of it. Yes, I could have plucked that boy’s bleeding heart out of his chest and thrown it down on the courtroom floor for all to see. I mean, we had already taken such cruel pleasure exposing the return of Roslin’s terminal illness and the Colonel’s crime of killing his beloved wife. Why stop just when were on a roll? Yes, I could have broken Gaeta. I could have destroyed his testimony, exposed him as a perjurer, humiliated him and ruined his career; maybe even earned him tidy little prison sentence of his own for obstruction of justice. I could have. But I didn’t wish to do that, Doctor Baltar. Yes, there are some people in that court who you never did any wrong and they still want to see your head served up on a plate. I can see there are many hurts and betrayals that you should not be held responsible for. But Gaeta? Gaeta I think you deserved.”
“Oh, that’s just great!” Gaius spluttered. “So now my own attorney thinks it’s fair for me to be convicted over a piece of delusional, fabricated, slanderous…”
“I didn’t say it was fair, Doctor. I said deserved. Hardly the same thing.”
“Actually Mr Lampkin, I think you’ll find those words mean exactly the same thing,” said Gaius, getting a little exasperated with his lawyer’s pretentiousness. “And I for one don’t think I deserve to be found guilty and executed based on…”
“You’re not going to be found guilty,” Romo interrupted.
“Oh, really. And how do you know that?”
He smiled again. “Just a funny tingling in my toes…”
“Well…whatever my sentence, would you please explain to me why you think my case should deserve such a low blow from Felix Gaeta?”
“That’s the part I’ve been waiting for you to tell me.”
Romo flashed him a knowing look. He gave Gaius one last chance to come clean on his own. When he failed to answer, Romo exhaled and hunched forward in his chair. He removed his shades and placed them on the table before them.
“I know the look of a scorned lover, Mr Baltar,” he said, his eyes sincere. “I was one myself for many unhappy years. I could read it all over his face. He thought he was masking it well but it was there for all to see. It was the same look that I saw in your cylon girlfriend when I visited her in the brig.”
Gaius winced at the mention of Caprica, but he still didn’t speak.
“For the record, Doctor, I don’t think you deserve to be condemned for these supposed crimes against our race,” Romo consoled. “But when it comes to injuries of the heart? There I think you have many victims and you’re as guilty as all hell.”
Gaius flinched. His mouth opened and closed a few times, but he had no line of defence. He couldn’t even say he had never intended to hurt them. He knew that he could be selfish, cruel and wanton in his desires. He knew he had encouraged them to love him only so he could use them, take pleasure in them and enjoy all the flattery and comfort of having them adore him. He knew he had carelessly let their hearts break over him. He had never really tried to pick up the pieces.
“Yes,” Gaius nodded weakly. “Guilty as charged, Mr Lampkin.”
Romo sat back in his chair. He didn’t gloat. He seemed satisfied enough with this confession and wasn’t interested in belabouring his case any further.
“Might I make a suggestion, Doctor?” he said.
Gaius nodded again, knowing that this advice would be the sentence following the verdict; his punishment for these crimes against the heart.
“Once you are acquitted…when you leave that cell to start your new life…I don’t think you should ever speak with Mr Gaeta after this day.”
He swallowed. “What?”
“I mean it, Doctor,” he said. “Never cross his path in the hall, never darken his doorway again. I’m sure you’ll forget him soon enough, but it’ll take him longer to move on. You’ll be the angry cat that he carries around in his suitcase. One day the hissing and scratching might stop for him. Maybe it’ll never stop at all. But you ought to give him a chance. If you ever cared about him, if you were ever truly his friend, then I’d say you should leave him well alone.”
Gaius wanted to protest. This penalty seemed too severe. It was a life sentence. It was the termination of the one true friendship he had known in this fleet. Even after all that had happened part of Gaius still hoped he and Felix might be friends again some day. But Romo was right. This was what he deserved.
“Alright,” he answered. “I’ll leave him alone.”
“Wise choice,” said Romo, placing his shades back over his eyes. “Really, I think it’s the best choice for all of us. I dare say that if you two ever sit down in the same room again, we’ll know our world is coming to its end.”
8. Voices in the Mind