Gaius Baltar

Gaius Baltar was scared. And Six knew it because she knew everything about him. But even if she didn', it would be easy to tell. The way he gripped the communicator in his hands, the way his fingers slipped over the keys, she could tell something had him unhinged.

Not that that was particularly difficult to do these days. Given his condition when he was spirited away from the Base Ship, she honestly couldn't blame him.

"Is there something wrong?" Six asks, peering over his shoulder.

"This," he says, tapping the image on the screen with a single digit. "This is what's wrong." Six's eyes narrow on the photograph, and the image is unlike anything she has ever seen. "Newt calls it a monster," he says, staring down at it. "And it was what she was dealing with when she found herself here."

Gaius sets the communicator back down on the table with a deliberate thump. He turns and looks at her. He doesn't look as terrified now. Now, he looks angry.

"Do you know what I was doing when I was nine?" he asks. He doesn't wait for Six to answer. "I was swimming in the river near my parents' farm in Cuttle's Breath Wash. I was complaining about having to shovel manure. I was constructing things out of whatever broken-down farm equipment I could get my hands on."

He breathes.

"I wasn't hiding away in air vents, trying to escape from monsters!" he shouts, swinging an arm out in front of him.

"You're angry," Six observes.

"Well, thank you very much for taking the time to point out the perfectly obvious," Gaius snips bitterly. He turns around and folds his arms over his chest, lip quivering slightly.

The communicator buzzes again, and with one swift gesture he reaches out and grabs it. With a flick of the wrist, the communicator is opened, and his eyes scan over the screen.

"You're angry at God," Six clarifies.

Gaius turns and just looks at her, teeth clenched.

"Do you remember what you told D'Anna before you came here? About absolute belief in God's will?"

"Yes," he says, his voice steady.

"God isn't on anyone's side, Gaius. What happens in your reality or in hers is ultimately due to the mistakes the people there themselves made."

He looks down at the communicator. "It's unfair," he says in a small voice.

"If it's unfair, you should do something about it."

"The last time I tried to do something about the unfairness of the world," he says bitterly, eyes still set on the screen, "she ended up blowing up a ship with a nuclear weapon that allowed the Cylons to locate us on New Caprica."

"Are you going to let that stop you?"

Gaius swallows, then presses his lips together tenatively. Twice had been betrayed by a woman with the same face. He had loved Gina, though he doubted now that she felt the same. Her betrayal had hurt him deeply, though logically he tried to convince himself that she had not done so out of personal grievences.

"I don't know," he says, because it's the only honest answer he can give. He begins to type out a message now; his fingers punch the keys more deliberately now. She watches the screen from over his shoulder, eyes scanning over his completed message. "I don't want to make another mistake."

"Doing nothing can be as much of a mistake as doing something, Gaius."

She sets a finger over the delete key and holds it down until his completed message is gone. He turns and looks at her and she presses her lips against the side of his mouth. An affectionate gesture, one she gave sparingly since he first found himself aboard the Prosperina.

"Thank you," he says and this time, he types out a different message.

Where are you staying?

"Gaius..." Gaius used to enjoy the way that Six would say his name, the way she would sometimes drag the sound of it out, as if she were savoring the taste of it. Not anymore. "What do you think you're doing?"

Gaius looks at her pointedly, pulling his eyes away from the screen in front of him. He frowns up at her and crosses his arms defensively over his chest. "What do you think I'm doing?" he repeats. "I'm enjoying myself for once. I'm deserving of that much, aren't I? With all I've gone through, the very least I deserve is some down time."

That was certainly not the answer Six was looking for. Displeasure registers on her face -- an expression Gaius has long been accustomed to seeing her wear. "You have to get back to the Base Star." Her voice is low and angry and Gaius doesn't like the sound of it. When she's angry she has a tendency to get aggressive. And regardless of if she was a hallucination or a cylon projection, he he knew firsthand what her aggression felt like.

His head aches at the memory of it.

"My research can wait another five minutes. Five minutes of relaxation never killed anyone, now did it?."

Six shoots him a look. "God doesn't wait, Gaius."

"God doesn't wait," he grumbles irritably, rubbing at his temples. "I don't suppose you know what exactly I'm supposed to be researching, do you? Because if I'm just supposed to find some way back to the Base Star, I need to have some idea of where to start my so-called investigation."

Six folds her arms over her chest and says nothing.

"Well, great," he snaps. "This will just be a walk in the park, now won't it?"