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New Caprica's first sunset found Gaeta on his back in the lush grass, with his head pillowed by…someone's lap. He thought blearily that it might be Dee, but when he remarked that the sky was the same color as the wine he'd been drinking, the laughter above him was soft and deep. The fingers in his hair were too thick to be Dee's, the nails too blunted.
"It is that color," Gaeta insisted. "I'll show you, but…" He groped at the grass. "I can't seem to find…"
"I believe you."
"Hoshi?" If he was wrong, he wasn't sure he'd be able to come up with a plausible explanation for the error.
"What about him?"
Oops. "Ah…" His mouth moved helplessly while his brain struggled to find words. "I just…wonder…if remembered to check the um, the um…"
"Gaeta." The thick fingers gave his hair a playful tug, gently tilting his head back.
Gaeta blinked up at Hoshi's smiling face. "Oh," he said stupidly. "It is you. I'm glad."
"That's…good to hear. When you grabbed me before, I wasn't sure you knew it was me. I'm still not completely sure you knew—"
Neither was Gaeta, but he said, "I'm glad it was."
They were silent for a little while. The sky went from rosy gold to a velvety purple, with a few wisps of silver clouds floating above the horizon. From the grass around them rose an odd, shivery sort of sound.
Startled, Gaeta sat up.
"What is it?" Hoshi asked.
"That sound." Gaeta put a hand to his head and blinked slowly. "I thought for a second I was back on Galactica. I wondered what was malfunctioning. What makes a sound like that?"
"Insects." Hoshi's hands cupped his shoulders, drew him back down. "It's just insects. You've been on that ship too long."
"Yeah," Gaeta muttered, willing himself to relax. He breathed deeply and looked at the stars. He couldn't remember when they'd first begun to appear, but there were so many of them now, and they seemed so much brighter than the ones that had shone down on the Colonies. He wondered if Earth orbited any of them. It made him a little sad, thinking that he might spend every night for the rest of his life in the faint light of Earth's star, and never get any closer.
"What is it?" Hoshi asked again, concern in his voice.
"What's what?"
"That frown. What does it mean?"
"Nothing." Gaeta worked his lips into a smile. He reached back and covered Hoshi's right hand with his own. "It doesn't mean anything."
There was, he told himself, no reason to be sad on such a night.
5/11/09