Archive of Our Own ^beta

It started with her, as most things tended to these days. Lounging on his lab table, fiddling idly with a test tube. She looked perfect, as always, and ridiculously distracting. 

“Gaius.” 

“Hm?” He was doing his best to ignore her, having been in something of an irritated mood that afternoon. 

“I love you.” 

Those words. Three simple syllables. The bane of his existence. He had heard them before, from her and from others, and every time they bothered him. 

He didn’t say anything in response, though he knew he should. There was always that expectation of reciprocation, of some sort of acknowledgement, and yet he had absolutely nothing to give. Every time. 

“Did you hear me?” she asked, after about a minute of his silence. 

He sighed. “Yes, yes I did,” he reassured her, in a clipped tone. “You love me. I understand.” 

There was a pause then, where he re-examined his words. “Actually, no, I very much do not,” he said, turning to face her. 

Six cocked her head, displaying her length of elegant neck. “Do not what?”

“Understand,” Gaius explained, crossing his arms and resting his hips back against the lab table. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

Six laughed, a slightly awkward chuckle that meant she wasn’t quite sure what the frak he was talking about. “Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? I love you.”

“Yes, but what does that mean?” 

“To love?” 

He nodded. Six considered, eyes searching him with a keen interest. She worked her bottom lip between her teeth as she thought about it, which really did not help the situation. 

“I suppose..” She began, “that love is a form of God, in a way. It is something so sacred, so inexplicable, so close to the divine. Someone you love can be your faith, sometimes.”

Gaius blinked. “That… is not at all an answer.” 

She fixed him with an irritated glare. “It may not be the answer you wanted, but it’s the answer you’ll get. Unless you want to go around asking anyone you can find until you receive one that suits you better.” 

Gaius was about to scowl and ignore her, but something needled at him. 

“You know what?” he said, turning back around and stacking his papers and notes into a neat pile. “That is a brilliant idea.” 

“Well, I mean… Do you want the scientific definition, or something a little more abstract?” Felix Gaeta leaned forward, elbows on the table, twirling a pen in his fingers. 

“Can’t you just give me an answer?”

The tactical officer gave him a bemused little frown. “It’s not… it’s not that kind of question.”

Gaius huffed, slumping back in his seat. He didn’t like questions without straight answers. One of the reasons he was a scientist, as well as a reason he didn’t lean toward religion. “Whichever you prefer, then,” he said. 

Gaeta tapped the table distractedly as he began to speak. “Scientifically, as I’m sure you know better than I do, love is a chemical reaction in the brain that occurs when oxytocin is released. That’s all very technical, though. I think… I would describe it as a form of trust. Being able to give someone every part of you, without judgement. Allowing yourself to be open, comfortable with displaying the worst of you. Having that trust in someone, and being given the same trust in return. Being comfortable in yourselves with each other, if that makes sense.”

“Trust,” Gaius wondered, rubbing his chin in thought. There was indeed a sort of sense to that, if a vague sort. It held to what his phantom Six had said, that love was a kind of faith. But that could not possibly be all. Gaius trusted in science, in his tools and papers and steady hands at work. Was that love? Certainly not the love spoken of in stories and songs. Further investigation was required, indeed. 

“Thank you, Mr. Gaeta,” Gaius said as he rose to his feet, “you have been most helpful.”

“Sure,” Gaeta was looking at him curiously. “Why did you ask, if you don’t mind?”

“Research, Mr. Gaeta,” Gaius replied flippantly, giving a dismissive wave of his hand. “Exploration, study. Always important. The world may have ended, but we few who carry on must do what we can.”

“Right. Okay.” That curious look was still there, but the lieutenant did not say anything else. Gaius left without so much as a goodbye. 

“Love?” Chief Tyrol had to shout over the chaotic noise of the hangar deck. “It’s a program, isn’t it? Something built-in. A signal the brain sends to the body to designate attraction. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, you know?”

“Uh-huh.” Gaius was barely listening, scribbling this down on a piece of precious paper. “Following your logic, any machine could love as well, if programmed correctly?” 

