milliways_bar | (no subject)

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For the past couple of weeks, Milliways has served as a planned respite: Gaeta's never wound up there accidentally. But the way he pauses when he opens the door this time is...different from that brief, surprised balk almost everybody does when their path leads somewhere they weren't expecting. It's not just uncertainty. It goes deeper than that, into something very much like wariness -- or the closed-off look he'd get sometimes on New Caprica, when his every move was being scrutinized by Cylons.

After a beat or three, he limps forward to let the door creak shut behind him. As long as he's here, there's no harm in getting some coffee, he supposes.

[Plotlocked, with apologies!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Speak of the devil. The intent of the phrase never does seem to stop people Boyd knows from using it.

The crop out back is in fine shape. Boyd's just cleaned up after hanging bunches to dry in a secure (and secret) location. His shirt is pressed (and buttoned all the way up), as usual, his boots neat and looking as though they've seen a polish some time in the last ten years.

A plate of bacon and eggs; a cup of strong, black coffee; a copy of the day's Harlan Daily Enterprise (and what appears to be the New York Times crossword).

"Lieutenant," Boyd says, a moment after his gaze slides to the left and then returns to three down.

Gaeta pauses, glancing Boyd's way as he leans more of his weight on his crutches. Then, with care, he alters his course toward Boyd's table.

Click, goes his prosthetic leg with every step.

"Mr. Crowder," he answers, and eases himself into one of the free chairs without asking for an invitation.

Perils of eating one's meal in a public place.

Boyd glances up -- and then sits back, reaching for his cup of coffee. "You joined me," he says. "And while your company is not unwelcome, nor have you caused any offense, I still can't help but note that as our relations have proceeded up until this point, Lieutenant, you have been a man invested in making an effort to observe what appear to be the usual courtesies contingent upon entering a conversation with an acquaintance. And I might wonder what's precipitated this departure from your custom."

A sip of coffee, almost prim.

(Translated: what did I do now?)

One corner of Gaeta's mouth twitches, in something very close to a smile.

(In the back of his mind, he's hearing Tigh's demand to address the Admiral as sir.)

"I wanted to talk," he says. "If you have a minute."

"I surely do," Boyd says, "so long as you do not mind if I finish these in the process."

With his cup, he gestures toward the eggs.

"Once they go cold, I find them downright unpalatable."

He shakes his head. "I don't mind."

Having busied himself with removing his crutches, Gaeta leans them against the table and pulls his chair an inch closer. A moment's hesitation goes by; he seems to be visibly searching for the correct words as one hand settles on his right thigh.

"There was...something you said to me a while ago," he ventures at last. "Asking me why I didn't just go behind my doctor's back to get the meds I needed."

Boyd's two bites in; more polite, he thinks, than watching the man settle in.

He swallows. "And you said it'd interfere with your active-duty status and you didn't want to tell your doctor."

For the record, Boyd thought this was ridiculous. His tone conveys none of this.

A nod.

There's even more care to his next words, like someone feeling his way through darkened, unfamiliar territory. Talking to Racetrack was one thing, with his anger still hot and her already knowing the full story; this, though, is different. "I think it might be safe to assume that, if you even asked something like that, you don't mind going against rules and regs -- "

And authority, he doesn't say.

" -- for the sake of the greater good."

Boyd's not at all sure he likes the tenor of this conversation.

But being as he's the one in power here -- the lieutenant approached him, which means the lieutenant wants something from him -- Boyd takes another bite of scrambled egg. Only two left.

"Why, that's part of the American way of life," he says, smiling. "The genesis of our national narrative."

"I wouldn't know." A little dry.

But Boyd's answer is enough to get Gaeta to lean in and fold his arms atop the table. "Speaking in hypotheticals," he says -- and it's clear in his own tone that hypotheticals is a tidy cover, a flimsy means of plausible deniability -- "would that narrative extend to deposing somebody who's aiding and abetting the enemy?"

"No need to speak in hypotheticals," Boyd says. "All you got to do is look at history."

But as long as they're only speaking in hypotheticals, Boyd doesn't have to get a little rude.

Gaeta lifts a hand, turns it over as he spreads his fingers.

"I'm not familiar with your world's history, Mr. Crowder," he says. "Where do I need to be looking?"

"The military history of the United States of America."

He's stretching the truth, and he knows it -- but Boyd also doesn't much care for speaking in hypotheticals (unless he is the one doing it, of course).

"But I don't think a book list is the reason you're here."

