Panic.

It's all I can do when the bag is over my face, something shoved in my mouth; me pulled off my feet and dragged somewhere, somewhere, I don't know where can't yell can't fight oh gods someone get this off me!

They're going to kill me, I know they're going to kill me—

Okay, Gaeta. Calm down. Calm. Breathe…

—can't breathe—

Don't panic…

—PANIC!!—

…and bright light shines in my eyes. I flinch, before I realize it's just shipboard lights and I'm…where? Still on Galactica…

Oh, gods…

And they all stare at me. Like I'm some kind of beast, some kind of monster.

Calm. Breathe.

My throat chokes. They're going to kill me. I'm going to die. Here and now, this is it, punishment for the crimes I didn't commit, but that I should have stopped.

"Felix Gaeta," she says. "You've been tried and found guilty of crimes against humanity by a circle of your peers, as duly authorized by the President of the Colonies."

President of the Colonies? No…

"If you have any words to offer in your defense," she continues, "now is the time."

I look around, at all of them, all of them gathered there. I should have known, should have seen this coming. Colonel Tigh, Kara Thrace, some I didn't know. And even Chief Tyrol.

Anger floods me, so strong it nearly chokes off my air, accompanied with guilt. Why did I have to find the election fix? Why didn't I just…just ignore the mistake in the ballots—

—"You're an idealist," said Baltar. "There's no shame in that.—

That son of a bitch.

"Come on, Felix," I hear Tyrol say. "Talk. We'll listen."

I shake my head. No.

"Yeah, that's right," one of them says, vicious, cruel. "We'll listen to you tell us how hiding behind Baltar's skirt was actually your way of helping the insurgency."

"Say something!" the last one shouts at me.

I choke. "What's the point?" I look up, and they're blurry—something in my eyes. "I already tried to explain it." I set my jaw. There are lines, there are lines I've crossed and lines I'm never, ever going to cross. "I'm not going to beg."

Tigh scoffs. "Too bad you didn't grow that spine four months ago."

And the anger drains out of me, like that. Too bad. Maybe it wasn't me after all, maybe there was no dog bowl, maybe I just hallucinated, imagined it out of the haze of unreality that surrounded everything that happened down on that damned planet. My gaze drops. It doesn't change anything. I'll die now, but I won't beg them.

"Beg," I hear. It's Thrace. "Beg!" she cries, and I still don't look up. "Beg!" She kicks me, and I fall to the side. Hard to keep balance with my hands taped behind my back.

"Thrace!" Tigh calls.

"No! Beg!" she commands, but I don't move. The others are retreating out of the launch tube. Oh gods, oh gods… "Come on, Felix," she snarls at me, "tell them how you were actually working for the Resistance," and a flare of hope sparks inside me. "Come on! Tell them all about the important information that you were giving up, tell them about the messages, about the dog bowl, and everything else!"

"What?" Tyrol asks.

No, no, please don't force it, don't do this, just let me die…

"What did she say?" He's in my space, close to me, way too close. "What did she just say?" he questions, relentlessly. "Back up. What did you say to her?" He takes me by the shoulders. "Tell me, what did you say to her?"

I can't do this— "There was a yellow dog bowl," I stammer out. "It was a-a-a signal, it meant there was a message in the garbage dump, turn it over, it was a signal." The words spilled out of me now, there was no way to control them. "It meant there was a message in the garbage dump," I repeated.

No way Tyrol could fake the shock on his face. "Oh. Oh, that was you. Oh, my gods…" And suddenly the pressure is gone around my wrists. I rub them; my hands tingle.

"What are you doing?" Tigh growls.

"Chief." Kara's voice is dangerous.

"There was a yellow dog bowl, I used it." Tyrol stands up to Tigh, as I just try to get to my feet steadily. "You were wondering who the source was, Colonel, there's no other way he could have known."

I close my eyes, waiting for the gods to take away my fortune.

"He's the only other one that would know about it. He's the reason we know about the death lists, he's the reason I saved Cally, he's the reason we're on this ship."

I'm the reason we're on this ship?

The codes, oh—

"He's the one who gave us the inside information," Tyrol finished. "There's our source, Colonel."

They're all looking at me. Disgust, but not at what I've done—what they might have done. "I did what I could," I say, not sure of my words anymore. "I don't know what else I could have done."

And then I'm past them and out the door.

----

It's not long before I find an abandoned hallway. I find a box, and I collapse behind it. I want to sob, I want to shriek, I want to pound the memories of New Caprica into the dust, but I can't. All I can do is look forward, remember how much I believed in the dream of that planet, how much I believed in Baltar.

Remember how he touched me, used me like he used all the other whores he bought and sold. Slime, slime, slime, just like me.

I don't know how much time passes as I sit there.

"Gaeta," and it was Tyrol, silhouetted against the limited lights illuminating this hallway. "Felix?" he asks, more personal this time.

"Go away," I bite out.

"Felix," he says again, coming closer, squatting down in front of me.

I look up at him, and I just want…I want… "You didn't do everything right either," I say.

"I know," he admits. "None of us did."

I lean forward and kiss him. I know immediately that I shouldn't have, but I'm not in my right mind, I'm lacking in judgment.

I don't expect him to lean back in and steal my breath away from my mouth, and touch his tongue to mine. He pulls back, and somehow he's sitting next to me now. "This is just rescuer syndrome," he warns me, "because I saved your life," and I can't tell whether he's joking or not.

"You don't think," I gasp out, "that it's counteracted by you being the one who was going to kill me in the first place?"

Galen stills. "I'm so sorry," he says.

"I wanted to die," I whisper. He looks at me with anguish in his eyes. "I want this world to be over; I want it to be like it was before."

"We all do," he tells me.

I kiss him again, desperately, and he reflects it like perfect mirror. I feel each sensation separately, like it's plugged into a different part of my mind; his fingers on the back of my neck; his tongue slipping past mine; his other hand slipping up under my shirt; the dizziness. I can't tell which way is up anymore, or if there even is one, in the blackness of space.

In the blackness of space, where humanity lives.

"Show me," I beg, "show me there's something other than hate." He pulls me roughly into his arms, and I whisper, "please," one last word.

And I want him, I want that connection so badly, that I don't let go.