Sanctuary (Part 7 of 7)
Return to Chapter 6
A fellow is more afraid of the trouble he might have than he ever is of the trouble he’s already got. He’ll cling to trouble he’s used to before he’ll risk a change.
-Light in August
Felix curled up in the ragged but comfortable overstuffed chair in Rosie’s private drawing room, pulling his knees up to his chin and wrapping his arms around his shins. Rhea was bundled up in a blanket in the other plush chair, lying in it so her neck lay on one armrest and her legs rested on the other, her feet dangling over the end table. Even though there was no picture, they stared at Rosie’s wireless as they listened to the afternoon news report.
They looked up when Rosie came back into the room. “What did Evan want?” Rhea asked.
Rosie sighed. “Wanted me to help run off a client there’s no way in hell any of my kids was gonna take. It’s his job, but on this one, I get why he wanted back-up.”
“Why?” Felix asked.
Rosie turned up the dial on the wireless, then sank into her rocking chair. “Cylon.”
Felix’s blood ran cold. “Which model?”
“The man. They call those Twos, I guess,” Rosie said.
Felix felt relief wash over him. It wasn’t her. She hadn’t found him. Maybe she hadn’t survived the Cylon rebellion at all…
Rosie must have seen his panic. “Don’t worry, Curly. I don’t care how friendly the President says we are with ‘em. Not a one will ever cross my threshold. Like I told this one, he and his kind took enough without asking or paying on the Colonies and New Caprica. Price they’d have to pay just to break even’s higher than any of ‘em could ever scrape together.”
Felix was glad when the conversation dropped. He turned back to fix his gaze on the wireless, Rosie’s chair creaking in the background as she rocked back and forth.
“Ellen Tigh, wife of Galactica’s second-in-command Colonel Saul Tigh, maintained that she had no idea she was a Cylon until she died on New Caprica and was reborn on an enemy baseship. She claimed she was held captive by a copy of Cylon Number One, whom she referred to as her “son.” When reporter Sekou Hamilton asked a follow-up question about her calling the Cylon her son, Vice President Adama quickly stepped in and ended the press conference. There has been no official statement explaining how Ellen Tigh managed to return to the Fleet, nor any comments on the rumors that the Cylon known as Sharon Valerii, who attempted to assassinate Admiral Adama several years ago, has returned to the Fleet as well.”
“Gods, it really does feel like the end of the worlds, what with the dead rising and all, don’t it?” Rosie murmured.
“Worlds ended a long time ago,” Felix said.
Rhea ignored Felix and nodded at Rosie. “I always figured if the worlds ended during my lifetime, if I lived long enough to know it was ending, I’d spend my last days huddled around a wireless, trying to figure out what the frak was going on.”
“Everything wearing out, running out,” Rosie added. “We all knew we couldn’t go on like this forever.”
“I always figured we’d die in a hail of Cylon fire, not from just…falling apart,” Rhea said.
“Why do I listen to the news with you two anymore?” Felix grumbled.
“Aw, because you like us, don’t you?” Rhea said.
Rosie pushed herself up from her chair and shuffled to the wireless. “No, Curly’s got a point. We’re quite the gloomy pair. Let’s find something else to listen to, huh? Gotta be something better on than the news.”
She fiddled with the dial for a bit, going past another newscast and a station playing godsawful Gemenese monastic chants. The channel she settled on crackled a bit but came in well enough to easily understand the speaker.
“Thank you, Jeanne. Tonight, I would like to speak with you about something very dear to my heart. As many of you know, I have had a very…fraught path to faith. A very circuitous path, with many dead ends and blind alleys. But now, I have seen the truth, my friends…”
Rhea smiled. “Is this a new sermon? I haven’t heard it before.”
“No, it’s a repeat, but I love this one.”
“Dear gods, not Gaius Baltar,” Felix whined.
“You’re out-voted,” Rosie said as she and Rhea exchanged a look and she settled back into her rocking chair.
“Something people often fail to mention about hate and guilt is that they are easy emotions. They’re comfortable. Though it may seem like screaming obscenities at your enemy is a lot of work, it merely seems so because it is loud and requires a certain amount of energy. The same goes for self-flagellation. At the end of a day filled with hatred and guilt, you feel as though you have accomplished something, because your voice is hoarse, your muscles are sore, and you are tired out by your emotions.
But physical exhaustion is a poor measure of accomplishment, my friends. We hang on to these safe emotions not because they are good, but because they are familiar. It’s the same reason why we fear death. It is the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns, which puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others we know not of.
We have all become so comfortable with hatred and guilt. It’s understandable, in an existence as precarious as ours, that we would cling to whatever safety we can find. But I challenge you, my friends, to trust that there is something else, something better, waiting for us all on the other side of guilt and hate…”
Felix shivered and curled in on himself even tighter.
He jumped when Rhea spoke to him. “Here, have one.” She held out a bag of what looked like seeds.
“You’re eating seeds?” Felix said, incredulous. “Are you nuts? Those are worth a fortune. You should buy some dirt and plant them.”
Rhea shook her head. “No. They’re pomegranate seeds. I kept a few just in case, but really, there’s no way I could afford enough dirt to plant one tree, let alone dozens of them.”
“Still, I can’t take them,” Felix said. “I don’t even want to think about how much you must’ve paid to get real food. You enjoy them.”
Rhea shoved the bag under Felix’s nose. “They’re good for you. Fiber, antioxidants, not to mention a nice break from algae.”
“I can’t.”
“We bought them for you, honey,” Rosie said.
Felix looked at Rhea and Rosie. Suddenly, he had the feeling he was in an intervention of some sort.
“We’re worried about you,” Rosie pressed. “You don’t eat. I don’t think you sleep. All you do is take clients and smoke.”
“I eat,” Felix protested without much passion. He’d never eaten much while he lived here, but even he had to admit his appetite had fallen off to almost nothing lately. “Maybe not a lot, but enough of that frakking algae to keep me going.”
Rhea and Rosie looked at each other meaningfully. Then Rhea turned and said, “We’re worried about you and Dillon.”
Felix groaned. “I’ve told you a hundred times, he’s not hurting me. He just prefers not being here at the Rising Sun.”
Rosie and Rhea were both exasperated. “Whether or not he’s physically hurting you, Curly, he’s doing a number on your brain. Everyone sees it.” Rosie paused, then summed up the courage to ask, “Is it drugs?”
“No! Gods, no.” Dillon had offered, more than once. Felix hadn’t taken him up on the offer yet.
“Then why does he need to take you away from the Rising Sun to see you?” Rosie said. “I’m putting my foot down. No more off-campus fun for you, kiddo. He wants to see you, he comes here, and he plays by my rules.”
“He plays by your rules ‘off-campus,’ too,” Felix shot back, feeling like a disgruntled teenager.
That was a lie, of course, but it was a safe one. For all his violent tendencies, Dillon didn’t get off inflicting physical pain. Plus, he didn’t want to damage the merchandise. But the other rules…the games Dillon liked to play, the humiliation and the complete control-Felix knew most of that wouldn’t fly in the Rising Sun.
“I don’t think you should see him anymore at all,” Rhea said.
“Not only is that not an option, but how do you know it’s so horrible? What if I like the way he does things?”
Rosie and Rhea clearly didn’t buy that, though in a way, Felix did. “Like” was probably too strong a word. He didn’t get anything like pleasure out of their encounters. He certainly didn’t enjoy them. And frankly, he didn’t trust Dillon at all. When Felix shook with fear, it was fear, not a thrill. But he found a certain relief when Dillon methodically stripped away his self, leaving only a sort of numb not-Felix behind. With others, Felix could play roles, flirt with transformation. With Dillon, there was no transformation, only obliteration.
“It’s just that you’re a different person when you come back from those ‘outings’ with Dillon. And not in a good way,” Rhea said. “It feels like you’re slipping away from us. You’re gone with him for days at a time, and every time we’re terrified you’re not going to come back. We’ve lost too many people already, and we care about you too much to let you go.”
“He’s offered to keep me,” Felix said quietly, unable to meet their eyes.
“I hope you told him to shove his offer where the sun doesn’t shine-”
“I’m going to have a word with the Guatrau about-”
“I said my price was the Ha’la’tha leaving the Rising Sun alone for as long as the Fleet lasts.”
The women sat in stunned silence. Felix couldn’t bring himself to say any more. The only sound in the room was Gaius’s voice and the crackle of the wireless.
“It is no less frightening, to take this trusting step into forgiveness and love than it is to trust in the first article of all faiths: this is not all that we are. If we can trust God to prepare a place for our souls after our mortal bodies fail, why can’t we trust Him to protect our souls from the newness and vulnerability of forgiveness and love? You no longer need to fear the unknown, because He will take your hand and guide you to the other side of the river…”
Felix felt a warm palm on his shoulder. “Hylas. Felix.”
