Fic: Mathematics: Debriefing (5/10)
Series Title: Mathematics
Segment Title: Debriefing (5/10)
( Part 1) ( Part 2) ( Part 3) ( Part 4)
Author: kappamaki33
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Gaeta/Eight; implied Caprica/Baltar and Gaeta/Baltar
Series Summary: Scenes from New Caprica. It was such a simple equation: Felix+Eight=valuable, effective death lists. But the math never remains that uncomplicated, once life gets factored in.
Part 5 Summary: “Debriefing”: Cavil lets his veteran femme fatale debrief the up-and-coming apprentice. Felix’s gift helps Eight through the friendly interrogation, though it inspires her to run risks concerning how much she reveals.
Spoilers: Through “Face of the Enemy” Webisodes
Series Notes: So, this is my first-ever fic. It’s going to be a ten-part series when I’m done. I wanted to impose some sort of structure on the story to make it a bit more challenging-and also to help me develop an overall framework-so each vignette has some connection to its number, in descending order from 10 to 1. The connection to the number is more obvious in some than in others, but it served its purpose as a structural framework.
Part 5 Notes: This one is a bit lighter, and I’m hoping it’s something unexpected. There might be a missing-scene fic for this missing-scene fic in the future to explain the back-story between Gaeta and Roslin alluded to here, of why Roslin doesn’t loath the man who thwarted her stealing the election (though Tory does). Mostly, though, I wanted a situation where Eight would risk a little and open up to a fellow Cylon, and I can’t help but think Roslin was in charge of all weed trafficking on New Caprica.
If you'd like a little background on Tithonus and Aurora, here's the summary from Bullfinch's Mythology, the short and famous poem from Tithonus's perspective by Alfred Lord Tennyson, and the best classical source of the story IMO, the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (at this site, it's Hymn V; Aphrodite tells the stories of Ganymede and Tithonus to her mortal lover to convince him not to ask for immortality, about lines 185-250)
This segment is brought to you by the number 6, who makes a very special appearance here.
Mathematics: Debriefing
As happy as Eight was not to report directly on her liaisons to the biggest pervert the Cylon race could boast, One assigning Caprica Six to debrief her clinched Eight’s suspicion that One had been setting her up to be boxed all along. She was going to be Boomer all over again if she wasn’t careful, and probably even if she was.
She and Caprica had decided to meet outdoors, on a bluff overlooking a stream out a little past the edge of the settlement. It was dangerous for Cylons to go out into the wilds, but Eight figured it was even more dangerous to meet on Colonial One. She may have set up the ship’s internal security, but she didn’t believe she was being overly paranoid in thinking One likely added bugs and cameras of his own. Of course, she still ran the risk that Caprica Six, worried about One’s violent take on human control or his power over Gaius or any of the other hundreds of things Caprica worried about these days, would give One the ammunition he needed to win a vote to have Eight boxed anyway, but there was little she could do about that.
Caprica was already there when Eight arrived. She was sitting with her knees curled up to her chest like a little girl and facing the hazy red sunset over the gray-brown, nearly treeless wilds.
“How did it go?” Caprica said, looking up at Eight.
“Twenty-two names, and I think he really trusts me.”
“Good,” Caprica said. “I’m sorry I have to ask, but you know Cavil will expect to know-”
“Yes, we had sex,” Eight said. Caprica raised her eyebrows and leaned forward in a clear posture of willing Eight to continue. “Right. Sex, twice, a little drunk, he initiated, which he didn’t used to do, I stayed the night, he made me breakfast. If One wants to know any more, I’m going to tell him to his face that he’s just a dirty old man.”
Caprica shook her head. “I know, I know. But he needs to know these things, these little markers of human psychology, to judge whether or not Gaeta is really convinced by you.”
“Yeah, sure. Oh, Felix gave me a present, too,” Eight said as she dropped a little cloth pouch tied with a string into Caprica’s lap and sat down beside her. “Human projection.”
