The Rascal King, for inlovewithnight

[bsg_remix_mods]

Title: The Rascal King
Author: lls_mutant
Summary: Five conversations where past becomes present.
Characters: Tom Zarek and Felix Gaeta
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Title, Author and URL of original story: Catalyst by inlovewithnight
Author Notes: The title is from The Mighty Mighty Bosstones song of the same name. If you've never read the lyrics, they fit Tom Zarek perfectly.


This is a book.

It's dark outside, almost as dark as space. The lights of the settlement would twinkle like fallen stars, but the rain blots them out, exploding against the panes of Colonial One. Tom pours two cups of coffee, and the young man sitting across from him sighs and stretches.

"There's a reason I work with computers, you know. Everything works like it should," Gaeta says.

"That's basically what the government is," Tom says, amused. He hands Gaeta the coffee, and Gaeta takes it gratefully. "It's a giant program, designed to deal with any circumstance or parameter."

"Is this where I'm supposed to comment wryly about bugs in the program?" Gaeta asks. He sips the hot coffee, swearing as it burns his lips.

"Well, given that we're the ones in charge, I'd say you're more in a position to fix them," Tom says.

Gaeta cocks his head and studies him. Tom sits back, letting him. He'd be stupid to not know what's going through the young man's mind, wondering if the man in front of him is terrorist or freedom fighter, hero or hooligan. "Can I ask you something?" Gaeta says. Tom thinks he already knows the question, but nods anyway. "How did you get interested in politics?" Gaeta asks.

That takes Tom by surprise, because he was fully expecting questions about his manifest, his methods, his building… not his life. "How did you?" he asks, partly to cover his surprise.

Gaeta shrugs. "Gaius asked me," he says simply, and then adds, "and because I wanted to help build New Caprica. To see it be what society can be… what we can be. To give us a home."

There's fire in his eyes, and Tom smiles reminiscently. "I didn't want to build at first," he says. "I wanted to destroy." Gaeta's eyes widen, but he doesn't comment. Tom picks up his coffee and blows across it. "My mother was dead, and my father was pressed into the workforce bound for Picon. That's where you're from, isn't it?" Gaeta nods, and Tom smiles bitterly. "Did you ever visit Sagittaron?"

"No."

"Then you don't really know how different the two worlds were."

"I can imagine," Gaeta says defiantly, and he looks meaningfully towards the window. "This is a long way from where I grew up."

"But there's still a measure of freedom here," Tom argues, even though he knows it's not what Gaeta had back on his sheltered little homeworld. "Anyway, I was staying with my uncle Justus, and he gave me Atavis's A is A; The Morality of Reason. Have you ever read it?" Geata nods, and Tom can tell from the look in his eye that he read it, understood it, and believed it. "He gave it to me when I was ten."

"I read it in college," Gaeta says, amused.

Tom allows himself to laugh at that. "It was one of the only things my uncle gave me without complaint. I was alone, lost in a world that didn't want me, only what it could take from me. I thought it was scripture at first- it had that look. Nothing like the books my father used to give me. So I asked him, and he told me that that book held all the answers. That it said how to change everything, to bring freedom to everyone, and let everyone decide for themselves how to live."

Gaeta smiles. "It sounds a little simplistic."

"That's what I said. I asked him why, if all of the answers were there, were things still the same? He told me it was because people weren't listening yet. That someone needed to yell louder, to make our voices heard." He turns the cup of coffee in his hands. "Then I read it. I probably understood about half of it, but half of it was enough to know that it was important. The idea that a man can set out to become anything he wants, if he has the power of his convictions and of his own mind and logic… that he does not have to accept the status quo, just because others say he has to…." He shakes his head, still feeling that same fire, although it doesn't burn as bright right now. "That's when I became interested in politics, when I saw a way to change the world."

Gaeta looks out the window again, at the city he he's building. And Tom imagines he had the same look on his face the day Uncle Justus gave him the book.

This is a building.

"Of all people, I should be shouting the loudest for him to have a trial," Gaeta says bitterly as they sit at a corner table in Joe's. Gaeta doesn't meet his eye, which is just as well because Tom's not sure he wants him to right now. "But if Roslin would let me, I'd turn that key on an airlock in a second."

"Would you be so against it if you could be sure that they'd convict him?"