Felix’s head shot up. Rosie and Rhea both stood beside his chair, looking at him knowingly.
“We’ve known who you were for a while,” Rhea explained. “Vice President Zarek asked for ‘Felix’ when he came for you, and that was enough to refresh my memory.” She lightly ran her fingers through his curls. “You looked so different back then, with your hair cut and your neat suit. So much younger.”
Felix was shaking. “How did you know me then?”
Rhea smiled sadly. “I’m not surprised you don’t remember me. I was one of President Baltar’s…oh, what did you call us, ‘interns’? I was there when you told him the Cylons had found New Caprica.”
For some reason, that made Felix want to cry. He hid his face in his hands.
Rhea crouched down beside him and gently took his hands away. “The point is, I know you. We know you, and we know you’re not doing this because you want to. I don’t know what you think you’ve done so wrong that you deserve Dillon-”
“I want to help you,” Felix said, forcing his voice to stay even. “He’s the Guatrau’s right-hand man, and he wants me. He’s going to win in the end, so why not get a good deal out of it and take care of the people I care about? I don’t have any choice.”
That was the truth, or at least a good portion of it. Rhea and Rosie were all Felix had left. Dee and Tom and probably Livia were dead, Louis would never forgive him, and he never wanted to see Gaius again. There was no old life left to return to. He hadn’t realized it until now, but he’d had hopes of going back, at one time. Maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised, since hope had a funny habit of sneaking up on him in the face of despair. Like when one speech from the Old Man about a mythical planet had turned a funeral and an apocalypse into a mission. Like when a few drinks, a couple slow dances, and one long, sweet kiss from Louis on Colonial Day on New Caprica had started piecing back together a part of his heart he’d felt so sure Gaius had irreparably shattered. And now Earth was dead, and as for Louis…Felix wished he could just forget everything that had happened on New Caprica, even the good times. Especially the good times.
“We’ll survive just fine without you playing the martyr, Curly,” Rosie assured him. “As for the rest of it, the Guatrau may have a lot of power, but she’s not a God. Dillon certainly isn’t. I’m more than willing to stick up for you, if you’ll stick up for yourself a little, too.”
Felix took a deep, shaky breath. Rosie took his chin in her hand and tipped his face up. “Honey, I won’t insult you with that bullshit of everybody always having a choice. But you ain’t past the point of no return yet. You’ve still got plenty of choices.”
“Please stay,” Rhea whispered. “If you care about us, please pick us, huh?”
Felix exhaled. “I’ll stay.”
Rhea hugged him. When she pulled back, he saw she was laughing through unspilled tears. “Good. Now, eat.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Felix said, saluting her and accepting the bag of pomegranate seeds she thrust into his other hand.
Rhea and Rosie retreated to their seats and talked about Dillon, the Guatrau, and their plans for dealing with both of them. Felix couldn’t focus. As he placed one of the precious seeds in his mouth and ground it between his teeth, he felt as though he’d just stepped back from the edge of something very dark and much more unalterable than anything he’d faced since he came to the Prometheus. He couldn’t quite say he deserved to take that step back from the abyss, but he was grateful for it.
~~**~~**~~
The large woman who’d met him in the front room-Gaius had already forgotten her name-left him at the foot of the stairs leading to the prostitutes’ quarters. Gaius wished she’d offered to go up with him, and for a wild moment he even considered calling her back. He took a deep breath and mounted the stairs, surreptitiously looking around him for the woman in his mind. She hadn’t appeared since he’d failed to cross the line in the hangar bay.
“There was a reason I didn’t cross then,” Gaius muttered under his breath, hoping she’d hear. “If I had, I wouldn’t have had this opportunity. Clearly, it was God’s will. Wasn’t it?”
When he got to the door, he wasn’t sure he could knock without that heavenly reassurance. He waited, listening. He heard nothing but a low feminine giggle followed by a male moan coming from one of the rooms farther down the hall.
“Please? Even a very small sign?” he begged the emptiness.
Of course, he knew he had to knock, divine thumbs-up or no. Admiral Hoshi hadn’t agreed to hold open the last seat on the last Raptor headed to Galactica for him so he could stand in front of Felix’s door and not go in. Gaius wasn’t stalling now because he wanted to put off his ultimate decision of whether he took that seat or not-he wasn’t, truthfully. Well, maybe a little, but he really was terrified of how Felix would react to him. After all, he’d nearly shot Gaius in the head the last time they’d spoken. Not to mention, even Hoshi hadn’t exactly volunteered to come along.
Gaius admitted to himself that that thought was hardly fair of him, blaming this on Hoshi somehow. This had been his own idea, his guilt, his chance to make amends. He was lucky Hoshi understood how much these extra few hours might mean. Gaius didn’t feel lucky now, but he had when Hoshi had acquiesced, and he was sure he would again, soon.
Nearly a minute later and with no signal from Providence in sight, Gaius sighed resignedly and knocked.
He heard a voice through the door. Even muffled, it was unmistakably Felix. “Unless you’re interested in catching a very nasty rash, I’m not available tonight.”
Gaius winced and opened the door far enough to stick his head in. “Actually, that isn’t exactly what I’ve come here for.”
The room was small and terribly seedy. Felix was lying in bed, naked at least from the chest up, his lower body covered by the comforter. As soon as their eyes met, Felix dropped the book he was reading and fisted his other hand in the bedspread. “Get out.”
“Felix-”
“I’m never available for you. Get out.” He said it evenly and almost quietly, but there was still steel in his voice.
“Please, I didn’t come here for your…services,” he said awkwardly. “I came to speak with you.”
Felix pulled the comforter up around him tighter. “I have nothing to say to you. There are plenty of places in the Rising Sun to stick your cock. I don’t much care if you put it in a man or a woman or a light bulb socket, but it’s not going to be anywhere in here. So get out, or I’m calling security.”
“I didn’t come here for-well, also, I bribed the bouncer downstairs to take the night off,” Gaius admitted sheepishly. Felix threw his head back against the headboard and huffed, clearly annoyed. “I knew it was the only way you’d give me a chance to say what I want-what I need, Felix, what I need to say.” Felix rolled his eyes. Gaius added, “The madam downstairs likely won’t help you rid yourself of me, either. She’s a fan of my broadcasts, it seems. She thought that I might be good for you.”
Felix stared at the ceiling and shook his head. “Ten minutes. Then I toss you out on your ass.”
“Ten minutes. Excellent. I can convince you-” Gaius was already dragging a chair over to the bed when he noticed Felix’s blush. Did he still have the power to make Felix blush, after all that had happened? “Oh, would you like to-would you feel more comfortable, uh, dressing first?”
Felix nodded and gestured towards a small cupboard in the corner. “My clothes are in the closet over there.”
Gaius retrieved underwear, trousers, and a t-shirt from the closet and set them beside Felix on the bed.
“Considering where we are, not to mention our history, I know this is an odd request, but would you mind turning around while I…?” Felix asked.
“No, of course not.” Gaius turned away, and he heard the rustle of bed sheets and clothing against skin. He tried to wait until he was sure Felix had pulled on the trousers, but Gaius couldn’t help peeking over his shoulder. He breathed a small sigh of relief when he saw that Felix’s back remained unscarred. He hadn’t even realized he’d half-expected to see the same sort of damage as when he’d done this with Gina. No, Felix’s ribs protruded far more than Gaius remembered, and he moved very gingerly, but there were no physical injuries that wouldn’t heal in time.
After a bit more rustling, Felix finally said, “You can turn around now.”
Felix was sitting on the bed. Gaius pulled the chair so he was right in front of Felix. Before he could speak, Felix reached over to the bedside table and turned his little alarm clock so both of them could read the time.
“Ten minutes,” Felix repeated.
Gaius’s fingers drummed on his knee. He’d had what he was going to say all planned out. He’d rehearsed it several times on the Raptor ride to the Prometheus. Here, now, in front of Felix’s penetrating and sullen glare, all those carefully chosen words fled from his mind.
With time ticking away, Gaius said the first thing that came to his mind, hoping that it would work as an ice-breaker. “Felix, what are you doing to yourself here?”
Felix growled in disgust. “You, of all people, playing the moral superiority card against me? Honestly, Gaius. I’ll frak almost anyone who’ll pay, and I’m still probably more discerning in my sexual partners than you are.”
Gaius sat up in his chair. “That was uncalled for! Uh, and also irrelevant.” He put his fingers to his forehead and tried to collect his thoughts again. “What I meant was, this isn’t healthy, punishing yourself here. You may not believe this, but I happen to know a thing or two about guilt. I know that you will never heal by thrashing your soul like this.”