One more bite of eggs.

Calm: "Not really."

He studies Boyd for a moment.

"Let's say you were in a situation like mine. Twenty billion people dead, rest of the human race numbering...maybe thirty-nine thousand tops nowadays. You've been running and fighting the people who did it for four years now. There's no going to ground and no going home because there's nowhere left to go."

Little by little, throughout this speech, his expression's begun to harden.

"Then your commanding officer forms an alliance with the people that almost exterminated you, borrows their technology, and starts forcing it onto every ship in the Fleet. What would you do?"

Boyd's watching Gaeta's face -- even as he reaches for his cup of coffee, even as he takes a sip, even as he puts it back down.

"I expect I'd consider my options," he says, steadily.

ABC: always be cool.

"And I expect it'd depend a little on that technology. What it's for. How to use it. Whether you could use it against those you got it from."

"It's not weapons technology," says Gaeta. "More like..."

Boyd's from the pristine Earth almost everyone else here inhabits; right now, Gaeta is too godsdamn tired to get into a detailed explanation of FTL. (And, frankly, too godsdamn stoned on morpha.)

"Navigation, sort of. A means of propellant, some mix of the two." He shifts in his chair as the dull throb below his stump kicks up. "It also links into the same system they exploited and used against us in the initial attacks."

Boyd's not seeing the problem here; if you want to prevent someone from exploiting your weakness, you get the information they used to do it. Close the loophole.

But call it a hunch: Boyd's pretty sure that whatever this is about, it's not what the technology does. Maybe looking for help. Maybe looking for an excuse.

Boyd is silent.

"Anyway."

Gods, he should have gotten that coffee first. It'd give him some way of keeping his hands occupied.

"The core of it is the Admiral has overstepped. And what he's doing right now is..." He's begun to shake his head, slow and steady. "It's unforgivable."

Gaeta has begun to catch the ears of some people back home. He's already leaning hard toward his choice. Maybe there's a third reason, buried deep enough that even he's not fully conscious of it: confirmation. Absolution, from an outside source.

"And if you have any experience with fighting back against something like that, I'd be glad to hear it."

They called the group Crowder's Commandos.

No, scratch that. It's something Boyd will own up to -- must own up to. He called the group Crowder's Commandos: his very own militia. Not even his most recent militia.

And what did they do? They struck back against those forces who overstepped. They bombed some churches. They blew up some buildings so they could rob some banks. Did they strike any kind of telling blow for the continued glory of the white race? Did they prove a damn thing about the superiority of their Aryan stock?

No. They blew some shit up. Scared a few people. He blew an innocent man's brains out the front of his skull. He held a gun on Raylan Givens -- and Ava. And he got himself shot in the chest.

That last bite of scrambled egg is surely cold by now.

With very slow, deliberate movement, Boyd picks up his mug.

"Son, we don't know each other." His voice is very soft. His eyes are on his coffee. "You think you see something in me that looks familiar to you. And maybe you do. And maybe I do have some experience in the line of work to which you're referring. Maybe I do know a little something about what it's like to be killed by inches, only to suffer one final moment of betrayal."

All of Boyd's tattoos are covered, save for those on his knuckles: SKIN HEAD.

His gaze, dark, sharp, flicks up.

"You think you can't see a way out of this."

Gaeta doesn't look away; his own gaze fixes steady and unflinching on Boyd.

"None that I can find except this one, sir." No louder.

Edited 2013-03-02 04:11 (UTC)

"Then why are you talking to me?"

Again, there's that barest flicker of a smile. "Like you said," dry, "I'm pretty used to toeing the line and observing courtesy. Mutiny's -- "

(That's the first time he's said it aloud, he thinks dimly. Even in private with Racetrack, he talked around the word: remove the Admiral, fix what's happened, do something.)

" -- not exactly a courteous move."

Especially when you plan to lead rather than follow.

"Neither's evading the question." Boyd's gaze sharpens a little. "I'll put it to you again: why are you talking to me?"

He sighs, almost soundlessly.

"I think I can muster the forces I need on the ship," he says. "I don't need fighters. But if you have advice -- " A small shrug. "I could use that."

The most obvious piece isn't one he'll listen to: don't waste your time.

Boyd takes a long sip of coffee, to gather his thoughts.

(He finds himself suddenly, and sharply, missing Dewey Crowe: at least Dewey could keep his sense of humor while willfully putting himself into ruinous situations.)

"You still following your doctor's orders?"