Companion Pieces, Dreams for a New World
Series Title: Companion Pieces
Segment Title: Dreams for a New World (Gaeta)
Author: kappamaki33
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Gaeta, Dee, Lee, Hoshi, Tyrol, Nicky
Pairings: Gaeta/Hoshi
Series Summary: A series of mirror-images. Likely to be some angst.
Segment Summary: Gaeta bids farewell to the Galactica on two eves before he tries to bring about change.
Spoilers: Miniseries through Series Finale
Author's Note: This is really more a cycle of fanfics than a series. Each one stands on its own as a story, and they can be read in any order. However, the storytelling structure is the same in each, so they do share some commonalities.
The title "Companion Pieces" actually has a double meaning. Each fic in the cycle is actually two stories with a common theme; for Gaeta, it's saying goodbye to his life on Galactica before two very big but very different changes in his life. The cycle as a whole itself is also a companion piece to "Farewell Symphony,", the remix I wrote of trovia 's excellent " Recapitulation" (and a bit of her Donald Perry aka "Chuckles" fics, too). These are stories that I cut from "'Farewell' Symphony" when I decided to streamline the structure, but I liked them a lot, so I figured they deserved to be posted as freestanding stories themselves. So, these stories are essentially a part of the same 'verse as "Farewell Symphony," though both stand alone in and of themselves and can be read independently.
Links to the rest of the "Companion Pieces" Cycle:
After the Good-Night Kiss, Dee
Gazing Skyward, Helo
Love and Bullets, Tyrol
Dreams for a New World
Lee brought both Felix and Dee fresh drinks and sat down just as the crowd began to cheer at Twister’s collection of Nymph magazines coming up on the auction block.
Dee had apologized profusely for Felix’s going-away party getting subsumed into Twister’s wake-auction-though it wasn’t like she could have done anything about it-but Felix noted with chagrin that it was almost as if their table wasn’t attending the same party that everyone else was at anyway. Worse yet, a person walking past the rec room never would have guessed that he, Dee, and Lee were the ones celebrating and the raucous pilots were the ones mourning their lost comrade.
It didn’t help, Felix thought, that Lee and Dee were purposefully standing out by being the only ones in the room wearing duty blues rather than tanks. Dee was even more proud of the lieutenant’s pins that flashed on her collar than Lee was of the commander’s pips on his. And yet, Felix felt guilty about being irritated with them, since he knew that he was the real odd man out in the room. His new (to him) civilian clothing felt stiff and strange, and every time he reached for something, his jacket sleeves bunched in an odd way that made the simplest movement ungainly. At the same time, he felt naked without his uniform, especially in a crowd like this. No one quite knew how to look at him anymore.
Lee lifted his glass and cleared his throat as if to make a speech, but he only spoke loudly enough for their table to hear. “To Felix,” he said, and Felix knew he wasn’t imagining the pause before his name as Lee struggled with the habit of calling him by rank. “May your new beginning exceed even your high expectations.” Lee smiled awkwardly at the last, as if he couldn’t decide whether it was funny because it was sincere or ironic.
Felix tipped his glass in acknowledgment and gave what he knew must have looked like an equally awkward smile, though it was a genuine one. It was as hard to like Lee as it was not to like him. Felix couldn’t help but compare this almost somber little get-together with the easy conversations between him, Billy, and Dee around tables like this one, full of laughter and warmth and jokes that sailed over the heads of everyone else in the room. And yet, Lee had been far warmer and more understanding with Felix than most people had been since whispers of his role in uncovering the election fraud got out-warmer even than Dee, whose tight smile and quick change of subject whenever the topic came up worried Felix more than he wanted to admit.
“I’m not saying that I’m not honored to have my job,” Lee mused, not making eye contact with anyone as he spoke, “but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me that envied you a little, getting to muster out. It’s got to be kind of like leaving home for the first time, getting to spread your wings, strike out on your own.”
Felix lifted his glass again and muttered into it, “Well, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel like I was being gently nudged out of the nest.”
Dee laid a hand on Felix’s arm. “You know you’ve always got a spot on the Pegasus if you want one.” Her eyes shifted to Lee. “Right?”
Lee gave a little nod. Felix sensed the offer was sincere, and not just made because the Commander’s girlfriend was indirectly insisting on it. He also sensed that it wouldn’t be long before Dee found a place on the Pegasus, too.
“I appreciate it,” Felix answered Dee, then turned to Lee, “but you’re right. It is exciting, to be a part of something completely new. We get to write this settlement on a totally clean slate-or, not quite, but we get to scrap any parts of the old world that we don’t like, and build off of what we do. It’s a little terrifying, too, to be honest,” he laughed, “but it’s a good kind of terror.”
Dee’s smile held a hint of motherly patronizing, but it didn’t bother Felix much. “Do you know where you’re going to be living yet?” she asked.