Felix’s jaw set, but his voice was weak. “I’m not punishing myself. It’s a job. You wouldn’t say I was punishing myself if I’d become a common vendor or even a Ha’la’tha thug, would you? It’s only your perception that makes this any different.”
“No, it’s your perception that makes it different, Felix,” Gaius responded, finally feeling like he was on something like solid ground. “Maybe it would be just another job for someone else, but not for you. One of the reasons we made each other so miserable when we were together-”
“We were never together,” Felix interrupted. “I may have been with you, but you were never with me.”
“This is exactly what I mean. We made each other miserable because you are unable to dissociate sex from emotions. You wouldn’t seek a situation like this one out unless you were looking for a way to punish yourself.”
“So it was all my fault, huh?” Felix turned away from him. “And all this time I thought it was the pills and the booze and the hot and cold running interns.”
“Felix-”
“You’ve wasted five minutes.” When Felix looked back at him again, his gaze was steady and angry.
Gaius swallowed. “I started out on the wrong foot. I apologize. I didn’t come here to chastise you for the way you’ve chosen to live your life.” Felix folded his arms over his chest, not giving Gaius an inch. “I came here to apologize, and to beg your forgiveness.”
That made Felix blink in surprise, but nothing more. Gaius pressed on. “I never intended for my church to have a formal procedure for confession.” He’d never intended to have a church, period, but that was beside the point. “It grew organically from the needs of my congregation. I preach forgiveness, you see. Many survivors approached me with the problem that the person whom they had wronged, and therefore whose forgiveness they sought in addition to God’s, was dead. They asked me to stand in the deceased’s stead, to listen to their stories and their apologies and grant them what absolution I could.”
“You’re not going to convert me,” Felix cut in.
Gaius considered admonishing Felix for interrupting him and using up some of his precious five minutes, but he decided against trying to win a petty battle that would likely cost him the war. “One night, after my broadcast, I took the confession of someone who was not a regular member of my congregation but who had hovered around the edges of the group, shall we say. The man introduced himself as Lieutenant Hoshi.”
Felix looked shocked for a moment. Once the surprise subsided, it left a much softer expression in its wake. Gaius said, “He spoke to me in confidence, but it is safe to say that he made a similar confession to me as he did to you, and then told me about your encounter with him.”
Felix dropped his head and stared at his knees. Gaius knew he wouldn’t tell him his time was up anymore.
“I don’t think you could understand my joy at hearing you were alive, Felix. Among so many other things, it meant I had the chance that so many of my congregants didn’t: the chance to seek forgiveness from the person I had wronged himself.”
He wanted to reach out and take Felix’s hand, or tip his face up so he would look at him, but Gaius knew he’d lost the right to such intimacy with Felix a long time ago. “Felix, I am so sorry for what I’ve done to you. I don’t believe I could have ever been what you wanted me to be on New Caprica. You put me on such a pedestal, I don’t think anyone could have been what you wanted. But I should never have treated your idealism so lightly, nor scorned your naiveté and open-heartedness as I did. Your capacity for hope was so central to who you were, and I destroyed it with so little thought.”
“Thank you,” Felix whispered. He still wouldn’t look up.
It wasn’t exactly an absolution, but Gaius did feel a weight lifted from his shoulders. Then he realized what came next. Even in the smooth, polished version he’d rehearsed on the way over, the transition at this point was tricky. “That’s not the only reason I came here. I also wanted to offer my forgiveness to you.”
Felix raised his eyes slowly, guardedly. “For what?”
That startled Gaius. “For trying to kill me, of course. Twice. Once with the bombing at the graduation, and once with the gun during the exodus. It’s clear that guilt is what’s holding you here in this place. I thought that perhaps your attempts to murder your former lover might be a major component of that guilt.”
Felix laughed mirthlessly. “Sorry to bruise your ego, Gaius, but those choices weren’t the ones that kept me awake at night.” It was a blow, but Gaius tried to hide it. Felix’s back bowed as he hunched in on himself. “Why is it that confessing to you seems so natural to so many people?”
“Perhaps because I’ve likely done something worse than they have at one time or another? Unintentionally, of course.” Gaius smiled. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d used self-deprecating humor honestly.
Apparently, Felix couldn’t, either. “Have you really changed? I was sure the sermons were all an act.”
“I don’t know,” Gaius said with complete candor. “Sometimes I think changeability is the only constant in my personality.”
Felix seemed to accept that, but Gaius could see Felix was still warring with himself over something. “Would you take my confession?” he finally asked.
Gaius started back in surprise. “I thought you hated me.”
“I probably should.” Felix shook his head and gestured at the room around him. “But…you came to me, here, even though you knew what I’ve become. You’ve done all that, and you’ve asked nothing of me.”
“I asked your forgiveness. That’s far from nothing.”
“Then you’ll be paying me back by giving me yours, if you can.”
Gaius nodded. Felix took a deep breath and began. “I’m sure Louis told you that I said a Cylon had fooled me into believing she loved me?”
Gaius shook his head, but the bottom dropped out of his stomach. Hoshi hadn’t said anything, but Gaius had heard things on the baseship about Felix’s Eight. Caprica would never answer his questions, merely telling him to stay away from that one. He knew enough, though. He had prayed that Felix had never found out about her.
Felix continued, “There was an Eight. She told me she never would have agreed to come to New Caprica if she’d known it was going to turn out the way it had. She said she wanted to help. She said she trusted me more than any other human, and she…. Gullible idiot that I was, I believed her.
“She was an administrator for the detention facility. She asked me to give her lists of people who should be released, and she would get them out. I never told her about my smuggling intel to the Resistance, but I gave her names, dozens of names, of everyone from important Resistance members to completely innocent people who’d merely had the bad luck to miss curfew or piss off a short-tempered Five. Oh gods…”
“It’s all right,” Gaius assured him, urging him on.
Felix regrouped. “It was the same day I saw the death list, no more than a few hours before that. I’d already put the jamming frequencies in the dead drop, so I knew it was only a matter of time before they contacted Galactica and formed some kind of rescue plan. I didn’t know how the rescue would work, but I knew the people in detention were the most vulnerable and most likely to get left behind because of the security. I decided I needed to come up with some sort of plan for evacuating the detention center in a hurry.
“I didn’t have access to much information on the detention center’s security protocols, but I did figure out how to hack into its security camera feed. I watched, trying to figure out how the guard rotation worked. I saw…” Felix’s voice wavered. He closed his eyes. “I saw an Eight and a One. The Eight was carrying a sheet of paper, and both of them had weapons. I don’t know if it was something about the way she walked or gestured or carried herself, but I knew she was my Eight.
“She looked at the list, then said something to the One. They stopped at a cell door and unlocked it. For a moment I thought, that’s strange, that she has a One of all Cylons helping her. They didn’t even walk into the cell, though. They raised their weapons, and… she went in after and dragged out the body. Fred Boyd. The first name on the list I’d given her the day before. They went down the hall, checking the list, opening cell after cell, and…
“I tried to tell myself it wasn’t her. Something had happened to her. Maybe she’d gotten killed and one of the others had accessed her memories when she downloaded. She couldn’t do what I’d seen. She loved me. And I…I cared for her, at the very least. I shared my bed with her. I’d fallen asleep in her arms the night before.
“So I went looking for her. I found her in a quiet, deserted area, a bluff overlooking the river that we’d always liked. I confronted her, and she laughed at me.”
Gaius closed his eyes in sympathy. When he opened them, Felix’s eyes were shining.
“She laughed at me, Gaius. She’d been playing me the whole time. She sneered at me when I talked about love and hope, then explained to me exactly how I’d willfully blinded myself, how easy I’d made it for her, and how there was nothing I could do about it.
“When she turned to leave, all I remember was feeling a surge of blind rage and powerlessness. I saw a large rock by my feet. I picked it up, and then…and then she was lying face down in the dirt, her brains spilling out of her head. The rock was still in my hand, covered with blood.
“I knew I’d be dead as soon as she resurrected and got word to the Cylons on the surface of what I’d done. I panicked anyway. I hid her body on the leeward bank of the river, in a little recess that shielded it from view from anyone just walking along the bluff. My hands were so bloody by that point. I tried to wash them off in the river, but it wouldn’t come off. I even went back to my tent to get something to scrub with, then back to the river for water. The water was freezing, and I scrubbed and scrubbed, but it wouldn’t come off. Finally, when I was in water up to my waist and so cold my fingers wouldn’t move, I realized I’d scrubbed so hard that I’d made my own fingers bleed. Ripped my fingernails to tatters.”
