Crossroads, Part II
This is the first time he's seen Gaius since the botched interrogation.
He's looking better, Gaeta has to admit; his hair remains overlong and his beard hasn't changed, but they're cleaner, better kept. Maybe it's less that and more because he's wearing a suit again instead of threadbare prison clothes.
Maybe it's because the predominant expression on Baltar's face, as Gaeta places his hand on the Scrolls, is flat-out boredom. It's difficult to feel sympathy or concern for someone when he looks like he's staring right through the ship's hull to count the stars beyond, cheek bunched up against his fisted hand.
Not that Gaeta has much concern or sympathy to spare Baltar anymore.
"Do you swear, in the eyes of the gods and all here presiding, to tell the full truth without omission?" asks the courtroom clerk. The paper of the Scrolls feels thin and fragile under his hand; he has a brief, fleeting worry that if he presses down too hard, it will crumble like breaking glass. Gaeta meets his eyes, and lifts his other hand, and nods.
"I do," he says.
As he takes his seat on the witness stand, Cassidy, the prosecution lawyer, picks up a document from her bench. Her heels click like their own little enunciated syllables as she walks to the witness stand and holds out the thin bundle of papers to Gaeta. "Do you recognize this document, Lieutenant?"
FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, reads the heading. EXECUTIVE ORDER FROM THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE COLONIES • NEW CAPRICA • GUILTY OF CRIMES PUNISHABLE BY DEATH. Gaeta lifts the first page, taking an unnecessary glance down the list of names on the next page. He knows all of them already.
"Yes, I do." He folds the paper down, setting the document aside without looking up. "It's a death list issued on New Caprica by the office of the President."
"Who signed this document?"
Gaeta meets her eyes, keeping his voice as even as possible. "President Gaius Baltar," he says.
"Hm." Cassidy slides the list from the witness stand and holds it up between two fingers. As she walks down the row of assembled captains, letting each one take a good look at the document, "Could it be a forgery?"
"No."
"And how do you know that it cannot be a forgery?" She turns back to him, waiting.
Gaeta can feel a sick tightening in his chest; his heart strains to beat against it, hard enough that he's certain everyone must recognize the idea circling in, searching for a place to land. He gave himself away the last time he faced Baltar. It's a reasonable assumption, assuming the worst will happen again.
But before the silence can go too long, the thoughts land and tip him over into speech. His words come out so quick and breezy that it surprises even him, as if he's crested a hill and begun to ride down on their backs: "Because I was there. I saw him sign it."
Baltar's head jerks up. "What?" he demands, as the room breaks out into murmurs. "What are you talking about? You weren't there! That's a lie, that's a total fabrication!"
Gaeta flicks a glance toward the defense bench. His heart's slowing. "Order," calls one of the captains, but he hardly hears her. It isn't until the murmurs die down and Cassidy gestures for him to continue that he lets himself look away from Baltar.
"I saw him sign it," he repeats. Gods, it's so much easier to say the second time.
Cassidy nods. "Describe the scene, would you?"
That takes a little more thinking, but as he mulls over his options, he becomes more and more aware of how the rest of the room sees him. Not how he thinks they see him, but how they truly do: the steadfast soldier, misguided at first but forever driven to do right, stay moral, be loyal. He wouldn't do anything as blatantly wrong as lie under oath. Not Lieutenant Gaeta. If he pauses or stumbles, well...New Caprica was some time ago, now, and there has been so much to occupy them all in the interim.
So he frees himself and begins the story. It's simple enough; he's imagined how the scene must have gone hundreds of times, in dream and daydream both. A Three brought the document forward. The Cylons had already selected the names. Before he signed, Gaius read each and every one.
He can hear Gaius scoffing loudly in the background, but like the captain's calls for order, he pays it little mind.
When he finishes, Cassidy takes another moment to let the information sink in among the assembled. "Did he protest?" she asks at last, and, without quite realizing, Gaeta turns his attention back to Baltar. "I mean, did he argue? Did he offer any resistance whatsoever?"
Gaius gapes back at him, horrified, shaking his head in tiny disbelieving movements. Gaeta doesn't flinch; his gaze doesn't waver. Once, he listened to Gaius taunt him and thought, this proves how far he's willing to go to hurt me.
So this, he thinks with nothing but a calm, reassuring coldness, is how far he's willing to go.
"No," he murmurs. "He never did."