“I’ll be staying on Colonial One for the first few days, but then I’ll move to a tent until we get permanent housing built.” Felix felt himself blush as he added, “Or at least, I think that’s how it’s going to work.”
Dee’s smile cooled a few degrees. “Hmm. That’s interesting. Do many people in the government live on Colonial One?” she asked a little too carefully.
Felix felt his cheeks get even hotter, especially because he was sure Dee knew exactly why he was suddenly so fascinated with his drink that he wouldn’t look at anything else. “No, only the President, so far as I know.”
Thankfully, Dee changed the subject. “I know I’ve said it already, but I’m sorry we couldn’t have a proper going-away party for you, Felix. I shouldn’t have put it off so long, but I thought it might be awkward if we had a party before you were officially done with CIC duties. And then this was all the time left, and...you can’t really plan around wakes, since you never know very far in advance when they’ll be necessary.”
“If we’re right about the DRADIS soup around this system hiding us from the Cylons, hopefully there won’t be many more to plan around,” Lee said. “Though Twister is proof of why we can’t get complacent. If he’d been at the top of his game, he and Snowbird should’ve been able to pull off an emergency landing on the planet a hell of a lot better than that.”
“How is Lieutenant Scoles?” Felix asked.
“He’s still pretty banged up, but he’ll live.” Lee’s face twisted into an unreadable expression. “Leg’s shattered into so many pieces he’ll probably never fly a Viper again, but he’ll live.”
They fell into uneasy silence, sipping at their drinks and wracking their brains for something to say that wouldn’t lead them into another conversational minefield.
Felix had never been so grateful to hear Starbuck’s brash yell as when she called out over the din, “Last item on the block, some rather interesting reading material written by Donald Perry.”
Felix perked up and turned his chair so he could see the auction block. He noticed Dee and several other people in the room do the same.
“Which ones are they?” someone in the crowd yelled.
“We’ve got Drill Sergeant Candy: Around the Fleet in Eighty Fraks and Major Dik: Coming in Hot.”
“I didn’t know Twister...twisted both ways,” laughed Dee.
“Do you have a copy that first one?” Felix said to Dee, a wicked grin on his face.
“Wait, what is this?” Lee asked.
Dee and Felix turned back and goggled at him in disbelief. “You’re kidding, right?” said Dee. “Chuckles, the Great Pilot Pornographer of our generation?”
Lee shrugged and shook his head. “Apparently, there are some things people don’t want their commanding officer to know about.”
Felix didn’t have long to feel pity for Lee, since he had to jump in on the bidding. “Forty for Eighty Fraks!” he yelled.
Dee giggled. “Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound?”
Starbuck snorted, too. “I don’t know what the hell kind of prostitutes you’ve had, Gaeta, but a half-cubit a frak? You couldn’t get a working girl or guy to whisper one dirty sentence in your ear for a half-cubit.”
On a normal day, Starbuck might have irritated him, but he just laughed and upped the bid when another pilot went for it.
“Forty for Major Dik!” Dee hollered. Felix gave her a funny look. “It’s your going-away present, so you have something to keep you occupied on all those cold, lonely nights on New Caprica.”
“Oh, gee, thanks for assuming they’re going to be cold and lonely,” he kidded back.
They both won their auctions, and Felix felt a twinge of nostalgia when everyone in the room watched Hotdog deliver their respective spoils to Dee and him, followed by the kind of amused laughter and scattered claps that a room full of people give when they don’t really understand the gesture but do recognize the sentiment as he and Dee exchanged porn and hugged each other. No matter how much he was looking forward to New Caprica and Gaius and making a fresh start, he would miss this. And not just Dee-he would miss all of the life he lived on Galactica, even the awkward and annoying and weird parts.
The party began to break up. Hotdog still looked rather confused at the two of them when he said to Felix, “Well, Lieut-uh, Gaeta, looks like I’m your bus driver for today. You ready to go planetside?”
Felix took a deep breath. He looked over at Lee, whose expression was remarkably similar to Hotdog’s, and at Dee, whose smile Felix recognized as the one she put on to keep from tearing up. He turned back to Hotdog and nodded. “I’m ready to go.”
~~**~~**~~
Louis was snoring lightly against the back of Felix’s neck, but Felix was used to it. That wasn’t why he couldn’t sleep. Nor was it how tightly Louis was holding him, though that certainly made the already difficult task of slipping out of the rack without waking anyone in the bunkroom even harder. Felix breathed a sigh of relief when he peeled Louis’s arm off his waist without him even breaking the rhythm of his snoring. He wondered whether Louis was holding him tighter now, after the Raptor, or whether Louis was the same and it just felt more constricting.
He barely averted disaster when he reached for his crutches, misjudging the shift in weight and nearly falling as he leaned from the rack to pick them up. After a minute of effort and positioning, he hefted himself up from the bed on his crutches and shuffled to his locker.
