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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Words teeter on the tip of her tongue for a second. Maybe she was wrong about how effective the morpha is.

"Uh, it's been weeks."

Since her last shore leave, in fact.

Wary, she pinches the bridge of her nose, but then stubbornly forges ahead. "When'd you lose your leg?"

"Uh," he says, doing his damndest to mimic her tone (though not too successfully), "it's probably been weeks, but frak if I..."

Know, is how he intends to end that -- to say time has gone lopsided on him is a massive understatement -- but before he even reaches the end of that sentence, he's trailing off, his heart not into the sarcasm.

Clumsily, Gaeta lifts a hand to press it to his mouth. More hoarsely: "How long since the attacks?"

Eyes intent on his face, she feels her spine straighten. Her fingers crave tangible proof, itching to reach out and touch either his hair or his half-missing leg, but she resolutely holds her hands at her sides.

"Two weeks."

And it's barely been a week since she was on Galactica, and he had hair that never dreamed of curls. He had two legs. He sure as frak never sang.

Don't ask, she tells herself. Do not flip the godsdamn question around.

She bites the inside of her cheek, but it's not enough. "How long for you?"

"Three years. Three and a half."

If possible, he's gone even more pale. Next to his bed, the heart monitor beeps a little faster.

"Gods -- "

She flicks her eyes to the monitor, raising both hands.

"Okay, let's--"

laugh because that's a good one

make sure there's no booze in that IV

not be stupid here

"--pretend this is possible."

She tilts her head back, eyes on the ceiling for a moment. "Three years?"

"Yes, sir."

Most of the sarcasm has fled from the title. (Most of it.)

Gaeta presses both hands over his face, groaning out a considerably more muffled -- if considerably more emphatic as well -- "Gods."

Let this be a dream. Let the morpha have finally put him to sleep, or some twilight state where he's hallucinating.

She shakes her head.

He's on drugs, she tells herself.

Maybe she's on drugs. Maybe she's gonna wake up in sick bay on Galactica with too-bright lights shining in her face and Lee standing over her, too close to be CAG, and saying he's glad she's okay and, oh by the way, he's really frakking sorry he ratted her out to his dad, who'll probably never be able to look at her the same way.

She doesn't know if it's Gaeta's groan or the way seeing him floods her brain with thoughts of home or that seeing him like this pains her in a way she wouldn't have expected, but her eyes want to sting and she has to close them and rub her index finger and thumb over her eyelids. "Just--"

Her mouth snaps shut, twisting.

"Just tell me one thing, and I promise I'll go."

He coughs out a harsh noise. It might be laughter.

Maybe.

"Sure," he says, without lifting his hand from his face; his voice cracks halfway through the word. "Whatever the frak you want."

It makes her feel like wincing.

"Did we make it to Earth?"

A long beat of silence.

(In it, heard by nobody but Gaeta himself: you never frakking knew the way at all, did you.)

"No," he says, very low. "We're not there yet."

Three years.

Three and a half years, and they haven't made it to Earth.

She swallows hard, remembers to breathe, then nods. "Okay," she acknowledges him, voice tight.

A promise is a promise: she takes a step back, her gaze falling to his leg and then drifting away just as quickly. Before she disappears through the curtain she hesitates, head half-turned. "I'm stuck here."

She's not his Captain, but she is his crewmate. The way she sees it, it's them against the frakking universe.

"If you need something--"

The words feel strange on her tongue, and she leaves it at that as she turns away.

Gaeta swallows.

Finally lifts his hand away from his face, just in time to see Starbuck vanish through the curtain. It's just as well, he thinks bleakly; it's not as if there's any more to say to her.

(Three years. Three and a half years.)

Within moments, the song begins to drift down the infirmary corridor again.

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