Caprica opened the bag carefully and peeked inside. Her eyebrows crept closer to her hairline than Eight had previously thought possible. “Thank you, Mr. Gaeta,” she breathed. “Where did he get this?”
“Believe it or not, from Laura Roslin,” Eight said, taking a joint and hunting for the lighter Felix had given her as Caprica sat dumbstruck. “He and Roslin have a much more congenial relationship than I would’ve thought, considering. Still don’t know why. Now, Tory, though-Tory would have no problem slitting Gaeta’s throat if she ever caught him alone in a dark alley. Then again, I don’t think Tory would have much problem slitting throats in general.”
“Laura Roslin,” Caprica repeated, still in awe. “But-she’s a schoolteacher…”
“What? It’s not illegal.” Caprica gave Eight a guilty sidelong glance. “Oh, frak, the Fives aren’t trying to outlaw New Caprica Leaf too, are they? Don’t they understand that humans have to have some other pastime besides blowing us up?”
“Anyway, you said you got twenty-two?”
“Yes.” Eight took a paper out from a pocket inside her jacket and handed it to Caprica Six.
Caprica scanned the list. “Ah, Jesreel. We should have guessed she was a ringleader, with all the problems we’ve had at the water treatment plant. Filburn-”
“Don’t tell me any more about the lists,” Eight said. “It’s easier for me to deal with Felix if I don’t know who you killed and who you actually let go.”
Six nodded and folded up the list, sliding it into her pocket. “You’re right. The best liars are those who believe their own lies. I learned that from Gaius.”
“Huh. Bet that’s where Felix learned it, too,” Eight muttered, staring at the joint as she rolled it up and down between her thumb and finger.
“He’s in such pain, you know,” said Caprica, looking longingly out over the grey stretch of land as the wind whipped strands of blond hair across her eyes. “He can’t sleep, he drinks more and more, and the pills-” Ah, still on Gaius, Eight realized. Caprica apparently hadn’t heard her at all. “I try so hard, but I don’t know what to do for him anymore. He feels so guilty about surrendering, about cooperating with us, even though he really didn’t have any other choice. Because he didn’t, did he?”
Eight pointedly chose not to answer. She could understand why Baltar had surrendered when the Cylons arrived-there was a difference between bravery and suicide-by-ideals, after all-but Eight couldn’t see how Caprica could still be so besotted with someone as pathetic as Baltar had become. He was no more than a puppet now, and not just in politics. How could anyone love something that had stopped thinking and choosing to love for itself?
Caprica took the joint from Eight and took a drag as she thought. She continued slowly, as if choosing her words very carefully. “The only thing I can think of,” she said, “the only thing that might help, is if I could make him feel like he wasn’t alone in this. He wasn’t the only human who made compromises, who did certain things because they were pragmatic, would work out the best in the long run. Maybe even that he’s not the only man to do things out of lov-”
“Stop. Just stop right there,” Eight said, not bothering to keep the sharpness out of her voice. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Risking this operation and both our necks for a chance to maybe make Gaius feel better? You know you can’t tell him about me and Felix, even on the off-chance that knowing his Chief of Staff is blindly handing out death lists might make him feel morally superior by comparison.”
“If you’d ever loved someone as much as I do, maybe you wouldn’t be quite so harsh with me, Eight,” Caprica said, with that sad, almost martyr-like smile that Eight hated so much.
“Even if it’s done out of love, that doesn’t mean it’s not an incredibly stupid idea,” Eight said.
Caprica sighed, but a moment later, she sat up straight and rallied a bit again. “Maybe it would be enough if he just didn’t have to feel guilty about being with me, if he knew someone else who… You could convince Gaeta to tell Gaius about you two being together. I know you could.”
Eight felt a little more pleasure than she should at shooting down Caprica’s idea. “You give me too much credit. I can assure you, however, there is nothing in the universe that will get Felix Gaeta to share with Gaius Baltar about his love life while Baltar is sleeping with you.”
“Excuse me?”
“What, you don’t know?” Eight asked.
“Don’t know what?” Caprica’s brow furrowed. Eight was surprised that she honestly believed Caprica wasn’t just playing dumb.