He opened the locker quietly and pulled on a sweatshirt. It was far more work than he’d expected. He hadn’t tried dressing while standing up, but he could hardly risk sitting back down on the rack, and someone had stolen the chairs from the table in the middle of the bunkroom during the anarchy following Earth, gods only knew why. Trying to balance by holding the locker door while slipping a sleeve on the other arm, then repeating, left Felix bodily tired but disappointingly not sleepy. He contemplated hunting for pants before deciding he didn’t have the will to bother with them. A mirthless smirk tugged the corner of his mouth. The world really must have come to an end, for the fastidious Officer of the Watch to be so cavalier about his appearance that he’d wander the corridors of Galactica so woefully out of uniform, the scabbed, twisted stump clearly visible below the hem of his boxers.
Thankfully, the familiar sound of the hatch opening aroused no one, nor did the less familiar click of Felix’s crutches along the metal floor.
Though the halls of Galactica were never truly empty, and though they had no star to call a sun and use to tell the difference between night and day, it was officially 0300. That meant the corridors were as quiet as they ever were: a few marines standing guard here and there, two knuckledraggers fixing the keypad on an arms locker, and a little blonde NCO from CIC who looked utterly befuddled as to what to do when she passed Felix, apparently looking down so as not to meet his eyes, then looking up so as not to be staring at his stump, and finally nodding in acknowledgment but fixing her eyes on the clipboard in her hands.
Felix wanted to tell himself that it was the pain that was keeping him awake, but he knew that it was the little folded square of paper the Marine had slipped into his hand, nothing written on it but a time. A tiny part of him wondered if Zarek would be surprised to see it was him when he stepped into the Vice President’s cell the next day, or if Zarek had already guessed, based on how few people on Galactica would’ve chosen a quote from his book to get the message across. He wished he were that uncertain about how tomorrow’s meeting itself would go, that he could still pretend he was holding out hope that Zarek had some other plan up his sleeve. But Felix had decided on that Raptor that he was finished lying to himself.
He had intended to go down to the Memorial Hall, but when he noticed he was sweating and wheezing by the time he’d gotten to Deck Six, he knew there was no way he would make it that far, let alone back again. He found a stack of crates about the right height at the intersection of the main corridor and the little hall that only led to an empty storage compartment, and he hefted himself up on to it, careful to rest the crutches within easy reach.
He watched one of the lights on the far side of the corridor buzz and flicker, clearly about to fizzle out. It reminded him of the way Galactica had looked after she had rescued everyone from New Caprica. The comparison made his stomach churn. The ship, the crew that had stayed behind, those who had mustered out and were trying to work their way back into military life-all of it had been in such horrible disarray when he’d returned, but the feeling couldn’t have been more different. Then, the chaos had been daunting because there had been so much work to do to set things back in order. Even the Circle, in all its sick, vindictive glory, had done what it had done at least in the name of cleaning the muck of New Caprica away. This time, the disarray just kept growing, seeping deeper and deeper into Galactica and out into the Fleet. And the only one who seemed remotely interested in mopping the mess up was a Cylon who couldn’t tell them anything about how he’d gotten to the Colonies or what programming he had lurking within him, and who’d lied for months about what little he did know.
Felix was so lost in reflection that he didn’t even hear Tyrol’s boots thumping down the corridor until the man came into view from around the corner. Tyrol was walking Nicky, who wasn’t so much crying as just sustainedly whining. Felix was surprised to see them, not merely because he’d thought Nicky was still in the infirmary. He’d heard the gossip about Hotdog, and considering how eager Tyrol had been to jump ship in the meeting in the Admiral’s quarters- Felix stopped himself. However either of them felt about the Cylons, he knew it wasn’t fair of him to make assumptions about how Tyrol felt about Nicky.
Tyrol saw Felix, but he was too tired to say anything. Felix nodded to Tyrol in acknowledgment, and Tyrol returned the gesture. He paused only long enough to bang his fist against the light, which sputtered and then glowed evenly. He continued past Felix down the hall, bouncing Nicky lightly in his arms.
There was no way he could leave Tyrol free when the time came, Felix knew that, but that didn’t mean he didn’t respect the man, or at least the memory of the man he’d been. This new Tyrol, the one who was willing to rig the Fleet with technology he didn’t even understand, even though he knew how treacherous even the most familiar technology could be-that wasn’t the Tyrol Felix knew. Maybe it was because he was a Cylon, maybe not: in the end, it didn’t really matter why. Felix hoped it wouldn’t come to executions. The Cylons in the Fleet would be valuable to trade for any hostages, and then the baseship could just take all those who didn’t want to go with Galactica and head out on its own path. But if it came down to it…but there was no reason to think about that now, he told himself.
He grabbed his crutches and slid off the crates. He wasn’t at all graceful, but at least he didn’t fall. He started walking again, in no direction in particular. The old train of thought dogged him, even as he sped up his pace.
