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falafel_musings) wrote2009-03-23 07:37 am
Judgement Day
Chapters: 1. Devotion to Good, 2. Return from Kobol, 3. After the Election, 4. The First Intern, 5. Judgement Day, 6. A Walk at Midnight, 7. Awaiting the Verdict, 8. Voices in the Mind. 9. Last Confessions.
Synopsis: Gaius surrenders to the cylons and is reunited with Caprica-Six.
Characters: Baltar, Gaeta, Zarek, Boomer, Caprica.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own BSG and Romo Lampkin will be my lawyer if anyone tries to sue.
Beta: Many thanks to
lls_mutant.
5. Judgement Day
His words still hung in the silence of the room.
Two mortifying words; I surrender…
Gaius had tasted his own tears as those words fell from his lips, like missiles released from a Raptor. The cylons before his desk smiled at his submission, drinking in their victory with a cool composure. Behind him, Gaius could hear his staff struggling to calm their breaths, trying to show no fear in the face of this helpless defeat. Felix’s head was bowed, his jaw set and his fists clenched at his sides. Gaius could see that even now he was retreating into his tactical little brain and trying to formulate a solution to this nightmare. He didn’t know when to yield.
Since Felix was no longer looking at him, Gaius turned his head to meet her eyes again. Yes, it was her. Even though the Sixes were all born into identical bodies, Gaius imagined that he would have recognised her anywhere. He had been told she would resurrect; that she would rise out of the smoking rubble of their lakeside house on Caprica, but he hadn’t ever expected to meet with her again. Now she had found him out. She had come for him like a vengeful angel, a harbinger of all his failings – his weak leadership of this new colony, his stupidity in trading arms with one of her model and the darkest secret of his shame known only to this Number Six; the secret of the access codes that had opened the door to humanities destruction. His Caprica-Six had returned and she had brought with her the memory of all his direst sins.
But Gods, she was beautiful. Gaius had forgotten how beautiful she was. Oh, he still saw her apparition everywhere he went. She had been haunting him these last two years. But it still dazzled him to see her in the flesh.
The spell was broken as Zarek came barging onto the ship.
"What the frak is going on here? What in Gods name is..."
The Vice President stopped short as he entered the office. He bristled at the sight of the cylon invaders standing in their government rooms. Zarek took the measure of their situation; narrowing his eyes, drawing in a sharp breath. He nodded to himself. Then his lips curled in a ferocious snarl.
“You are not welcome on this ship,” Zarek spoke to the cylons, his voice low yet menacing. “You are not welcome in this city. You destroyed our home worlds. You murdered our people. But the human race was not conquered by your kind. We have fought you across the stars. We have built ourselves a new civilisation on this planet. We will not allow you to take our homes from us again. This government will never stoop to collaborate with our enemies. We are the free people of the Twelve Colonies and we will never stop fighting you for our liberty...”
His speech cut through the air, firing bullets into the word surrender.
Gaius couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It seemed that Zarek wasn’t going to be satisfied until he had convinced their cylon captors to execute every member of the ministry and before proceeding to nuke this entire settlement.
“Mr President!” Zarek barked across the room, prompting him to action.
Gaius felt the bile rising up in his throat. Tears were still spilling over his cheeks and his body was tensed with fear. His threw up his hands.
“What would you have me do, Tom?! What would you have me do?!”
Zarek stared at him; a realisation dawning in his eyes. His face twisted with disgust and he shook his head, letting his shoulders fall.
“Oh, you frakking coward…” he muttered, his voice dripping with scorn. “You already surrendered to them, didn’t you?”
Gaius swallowed; the shame now becoming a hard lump in his throat. Yes, he had surrendered their fate to these cylons; so had the military and the colonial fleet. What else could he do for his people now? How else could he save their lives? The Eight had promised they would not be harmed...
Gaius opened his mouth, wishing to reason with his Vice President. But at that moment a group of Twos and Fours came marching into his office from the rear entrance. Zarek turned to face them, looking ready for a fight, but the leading Doral seemed to have grown weary of this little spectacle. He gave a nod to one of the Leobens and Zarek was seized by his arms; then dragged towards the exit. Before he was forced from the room Zarek glanced over his shoulder, looking to the ministry staff.
"Let there be no collaboration!" Zarek called out to them. "Do not submit to this oppression!"
Gaius cringed and shuffled his feet. He wished that Zarek wouldn't encourage others to join him in this idiotic last stand. Much to his dismay, several of the staff began to step forwards; their teeth clenched in fury and tears of defiance standing in their eyes.