The chief shrugged. “Well, yeah. Just look at those skinjobs. Look at- look at Boomer, or Karl’s Sharon. There’s love there.” 

Gaius folds the clipboard he’s holding to his chest, arms crossed in front of it. “So then why is it so sacred? What makes this- this program so very special, so very complicated to understand?”

Another shrug from the chief. “You’d have to ask the programmer.” 

“Love is a motherfrakking waste of time,” said Saul Tigh, taking a rather large swig from the bottle in his hand. “And so are your questions about it.” 

“Frak, man, I don’t know.” Brendan Costanza scratched his head, perplexed. “It’s like- you really like something, yeah? You want to be surrounded by it all the time. Keep it close to you.” 

“So love can apply to inanimate objects, then?” 

“Well, yeah,” the pilot said. “Haven’t you ever loved, like, a food? A good book? Or something?”

Hm. Interesting. But not exactly relevant. It would appear that asking questions of Hot Dog was not quite a productive activity. 

“It hurts,” Kara Thrace leaned back against the wall, sipping her drink. “Love. It guts you as easily as any knife. But it feels good. It feels so damn good that you just… shove those entrails hanging out right back in and keep walking into the blade.”

Well. So far that was the most… colorful response that Gaius had received. 

“Like an addiction,” he prompted, and Starbuck nodded. 

“Yeah, like that. You keep coming back to it, even if you don’t want to. It pulls at you until you give in, and then it inevitably cuts you open and makes you bleed. Sometimes the wounds don’t heal.” 

Gaius held out a hand for the bottle, and she passed it to him. He took a drink, then sighed. “You know, I’ve posed this question to half the crew, and I am no closer to finding an answer.” 

Kara snorted. “To ‘what is love’? What the hell made you think you’d get an answer to that in the first place?”

“Every question has an answer,” Gaius argued, earning a skeptical eyebrow raise. 

“Not every question.” 

“What kind?”

The question in response to a question took him aback. “What?”

Anastasia Dualla folded her arms and repeated, “What kind of love? Familial, romantic, platonic, et cetera?”

“I- I suppose… love in- in general, really, is what I mean. I don’t exactly-”

“I guess there isn’t really that much of a difference,” she interrupted, tilting her head in consideration. “It’s all love. It’s all powerful, all deep, all true. It all can hurt, all could be unhealthy, but could also be healing. But there are.. I guess you could call them branches, of love. Aspects of the same thing. You can love someone in a romantic way, have a passion for them, a need for them. Often there is sexual attraction involved, but not always. You can love someone as a friend, an equal. They can be a comfort to you, a strength. That’s present in a romantic relationship as well, but it’s not exclusive.”

“That’s it,” Gaius realized suddenly. “ That is what I don’t understand. How does that work? The distinction, I mean. Could you explain?”

Dee blinked, obviously a little surprised by the ferocity with which he was interrogating her. “I don’t really know,” she admitted apologetically. “It’s- okay. So, Felix- Gaeta- he’s my best friend, right? He’s my favorite person. He’s where I go when something’s troubling me, when I need a break. He’s what I lean on when I can’t stand by myself. I love him like another half of me, but I don’t want to date him, or marry him, or anything like that. But that also doesn’t mean he isn’t the world to me. And then there’s Lee, who is-” she blushed a little as she said his name, that new-relationship glow. “He is a lot of that, too. But he’s also the person I want to be with. Being near him makes me happy, makes me feel good. I feel like another version of myself when I’m with him. Someone who is a little brighter, a little more real, a little easier to be. That’s not exactly it, but it’s as close as I can get.” 

Gaius must have been staring at her blankly, as she began to look a bit concerned. “Look,” she tried again. “Love is something that I think everyone has to define for themself. I’m sorry if that’s not what you wanted to hear, but it’s what I believe. It’s… an identity thing. Who you are can help explain what love is to you. You know?”

Gaius continued to just stare at her. After a moment, she pretended to see someone and muttered something about forgetting a duty, then bustled away without another word. 

“Did you find an answer?” Six asked later, as they were lounging in bed in the vision of his apartment on Caprica. 