Felix didn’t have any illusions about surviving the coup himself. The mutiny he thought had a fair chance of success-he wouldn’t attempt it if he didn’t think so-but even if the plan succeeded, Felix knew he was a dead man walking. He had paid attention in history class. One of the problems with mutinies was that they were always deals with the devil. In Tom Zarek’s world, tearing apart the status quo could and often did bring about long-term change, because that’s how politics and civilian governance worked. That system was built to survive dissent and upheaval; more importantly, the people in that structure lived on change, had righteous anger and disagreement coursing through their veins.
Unlike democracy, chain of command held a military vessel together. Good officers and crew knew how to think for themselves, of course, but they also knew when to shelve their dissent and follow orders. Felix knew he was lucky to have a lot of good people who would do this for the right reasons, or at least for close enough to the right reasons: Racetrack, Kelly, Noel. But there were so many others who were doing it simply to rage against the system, to settle old scores, or maybe even just to have an outlet for their anger and hate, not even caring about why. Those type were no less likely to lead a coup against him someday when the heady thrill of insubordination and revolution chilled, someday when Felix had become the new system and he gave an order they didn’t like.
There was always the chance Zarek would replace Felix someday, too. It wouldn’t be because Felix became too strong for the civilian government to control, like Adama was. But Felix realized Zarek would be equally as likely, and equally as justified, to take him out if Felix proved too weak to keep his band of dissidents in line.
There was another scenario that scared Felix more, though: that he’d bodily survive the mutiny and become exactly what Galactica needed. Maybe Zarek would restore democracy to the Fleet, but after a coup, someone would have to lead the military with utter mercilessness to re-establish respect for authority.
Louis had once told Felix about the day in CIC when Cain shot her XO for disobeying an order. “How could you understand?” he had said. “You on Galactica were in an entirely different mindset from the start. You were fighting to keep the Colonies alive-had this notion of responsibility for making sure our civilization survived. You can’t see it from where you’re standing, but that’s a more powerful tool for keeping order than the old habit of following chain of command. Cain didn’t have anything but her Admiral’s stars and her sidearm, and there’s only so much control even somebody as strong as Cain can get out of a couple pieces of metal pinned to her collar once the world that pinned them on her and made them mean something gets blown away.”
Felix didn’t have a tenth of the clout behind him that Cain had had. If he was going to stay in command after the coup was over, he knew he’d have to become someone so hard and pitiless that he wouldn’t even recognize himself. He’d certainly never be able to face Louis again.
Felix noticed his arms were trembling. He swore under his breath, frustrated that his body was giving out before he’d been able to exhaust his mind into numbness. He leaned against a wall for a few moments, then turned in the direction of his bunkroom and slowly dragged himself back.
He tried to slip back into bed silently, but he fumbled with one of his crutches and it clattered to the floor.
The noise woke Louis. “Felix, what are you doing?” he asked, rubbing his eyes. “Where did you go? Cottle said you shouldn’t-”
“What, I can’t even go to the frakking head by myself anymore?” Felix snapped, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he knew what he was saying.
Something in Louis’s perpetually concerned expression finally cracked. Felix had secretly been waiting for this moment, when Louis’s saintly patience and tolerance with him would reach its limit, but it didn’t bring Felix the morbid pleasure he had envisioned at all. Louis inhaled as if he were about to say something, but he just blinked and rolled over on his side, his back to Felix.
Felix felt something snap inside him-not like anger or frustration, but like a cord had been cut, and now he was drifting away.
He felt panic welling within him. Not yet, he thought. I know I’ll have to soon, but dear gods, let me have every second I can. Not yet.
Felix lay down and pulled himself up against Louis, who was huddled as close to the wall as possible. He put a hand on his arm. “Louis, I’m so sorry,” he said as he kissed his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, voice cracking. He propped himself up so he could kiss Louis’s cheek. Louis turned toward him a little, so Felix pressed his lips and apologies to his lover’s skin anywhere he could reach: jaw…brow…temple, “I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m sorry.”
Louis finally stopped Felix by cupping his face with his hand. He looked up at Felix, confused. “It’s all right. I know you didn’t mean it.”
Felix nearly sobbed, “But I did mean it, and I will, when-and I hate that I do…”
“Hey, hey, calm down,” Louis soothed, turning all the way over to face Felix and rubbing his back with his free hand. The expression of unremitting forbearance and kindness was back, but now it was laced with something darker and more troubled, as if Louis was accepting for the first time that things might not turn out all right in the end. “Okay. Apology accepted. Okay? Now we both need to sleep. C’mon.”
All Felix could do was nod and bury his face in Louis’s shoulder. Felix didn’t believe in the gods, but he silently prayed to anyone who was listening that, when the time came, Louis would understand what he had been apologizing for on what he was quite certain would be their last night together. He wrapped his arms around Louis tightly. Lying in that position only intensified the pain pulsing through his leg, but a drowning man doesn’t think about how uncomfortable his life preserver is when it’s the only thing keeping him from going under.