Gaius quickly turned his attention back to Felix. He was relieved to see that his aide was still deep in thought, seeming dazed by the scene that was unfolding before them. Gaius hurried over to his side, clasping him by the wrist.
"Don't leave me..." he hissed in desperation.
Gaius tugged at his sleeve, wanting to pull him into a corner; a better place for them to cower together. But Felix wasn’t trembling like he was. He stood firm, refusing to move. It was like trying to hold hands with a statue.
Suddenly the Eight was rounding the table, closing in on them.
“Felix…Doc…” she said to them. “It’s me. It’s Boomer.”
Gaius blinked in confusion. This was another reunion that he hadn’t anticipated. Sharon Valerii stood smiling at them both. Her hands were raised; her palms open and her fingers outspread as though she were approaching a deer in the woods, trying not to startle it. Her stance suggested to him that she meant them no harm; that she wanted to assure them she was still their friend.
“Don’t worry…” she soothed; her voice serene. “It’s going to be okay. We have come here to make a new beginning…to change things for the better. From now on human and cylon will live together in harmony. They’ll be no more hate, no more lies. You’ll see. It’s all going to be better from now on...”
As Boomer spoke these words, Gaius couldn’t help glancing over her shoulder, watching as his ministry staff were led away from his office with their hands behind their heads and guns pressed to their backs. From the windows of the Colonial One he could already see the Centurions marching on the city, their loaded arms raised at the citizens who were huddling on the streets. Still Boomer smiled at them, though even her smile was like something she had programmed onto her face.
“Listen, it’s going to take a while to get this situation under control,” she conceded, her voice faltering. “Maybe you two should wait in the bed chamber until everything has calmed down. It’ll be safer for you there.”
Felix frowned at her yet nodded his head grimly. As Boomer ushered them into the bedroom Gaius felt rather like an animal that was being shunted into its cage. He tried not to listen to the noises in his office; the mingling of angry oaths and tearful pleas being uttered by his staff. Out in the corridor he could still hear the echoing sounds of Tom Zarek not coming quietly.
Then there came a sound behind him. Gaius flinched and spun around as he heard the panel door closing; sealing them inside his private quarters. He gasped out in a panic; slapping his hand against the barrier. He tried to reopen the door from the emergency switch on his wall. It would not move.
“Oh Gods…has she locked us in?” he stammered. “She’s locked the frakking door on us, Felix! What exactly are they planning to do with us?! How long are they going to hold us here? Valerii said that they wouldn’t hurt us as long as we cooperated, right? That’s what she said, isn’t it Felix?”
Felix didn’t answer. His face was still expressionless; his eyes hazy and distant. He lowered himself onto the bed, sitting on the edge of the mattress. Gaius started to pace the floor in front of him. He could feel another one of those terrible headaches coming on. He wiped the tears from his face with his tie.
“Gods, I can’t stop crying…Felix, if you want to cry just go ahead and do so. I won’t think it unprofessional of you. This is a nightmare! I can’t believe Adama left us!! But you have to stay with me, Felix. They’ve not come here to kill us, so…so there’s a chance that you and I can survive this if we only…”
Felix closed his eyes wearily.
“Gaius…shut up.”
He bit his tongue and nodded rapidly. “Right. Yes, I’m sorry, Felix. I’ll try to be quiet for a moment. I can see that you’re thinking.”
Gaius folded his arms, struggling to restrain himself. He managed a full ten seconds of silence before he crumbled once more.
“What is it you’re thinking, Felix?”
“You really want to know?”
“Yes…” he answered uncertainly.
“I think Zarek was right.”
Gaius shook his head, his panic mounting once again. He reached out and clasped the back of Felix’s head, forcing him to meet his eyes.
“No, Felix...listen to me! You have to stay with me now. Zarek is going to get himself thrown in detention if he doesn’t get himself shot first. I know his speeches all sound very noble but…but what good will it do?! How will it help those people out there? Felix, if you want to help the people, then you have to…”
“Don’t…” he warned.
Felix’s voice was low and tempered, but the look in his eyes was sharp enough to cut Gaius into pieces. He winced and extracted his hand from his hair. Finally Gaius let out a sigh, having exhausted his own fear. He sank down onto the mattress beside Felix, making sure to leave a large airy space between them.
It was several minutes before Felix spoke again.
“How does she know you?” he asked.