"Wouldn't be a trial then," Gaeta acknowledges, downing his drink. Tom silently pours him another. "It would be a mockery of justice. The problem," he says, lighting up a cigarette, "is that I'm not sure what they can convict him on."

"You're not?" Tom asks dryly. "There's plenty of evidence He did more than enough."

"But who actually saw him do it? Who can claim he wasn't under any sort of duress? There were the Cylons. There was me. That was it."

"Then you'll have to tell the truth."

Gaeta takes a deep drag on his cigarette. "And if it comes down to that? To his word against mine?"

"You have a reputation for honesty and integrity. Use it."

Gaeta still looks troubled. "I never saw him sign the death list, you know," he confesses. He laughs bitterly. "Not that it matters. So many of our people were executed before that death list was ever dreamed up, even if the Cylons didn't call it that. They died in detention, they were tortured for information…" he considers the fire at the end of his cigarette. "But you know that just as well as I do."

"That's why you have to tell the truth. But the truth, Felix, is not necessarily a literal retelling of events."

"That's called lying," Felix corrects him.

"It's called.. sacrifice," Tom counters. "Is it lying? I'm not going to lie to you," he says with a smile. He notices that Gaeta returns it, a good sign if he ever saw one. "But you and I know the truth. We know what he's done because we've seen it first hand. We know that Gaius Baltar deserves to die for his crimes, for what he's done to the Fleet, for what he's done to humanity, for what he's done to us. We know the enormity of it, and that's the truth that must come out, even if you have to scream at the top of your voice."

"Even if screaming means-"

"Not all screaming is volume."

"Right." Gaeta stubs out the cigarette and considers the drink that Tom poured him.

"Courage doesn't come if something is easy," Tom says. "And it doesn't apply if there is a clear right or wrong. If there's a clear path laid out for us, it's easy to follow it. It's when you know you have to sacrifice something, when you have something to lose… that's when you must call on courage. I remember a night I needed it."

That catches Gaeta's interest. "The Griaves building?" he asks.

"The Griaves building." Tom finally takes one of the cigarettes Gaeta offered him an hour ago and lights it. He sits back, looking far away into the past. "I chose it because Griaves is the one that first forged the contract that sold our people into slavery. It was symbolic, and it was fitting. I wanted to bring it down to dust, to make it into a symbol. So when people saw that pile of rubble on the news, they would think. They would question. They would understand their self-satisfied slumber, and they would come alive.

"I remember reading Atavis that night, actually. The same copy my Uncle Justus gave me- I told you about that." Gaeta nods, and Tom can see from his eyes that he genuinely remembers. "That was the first night I thought I might write my own book. But first, I had to make them listen. First I had to send my message. And that's what you need to do now- send a message. What Gaius Baltar has done cannot be forgiven, not by those who know what justice is. Gaius Baltar must die."

Gaeta looks uncomfortable, but Tom knows it's not at the thought of Baltar's death, but laying his ideals on the altar of revolution. He nods, he defers, he changes the subject, he refuses to commit.

But when Gaeta swears in court that he saw Gaius Baltar sign the death lists, Tom sees the Griaves Building crumble to dust, and once again he feels the power of revolution as someone screams for justice.

This is a cell.

Tom's not sure why he came to the funeral at first. He told Lau- Roslin that it was because of Lee, but the minute he sees Lee he knows he's lying. Lee's bearing up just fine, even if he is obviously grieving the loss. Tom didn't know Dualla well at all, which only adds to his confusion at his own presence.

Then he sees Gaeta sitting in the second row, and he realizes that this is why he came.

Gaeta looks terrible- pale and graying, crutches beside him and an awkward, robotic looking prosthetic jutting out into the aisle. He's clinging to the hand of a poker-faced, pale officer that glances at him constantly, like he's afraid Gaeta's going to spontaneously combust or keel over and die. The latter doesn't seem too implausible, and it contrasts sharply with the first time Tom met Gaeta, when he was all eagerness and competence. But there's something more than grief there, something in his eyes.

Anger. Betrayal. Distrust. Shattered hope.

It occurs to Tom that Felix Gaeta is a very dangerous man indeed, and no one really realizes it.

The service ends, and the mourners queue up to console Lee. Lee shakes hands and forces smiles, and Tom turns away in rare disgust. But he notices there are crew members who don't approach either Adama, and without exception, every last one of them pauses to say something to Gaeta. The Adamas don't seem to notice.

