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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"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."

"Thank you," he repeats -- though there's a vagueness to it, as if he's not entirely sure he said it the first time. Gaeta blinks at the glass for another second before stretching out a careful hand to accept it.

Please let my hands be steady enough, he thinks dimly. Please don't let me spill it everywhere like I'm a frakking --

He cuts that thought off before it goes any further. When he brings the straw close enough to take a sip, the shock of the cold water going down his throat makes him cough.

Andrew hovers next to the bed, uneasily.

Are you okay? he starts to ask, and bites it back.

Stupid question.

The coughing subsides fairly soon. Gaeta chances another sip, smaller this time; it goes down much easier.

"Have you seen Louis?" he asks once he's swallowed.

"Uh -- Louis who?" Beat. "What's he look like?"

How can he not know who Louis --

Oh. Maybe because he's never met him.

Gaeta sags a little, as if defeated. "Louis Hoshi," he says "Lieutenant Louis -- he's, um, he's a little taller than me, brown hair, brown eyes. He's probably gonna be wearing duty blues."

A beat.

Smaller, "I haven't seen him since I got back."

"Oh."

A friend? A close friend, by the sound of that.

"I'll look for him?" he offers.

He shapes a tiny, trembling smile. "Think a couple other people're looking for him, too," he says. "You don't have to. I just wondered if he..."

The smile falters, crumbles again.

(Louis hasn't come to see him since he got back.)

"Maybe he doesn't know you're here," he offers tentatively. "I could ... if I see anybody else from your crew, I could give them a message for him?"

"Yeah. Okay, yeah, that..."

Gaeta trails off, seeming to forget where he was going with that sentence.

More apologetic than anything: "I can't remember who else is here anymore."