BSG/Torchwood fic: "Good Faith"
Title: Good Faith
Authors: millari and trovia
Fandoms: Battlestar Galactica 2003/Torchwood
Characters: Gaeta, Owen, Jack, Dee, Cottle, Ishay
Wordcount: 2900 words
Beta: Thank you very much, sphinxvictorian
Summary: ”Ships don't run on bloody Chinese takeout, you know.”
Authors' Notes: It should be stated for the record that almost every line in this story was fought about viciously. A few had us paralyzed by laughter. Others, by tears. Also, trovia almost broke her fingers trying to type on that bloody (!) American keyboard that had somehow found its way to Germany past customs. Just so you know.
“Owen. Looks like I've finally managed to calculate a course for those coordinates,” Felix said, striding purposefully into Doctor Harper's office and standing in the hatch.
Owen looked up from his paperwork and leaned forward expectantly. “Really?” he said in a low voice, even though there was no one there to hear them. “So, do you think that the Admiral will notice that you changed anything?”
Felix smirked conspiratorially. “Well, with Tigh in charge these days ...”
His head whipped around towards the door. “What the frak?” he raised his eyebrows at a strange metallic whirring sound coming from the back of the infirmary. “Cottle's head malfunctioning again?”
He had meant it as a joke, but his grin faded as he saw Owen go pale. “Bugger,” he hissed, bolting up out of his chair and running towards the door. “That's not a good sound, mate, not a good sound at all. Listen ah, you better leave …” His hand shot up, and his expression shifted as he again cast his gaze around the room. Felix immediately recognized the look of a soldier looking for cover. “On second thought, don't go anywhere.” His eyes took on a faraway look. “He can't shoot me if there's a witness.”
Felix didn't have a chance to become befuddled, because the next thing he heard was much more familiar.
“Harper! If this is another one your practical jokes...”
Felix turned his head in time to see Cottle storming out of the head and taking large strides across the sickbay floor towards him. At the same time, he felt Owen's head peeking timidly over his shoulders. He and Owen shrunk back as one symbiotic being as Cottle reached the door and sputtered, “What the hell's a six foot guy in a frakking trenchcoat doing in the head?”
Felix opened his mouth and closed it. Before he had a chance to say anything, a movement behind Cottle attracted his attention. There indeed was a man, in something like a trenchcoat, exiting the head with a swagger and sauntering over to where the three of them stood. As the stunningly handsome man wrapped an arm around Cottle, Owen took a careful step back. The mysterious intruder flashed Owen a predatory grin.
“Owen Harper, you've been holding out on me.” He turned to Cottle. “Had I but known you worked for a man with such fine equipment ...” His tongue ran over his bottom lip salaciously and he took a quick glance around the room, “...in his medbay, I would have come for you sooner.”
The cigarette almost fell out of Cottle's mouth and his eyes grew as round as Pyramid balls, turning to stare at the man for a long moment.
“I want this pervert out of my sickbay, stat,” he ground out, jerking free of the man's grasp. He was already halfway across the sickbay when his voice called out loudly, “You better have a damn good explanation for this, Harper.”
Felix absently thought he had never seen Cottle so rattled. He slowly turned back to look at Owen, then the stranger, then Owen again. The awkward pause between the three men stretched interminably, which then the man broke, his smile falling away. “Owen,” he ordered. “With me, now.”
He pushed past Felix into Owen's office. Owen, however, grabbed Felix's arm and pulled him into the room along with them.
The stranger pointed a finger towards the open hatch and looked at Felix meaningfully. “In private,” he added, his voice turning hard as stone.
“Nothing I haven't told him already,” Owen countered, his chest puffed out towards his adversary. “What are you doing here, Jack?”
“I've only been here five minutes and you're already breaking protocol?”
“Yeah, well, I've been here for five months, mate.”
The two men stared at each other quietly for a moment, until Jack broke their gaze to slowly look over Felix like he had a bad taste in his mouth. Felix bristled. He didn't know what the frak was going on, but his loyalties were immediately clear.