"Oh, Felix." Beneath the bleakness, Gaius sounds like a disappointed schoolteacher, unable to fathom why his brightest student just cheated on an exam. "Oh, Felix, what are you doing?"
Gaeta's jaw tightens a fraction. Cassidy tap tap taps her way back to the defense bench to lay the document on their table; instantly, Baltar snatches it up and flings it back at her. "Get that out of my face -- "
"Gaius," Lee Adama warns him, urgent. "Gaius, we'll get him in the cross -- "
"Counselor, please control your client," snaps the captain.
But Baltar's dragging himself up from disappointment and climbing back into fury. A hysterical note tightens the strings of his voice: "It's not a secret! The Fleet knows this man tried to stab me through the neck! And you missed!" he howls at Gaeta. "BUTTERFINGERS!"
A hairline crack ruptures Gaeta's facade when he hears that. He shuts his eyes, tightening his hands hard as he bows his head, feeling the constriction wind up in his chest again. It takes a little longer to bring the whole courtroom to order, and after a curt, "No further questions," Cassidy takes her seat.
With the help of his cane, Romo Lampkin rises. One limping step at a time, he makes his way to the witness stand, halting a few feet away. By then, Gaeta's composed himself; he returns the level scrutiny Lampkin's aimed at him, lifting one eyebrow a quarter inch.
(He's lost the acute awareness of before. Gaeta has no idea how much it looks like he's challenging Lampkin to a fight.)
Lampkin narrows his eyes. He still hasn't spoken. Annoyed, the lead captain says, "Your witness, Counselor." Somewhere, an audience member coughs, the nervous throat-clearing of moments gone on too long.
When Baltar's lawyer turns toward the assembled captains and says, calmly, "No questions," even Gaeta blinks, stunned, convinced he must have misheard.
"WHAT?!" Baltar's shriek soars over the abrupt chorus of babbling, the futile pounding of a gavel, and Admiral Adama's rough gravel of, "Witness dismissed."
Gaeta stands immediately: he has no reason to hesitate and no desire to see what comes next. He's done his part. He's free to go. And he thinks he understands it now: this may not have been a good thing, but it was a just thing.
It was the right thing to do.
Everyone expects that of Lieutenant Gaeta -- and he knows, as he leaves the courtroom, that he served the people of the Colonies and did not disappoint.
He's looking better, Gaeta has to admit; his hair remains overlong and his beard hasn't changed, but they're cleaner, better kept. Maybe it's less that and more because he's wearing a suit again instead of threadbare prison clothes.
Maybe it's because the predominant expression on Baltar's face, as Gaeta places his hand on the Scrolls, is flat-out boredom. It's difficult to feel sympathy or concern for someone when he looks like he's staring right through the ship's hull to count the stars beyond, cheek bunched up against his fisted hand.
Not that Gaeta has much concern or sympathy to spare Baltar anymore.
"Do you swear, in the eyes of the gods and all here presiding, to tell the full truth without omission?" asks the courtroom clerk. The paper of the Scrolls feels thin and fragile under his hand; he has a brief, fleeting worry that if he presses down too hard, it will crumble like breaking glass. Gaeta meets his eyes, and lifts his other hand, and nods.
"I do," he says.
As he takes his seat on the witness stand, Cassidy, the prosecution lawyer, picks up a document from her bench. Her heels click like their own little enunciated syllables as she walks to the witness stand and holds out the thin bundle of papers to Gaeta. "Do you recognize this document, Lieutenant?"
FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, reads the heading. EXECUTIVE ORDER FROM THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE COLONIES • NEW CAPRICA • GUILTY OF CRIMES PUNISHABLE BY DEATH. Gaeta lifts the first page, taking an unnecessary glance down the list of names on the next page. He knows all of them already.
"Yes, I do." He folds the paper down, setting the document aside without looking up. "It's a death list issued on New Caprica by the office of the President."
"Who signed this document?"
Gaeta meets her eyes, keeping his voice as even as possible. "President Gaius Baltar," he says.
"Hm." Cassidy slides the list from the witness stand and holds it up between two fingers. As she walks down the row of assembled captains, letting each one take a good look at the document, "Could it be a forgery?"
"No."
"And how do you know that it cannot be a forgery?" She turns back to him, waiting.
Gaeta can feel a sick tightening in his chest; his heart strains to beat against it, hard enough that he's certain everyone must recognize the idea circling in, searching for a place to land. He gave himself away the last time he faced Baltar. It's a reasonable assumption, assuming the worst will happen again.
