milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Gaeta wasn't expecting to find a door this soon. Part of him, despite knowing (and knowing of) several people from Galactica who'd successfully reached Milliways, may have even expected that he wouldn't find a door at all after leaving Colonial One.

That could account for a lot: the way the door rocks backward with the full weight of Gaeta's shoulder behind it, the galley tray in his hand, the more casual civilian clothes (gone is the suit; gone, too, are the layers of someone living in a cold climate), the mildly dumbfounded expression as he stares around the room. After a moment, he heaves a sigh and makes for the nearest open seat -- in this case, one at the bar. His tray drops onto the bartop with an unceremonious clatter.

"Can I please at least finish my frakking dinner first?" he asks a beat later, too tired for the curse to carry any real heat. He gets no reply except a second napkin with a long string of zzzzzzzs scrawled across it, and so, with a quiet exhalation of, "Fine," he gets up and makes his way around the bar.

Eventually:

HAPPY HOUR
Hot Lunch
Coffee 43
After Dinner Mint

EXHIBIT A: A meal from Galactica's galley.
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(Here sits his unfinished dinner beneath the chalkboard.)

Offer suggestions to make it edible & drink half price.

It looks, for the record, like globs of something that might be mashed potato substitute, a bowl of wilted and depressed-looking greens, and a sickly-colored soup.

[tinytag: trudy chacon]

[OOC: ffffff. My body does not want to respond to pithy back room threats, alas; I am crashing and crashing hard. Mea culpa for bailing an hour early -- however, new tags are very much welcomed, and all slowtimes will be picked up!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Oh, that's cool. That totally makes up for the icky food."

There are always trade offs.

"And anyway, you're here now and you can get something else this time.

"I'm Anna."

"I, ah, guess it does sometimes." He keeps that sentence amicable enough.

And then he offers a hand to her, adding, "I'm Felix. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Anna shakes the offered hand in a very serious and grown-up manner.

"It's nice to meet you, too.

"Do you like living on a spaceship?"

He shrugs, with more uncertainty to it than he means.

"It's home," he says, in the best dodge around the topic that he can come up with. "I'm, ah, still getting used to it again."

"I think it sounds really cool, but then I also think I'd probably want to, like, go for a walk outside, and you really can't do that on a spaceship.

"So you lived there, then didn't, and now do?"

Gaeta nods. "Exactly," he says. "I lived on the same ship I'm on now, Galactica, for four years; after that I moved to a planet for about a year and a half. I just came back to Galactica very recently."

A faint, rueful smile. "But that's one of the things I've missed when I've been on the ship. Going outside."

Edited 2010-03-12 03:13 (UTC)

"It's a very good name for a spaceship," Anna decides.

"And it's good, then, that you can come here. There's an outside, and better food."

"Much better food," he confirms. "And the outside's even better for me, because..."

He cocks his head.

"Are you from Earth?"

She nods.

"I'm from Ohio," she tells him.

(At least, as far as she knows.)

He almost starts to ask where's that?, and quickly suppresses the urge. He can ask in a minute.

"I'm not," he explains. "I'm from a place called the Twelve Colonies. But...we've been looking for Earth for a while, and it's really nice to know that if I want to see it, I can -- "

Gaeta nods to the door.

"Just step outside."

"Oh, you're not from Earth?

"What do you mean, looking for it?"

Can't they just, you know, check a map or something?

"It's pretty far away from us," says Gaeta. "And...the stories of the last people who went there are from a few thousand years ago. So it's not very easy to find."

Not to mention that the stories are from a religious text.

His own faith aside, Gaeta's aware that in the end, it might mean Earth is just a long, elaborate metaphor for something else entirely.

"Hmmmmmm," Anna says. "That's a really long time. I hope you find it.

"It's kind of right between Venus and Mars," she adds, helpfully.

For what that's worth.

Gaeta blinks, thrown an inch by the names she offers.

"Those are planets?"

Anna nods.

"There are nine of them," she says.

(She's blissfully unaware that one of them will soon be facing a demotion.)

"Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Nepture, Uranus, and Pluto.

"I had to make a model of the solar system last year."

(It's okay though, Pluto. We're not planets either.)

This time, the faint smile that emerges is a little wondering.

It would make sense. Earth's the thirteenth colony; of course they'd carry some of the older names with them, and bestow them on the planets that shared their sun. For an instant, Gaeta can feel the connection as strongly as if it were a tangible thing.

"I didn't know the planets were named for the gods."

Of course, he didn't have any sense of Earth's planetary system before now, but.

Anna nods again.

She knows all about Greek and Roman mythology. It's interesting.

"I don't really know why, but I guess it made sense to the people who named them. And I don't know who named them, either. I guess somebody a long time ago. Doesn't it seem like it would be fun to get to name a whole planet?

"I got to name our dog."

Quietly: "I'm sure they wouldn't have done it unless it was important to them."

It sounds like he's asserting that fact to himself as much as Anna.

"What did you name it?" he asks, and then, remembering: " -- And I'm sorry, I should have asked this earlier. Is there anything I can get for you?"

"My dog? His name is Puppers," she says.

"And . . . can I have a strawberry milkshake?"

"Good name," he says, decreeing it so with a solemn nod. "Sure, one moment."

He ducks beneath the bar to start rooting through the fridge, looking for fresh strawberries, milk, and ice cream.

"Thank you," Anna says. "It suits him.

"Do you have any pets?"

Floating up from under the bar: "Ah, not quite, no."

He's paused over the container of strawberries, pondering whether or not to take one for himself; resisting the temptation, Gaeta straightens up to deposit them on the counter and start loading up the blender.

"There's...a dog I've helped take care of, but he's not really mine. His name's Jake."

"My best friend's name is Jake," says Anna. "Well, one of them. Dad says I shouldn't say 'my best friend' because it will make my other friends feel bad, and that's mean." She lowers her voice, and then adds in a confiding whisper, "But Jake is my best friend, even though he's a boy."

She is trusting you, Felix, not to tell her other friends, should you ever meet them.

"What's Jake the dog like? And who does he belong to?"

If the grave nod he gives her is any indication, Anna's secret is safe with Gaeta.

And then he pauses, midway through scooping the ice cream.

"You know, I'm not sure I ever found out who he belongs to," he says, a little quieter than he means it to be. "I never met his owners when I had the chance."

He's not sure, now, if he ever will meet them.

"But he's a good dog. Very friendly." A small, wry chuckle. "And for some reason he likes me a lot, which I don't mind."

"Dogs are very smart," Anna says. "They know who to like and who not to like."

It's something her dad says, and it carries the vague air of being a quotation.