“I'm not going anywhere,” he heard himself say. “I can have Marines here in two minutes, Owen.” Adama would totally have his ass for this, but Felix doubted he could manage to pry himself away from the bottle long enough these days. And besides, this Jack person probably didn't know what Felix was capable of. He joined Owen in a defiant stance while the man continued to stare him down.
Then Jack rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Whatever,” he said and turned back to Owen, pulling the hatch shut.
“Five months, huh?” He grinned. “You miss me?”
And suddenly, Owen was a blur across the room, shoving the man against the bulkhead, up in his face.
“Best five months of my life,” Owen spat at him. “Do you really think I expected you to show up anymore?” he shouted. “The way I remember it, you had me fired for bringing you back last time you were lost on the other side of the Rift.”
“You're not lost in time, Owen,” Jack said impassively. “You're lost in space.” He chuckled to himself. “Literally. And it would have taken me a lot longer than five months to find you if it weren't for my Doctor's TARDIS happening to notice that there was this whole fleet of ships making a beeline towards Earth.”
“What's a TARDIS?” Felix blurted out before he'd realized it. Both men turned to stare him in surprise for a moment, and Jack took the opportunity to shove Owen off him. Warily, Felix inched his way towards the phone, trying to think fast. Who would pick up the phone in CIC? Dee? Louis? Dee could handle it, but he'd hate to get Louis involved in this.
“You know what, Felix? I have no fucking idea what a TARDIS is, not really.” Owen turned back to Jack. “See, that's exactly the problem I've always had with you. You don't fucking share. You never trusted any of us! And now you're surprised that I didn't trust you to come fetch me.” He smiled unpleasantly. “You didn't even come because of me, did you? You're just a fucking day tripper, Jack.”
He was breathing hard. Felix watched him visibly calming himself down.
“What in hell makes you think that I was waiting for you? Five months, Jack. I woke up in a prison ship with a gun to my head. They only kept me alive after I convinced them I was useful. Now you show up here and expect me to follow orders, but you know what? I don't work for you anymore.”
“If you didn't work for me anymore, you wouldn't remember who I am,” Jack told him with a hard glint in his eyes. His words came out with a menace that belied the smile on his face. “You're coming with me. Right after you've told me all about that little fleet out there that you're leading towards Earth.”
“I'm gonna do fuck-all with you, Jack,” Owen replied with a growl. “I have a life here. People bloody well trust me. I know that you don't have a firm grasp on the concept, but...” He smirked without any warmth at all. “Not that it matters, but just so you know - that fleet isn't getting anywhere near Earth. Gaeta here?” He nodded at Felix, and when Jack followed his eyes, used the opportunity to give Felix a sharp silencing look. “Navigator of this ship. We've been working together on a course that skips right over our solar system. It's called a jump.” He smiled unpleasantly. “But I'm sure you already know about that as well, don't you?”
“How about you tell me all about it?” Jack said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Now it might just be me, but wouldn't you want to set a course away from Earth if you wanted to avoid it? Try a little harder, Owen.”
There was a tense moment of pause. Exchanging a look with Felix, who was still stiffly hovering next to the phone, Owen straightened his shoulders. “We're going to Sirius, I'll have you know.”
Jack's eyes narrowed. “Really. Sirius,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“There's a big fuel supply on Sirius,” Felix hurried to add, who'd never heard the name Sirius before in his life.
“Ships don't run on bloody Chinese takeout, you know,” Owen quipped.
Jack sighed. “What are you all doing here in these parts, anyway?” he asked. Felix watched the muscles in the man's face relax and wondered if this was a peace offering.
Felix and Owen exchanged a look. “It's okay, Felix,” Owen said, turning to Jack. “Go ahead.”
For a moment there, Felix was stumped. How to explain everything that had happened to them in the last four years in a few words, to an alien? Not what he'd expected to be doing when he got up today.
“We're all that's left of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol,” he said slowly. “We've been without a home for the last four years, ever since our planets were destroyed by the Cylons - sophisticated artificial intelligence that we built forty years ago and lost control of. They turned on us and nearly wiped us all out. There are about thirty thousand of us left, and they're still after us.”
