A/N: It always seemed to me that Lee Adama and Felix Gaeta might have a Hamlet/Laertes-type confrontation over Dee's suicide. From the look of him, Gaeta had lots of issues over Lee's alleged complicity in Dee's choice to take her own life.
This takes place before the closing scenes of Sometimes a Great Notion. I'm not quite comfortable with Gaeta's voice, hence this is a lot more dialogue-lite, than originally intended.
Disclaimer: None of the characters, situations and/or plot-points mentioned/alluded to belong to me.
Make up my sum
I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum.
(Hamlet, Act V, Scene I)
He didn't feel like turning the lights on. Darkness was welcome. Darkness, and silence. And solitude. He craved the soothing comfort of their shrouds after the nagging bustle of condolences he was soaked in, the throbbing beat of military fanfare, the exposing blaze of mourning candles. All he longed for at the moment was an eclipse. He didn't feel like feeling.
A thump on the hatch brought the world rushing back into his reverie. He cringed quite visibly. The headache he nursed, tracing all the way back to the stand-off with D'Anna and built up into a full-scale migraine through the devastating fiasco of Earth, through anguished tears and mute laments of Dee, through the bleak and hushed garments of his insomnia, definitely did not agree well to the abusive sound.
It couldn't be the Admiral, he reckoned. His father knew better, than to prod. He endured the intense disapproving, if equally concerned, glare, but still declined the offer to stay on Galactica overnight. He was aware his father needed to keep an eye on him, to be sure. Ever the officer, Bill Adama wouldn't stand any more morale busting on his watch. Lee was all too aware he needed to leave, asap. Before he took a wrong turn and stumbled into the hallway they walked from the bar that night. They took a long sweet route. Passed many hallways. Before he caught a wisp of a song from the wireless. There were only so many records left in the universe. They danced to most of them. He had to leave before he let nostalgia get the better of him and sneaked into the long deserted quarters they used to share. Before the memory crushed him.
He had to leave for he wasn't sure he could stand any more sympathetic glances, stolen his way. The ones fueled with contempt and piercing disdain, Gaeta's mostly, weren't at all welcoming either. There was a certain luxury in still being a virtual stranger on Colonial One. Hardly anyone even knew he lost more, than an illusion, over that Gods-forsaken planet. Romo Lampkin, probably, did, but he didn't seem like someone to show up on your hatchstep with a bottle of ambrisia for condolences.
The thump went louder. More determined. Whoever it was knew he was in and was not going away.
***
- Guess, it's yours now. She wouldn't want it auctioned away – it's personal stuff. Should belong to her family. You are… family.
Felix Gaeta spit the last word into his face, as if it were poisoned, placing a plastic box on the coffee table with an audible grunt. He could make out "Anastasia Dualla. Personal effects", scribbled on the side, from where he stood, not venturing to step closer. Such a small box – he mused distantly – like the coffin they sent out a ceremonial airlock hours ago. His mind was locked on the memory of how tiny it seemed in the vast expanse of the hangar deck. How lonely. He remembered the acute desire to tuck her away than, only to wonder if he could ever, in fact, make a sound enough shield to keep her out of harm's way. He'd failed spectacularly so far...
Gaeta, apparently, had a way to interpret his lack of response as disinterest.
Lieutenant's face contorted, the ashen pallor more pronounced in the dim light, eyes oozing tears of anger and physical pain.
- I could take this back, if you don't want it, of course. Sure, the mighty politician here is just too busy moving on, to look back and care for what's been lost.
He can taste instant rage bitter and stifling on his tongue. He's in Gaeta's face in a heartbeat, placing himself between Lieutenant and the precious box. The flavor of déjà vu thick and musky in the air:
- Don't. You. Dare. Quantify. My. Loss. - His voice gets darker. Words spattering like bullets onto a fixed target.
He can only hope it translates the warning loud and clear enough. Gods know, he's in an ominous enough place to go through with this contest for the win. And he won't hesitate to play dirty.
He knows exactly why Gaeta took all the effort to deliver her meager heritage to the "grief-stricken widower". Gaeta needed to be sure, that what she did hit home. That Lee was suffering enough. That he was flogging himself adequately for not being there for her, for letting her down – that night and months earlier. That he considered ways to follow. It was all too obvious. Felix would expect no less than he charged himself with.
Lee made himself exhale and step back. His demeanor still darkened by menace. Blinded by his own pain, Gaeta wouldn't know what he'd deduced in the long hours of dodging nightmares of happiness never to be. Gaeta wouldn't know she did, what she did, so that he – Lee – didn't have to. To make sure he wouldn't. Gaeta wouldn't know, that what he lost to her death was a chance to condemn himself. That going on dutifully was his ultimate penance. Her absolution was his sentence. Gaeta wouldn't know Lee sorely envied him.