Segment Title: Dreams for a New World (Gaeta)
Author: kappamaki33
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Gaeta, Dee, Lee, Hoshi, Tyrol, Nicky
Pairings: Gaeta/Hoshi
Series Summary: A series of mirror-images. Likely to be some angst.
Segment Summary: Gaeta bids farewell to the Galactica on two eves before he tries to bring about change.
Spoilers: Miniseries through Series Finale
Author's Note: This is really more a cycle of fanfics than a series. Each one stands on its own as a story, and they can be read in any order. However, the storytelling structure is the same in each, so they do share some commonalities.
The title "Companion Pieces" actually has a double meaning. Each fic in the cycle is actually two stories with a common theme; for Gaeta, it's saying goodbye to his life on Galactica before two very big but very different changes in his life. The cycle as a whole itself is also a companion piece to "Farewell Symphony,", the remix I wrote of trovia 's excellent " Recapitulation" (and a bit of her Donald Perry aka "Chuckles" fics, too). These are stories that I cut from "'Farewell' Symphony" when I decided to streamline the structure, but I liked them a lot, so I figured they deserved to be posted as freestanding stories themselves. So, these stories are essentially a part of the same 'verse as "Farewell Symphony," though both stand alone in and of themselves and can be read independently.
Links to the rest of the "Companion Pieces" Cycle:
After the Good-Night Kiss, Dee
Gazing Skyward, Helo
Love and Bullets, Tyrol
Dreams for a New World
Lee brought both Felix and Dee fresh drinks and sat down just as the crowd began to cheer at Twister’s collection of Nymph magazines coming up on the auction block.
Dee had apologized profusely for Felix’s going-away party getting subsumed into Twister’s wake-auction-though it wasn’t like she could have done anything about it-but Felix noted with chagrin that it was almost as if their table wasn’t attending the same party that everyone else was at anyway. Worse yet, a person walking past the rec room never would have guessed that he, Dee, and Lee were the ones celebrating and the raucous pilots were the ones mourning their lost comrade.
It didn’t help, Felix thought, that Lee and Dee were purposefully standing out by being the only ones in the room wearing duty blues rather than tanks. Dee was even more proud of the lieutenant’s pins that flashed on her collar than Lee was of the commander’s pips on his. And yet, Felix felt guilty about being irritated with them, since he knew that he was the real odd man out in the room. His new (to him) civilian clothing felt stiff and strange, and every time he reached for something, his jacket sleeves bunched in an odd way that made the simplest movement ungainly. At the same time, he felt naked without his uniform, especially in a crowd like this. No one quite knew how to look at him anymore.
Lee lifted his glass and cleared his throat as if to make a speech, but he only spoke loudly enough for their table to hear. “To Felix,” he said, and Felix knew he wasn’t imagining the pause before his name as Lee struggled with the habit of calling him by rank. “May your new beginning exceed even your high expectations.” Lee smiled awkwardly at the last, as if he couldn’t decide whether it was funny because it was sincere or ironic.
Felix tipped his glass in acknowledgment and gave what he knew must have looked like an equally awkward smile, though it was a genuine one. It was as hard to like Lee as it was not to like him. Felix couldn’t help but compare this almost somber little get-together with the easy conversations between him, Billy, and Dee around tables like this one, full of laughter and warmth and jokes that sailed over the heads of everyone else in the room. And yet, Lee had been far warmer and more understanding with Felix than most people had been since whispers of his role in uncovering the election fraud got out-warmer even than Dee, whose tight smile and quick change of subject whenever the topic came up worried Felix more than he wanted to admit.
“I’m not saying that I’m not honored to have my job,” Lee mused, not making eye contact with anyone as he spoke, “but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me that envied you a little, getting to muster out. It’s got to be kind of like leaving home for the first time, getting to spread your wings, strike out on your own.”
Felix lifted his glass again and muttered into it, “Well, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel like I was being gently nudged out of the nest.”
Dee laid a hand on Felix’s arm. “You know you’ve always got a spot on the Pegasus if you want one.” Her eyes shifted to Lee. “Right?”
Lee gave a little nod. Felix sensed the offer was sincere, and not just made because the Commander’s girlfriend was indirectly insisting on it. He also sensed that it wouldn’t be long before Dee found a place on the Pegasus, too.
“I appreciate it,” Felix answered Dee, then turned to Lee, “but you’re right. It is exciting, to be a part of something completely new. We get to write this settlement on a totally clean slate-or, not quite, but we get to scrap any parts of the old world that we don’t like, and build off of what we do. It’s a little terrifying, too, to be honest,” he laughed, “but it’s a good kind of terror.”
Dee’s smile held a hint of motherly patronizing, but it didn’t bother Felix much. “Do you know where you’re going to be living yet?” she asked.