Tom waits until the crowd has thinned. The Admiral leaves without looking at him, Lee lingers for a moment until it becomes clear that Tom doesn't plan on approaching. He waits, with his head bowed, pretending to pray. But once Lee drifts away, Tom stands and approaches Gaeta, who's staring with dry eyes at a statue of the goddess Aphrodite.

"I'm sorry," he says to the young man with the old eyes. "She was one of your best friends, wasn't she?"

Gaeta nods, and then his eyes snap back into focus. "She shouldn't have died," he says.

Tom has heard the story. "I thought she suicided."

"She did. But she should have felt like she had other options. She should have still been able to hope. She should have had something to catch her after finding out that Earth was such a hoax. She should have been…" Gaeta shakes his head. "We all should have been."

He's so close… so close. But Tom knows perfectly well that this is not the time to approach a man like Felix Gaeta about political matters. "Hope," he says tiredly. "I can't remember the last time I felt hope."

"New Caprica," Gaeta reminds him.

Tom snorts, because there's a lot of bitter truth in that, even if he didn't intend it. "You're right," he says. "But I know how she feels. I know how you feel," he adds, because if Gaeta really thinks that he's fooling anyone, then he's got a lot to learn about lying. "The absence of hope… it crushes you under its weight, sends your soul spiraling into despair. Believe me, I know."

"The Cylon detention center," Gaeta says dully.

"Yes, but I was really thinking the years before that. Twenty years in a forced labor camp, twenty years where no facet of my life was my own. Twenty years where I had no hope, no future, no self."

"Not to put too fine a point on it, but you blew up a building," Gaeta reminds him.

"That doesn't matter. I know what that darkness feels like, when you can't believe that the dawn will ever come and the night will ever end. And yet, for me it did. The darkest hour came, and it cracked open my cell and let in light. When the Cylons attacked, I had already lost everything I held dear. And when my door opened up, I had freedom. I had respect. I had power. The Cylons let me escape prison." He smiles wryly. "Even if they shoved me back in it," he adds. "But I don't forget that my darkness ended, and there was light at the end, even if it came at a price."

Gaeta cocks his head, studying him. "Is this meant to help?"

"Not immediately, no. But maybe it will when you've had time to think about it." Tom reaches out and claps Gaeta's shoulder. "I'm terribly sorry for your loss, Felix. And I don't just mean your friend."

He nods to the officer, who's watching them with wide eyes, and then walks out the door. And he doesn't have to look behind him to know that Felix Gaeta is standing there, thinking about all the words that Tom didn't say.

This is a voice.

The infirmary is quiet, like infirmaries often are. Tom enters, the file tucked under his arm. Gaeta is sitting in bed, talking quietly to that same officer. They both turn when Tom walks in. Gaeta's eyes light up, and the officer glares.

"Go get something to eat, Lieutenant," Tom says graciously, glancing at his rank pins. "I'll sit with him for a while."

The officer looks like he wants to argue, but Tom's not Vice President of what's left of the Colonies for nothing, and so he salutes abruptly and stomps out the door. "A Roslin supporter?" Tom asks Gaeta lightly.

Gaeta snorts, but doesn't comment. Instead, he asks, "How did you know I was here?"

Tom hands him the file, lets him open it and see. See the photographs of the Raptor, see the testimony recorded from the soldiers that found him. See the Admiral's recommendations, approved by Lee Adama, because the Admiral would rather freeze in space than acknowledge Tom Zarek as President. Lets him read how long it took for a search and rescue mission to be mounted, lets him see who prompted it, lets the realization sink in that Adama would have let him die and not lifted a finger to stop it.

It doesn't take long.

Gaeta shakes his head, disgusted. "I suppose," he finally says, bitterness enveloping his words, "that I shouldn't be surprised that the Admiral is forming an alliance with a group of genocidal robots. It makes a twisted sort of sense. If he wants to die, that's one thing. I get that, I really do. But that doesn't give him the right to take us all down with him."

He's ready. He's burning with it, he just needs someone to tip him over the edge. Tom takes the file and pages through it.

"What will they do with it?" Gaeta asks.

"Cover it up. Silence you. Silence the pilots that found you. Demand your loyalty, or threaten you with imprisonment or death."

Gaeta nods. "Not unfamiliar territory to you, is it?"

"No. Not at all." Tom grins. "Are you even old enough to remember the story?"