“Jack, the Cylons won't come to Earth if we don't come to Earth,” Owen jumped in, his voice still taut with simmering anger. “We're leading them away. I've got this under control.”
“The Doctor wondered why you hadn't stayed on your home planets,” Jack muttered.
Before today, Felix had never thought Owen capable of such fury, and even now, he seemed to be working hard to damp it down. “I've got an idea, Jack. Give me two months. That's all I ask.” He was pacing back and forth in front of the two men, then stopped dead in the middle of the room. “After that, you can retcon me, whatever you want. But let me help Felix and his people fuel up so that they can keep running. They need me to get there and I can't let them down. They'd die without me. I gave them my word.”
“These people must mean one hell of a lot to you.” Jack's eyes closed as if suddenly very tired. “What if these Cylons capture you, Owen? They could torture you for information about Earth.”
“Why would Cylons even know about Earth?” Owen countered. Felix tried to keep his face as neutral as possible. “They wouldn't know what questions to ask, and I sure as hell wouldn't bring it up.”
Jack nodded as if to cede the point. “What about those jump drives of yours?” he asked Felix. “How accurate are they? I don't want to wake up one morning to find you all accidentally standing on my doorstep.”
Felix couldn't help a surge of righteous indignation. “I once jumped this Fleet 238 times in a row over five and a half days - every 30 minutes - on barely any sleep. Every one of those jumps ended up exactly where I planned. If I didn't know my job, we would have jumped into a sun long ago.”
Jack laughed in the back of his throat. “Maybe I should take you back instead of him.”
Felix smiled uneasily.
“Look, Jack,” said Owen. “You've always said I'm part of your team. If I am, you've got to finally start trusting me. I know I've sometimes gone off half-cocked, but in the end, I've always wanted the best for the team, for Earth. And this is good for Earth.”
Jack gave him a long, hard look. For the longest moment, Felix was sure that he wasn't buying it. There was no love lost between the two men, that much was clear, and certainly he was going to ask more questions, wasn't he? Felix would have.
“Jack?” Owen prompted.
He sighed. “If I were to go through this medbay, I wouldn't find any of our tech, right?” Jack stipulated.
“Of course not.”
Felix had to resist an urge to hide the sight of his two perfectly healthy legs behind the desk.
There was only the slightest moment of hesitation. “All right,” Jack allowed. “You've got two months and not a day more.”
“Understood,” Owen exhaled and Felix felt himself exhaling with him.
Jack's eyes flickered from one man to the other. “I hope you know what you're doing,” he said.
Owen shook his head sadly. “Trust, Jack,” he admonished.
“Trust,” Jack echoed with a grimace.
And with that, he turned on the heel of his boot and walked towards the hatch. The door hissed and clanged open and the man walked out without looking back, past Ishay, who was standing just outside, trying to look like she hadn't been watching the hatch the entire time.
Her expression changed to a frown as she watched the man disappear back into the head. A few seconds later, they all heard the strange metallic whirring sound again.
“The frak!” Cottle's voice could faintly be heard through the hatch.
It was an entirely inappropriate reaction to have, but Felix did have to suppress a chuckle.
“Oh gods,” he said. “I was really sure he wouldn't buy it.”
“Well,” Owen said, his face entirely blank. “It's not like I didn't tell him the truth about why I wanted to stay. It just wasn't the whole truth.”
Felix nodded. “You are going to see him in two months too.” He paused. “We all are.”
Owen's laugh sounded slightly desperate. “No kidding.”
“I get the feeling our reception on Earth isn't going to be exactly friendly,” he said, worry etched in his face. “That guy's going to be there, right?”
Owen nodded. “Yeah, if he doesn't suddenly have better places to be again.”
When Felix opened his mouth to speak, Owen waved a hand. “Never mind. Not important. Besides, he's only one out of five of us. And we're a team,” he said with a grimace. “Earth doesn't have a planetary defense system. There are plenty of governments who will be ready to talk to you. There's a lot more people besides Jack Harkness on Earth.” He smiled. “And they're going to be really interested in you lot.”
