milliways_bar | (no subject)

[Not-quite-OOM, just prior: Physical therapy.]

"One more" turns into three more exercises by the time Gaeta departs the infirmary. Awful as he felt, it didn't feel right to leave off after so few; at least this way, he isn't wasting his or Dr. Tam's time with such a brief session.

Whether he'll be able to move from the couch he just collapsed on is another story. After requesting a glass of water from a waitrat, he gulps down three painkillers (the usual dose is two, but frak it, he hurts so much right now) before stretching along the couch's full length. Some minutes later, the same waitrat returns with a silver tray.

Gaeta eyes the tray's contents. "Um."

The rat chitters.

"Sorry for the language, but...what the frak is that?"

Squeak.

In lieu of pointing out that he doesn't speak rat, Gaeta just sighs, scoops up the small -- very colorful -- magazine, and opens it to take a look.

Apparently there's a tie-in comic book series for that famous squopera, Tentacles of Our Waves. Who knew.

[ooc: in and out for a bit, but back for good at 10 PM eastern!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He nods.

"It doesn't always work out that neatly, but...yeah." Quiet. "I tried."

Uh-oh.

"It sounds like that experiment ended badly."

"Well..."

Gaeta rubs a hand over his hair.

"It's kind of a long story, and there's not as much of a commune aspect as I made it sound," he admits. "Um. The short version is that we tried to settle on another planet, and our newly elected president did a piss-poor job managing the people's needs. It didn't help that we ended up dealing with an invasion and occupation a year later."

"Oh, my God," Steve whispers. "I'm so sorry. How horrible."

He shrugs, awkwardly.

(The same uncharitable part as before thinks, and I haven't even told you why we were forced to settle on another planet in the first place.)

"It didn't help that I was serving as Chief of Staff at the time," he says. "I, ah. I tried to help the resistance forces as much as I could, in that position. But it didn't win me too many friends."

It almost won him a trip out an airlock, in fact.

"If you were trying to help, why didn't that win you friends?"

"Because I had to keep it more or less secret during the occupation.

"They assumed I was collaborating with the Cylons along with the rest of the administration."

Steve holds Lt. Gaeta's shoulder for a moment, unable to think of a thing to say.

"It was pretty rough after that."

Quiet.

"But it's been rough for a while."

"I figured, from the lemon thing."

His eyebrows tug together.

"What lemon thing?"

(He didn't even realize he reacted the way he did, when Steve suggested it.)

"You were excited about getting a lemon in your water. It reminded me of when I was a kid and was glad to get an orange in my Christmas stocking."

"Oh."

His expression smooths out into sheepishness. "Yeah, it's, ah...been a while since fresh fruit was an option, outside of here. Everything we have is made from processed algae nowadays."

Steve smiles a little. "No farmland in outer space, I take it."

"Gods, I wish," he says with a tiny, humorless chuckle. "No. No farmland. We used to have a few ships capable of hydroponics, but that was a long time ago."

Even if they had uncontaminated seeds, the Cylons took out any suitable ships a while back.

"And there's no way to re-introduce them?

"My friend Ellen grew up in a place where they didn't have any viable land either and they grew food through--what you called it, hydrophonics? She might be able to advise about that, but that would probably lead to a lot of uncomfortable questions at home, wouldn't it."

He sighs. His instinct to help everyone he can gets a trial at Milliways.

"Hydroponics," he corrects. "And...yeah. Not very many people know about Milliways back home. Trying to explain would just..."

He trails off into a shrug. These days, Gaeta doesn't have anything close to the wherewithal to explain about the magical frakking multiversal bar that pops up behind doors on a whim.

"We're not starving, or anything like that. You wouldn't guess it -- " and this is a bit deadpan, " -- but algae's a very nutritionally complete meal."

It also tastes like crap, no matter how you process it, but taste is very low on matters of importance right now.

"I'll trust you on that," says Steve, smiling a bit.

"You sure?" Blandly, but with a slightly more real smile to go with it. "I'm sure Bar could fix you some algae scrambled eggs and algae coffee sometime."

"I'm sure. I'm looking at Army grub at some point in the future--that'll be close enough."

"Uh-huh."

Gaeta lifts the water glass in something approximating a toast.

"Well, enjoy it when you get there, sir. And enjoy the real food while it lasts."

"I do, Lieutenant. Every bite."

[ooc: hmm. possible fade there?]

[ooc: Works for me! Thanks for the thread!]

[ooc: Thank you. :D Playing with Steve = always delightful.]

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thekidfrombrooklyn - 2012-08-22 03:10 (UTC) - Expand

mr_gaeta - 2012-08-22 03:13 (UTC) - Expand

thekidfrombrooklyn - 2012-08-22 03:26 (UTC) - Expand