“Did I what?” Gaius was not paying attention, lost in thought on exactly the subject she was wondering about. 

She rolled over, propping herself up on an elbow. “You asked me this morning what love means. Have you found an answer that satisfies?”

At first, he didn’t answer. He was rotating the responses he had been given in his mind, trying to reconcile one with another. 

“Not yet,” he told her finally. “But there were some interesting points made.” 

“Do tell.” 

“Well,” Gaius nestled further into the pile of pillows as he spoke. “Officer Dualla brought up the excellent question of which kind of love I wished to hear about. There are many kinds, you know.”

“I know,” Six smiled. “And no kind is less sacred than the others. There are those who do not feel all kinds of love, you know. Romantic love, for instance, is not something felt by everyone. That does not mean that they are lesser, or that the ways in which they love are.”

“Hmm,” the doctor made a noise of acknowledgement. “She also mentioned something about it having to do with identity.” 

Six rolled over onto her back, the fingertips on one hand tracing circles on the back of Baltar’s hand. “She’s right. Who you love and how is a piece of who you are. Sometimes those you care about can show you the truth of yourself better than anything else.”

“Hm,” said Gaius again. He had never doubted who he was. He had seen it everywhere on Caprica. The doctor, the world famous scientist, the dashing playboy rogue. He knew that all without love having anything to do with it. Of course, there had been reporters and magazines and talk shows, always asking him about his dating life, his family life. He would laugh off the questions, craft a careful response. It had never been something he prioritized. 

Perhaps he should give that a try. 

When he was elected president, it seemed for a moment that everything was clicking into place. The people cheered for him, screamed his name. He could see the fervor in their eyes when they looked at him, the glow when he spoke of his plans for New Caprica. They believed in him. They believed in him. He was their president, their savior. 

Is this love? He wondered.

Felix Gaeta stared him down, eyes wide and shining with a film of tears. The gun was shaking in his hands, but it was aimed true. One little movement of his finger, and Gaius Baltar would be no more. It was tempting, honestly. Gaius himself had said only a moment ago that he wished to stay there and die. Yet being faced with the prospect for real was something entirely different. 

He deserved it, he knew. He had surrendered to the cylons without a fight, and allowed their reign of terror. He was supposed to be a savior for his people, but instead he had led them all to hell. That person deserved the bullet headed for his heart. 

What got to him the most, oddly, was that it was Gaeta. Someone who had been right beside him from the very beginning of this disastrous journey, someone who he had simply assumed would always be there. Gaius could never have imagined that man would kill him. 

Yet there he is. The look on his face is utter despair and fury. The kind of anger that comes from trusting someone with everything in you, and then having them turn and stab you. He looks… gutted. 

Oh. 

Frak. 

“It hurts. Love. It guts you as easily as any knife.”

He’s not-

It can’t be-

Oh. 

Frak. 

“It would be much easier, if I was a cylon.”

D’Anna cast him an odd look. “How so?”

“I would have a reason. To not understand these essential human things that everyone else seems to understand.” 

The cylon laughed, tossing her head back, sandy hair whipping about her face. “Oh, trust me, it would not be easier. There would only be more you didn’t understand.” 

Gaius huffed, although he knew she was right. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. 

“And it wouldn’t be a reason,” D’Anna added. “It would be an excuse.” 

An excuse, she said. An excuse for what? An excuse for not acknowledging that he had lost himself somewhere along the way. An excuse for not facing truths he was slowly coming to realize. An excuse to go with the flow as he always had. 

It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. 

She was right, though. 

The looks the crew of the Galactica gave him as he came back aboard were hard, dangerous, terrifying, but they were nothing compared to the look Gaeta gave him when he entered the cell. 

His words were clipped, his voice was calm, and there was something burning in his eyes as he sat across from Gaius at the small metal table. He was denying it, what he had done. Afraid to admit it, just as Baltar was afraid to bring up the other truth they both knew. He couldn’t explain what kept him from saying it, except there was an odd sort of guilt tugging at his gut. He couldn’t lay bare this piece of Gaeta when he couldn’t even lay himself bare. He could still see it, though. That look in his eyes. There he was again, displaying the worst of himself. Entrusting it to Gaius, possibly without even realizing it. 

