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"Bill, someone ought to go out and take a look around for them. It's been two days," Saul said.
"We don't have the resources for a suicide mission," Bill said, not looking up.
"This isn't a suicide mission! You know as well as I do that all the equipment on this frakking ship is ready for the junk heap. Nine times out of ten it's a mechanical malfunction."
Bill looked up at him. "Would you care so much if there weren't two Cylons on board?" he asked bitterly.
For a long moment, Saul could only stare. Then he reminded himself of how long he'd kept this secret. "The Cylons barely occurred to me," he said. "But there are two of our pilots, one of our knucledraggers, and an officer that's served for seven years in the CIC with me. They sure as hell matter."
Bill nodded absently, and then went back to his paperwork. Saul decided to take that as a yes.
***
He hadn't flown a Viper in years, but it really was like riding a bicycle or whatever the frak that silly phrase was. And he was getting plenty of practice jumping, that was for sure. Well after well, jump after jump, he kept coming up in empty space. He was pretty sure he ran through his entire vocabulary of curse words, plus invented a few more of his own.
And then, on a jump he wasn't expecting, there it was, the Raptor drifting idly in space. Saul grabbed the comm unit. "Raptor 718, do you hear me?"
For a long moment, just static, and Saul worried he'd gotten there too late. But then the static resolved, and he heard Gaeta's voice, breathless and weak. "Galactica, this is 718."
Saul closed his eyes in relief. "All right, kiddo," he said. "You're not near the Fleet, but we'll get you home."
***
He hadn't fought in it, but Saul still had memories of the first Cylon war. He had memories of New Caprica. Hell, he had memories of this war. He was no stranger to carnage. But the sight and smell that assaulted him when they opened the Raptor turned his stomach, despite the fact that being sick on the hangar bay floor wasn't overly fitting of an XO. But no one seemed to mind.
He watched the medics wheel Gaeta away, then set the knuckledraggers to cleaning up the mess. He had a really bad feeling about all of this.
***
"Well? What do you think?"
Bill sighed as they left the infirmary. "I believe him," he said finally.
"He's hiding something," Saul argued.
"When isn't Gaeta hiding something?" Bill said, shrugging. "But I don't think it's about this. Besides, we need him in the CIC. With Dualla and Hoshi dead-" he broke off, and fumbled for his flask. Saul wanted to snatch it from his hand, but he couldn't.
"Yeah, well, I think we'd better keep an eye on him."
"Not sure what good that will do, but if you want..." Bill took a quick drink and put the flask away. "I've got to get back to the CIC."
Saul stood in the hall, watching him go, seething in frustration.
***
The CIC seemed like such a different place these days. Saul would never admit it, but he missed Dee, with her calm competence and her cheeky remarks when she thought the brass wasn't listening. He never would have pegged her as the type to put a bullet in her own head. And Hoshi might have only been in the CIC for a few years, but he'd had a quiet, steadying capability that Saul hadn't realized he relied on. But he'd been killed in whatever the frak had happened on the Demetrius, the same incident that had cost Gaeta his leg. Tigh would give a lot to know what the hell had happened over there.
They had other officers, of course, but the deaths and Gaeta's disability cast a pall over the CIC, and no one quite knew how to behave. The bridge wasn't a place where deaths were common. At least, they didn't used to be.
Gaeta was back at his station. He was pale and gray and looked even worse than before Saul had sent him over to the Zephyr. It occurred to him that that promised rest had never happened. But Gaeta was typing something into his console, and in some ways it was the same as he ever was.
Saul shook his head.
***
Later that night, it came to his attention. "Sir." Alghee's voice betrayed a bit of fear.
"What is it?" Saul asked.
"Airlock A15 is in use, sir. But nothing's cleared to launch from there."
"Frakking bugs in the equipment."
"Maybe sir. But maybe not." Alghee was quiet for a moment, gathering up the nerve for whatever he really wanted to say. "Last time we saw something like this, Cally Tyrol committed suicide. And before that, it was-"
"I know what it was," Saul growled, realizing what Alghee wanted to say. "I'll go check it out."
He had no idea what possessed him to say that, as opposed to sending some marines or knuckledraggers down there. But it was a night shift; most of the ship was asleep. And the way Alghee was looking at him... obviously he knew something about the Circle. Saul just wanted out of there.
"Yeah," he said. "I'll go check it out."
He never expected to find what he did.
***
Because of Alghee's words, the Circle was heavy on his mind as he made his way down to the airlock. At first, it looked empty, and he thought it really was a bug in the system. Then he saw Gaeta standing over by the controls, forehead against the metal of the wall.
"What the frak are you doing?"
Gaeta startled. "Go away, please, sir. I'm just repairing the faulty circuit-"
"Like hell you are." It was becoming clear, fast, and really, with everything everyone had lost and everything Gaeta had lost, they should have seen this coming. No, they'd seen it coming. They should have taken it more seriously. "Come on, son," Saul said, stepping closer. "You don't want to do this."
"There's nothing wrong with fixing an airlock circuit," Gaeta snapped.
"At two o'clock in the morning when you need at least one hand to hold you up? Do you really think I'm that dumb, Gaeta?"
Gaeta deflated. "No, sir."
"Then let's drop the pretense. Come on." Saul grabbed Gaeta by the arm, and pulled him away. "Let's get out of here. This place gives me the creeps. And don't think I didn't notice which airlock you chose. Busted circuit, my ass."
"Actually, sir, it is busted," Gaeta said, although he stumbled along next to Saul.
He'd already tried. Shit.
***
The logical place to take Gaeta would have been the infirmary, and let Cottle deal with him. And Saul knew he'd have to do that anyway, eventually. Gaeta needed a hell of a lot of therapy or whatever to get through this, and Saul didn't know the first thing about it. But some gut instinct made him think that it wasn't the right thing to do right now. So instead, he took the kid to Joe's.
