TM 189- Mr. Gaeta Plays Catchup
TM 189- If you could read my mind right now… Talk about a conversation when what you said was not what you were thinking.
The one that sticks in my head, that I replay over and over, is when I knelt in a Galactica launch tube, looking at the faces of people I know, people I had worked with. Diana Seelix. Connor. Jean Barolay of the Caprica Buccaneers. Captain Thrace. Colonel Tigh. Chief Tyrol. They were going to kill me. And I wanted to die.
And instead of saying "I did what I could. I don't know what else I could have done." I wish I had said that I never did a thing, that I was the brains behind Baltar, agreed with everything Captain Thrace wanted me to say. I could have made up for it then, left it all behind, everything I did and didn't do and wish I had done. We came back from New Caprica and I left myself behind.
Felix was idealistic, or so everyone told me. He believed that the world could be better, and that we could make a new life for ourselves, make a bitter planet into a home that would shelter our people and nurture us. He believed in goodness, and fairness, and bravery, and courage. And he believed that he could be better, that we all could be better.
What I learned from New Caprica is how ugly we all are. At the decommissioning of Galactica, a shift to peacetime that lasted almost a day, Admiral Adama asked, "Why are we as a people worth saving. We still commit murder because of greed, spite, jealousy. And we still visit all of our sins upon our children."
The Admiral has a tendency to be righter than he knows. His son still rages against his father every chance he gets. Colonel Tigh killed his wife in cold blood for the sin of loving him too much. A group of people that I worked with, admired, cared for, decided to kill me because I did something they didn't like.
We want to punish, get revenge. When the Cylon virus attacked Galactica and Lieutenant Agathon sent back a virus in return, all the Cylon ships started drifting. And our pilots went crazy, blowing them apart in an orgy of revenge. Sharon was crouched on the floor, still bleeding, and we were slaughtering her people. For vengeance. But looking at her eyes, it didn't make me feel any better.
I don't think sending me out an airlock would have made Chief, or Starbuck, or Tigh feel any better. But I think it would have worked wonders for me.
What I was thinking? What I didn't say? Let me die. And most of the time, I still wish I'd said that instead. Because that's the only way I can think of to forget that I could have, should have done more. Not just on New Caprica, but other times. I should have spoken up for Sharon, I should have tried more to control Baltar.
Or I could have said nothing.