Gaius startled at the question.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“The cylon woman…” he clarified; his voice still eerily calm. “The Number Six. The one who said that she knew you...”
He swallowed. “Felix, I don’t what you…”
“You know the one that I’m talking about, Gaius. The tall blonde cylon. The same model as Shelley Godfrey.” He closed his eyes. “You told me you hadn’t seen any of the Six models before. Was that a lie, Gaius? Did you know that Godfrey woman? Did you let the cylons into defence mainframe like she said?”
“Felix…what are you accusing me of?!” Gaius spluttered, knowing that he was accusing him of everything he had deserved to be accused of since the day of the attacks. Gaius still couldn’t bring himself to admit it.
“Felix, I…I’m not in cahoots with that woman!” he forced out. “She might know me but I do not know her. We know the cylons have spies in our fleet. Obviously these secret agents are still gathering information about me. They must be trying to discredit me…trying to frame me again...”
But Felix wasn’t listening to his feeble excuses.
“The cylon prisoner onboard the Pegasus…” he continued, “...she was a Six model too, wasn’t she? Did she really escape on her own, Gaius? Or did you help her to escape? Have you been helping the cylons all this time?”
Gaius stared at him, breathlessly. The more he listened to Felix the more he realised that he hadn’t just come to these conclusions in the last few minutes. Felix had been harvesting these suspicions for a long time; storing them at the back of his mind, never wanting to believe they might be the truth.
It hurt. Really, it hurt Gaius to learn that Felix doubted him.
But then, of course…he deserved to be doubted.
“Do you love her, Gaius?” Felix asked him at last, his voice very quiet now. “The Six was looking at you like she was in love with you, so I’m guessing you must have loved her. Or did you just say that you loved her so you could frak her?”
His heart clenched. It felt like he was being dissected.
Before Gaius could answer him, the panel door slid back and the very woman they were discussing stepped into the bed chamber. They both rose to their feet, bracing themselves; still uncertain of the cylons intentions. The Six only smiled at them; the same peaceful smile that Boomer had worn.
“We are ready to make our negotiations, Mr President,” she said respectfully. “The Ones and Threes have drawn up our plans for a new unified settlement of humans and cylons. They were hoping that your aide could take minutes of the meeting and then make a public announcement to your citizens.”
Gaius managed a nod, still feeling a little hysterical.
“Yes…yes, he could do that…couldn’t you, Mr Gaeta? He really is very good at dictation, you know. He…he has lovely handwriting…”
Gaius fell silent, realising how inane he was sounding. In his own pathetic way he was trying to convince her of Felix’s usefulness, so she wouldn’t have the other cylons drag him away. Gaius was trying to be the hero for Felix again. Not that he would notice it now. It was much too late for that.
Felix wasn’t looking at either of them. He was simply standing his ground, refusing to obey their coaxing commands. The Six regarded him curiously; as if trying to estimate his importance to Gaius and deciding how much she was threatened by it.
In the end, she sighed and cut through the formalities.
“I’d like to speak with Gaius in private,” she told Felix bluntly, her smile returning to her lips. “We…we have a lot of catching up to do.”
Felix tightened his lips, his eyes falling shut as her words confirmed to him all that he never wanted to be true. Silence fell between them and in that silence Felix learned all there was to know about Gaius and his Six while the Six learned all there was to know about Gaius and Felix. Gaius watched them hide their hurt behind masks of impassivity. They really weren’t so different from each other.
Felix was the first one to recover. He took a notebook from his pocket, ready to take down notes at the cylon’s meeting. Now that his President had waved the white flag it seemed that he was retreating into his only remaining form of security. He was doing his job.
“He’s all yours,” Felix murmured as he left the room.
Gaius swallowed. It felt like he was standing on the verge of a great precipice. As Felix stepped out, he felt like his last foothold had crumbled away, plunging him into darkness…
Gaius felt the Six’s fingers on his chin, turning his face up so that she could look him the eyes. Her other hand clasped hold of his tie like it was a leash. Like Gaius was her runaway pet and she was reclaiming him. She covered his lips with her own; gagging him, smothering him. He belonged to her now.
When she broke their kiss, she cupped his face in her palms.
“Everything’s going to be alright, Gaius,” she said.
He nodded. Yes, of course. She would protect him. She loved him and she would keep safe him. She would make it alright for him…in the worst possible way.
6. A Walk at Midnight
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I eagerly await the next installment!
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Aww, memories of Triad games before everything went to hell.
Looking forward to YOUR next installment too! Can I friend you?