“Okay then, why do you think Felix stares daggers at you constantly?”
Caprica shrugged. “Doesn’t like Cylons? I don’t know.”
Eight sighed. “Caprica, he was you before you got here.”
“Huh?” Caprica said slowly, passing the joint back to Eight. “But I’m not Chief of Staff, I just-oh. Oh. Oh frak, so that’s why he always looks like he’s going to be sick when I’m there with Gaius for the early morning briefings…” Caprica mused, “Of course I knew Gaius slept around, but I never knew he had any interest in men.”
“I don’t think he really does,” Eight said. “But it seems that unpaid, ego-boosting conquests started getting fewer and farther between as time wore on and the people got sick of living on this mudball. Felix was loyal, and loving, and, frankly, not driven off by how disgusting Gaius can be when he’s drunk and depressed, at least for awhile. Seems that attendance counted for a lot at that point, and Gaius was looking for somebody comforting who didn’t pose much of a threat of rejection, so…” Eight shrugged.
“And you got Felix Gaeta to tell you all of this?”
She is wrapping up another rant about Caprica Six, some of it for show, but a good deal of it to vent some very real anger. “And then Baltar apparently woke up, and he walked in on the cabinet meeting, drugged or drunk out of his mind, and she had the gall to not only leave the frakking meeting she had called but also to actually order an Eight to go fetch Gaius more pills from Cottle. It’s ridiculous. Right?”
Felix, who has been interjecting concurring comments throughout with a sort of morbid enthusiasm, stares into the fire in his stove as he hands sheets of paper into the flames, one by one. “I wouldn’t be too hard on the Six. He gets…lost sometimes,” Felix says, almost too quietly for Eight to hear. “Back on Galactica, he just talked to himself, and lots of people do that. But here...the pills help, sometimes, but not always, and his body built up a resistance to them or something after awhile. He has these phases where it’s like he’s somewhere else. Sleep is the worst. He can’t seem to feel the break between dreams and reality when he wakes up. A lot of times, he’d wake up in the middle of the night, and I’d…”
Felix stops, but Eight can’t tell whether it’s out of embarrassment or heartache. Then she realizes that he stopped because he’s finished the story. Eight knows his tells well enough that she can read the ending in his body-the curve of his hunched shoulders, the set of his jaw, the completely humorless tug at the corner of his mouth. What surprises her is that Felix knows she can finish the story for herself, too.
Oh frak, she thinks. She’d always suspected something happened between them on New Caprica. She’d even heard the former “presidential interns” who loiter not too far from Colonial One making snide jokes, but she’d never thought about it being like this. Not just Felix the scorned lover or the discarded plaything, but the nursemaid, watching the person he thought he loved die and be replaced with something so broken.
“Who could blame Gaius for that?” Eight finally says. “It’s always a nightmare here.”
“Yeah, he told me enough,” Eight said.
“Bravo,” said Caprica. “He must love you, to tell you something like that.”
Eight paused for a moment, trying to find words that wouldn’t be a lie. She took another drag. “I’m doing my job, that’s all.”
“Well, I mean…someone that buttoned down doesn’t just…tell anybody that,” Caprica said. Eight could tell Caprica was starting to feel the effects of Felix’s gift. “It’s private. And he’s private, and all buttoned up-buttoned down…”
Caprica giggled, but Eight full-out laughed, and at nothing in particular. She vaguely mused to herself that Caprica wasn’t the only one feeling a bit buzzed. Eight smirked. “He sure as hell isn’t buttoned-down in bed.”
Caprica’s eyes went wide, and she wobbled a little when she leaned toward Eight. “Really?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Eight said, handing the joint to Caprica. “At first, I think I scared him. No, I know I scared him. But now…wouldn’t think he had it in him, but…” A part of her was telling her to be cautious, but that part was becoming increasingly less persuasive. She took the joint back from Caprica. “You know, you really frakked things up for all of us, Caprica.”
Eight stared at Caprica very seriously, and Caprica looked nervous. “Me?”
