Re-Entry 13: Spam/Audio

[itstopped]

((Backdated to the last day of port.))

Felix Gaeta doesn't know this beach.

Well, he might. It could be Picon. For all that he grew up by the sea, for all that he can swim as well as any fisherman, he's never exactly been much of a beachgoer. But no, he thinks there's another reason he doesn't know this beach. He's never stood under this misty sky. He's never stood on this white, gauzy shore.

Because he never got off the ship, and he never set foot on--

All of this has happened before, something whispers into the air. He turns and looks at the wreckage extending out to both sides. Ahead, the view is empty. Featureless. Nothing but sea and sky, muddled together at the horizon. To the sides, though...

Each ship is as big as a town. He's dwarfed beneath their massive carcasses. Some are still smoldering, their names still picked out on their sides like bones: the Galactica, the Zephyr, the Hitei Kan, the Inchon Velle. Others, in the distance, are older, long dead. The Pegasus, the Atlantia... even a Pan Galactic freight liner from Caprica. If he squints, he can make out one of his father's ships.

This is the graveyard of the Twelve Colonies. Of his people. It's just twenty billion bodies and him.

Not just him. Not anymore. He opens his mouth to speak as Racetrack comes up beside him, but something prevents him.

All of this has happened before.

Everyone knows how the proverb, the prophecy finishes -- all of it will happen again -- but that's not what's happening this time. He turns around again, twists, looking for some hint in the wreckage, and what he sees instead, at the same time she does, is the sapling. One tiny green shoot, barely visible against the hulking, elephantine mass of Galactica's corpse.

They approach it together. They kneel and lay hands on it together. And as it starts to grow, he--

[Audio for Racetrack]

[--wakes up from a two-week coma and groans, burying his head beneath his pillow. He's on the comm to her a second later, though, sounding bleary but annoyed.] Tell me you didn't see that.

[Frakking visions.]

[ETA: Lazylog spam for Dean, towards the end of port]

And now there's another beach. A real beach, an Earth beach, in this city with the strange name. There's a part of him, in the back of his mind, that's still marveling at the fact that he's actually standing on real Earth earth -- or sand, at the moment -- and standing on a beach at all, for that matter, after all these years. But more than that, he's caught up by the coincidence of it all. The dream, only hours ago, and now this...

Not that this beach is a great deal like the one from the dream. It's a bright, sunny day, hot enough that he's stripped down to his undershirt and bare feet. He's found a quieter section of the shore, but there are still people everywhere, and no wrecks in sight. But the sand is the same shade of white, and the horizon looks even more the same than any other horizon would, and he just can't help but want to know what else might be here.

Not that he's taking any heed of the dream. Obviously not. It's just curiosity. He's here to see the beach, and... enjoy the sea and the salt smell and the many attractive half-dressed people milling around. And maybe he'll get an ice cream cone. It has nothing to do with anything else. There was no ice cream in his vision.

He's just turning to approach the food stands when he spots a certain and particularly enjoyable -- and particularly attractive, even when not half-dressed -- sight coming up the beach towards him. He brightens, flashing a smile. "Hey."

Comments

[landfall]

You tell me you didn't see that.

[ excuse her, the logic machine in her brain is still booting up ]

[surfaceshine]

It's hot in California, which is part of why Dean hates it. It's California, for another, and he'll never not hate California even if he never says it aloud, even if he's well aware that California didn't actually do anything to him, even if he knows it's childish. But right now it has going for it that it's not the Barge, and that no one is screaming or running or dying, and he has an untraceable credit card in his back pocket with no limit - or at least one he hasn't found yet - and that no one here knows him unless he purposely seeks them out. The majority of them are on the Drive, anyway, or at Disney World, and Dean has no interest in either of those.

He's not sulking. He's enjoying the sun (even though he can feel the freckles popping out of the skin of his face and chest and shoulders as the sun warms it) and the view (even if he's headed for the part of the beach where no one really is) and he's just enjoying the time off (he hates it here). Hands shoved in his pockets, he really is enjoying the hot sand against the bottom of his bare feet, and the wind pulling at the loose, white linen shirt that is about all he can handle on top of his jeans without keeling over from the heat.

He's squinting up the beach at nothing when he picks out someone his hindbrain recognizes, and he almost turns off because of that alone; then he looks closer and realizes why the man standing just out of reach of the waves is familiar, and he actually stops for a second, spine snapping straight and heart skipping. He'd disbelieve what his eyes are telling him, but his eyes are absolutely trustworthy even in the glaring sun, and he knows that dark hair, that olive skin, and - when he's in closer, swearing silently about how flipping hard it is to stride in sand - that smile.

He's beaming by the time he's in close, covering the last couple yards at a jog that has considerably more spring in it than when he started. He doesn't answer. He just very narrowly avoids slamming into Felix, and kisses him right there and then.