"I learned about it in history class," Gaeta ripostes, but there's a hard, sarcastic grin on his face as well. "I was in Academy when President Adar tried to force your apology."

"Even in prison, you can find ways to write," Tom says. "Even when you have no outlet, no power, you can find ways to make your voice heard. There are friends, there are people who will help you for a price. If you can articulate your ideals, if you can communicate them clearly and simply to the public, you will find people who will listen."

Gaeta nods. "Tell me why you didn't apologize."

Tom sits back, studying him, and Gaeta meets his eyes squarely. Gaeta knows the answer, but he needs to hear it, because he needs to believe there's still someone with his values out there. And yet, Tom realizes, Gaeta needs to understand that there's always a dichotomy at work; the value of the goal as opposed to the methods of getting there.

"Because a person should never have to apologize for acting for the good of the many, or for acting on the imperatives of their conscience," Tom says. "And at the same time, it was a miscalculation," he continues. "I thought the President would be fair. People were already rioting. They were angry. They were ready for change. And I thought… I thought that being a martyr to my cause would give them the catalyst they needed. I thought it would give them something to rally around and make them see just what their government would do. But the President," he spat the office name off his lips, "twisted the truth and buried it, and all I was left with were the ashes of a dream."

"And that's what's happening here and now."

"It would seem that way."

Gaeta looks at Tom beseechingly, and Tom leans in. "They'll close off every channel to you. They'll try to smother you. They'll bind you and gag you and beat you down, even if it's only metaphorical. But you have a voice, Felix," he says firmly. "Use it to change the world."

This is a world.

They sit together on a bed, alone in a cell. Tom sits leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees as his fingers lace together. Gaeta sits beside him, leaning back, his head against the cold metal wall as he closes his eyes. The guards are more worried about who may come for them; they've both had their weapons confiscated, and neither Tom nor Gaeta is much in the way of a physical threat. The bulk of their power has always been in their minds and their voices, not in their fists.

"New Caprica," Tom says. "That's where I was happiest."

"New Caprica," Felix says dryly.

"Before the Cylons came, of course. That was when we had a chance. That was when we had a world to build. When I had a chance to build it."

"We didn't. It was a disaster." Gaeta's voice is tired, not bitter.

"But we tried. We did fail, but we tried. I wanted to build it in a new fashion, without the injustices of the Colonies. But there were injustices."

Gaeta shrugs. "I guess there always will be." He says it like he doesn't care, and Tom suddenly realizes he doesn't. Gaeta is ready to die, and he accepts it. The burdens of this world don't belong to him anymore, and he's gone out with a fight. He can't change the world, and so he's leaving it.

Just like Tom always meant to do.

Tom begins to laugh. Gaeta cracks an eye open and looks at him. "What?" he asks, more curious than anything.

"I look at you, and I see myself."

Gaeta shakes his head. "I don't."

"That's because Adama isn't giving you the twenty years in a prison cell for you to become me."

Gaeta smiles indulgently, but maybe he sees a little truth in Tom's words.

The hatch swings open, and Adama and his toaster of an XO enter. Adama opens the cell and gestures for Gaeta to come out. "You have two hours," he tells Gaeta, but at the same time he fixes an eye on Tom. Two hours before the execution.

Gaeta slides off the bed, nodding to Tom, and follows them out of the brig without another word. It's not like they won't see each other again before they die, and they both know it. Tom watches him go.

A life believing in the way things should be, and that with enough passion and intelligence and effort, a person could change the world. A life believing in ideals, in moral highs, and in a paradise that never will come to pass. And then that day you begin to find out just how wrong you were, and the days in between until that one day when all of your illusions shatter. And then it's anger and grief and screaming and violence, because there is no other way that those in power will listen to what's right. Then it all blows up, in flames and bullets and riots and blood, until the government squashes you down again, silencing your voice and making it so you can no longer be heard. And neither Tom nor Gaeta will ever be heard again.

Tom Zarek sits in the cell, alone again behind bars. His life will end in two hours. His last remaining friend will die with him. His ideals lie in ruins, like shattered pieces of glistening glass, sparkling in the sun on a radioactive world. The door opens, and to Tom's surprise, Lee Adama comes in to sit with him. And he leans forward eagerly. He's lost everything, except this one solitary chance. He still has his ideas, and his mind, and the unshakeable belief that anything-- everything-- could change tomorrow. If someone decides to make it so.