“You’re such a hog. If you’d just shared…you’d just invited him to join a happy little threesome with you and Gaius, first thing you did here, then none of us would be going through any of this shit now.”
Caprica started to giggle, then erupted in laughter. Eight hadn’t really been joking, but hearing laughter made her chuckle, too.
“Suppose it’s too late?” Caprica said, still laughing.
“Too late for Gaius,” said Eight, “but you should join us sometime, in one of our assignations in the supply closet.”
Caprica snorted. “Assignations. What a word.”
“Yeah, we don’t really do that,” Eight said. She looked for the joint, but it appeared Caprica had lost it. “He’s scared about getting caught, what the others would do to me if they found out I was sleeping with a human.”
Caprica flopped on her back and laughed. “What’re you going to do with him when the operation’s done?”
Eight’s brain snagged on that idea. Done? Maybe she could have worked through it if she wasn’t stoned, but at that moment she couldn’t make sense of it. “We’re always going to need lists. We’re going to need lists as long as there’s a Resistance, and there’s always going to be a Resistance.”
Caprica frowned. “No, you’re wrong. Even if you’re not,” she said, turning her head toward Eight, “Felix can’t give you lists forever. He’s going to figure it out. Sooner or later, he’ll figure it out. Then what?”
Eight felt nauseated-must be something about the drug, she thought. “S’not my problem. I’m not planning this op. I’m just frakking him.”
“That’s right, Doral and Cavil’s idea,” Six drawled. “Scary thought, his life in their hands. But if you fought for him, I bet they’d let you keep him.”
Eight was afraid she was going to retch, and this time she knew it wasn’t the New Caprica Leaf. Making Felix to her what Gaius was to Caprica, or what the blond pilot was to Leoben-Eight didn’t want a pet, and she was sure Felix would rather die than become one. Those were probably his options, she thought sadly. Even though she knew what he would want, it was sad she would have to choose for him.
Caprica was grinning, no doubt musing on her life in her little dollhouse with Gaius. Eight felt a deep desire to wipe that happiness right off Caprica’s smug face. “Felix told me this story that the humans have,” she said, lying down beside Caprica. “S’called Tithonus and Aurora. Ever heard of it?”
Caprica shook her head.
“Int’resting story. You see, there’s this goddess, Aurora. And she falls in love with this beautiful young man, Tithonus. Problem is, she’s immortal, but he’s going to die someday. So she goes to the king of the gods, and she begs him to make Tithonus immortal. He says he’ll give her exactly what she asks for, but she better be sure, ‘cause there’s no take-backs with miracles. She says yes, I’m sure, so the king of the gods does it, and Tithonus and Aurora are happy together, for awhile.”
Caprica rolled over onto her side and put her hands under her chin, curled up like a child listening to a bedtime story.
Eight continued, “Then one day, Aurora notices that Tithonus is stiff in the mornings, and he’s got little wrinkles around his eyes, and he’s got bits of gray hair here and there. So she goes to the king god, and she says, ‘Hey, you promised me you’d make Tithonus immortal.’ The king god tells her, ‘I did, and he is immortal. But, you forgot to ask for eternal youth.’”
Caprica’s eyes darkened, as if a cloud had passed over her face, but she continued listening.
“So, Aurora goes home to Tithonus, and they’re okay for awhile. But then, Tithonus gets old, and she’s not so hot for him anymore. Then, he gets really, really old, older than humans are supposed to get, ‘cause he can’t die. She has to lock him away in a little room, because his mind goes, too, and he keeps getting older and older and older until he shrivels down to the size of a cricket, and he’s still crying out for his lover in the night, ‘cause he doesn’t understand why she won’t come to him anymore. And that’s why we have crickets. That’s what Felix said.”
Caprica’s eyes were filled with tears, but she wasn’t crying. For some reason, Eight wasn’t angry at her anymore.
“I could never figure out what was so wrong about night here,” Caprica said. “There’s no crickets on this planet. That’s the difference.”
Eight patted Caprica’s shoulder. “We’ll manage. We can get through the night without them.”