Felix tried to smile back. He trusted Owen Harper, was the thing. Which was probably strange, seeing as how he'd just helped the man lie through his teeth to his boss - and, thinking about it, he had made Felix lie to his boss as well. But it was so that they could bring the Fleet to Earth. And there weren't so many people left to believe in after they'd found that radiated mud pile of a planet that they'd all thought was going to be their home.
Besides, it was hard not to trust a man who'd spent one of his first days on Galactica operating on a total stranger for ten hours with technology he happened to have sitting in his pocket. It still felt nice to wiggle his toes in his boots, five months after the fact.
He didn't get to say any more because Ishay was approaching them, detouring from her way to the patients. “I'll give you one carton of cigarettes if you'll tell me all about that man,” she said with raised eyebrows, looking both of them over. “Are you all right? Cottle told me to keep an eye out in case we have to call in the Marines.”
“Touching,” Owen quipped with a glance at Felix. “He was worried about my virtue.”
“Like you have any of that left,” Ishay sing-songed. “Come on, one carton for the gossip. Tonight at dinner?”
“Sorry,” Owen said, “Already have plans.”
Belatedly, Felix noticed that his friend's eyes were glued to the entrance of the sickbay, and he snorted, knowing what he would see before he even turned to look. He shoved his hands into his pockets, standing back in contentment.
There was another reason to trust Owen Harper, he thought, watching on as Dee, standing in the entrance, noticed the doctor approaching her, her whole face brightening in a way that neither Billy Keikeya nor Lee Adama ever had achieved. As she leaned into Owen's body for a kiss, it made Felix want for Louis to be off duty soon, too. It if hadn't been for Owen, he wasn't sure he could have helped Dee through the devastating discovery of that desolate Cylon planet that the people of the Fleet still thought was Earth.
Felix might not have been able to trust in Admiral Adama and President Roslin in the end. Just as Owen hadn't been able to fully trust his captain back on his old team. But they had each other now, and they'd finish it together.
The Fleet was finally jumping to Earth.
Authors: millari and trovia
Fandoms: Battlestar Galactica 2003/Torchwood
Characters: Gaeta, Owen, Jack, Dee, Cottle, Ishay
Wordcount: 2900 words
Beta: Thank you very much, sphinxvictorian
Summary: ”Ships don't run on bloody Chinese takeout, you know.”
Authors' Notes: It should be stated for the record that almost every line in this story was fought about viciously. A few had us paralyzed by laughter. Others, by tears. Also, trovia almost broke her fingers trying to type on that bloody (!) American keyboard that had somehow found its way to Germany past customs. Just so you know.
“Owen. Looks like I've finally managed to calculate a course for those coordinates,” Felix said, striding purposefully into Doctor Harper's office and standing in the hatch.
Owen looked up from his paperwork and leaned forward expectantly. “Really?” he said in a low voice, even though there was no one there to hear them. “So, do you think that the Admiral will notice that you changed anything?”
Felix smirked conspiratorially. “Well, with Tigh in charge these days ...”
His head whipped around towards the door. “What the frak?” he raised his eyebrows at a strange metallic whirring sound coming from the back of the infirmary. “Cottle's head malfunctioning again?”
He had meant it as a joke, but his grin faded as he saw Owen go pale. “Bugger,” he hissed, bolting up out of his chair and running towards the door. “That's not a good sound, mate, not a good sound at all. Listen ah, you better leave …” His hand shot up, and his expression shifted as he again cast his gaze around the room. Felix immediately recognized the look of a soldier looking for cover. “On second thought, don't go anywhere.” His eyes took on a faraway look. “He can't shoot me if there's a witness.”
Felix didn't have a chance to become befuddled, because the next thing he heard was much more familiar.
“Harper! If this is another one your practical jokes...”
Felix turned his head in time to see Cottle storming out of the head and taking large strides across the sickbay floor towards him. At the same time, he felt Owen's head peeking timidly over his shoulders. He and Owen shrunk back as one symbiotic being as Cottle reached the door and sputtered, “What the hell's a six foot guy in a frakking trenchcoat doing in the head?”