“I’ll be staying on Colonial One for the first few days, but then I’ll move to a tent until we get permanent housing built.” Felix felt himself blush as he added, “Or at least, I think that’s how it’s going to work.”
Dee’s smile cooled a few degrees. “Hmm. That’s interesting. Do many people in the government live on Colonial One?” she asked a little too carefully.
Felix felt his cheeks get even hotter, especially because he was sure Dee knew exactly why he was suddenly so fascinated with his drink that he wouldn’t look at anything else. “No, only the President, so far as I know.”
Thankfully, Dee changed the subject. “I know I’ve said it already, but I’m sorry we couldn’t have a proper going-away party for you, Felix. I shouldn’t have put it off so long, but I thought it might be awkward if we had a party before you were officially done with CIC duties. And then this was all the time left, and...you can’t really plan around wakes, since you never know very far in advance when they’ll be necessary.”
“If we’re right about the DRADIS soup around this system hiding us from the Cylons, hopefully there won’t be many more to plan around,” Lee said. “Though Twister is proof of why we can’t get complacent. If he’d been at the top of his game, he and Snowbird should’ve been able to pull off an emergency landing on the planet a hell of a lot better than that.”
“How is Lieutenant Scoles?” Felix asked.
“He’s still pretty banged up, but he’ll live.” Lee’s face twisted into an unreadable expression. “Leg’s shattered into so many pieces he’ll probably never fly a Viper again, but he’ll live.”
They fell into uneasy silence, sipping at their drinks and wracking their brains for something to say that wouldn’t lead them into another conversational minefield.
Felix had never been so grateful to hear Starbuck’s brash yell as when she called out over the din, “Last item on the block, some rather interesting reading material written by Donald Perry.”
Felix perked up and turned his chair so he could see the auction block. He noticed Dee and several other people in the room do the same.
“Which ones are they?” someone in the crowd yelled.
“We’ve got Drill Sergeant Candy: Around the Fleet in Eighty Fraks and Major Dik: Coming in Hot.”
“I didn’t know Twister...twisted both ways,” laughed Dee.
“Do you have a copy that first one?” Felix said to Dee, a wicked grin on his face.
“Wait, what is this?” Lee asked.
Dee and Felix turned back and goggled at him in disbelief. “You’re kidding, right?” said Dee. “Chuckles, the Great Pilot Pornographer of our generation?”
Lee shrugged and shook his head. “Apparently, there are some things people don’t want their commanding officer to know about.”
Felix didn’t have long to feel pity for Lee, since he had to jump in on the bidding. “Forty for Eighty Fraks!” he yelled.
Dee giggled. “Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound?”
Starbuck snorted, too. “I don’t know what the hell kind of prostitutes you’ve had, Gaeta, but a half-cubit a frak? You couldn’t get a working girl or guy to whisper one dirty sentence in your ear for a half-cubit.”
On a normal day, Starbuck might have irritated him, but he just laughed and upped the bid when another pilot went for it.
“Forty for Major Dik!” Dee hollered. Felix gave her a funny look. “It’s your going-away present, so you have something to keep you occupied on all those cold, lonely nights on New Caprica.”
“Oh, gee, thanks for assuming they’re going to be cold and lonely,” he kidded back.
They both won their auctions, and Felix felt a twinge of nostalgia when everyone in the room watched Hotdog deliver their respective spoils to Dee and him, followed by the kind of amused laughter and scattered claps that a room full of people give when they don’t really understand the gesture but do recognize the sentiment as he and Dee exchanged porn and hugged each other. No matter how much he was looking forward to New Caprica and Gaius and making a fresh start, he would miss this. And not just Dee-he would miss all of the life he lived on Galactica, even the awkward and annoying and weird parts.
The party began to break up. Hotdog still looked rather confused at the two of them when he said to Felix, “Well, Lieut-uh, Gaeta, looks like I’m your bus driver for today. You ready to go planetside?”
Felix took a deep breath. He looked over at Lee, whose expression was remarkably similar to Hotdog’s, and at Dee, whose smile Felix recognized as the one she put on to keep from tearing up. He turned back to Hotdog and nodded. “I’m ready to go.”
~~**~~**~~
Louis was snoring lightly against the back of Felix’s neck, but Felix was used to it. That wasn’t why he couldn’t sleep. Nor was it how tightly Louis was holding him, though that certainly made the already difficult task of slipping out of the rack without waking anyone in the bunkroom even harder. Felix breathed a sigh of relief when he peeled Louis’s arm off his waist without him even breaking the rhythm of his snoring. He wondered whether Louis was holding him tighter now, after the Raptor, or whether Louis was the same and it just felt more constricting.
He barely averted disaster when he reached for his crutches, misjudging the shift in weight and nearly falling as he leaned from the rack to pick them up. After a minute of effort and positioning, he hefted himself up from the bed on his crutches and shuffled to his locker.
