itstopped | Re-Entry 15: Video/Spam

Re-Entry 15: Video/Spam

[Inmate Filter]

[It was a very good weekend with a very bad ending for Felix, which might be why he's back to smoking in front of the camera again. The collar of his shirt is unbuttoned as well, although he otherwise seems as composed as usual.]

Do any of you know why you're here?

[He pauses, then smirks ruefully.] For once, I'm not trying to sow dissent. I don't need you to tell me what kind of monster the Admiral is. I'm just... wondering what you think it is he thinks you need to change, and...

Well, no and. Just that.

[Private to Claire Bennet]

Could I ask you a question?

[Private to Trip, Racetrack, Barbara, Charles, separately]

I have something to tell you. [He glances away from the screen for a second, worry -- or something worse -- flashing in his eyes.] I... think I might really be a traitor this time.

If you're receiving this message-- [A tacit, almost wordless admission that there are others involved here, multiple victims.] --it's because I've been gathering information on you. My resources have been... limited, but I've compiled a detailed file that contains more or less everything you've said on any public or warden-only filter, and in some cases, in private communications as well.

I honestly thought that, given my... my history, I was doing what was best for myself and for the ship, but I realize now that I was wrong. I take full responsibility for my actions.

[Spam for Dean]

[Felix had left the room as soon as Dean had, the night after the flood, and he's been laying even lower than usual ever since. It's not that he wants to stay away, not this time -- he's just assuming that Dean wants nothing to do with him, and as much as he already misses him, he doesn't want to provoke a confrontation when he has nothing more to say in his own defense and no particularly convincing argument to make Dean take him back.

Honestly, things seem to go better for him when he avoids conflicts, anyway.

Unfortunately, though, he actually needs some things from the room, so he tries to pick a time when he suspects Dean won't be around. He still has the key, so he slips inside quietly and starts collecting his things, with every intention of leaving the key behind and no further trace of himself.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Do you know who I am?

I...well, no, not really. I think you're Dean's boyfriend, or at least someone really close to him. Why are you asking?

I... [Yeah, he's just going to skip the part about being Dean's boyfriend for now. He clears his throat, unconsciously squares his shoulders, his posture going stiff, because this is still a really strange and awkward thing to talk about and the military bearing helps.]

My name is Felix Gaeta. I was shot in the leg about a year ago and had to have it, uh, removed.

Merlin told me that you were the one who... fixed me.

Oh. [And then his words register and she brightens, eyes sparking and smile wide.] Oh, ohmygod, yeah! [But then Claire looks worried.] Is everything okay still? That was a while ago...

No, no, everything's fine. It's still... good as new. [He shifts his weight slightly, as if to prove the point.] However it works, it's very powerful. I even lost scars, tattoos... it's remarkable, really.

Really? See, I knew it could it do that. I always assumed as much since I have none and never will.

It's so nice to finally meet you, Felix. I was curious, but only because I like knowing who I'm helping out. Not for nosy bitchy reasons or anything, I swear.

[He looks very slightly nonplussed at that, and maybe not for the reasons she thinks. After coming clean for what he'd done, though, spying on even his closest friends, he finds it hard to imagine what kind of reasons she might have to ask about him that would be nosy or bitchy by his standards. Really, if he'd been her, he probably would have tried to find out his entire life story by now.]

Honestly, I assumed you knew, or that you had found out. There haven't been many, um, people like me aboard.

[Claire shook her head.]

Merlin didn't offer the person and I didn't ask. You obviously didn't want me to know for a reason...why would I track you down after the fact? Kind of rude, I think. I mean, I just figured that you would either come out when you were ready or I'd be left to wonder.

[A small lift of shoulders.]

And honestly, this ship, though small, has way too many people on it sometimes. I can't pretend I know all the passengers names and or faces.

[He thinks back to what Zane had said about doctors in his world -- about taking responsibility.]

You wouldn't want to know what kind of person you were helping? I mean... you didn't know what I might be able to do with all that mobility restored. You didn't worry I'd use being healed as an excuse to hurt someone?

I... [And she drops her gaze to let her eyes sweep the floor, looking taken aback. Finding her voice again, Claire looks back to the communicator.] I honestly never thought of it like that before. I mean, Merlin vouched for you. If you would have done those things, I like to think he would have had second thoughts or warned me or something.