Felix looked down at his own hands. “I found the death list when I came back to work. I couldn’t forget my own death lists and what I’d done, but I had too much else to worry about. Until you and I and Caprica Six were the only ones left on Colonial One.”
It was so obvious, and yet it had never crossed Gaius’s mind before. “Felix, what were you planning to do after you’d killed me?”
“I could hardly administer what I thought was justice on you and not hold myself to the same standard.”
“Oh, Felix.” He touched Felix’s knee and was glad when he didn’t recoil. “It wasn’t your fault. You never intended for it to happen. I meant what I said that day. There is no sin in being an idealist.”
“That doesn’t change the facts.”
“One must live with facts. That doesn’t mean you have to live with guilt.”
“I’d say that was bullshit, except, I’d almost gotten there, months ago. I’d almost gotten to the point where I could face up to what I’d done on New Caprica, but by then, I’d been here so long, done so many things that I couldn’t own up to, I couldn’t show my face among my old friends again. By the time I got through that, everyone that mattered was dead, or I’d already burned my bridges with them.”
“It’s not too late,” Gaius said.
Felix shook his head. “Yes it is. It’s not enough anymore just to show up and expect to be welcomed with open arms. I have to do something. When I heard that Lee made the call throughout the Fleet for volunteers for the mission to the Colony, I knew it was my last chance. I made it all the way to getting in line for the transport to Galactica before I lost my nerve and ran.”
“My congregation would be happy to have you,” Gaius offered weakly.
Felix smiled wryly. “No chance in hell, Gaius. How many of your people stayed on Galactica?”
Gaius grimaced. He’d almost been able to forget about the seat on the Raptor waiting for him, until now. “Very few. I haven’t decided as for myself yet.”
Gaius jumped when Felix gripped his hand. “There’s another shuttle going to Galactica?”
Gaius nodded. “With one seat left for me.”
“You have to give your seat to me,” Felix begged. “Please. I have to go. It would save me. You would be saving me. I might even have to believe in God if you did.”
Here it was, a noble way out of a suicide mission, served up to Gaius on a silver platter. Felix had even opened up the possibility that it was God’s will, for frak’s sake. When Gaius looked into Felix’s desperate eyes, though, his decision was made.
Gaius patted Felix’s hand. “I can’t do that, Felix. Both of us are still seeking salvation through sacrifice. Death in the service of the greater good would be a sacrifice for me. Somehow, I doubt it would be a sacrifice for you.”
Felix pulled away from him.
“I won’t leave you here,” Gaius added quickly. “Not if you still want to find a way out. If you truly feel you must redeem yourself, I know of a way you can do it. I know that after everything that has happened between us, you have no reason to trust me. I ask you to try once more.”
“It’s not your cult?” Felix asked.
“No. If you’ll accompany me to the hangar deck, I’ll show you. Are you willing to take that step with me, Felix?”
Gaius stood and held out his hand. There were a few tense seconds before Felix took it and pulled himself up from the bed.
He asked Felix if he wanted to pack a bag, but Felix declined. They walked out of the room together, down the stairs, and into the tawdry front parlor. Felix only stopped to speak to the madam and another woman, a dark-haired prostitute. Gaius couldn’t hear the words exchanged, but each embraced Felix warmly. He offered his hand to Felix again when he rejoined him, and they stepped out of the Rising Sun and into the cold fluorescent light and bustling crowds on the street.
~~**~~**~~
It was so strange, to be looked at the way he was with Gaius. People recognized Gaius. It was a testament to Gaius’s oratory skill that so many people who had been ready to string him up after the trial now respectfully moved aside for him, some even smiling him and addressing him in reverent tones. He wondered what they must be thinking of the company Gaius was keeping. The prophet and the whore. It seemed to Felix like there was a story in the Sacred Scrolls about that, but he couldn’t remember anything else about it.
Gaius led him to a freight elevator at the very end of the Prometheus’s giant hangar-bay-turned-village. Felix hadn’t been to this area since the day he’d arrived on the ship. The elevator door was just a frame with bars across it, so Felix could see the people in the streets grow smaller and smaller as the elevator climbed.
Eventually, they came even with the village’s ceiling, then passed it, ascending into the areas where the ship’s crew worked and lived. Gaius stopped the elevator on one of these floors and took Felix down a hall. It was a completely different world up here: the hallways were all dark gunmetal, but they were clean. The few people all wore neat uniforms and walked with purpose. They greeted one another by name and gave him and Gaius odd looks. Gaius stopped one and asked for directions to the small upper hangar bay where shuttles docked, and then they continued on.
“You’ve been very quiet since we left,” Gaius finally commented.
“I’m a little overwhelmed,” Felix mumbled.
As if on cue, Gaius opened a hatch for him, and Felix staggered back and covered his eyes. The hangar bay’s bright lights nearly blinded him.
“Sorry, I should have warned you of that,” Gaius said. “Are you all right?”
Felix nodded, though it still took a minute for his eyes to adjust. Gaius led him by the arm as he blinked too rapidly to really see anything. When his eyes finally cooperated, he saw there was only one ship in the hangar bay, a Raptor. Its pilot sat on its wing and stood when he and Gaius approached.
Felix wasn’t sure if he was more shocked to see the Admiral’s stars flashing on Louis’s collar or the prosthetic leg glinting under his cut-off trouser leg.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” Louis murmured.
The openness and faith in Louis’s eyes told a different story, one that made Felix’s face redden and his gaze drop as a fresh wave of humiliation rushed over him. Louis’s hand on his shoulder made Felix look up, though.
Louis smiled at him. “No more shame. It’s time we all move past that, don’t you think?” Though his expression didn’t lose any of its kindness, Louis straightened up and transformed into a soldier, a leader, in an instant. “So, Captain Gaeta, are you ready to whip the baseship’s CIC into shape?”
Felix looked back and forth between Gaius and Louis in utter confusion. “What?”
“You didn’t tell him?” Louis asked Gaius.
“I was afraid he wouldn’t agree if I sprang it all on him at once,” Gaius defended. “It was hard enough getting him this far.”
Louis turned back to Felix. “I’m sorry about the confusion. Admiral Adama is leaving me in charge of the Fleet while Galactica goes off on the mission. I’ve moved the flag to the baseship, but I still haven’t found an XO. I can’t think of anyone who could do the job better.”
It was as disorienting as walking into the light of the hangar bay had been. “I don’t know. It’s been so long.” He turned to Gaius. “And serving on a baseship…the Eight-”
“Admiral Hoshi has already vetted his choice with the Cylons, and they approved,” Gaius reassured.
“After what I’ve done to you, how can you trust me like that? I don’t deserve it,” Felix asked Louis.
“I won’t lie. What you said hurt so much, but I think I needed to hear it. I still don’t know whether to forgive you or thank you, so I’ll just say, please, come with me.”
Felix looked over his shoulder at the door leading back into the Prometheus, then at Gaius and Louis and the Raptor. It wasn’t too late. He could still go back to the safety of an existence without hope but without disappointment, either.
But he didn’t.
“Yes, sir,” he answered, saluting and then shaking Louis’s hand.
Louis’s face split into a wide grin, and he pulled Felix in for a hug. The warmth of Louis’s arm around him sparked something in Felix that he had been sure was dead. That feeling coupled with the oddity of the entire situation left Felix a little dizzy. Gaius embracing him next didn’t help quiet those emotions, either. Rather, it added a myriad of memories to the mix, everything from the first time Gaius had hugged him, in the brig after Felix had cleared his name, to the last time he’d drifted off to sleep in Gaius’s arms on New Caprica, the stale smell of ambrosia and cigarillo smoke creeping into his dreams.
Felix came back to reality when Louis asked, “Would you co-pilot, Felix? You have wings, if I recall.”
Warmth spread through Felix’s chest as he nodded. He and Gaius helped Louis into the Raptor, and Felix settled into the seat next to Louis’s. He was amazed at how quickly running the Raptor’s controls returned to him. He and Louis managed the pre-flight check without a stumble. Gaius made a passable attempt at being an ECO, even though it wasn’t really necessary for a ship-to-ship shuttle run.
“Raptor 719, you are clear for take-off,” the Prometheus’s LSO said over the comm.
“Copy that,” Louis replied. He looked over at Felix. “Take us out, Captain.”
Felix could feel the vibration of the Raptor’s engines thrum in the control column as he took hold of it. It was far from his smoothest takeoff ever, but the Raptor lifted off the tarmac and sailed out into the black. It dawned on him that he hadn’t been outside in any meaningful sense for well over a year, since he came to the Prometheus. Felix had to focus most of his attention on avoiding other ships, of course, but he took a moment to look at the stars, distant and brilliant and beautiful, and to realize how much he’d missed them.