He opened the locker quietly and pulled on a sweatshirt. It was far more work than he’d expected. He hadn’t tried dressing while standing up, but he could hardly risk sitting back down on the rack, and someone had stolen the chairs from the table in the middle of the bunkroom during the anarchy following Earth, gods only knew why. Trying to balance by holding the locker door while slipping a sleeve on the other arm, then repeating, left Felix bodily tired but disappointingly not sleepy. He contemplated hunting for pants before deciding he didn’t have the will to bother with them. A mirthless smirk tugged the corner of his mouth. The world really must have come to an end, for the fastidious Officer of the Watch to be so cavalier about his appearance that he’d wander the corridors of Galactica so woefully out of uniform, the scabbed, twisted stump clearly visible below the hem of his boxers.
Thankfully, the familiar sound of the hatch opening aroused no one, nor did the less familiar click of Felix’s crutches along the metal floor.
Though the halls of Galactica were never truly empty, and though they had no star to call a sun and use to tell the difference between night and day, it was officially 0300. That meant the corridors were as quiet as they ever were: a few marines standing guard here and there, two knuckledraggers fixing the keypad on an arms locker, and a little blonde NCO from CIC who looked utterly befuddled as to what to do when she passed Felix, apparently looking down so as not to meet his eyes, then looking up so as not to be staring at his stump, and finally nodding in acknowledgment but fixing her eyes on the clipboard in her hands.
Felix wanted to tell himself that it was the pain that was keeping him awake, but he knew that it was the little folded square of paper the Marine had slipped into his hand, nothing written on it but a time. A tiny part of him wondered if Zarek would be surprised to see it was him when he stepped into the Vice President’s cell the next day, or if Zarek had already guessed, based on how few people on Galactica would’ve chosen a quote from his book to get the message across. He wished he were that uncertain about how tomorrow’s meeting itself would go, that he could still pretend he was holding out hope that Zarek had some other plan up his sleeve. But Felix had decided on that Raptor that he was finished lying to himself.
He had intended to go down to the Memorial Hall, but when he noticed he was sweating and wheezing by the time he’d gotten to Deck Six, he knew there was no way he would make it that far, let alone back again. He found a stack of crates about the right height at the intersection of the main corridor and the little hall that only led to an empty storage compartment, and he hefted himself up on to it, careful to rest the crutches within easy reach.
He watched one of the lights on the far side of the corridor buzz and flicker, clearly about to fizzle out. It reminded him of the way Galactica had looked after she had rescued everyone from New Caprica. The comparison made his stomach churn. The ship, the crew that had stayed behind, those who had mustered out and were trying to work their way back into military life-all of it had been in such horrible disarray when he’d returned, but the feeling couldn’t have been more different. Then, the chaos had been daunting because there had been so much work to do to set things back in order. Even the Circle, in all its sick, vindictive glory, had done what it had done at least in the name of cleaning the muck of New Caprica away. This time, the disarray just kept growing, seeping deeper and deeper into Galactica and out into the Fleet. And the only one who seemed remotely interested in mopping the mess up was a Cylon who couldn’t tell them anything about how he’d gotten to the Colonies or what programming he had lurking within him, and who’d lied for months about what little he did know.
Felix was so lost in reflection that he didn’t even hear Tyrol’s boots thumping down the corridor until the man came into view from around the corner. Tyrol was walking Nicky, who wasn’t so much crying as just sustainedly whining. Felix was surprised to see them, not merely because he’d thought Nicky was still in the infirmary. He’d heard the gossip about Hotdog, and considering how eager Tyrol had been to jump ship in the meeting in the Admiral’s quarters- Felix stopped himself. However either of them felt about the Cylons, he knew it wasn’t fair of him to make assumptions about how Tyrol felt about Nicky.
Tyrol saw Felix, but he was too tired to say anything. Felix nodded to Tyrol in acknowledgment, and Tyrol returned the gesture. He paused only long enough to bang his fist against the light, which sputtered and then glowed evenly. He continued past Felix down the hall, bouncing Nicky lightly in his arms.
There was no way he could leave Tyrol free when the time came, Felix knew that, but that didn’t mean he didn’t respect the man, or at least the memory of the man he’d been. This new Tyrol, the one who was willing to rig the Fleet with technology he didn’t even understand, even though he knew how treacherous even the most familiar technology could be-that wasn’t the Tyrol Felix knew. Maybe it was because he was a Cylon, maybe not: in the end, it didn’t really matter why. Felix hoped it wouldn’t come to executions. The Cylons in the Fleet would be valuable to trade for any hostages, and then the baseship could just take all those who didn’t want to go with Galactica and head out on its own path. But if it came down to it…but there was no reason to think about that now, he told himself.
He grabbed his crutches and slid off the crates. He wasn’t at all graceful, but at least he didn’t fall. He started walking again, in no direction in particular. The old train of thought dogged him, even as he sped up his pace.