Segment Title: Debriefing (5/10)
( Part 1) ( Part 2) ( Part 3) ( Part 4)
Author: kappamaki33
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Gaeta/Eight; implied Caprica/Baltar and Gaeta/Baltar
Series Summary: Scenes from New Caprica. It was such a simple equation: Felix+Eight=valuable, effective death lists. But the math never remains that uncomplicated, once life gets factored in.
Part 5 Summary: “Debriefing”: Cavil lets his veteran femme fatale debrief the up-and-coming apprentice. Felix’s gift helps Eight through the friendly interrogation, though it inspires her to run risks concerning how much she reveals.
Spoilers: Through “Face of the Enemy” Webisodes
Series Notes: So, this is my first-ever fic. It’s going to be a ten-part series when I’m done. I wanted to impose some sort of structure on the story to make it a bit more challenging-and also to help me develop an overall framework-so each vignette has some connection to its number, in descending order from 10 to 1. The connection to the number is more obvious in some than in others, but it served its purpose as a structural framework.
Part 5 Notes: This one is a bit lighter, and I’m hoping it’s something unexpected. There might be a missing-scene fic for this missing-scene fic in the future to explain the back-story between Gaeta and Roslin alluded to here, of why Roslin doesn’t loath the man who thwarted her stealing the election (though Tory does). Mostly, though, I wanted a situation where Eight would risk a little and open up to a fellow Cylon, and I can’t help but think Roslin was in charge of all weed trafficking on New Caprica.
If you'd like a little background on Tithonus and Aurora, here's the summary from Bullfinch's Mythology, the short and famous poem from Tithonus's perspective by Alfred Lord Tennyson, and the best classical source of the story IMO, the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (at this site, it's Hymn V; Aphrodite tells the stories of Ganymede and Tithonus to her mortal lover to convince him not to ask for immortality, about lines 185-250)
This segment is brought to you by the number 6, who makes a very special appearance here.
Mathematics: Debriefing
As happy as Eight was not to report directly on her liaisons to the biggest pervert the Cylon race could boast, One assigning Caprica Six to debrief her clinched Eight’s suspicion that One had been setting her up to be boxed all along. She was going to be Boomer all over again if she wasn’t careful, and probably even if she was.
She and Caprica had decided to meet outdoors, on a bluff overlooking a stream out a little past the edge of the settlement. It was dangerous for Cylons to go out into the wilds, but Eight figured it was even more dangerous to meet on Colonial One. She may have set up the ship’s internal security, but she didn’t believe she was being overly paranoid in thinking One likely added bugs and cameras of his own. Of course, she still ran the risk that Caprica Six, worried about One’s violent take on human control or his power over Gaius or any of the other hundreds of things Caprica worried about these days, would give One the ammunition he needed to win a vote to have Eight boxed anyway, but there was little she could do about that.
Caprica was already there when Eight arrived. She was sitting with her knees curled up to her chest like a little girl and facing the hazy red sunset over the gray-brown, nearly treeless wilds.
“How did it go?” Caprica said, looking up at Eight.
“Twenty-two names, and I think he really trusts me.”
“Good,” Caprica said. “I’m sorry I have to ask, but you know Cavil will expect to know-”
“Yes, we had sex,” Eight said. Caprica raised her eyebrows and leaned forward in a clear posture of willing Eight to continue. “Right. Sex, twice, a little drunk, he initiated, which he didn’t used to do, I stayed the night, he made me breakfast. If One wants to know any more, I’m going to tell him to his face that he’s just a dirty old man.”
Caprica shook her head. “I know, I know. But he needs to know these things, these little markers of human psychology, to judge whether or not Gaeta is really convinced by you.”
“Yeah, sure. Oh, Felix gave me a present, too,” Eight said as she dropped a little cloth pouch tied with a string into Caprica’s lap and sat down beside her. “Human projection.”
Caprica opened the bag carefully and peeked inside. Her eyebrows crept closer to her hairline than Eight had previously thought possible. “Thank you, Mr. Gaeta,” she breathed. “Where did he get this?”