A fellow is more afraid of the trouble he might have than he ever is of the trouble he’s already got. He’ll cling to trouble he’s used to before he’ll risk a change.
-Light in August
Felix curled up in the ragged but comfortable overstuffed chair in Rosie’s private drawing room, pulling his knees up to his chin and wrapping his arms around his shins. Rhea was bundled up in a blanket in the other plush chair, lying in it so her neck lay on one armrest and her legs rested on the other, her feet dangling over the end table. Even though there was no picture, they stared at Rosie’s wireless as they listened to the afternoon news report.
They looked up when Rosie came back into the room. “What did Evan want?” Rhea asked.
Rosie sighed. “Wanted me to help run off a client there’s no way in hell any of my kids was gonna take. It’s his job, but on this one, I get why he wanted back-up.”
“Why?” Felix asked.
Rosie turned up the dial on the wireless, then sank into her rocking chair. “Cylon.”
Felix’s blood ran cold. “Which model?”
“The man. They call those Twos, I guess,” Rosie said.
Felix felt relief wash over him. It wasn’t her. She hadn’t found him. Maybe she hadn’t survived the Cylon rebellion at all…
Rosie must have seen his panic. “Don’t worry, Curly. I don’t care how friendly the President says we are with ‘em. Not a one will ever cross my threshold. Like I told this one, he and his kind took enough without asking or paying on the Colonies and New Caprica. Price they’d have to pay just to break even’s higher than any of ‘em could ever scrape together.”
Felix was glad when the conversation dropped. He turned back to fix his gaze on the wireless, Rosie’s chair creaking in the background as she rocked back and forth.
“Ellen Tigh, wife of Galactica’s second-in-command Colonel Saul Tigh, maintained that she had no idea she was a Cylon until she died on New Caprica and was reborn on an enemy baseship. She claimed she was held captive by a copy of Cylon Number One, whom she referred to as her “son.” When reporter Sekou Hamilton asked a follow-up question about her calling the Cylon her son, Vice President Adama quickly stepped in and ended the press conference. There has been no official statement explaining how Ellen Tigh managed to return to the Fleet, nor any comments on the rumors that the Cylon known as Sharon Valerii, who attempted to assassinate Admiral Adama several years ago, has returned to the Fleet as well.”
“Gods, it really does feel like the end of the worlds, what with the dead rising and all, don’t it?” Rosie murmured.
“Worlds ended a long time ago,” Felix said.
Rhea ignored Felix and nodded at Rosie. “I always figured if the worlds ended during my lifetime, if I lived long enough to know it was ending, I’d spend my last days huddled around a wireless, trying to figure out what the frak was going on.”
“Everything wearing out, running out,” Rosie added. “We all knew we couldn’t go on like this forever.”
“I always figured we’d die in a hail of Cylon fire, not from just…falling apart,” Rhea said.
“Why do I listen to the news with you two anymore?” Felix grumbled.
“Aw, because you like us, don’t you?” Rhea said.
Rosie pushed herself up from her chair and shuffled to the wireless. “No, Curly’s got a point. We’re quite the gloomy pair. Let’s find something else to listen to, huh? Gotta be something better on than the news.”
She fiddled with the dial for a bit, going past another newscast and a station playing godsawful Gemenese monastic chants. The channel she settled on crackled a bit but came in well enough to easily understand the speaker.
“Thank you, Jeanne. Tonight, I would like to speak with you about something very dear to my heart. As many of you know, I have had a very…fraught path to faith. A very circuitous path, with many dead ends and blind alleys. But now, I have seen the truth, my friends…”
Rhea smiled. “Is this a new sermon? I haven’t heard it before.”
“No, it’s a repeat, but I love this one.”
“Dear gods, not Gaius Baltar,” Felix whined.
“You’re out-voted,” Rosie said as she and Rhea exchanged a look and she settled back into her rocking chair.
“Something people often fail to mention about hate and guilt is that they are easy emotions. They’re comfortable. Though it may seem like screaming obscenities at your enemy is a lot of work, it merely seems so because it is loud and requires a certain amount of energy. The same goes for self-flagellation. At the end of a day filled with hatred and guilt, you feel as though you have accomplished something, because your voice is hoarse, your muscles are sore, and you are tired out by your emotions.
But physical exhaustion is a poor measure of accomplishment, my friends. We hang on to these safe emotions not because they are good, but because they are familiar. It’s the same reason why we fear death. It is the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns, which puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others we know not of.
We have all become so comfortable with hatred and guilt. It’s understandable, in an existence as precarious as ours, that we would cling to whatever safety we can find. But I challenge you, my friends, to trust that there is something else, something better, waiting for us all on the other side of guilt and hate…”
Felix shivered and curled in on himself even tighter.
He jumped when Rhea spoke to him. “Here, have one.” She held out a bag of what looked like seeds.
“You’re eating seeds?” Felix said, incredulous. “Are you nuts? Those are worth a fortune. You should buy some dirt and plant them.”
Rhea shook her head. “No. They’re pomegranate seeds. I kept a few just in case, but really, there’s no way I could afford enough dirt to plant one tree, let alone dozens of them.”
“Still, I can’t take them,” Felix said. “I don’t even want to think about how much you must’ve paid to get real food. You enjoy them.”
Rhea shoved the bag under Felix’s nose. “They’re good for you. Fiber, antioxidants, not to mention a nice break from algae.”
“I can’t.”
“We bought them for you, honey,” Rosie said.
Felix looked at Rhea and Rosie. Suddenly, he had the feeling he was in an intervention of some sort.
“We’re worried about you,” Rosie pressed. “You don’t eat. I don’t think you sleep. All you do is take clients and smoke.”
“I eat,” Felix protested without much passion. He’d never eaten much while he lived here, but even he had to admit his appetite had fallen off to almost nothing lately. “Maybe not a lot, but enough of that frakking algae to keep me going.”
Rhea and Rosie looked at each other meaningfully. Then Rhea turned and said, “We’re worried about you and Dillon.”
Felix groaned. “I’ve told you a hundred times, he’s not hurting me. He just prefers not being here at the Rising Sun.”
Rosie and Rhea were both exasperated. “Whether or not he’s physically hurting you, Curly, he’s doing a number on your brain. Everyone sees it.” Rosie paused, then summed up the courage to ask, “Is it drugs?”
“No! Gods, no.” Dillon had offered, more than once. Felix hadn’t taken him up on the offer yet.
“Then why does he need to take you away from the Rising Sun to see you?” Rosie said. “I’m putting my foot down. No more off-campus fun for you, kiddo. He wants to see you, he comes here, and he plays by my rules.”
“He plays by your rules ‘off-campus,’ too,” Felix shot back, feeling like a disgruntled teenager.
That was a lie, of course, but it was a safe one. For all his violent tendencies, Dillon didn’t get off inflicting physical pain. Plus, he didn’t want to damage the merchandise. But the other rules…the games Dillon liked to play, the humiliation and the complete control-Felix knew most of that wouldn’t fly in the Rising Sun.
“I don’t think you should see him anymore at all,” Rhea said.
“Not only is that not an option, but how do you know it’s so horrible? What if I like the way he does things?”
Rosie and Rhea clearly didn’t buy that, though in a way, Felix did. “Like” was probably too strong a word. He didn’t get anything like pleasure out of their encounters. He certainly didn’t enjoy them. And frankly, he didn’t trust Dillon at all. When Felix shook with fear, it was fear, not a thrill. But he found a certain relief when Dillon methodically stripped away his self, leaving only a sort of numb not-Felix behind. With others, Felix could play roles, flirt with transformation. With Dillon, there was no transformation, only obliteration.
“It’s just that you’re a different person when you come back from those ‘outings’ with Dillon. And not in a good way,” Rhea said. “It feels like you’re slipping away from us. You’re gone with him for days at a time, and every time we’re terrified you’re not going to come back. We’ve lost too many people already, and we care about you too much to let you go.”
“He’s offered to keep me,” Felix said quietly, unable to meet their eyes.
“I hope you told him to shove his offer where the sun doesn’t shine-”
“I’m going to have a word with the Guatrau about-”
“I said my price was the Ha’la’tha leaving the Rising Sun alone for as long as the Fleet lasts.”
The women sat in stunned silence. Felix couldn’t bring himself to say any more. The only sound in the room was Gaius’s voice and the crackle of the wireless.
“It is no less frightening, to take this trusting step into forgiveness and love than it is to trust in the first article of all faiths: this is not all that we are. If we can trust God to prepare a place for our souls after our mortal bodies fail, why can’t we trust Him to protect our souls from the newness and vulnerability of forgiveness and love? You no longer need to fear the unknown, because He will take your hand and guide you to the other side of the river…”
Felix felt a warm palm on his shoulder. “Hylas. Felix.”