When the sharp nib of the pen sank into the soft flesh of his throat, Gaius wondered. 

Is this what love is? 

He had thought writing it down would help. Help him remember, reshape the self-confidence he’d lost. But it only served to further blur the lines between what he thought he should be and what he was in truth. 

It hit him, then, when the chief came to visit. When he didn’t believe Gaius had grown up as a farm boy. 

It hit him again when he was on trial, clarity as violent and jarring as a slap in the face. 

They were taking a break, and Lee Adama was going on about strategies and honesty. Gaeta had lied, they all knew, and that could potentially sink their entire defense. Gaius was listening, barely. Afterwards, as they were preparing to head back into court, he addressed the former captain. 

“Tell me, Mr. Adama, can you honestly say you know me?”

Lee hesitated, thrown off. “Not really,” he admitted. “Most of what I know of you comes from what I’ve heard.”

Gaius nodded. Everything was beginning to make a little more sense. “That’s just it,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been something someone else didn’t make me.” 

“Okay…” Lee seemed confused, and possibly a little annoyed, like he had better things to do than listen to his client ramble. Which, Gaius had to admit, he probably did. But that wouldn’t stop him. 

“The way I see it is this. I grew up on a- a farm. I was a farm boy. Because that’s where I was born, that was where my family was. It never occurred to me to be anything else. Until I was older, and I got away from there. I modeled my new self off of rich Capricans, following their speech patterns, their mannerisms. And that was a success! People began to notice me, began to see me. My presence in the media grew, stories were told about me. Not all of them were true, may I add, but that didn’t matter if enough people believed in it.”

He was speaking much too fast, the words rushing out in a jumble, a hint of Aerilon vowels pushing through. He was walking fast as well, doing his best to keep up with the younger Adama’s brisk stride. He knew this was ridiculous, there was no point in telling Lee all of this, and he was really only thinking out loud, but he wanted to get all the words out before they were back in the courtroom. 

“Then, when I was brought here- your father wanted me to build that- that cylon detector! That was the only reason I was kept around, as a kind of- consultant, or- or something. And the people- It was the fleet that made me vice president, and the fleet that then made me president. They all believed in my dream of New Caprica, they made me into their symbol of- of hope, and the future, and- And now they blame me for their faith! They needed a villain, but all I’d done was make the decision that was most likely to keep us all alive! Do you understand? That wasn’t- I’m not- It isn’t me!” 

Lee stopped in his tracks at that, turning to face Gaius with a strange light in his eyes. 

“You know, Doctor,” he said. “You might just have something there.” 

He knew exactly what was happening when he found himself amongst those women. He was allowing himself to be defined by them. It was the very thing he had complained of to Lee the day of the trial, and yet… this time it was different. He wanted this. He wanted them to show him who he was, what he could be. His phantom Six had told him that he could find himself in others, those who loved him. These ladies loved him, that much was clear. He felt that he had a purpose with them, a purpose that he could perhaps even fulfill. Or maybe he was lying to himself again. Whatever. It was a comfort, a place he could wait as he tried to figure out what steps to take from here. 

When he found those steps, it was Tory Foster who gave him the first one. 

It had been nothing, just a simple disclaimer she gave to him after the first couple times they’d slept together. 

“By the way,” she said, flopping onto her back and brushing a hand through her dark hair. “I’m aromantic. This isn’t going to be a relationship thing for me. It’s just sex, yeah? Are you good with that?” 

“I- alright, yeah,” Gaius replied. Tory nodded, a little awkwardly, then sat up to find her clothes. 

“Can I ask you something?” Gaius found himself saying. She looked back at him over her shoulder and shrugged. 

He took that as a yes. “What’s that like, for you? Your aromanticism, I mean. What has your experience been?”