Felix didn’t have any illusions about surviving the coup himself. The mutiny he thought had a fair chance of success-he wouldn’t attempt it if he didn’t think so-but even if the plan succeeded, Felix knew he was a dead man walking. He had paid attention in history class. One of the problems with mutinies was that they were always deals with the devil. In Tom Zarek’s world, tearing apart the status quo could and often did bring about long-term change, because that’s how politics and civilian governance worked. That system was built to survive dissent and upheaval; more importantly, the people in that structure lived on change, had righteous anger and disagreement coursing through their veins.
Unlike democracy, chain of command held a military vessel together. Good officers and crew knew how to think for themselves, of course, but they also knew when to shelve their dissent and follow orders. Felix knew he was lucky to have a lot of good people who would do this for the right reasons, or at least for close enough to the right reasons: Racetrack, Kelly, Noel. But there were so many others who were doing it simply to rage against the system, to settle old scores, or maybe even just to have an outlet for their anger and hate, not even caring about why. Those type were no less likely to lead a coup against him someday when the heady thrill of insubordination and revolution chilled, someday when Felix had become the new system and he gave an order they didn’t like.
There was always the chance Zarek would replace Felix someday, too. It wouldn’t be because Felix became too strong for the civilian government to control, like Adama was. But Felix realized Zarek would be equally as likely, and equally as justified, to take him out if Felix proved too weak to keep his band of dissidents in line.
There was another scenario that scared Felix more, though: that he’d bodily survive the mutiny and become exactly what Galactica needed. Maybe Zarek would restore democracy to the Fleet, but after a coup, someone would have to lead the military with utter mercilessness to re-establish respect for authority.
Louis had once told Felix about the day in CIC when Cain shot her XO for disobeying an order. “How could you understand?” he had said. “You on Galactica were in an entirely different mindset from the start. You were fighting to keep the Colonies alive-had this notion of responsibility for making sure our civilization survived. You can’t see it from where you’re standing, but that’s a more powerful tool for keeping order than the old habit of following chain of command. Cain didn’t have anything but her Admiral’s stars and her sidearm, and there’s only so much control even somebody as strong as Cain can get out of a couple pieces of metal pinned to her collar once the world that pinned them on her and made them mean something gets blown away.”
Felix didn’t have a tenth of the clout behind him that Cain had had. If he was going to stay in command after the coup was over, he knew he’d have to become someone so hard and pitiless that he wouldn’t even recognize himself. He’d certainly never be able to face Louis again.
Felix noticed his arms were trembling. He swore under his breath, frustrated that his body was giving out before he’d been able to exhaust his mind into numbness. He leaned against a wall for a few moments, then turned in the direction of his bunkroom and slowly dragged himself back.
He tried to slip back into bed silently, but he fumbled with one of his crutches and it clattered to the floor.
The noise woke Louis. “Felix, what are you doing?” he asked, rubbing his eyes. “Where did you go? Cottle said you shouldn’t-”
“What, I can’t even go to the frakking head by myself anymore?” Felix snapped, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he knew what he was saying.
Something in Louis’s perpetually concerned expression finally cracked. Felix had secretly been waiting for this moment, when Louis’s saintly patience and tolerance with him would reach its limit, but it didn’t bring Felix the morbid pleasure he had envisioned at all. Louis inhaled as if he were about to say something, but he just blinked and rolled over on his side, his back to Felix.
Felix felt something snap inside him-not like anger or frustration, but like a cord had been cut, and now he was drifting away.
He felt panic welling within him. Not yet, he thought. I know I’ll have to soon, but dear gods, let me have every second I can. Not yet.
Felix lay down and pulled himself up against Louis, who was huddled as close to the wall as possible. He put a hand on his arm. “Louis, I’m so sorry,” he said as he kissed his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, voice cracking. He propped himself up so he could kiss Louis’s cheek. Louis turned toward him a little, so Felix pressed his lips and apologies to his lover’s skin anywhere he could reach: jaw…brow…temple, “I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m sorry.”
Louis finally stopped Felix by cupping his face with his hand. He looked up at Felix, confused. “It’s all right. I know you didn’t mean it.”
Felix nearly sobbed, “But I did mean it, and I will, when-and I hate that I do…”
“Hey, hey, calm down,” Louis soothed, turning all the way over to face Felix and rubbing his back with his free hand. The expression of unremitting forbearance and kindness was back, but now it was laced with something darker and more troubled, as if Louis was accepting for the first time that things might not turn out all right in the end. “Okay. Apology accepted. Okay? Now we both need to sleep. C’mon.”
All Felix could do was nod and bury his face in Louis’s shoulder. Felix didn’t believe in the gods, but he silently prayed to anyone who was listening that, when the time came, Louis would understand what he had been apologizing for on what he was quite certain would be their last night together. He wrapped his arms around Louis tightly. Lying in that position only intensified the pain pulsing through his leg, but a drowning man doesn’t think about how uncomfortable his life preserver is when it’s the only thing keeping him from going under.