[She draws in a quick breath and settles against her couch.] It's like the person who sells the knife that the buyer later uses to kill someone; do you blame the seller? Just, what's the point of having this ability if I only use it for myself? I was meant to help others. Least, that's how I feel. If I had seen you before Merlin came to me? I would have offered anyway. Doesn't matter what you did or what you'll do; you're here for a second chance right? To start over? Why wouldn't I want to help? It's our job as wardens.

[The insane thing is, he suspects she's sincere. And that is insane, it's completely insane, because doesn't she know what kind of ship she's on? Doesn't she know what kind of people are here?

He's quiet for a long moment, staring at the camera, perturbed. Finally, he says, in a neutral tone that might be odd to anyone who doesn't know him:]

There was an inmate here about a year and a half ago, a man named Gaius Baltar. Did you know him? [He continues without waiting for an answer.] Dr. Baltar's crime was that he sold what you might call a very big knife to some people that I suppose he must have claimed he didn't know were the enemy. And they used his information -- his knife -- to kill twenty billion people. Our people. My people.

[He fishes out a cigarette -- the same brand as Jesse's, to a sharp eye -- and lights it.] I'm just... wondering if you have an opinion on that.

[Claire's eyes linger too long on the cigarettes, but damned if she'll say a word about them. Him.

And then she sighs, defeated, running a hand through blonde hair and holding it. She blinks at the inmate helplessly.]

I don't know what you want from me, Felix. I don't regret helping you or anyone else I've healed and saved before. Why did you even tell me if you're just going to question it?

[He blinks, then chuckles, a little ruefully.]

Because that is what I do. I'm a mutineer. A rabble-rouser. I tend to ask a lot of questions these days.

I just thought of it because Gaius's warden said something very similar to me when I... [Tried to murder him.] ...confronted him.

[The hair is released, but she keeps the hand close, using it to support her head.]

I'm sorry about your people, and Gaius. I've never used my healing to hurt or kill anyone, though I won't say I'm at all innocent when it comes to revenge.

[His eyes flicker at that last part, sharp and curious. She can't, he's been thinking, be real -- there must be a flaw here, a secret, because he's come to realize that no one can be that selfless or that good. Not people who live in places like this. Not without having it beaten out of them the way he had.

A-ha...]

No, of course not. I wouldn't think you had. But someone else you healed, someone who got a second chance... not everyone uses those for good things. But-- I guess you do already know about that. You've been here for a while. You must have seen all kinds of things.

Four years, yeah. [Humorless laugh.] I've seen things. But thinking back on people I've healed...[She draws her lips to one side in thought, eyes dropping and glazing over. Rorschach, Rex, Bourne, Stephanie, Dean, Molly, House, Guerrero, kinda sorta Armand, and so on. No one's really been healed by her and then immediately gone out and abused the gift. Least, far as she's aware.

With her eyes finding Felix's again, Claire continues:] I can't think of anyone who was healed and then went out and caused trouble. I'm not saying it can't have happened, but that usually when people came to me for help, it was because they were tired of living that way. Not including times I had to save lives or bring people back from the dead, of course, but when someone wanted scars removed or, like you, a body part back. I can pick and choose, sure. I just don't want to. I believe in the second chance whole-heartedly. I see the best in people, or maybe I just hope for too much. I hope that some of them learn a lesson, I guess, that there are still good people in the world. Why live with a disfigurement that makes it difficult to breathe if you don't have to? Why live without a body part if I can give it back?

Is any of this making sense? I know I rambled, sorry.

[Four years: the same amount of time that had passed from the start of the war to the end of his life. Four years that had beaten and broken him and just about everyone he'd known, and the Barge has done more than its fair share to contribute to the scars she can't have taken away. He can't understand it -- how someone could live like this that long and still have the optimism he's lost so thoroughly.

Then again, someone like this had loved him once, back on Galactica, and he'd cast him and what he'd thought of as his naivete aside.

Is that it? Is she just naive? Or is he really missing something? He's quiet for a long moment, but when he speaks up again, he sounds a little defeated. No more tricky questions.]

I suppose I'm... just not used to hearing things like that.