Felix opened his mouth and closed it. Before he had a chance to say anything, a movement behind Cottle attracted his attention. There indeed was a man, in something like a trenchcoat, exiting the head with a swagger and sauntering over to where the three of them stood. As the stunningly handsome man wrapped an arm around Cottle, Owen took a careful step back. The mysterious intruder flashed Owen a predatory grin.
“Owen Harper, you've been holding out on me.” He turned to Cottle. “Had I but known you worked for a man with such fine equipment ...” His tongue ran over his bottom lip salaciously and he took a quick glance around the room, “...in his medbay, I would have come for you sooner.”
The cigarette almost fell out of Cottle's mouth and his eyes grew as round as Pyramid balls, turning to stare at the man for a long moment.
“I want this pervert out of my sickbay, stat,” he ground out, jerking free of the man's grasp. He was already halfway across the sickbay when his voice called out loudly, “You better have a damn good explanation for this, Harper.”
Felix absently thought he had never seen Cottle so rattled. He slowly turned back to look at Owen, then the stranger, then Owen again. The awkward pause between the three men stretched interminably, which then the man broke, his smile falling away. “Owen,” he ordered. “With me, now.”
He pushed past Felix into Owen's office. Owen, however, grabbed Felix's arm and pulled him into the room along with them.
The stranger pointed a finger towards the open hatch and looked at Felix meaningfully. “In private,” he added, his voice turning hard as stone.
“Nothing I haven't told him already,” Owen countered, his chest puffed out towards his adversary. “What are you doing here, Jack?”
“I've only been here five minutes and you're already breaking protocol?”
“Yeah, well, I've been here for five months, mate.”
The two men stared at each other quietly for a moment, until Jack broke their gaze to slowly look over Felix like he had a bad taste in his mouth. Felix bristled. He didn't know what the frak was going on, but his loyalties were immediately clear.
“I'm not going anywhere,” he heard himself say. “I can have Marines here in two minutes, Owen.” Adama would totally have his ass for this, but Felix doubted he could manage to pry himself away from the bottle long enough these days. And besides, this Jack person probably didn't know what Felix was capable of. He joined Owen in a defiant stance while the man continued to stare him down.
Then Jack rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Whatever,” he said and turned back to Owen, pulling the hatch shut.
“Five months, huh?” He grinned. “You miss me?”
And suddenly, Owen was a blur across the room, shoving the man against the bulkhead, up in his face.
“Best five months of my life,” Owen spat at him. “Do you really think I expected you to show up anymore?” he shouted. “The way I remember it, you had me fired for bringing you back last time you were lost on the other side of the Rift.”
“You're not lost in time, Owen,” Jack said impassively. “You're lost in space.” He chuckled to himself. “Literally. And it would have taken me a lot longer than five months to find you if it weren't for my Doctor's TARDIS happening to notice that there was this whole fleet of ships making a beeline towards Earth.”
“What's a TARDIS?” Felix blurted out before he'd realized it. Both men turned to stare him in surprise for a moment, and Jack took the opportunity to shove Owen off him. Warily, Felix inched his way towards the phone, trying to think fast. Who would pick up the phone in CIC? Dee? Louis? Dee could handle it, but he'd hate to get Louis involved in this.
“You know what, Felix? I have no fucking idea what a TARDIS is, not really.” Owen turned back to Jack. “See, that's exactly the problem I've always had with you. You don't fucking share. You never trusted any of us! And now you're surprised that I didn't trust you to come fetch me.” He smiled unpleasantly. “You didn't even come because of me, did you? You're just a fucking day tripper, Jack.”
He was breathing hard. Felix watched him visibly calming himself down.
“What in hell makes you think that I was waiting for you? Five months, Jack. I woke up in a prison ship with a gun to my head. They only kept me alive after I convinced them I was useful. Now you show up here and expect me to follow orders, but you know what? I don't work for you anymore.”