“Believe it or not, from Laura Roslin,” Eight said, taking a joint and hunting for the lighter Felix had given her as Caprica sat dumbstruck. “He and Roslin have a much more congenial relationship than I would’ve thought, considering. Still don’t know why. Now, Tory, though-Tory would have no problem slitting Gaeta’s throat if she ever caught him alone in a dark alley. Then again, I don’t think Tory would have much problem slitting throats in general.”
“Laura Roslin,” Caprica repeated, still in awe. “But-she’s a schoolteacher…”
“What? It’s not illegal.” Caprica gave Eight a guilty sidelong glance. “Oh, frak, the Fives aren’t trying to outlaw New Caprica Leaf too, are they? Don’t they understand that humans have to have some other pastime besides blowing us up?”
“Anyway, you said you got twenty-two?”
“Yes.” Eight took a paper out from a pocket inside her jacket and handed it to Caprica Six.
Caprica scanned the list. “Ah, Jesreel. We should have guessed she was a ringleader, with all the problems we’ve had at the water treatment plant. Filburn-”
“Don’t tell me any more about the lists,” Eight said. “It’s easier for me to deal with Felix if I don’t know who you killed and who you actually let go.”
Six nodded and folded up the list, sliding it into her pocket. “You’re right. The best liars are those who believe their own lies. I learned that from Gaius.”
“Huh. Bet that’s where Felix learned it, too,” Eight muttered, staring at the joint as she rolled it up and down between her thumb and finger.
“He’s in such pain, you know,” said Caprica, looking longingly out over the grey stretch of land as the wind whipped strands of blond hair across her eyes. “He can’t sleep, he drinks more and more, and the pills-” Ah, still on Gaius, Eight realized. Caprica apparently hadn’t heard her at all. “I try so hard, but I don’t know what to do for him anymore. He feels so guilty about surrendering, about cooperating with us, even though he really didn’t have any other choice. Because he didn’t, did he?”
Eight pointedly chose not to answer. She could understand why Baltar had surrendered when the Cylons arrived-there was a difference between bravery and suicide-by-ideals, after all-but Eight couldn’t see how Caprica could still be so besotted with someone as pathetic as Baltar had become. He was no more than a puppet now, and not just in politics. How could anyone love something that had stopped thinking and choosing to love for itself?
Caprica took the joint from Eight and took a drag as she thought. She continued slowly, as if choosing her words very carefully. “The only thing I can think of,” she said, “the only thing that might help, is if I could make him feel like he wasn’t alone in this. He wasn’t the only human who made compromises, who did certain things because they were pragmatic, would work out the best in the long run. Maybe even that he’s not the only man to do things out of lov-”
“Stop. Just stop right there,” Eight said, not bothering to keep the sharpness out of her voice. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Risking this operation and both our necks for a chance to maybe make Gaius feel better? You know you can’t tell him about me and Felix, even on the off-chance that knowing his Chief of Staff is blindly handing out death lists might make him feel morally superior by comparison.”
“If you’d ever loved someone as much as I do, maybe you wouldn’t be quite so harsh with me, Eight,” Caprica said, with that sad, almost martyr-like smile that Eight hated so much.
“Even if it’s done out of love, that doesn’t mean it’s not an incredibly stupid idea,” Eight said.
Caprica sighed, but a moment later, she sat up straight and rallied a bit again. “Maybe it would be enough if he just didn’t have to feel guilty about being with me, if he knew someone else who… You could convince Gaeta to tell Gaius about you two being together. I know you could.”
Eight felt a little more pleasure than she should at shooting down Caprica’s idea. “You give me too much credit. I can assure you, however, there is nothing in the universe that will get Felix Gaeta to share with Gaius Baltar about his love life while Baltar is sleeping with you.”
“Excuse me?”
“What, you don’t know?” Eight asked.
“Don’t know what?” Caprica’s brow furrowed. Eight was surprised that she honestly believed Caprica wasn’t just playing dumb.