Tory paused, halfway bent to the floor to pick up her shirt. “Huh. I don’t really know. I guess… it’s always kind of been there. Romance has always been just… something I don’t do. Never have. No interest. At some point, people started asking, being polite, wondering how I identified, that sort of thing. I hadn’t- hadn’t really realized that labels were something I was supposed to have. I mean, they’re not, but back then it seemed better to have one, if only so people would stop asking. All I knew was that romantic love was a mystery to me, so I chose to go with aromantic. It’s a spectrum, though, there are many different levels to it. Kara, I know from Sam, identifies as demiromantic. She feels romantic attraction only for people she already has a strong emotional connection with. But the general label is what felt right for me, and I’ve been comfortable in it ever since. Why do you ask?”

“Simple curiosity,” Gaius told her, then. “So what is love to you, if you don’t mind?” 

“Love?” Tory shrugged again. “Love is… duty, responsibility. Fighting for something because it means more to you than anything else. Like how Laura loves this fleet, whatever’s left of it. She won’t back down from protecting it as long as there is something to protect. That’s what love is, I think.” 

She was right, in the end. Gaius saw it in Laura Roslin as she screamed at the mutineers, that fiery need to defend and keep fighting. The same as he’d seen in Gaeta, on New Caprica and in his cell afterwards. That was what love looked like. 

He was beginning to understand. 

Felix Gaeta smiled at him, across the small table. A tiny, somewhat sarcastic smile. Bitter, but genuine. 

It was strange, the way it had all worked out. It would seem there was no end to the things they could say to each other, here at the end, but they said nothing but mundane small talk. Telling stories, things they had done when they were younger, dumber. It was a bittersweet moment, built upon a history of betrayal and broken hearts. 

What hurt the most was that Gaius had figured it out. He had figured it out, when it was too late. Sitting there, talking, everything made sense. 

“I know who you are,” he said, and he meant it. He had seen the worst and the best of this man, had been trusted with it. And a part of that had led him to discovering the hidden pieces of himself. 

I love you, he wanted to say, but he wasn’t sure how the words would come across. But it was true. In a slightly twisted way, Gaeta was the closest thing he had to family in the fleet. The person who had seen the most of him, knew the most of him. They had gotten there through anger and complicated feeling and attempted murder, but they had gotten there. And Gaius didn’t know how to say it. 

“Thank you,” was what he settled on finally, and a gentle kiss on the top of the head. 

He hoped it would be enough. 

Pressed against the wall with Caprica Six, during what were most likely the final hours of both of their lives, he felt the strangest calm. This was how it had started, really. The two of them pressed close, breathing in each other. Though the beginning had been much more pleasant. 

So much had happened since then, too much. Caprica had lost a baby recently, he knew. They had both grown into… who really knew. But she still held that feeling, for him. He always came back to her. 

She was… home. 

They stood on the edge of a new world, her hand cupping his face. It was over, the long exhausting journey they had undertaken to get here. It was finally over. 

And he had finally figured it out. 

“There is something I have to say,” he told her. “It’s been so long since.. All of this began. I think… a reintroduction is in order.”

Caprica raised an eyebrow, taking a step back. Gaius smiled and held out his hand. 

“Hello there,” he said. “My name is Gaius Baltar. I come from a small farm on Aerilon. I believe in science, and I believe in angels. I make mistakes, and I don’t always admit them. I don’t always know who I am, but I do know some things. I know…” he took a breath. “I know that I am aromantic. Whether or not that is the label I will stick with I don’t know yet, but it is the one that fits best for now. Romantic attraction is not something I feel, and that’s alright. There is, however, a woman I love. No matter which path I take, she is always at the end. I trust her, I believe in her, I have a duty to her. She is my home, and a part of me more than she knows. I don’t understand this love. I know it isn’t romantic, but it is powerful, it is all-consuming. And you know what I’ve realized? I don’t have to understand. At least not yet. But I hope she will stand beside me and help me take these next steps to finding my way to myself. That’s all.” 

He smiled again, a little awkwardly. His heart was pounding, the air was rushing in his ears. He was afraid, though he knew there was nothing to be afraid of. 

Caprica studied him for a moment, the words soaking in. Then she smiled, a brilliant, beautiful thing. She took his hand. 

“Hello, Gaius Baltar,” she said. “It’s so nice to finally meet you.”