“If you didn't work for me anymore, you wouldn't remember who I am,” Jack told him with a hard glint in his eyes. His words came out with a menace that belied the smile on his face. “You're coming with me. Right after you've told me all about that little fleet out there that you're leading towards Earth.”
“I'm gonna do fuck-all with you, Jack,” Owen replied with a growl. “I have a life here. People bloody well trust me. I know that you don't have a firm grasp on the concept, but...” He smirked without any warmth at all. “Not that it matters, but just so you know - that fleet isn't getting anywhere near Earth. Gaeta here?” He nodded at Felix, and when Jack followed his eyes, used the opportunity to give Felix a sharp silencing look. “Navigator of this ship. We've been working together on a course that skips right over our solar system. It's called a jump.” He smiled unpleasantly. “But I'm sure you already know about that as well, don't you?”
“How about you tell me all about it?” Jack said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Now it might just be me, but wouldn't you want to set a course away from Earth if you wanted to avoid it? Try a little harder, Owen.”
There was a tense moment of pause. Exchanging a look with Felix, who was still stiffly hovering next to the phone, Owen straightened his shoulders. “We're going to Sirius, I'll have you know.”
Jack's eyes narrowed. “Really. Sirius,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“There's a big fuel supply on Sirius,” Felix hurried to add, who'd never heard the name Sirius before in his life.
“Ships don't run on bloody Chinese takeout, you know,” Owen quipped.
Jack sighed. “What are you all doing here in these parts, anyway?” he asked. Felix watched the muscles in the man's face relax and wondered if this was a peace offering.
Felix and Owen exchanged a look. “It's okay, Felix,” Owen said, turning to Jack. “Go ahead.”
For a moment there, Felix was stumped. How to explain everything that had happened to them in the last four years in a few words, to an alien? Not what he'd expected to be doing when he got up today.
“We're all that's left of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol,” he said slowly. “We've been without a home for the last four years, ever since our planets were destroyed by the Cylons - sophisticated artificial intelligence that we built forty years ago and lost control of. They turned on us and nearly wiped us all out. There are about thirty thousand of us left, and they're still after us.”
“Jack, the Cylons won't come to Earth if we don't come to Earth,” Owen jumped in, his voice still taut with simmering anger. “We're leading them away. I've got this under control.”
“The Doctor wondered why you hadn't stayed on your home planets,” Jack muttered.
Before today, Felix had never thought Owen capable of such fury, and even now, he seemed to be working hard to damp it down. “I've got an idea, Jack. Give me two months. That's all I ask.” He was pacing back and forth in front of the two men, then stopped dead in the middle of the room. “After that, you can retcon me, whatever you want. But let me help Felix and his people fuel up so that they can keep running. They need me to get there and I can't let them down. They'd die without me. I gave them my word.”
“These people must mean one hell of a lot to you.” Jack's eyes closed as if suddenly very tired. “What if these Cylons capture you, Owen? They could torture you for information about Earth.”
“Why would Cylons even know about Earth?” Owen countered. Felix tried to keep his face as neutral as possible. “They wouldn't know what questions to ask, and I sure as hell wouldn't bring it up.”
Jack nodded as if to cede the point. “What about those jump drives of yours?” he asked Felix. “How accurate are they? I don't want to wake up one morning to find you all accidentally standing on my doorstep.”
Felix couldn't help a surge of righteous indignation. “I once jumped this Fleet 238 times in a row over five and a half days - every 30 minutes - on barely any sleep. Every one of those jumps ended up exactly where I planned. If I didn't know my job, we would have jumped into a sun long ago.”
Jack laughed in the back of his throat. “Maybe I should take you back instead of him.”
Felix smiled uneasily.
“Look, Jack,” said Owen. “You've always said I'm part of your team. If I am, you've got to finally start trusting me. I know I've sometimes gone off half-cocked, but in the end, I've always wanted the best for the team, for Earth. And this is good for Earth.”
Jack gave him a long, hard look. For the longest moment, Felix was sure that he wasn't buying it. There was no love lost between the two men, that much was clear, and certainly he was going to ask more questions, wasn't he? Felix would have.