“Okay then, why do you think Felix stares daggers at you constantly?”
Caprica shrugged. “Doesn’t like Cylons? I don’t know.”
Eight sighed. “Caprica, he was you before you got here.”
“Huh?” Caprica said slowly, passing the joint back to Eight. “But I’m not Chief of Staff, I just-oh. Oh. Oh frak, so that’s why he always looks like he’s going to be sick when I’m there with Gaius for the early morning briefings…” Caprica mused, “Of course I knew Gaius slept around, but I never knew he had any interest in men.”
“I don’t think he really does,” Eight said. “But it seems that unpaid, ego-boosting conquests started getting fewer and farther between as time wore on and the people got sick of living on this mudball. Felix was loyal, and loving, and, frankly, not driven off by how disgusting Gaius can be when he’s drunk and depressed, at least for awhile. Seems that attendance counted for a lot at that point, and Gaius was looking for somebody comforting who didn’t pose much of a threat of rejection, so…” Eight shrugged.
“And you got Felix Gaeta to tell you all of this?”
She is wrapping up another rant about Caprica Six, some of it for show, but a good deal of it to vent some very real anger. “And then Baltar apparently woke up, and he walked in on the cabinet meeting, drugged or drunk out of his mind, and she had the gall to not only leave the frakking meeting she had called but also to actually order an Eight to go fetch Gaius more pills from Cottle. It’s ridiculous. Right?”
Felix, who has been interjecting concurring comments throughout with a sort of morbid enthusiasm, stares into the fire in his stove as he hands sheets of paper into the flames, one by one. “I wouldn’t be too hard on the Six. He gets…lost sometimes,” Felix says, almost too quietly for Eight to hear. “Back on Galactica, he just talked to himself, and lots of people do that. But here...the pills help, sometimes, but not always, and his body built up a resistance to them or something after awhile. He has these phases where it’s like he’s somewhere else. Sleep is the worst. He can’t seem to feel the break between dreams and reality when he wakes up. A lot of times, he’d wake up in the middle of the night, and I’d…”
Felix stops, but Eight can’t tell whether it’s out of embarrassment or heartache. Then she realizes that he stopped because he’s finished the story. Eight knows his tells well enough that she can read the ending in his body-the curve of his hunched shoulders, the set of his jaw, the completely humorless tug at the corner of his mouth. What surprises her is that Felix knows she can finish the story for herself, too.
Oh frak, she thinks. She’d always suspected something happened between them on New Caprica. She’d even heard the former “presidential interns” who loiter not too far from Colonial One making snide jokes, but she’d never thought about it being like this. Not just Felix the scorned lover or the discarded plaything, but the nursemaid, watching the person he thought he loved die and be replaced with something so broken.
“Who could blame Gaius for that?” Eight finally says. “It’s always a nightmare here.”
“Yeah, he told me enough,” Eight said.
“Bravo,” said Caprica. “He must love you, to tell you something like that.”
Eight paused for a moment, trying to find words that wouldn’t be a lie. She took another drag. “I’m doing my job, that’s all.”
“Well, I mean…someone that buttoned down doesn’t just…tell anybody that,” Caprica said. Eight could tell Caprica was starting to feel the effects of Felix’s gift. “It’s private. And he’s private, and all buttoned up-buttoned down…”
Caprica giggled, but Eight full-out laughed, and at nothing in particular. She vaguely mused to herself that Caprica wasn’t the only one feeling a bit buzzed. Eight smirked. “He sure as hell isn’t buttoned-down in bed.”
Caprica’s eyes went wide, and she wobbled a little when she leaned toward Eight. “Really?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Eight said, handing the joint to Caprica. “At first, I think I scared him. No, I know I scared him. But now…wouldn’t think he had it in him, but…” A part of her was telling her to be cautious, but that part was becoming increasingly less persuasive. She took the joint back from Caprica. “You know, you really frakked things up for all of us, Caprica.”
Eight stared at Caprica very seriously, and Caprica looked nervous. “Me?”