But before the silence can go too long, the thoughts land and tip him over into speech. His words come out so quick and breezy that it surprises even him, as if he's crested a hill and begun to ride down on their backs: "Because I was there. I saw him sign it."
Baltar's head jerks up. "What?" he demands, as the room breaks out into murmurs. "What are you talking about? You weren't there! That's a lie, that's a total fabrication!"
Gaeta flicks a glance toward the defense bench. His heart's slowing. "Order," calls one of the captains, but he hardly hears her. It isn't until the murmurs die down and Cassidy gestures for him to continue that he lets himself look away from Baltar.
"I saw him sign it," he repeats. Gods, it's so much easier to say the second time.
Cassidy nods. "Describe the scene, would you?"
That takes a little more thinking, but as he mulls over his options, he becomes more and more aware of how the rest of the room sees him. Not how he thinks they see him, but how they truly do: the steadfast soldier, misguided at first but forever driven to do right, stay moral, be loyal. He wouldn't do anything as blatantly wrong as lie under oath. Not Lieutenant Gaeta. If he pauses or stumbles, well...New Caprica was some time ago, now, and there has been so much to occupy them all in the interim.
So he frees himself and begins the story. It's simple enough; he's imagined how the scene must have gone hundreds of times, in dream and daydream both. A Three brought the document forward. The Cylons had already selected the names. Before he signed, Gaius read each and every one.
He can hear Gaius scoffing loudly in the background, but like the captain's calls for order, he pays it little mind.
When he finishes, Cassidy takes another moment to let the information sink in among the assembled. "Did he protest?" she asks at last, and, without quite realizing, Gaeta turns his attention back to Baltar. "I mean, did he argue? Did he offer any resistance whatsoever?"
Gaius gapes back at him, horrified, shaking his head in tiny disbelieving movements. Gaeta doesn't flinch; his gaze doesn't waver. Once, he listened to Gaius taunt him and thought, this proves how far he's willing to go to hurt me.
So this, he thinks with nothing but a calm, reassuring coldness, is how far he's willing to go.
"No," he murmurs. "He never did."
"Oh, Felix." Beneath the bleakness, Gaius sounds like a disappointed schoolteacher, unable to fathom why his brightest student just cheated on an exam. "Oh, Felix, what are you doing?"
Gaeta's jaw tightens a fraction. Cassidy tap tap taps her way back to the defense bench to lay the document on their table; instantly, Baltar snatches it up and flings it back at her. "Get that out of my face -- "
"Gaius," Lee Adama warns him, urgent. "Gaius, we'll get him in the cross -- "
"Counselor, please control your client," snaps the captain.
But Baltar's dragging himself up from disappointment and climbing back into fury. A hysterical note tightens the strings of his voice: "It's not a secret! The Fleet knows this man tried to stab me through the neck! And you missed!" he howls at Gaeta. "BUTTERFINGERS!"
A hairline crack ruptures Gaeta's facade when he hears that. He shuts his eyes, tightening his hands hard as he bows his head, feeling the constriction wind up in his chest again. It takes a little longer to bring the whole courtroom to order, and after a curt, "No further questions," Cassidy takes her seat.
With the help of his cane, Romo Lampkin rises. One limping step at a time, he makes his way to the witness stand, halting a few feet away. By then, Gaeta's composed himself; he returns the level scrutiny Lampkin's aimed at him, lifting one eyebrow a quarter inch.
(He's lost the acute awareness of before. Gaeta has no idea how much it looks like he's challenging Lampkin to a fight.)
Lampkin narrows his eyes. He still hasn't spoken. Annoyed, the lead captain says, "Your witness, Counselor." Somewhere, an audience member coughs, the nervous throat-clearing of moments gone on too long.
When Baltar's lawyer turns toward the assembled captains and says, calmly, "No questions," even Gaeta blinks, stunned, convinced he must have misheard.
"WHAT?!" Baltar's shriek soars over the abrupt chorus of babbling, the futile pounding of a gavel, and Admiral Adama's rough gravel of, "Witness dismissed."
Gaeta stands immediately: he has no reason to hesitate and no desire to see what comes next. He's done his part. He's free to go. And he thinks he understands it now: this may not have been a good thing, but it was a just thing.
It was the right thing to do.
Everyone expects that of Lieutenant Gaeta -- and he knows, as he leaves the courtroom, that he served the people of the Colonies and did not disappoint.