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Hopefully the next installment will be soon, but life is getting in the way of all my fun as of late. Frakkin' exams.
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It's great to see Felix becoming so gradually delusioned. His "Zarek is right" was chilling knowing how it all ends...
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As lls_mutant has made clear in her fic, Gaeta and Zarek must have had a relationship on New Caprica (as CoS and VP for the Government). Zarek is consistent in his policies and I thought it would be good to foreshadow Gaeta's alligence to him.
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This is a good description of the Cylons' expression in that scene. Doral especially, who looks really smug. I've sort of always wondered if he also enjoyed humiliating Gaius as payback for screwing up his plans to keep infiltrating the Fleet in the Miniseries.
Now she had found him out. She had come for him like a vengeful angel, a harbinger of all his failings – his weak leadership of this new colony, his stupidity in trading arms with one of her model and the darkest secret of his shame known only to this Number Six; the secret of the access codes that had opened the door to humanities destruction. His Caprica-Six had returned and she had brought with her the memory of all his direst sins.
Yeah, this pretty much sums up Gaius' dark history with Caprica Six, but to have him run down the list in this moment is so heartbreaking. I remember once hearing James talk about how he'd come around to understanding that Baltar's greatest preoccupation with his sins is not so much a sense of guilt, but a sense of shame. This really captures that feeling.
Oh, he still saw her apparition everywhere he went. She had been haunting him these last two years. But it still dazzled him to see her in the flesh.
You know, I hadn't thought that much about how Gaius would be thinking about Caprica Six and Head!Six differently when he saw her. I got so used to the idea in Season 1 that Head!Six might be the ghost of Caprica Six. Then "Downloaded" happened, and I got used to Caprica being totally separate from Head!Six that by the time she showed up in the flesh, I'd kind of forgotten that Gaius didn't know about all that. It's interesting. It makes me wonder what his late take on Shelley Godfrey was. Did he think she was Caprica pretending not to know him?
Zarek's stand was cool to see. I've never really seen anything written about what exactly happened to him when the Cylons came. I liked his speech to the Cylons about never surrendering, although actually, I kind of agree with what Gaius said to Felix too. There wasn't much they could do.
This reunion scene with Boomer is inspired. I particularly loved the image of her standing with her palms open, like she was trying not to startle Gaius and Felix. I always wanted to see what Boomer would say to these two men she recognized, especially Felix, with whom she seemed to be friends. Also, the way her words are so obviously being contradicted by the events around her is so full of pathos, it's really affecting. I also liked the way you got across the idea that Felix had decided to give in very subtly, in the way he nods at Boomer grimly when she suggests that they wait in the bedroom. Gaius' lack of composure is hard to watch, especially when Felix tells him tiredly to shut up. (I like how Gaius can only follow this directive for about ten seconds!)
I can totally see where Felix is coming from, but it's still makes me cringe to watch, a sign of good writing, because Gaius is both a sympathetic character and a little weasel here, which really gets New Caprica!Gaius right. :)
I know his speeches all sound very noble but…but what good will it do?! How will it help those people out there? Felix, if you want to help the people, then you have to…”
This was intriguing. I've written one story where it refers to Gaius advocating to keep Felix around, but most often, I've assumed that Gaius was too caught up in his own drama and the reappearance of Caprica to even think of that. I thought Felix made the decision all on his own. But I like seeing this alternative I've never considered: that he would convince Felix to stay. Oh, and btw, I liked your use of body language overall in this fic - like the aforementioned Boomer's hand gesture, but also the way Gaius keeps space between them on the bed.
Part 2
This. THIS. I waited *all series* for this to ever come up between them! Well, actually I knew very well that it would never come up. But a girl can futilely hope... I loved how you played this out between them - Gaius' denials, Felix's accusations growing in magnitude with each one uttered. I can hear the tone of his voice there - a mixture of disgust and disbelief, plus a quiet dose of self-blame for not having put the pieces together earlier when it might have done more good.
“Do you love her, Gaius?” Felix asked him at last, his voice very quiet now. “The Six was looking at you liked she was in love with you, so I’m guessing you must have loved her. Or did you just say that you loved her so you could frak her?”
Oh, this is so painful, because you just know that in the last line, Felix is thinking about his own relationship with Gaius. And you follow that idea up with the way Felix says, "He's all yours." Very cool. And I've often thought that Caprica and Felix are sort of similar in the way they related to Gaius, but I've never thought about what Gaius' reflections on that idea might be.