“You’re such a hog. If you’d just shared…you’d just invited him to join a happy little threesome with you and Gaius, first thing you did here, then none of us would be going through any of this shit now.”
Caprica started to giggle, then erupted in laughter. Eight hadn’t really been joking, but hearing laughter made her chuckle, too.
“Suppose it’s too late?” Caprica said, still laughing.
“Too late for Gaius,” said Eight, “but you should join us sometime, in one of our assignations in the supply closet.”
Caprica snorted. “Assignations. What a word.”
“Yeah, we don’t really do that,” Eight said. She looked for the joint, but it appeared Caprica had lost it. “He’s scared about getting caught, what the others would do to me if they found out I was sleeping with a human.”
Caprica flopped on her back and laughed. “What’re you going to do with him when the operation’s done?”
Eight’s brain snagged on that idea. Done? Maybe she could have worked through it if she wasn’t stoned, but at that moment she couldn’t make sense of it. “We’re always going to need lists. We’re going to need lists as long as there’s a Resistance, and there’s always going to be a Resistance.”
Caprica frowned. “No, you’re wrong. Even if you’re not,” she said, turning her head toward Eight, “Felix can’t give you lists forever. He’s going to figure it out. Sooner or later, he’ll figure it out. Then what?”
Eight felt nauseated-must be something about the drug, she thought. “S’not my problem. I’m not planning this op. I’m just frakking him.”
“That’s right, Doral and Cavil’s idea,” Six drawled. “Scary thought, his life in their hands. But if you fought for him, I bet they’d let you keep him.”
Eight was afraid she was going to retch, and this time she knew it wasn’t the New Caprica Leaf. Making Felix to her what Gaius was to Caprica, or what the blond pilot was to Leoben-Eight didn’t want a pet, and she was sure Felix would rather die than become one. Those were probably his options, she thought sadly. Even though she knew what he would want, it was sad she would have to choose for him.
Caprica was grinning, no doubt musing on her life in her little dollhouse with Gaius. Eight felt a deep desire to wipe that happiness right off Caprica’s smug face. “Felix told me this story that the humans have,” she said, lying down beside Caprica. “S’called Tithonus and Aurora. Ever heard of it?”
Caprica shook her head.
“Int’resting story. You see, there’s this goddess, Aurora. And she falls in love with this beautiful young man, Tithonus. Problem is, she’s immortal, but he’s going to die someday. So she goes to the king of the gods, and she begs him to make Tithonus immortal. He says he’ll give her exactly what she asks for, but she better be sure, ‘cause there’s no take-backs with miracles. She says yes, I’m sure, so the king of the gods does it, and Tithonus and Aurora are happy together, for awhile.”
Caprica rolled over onto her side and put her hands under her chin, curled up like a child listening to a bedtime story.
Eight continued, “Then one day, Aurora notices that Tithonus is stiff in the mornings, and he’s got little wrinkles around his eyes, and he’s got bits of gray hair here and there. So she goes to the king god, and she says, ‘Hey, you promised me you’d make Tithonus immortal.’ The king god tells her, ‘I did, and he is immortal. But, you forgot to ask for eternal youth.’”
Caprica’s eyes darkened, as if a cloud had passed over her face, but she continued listening.
“So, Aurora goes home to Tithonus, and they’re okay for awhile. But then, Tithonus gets old, and she’s not so hot for him anymore. Then, he gets really, really old, older than humans are supposed to get, ‘cause he can’t die. She has to lock him away in a little room, because his mind goes, too, and he keeps getting older and older and older until he shrivels down to the size of a cricket, and he’s still crying out for his lover in the night, ‘cause he doesn’t understand why she won’t come to him anymore. And that’s why we have crickets. That’s what Felix said.”
Caprica’s eyes were filled with tears, but she wasn’t crying. For some reason, Eight wasn’t angry at her anymore.
“I could never figure out what was so wrong about night here,” Caprica said. “There’s no crickets on this planet. That’s the difference.”
Eight patted Caprica’s shoulder. “We’ll manage. We can get through the night without them.”