“Jack?” Owen prompted.
He sighed. “If I were to go through this medbay, I wouldn't find any of our tech, right?” Jack stipulated.
“Of course not.”
Felix had to resist an urge to hide the sight of his two perfectly healthy legs behind the desk.
There was only the slightest moment of hesitation. “All right,” Jack allowed. “You've got two months and not a day more.”
“Understood,” Owen exhaled and Felix felt himself exhaling with him.
Jack's eyes flickered from one man to the other. “I hope you know what you're doing,” he said.
Owen shook his head sadly. “Trust, Jack,” he admonished.
“Trust,” Jack echoed with a grimace.
And with that, he turned on the heel of his boot and walked towards the hatch. The door hissed and clanged open and the man walked out without looking back, past Ishay, who was standing just outside, trying to look like she hadn't been watching the hatch the entire time.
Her expression changed to a frown as she watched the man disappear back into the head. A few seconds later, they all heard the strange metallic whirring sound again.
“The frak!” Cottle's voice could faintly be heard through the hatch.
It was an entirely inappropriate reaction to have, but Felix did have to suppress a chuckle.
“Oh gods,” he said. “I was really sure he wouldn't buy it.”
“Well,” Owen said, his face entirely blank. “It's not like I didn't tell him the truth about why I wanted to stay. It just wasn't the whole truth.”
Felix nodded. “You are going to see him in two months too.” He paused. “We all are.”
Owen's laugh sounded slightly desperate. “No kidding.”
“I get the feeling our reception on Earth isn't going to be exactly friendly,” he said, worry etched in his face. “That guy's going to be there, right?”
Owen nodded. “Yeah, if he doesn't suddenly have better places to be again.”
When Felix opened his mouth to speak, Owen waved a hand. “Never mind. Not important. Besides, he's only one out of five of us. And we're a team,” he said with a grimace. “Earth doesn't have a planetary defense system. There are plenty of governments who will be ready to talk to you. There's a lot more people besides Jack Harkness on Earth.” He smiled. “And they're going to be really interested in you lot.”
Felix tried to smile back. He trusted Owen Harper, was the thing. Which was probably strange, seeing as how he'd just helped the man lie through his teeth to his boss - and, thinking about it, he had made Felix lie to his boss as well. But it was so that they could bring the Fleet to Earth. And there weren't so many people left to believe in after they'd found that radiated mud pile of a planet that they'd all thought was going to be their home.
Besides, it was hard not to trust a man who'd spent one of his first days on Galactica operating on a total stranger for ten hours with technology he happened to have sitting in his pocket. It still felt nice to wiggle his toes in his boots, five months after the fact.
He didn't get to say any more because Ishay was approaching them, detouring from her way to the patients. “I'll give you one carton of cigarettes if you'll tell me all about that man,” she said with raised eyebrows, looking both of them over. “Are you all right? Cottle told me to keep an eye out in case we have to call in the Marines.”
“Touching,” Owen quipped with a glance at Felix. “He was worried about my virtue.”
“Like you have any of that left,” Ishay sing-songed. “Come on, one carton for the gossip. Tonight at dinner?”
“Sorry,” Owen said, “Already have plans.”
Belatedly, Felix noticed that his friend's eyes were glued to the entrance of the sickbay, and he snorted, knowing what he would see before he even turned to look. He shoved his hands into his pockets, standing back in contentment.
There was another reason to trust Owen Harper, he thought, watching on as Dee, standing in the entrance, noticed the doctor approaching her, her whole face brightening in a way that neither Billy Keikeya nor Lee Adama ever had achieved. As she leaned into Owen's body for a kiss, it made Felix want for Louis to be off duty soon, too. It if hadn't been for Owen, he wasn't sure he could have helped Dee through the devastating discovery of that desolate Cylon planet that the people of the Fleet still thought was Earth.
Felix might not have been able to trust in Admiral Adama and President Roslin in the end. Just as Owen hadn't been able to fully trust his captain back on his old team. But they had each other now, and they'd finish it together.
The Fleet was finally jumping to Earth.