Felix’s head shot up. Rosie and Rhea both stood beside his chair, looking at him knowingly.
“We’ve known who you were for a while,” Rhea explained. “Vice President Zarek asked for ‘Felix’ when he came for you, and that was enough to refresh my memory.” She lightly ran her fingers through his curls. “You looked so different back then, with your hair cut and your neat suit. So much younger.”
Felix was shaking. “How did you know me then?”
Rhea smiled sadly. “I’m not surprised you don’t remember me. I was one of President Baltar’s…oh, what did you call us, ‘interns’? I was there when you told him the Cylons had found New Caprica.”
For some reason, that made Felix want to cry. He hid his face in his hands.
Rhea crouched down beside him and gently took his hands away. “The point is, I know you. We know you, and we know you’re not doing this because you want to. I don’t know what you think you’ve done so wrong that you deserve Dillon-”
“I want to help you,” Felix said, forcing his voice to stay even. “He’s the Guatrau’s right-hand man, and he wants me. He’s going to win in the end, so why not get a good deal out of it and take care of the people I care about? I don’t have any choice.”
That was the truth, or at least a good portion of it. Rhea and Rosie were all Felix had left. Dee and Tom and probably Livia were dead, Louis would never forgive him, and he never wanted to see Gaius again. There was no old life left to return to. He hadn’t realized it until now, but he’d had hopes of going back, at one time. Maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised, since hope had a funny habit of sneaking up on him in the face of despair. Like when one speech from the Old Man about a mythical planet had turned a funeral and an apocalypse into a mission. Like when a few drinks, a couple slow dances, and one long, sweet kiss from Louis on Colonial Day on New Caprica had started piecing back together a part of his heart he’d felt so sure Gaius had irreparably shattered. And now Earth was dead, and as for Louis…Felix wished he could just forget everything that had happened on New Caprica, even the good times. Especially the good times.
“We’ll survive just fine without you playing the martyr, Curly,” Rosie assured him. “As for the rest of it, the Guatrau may have a lot of power, but she’s not a God. Dillon certainly isn’t. I’m more than willing to stick up for you, if you’ll stick up for yourself a little, too.”
Felix took a deep, shaky breath. Rosie took his chin in her hand and tipped his face up. “Honey, I won’t insult you with that bullshit of everybody always having a choice. But you ain’t past the point of no return yet. You’ve still got plenty of choices.”
“Please stay,” Rhea whispered. “If you care about us, please pick us, huh?”
Felix exhaled. “I’ll stay.”
Rhea hugged him. When she pulled back, he saw she was laughing through unspilled tears. “Good. Now, eat.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Felix said, saluting her and accepting the bag of pomegranate seeds she thrust into his other hand.
Rhea and Rosie retreated to their seats and talked about Dillon, the Guatrau, and their plans for dealing with both of them. Felix couldn’t focus. As he placed one of the precious seeds in his mouth and ground it between his teeth, he felt as though he’d just stepped back from the edge of something very dark and much more unalterable than anything he’d faced since he came to the Prometheus. He couldn’t quite say he deserved to take that step back from the abyss, but he was grateful for it.
~~**~~**~~
The large woman who’d met him in the front room-Gaius had already forgotten her name-left him at the foot of the stairs leading to the prostitutes’ quarters. Gaius wished she’d offered to go up with him, and for a wild moment he even considered calling her back. He took a deep breath and mounted the stairs, surreptitiously looking around him for the woman in his mind. She hadn’t appeared since he’d failed to cross the line in the hangar bay.
“There was a reason I didn’t cross then,” Gaius muttered under his breath, hoping she’d hear. “If I had, I wouldn’t have had this opportunity. Clearly, it was God’s will. Wasn’t it?”
When he got to the door, he wasn’t sure he could knock without that heavenly reassurance. He waited, listening. He heard nothing but a low feminine giggle followed by a male moan coming from one of the rooms farther down the hall.
“Please? Even a very small sign?” he begged the emptiness.
Of course, he knew he had to knock, divine thumbs-up or no. Admiral Hoshi hadn’t agreed to hold open the last seat on the last Raptor headed to Galactica for him so he could stand in front of Felix’s door and not go in. Gaius wasn’t stalling now because he wanted to put off his ultimate decision of whether he took that seat or not-he wasn’t, truthfully. Well, maybe a little, but he really was terrified of how Felix would react to him. After all, he’d nearly shot Gaius in the head the last time they’d spoken. Not to mention, even Hoshi hadn’t exactly volunteered to come along.
Gaius admitted to himself that that thought was hardly fair of him, blaming this on Hoshi somehow. This had been his own idea, his guilt, his chance to make amends. He was lucky Hoshi understood how much these extra few hours might mean. Gaius didn’t feel lucky now, but he had when Hoshi had acquiesced, and he was sure he would again, soon.
Nearly a minute later and with no signal from Providence in sight, Gaius sighed resignedly and knocked.
He heard a voice through the door. Even muffled, it was unmistakably Felix. “Unless you’re interested in catching a very nasty rash, I’m not available tonight.”
Gaius winced and opened the door far enough to stick his head in. “Actually, that isn’t exactly what I’ve come here for.”
The room was small and terribly seedy. Felix was lying in bed, naked at least from the chest up, his lower body covered by the comforter. As soon as their eyes met, Felix dropped the book he was reading and fisted his other hand in the bedspread. “Get out.”
“Felix-”
“I’m never available for you. Get out.” He said it evenly and almost quietly, but there was still steel in his voice.
“Please, I didn’t come here for your…services,” he said awkwardly. “I came to speak with you.”
Felix pulled the comforter up around him tighter. “I have nothing to say to you. There are plenty of places in the Rising Sun to stick your cock. I don’t much care if you put it in a man or a woman or a light bulb socket, but it’s not going to be anywhere in here. So get out, or I’m calling security.”
“I didn’t come here for-well, also, I bribed the bouncer downstairs to take the night off,” Gaius admitted sheepishly. Felix threw his head back against the headboard and huffed, clearly annoyed. “I knew it was the only way you’d give me a chance to say what I want-what I need, Felix, what I need to say.” Felix rolled his eyes. Gaius added, “The madam downstairs likely won’t help you rid yourself of me, either. She’s a fan of my broadcasts, it seems. She thought that I might be good for you.”
Felix stared at the ceiling and shook his head. “Ten minutes. Then I toss you out on your ass.”
“Ten minutes. Excellent. I can convince you-” Gaius was already dragging a chair over to the bed when he noticed Felix’s blush. Did he still have the power to make Felix blush, after all that had happened? “Oh, would you like to-would you feel more comfortable, uh, dressing first?”
Felix nodded and gestured towards a small cupboard in the corner. “My clothes are in the closet over there.”
Gaius retrieved underwear, trousers, and a t-shirt from the closet and set them beside Felix on the bed.
“Considering where we are, not to mention our history, I know this is an odd request, but would you mind turning around while I…?” Felix asked.
“No, of course not.” Gaius turned away, and he heard the rustle of bed sheets and clothing against skin. He tried to wait until he was sure Felix had pulled on the trousers, but Gaius couldn’t help peeking over his shoulder. He breathed a small sigh of relief when he saw that Felix’s back remained unscarred. He hadn’t even realized he’d half-expected to see the same sort of damage as when he’d done this with Gina. No, Felix’s ribs protruded far more than Gaius remembered, and he moved very gingerly, but there were no physical injuries that wouldn’t heal in time.
After a bit more rustling, Felix finally said, “You can turn around now.”
Felix was sitting on the bed. Gaius pulled the chair so he was right in front of Felix. Before he could speak, Felix reached over to the bedside table and turned his little alarm clock so both of them could read the time.
“Ten minutes,” Felix repeated.
Gaius’s fingers drummed on his knee. He’d had what he was going to say all planned out. He’d rehearsed it several times on the Raptor ride to the Prometheus. Here, now, in front of Felix’s penetrating and sullen glare, all those carefully chosen words fled from his mind.
With time ticking away, Gaius said the first thing that came to his mind, hoping that it would work as an ice-breaker. “Felix, what are you doing to yourself here?”
Felix growled in disgust. “You, of all people, playing the moral superiority card against me? Honestly, Gaius. I’ll frak almost anyone who’ll pay, and I’m still probably more discerning in my sexual partners than you are.”
Gaius sat up in his chair. “That was uncalled for! Uh, and also irrelevant.” He put his fingers to his forehead and tried to collect his thoughts again. “What I meant was, this isn’t healthy, punishing yourself here. You may not believe this, but I happen to know a thing or two about guilt. I know that you will never heal by thrashing your soul like this.”