They drank their first drinks in silence. Sitting close like this, Saul could see the dark circles under Gaeta's eyes and the gray in his hair. He looked nothing like he had the day of the attacks- hell, even before that hellhole called New Caprica. It bugged the hell out of him that he hadn't noticed, but at the same time, he was an officer, not a babysitter, and he'd had problems of his own.
"I'm sorry about Dee," Saul finally said, because it seemed the safest place to start. "She was a good girl, and I know you two were in cahoots a lot."
Gaeta nodded. "Thank you," he said, voice stiff.
"You were close with Hoshi, too, right?" Saul thought he'd seen the two of them talking multiple times.
That was the first real reaction he got from Gaeta. Gaeta snapped to attention for a moment, his eyes sharpening and narrowing. "Close is an understatement," he said.
Suddenly, the pieces fell together; the way they stood when they talked to each other, the way he'd seen Hoshi laughing, and Gaeta dragging himself to Hoshi's funeral, despite the fact his leg had been amputated two days before. At the time, Saul had thought it was odd that Cottle allowed it. Now, he understood.
"I see." And oddly enough, he did. He couldn't understand losing a leg or the loss of Earth, but he could understand this. Unfortunately, he wasn't sure there was much that he could say. But for some reason, Gaeta picked up the slack.
"We were actually talking about getting married, you know," he said glumly, fingering his glass. "When we got back from the Demetrius mission. Then Starbuck brought that Cylon aboard and it all went to hell and Louis got caught in the crossfire and…" he cut off angrily, and threw back the rest of his drink. "Frak."
Saul didn't say anything.
"Married," Gaeta said into the silence. "I never thought I'd get married. Can you imagine me married?"
Saul had never taken the time to think about it or frankly, considered it his business, but now that he did, he saw what Gaeta was saying. Before the attacks, he easily could have pictured Gaeta living in a bachelor apartment even at forty or fifty, with a high rank and a cat. "No," he agreed. "But then, I never imagined myself married, either."
"Even back on Earth?" Gaeta's voice was caustic.
"Don't remember. But this isn't about me," Saul said, redirecting him away from the subject. "Especially since I wasn't the one trying to flush myself out an airlock."
"No. You just tried to do it for me over a year ago." But Gaeta's voice lacked any anger.
"Yeah. I never did say I was sorry, did I?" Tigh snorted. "Guess it seemed inadequate. Hey, thanks for help saving our asses, sorry I was so wrong about you, and oh by the way, I'm still frakked up from killing my own wife only to find out she would have been forgiven. I'm pretty sure Corridors never made a card for that." He turned his glass so the liquid caught the light. "Although I guess I could have bought you a drink."
"Just as well you didn't," Gaeta said. He was staring past Saul, far away. "And just as well that Louis and I never did get married. It never would have worked."
Something told Saul that this was it. He sipped his drink, and then reached out and refilled Gaeta's glass. "Why wouldn't it have worked? Never saw the two of you together outside of the CIC, but now that you say it, it makes a hell of a lot of sense."
Gaeta was silent for a long time, which Saul expected. Then finally… "There was an Eight. An Eight on New Caprica. I thought…" he shook his head. "She told me she'd help. And I believed her. I frakking believed her."
For a moment, Saul wanted to reach out and shake Gaeta for his naivete. Believe a Cylon would help? What the frak did he really expect? But this was Gaeta's head, and Gaeta had nearly flushed himself out an airlock. He restrained himself. "What happened? Did she help you get information?"
Gaeta looked at him sharply. "I wasn't that dumb," he said. "No one helped me with that, no matter what Gaius frakking Baltar says." He snorted, and Saul expected there was a whole other story there. "But she said that if I gave her names, she'd get people out of detention. And I believed her." Before Saul could respond, he shook his head. "You know, I get that she tricked me. You know what she did? She let some of them go, so I'd see them and I'd believe that she really was helping me. On some level, I can make it all make sense. I can say that she played me, and she did it right. But that's not what I see. All I can see- all I can think of- are the people I killed."
Saul breathed out heavily. "Well. Frak. No wonder you were pushing buttons on airlocks." Something dawned on him. "Was that Eight in the Raptor?" Gaeta nodded. "Frak."
"I think that sums it up." Gaeta finished his drink and poured himself another. Saul figured he'd let him, because it would make it easier to drag his ass to Cottle when they were done here.
***
Gaeta was sleeping, and Cottle wiped his own face. "Frak," he said.
"My sentiments exactly," Saul agreed. "You got a psychologist somewhere in this Fleet?"
"Overworked, but I'll make sure she makes some time," Cottle said. He lit a cigarette and then extended the box to Saul, who took one. "Frak. Have you told the Admiral?"
"Not yet." Saul sighed. "He's not gonna take it well."
"Good. He needs a kick in the ass. I hate to say it, but this might be exactly what he needs."
"Don't think the thought hasn't occurred to me, either," Saul muttered. They shared a grim smile of solidarity. "But I think it's time Gaeta stopped slipping through the cracks."
"Long past," Cottle said. "I'm just glad that someone's finally listening to me."
Saul glared at him, but only because the words hit way too close to home. Cottle returned the gaze easily, and then stubbed out his cigarette. "Go get some sleep, Colonel, and tell the Admiral in the morning. I'll be here, and he's not going anywhere."
"All right." Saul scrubbed his face with his hands. "I'll be back in the morning."
He looked back at Gaeta one more time before he left. Gaeta was still sleeping, his breathing a little uneven and his hands twitching. They'd racked up a lot of failures on this trip from hell, and Gaeta was just one more. But at least maybe this was one they could fix before it broke forever.