I know there are bad people out there, that there will always be. How can I not? This ship alone proves it, on top of what I've been through back home. But I've also seen people turn around and shock the hell out of you with the changes they made. Not just the inmates that graduated or the wardens who grew from it, but in my world too. The guy who killed my parents, who hunted me for years to get my healing ability...he made changes I never, ever thought were possible. I'm not stupid enough to think everyone is capable, it has to be hard, so hard for some, but that this place allows them to try...it's kind of amazing. I told Kelsier that there's a devil and a saint in everyone but it just depends on which one you choose to nourish and act like.

[Again, he keeps still, but his mind is a whirl. It shouldn't matter what one girl says, really, but it does. Of course it does -- especially a girl who's given him the gift that she has, but the truth is that Felix has always cared much, much more than he lets on. About everything. About anything.

It's frustrating, because there's so much in there he really, truly can't fathom yet. The guy who killed her parents? How could she admire him for anything? The only sign of his distress is a quick draw at his cigarette, a quick pass of his hand over his mouth, but it's a little overwhelming.]

--It's more than that. [He's not really sure he meant to speak, but he does anyway, brow furrowing slightly.]

I mean... of course it's not so simple as good and bad. I find it... very hard to see the good in some, but I understand the concept of potential. I'm an inmate and I know, objectively speaking, whatever crimes I've committed are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. When compared to your... guy, or to Dr. Baltar, or to half the inmates here. So I have to think it's more than that. Your devil and your saint, they whisper other things, too. [He can't bring himself to use the words fear and hope, despair and faith, but isn't that really what he means?]

Maybe. And it's always a roller coaster. Like I'm not always nice. I tried to hunt bad guys before and that didn't pan out so well. I made sure the guy who tried to rape me would never be able to do so again by paralyzing him. I tricked my Inmate, he was a vampire, into drinking my blood because he hated feeling human. That was a layered thing, though, it wasn't only because he kept pissing me off by trying to kill me every single time we met.

[She doesn't mention the revenge against Richie because she doesn't want to risk Felix piecing things together, because Claire refuses to rat Jesse out.]

But I don't know, those other things...I mean, they're part of the hand you're dealt, that's life. Right?

[And maybe this is where the confusion lies, because frankly, by his standards, nothing she's saying sounds especially bad to him. Nothing that blurs the line between warden and inmate the way Racetrack's wardenhood does.]

I don't know. [It's the same thing he's been saying all along, to the other inmates, but it's still true. This time, it really is.] I really don't know. I used to be... different.

The truth is, I used to be more like you.

Do you mind telling me what changed things? When you stopped?

[Felix knows when. He remembers it down to the moment: the day he'd first started to think of idealism as a mistake. He starts to protest -- he doesn't want to think about it, hates thinking about New Caprica -- but something stops him. Maybe... maybe just because he'd been the one to raise the question in the first place: why are you here? And he's not entirely sure, he's really not, but he knows that this was a part of it. He lowers his eyes.]

I stopped when the man I believed in... [He grits his teeth.] No, more than that. When the system I'd believed in betrayed us. When the people chose someone we all thought was just and right and would lead us to our second chance -- a man whose only dreams turned out to be for himself. A man who sold us like so many cattle.

And if it had just been him... [If it had just been Gaius, he thinks, he might have recovered. He had started to recover. He remembers that feeling, too: rediscovering trust, rediscovering love and even faith of a kind. If it had just been Gaius, things might have been different, but...] But it wasn't.

[From under her breath, Claire barely whispers a 'Jesus', somewhat horrified by Felix's retelling. And she could offer a way in which, through experience, she understands, she could offer up a story of her own, but she doesn't this time. Just goes quiet and tries to think of the right thing to say, but it's as difficult as walking on egg shells.]

Have you thought about staying on to be a warden? So you could get a deal, change all that.

[The allure of wardenhood; changing history, bring back the dead, bridging gaps.]

Gods, no. [It comes out immediately, more disdainful than horrified. Maybe even amused, although he's far from it. He realizes, belatedly, how offensive that might have been to her -- especially given that she's clearly not used to him -- and clears his throat.]

It's just that... there's a line of scripture: all of this has happened before and will happen again. In the religious context, it's meant to be taken literally, but more realistically speaking it just means that history repeats. Undoing the damage that Baltar did wouldn't change the things that led up to what happened. To really change things... [He shakes his head.] Well, I don't know where I'd start.

And, frankly, it's a moot point, anyway, because I don't plan on making any deals with the Admiral.

Re-Entry 15: Video/Spam

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