Felix’s jaw set, but his voice was weak. “I’m not punishing myself. It’s a job. You wouldn’t say I was punishing myself if I’d become a common vendor or even a Ha’la’tha thug, would you? It’s only your perception that makes this any different.”
“No, it’s your perception that makes it different, Felix,” Gaius responded, finally feeling like he was on something like solid ground. “Maybe it would be just another job for someone else, but not for you. One of the reasons we made each other so miserable when we were together-”
“We were never together,” Felix interrupted. “I may have been with you, but you were never with me.”
“This is exactly what I mean. We made each other miserable because you are unable to dissociate sex from emotions. You wouldn’t seek a situation like this one out unless you were looking for a way to punish yourself.”
“So it was all my fault, huh?” Felix turned away from him. “And all this time I thought it was the pills and the booze and the hot and cold running interns.”
“Felix-”
“You’ve wasted five minutes.” When Felix looked back at him again, his gaze was steady and angry.
Gaius swallowed. “I started out on the wrong foot. I apologize. I didn’t come here to chastise you for the way you’ve chosen to live your life.” Felix folded his arms over his chest, not giving Gaius an inch. “I came here to apologize, and to beg your forgiveness.”
That made Felix blink in surprise, but nothing more. Gaius pressed on. “I never intended for my church to have a formal procedure for confession.” He’d never intended to have a church, period, but that was beside the point. “It grew organically from the needs of my congregation. I preach forgiveness, you see. Many survivors approached me with the problem that the person whom they had wronged, and therefore whose forgiveness they sought in addition to God’s, was dead. They asked me to stand in the deceased’s stead, to listen to their stories and their apologies and grant them what absolution I could.”
“You’re not going to convert me,” Felix cut in.
Gaius considered admonishing Felix for interrupting him and using up some of his precious five minutes, but he decided against trying to win a petty battle that would likely cost him the war. “One night, after my broadcast, I took the confession of someone who was not a regular member of my congregation but who had hovered around the edges of the group, shall we say. The man introduced himself as Lieutenant Hoshi.”
Felix looked shocked for a moment. Once the surprise subsided, it left a much softer expression in its wake. Gaius said, “He spoke to me in confidence, but it is safe to say that he made a similar confession to me as he did to you, and then told me about your encounter with him.”
Felix dropped his head and stared at his knees. Gaius knew he wouldn’t tell him his time was up anymore.
“I don’t think you could understand my joy at hearing you were alive, Felix. Among so many other things, it meant I had the chance that so many of my congregants didn’t: the chance to seek forgiveness from the person I had wronged himself.”
He wanted to reach out and take Felix’s hand, or tip his face up so he would look at him, but Gaius knew he’d lost the right to such intimacy with Felix a long time ago. “Felix, I am so sorry for what I’ve done to you. I don’t believe I could have ever been what you wanted me to be on New Caprica. You put me on such a pedestal, I don’t think anyone could have been what you wanted. But I should never have treated your idealism so lightly, nor scorned your naiveté and open-heartedness as I did. Your capacity for hope was so central to who you were, and I destroyed it with so little thought.”
“Thank you,” Felix whispered. He still wouldn’t look up.
It wasn’t exactly an absolution, but Gaius did feel a weight lifted from his shoulders. Then he realized what came next. Even in the smooth, polished version he’d rehearsed on the way over, the transition at this point was tricky. “That’s not the only reason I came here. I also wanted to offer my forgiveness to you.”
Felix raised his eyes slowly, guardedly. “For what?”
That startled Gaius. “For trying to kill me, of course. Twice. Once with the bombing at the graduation, and once with the gun during the exodus. It’s clear that guilt is what’s holding you here in this place. I thought that perhaps your attempts to murder your former lover might be a major component of that guilt.”
Felix laughed mirthlessly. “Sorry to bruise your ego, Gaius, but those choices weren’t the ones that kept me awake at night.” It was a blow, but Gaius tried to hide it. Felix’s back bowed as he hunched in on himself. “Why is it that confessing to you seems so natural to so many people?”
“Perhaps because I’ve likely done something worse than they have at one time or another? Unintentionally, of course.” Gaius smiled. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d used self-deprecating humor honestly.
Apparently, Felix couldn’t, either. “Have you really changed? I was sure the sermons were all an act.”
“I don’t know,” Gaius said with complete candor. “Sometimes I think changeability is the only constant in my personality.”
Felix seemed to accept that, but Gaius could see Felix was still warring with himself over something. “Would you take my confession?” he finally asked.
Gaius started back in surprise. “I thought you hated me.”
“I probably should.” Felix shook his head and gestured at the room around him. “But…you came to me, here, even though you knew what I’ve become. You’ve done all that, and you’ve asked nothing of me.”
“I asked your forgiveness. That’s far from nothing.”
“Then you’ll be paying me back by giving me yours, if you can.”
Gaius nodded. Felix took a deep breath and began. “I’m sure Louis told you that I said a Cylon had fooled me into believing she loved me?”
Gaius shook his head, but the bottom dropped out of his stomach. Hoshi hadn’t said anything, but Gaius had heard things on the baseship about Felix’s Eight. Caprica would never answer his questions, merely telling him to stay away from that one. He knew enough, though. He had prayed that Felix had never found out about her.
Felix continued, “There was an Eight. She told me she never would have agreed to come to New Caprica if she’d known it was going to turn out the way it had. She said she wanted to help. She said she trusted me more than any other human, and she…. Gullible idiot that I was, I believed her.
“She was an administrator for the detention facility. She asked me to give her lists of people who should be released, and she would get them out. I never told her about my smuggling intel to the Resistance, but I gave her names, dozens of names, of everyone from important Resistance members to completely innocent people who’d merely had the bad luck to miss curfew or piss off a short-tempered Five. Oh gods…”
“It’s all right,” Gaius assured him, urging him on.
Felix regrouped. “It was the same day I saw the death list, no more than a few hours before that. I’d already put the jamming frequencies in the dead drop, so I knew it was only a matter of time before they contacted Galactica and formed some kind of rescue plan. I didn’t know how the rescue would work, but I knew the people in detention were the most vulnerable and most likely to get left behind because of the security. I decided I needed to come up with some sort of plan for evacuating the detention center in a hurry.
“I didn’t have access to much information on the detention center’s security protocols, but I did figure out how to hack into its security camera feed. I watched, trying to figure out how the guard rotation worked. I saw…” Felix’s voice wavered. He closed his eyes. “I saw an Eight and a One. The Eight was carrying a sheet of paper, and both of them had weapons. I don’t know if it was something about the way she walked or gestured or carried herself, but I knew she was my Eight.
“She looked at the list, then said something to the One. They stopped at a cell door and unlocked it. For a moment I thought, that’s strange, that she has a One of all Cylons helping her. They didn’t even walk into the cell, though. They raised their weapons, and… she went in after and dragged out the body. Fred Boyd. The first name on the list I’d given her the day before. They went down the hall, checking the list, opening cell after cell, and…
“I tried to tell myself it wasn’t her. Something had happened to her. Maybe she’d gotten killed and one of the others had accessed her memories when she downloaded. She couldn’t do what I’d seen. She loved me. And I…I cared for her, at the very least. I shared my bed with her. I’d fallen asleep in her arms the night before.
“So I went looking for her. I found her in a quiet, deserted area, a bluff overlooking the river that we’d always liked. I confronted her, and she laughed at me.”
Gaius closed his eyes in sympathy. When he opened them, Felix’s eyes were shining.
“She laughed at me, Gaius. She’d been playing me the whole time. She sneered at me when I talked about love and hope, then explained to me exactly how I’d willfully blinded myself, how easy I’d made it for her, and how there was nothing I could do about it.
“When she turned to leave, all I remember was feeling a surge of blind rage and powerlessness. I saw a large rock by my feet. I picked it up, and then…and then she was lying face down in the dirt, her brains spilling out of her head. The rock was still in my hand, covered with blood.
“I knew I’d be dead as soon as she resurrected and got word to the Cylons on the surface of what I’d done. I panicked anyway. I hid her body on the leeward bank of the river, in a little recess that shielded it from view from anyone just walking along the bluff. My hands were so bloody by that point. I tried to wash them off in the river, but it wouldn’t come off. I even went back to my tent to get something to scrub with, then back to the river for water. The water was freezing, and I scrubbed and scrubbed, but it wouldn’t come off. Finally, when I was in water up to my waist and so cold my fingers wouldn’t move, I realized I’d scrubbed so hard that I’d made my own fingers bleed. Ripped my fingernails to tatters.”
