ways_infirmary | (no subject)

(no subject)

"Alone she sleeps in the shirt of man
With my three wishes clutched in her hand..."

Simon finally hooked him up to a morpha -- morphine, whatever it's called here -- drip once the nerve block wore off and the supposedly unidentifiable opioid had left his system. Gaeta's half-drowsing, eyes closed in a vain attempt to sleep outright; the pain's still too great, though, and the exhaustion more prominent.

And if he sleeps, that means he can't do the only thing that's worked so far.

"The first that she be spared the pain
That comes from a dark and laughing rain..."

The words are a little roughened with hoarseness, a touch slurred by morpha -- but his voice still rings clear through the infirmary.

[ooc: for continuity's sake, all threads now take place before Boyd's and Simon's.]

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He should go. He shouldn't be here, shouldn't be watching this --

He can't move.

His grip digs deep as the heart monitor near his bedside spikes higher.

It's a short while before the beeping dips back down to a steadier level; before his fingers slacken, and he sags back with his head lolled to one side.

Gaeta opens his eyes, and inadvertently locks gazes with Andrew.

For a second he only stares back, mouth a little open, then swallows.

"... hey." His voice is a little thin with shock. "I, I heard ..."

He trails off, and gestures feebly behind him at the door.

Gaeta's eyes well up, and he has to shut them again.

"You knew," he says, bleak and hoarse.

"I -- what?"

Of all the reactions he might have expected, that wasn't one of them.

"This is what you were talking about, right?"

He swallows, wrests his eyes back open.

"When you told me not to go?"

"I didn't --"

(-- I might have warned Felix Gaeta about his future. I didn't tell him what was coming, just tipped him off that maybe he shouldn't go on the)

"Oh god. The other me."

Gaeta blinks; the morpha's only half responsible for the blank stare now.

"Frak," he mutters finally, and presses an unsteady hand against his forehead, trapping a few damp curls in place. "You're -- Prime, yeah. Andrew Prime."

Taking his hand away, he waves it vaguely in Andrew's direction.

"Should've known that. Your hair's different. Sorry."

"He ... he left me a message. When he went back to his world." Low. "Told me a few things he did while he was here, and he said he warned you about ... something about a guy named Demetrius?"

"No. No." He shakes his head -- or rolls it from side to side across the thin infirmary pillow, more like. "It's not a guy, it's a...ship. Sewage ship. Gods I still frakking smell it everywhere."

(The last just sounds tired, resigned, as only one can be after smelling the same stink for two months straight.)

"We took it out on a mission."

Andrew swallows.

"Sorry. I didn't ... you probably don't want to talk about it."

Gaeta's quiet for a long moment. The incessant beeping of the heart monitor continues.

"I asked them to take me back before it got worse." Tiny, and with a trace of helpless bewilderment. "They couldn't."

Didn't.

(An ugly thought that's been creeping around the edges of his brain, fogged as it is: if the roles had reversed, and he'd shot Anders, would they have aborted the mission for his sake?)

Well. Looks like he wants to talk about it after all.

Andrew comes a few steps closer, and looks around for a chair or a stool to sit on.

"Back to ... the rest of the fleet?" he guesses, quietly.

"Yeah. To Galactica."

His throat works.

"We were, were out there for fifteen hours. Fifteen hours after he shot me."

His eyes widen.

(Hard to say whether the bigger shocker is fifteen hours or he shot me.)

"Frell."

Gaeta closes his eyes.

"You wanted to know what living in space is like?"

(you could tell me more about)

"Yeah." Muffled.

"It's like this."

His face tightens; he pauses to catch his breath before he goes on.

"It's...signing on with a batfrak crazy captain who can't get her shit together enough to lead, and has to milk a godsdamn mission for every minute it's worth, and you have friends telling you there's no way they'll abort the mission while your leg feels like it's rotting into -- "

Gaeta's voice twists away from him, breaking into silence. He draws another ragged breath.

"Everything's falling apart. We still haven't gotten anywhere close to Earth. It's been three and a half years and I want to go home."

"I'm sorry, man."

It's a whisper, but he forces it loud enough to be heard.

"I'm so sorry."

Gaeta nods; sniffles; turns his face away for a second, trying to regather himself.

It's on the tip of his tongue to offer an instinctual apology in kind: I'm sorry, they've got me on some pretty strong stuff, it's making me say things I shouldn't.

He doesn't bother.

"Can I --"

Helplessly.

"Do you need anything?"

"Maybe some water?"

His throat does feel pretty rough, once he has the presence of mind to pay attention to it.

"If, if there's any..." Gaeta turns over his hand in another vague gesture.

"Yeah." Swiftly, as he stands up. "I'll be right back."

There's a dispenser of disposable cups near one of the sinks, and a box of sterile-sealed drinking straws.

"Thanks."

Gaeta opens his eyes, but doesn't look anywhere but the ceiling. After a moment, his lips start to move again, soundlessly tracing the words of the song.

Alone she sleeps in the shirt of man --

He fills a cup, peels the plastic off a straw, brings them both back.

"Here."