Gaius felt the Six’s fingers on his chin, turning his face up so that she could look him the eyes. Her other hand clasped hold of his tie like it was a leash. Like Gaius was her runaway pet and she was reclaiming him. She covered his lips with her own; gagging him, smothering him. He belonged to her now.
This was amazing. Best paragraph of the fic. And I loved the implied qualities of of Head!Six in Caprica's behavior with Gaius. Even though Head!Six has now been clearly marked as a creature from God independent of Gaius' making, you can see how Head!Six needed to be the way she was to mimic what Gaius first found in Caprica. Even though Caprica loved Gaius in the Miniseries, I think she always felt the need to keep him guessing, to keep him feeling a little powerless where she could, much like Head!Six always did. You see how Caprica does that here, even unconsciously. And his reaction to her is just so much like how we've always seen him react to Head!Six.
Re: Part 2
Doral especially, who looks really smug. I've sort of always wondered if he also enjoyed humiliating Gaius as payback for screwing up his plans to keep infiltrating the Fleet in the Miniseries.
Woah, excellent catch! I hadn't thought of that, but when I will rewatch I'll totally be thinking of that moment as Doral bitchslapping Gaius. Yes, I agree that it is shame rather than guilt that eats away at Gaius. In a sense he shouldn't feel guilty because most of his mistakes are unintended. However he should feel ashamed because it is his weakness, arrogance and selfishness that usually leads to these mistakes being made.
I wish we had seen more of Zarek in the New Caprica episodes. I agree that Zarek's stand was righteous and courageous, but ultimately useless. Mind you, Baltar was useless during the occupation too. I think Felix found a more useful balance between Baltar and Zareks standpoints with his choice to work as an undercover spy. This was when Felix could still find the cleverest tactical solution before his sanity was worn away.
Oh Boomer *sniff* She and Caprica really did have good intentions when they came to that planet. It's just a shame their sadistic friends came along to screw it up for them.
Well, I always notice in the last S2 scene that despite the intense drama of the cylons invading and Caprica returning, Gaius still keeps looking across at Felix. So I do think that Gaius still considered Felix during the New Caprica occupation and was fully aware that he was working as a double agent. I think it's actually quite touching that Gaius protected Felix from being discovered by the cylons, even if Felix didn't believe him (more on that theme in the next chapter).
You know a lot of BSG fans complain about the One Year Gap but I think we lose more good stuff from the 4 month gap. I'm sure Felix would have quickly joined up the dots regarding Baltar and Caprica-Six. I actually think some of that knowledge might be implied in Felix's "He led us to the apocalypse!" line. And yes, I think that both Felix and Six fear that Gaius thinks with his dick more so than with his heart and they have wasted their love on a selfish indulgent cad.
Thanks again for all your feedback! Your Daybreak review was brilliant, btw. Someone recced it to me. I didn't know that you blogged on other sites.
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I really love the drawn-out messy awkwardness of everyone's emotions in these fill-in-the-blanks chapters of yours. (You do it so well!) It's everything I loved about the Felix/Gaius interactions in the mutiny arc. That line
His heart clenched. It felt like he was being dissected.
in particular, made me realize that what I really like about the pair is when they use each other horribly, when the colder parts of their personalities play off one another. Lol, am I evil or something? (And do I have a dissection... thing?)
Also liked the descriptions of Felix's "tactical little brain" (heehee) and Zarek's
lastsecond-to-last stand. Gaeta's compulsion to organize is always amusing, and it's nice to think of Zarek's noble side, now that all's said and done...no subject
what I really like about the pair is when they use each other horribly, when the colder parts of their personalities play off one another. Lol, am I evil or something?
If you are evil, I'm most definitely evil too!
To be fair, I don't think Zarek really changed very much. From Bastille Day to New Caprica to the Mutiny Zarek has always been prepared to go out in a blaze of glory, fighting for his cause, even if he drags other people down with him.
Thanx for reading!
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The line comparing Gaius's tie to a leash was particularly poetic and appropriate.
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Hehe! And a few months later Six will be like...please Gaeta, take him back. Weepy Gaius is a handful.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
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he was retreating into his only remaining form of security. He was doing his job.
Oh, Felix.
And he's grown up so much...early eager!beaver!Felix would have been devastated. NewCaprica!Felix has seen Baltar's selfishness and is cynical in his disappointed acceptance.
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And Gaius too. Always so calm in a crisis.
Then Zarek, always eager to provoke a bloodbath...