Felix looked down at his own hands. “I found the death list when I came back to work. I couldn’t forget my own death lists and what I’d done, but I had too much else to worry about. Until you and I and Caprica Six were the only ones left on Colonial One.”
It was so obvious, and yet it had never crossed Gaius’s mind before. “Felix, what were you planning to do after you’d killed me?”
“I could hardly administer what I thought was justice on you and not hold myself to the same standard.”
“Oh, Felix.” He touched Felix’s knee and was glad when he didn’t recoil. “It wasn’t your fault. You never intended for it to happen. I meant what I said that day. There is no sin in being an idealist.”
“That doesn’t change the facts.”
“One must live with facts. That doesn’t mean you have to live with guilt.”
“I’d say that was bullshit, except, I’d almost gotten there, months ago. I’d almost gotten to the point where I could face up to what I’d done on New Caprica, but by then, I’d been here so long, done so many things that I couldn’t own up to, I couldn’t show my face among my old friends again. By the time I got through that, everyone that mattered was dead, or I’d already burned my bridges with them.”
“It’s not too late,” Gaius said.
Felix shook his head. “Yes it is. It’s not enough anymore just to show up and expect to be welcomed with open arms. I have to do something. When I heard that Lee made the call throughout the Fleet for volunteers for the mission to the Colony, I knew it was my last chance. I made it all the way to getting in line for the transport to Galactica before I lost my nerve and ran.”
“My congregation would be happy to have you,” Gaius offered weakly.
Felix smiled wryly. “No chance in hell, Gaius. How many of your people stayed on Galactica?”
Gaius grimaced. He’d almost been able to forget about the seat on the Raptor waiting for him, until now. “Very few. I haven’t decided as for myself yet.”
Gaius jumped when Felix gripped his hand. “There’s another shuttle going to Galactica?”
Gaius nodded. “With one seat left for me.”
“You have to give your seat to me,” Felix begged. “Please. I have to go. It would save me. You would be saving me. I might even have to believe in God if you did.”
Here it was, a noble way out of a suicide mission, served up to Gaius on a silver platter. Felix had even opened up the possibility that it was God’s will, for frak’s sake. When Gaius looked into Felix’s desperate eyes, though, his decision was made.
Gaius patted Felix’s hand. “I can’t do that, Felix. Both of us are still seeking salvation through sacrifice. Death in the service of the greater good would be a sacrifice for me. Somehow, I doubt it would be a sacrifice for you.”
Felix pulled away from him.
“I won’t leave you here,” Gaius added quickly. “Not if you still want to find a way out. If you truly feel you must redeem yourself, I know of a way you can do it. I know that after everything that has happened between us, you have no reason to trust me. I ask you to try once more.”
“It’s not your cult?” Felix asked.
“No. If you’ll accompany me to the hangar deck, I’ll show you. Are you willing to take that step with me, Felix?”
Gaius stood and held out his hand. There were a few tense seconds before Felix took it and pulled himself up from the bed.
He asked Felix if he wanted to pack a bag, but Felix declined. They walked out of the room together, down the stairs, and into the tawdry front parlor. Felix only stopped to speak to the madam and another woman, a dark-haired prostitute. Gaius couldn’t hear the words exchanged, but each embraced Felix warmly. He offered his hand to Felix again when he rejoined him, and they stepped out of the Rising Sun and into the cold fluorescent light and bustling crowds on the street.
~~**~~**~~
It was so strange, to be looked at the way he was with Gaius. People recognized Gaius. It was a testament to Gaius’s oratory skill that so many people who had been ready to string him up after the trial now respectfully moved aside for him, some even smiling him and addressing him in reverent tones. He wondered what they must be thinking of the company Gaius was keeping. The prophet and the whore. It seemed to Felix like there was a story in the Sacred Scrolls about that, but he couldn’t remember anything else about it.
Gaius led him to a freight elevator at the very end of the Prometheus’s giant hangar-bay-turned-village. Felix hadn’t been to this area since the day he’d arrived on the ship. The elevator door was just a frame with bars across it, so Felix could see the people in the streets grow smaller and smaller as the elevator climbed.
Eventually, they came even with the village’s ceiling, then passed it, ascending into the areas where the ship’s crew worked and lived. Gaius stopped the elevator on one of these floors and took Felix down a hall. It was a completely different world up here: the hallways were all dark gunmetal, but they were clean. The few people all wore neat uniforms and walked with purpose. They greeted one another by name and gave him and Gaius odd looks. Gaius stopped one and asked for directions to the small upper hangar bay where shuttles docked, and then they continued on.
“You’ve been very quiet since we left,” Gaius finally commented.
“I’m a little overwhelmed,” Felix mumbled.
As if on cue, Gaius opened a hatch for him, and Felix staggered back and covered his eyes. The hangar bay’s bright lights nearly blinded him.
“Sorry, I should have warned you of that,” Gaius said. “Are you all right?”
Felix nodded, though it still took a minute for his eyes to adjust. Gaius led him by the arm as he blinked too rapidly to really see anything. When his eyes finally cooperated, he saw there was only one ship in the hangar bay, a Raptor. Its pilot sat on its wing and stood when he and Gaius approached.
Felix wasn’t sure if he was more shocked to see the Admiral’s stars flashing on Louis’s collar or the prosthetic leg glinting under his cut-off trouser leg.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” Louis murmured.
The openness and faith in Louis’s eyes told a different story, one that made Felix’s face redden and his gaze drop as a fresh wave of humiliation rushed over him. Louis’s hand on his shoulder made Felix look up, though.
Louis smiled at him. “No more shame. It’s time we all move past that, don’t you think?” Though his expression didn’t lose any of its kindness, Louis straightened up and transformed into a soldier, a leader, in an instant. “So, Captain Gaeta, are you ready to whip the baseship’s CIC into shape?”
Felix looked back and forth between Gaius and Louis in utter confusion. “What?”
“You didn’t tell him?” Louis asked Gaius.
“I was afraid he wouldn’t agree if I sprang it all on him at once,” Gaius defended. “It was hard enough getting him this far.”
Louis turned back to Felix. “I’m sorry about the confusion. Admiral Adama is leaving me in charge of the Fleet while Galactica goes off on the mission. I’ve moved the flag to the baseship, but I still haven’t found an XO. I can’t think of anyone who could do the job better.”
It was as disorienting as walking into the light of the hangar bay had been. “I don’t know. It’s been so long.” He turned to Gaius. “And serving on a baseship…the Eight-”
“Admiral Hoshi has already vetted his choice with the Cylons, and they approved,” Gaius reassured.
“After what I’ve done to you, how can you trust me like that? I don’t deserve it,” Felix asked Louis.
“I won’t lie. What you said hurt so much, but I think I needed to hear it. I still don’t know whether to forgive you or thank you, so I’ll just say, please, come with me.”
Felix looked over his shoulder at the door leading back into the Prometheus, then at Gaius and Louis and the Raptor. It wasn’t too late. He could still go back to the safety of an existence without hope but without disappointment, either.
But he didn’t.
“Yes, sir,” he answered, saluting and then shaking Louis’s hand.
Louis’s face split into a wide grin, and he pulled Felix in for a hug. The warmth of Louis’s arm around him sparked something in Felix that he had been sure was dead. That feeling coupled with the oddity of the entire situation left Felix a little dizzy. Gaius embracing him next didn’t help quiet those emotions, either. Rather, it added a myriad of memories to the mix, everything from the first time Gaius had hugged him, in the brig after Felix had cleared his name, to the last time he’d drifted off to sleep in Gaius’s arms on New Caprica, the stale smell of ambrosia and cigarillo smoke creeping into his dreams.
Felix came back to reality when Louis asked, “Would you co-pilot, Felix? You have wings, if I recall.”
Warmth spread through Felix’s chest as he nodded. He and Gaius helped Louis into the Raptor, and Felix settled into the seat next to Louis’s. He was amazed at how quickly running the Raptor’s controls returned to him. He and Louis managed the pre-flight check without a stumble. Gaius made a passable attempt at being an ECO, even though it wasn’t really necessary for a ship-to-ship shuttle run.
“Raptor 719, you are clear for take-off,” the Prometheus’s LSO said over the comm.
“Copy that,” Louis replied. He looked over at Felix. “Take us out, Captain.”
Felix could feel the vibration of the Raptor’s engines thrum in the control column as he took hold of it. It was far from his smoothest takeoff ever, but the Raptor lifted off the tarmac and sailed out into the black. It dawned on him that he hadn’t been outside in any meaningful sense for well over a year, since he came to the Prometheus. Felix had to focus most of his attention on avoiding other ships, of course, but he took a moment to look at the stars, distant and brilliant and beautiful, and to realize how much he’d missed them.